Skift is a travel industry analyst firm and one of our favorite sources on travel trends. Much of their content is behind a paywall, but they also produce free content (we subscribe to several of their newsletters).
We follow travel trends because of our interest in remote work and digital nomads. We're also active travelers, so we like travel trends.
They recently released their 2023 Travel Megatrends report. It covers 22 travel and travel industry trends.
Two trends jumped out at us.
Blended Travel Comes of Age covers the growth of travel that includes work and leisure. Key quote:
"The pandemic has led to a permanent change in how we live our lives between work and the personal. No longer just a trite category called "bleisure," the idea of blended traveling is front and center for every major travel company now. How new strategies focused on the blended traveler will emerge more clearly in 2023, as the industry recognizes the whole traveler holistically."
As the Skift chart below shows (click to enlarge), the share of business travel that includes a weekend has increased substantially since the start of the pandemic.
Because of the growth of blended travel, the entire travel industry is trying to figure out how to serve this market segment better.
The other trend that caught our eye is The Anywhere Traveler Puts New Destinations on the Map. Key quote:
"Millennials now surpass Boomers as the largest sector of the U.S. population, giving rise to a new class of "anywhere travelers." This group has a strong passion for experiences that take them to less obvious destinations. These habits, in their own way a new form of balancing overtourism, will put new destinations in focus."
We like this trend for several reasons.
First, It illustrates one set of impacts due to the aging of baby boomers. Aging boomers will have many economic and societal impacts, and these, in our opinion, are being underestimated.
And second, the Anywhere Traveler will increasingly be a remote worker or digital nomad.
The other 20 trends are also interesting, and the report is well worth reading for anyone interested in shifts and trends.
