Maybe the humble postcard has been given a bit of a hard time of late as travellers shun the snail mail for the instant gratification of email and, increasingly, mobile services instead.
Recent research from O2 (funnily enough) found that only 16% of travellers regularly send a message home to friends, family and colleagues via a postcard.
Just under half  (46%) of the 2,000 Brits surveyed reckoned they have never sent a postcard before.
Luckily for postal services around the world, Generator Hostels has a different outcome to a survey it carried out with a smaller (but still decent enough) sample size of just over 500.
The Generator survey found that 28% of travellers (the survey focused on younger trippers, too) still send postcards home when travelling.
Despite the relatively bigger enthusiasm for the pen-card-stamp-postbox method, Facebook is the number one tool people use to stay in contact with others (73%).
This was followed by SMS text messages and phone calls (both 60%).
While it remains a bit of a mystery to some that masses of mobile owners are actually using Apple Facetime, it and services such as Skype find themselves popular with travellers for a bit of video contact.
Exactly a third of those polled said they used such tools, 5% ahead of those sending postcards.
NB: Egypt postcard image via Shutterstock.
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About Kevin May
interesting, well, an old mobile content service turned MMS picture into real postcard to be sent to anyones, anywhere. As much as I know the service is no longer available, it was based on kula exchange rules and gift economy studies http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6803-anthropologists-to-beat-gadget-rage.html
kind regards
In marketing and promotion, points are always earned for standing out from the crowd. Also, there is still something special about receiving something you can hold in your hand, attach to the refrigerator, pin above your desk, etc.
The advantages to digital communication are cost and effort.
Therefore, it would make sense for travel providers to test the benefits of giving paying guests one or two postage paid postcards to send to friends. It should deliver results equal to or better than other things they throw money at. I wonder how much Generator Hotels paid for the survey.
Glad to provide a free idea this Friday. If anyone uses it, I’d love to know what happens.
John Ribbler
I won’t use any service online for leisure purposes unless it’s free. See, I’m always willing to learn from Gen Y with their…expectations that everything that used to cost should now be miraculously free. I do so believe in…keeping up with times. Don’t you? So, as far as sending postcards, sure I will send a real postcard when it’s still far easier to communicate and send than some online tool that costs monetarily anyway and actually requires more steps and effort.