The travel industry is constantly developing and has to move in tandem with consumers changing attitudes and behaviours – and this makes it hard to know what next year will hold. Content marketing is a driving force in inspiring people to travel, and marketers are well adept to helping shape future trends. From eco-friendly travel to family holidays, let’s look at six trends to watch out for in 2020.
Families taking more frequent holidays
It’s estimated that roughly half of the UK and US workforce will be freelance by 2020 and there now are more children homeschooled, which helps contribute to an increase in family-holiday bookings. This should lead to families being in a position to take more frequent holidays. Ian Crawford, a representative of Holiday Hypermarket, says: ‘Parents will take advantage of the flexibility that freelancing and homeschooling offers, and will look to go on more holidays as a family. This presents holiday companies with a great opportunity to offer tailored family holidays.’
Homeware companies get involved
In an unforeseen but clever move, homeware brands are now getting involved in the travel industry by opening hotels. One of the first to do this is Made.com, which opened its own MADE hotel in Manhattan in 2017 and a boutique Boathouse hotel in London in 2018. The success of the two will pave way for more homeware businesses to open their own hotels – and giving the chance to showcase their products to customers.
Personal fulfilment travel
People are now seeing travel having a level of personal fulfilment – a recent survey showed that more than half of respondents said that their trip taught them valuable life skills. People are now wanting to experience a level of personal fulfilment when they travel and are often wanting to learn life skills and experience the local culture. Couple this with an increase in interest for volunteering, personal fulfilment while travelling will be something people look for and should be considered if you’re a travel company.
Solo-travel-friendly airports
As the number of solo travellers increases, airports have begun to find ways to make passenger journeys easier. Dublin Airport discovered that the majority of passengers coming through the airport were solo travellers, and decided to find an initiative that would make solo travel easier – Bus & Fly. As the solo travel segment gets bigger, airports, holiday suppliers, hotels and more can find their own ways to serve this portion of travellers better.
Get social while solo travelling
Although solo travel has been on the rise, it can be quite lonely – this is because finding good, cheap accommodation such as hostels and Airbnbs often means having to stay outside city centres. WeLive (a sister company of WeWork) now has apartments aimed at connecting solo travellers with each other through co-living, joint activities and relaxing common areas. You can stay there for a couple of nights or even a couple of months – the focus is on creating a social atmosphere.
Sustainable travellers
With more travellers wanting to make more sustainable travel decisions, travel-related businesses will want to keep this in mind. The majority of travellers have indicated that this motivation will have an impact on how they travel, so the industry will need to align themselves with this viewpoint. If not, there could be tough times ahead for those not willing to keep up with the growing trend of eco-friendly travel.
As traveller attitudes and behaviour and the global environment changes, it’s key for the travel industry to keep up. These five travel trends to watch out for are some of the largest, but only time will tell if there are any others to be wary of.
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