Consumer and Demographic Data Archives - Page 2 of 9

Most impactful holiday and air travel trends for 2024

Posted on: 30 May 2024

If the last few years of pandemic uncertainty and budget constraints amidst the ongoing cost of living crisis have shown us anything, it’s that travellers have become increasingly conscious of the cost of travel. As a result, they’ve placed increased value on having an optimal travel experience to justify its cost.

We examined the current driving factors behind optimised travel experiences in our Voice of the Nation Q1 2024 survey, where we asked 2,000 respondents how they felt about an array of travel changes and how the cost of living, airline loyalty and more have impacted their travel choices into 2024.

So, what shared values and needs do travellers of all ages and affluence levels seem to have in common this year? How have these forthcoming trends been affecting the wider travel industry?

Travel spend will increase in 2024 despite decreases in most other sectors

When asked whether their anticipated spending will decrease, increase or stay the same this year compared to last, holidays actually rank third among areas people expect to increase spend in 2024– with groceries and commuting costs coming in first and second– despite an overall expected decrease in spend in other areas this year.

Plans to holiday abroad skew significantly on affluence lines

From Boomers to Gen Z, more than half of respondents from every age group plan to holiday in some capacity– both in the UK or abroad– in 2024.

When it comes to taking holidays abroad, 38% of respondents are making plans and budget room to do so this year. Of these respondents, as much as 50% come from the higher affluence Acorn categories of Established Affluence and Thriving Neighbourhoods. Approximately one in three of the lower affluence categories of Steadfast Communities, Stretched Society and Low Income Living share the same sentiment.

A quarter of all respondents have no intention of travelling this year, and 22% plan to visit another part of the UK, which would appear to be in an effort to save on travel spending. In reality, no matter where you go for your next holiday, the same proportion of respondents agree that cost will be the biggest determinant behind their destination. 36% of those staying in the UK say that they will go on holiday within the UK because they prefer it to going abroad, showing that while cutting travel costs is a major driver, it is not necessarily the only one.

Half of respondents claim no loyalty to an airline

When asked what the contributing factors towards airline loyalty are, half responded that they have no loyalty to any airlines.

Roughly one-third (31%) of those who are loyal towards an airline felt that their loyalty is driven by more than one factor, such as convenience, discounts and luggage/check-in benefits. In comparison, 18% felt there was only a singular driving factor behind their airline loyalty, showing that where loyalty is in play, it is usually multi-factorial.

Convenience is the most significant driver behind airline choices

Apart from price, respondents’ most significant contributing factors towards airline choices when booking trips came down to flight times and route, both of which are also the only factors heavily skewed by affluence. Nearly 60% of the Established Affluence and Thriving Neighbourhoods category respondents reported this to be significant, compared to just 35% among Low Income Living. Gen Z, however, scored this even lower, with just 32% finding this to be significant and instead placing more emphasis on the ease of booking at 37%.

Families are much more affected by cost this year

In terms of holiday planning this year, one-third of respondents said that they wanted to keep their holiday costs as low as possible to maximise value for money and felt that costs would be the greatest determinant of where they holiday in 2024. Among those with children, 40% said that cost is the biggest determinant of where they go on holiday.

Sustainable transport options appeal much more to Gen Z

Of all demographics, Gen Z appear to be the most motivated by sustainability when planning their holidays, both in terms of those taking immediate action but also those who would like to travel but feel unable to presently. In fact, 18% of Gen Z respondents said that they will be cutting down on air travel in 2024 due to their growing environmental concerns, compared to just 8% among the rest of the population.

How CACI can help?

As the travel industry evolves with travellers’ changing sentiments, holiday and air travel operators must be equipped with the necessary understanding of who their customers are, what their motivations for travel are, what they seek from their travel experiences and how to deliver optimal experiences that will drive loyalty. Data is integral to this, which is where CACI excels in providing support.

To find out how we can keep you and your team amidst turbulent times, get in touch with us today.

Impact of turnover vs. footfall for shopping destinations in 2024

Posted on: 23 May 2024

Footfall has historically been the go-to method for measuring a shopping destination’s performance, conducted through pressure sensor mats, light sensors tracking shoppers’ entry and exit movements, advanced camera systems and more. Although ubiquitous across the retail industry, only measuring the number of people entering and exiting a store misses important aspects of true store performance. The current pace of change in consumer behaviors demands that commercial landlords and occupiers know more about their performance drivers if they are going to thrive.

So, why is this the case? What do commercial landlords need to know about turnover and footfall to stay afloat?

How consumers’ changing behaviours towards shopping locations affect footfall

Since 2019, vendors across the UK have experienced an overall 11.5% drop in footfall. While this may sound like catastrophic news for retail destinations, the truth behind the headline footfall figures is perhaps surprising– an overall rise in consumer spending. Although a shift in consumers’ shopping behaviours is undeniably present, its impact may not be as profound as it seems.

Frequency has been a major driver of this, dropping by 31% over the last five years, meaning that consumers have been visiting shopping places much less often. However, the amount being spent by consumers when visiting shopping locations has climbed 29% over the last five years, counteracting declining footfall.

This increase in trip spending is not just an inflationary rise – the fundamental reason to visit and our behaviours on visits have changed as a result. Successful locations are those that are adapting to the new shopper landscape.

How consumers’ changing spending habits, values & “missions” affect footfall

What consumers are spending any disposable income on has also been changing. While retail conversion has remained relatively unchanged, there have been evident increases in Catering and Leisure conversions on the same trips, meaning consumers are increasingly combining a shopping trip with food/drink or a leisure activity. It is this combination of shopping, browsing, eating/drinking and leisure that has led to the overall increase in spending per trip.

These comparisons can be illustrated through what we at CACI call “missions” from our Shopper Dimensions dataset, which illustrate the trip someone is on at a given time, and attribute “missions” to the tangible actions someone takes once at the shopping destination, such as browsing, spending, time spent, etc., to assign a “mission” to each trip.

According to our findings, consumers are relinquishing their less engaged “missions” but concentrating trips around the “Big Day Out” trip. This is illustrated in the shifting profile of the top three missions in Shopping Destinations, which explains why a decline in footfall does not necessarily equate to declining spend. At a glance:

“Big day out” missions are our more engaged trips. They may be less frequent, but they are ones where multiple retail stores are often combined with Catering and Leisure, resulting in a trip spend 2.4x the average mission. Since 2019, these missions have grown to 23% of all shopping missions.
37% of “spending time” missions have no purchasing associated with them. While they may contribute to footfall figures, they do not directly contribute to sales-through-tills. Having dropped off post-Covid-19, these trips are now holding flat at a lower shelf.
“Routine top-up” trips are quick, functional and emotionally disengaged trips that a spend of just 47% of an average trip. These trips are dropping out of our repertoire and can be substituted online.

We can therefore see that looking in greater detail at the changing nature of the trips made provides a clearer understanding of commercial asset performance than simply tracking the overall volume of trips.

Key levers to conclude turnover & application methods to target growth outcomes

To make a meaningful impact in asset performance, commercial landlords must move beyond measuring just the number of visits and start reporting the different levers of shopping location spend.

While there are nuances behind the headlines that apply individually to each location, all spend at a shopping location can ultimately be boiled down to three key levers:

The volume (number) of unique shoppers they have
The frequency of consumers’ visits to a shopping destination
The value that each shopper spends per trip.

Commercial landlords should consider applying the following methods to each lever to effectively target growth outcomes:

Volume: Convert footfall (visits) into ‘spenders’ and target engagement strategies at driving scheme trial; measured by the percentage of the catchment population currently shopping with you (penetration).
Frequency: Embrace the different role that your asset plays for different cohorts, diversifying the occupier offering to give shoppers more reasons to return on different missions.
Value: Determine the highest spending shopper groups to target, segment customers and tailor offers to them to increase cross-shopping opportunities and drive value.

What does good look like?

Now is the time for commercial landlords to leave pre-pandemic comparisons behind. Footfall may be down overall, but the evolution of consumers’ shopping destination behaviour serves as a reminder that relying on the past as an indication of how assets should behave will not lead to longer-term success. If anything, these behaviours have demonstrated that the types of trips people continue to use shopping locations for are more engaged and valuable than ever before.

Our unique view into how and where consumers are spending has been made possible with the help of datasets like Shopper Dimensions, which enable KPI benchmarking of assets against similar locations across the UK and leverage transactional and data spend insights to enhance decision-making. We can help you calculate the impact of each shopper metric and the headroom compared to peers and catchment.

To find out more about what Shopper Dimensions can do for you and your business, speak to one of our experts today.

How River Island use ResolvID to effectively perform identity resolution on customer data

Posted on: 14 May 2024

Background

River Island is a beloved high street retailer that has brought leading fashion trends to UK shoppers for over sixty years, with both a digital and in-store presence.

When the brand began building a marketing and analytics data technology environment with only a Single Customer View (SCV)— a single record that merges all customer data– available, they recognised the need for a SaaS solution that would be able to perform real-time identity resolution on customer data.

The Challenge

Bringing the entire SCV in-house posed a significant challenge to River Island, having to terminate many data feeds and re-evaluate incoming and outbound data that lacked clarity. The original data feeds were also set up by employees who had since left the business, resulting in a trial by fire with their SCV.

The Solution

CACI configured ResolvID, a cloud native solution hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud infrastructure, to supply River Island with data cleansing, standardisation, identity resolution and deduplication. Developed with a Microservices architecture, the bespoke platform offers significant advantages through its scaling, resilience and flexibility when rapid changes and improvements are required.

ResolvID comprises horizontally and vertically scalable Microservices that perform different functions with a seamless interface to enhance River Island’s accessibility. The solution leverages advanced deterministic name and address matching techniques in conjunction with digital and non-digital identifiers specific to River Island customers and their data. As part of this initiative, CACI took a three-step approach to effectively perform identity resolution on River Island’s customer data.

The Results

Leveraging ResolvID has resulted in many tangible benefits for River Island, including the creation of various customer dashboards to monitor more targeted figures and generate better, more timely data that bolsters targeted customer campaigns. There have also been noticeable improvements in workload efficiencies, such as cutting down the time required to action workloads to increase the team’s focus on refining their future strategy of doing more with their data to retain oversight on customer performance.

Once we swapped to ResolvID, the numbers we got were close enough to give us confidence that the deduplication received from ResolvID worked better than our previous managed service.

Ben Anderton, Technical Lead at River Island, shared how this real-time capability now enables the confident and immediate actioning of data and customer signups to produce effective campaigns based on genuine buying behaviours and generate accurate results.

Read the case study

You can access and download the full case study here.

If you have any questions or want to learn more, please get in touch with us to discuss what strategies and solutions that our team of experts can help you deliver.

How Earls Court Development Company use data to help inform a new neighbourhood

Posted on: 2 May 2024

Background

The Earls Court Development Company (ECDC) has a vision to bring the wonder back to Earls Court. Their latest proposals demonstrate how Earls Court will be put back on the map, re-emerging as a destination to discover wonder, an ecosystem for creative talent and a showcase for one of the fastest growing industries in the world – clean and climate tech. The masterplan includes 4,000 new homes, 12,000 jobs, culture, community, retail, dining and leisure. 60% of the land is unbuilt, maximising open spaces and opportunities for nature to thrive. The site will have a series of cultural venues, alongside a commercial campus creating a global destination for clean and climate tech research and skills. Sustainability will be the green thread, with one of the largest zero-carbon energy loops in the UK powering the site. A hybrid planning application will be submitted this summer and the first phase will commence in 2026.

The Challenge

Understanding how current plans would impact the local market, what retail opportunities should be created and how to create a robust masterplan that would address these factors, despite London’s complex market and a high amount of local competition.
Gauging customers and audience — who is already here, what they do, what they need and where they go — in relation to other large-scale central London developments and regeneration master plans in King’s Cross and Battersea.
Prior to partnering with CACI, the company solely relied on qualitative data to understand peoples’ perceptions and inform their decision making, such as speaking to people within the community and stakeholders.

The Solution

ECDC was keen to ensure that an optimised neighbourhood would be created for residents both within and outside of the development along with workers and users of the space. To achieve this, CACI interpreted and analysed raw data and numbers for the company, bringing them to life and narrating the results through comparable’s and benchmarks.

It’s very clear in the presentations that we’re given — whether it’s for local authorities or internally — that the evidence base is robust and ultimately indisputable. That was helpful in providing that context and equips us with a robust way to create and define the master plan moving forwards.

Tom Branton, Development Director at ECDC

The CACI data sources included as part of this study were:

Mobile App Data: Mobile location data generated a precise view into the location’s catchment and visitor profiles, ensuring ECDC would innately understand how visitor profiles and their respective behaviours varied over time. This helped the company assess who users are along with their demographic and spending power, along with insights into how visits changed over a day and week.
Acorn: CACI’s consumer segmentation model, Acorn, enabled ECDC’s understanding of who new residents would be and their needs, and who would shop at the development.
Location Dynamics: Location Dynamics is CACI’s spatial interaction model, creating a digital mirror of the UK retail landscape replicating consumer flows. The engine of the model is a machine learning algorithm that provides future forecast catchments. For ECDC, CACI used Location Dynamics to understand the expected current catchment and spend, as well as leakage to nearby destinations, to provide a detailed understanding of the local retail landscape.

The Results

Newfound understanding of the ‘size of the prize’ of wider London and tourist demographics and audiences. ECDC historically relied on gut instinct when it came to decision making, but working with CACI ensured they were backed with concrete evidence. For example, CACI’s data showed that one-third of the total potential spend in the development area could come from out of catchment.
Enhanced decision-making through evidence-based data on the community. With the development situated across both the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, their perceptions of the surrounding community to inform decision-making — while strong — are now rooted in evidential data. This has served to alter their perceptions to ensure that a comprehensive understanding of residents and borough dwellers can be met and their audience narrative can be shaped accordingly.

The Future

In the coming years, CACI will continue to support ECDC in the data-backed planning and construction of residential units, retail landscape and office space development.

Read the case study:

You can access and download the full case study here. If you have any questions or want to learn more about CACI’s solutions, please get in touch with us.

Why Taunton is a perfectly balanced place to live

Posted on: 8 April 2024

This final blog in our series on balanced locations brings us to Taunton, an idyllic town near the southwest England countryside with a captivating history, landscapes and arts and culture scene that have earned the town its spot on our list of perfectly balanced places to live per our report, “Six Pillars of Success: Building Resilient Places”.

If you have yet to read our blog that introduces these pillars, we consider a ‘perfectly balanced’ place to be:

One that houses a suitable mix of chain and independent retailers at optimal sizes
Supplies unique offline experiences that meet the community’s needs
Provides community infrastructure that supports daily living
Offers adequate residential properties for the community
Offers employment opportunities and flexible working spaces
Encourages time spent outdoors in green spaces

So, what exactly are the driving factors behind Taunton being a perfectly balanced place to live?

Pillar 1: Representation & proper sizing of independent & chain retailers

Taunton’s town centre benefits from a mix of well-known brands like Primark, TK Maxx, Sports Direct and Marks & Spencer, while also being home to thriving independent and specialist retailers. In fact, independent retailers in Taunton comprise ~50% more of the retail mix than benchmark locations.

Bath Place stands out as a particular hub for independent retailers. Dating back to the 18th century, this historic street is lined with an array of independent businesses and services that can be reached on foot by pedestrians. Many of the shop fronts feature their original detailing to truly transport passers by into the Georgian era.

Pillar 2: Uniquely tailored offline experiences

To get in on the sports, music and leisure scene in Taunton, Somerset County Cricket Club has something for every type of enthusiast. Founded in 1875, this renowned sports club situated close to the town centre represents the county of Somerset. To this day, it serves as a spot for watching cricket, attending concerts, catching a film at its open-air cinema and much more.

For those looking for a community social hub that doubles as a performing arts centre, look no further than Taunton Brewhouse. As the region’s principal arts centre, its programme of high-quality dance, musical and theatre shows along with workshops and pop-up shops create a diverse and all-encompassing environment that appeals to one and all.

There is also no shortage of cafes, restaurants and bars to satisfy locals day or night.

Pillar 3: Engaging community infrastructure

Taunton’s centre is brimming with museums, galleries, a library and numerous services to meet locals’ varying needs and interests.

A visit to Taunton Castle, a Grade I Listed Scheduled Ancient Monument, can be paired with the Museum of Somerset, also situated within the 12th century castle walls, housing prehistoric artifacts to modern galleries. The Somerset Military Museum is also housed within the Museum of Somerset. A historic almshouse saved by the Taunton Heritage Trust can also be found on the Museum grounds.

At the heart of the town lies Taunton Library, a public library that offers internet access and printing services. Civic services such as the Somerset Registration Service, Jobseekers Recruitment Services, Taunton JobCentre and the Somerset Council offices can also be found here.

A modern and affordable Nuffield Health gym boasts plenty of equipment and classes, encouraging locals’ maintenance of fitness and wellbeing.

Pillar 4: Support social cohesion through optimised residential design

Situated close to the picturesque countryside while also having well-connected transport links, inhabitants of all ages and demographics can appreciate what this town has to offer. Taunton’s housing market appeals to a variety of renters and homebuyers, with a broad range of housing available from charming cottages to contemporary flats. Average house prices in Taunton are lower than seen across the southwest. At just £786, monthly rental payments sit at 22% of local income levels (below national averages of 25%).

Pillar 5: Sufficient & accessible work opportunities for the local population

Taunton is a major regional employment hub. The town is accessible via the M5 and has good train links including a direct service to London in under two hours, making it an appealing place to live for commuters. Only 1.61% of Taunton’s population is considered to be “Economically Active: Unemployed”.
Pillar 6: Appealing open spaces for the community to dwell in

When in need of a break from city life, locals and visitors can escape into one of Taunton’s many parks and nature oases.

Vivary Park is a popular choice that is just a few minutes away from the town centre. With its namesake inherited from its medieval usage as a fish farm or vivarium for the priory and castle, the park features a mini golf course, tennis courts, playground and model railway. In just a short drive from Taunton, Blackdown Hills National Landscape, considered an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, can be found, offering visitors breathtaking landscapes and opportunities to hike, cycle and spot wildlife.

To learn how our six property pillars can help ensure you are creating resilient places, please speak to one of our Placemaking and Property experts.

How South West Water uses Ocean data to achieve their ambition of eradicating water poverty

Posted on:

Background

For over 30 years, South West Water (SWW) has been supplying reliable and high-quality drinking and wastewater services to customers throughout South West England.

When the business was tasked with developing an affordability model for their customers, they set themselves a target of getting customers out of water poverty and onto the right support tariffs where necessary. While their own data and customer insight could act as a starting point, SWW recognised the impact that pairing this with CACI’s Ocean data would have on achieving their desired outcome.

The Challenge:

Higher financial strain due to the cost-of-living crisis, coupled with the industry-wide ambition of eradicating water poverty by 2025, made it imperative for customers who require and are eligible for support to be proactively identified and lifted out of water poverty through SWW’s holistic affordability toolkit.

The Solution:

Understanding the SWW brief, challenge and previous models used by the industry, a bespoke and granular dataset was created to supply a unique and current perspective into equivalised income at a 6/7-digit
postcode level, in conjunction with the wider validating characteristics of these customers, the complete SWW household customer and the property base.

South West Water built a model which combines this data with their own billing data at a customer level, enabling them to calculate the percentage of equivalised income from their customers’ current spend on their water bill at a property level. They can further combine this with OBR forecasts of income, housing costs and bill profiles to 2030 to model water poverty and wider outcomes into the future.

The Results:

From July 2022 to September 2023, over 15,000 customers were auto-enrolled onto support tariffs and brought out of water poverty. The affordability model enabled SWW to directly engage with these customers, build their trust and encourage further contact and conversation, particularly where customers may be entitled to or require additional support or services.

The use of the full range of our affordability toolkit remains critical to our ambition, we are now able to a high degree of confidence identify and, subject to further validation, engage with and auto-enrol customers onto our tariffs and bring them out of water poverty. These customers are often the struggling silent and hardest to reach who — without the data provided by CACI and the wider inputs into the model — we would not have had the capability to lift out of water poverty or achieve our commitment of eradicating water poverty which we are on track to achieve and is at the heart of our approach.

John Huxtable, Customer and Recovery Data and Insight Manager at SWW

Read the case study

You can access and download the full case study here. If you have any questions or want to learn more about CACI’s solutions, please get in touch with us.

Why St Neots is a perfectly balanced place to live

Posted on: 5 March 2024

This next blog in our series on balanced locations transports us to St Neots, a rapidly growing Cambridgeshire town with mediaeval heritage that is nestled along the River Great Ouse banks. With an intriguing blend of old-world and modern-day sights and amenities, a strong sense of a community and a picturesque atmosphere, St Neots was an undisputed pick as part of our list of perfectly balanced places to live per our report, “Six Pillars of Success: Building Resilient Places”.

If you have yet to read our blog that introduces these pillars, we consider a ‘perfectly balanced’ place to be:

One that houses a suitable mix of chain and independent retailers at optimal sizes
Supplies unique offline experiences that meet the community’s needs
Provides community infrastructure that supports daily living
Offers adequate residential properties for the community
Offers employment opportunities and flexible working spaces
Encourages time spent outdoors in green spaces.

So, what exactly are the driving factors behind St Neots being a perfectly balanced place to live?

Pillar 1: Representation & proper sizing of independent & chain retailers

St Neots features a strong provision of amenities and services. The town centre forms a well-balanced array of High Street brands like Fat Face and Argos and independent retailers accounting for 38% more of the retail offer than comparable locations, creating a strong sense of identity and place.

For those looking for independently run wine, beer and spirits retailers, look no further than The Smiling Grape Company, an award-winning, family-owned wine merchant, or Shumë Bottle Emporium, a craft beer shop and bottle emporium carrying beers from around the world. Opting to put your creative skills to the test in an all-ages, all-skill levels pottery and craft studio? The Crafty Monkey Pottery Shop has something for everyone.

The town’s market square is also one of the largest and most ancient in England, dating back to the 12th century. Every Thursday since its foundation, the Charter Market takes place here through the daytime, with stalls offering fresh produce, clothing and artisanal finds. There’s also a bi-weekly Saturday Farm and Craft Market featuring local traders and crafts makers offering meats and produce, baked goods, flowers and plants and handmade crafts.

For special occasions, or even to spruce up an everyday space, the County Fayre Florist has been a prime choice for locals for over three decades. A Hotel Chocolat factory and cafe outlet is also popular among locals in search of high-quality chocolate at lower prices than on the High Street, or for an ice cream or hot chocolate treat at the cafe.

Pillar 2: Uniquely tailored offline experiences

St Neots’ strong catering offer is mainly independently led, with many multi-function restaurants and cafes for visitors to enjoy.

Roberto’s Deli is one of these—part-deli and part-pizza restaurant, this authentic Italian deli offers artisanal produce alongside dine-in options, making it a hit with visitors. For an all-encompassing cafe, art gallery and creative hub experience, Art & Soul encourages visitors to savour moments of tranquility by viewing art, checking out a gig, getting some work done or catching up with friends over a coffee all in one place. The Pig n Falcon is also a popular watering hole among locals for its live music and warm, traditional pub atmosphere.

While Pizza Express is the town centre’s only chain restaurant, a Cineworld is in its vicinity, making for a great evening on the town. In contrast, its independent restaurant selection (including Il Girasole) and pubs like The River Mill offer quality food and pet-friendly atmospheres.

Locals and visitors will also find a bowling alley, library and museum in the town’s centre. A broad range of bars, restaurants and cafes also cater to a variety of food groups and preferences (Ferro Lounge, a vegan dog-friendly cafe, being one of them), along with a few small tearooms for vegan and gluten free visitors.

Pillar 3: Engaging community infrastructure

Lining the town’s streets are large chain supermarkets like Waitrose and Marks & Spencer along with independent alteration, shoes, arts & crafts shops and beauty salons and health and community services, meeting locals’ various needs.

Overlooking the town is also the alluring (and unmissable) 130-foot tower of St Neots Parish Church. Originating in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 15th, it serves as a community hub for gatherings and for relishing the centuries of craftsmanship visible in both its interior and exterior.

The town is also easily commutable from the neighbouring towns of Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and more, with fast and direct train links to both London and Peterborough available.

Pillar 4: Support social cohesion through optimised residential design

Housing in St Neots indulges a range of preferences and budgets, from Victorian and Edwardian homes and cottages to more modern developments. A combination of high earnings (£48,007 on average) and relatively low house prices (£306,497) contribute to the town’s affordability. Houses in the area are 6.4x the average salary (compared with a UK national average of 7.4x), and monthly average private rent payments of £877 account for 22% of earnings (against a UK town average of 26%).

Terraced and detached properties have been increasingly sought after, along with semi-detached properties. The town’s proximity to larger cities like London, Cambridge and Peterborough has also appealed to many renters and homebuyers.

Pillar 5: Sufficient & accessible work opportunities for the local population

Job opportunities are available in many sectors in St Neots, notably in healthcare, manufacturing and retail. A half-hour drive or hour-long public transportation commute to Cambridge opens plenty of additional working opportunities for St Neots locals, especially in technology and innovation. Nearly half (48%) of the adult population is employed full-time (against a UK average of 42%).

There is also a community Facebook group, St Neots Referrals & Recommendations, where locals share recommendations and insights for new job listings.

Pillar 6: Appealing open spaces for the community to dwell in

St. Neots is home to many parks and green spaces for locals and visitors to enjoy. With the River Great Ouse flowing through the town and parks just steps away from the town centre, breathtaking scenery can easily be found.

Riverside Park, for example, is a popular destination for both locals and visitors, offering 72 acres of greenery that holds enormous weeping willow trees, picnic areas, children’s play areas and walking and cycling paths galore. Every Saturday, locals can partake in a free 5K parkrun, or can spend a lively Sunday attending one of the concerts held throughout the summer. Sports club events like the Dragon Boat Festival and St Neots Rowing Regatta are held in Riverside Park, making the most of the River Ouse.

There’s also the historic Georgian era Priory Park, which now serves as an open space for leisurely activities like picnics and dog walking to sponsored events like runs and activity clubs for children in the summer. Sports enthusiasts can also make use of the park’s five football pitches and several mini soccer pitches.

For glimpses of some of the area’s richest wildlife habitats, a trip to Paxton Pits Nature Reserve, packed with 78 hectares of lakes, meadows, woodlands and more, promises sightings of nightingales, cormorants and several other varieties of birds and mammals

In the next and final blog of this series, we’ll share one more pick for a ‘perfectly balanced’ place to live.

To learn how our six property pillars can help ensure you are creating resilient places, please speak to one of our Placemaking and Property experts.

Why Worcester is a perfectly balanced place to live

Posted on: 19 February 2024

In this fourth blog of our series looking at balanced locations, we’re travelling to Worcester, a captivating city in the heart of the West Midlands known for its storied history and architecture, triumphant sports and social culture and vibrant community gatherings.

Worcester is packed with hidden gems and old haunts, medieval heritage sites and palatable dining options. These are a few of the many driving factors behind Worcester earning its place on our list of perfectly balanced places to live per our report, “Six Pillars of Success: Building Resilient Places”.

If you have yet to read our blog that introduces these pillars, we consider a ‘perfectly balanced’ place to be:

One that houses a suitable mix of chain and independent retailers at optimal sizes
Supplies unique offline experiences that meet the community’s needs
Provides community infrastructure that supports daily living
Offers adequate residential properties for the community
Offers employment opportunities and flexible working spaces
Encourages time spent outdoors in green spaces

So, what exactly are the driving factors behind Worcester being a perfectly balanced place to live?

Pillar 1: Representation & proper sizing of independent & chain retailers

While many larger chain retailers like Primark, New Look, The Body Shop and Boots can be found in Crowngate Shopping Centre, plenty of independent retailers are situated in the heart of Worcester, especially on Friar Street. From clothing shops and bridal studios like You Boutique and Perfections Bridal Studio to pet shops and toy shops like Paw & Co and The Entertainer, there is no shortage of retailers catering to the community’s unique needs.

Pillar 2: Uniquely tailored offline experiences

Events are a big deal in Worcester– from open-air concerts to community festivals, there is always something happening to engage and entertain visitors of all interests.

The Victorian Christmas Fayre is one of such examples. A beloved annual event that captures the essence of Victorian England by transforming the streets of Worcester into a scene reminiscent of the era of Queen Victoria, the Fayre fills the city streets with market stalls that offer traditional festive treats and crafts. Several historic buildings throughout the city also take part in the celebration, opening their doors to guests to awe at the Victorian era’s opulence.

In the summer, locals and horse racing enthusiasts flock to Pitchcroft Park (otherwise known as Worcester Racecourse), a renowned thoroughbred horse racing venue. The annual Worcester Fringe Festival also brings theatre and arts aficionados to the city in the summer to revel in over 60 events dedicated to theatre, music and comedy at various venues. The musical fun doesn’t stop there— Worcester Fake Festival is returning to Pitchcroft Park this summer to deliver a tribute-based music event to local music lovers.

Throughout the year, historical events paying tribute to Worcester’s rich history such as the Civil War Soldier School at The Commandery also offer children an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Civil War soldiers.

Football and cricket also form important parts of the city’s sports culture. Football is one of the most widely followed and played sports in the city, and cricket becomes particularly popular during the summer months.

The High Street, Friar Street and New Street are also brimming with cafes and coffee shops (both independent and chains), pubs and restaurants. In fact, a recent initiative to renovate the Worcester Foregate Street railway station arches, The Arches, has brought together a new cluster of trendy restaurants, coffee shops, breweries and even axe throwing.

Friar Street and New Street are also home to two of the city’s oldest, most historic pubs. The Cardinal’s Hat Inn on Friar Street is the oldest in the city, dating back to the fourteenth century. The King Charles House on New Street has a special tie to British history, as the home that King Charles II fled after defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, aided by New Street’s residents holding the Cromwell army back for the King’s successful escape.

Pillar 3: Engaging community infrastructure

In terms of amenities and services, Worcester’s High Street features large chain supermarkets like Tesco, banks like Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds, pharmacies like Boots and a Post Office. Neighbouring Friar Street and New Street house a number of barbers and hairdressers, as well as beauty salons.

Worcester Cathedral in the heart of the city dates to the 12th century, showcasing the grandeur of English Gothic style. It not only serves as a place of worship, but as a cultural hub that hosts many events throughout the year.

The Hive, a modern, high-tech library with rooms to hire and a cultural programme that sits alongside more traditional library resources, is also a thriving community resource accessible by university students and the public.

Pillar 4: Support social cohesion through optimised residential design

At £44,246 per annum, household incomes in Worcester are in line with the UK average. Housing costs align with average earnings, with a range of affordable options from historic city centre properties to more modern developments beyond the centre available. With the average price of a home being £254,728 (5.8x the average earnings) and private rentals hovering around £701 PCM (19% of average earnings), Worcester’s affordability compared to most places of its size is evident.

Pillar 5: Sufficient & accessible work opportunities for the local population

With 9.6% of Worcester’s adult population being full time students (above the national average, and likely a result of the University of Worcester’s presence), both educational and working opportunities are easily within reach.

The city’s prominent manufacturing scene has created many job opportunities in sectors like engineering and logistics. Full and part-time employment rates (at 45% and 14% respectively) sit above the national average. 2.3% of the population is unemployed but looking for work, a rate slightly below the national average.

This year, the Worcestershire Skills Show will also be taking place, exposing Year 7 to 10 students to an array of industries to help them understand what businesses are looking for in future employees and determine the necessary skills and qualifications to pursue their future career goals.

Pillar 6: Appealing open spaces for the community to dwell in

Worcester’s green open spaces provide an escape from city life while also encouraging gatherings.

For those interested in exploring the city on foot, daily walking tours are offered by guides from Discover History, Worcester Walks and Faithful CityWalk. For the adventurers, self-guided tours and trails of the City’s Guildhall, the Worcester Heritage Walk and more are available.

Britain’s longest river, the River Severn, runs through the city and offers walkways along the water with plenty of surrounding open spaces to spend time in. In the warmer seasons, boating enthusiasts can be seen rowing boats or canoes, and anglers can be found on the riverbanks. Those opting for a leisurely stroll or vigorous jog can utilise the pathways.

For a serene escape just a stone’s throw from the city centre, locals and visitors will find Gheluvelt Park, offering expansive green space and captivating landscapes, opportunities to hire paddleboats or row boats on Barbourne Brook, or play tennis. The park holds more significance than just its beauty— it memorialises the Battle of Gheluvelt, a defining moment in World War I that helped secure victory for the Allies.

Stay tuned for our next pick of a ‘perfectly balanced’ place to live in our upcoming blog.

To learn how our six property pillars can help ensure you are creating resilient places, please speak to one of our Placemaking and Property experts.

How Away Resorts refreshed their customer strategies through bespoke segmentation

Posted on: 18 January 2024

About Away Resorts

Away Resorts is a holiday park operator specialising in holiday homes, luxury lodges, caravans and home lettings and ownership across the UK. Having grown recently from six parks to 27 after a substantial acquisition, the business hypothesised that there may be new customer groups across their wider portfolio of sites. This presented the team with an opportunity to decipher these customers’ demographics and continue to grow the business through engaging and relevant communications.

The challenge

Laura Miller, Head of Marketing at Away Resorts, highlighted three major challenges that Away Resorts needed to overcome to find out what their customers wanted to get out of their holidays and where the optimal locations for the acquisition of future parks would be:

Reassess how to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing spend.
Develop a future capital programme that would be backed by a genuine understanding of what customers want from their bookings, their desires when looking for a holiday park, and which amenities to prioritise investing in.
Attract the right customer demographic by refreshing existing marketing communications and channels.

The results and benefits

These insights helped Away Resorts gauge where marketing spend should be focused to target specific segments, how best to distribute campaign spending and how to switch strategic gears to deliver more effectively executed campaigns, including the introduction of new media channels.

“It’s never just been about the project; it’s about wanting a deeper understanding of where we felt like we could go a level down to the market to get more owners. We’ve very much looked at our holidaymakers and those who potentially move from some of our key holidaymaker segments into potential holiday homeowners and we’re supporting all kinds of revenue streams within the diversity that makes up a holiday park.”

Hayley Collins, Commercial Systems Manager at Away Resorts

Plus, it has been particularly beneficial during executive board meetings, where tangible, easily comprehensible customer insights can now be shared with the wider business to bolster decision-making.

“Rather than what you might get from one or two surveys and a gut feeling, there’s tangible data that I can go in and explain my reasoning as to why we should choose a specific piece of media for upcoming planning. That’s the bit I’ve never been able to quite do before – giving the certainty and confidence to the executive level that we’re doing the right things.”

Laura Miller, Head of Marketing at Away Resorts

This deep dive into customers has enabled Away Resorts to adapt their customer feedback survey on holiday motivations and needs to be met by including questions on customers’ specific interests. The business has confidently leaned into an ‘exploration’ narrative based on the findings, which suggested that their target segment wants to explore beyond the park—partaking in walks, bike rides and other activities.

The outcomes and the future

In the coming years, Away Resorts is keen to explore larger-scale data-oriented projects with the help of CACI. Additional data acquisition drilling down into more locations along with the possibilities of what can still be done with the business’ existing data to grow and refine their segments remain a priority. Along with the business’ additional data sources, Away Resorts will continue to monitor changes through the segmentation data to enrich and grow their existing data to grow and maintain their core audience.

Read the full case study here. Or for more information on how CACI can support you with your customer data insights and strategies, please get in touch and one of our data experts will happily arrange a time to talk.

Uncovering consumers’ leisure priorities in the festive period

Posted on: 13 December 2023

The latest findings from our Cost of Living consumer survey are in, and we’re taking a look at the insights through the lens of the leisure industry.

With over 2,000 respondents surveyed in November, we asked consumers about their thoughts and priorities in the lead up to Christmas to help brands understand how their customers may be behaving. For companies in the leisure space, being able to predict the movements, intentions and spending patterns of customers is key at this time of year, especially in the current economic climate.

So, what did we find?

Nearly half of consumers still want to socialise and spend despite the impact of the Cost of Living

With 46% of respondents agreeing that the increased Cost of Living will not impact their intended Christmas social plans (up from 40% in 2022), leisure brands can expect to benefit from people wanting to attend and spend on events out of the home this year.

While this is reflected in general financial fears dropping since the late summer, there seems to be a generational divide with Gen X, Millennials and Boomers feeling more confident. Gen Z, on the other hand, reached a new peak of concern at over 50%.

Their concerns relate to their personal finances as opposed to family finances or the national/global economy, which could affect brands reliant on young adults to boost their seasonal profits.

Energy fears remain high as the cold moves in, leading to potential cost-cutting in other areas for some groups

With energy costs becoming more of a focus as temperatures drop, some demographic groups are having to cut down on other costs to keep warm this winter – with one in three among the Low Income Living Acorn category expecting to have to do so.

The impact decreases as we climb the affluence scale but remains fairly significant, with over 20% of the Established Affluence category also considering cost cutting for this reason.

Spending on food and drink at home remains a priority, but the importance of entertainment and leisure at Christmas is growing

With a significant 79% of people considering spending on food and drink at home to be important this festive period, there is further optimism for the leisure industry as our latest survey has also detected a shift back towards entertainment and leisure as a source of importance.

While consumers report that most other areas of spending are reducing in importance, entertainment and leisure is trending in the other direction, with 59% of consumers surveyed classifying entertainment and leisure as either somewhat or very important to them this year, which is up from 53% in 2022. This is supported by 47% of respondents identifying that socialising outside of their homes this year is important, which is a slight increase from 2022.

Overall, the social planning picture is a lot less negative than last year

When we consider the contrast between pre-pandemic and Cost of Living crisis behaviours versus consumer attitudes now, it’s fair to say that people continue to exert caution in the lead up to Christmas. Nonetheless, we’re seeing less negativity year-on-year, which shows that there’s opportunity for leisure brands in the coming weeks.

Brands may still want to consider how different demographic groups are going to drive success this Christmas, as levels of concern and caution seem to be directly related to affluence. The findings show that the Established Affluence category appear to place the most importance on maintaining their food and beverage spending and socialising this year.

When taking age into account, we found that a surprisingly large pocket of younger respondents actually prefer New Year’s Eve to Christmas Day as a celebration. So, this could be something to consider when rolling out engagement strategies post-Christmas.

Apply these insights to your consumers and stay in the loop as you strategise

We work with a range of market-leading brands in the leisure industry, helping them to identify, understand and locate their customer base to drive value for their businesses and inform successful estate optimisation and growth. If any of our demographic or location-focused data is of interest to you, or if you’d like to dive deeper into our survey results, please get in touch to discuss this with us.