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Inland Empire Wealth Study

Activities, Interests and Opinions (AIO)

Like previous surveys, the 2007 Wealth Study included several questions aimed at understanding how the affluent in the Inland Empire spend their time. Specific questions included viewing, reading and listening habits, preferred recreational and cultural activities, discretionary spending habits, Internet use and number of vacations taken per year.

Activities Snapshot

2007

2005

Enjoy golf

49.0%

45.0%

Attend theater performances

49.3

33.9

Read the Los Angeles Times

38.9

47.3

Read The Press-Enterprise

31.5

36.0

Read a news magazine

28.7

20.3

Take three or more vacations per year

49.4

46.4

Use the Internet at least one hour per week

86.0

n/a

Use the Internet six to ten hours per week

26.7

n/a

Keep up with family and friends via the Internet

68.7

n/a

Use the Internet for personal growth and learning

36.4

n/a

Visit MSN.com

38.2

n/a

Activities
Participants in the Wealth Study are an active group of seniors regularly involved in an average of 5.8 cultural or recreational activities. Women were slightly more active than men (6.1 vs. 5.7).

Travel ranked at the top of the list for preferred activities by both men and women with over 85% of respondents indicating they travel regularly. This correlated with the preference for reading travel-related magazines (47%), making this category the most popular. Half of the respondents take three or more weeklong vacations per year, a similar percentage to data from 2005 and an increase from 38% in 2003.

Other preferred activities included reading (75%), attending movies (54%), playing golf (49%), attending theater performances (49%), shopping (46%), sporting events (45%) and religious participation (43%). There were some activity preferences by gender. Women were more apt to participate in charity events, shopping, theater and religious functions. Men were more apt to attend museums and sporting events.

Age also plays a factor in activities. The average number of activities does not vary significantly by age group, however there were differences in activity preferences. Younger participants, those up to age 60, were more interested in out-of-home activities (zoos, movies, shopping, boating and sporting events). Respondents between 61 and 70 showed more interest in attending theater performances and boating than otherwise expected. Respondents 71 and older showed less preference for more physical activities such as boating and attending zoos.

Discretionary Spending
New to the 2007 survey were questions regarding levels of involvement in areas of discretionary spending. Respondents were asked to rate their level of involvement on a scale of 0 (no involvement) to 3 (highly involved). As was seen in an earlier discussion, travel received the highest average involvement
score at 2.0. Dining followed closely at 1.9. Home improvement and charities scored an average of 1.6. Receiving the lowest involvement scores were collecting, personal care (plastic surgery, spas, etc.), gambling and couture fashion. This could be an artifact of the percentage of men responding to the 2007 survey. Men were more involved in the areas of autos, boats and electronics. Women were more interested in fashion and charitable giving.

Level of Involvement With Spending on Discretionary Activities

Activity

Average

Travel

2.01

Dining

1.87

Home Improvement

1.62

Charities

1.56

Autos, boats, etc.

1.41

Sports

1.41

Electronics

1.35

Entertaining

1.34

Collecting

0.86

Personal Care

0.53

Gambling

0.49

High Fashion

0.40

Scaled from 0 (no involvement) to 3 (highly involved)

Media Habits

Radio

 

Listen to the radio
Preferred Formats:

90%

News/talk

60%

Oldies

44

Classical

33

Country

30

Public radio

28

 

 

Television

 

Watch television
Preferred Formats:

98%

News programming

74%

Sports

70

Documentaries

54

Dramas

51

Business and financial

42

 

 

Newspapers

 

Read newspaper at least once per week
Preferred Newspapers:

94%

Los Angeles Times

39%

The Desert Sun

35

The Press-Enterprise

32

Wall Street Journal

15

 

 

Magazines

 

Read a magazine on a regular basis
Preferred Formats:

92%

Travel

47%

Business and financial

42

Sports

33

News

29

Internet Usage
Questions regarding online activities were expanded significantly in the 2007 survey. Approximately nine out of ten affluent respondents spend at least one hour per week on the Internet. One-third of the respondents spend 11 or more hours online per week. Age is inversely associated with Internet use. With respondents up to age 60, over half are heavy users (11 or more hours) compared to less than 30% of those older than 60.

Household income is associated with Internet usage. Respondents with incomes less than $100,000 were more apt to be non-users of the Internet (46% vs. 32%). Those in this income group were also less likely than expected to use the Internet for news (25% vs. 32%), work (20% vs. 32%) and online investing (23% vs. 32%). Respondents with incomes above $200,000 were more likely than expected to use the Internet for work (32% vs. 23%) and online investing (28% vs. 23%).

Typical reasons for engaging the Internet included keeping up with family and friends (69%), personal growth and learning (36%), online shopping (34%), online banking (34%), news (31%), entertainment (28%) and online investing (26%). Male respondents typically visit more Web sites than female counterparts. MSN.com is accessed by 38% of respondents making it the most utilized site. Yahoo! Finance was accessed by 30% of respondents, followed by Google Finance (21%), MarketWatch.com (16%) and WSJ.com (15%).


The Glencrest Inland Empire Wealth Study 2007 was administered during February and March of 2007. Data collection for the study was conducted by Wilkin Guge Marketing, an independent marketing and research firm located in Ontario, California. Data analysis was conducted by Glencrest Investment Advisors, Inc. and Wilkin Guge Marketing. The identities of respondents will be kept confidential.

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