Are We There Yet?

Rates of travel in the United States are on the rise, which means that toy retailers are being presented with a number of new opportunities to provide toys that will entertain kids on-the-go.

Kathy Keefe, a spokesperson for the Travel Industry Association – an organization that monitors American travel habits by surveying approximately 25,000 households a month – estimated that Americans took 929 million domestic leisure trips in 2003. She also said that last summer; the association noticed the first significant increase in travel spending since 2000.

“I think post 9-11 the traditional family trip became more popular and more people are traveling by car,” she tells Playthings.

While Keefe pointed out that the highest volume of travel — about one third of all leisure travel — takes place in the summer, “holiday weekend travel has really been increasing steadily over the past few years,” she tells Playthings.

Most people realize that summer is a big travel time, and many plan their stock accordingly, making sure to keep travel toys in stock at that time of year. The increasing rates of weekend trips, however, may inspire retailers to make travel toys available to customers year-round in order to keep in step with their customers' modern lifestyles. Also, retailers may want to be sure that their travel-related merchandise is in a prominent place in the weeks leading up to holidays like Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and other widely-celebrated three-day weekend holidays.

When asked about his focus on travel toys, Jeremy Austen, owner of Funky Monkey toys in Florence, Ore. admitted that he had not previously considered travel toys as a real means for profit. He said “now that you've made me think about it, maybe I should have a travel toy section. Why don't I?”

This is not the case for all retailers however. Jean Simmons, manager of The Toy Chest in North Conway, N.H. estimated that approximately 75 percent of sales in her resort-area store are from the sale of travel toys. “We place a fairly heavy focus on travel toys because we don't carry a lot of big toys; we carry a lot of smaller things like puzzles, or small crafts like needlepoint – things kids can do in a hotel room,” said Simmons.

Retailers are not the only ones who are hopping on the travel train. Even some toy manufacturers are getting in on the renewed travel market. Fisher-Price recently entered a deal with Royal Caribbean International to develop a series of programs and services for the cruise line's youngest passengers. The programs all incorporate the use of Fisher-Price toys, a clever way to expose and familiarize potential future customers to their line of products.

The folks at Cranium are also getting in on the act with Cranium Mobile, a program that allows 'Craniacs' on the go to keep their heads in the game wherever they are by answering Cranium questions and solving puzzles that have been sent via text message directly to their cellular phones. The program is available to consumers who subscribe to certain services including Cingular, Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and more. By simply 'texting' the word “play” to the number 88726, consumers are given the opportunity to purchase a “pack” of 25 Cranium questions for $.99 plus standard text-messaging fees. Customers who choose to participate are also automatically entered for a chance to win prizes, including a trip to Sun Valley, Idaho.

Retailers looking to tap the travel toy market need not fret over choosing products. There are numerous “travel” versions of popular games and toys available on the market. Anything with magnetic pieces, or sets that can be easily contained make for great travel toys. While our technologically impacted society always has the stand-by hand-held video game to turn to as the ideal modern travel toy, there are plenty of specialty retailers who turn their noses up at the new wave of video-related toys. As if in answer to the concerns of these smaller retailers, there are a number of other lower-tech playthings on the market that will fuel a child's creativity and reinforce innovative play values on the go. Following are a few items that may bring life to a deficient travel-toy selection…