Aggregators Take on Vacation Season With Travel Offerings

As the vacation season heats up, on-demand delivery aggregators are expanding their horizons with tailored travel offerings, aiming to capture consumers’ excitement to get out of dodge.

DoorDash, for instance, is using customers’ wanderlust to drive enthusiasm for its paid membership program and its subscribers-only seasonal sales event, Summer of DashPass, with the final week kicking off Thursday (July 18). Participants in the event are entered into various weekly sweepstakes, which include several travel prizes.

“Summer is all about exploring new adventures, embracing spontaneity, and making unforgettable memories with loved ones,” DoorDash President and Chief Operating Officer Prabir Adarkar said in a statement.

One sweepstakes entered participants to win a trip to London and (according to People) four tickets to Taylor Swift’s concert therein. Other prizes include a trip to Miami with luxury accommodations for six people and a trip for two people to Bangkok, Beverly Hills, Dubai and Mexico City.

Uber, meanwhile, is expanding its food and beverage business beyond just its Uber Eats vertical into mobility, offering Champagne tours in France in partnership with Champagne houses Perrier-Jouët and G.H. Mumm, dubbed Uber Bubbles. The experience, which accommodates up to four people, costs a flat fee of 200 euros (about $220).

“We are thrilled to partner with Uber this summer to offer riders the chance to discover our Champagne houses via Uber Bubbles,” François-Xavier Morizot, vice president of Champagne for G.H. Mumm and Perrier-Jouët, said in a statement.

Uber also is targeting summer beach- and park-goers with its live location sharing for delivery, announced earlier this year, which enables consumers to order to places where a simple street address may not give enough information.

Also looking to get in on shoppers’ park and poolside spending, Instacart and Shipt are touting their summer offerings. The former has its summer 2024 hub with snacks, ice cream, beverages and foods for the grill, among other products. The latter advertised a range of products such as sunscreen and beach towels in its Summer of Savings members event, from late June to early August.

Plus, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart and Shipt all have travel goods such as suitcases listed on their marketplaces.

These moves come as many consumers plan their summer travels. PYMNTS Intelligence’s “Summer Travel Special Report,” which drew from a survey of more than 2,200 United States consumers, found that 62% plan to get away in the summer months, and 27% plan to take multiple trips.

Plus, consumers with the most cash to burn travel most of all. Three-quarters of those who earn more than $100,000 annually and a similar share of those who do not live paycheck to paycheck are planning to go on, or have gone on, trips this summer.

Moreover, consumers use aggregators more when they are on vacation, per the “Tracking the Impact of Digital Tools on Food Tourism and Travel Preferences” installment of the PYMNTS Intelligence Connected Dining series. The study found that while only 4.4% of consumers used aggregators at home for their most recent restaurant purchases, 16% of consumers always use them when traveling.

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