Concrete Playground has been sorting through the noise to offer recommendations in travel, food and entertainment Down Under since launching in 2009. 

This week, the digital city guide made the natural transition to travel e-commerce with its new booking platform ‘Concrete Playground Trips’.

Powered by travel technology platform TRAVLR, CP Trips curates itineraries across Australia and New Zealand. Itineraries include flights, accommodation and experiences, from outdoor adventures to luxury getaways and city breaks.

Importantly, the platform has found its niche among online travel planning providers. Leveraging Concrete Playground’s existing audience of 1.2 million monthly young users, CP Trips is designed specifically for Gen Z and millennial voyagers.

“For 13 years, we have been the go-to destination for the best experiences on offer across Australia and New Zealand,” says Concrete Playground’s founder and director Rich Fogarty.

“So it’s only fitting that we take this one step further and actually offer these as bookable experiences to our dedicated audience.”

CP Trips takes advantage of post-pandemic wanderlust for users who have lost two years of their youth to lockdowns and border closures. To further investigate their expectations and the trends coming out of the pandemic, Concrete Playground conducted research in April 2022 among its Gen Z and millennial audiences.

Trends in youth travel

The research found 40 percent of respondents are planning to spend more than their pre-COVID spend. Relaxation is the most popular reason they’re splashing out on tourism. Thirty-one percent of Gen Z and 30 percent of millennial respondents say they’re booking trips to de-stress.

CP Trips has focused its attention on domestic travel, with 50 percent of New Zealanders and 53 percent of Australians planning to do more domestic travel this year compared to pre-pandemic.

Tasmania is top of the list for Australians to head to, and CP Trips has tailored itineraries accordingly with the likes of ‘Five Days of Hobart’s Finest’. 

It’s also digging up lesser known destinations for the 70 percent of respondents who would prefer to go off the beaten track, and the 74 percent who want to “live like a local”. 

Gathering booking data and creating new revenue streams

CP Trips expects to gain further insights from use of the booking platform. Its editorial team owns all of the first-party data generated from the bookings, which they say they will use to create experiences suited to their audience in the future.

And they’re not the first media company to integrate TRAVLR’s platform. Others include Discover Beyond for BBC Global News, Nickelodeon Travel, MTV Travel and 10Travlr for Paramount ANZ.

Concrete Playground says the platform allows them to retain audiences within their ecosystem for longer, generating an additional revenue stream and capturing behavioural data that would otherwise be lost to other distribution channels.

According to the company, this model benefits travellers, media companies and the travel industry, who have traditionally experienced a fragmented travel booking journey across multiple platforms and providers.