This week I’m looking at Five Travel Trends for 2025, and how elements of those trends have percolated up from larger society shifts today. That spill-over has implications across many product and service categories for marketers. But first up, the five travel trends…
5 Travel Trends for 2025
1. SKI Trips. Where SKI stands for “Spend Kids Inheritance”
And you thought I was talking about hitting the slopes. Was that a chuckle I just heard collectively from anyone over 60? According to research this is a thing. 49% of baby boomers would rather spend money on a trip of a lifetime in 2025 than leave inheritance to their children. What’s thought to be behind this is a hang-over from post-pandemic times. After being stuck for two years, the attitude is “just go because you never know what is going to happen.”
2. Solo travel more mainstream
Research shows that 62% of Americans plan to take 2-5 solo trips within the next year. Solo travel was almost evenly divided between genders, which surprised me a little. But digging deeper it started to make more sense. The survey noted that women tend to be more curious and intrepid in their solo travel. Men tend to go solo to places they are familiar with – golf, or somewhere they have been before. Cruise ships are catching up with this trend dedicating solo cabins. And many adventure tours are finding ways to lesson or eliminate the single supplement charge.
3. Emerging destinations are having a moment
Europe is still big of course, but lesser known areas within the continent are being sought out, as are previously completely off the radar countries like Cameroon, Lithuania, Fiji, Paraguay and Kazakhstan. The driving force here is travelers are looking to avoid over tourism and crowding frustrations at more popular destinations.
4. Slow travel
The notion of immersion into local culture over an extended period of time is where this one is coming from. This is thought to be in response to traditional 1 or 2 week holiday restrictions becoming more lenient with remote work options. But the trend is also being fed by two age groups in particular – young and single travelers, and those early into “work optional living” perhaps semi-retired, but still engaged with work outside of extended travel time periods.
5. Soft travel
This is a travel experience that puts well-being first. It’s about simplicity, spontaneity, and avoiding pre-planning. It’s about putting the phone away and savoring a day that simply unfolds. This is often combined with staying somewhere untouched, owned by locals, where you can learn about the local culture. Elements of this trend start to overlap with slow travel too. This is thought to be in response to past frustrations with travel disruption, delays, cancelations and over-crowding. But it is also being driven by the desire for well-being to be considered at the top of the list when planning travel.
What do these 5 trends say about society in general?
Trends usually percolate up from something larger happening in society. External events drive change. We can also see how drivers based on demographics, economics, and technology can come into play. These five travel trends are a response to three over-riding themes. And from these it’s easy to see how there could be different drivers and impacts across industries far beyond travel.
Simplicity, selfishness and living in the moment
Like it or not, selfishness and living in the moment are all around us, as is the desire for simplicity in the face of disruption and technological advancement at a pace we’ve not seen before.
1. Living in the moment
People are not taking their future for granted. With a lot of unknowns in our world right now – political shifts, wars, climate change, consumers are now less apt to squander the present for future opportunities.
2. Selfishness
Spending your kid’s future inheritance, traveling by yourself, and a focus on the individual reflected in the self-care of soft travel are all indicative of this. While these travel trends are driven by broad reasons, at the core there is an element of selfishness at play here.
3. A desire for simplicity
We’ve been through a lot the last 4 years and the pandemic took its toll on mental health. But during this time so many things seems to be moving faster or are being disrupted – AI, digital media, political changes, wars to name just a few. There’s a desire to escape to a simpler time, to roll back the clock.
As a marketer what can we do with SIMPLICITY, SELFISHNESS and LIVING IN THE MOMENT? Lots. Picking up on these themes as intrinsic drivers in your copy to promote any number of products could be quite beneficial.
Putting these trends to work in your marketing
Simplicity – promote the ease of use, ease of access or set up. Simplicity can also be tied to nostalgia and times when life seemed simpler, and perhaps kinder in general.
Selfishness – rather than framed from the negative angle, make it about the value in self-care, personal self-worth, making it OK to make yourself #1, forging your own path, being an individual. These are the values which will resonate.
Live in the moment – giving permission to urgency, and giving permission to be selfish. Making it a strength to plan for tomorrow, but really live in the today.
Hopefully this gives you something to think about for your marketing moving into 2025. Whether you apply these observations directly to the travel industry or beyond, there’s something here for everyone!
Costa Rica
I’m looking forward to speaking at the upcoming CAPS National Conference in Costa Rica in early December. My presentation is called “What’s next?” and it will offer some insights about living your best life and career transition, based on interviews with 10 senior members of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, and National Speakers Association members.
I’ll be using their insights, while also sharing my own story about finding opportunity at the intersection of my two brands: fiveminutemarketing.com and Carryonqueen.com while slowly transitioning to more travel writing. I’m excited for the conference, as well as the week prior where I will be traveling extensively in Costa Rica capturing stories for my travel blog and external media.
The conference will be about sharing, giving back and connecting, but the week prior traveling will be unapologetically “living in the moment”, traveling around Costa Rica, chasing experiences and stories. It will be right on trend.
Thanks for a great article Mary. Sounds like self-care might be a theme in all of this and that the pandemic era is still haunting people. I wonder if the US economic boom and low interest rate return will spawn more of these changes? I hope so!
I do think self care is at play Gord. Great observation following the pandemic. Thanks for your thoughts on this. I totally missed seeing this comment earlier with the chaos which was Christmas holidays!