When business travellers were asked which hotel facilities were most important in their choice of hotel, 70% said the gym. But in reality, only 17% use the gym when they stay.
Consumer Behaviour
At Heathrow airport, 80% of noise complaints come from just 10 people.
Ask the right question. In a control study, usage declined dramatically when cashiers, instead of asking “how many plastic bags do you need?”, asked “would you need a plastic bag to carry your shopping home?” A clever tweak to change the default from taking a bag to not taking one.
The pandemic killed the ability to travel overseas, but not the desire to do so. In 2024 a record number of passengers travelled through Heathrow airport (83.9 million), making the need for a third runway greater than ever.
Forget the link between loneliness and the elderly – it’s highest among those in their 20s. It’s an odd finding, given this age group is more likely to have see friends, families and colleagues, but perhaps physical contact doesn’t guarantee emotional fulfillment. As writer David Robson points out, it’s perfectly possible to be living in a large household without feeling any of those people understand you.
If only virality was possible. In 2012, Yahoo researchers studying the spread of millions of online messages found that more than 90 percent of the messages didn’t diffuse at all. A tiny percentage was shared more than seven times, but nothing really went fully viral. The hard truth is that to reach lots of people, you have to actually reach them all at once (think Superbowl).
In fact they’re very rare. Panel data shows that the most common number of items purchased in a supermarket is one, with half of all trips buying 5 or fewer items.
According to a (rather old) longitudinal study, only 40% of people have stuck to their resolutions after 6 months. The issue is not knowing how to quit smoking or exercise more – it’s actually taking the steps to do so.
Yet, as John Long points out, we’re spending more on books than ever before. And before you ask, there has been close to zero book inflation in the same period (i.e. prices have stayed the same).
Received wisdom is that premium brands are bought by affluent consumers. In reality, affluent consumers are just as likely to buy mass market products as they are premium products – it’s not all about the money.
68% of people saying they bought a laundry brand in the past 3 months didn’t buy it at all (according to panel data).
Think again. Over 55s are leading the charge in alcohol and drugs usage, sexually transmitted diseases and arrests – a result of having more disposable income, looser social attitudes, and fewer childcare responsibilities.
What causes riots? A study of unrest in 50 African and Asian cities found that “peak levels of unrest occur in the upper 20s [degrees centigrade]”. In short, heat makes it nicer to be outside at night. It’s not a coincidence that the 2011 London riots started in peak August.
During Covid-19, the public was inundated with dates for lifting specific restrictions. To make things easy to follow, a developer created a handy timeline based on beer consumption (the number one priority for most of the UK).
There are 15% more same-sex couples in US places that had gold rushes (e.g. California) than counties that didn’t: rush counties were isolated, mostly uninhabited and lacked strong formal institutions, which helped shaping pro-LGBT attitudes.