Hmmmm … some of these are sensible, such as multi-generational family travel. Some families have not been together much – or at all – for up to 3 years – and rather than visit each other’s homes, they are taking combined family travel trips with multiple families. Makes sense.
The 15 Travel Trends That Will Define 2023 (msn.com)
Other trends are bizarre virtue signaling stupidity, such as “eco-luxury’ travel where you pretend you care about climate change. Another is to turn the trip into “climate education” (seriously) – like traveling to Iceland to learn about glaciers (face palm moment).
There’s also “cowboy-cations” – staying in cabins on western ranches (I live in the inland NW in a high desert ranching area so, um, ok), plus a lot of “new age” style travel.
Many who travel no longer seek to learn about the history, culture, habits of the destination they are visiting – but are instead looking to be entertained (zip-line and other “active sports” attractions), and often treated in luxury. How much people are willing to pay is variable as well – we’ve been calculating overall trip costs as a “cost per day”. This includes airfare to/from, local transportation, accommodations, a food budget, and attraction entry fees. So far, for Europe travel, we’ve found $300 for 2 people per day is the minimum for a lower cost country visit – keeping in mind, our airfares are high because (a) we live in the US west, and (b) we must fly through a small airport with transfer connections which adds many hundreds of $s to each airfare. For more expensive countries, the price may be $500/day for two people. The days of affordable travel may be behind us, unfortunately.
A majority of people say their travel destinations are inspired by contemporary television shows (including Netflix, Amazon Prime). Consequently, there is an upsurge in travel to New Zealand because of the popularity of Amazon’s The Rings of Power streaming television series. In fact, the survey says more people now select travel destinations based on television programming than socia media. Not long ago, the majority of travel was inspired by posts people saw on social media.