2024's Top Travel Trends have been unveiled.
We bring you the leading trends impacting the Irish hospitality market.
With huge shifts in climate and in our post-Pandemic world, travellers have had the opportunity to stop; think and refine how they wish to spend their time; money and annual leave and all the indications are that 2024 is about to bring a noticeable swerve in holiday destinations and a year of meaningful travel immersed in wellness experiences.
With 2023 officially becoming the hottest year on record, travellers are carefully rethinking their traditional travel plans. They are putting what’s important to them front and centre of their plans, valuing experiences that leave a positive impact, time spent with loved ones and wellness moments that last well after checkout.
Here are five of the Top Travel Trends for 2024 tipped by Conde Nast Traveller:
1. Coolcationing
For the majority of people, holidays used to be about a block of one to weeks following the sun and hitting the sand, in popular destinations like Bali resorts or Dubai Marina. With the intense, record-breaking temperatures of recent years, however, many are considering traveling in the opposite direction: booking ‘coolcations’ in temperate destinations which also benefit from being less crowded.
Ireland, with our refreshingly breezy temperate climate, has a huge opportunity to tap into a new market of ‘Coolcationers’ by promoting our offering to Europeans and those further afield who wish to escape the ever more regular heatwaves on a short break to Ireland.
A survey for luxe travel network Virtuoso found that 82% of its clients are considering destinations with more moderate weather in 2024.
2. Off Peak is On Trend
There’s been a dramatic recent increase in shoulder season travel to Europe’s most popular destinations (particularly France, Spain, the UK, and Italy), which is set to continue in 2024.
A combination of social, economic, and environmental factors is driving this trend into 2024. The cost of living crisis means a heightened focus on value. For 62% of respondents to Booking.com’s 2024 travel trends survey, this is a limiting factor for 2024 travel planning, so much so that 47% of respondents are even willing to take children out of school for cheaper off-peak travel.
Shoulder season travel is also becoming more attractive due to rising temperatures, and more feasible due to flexible working.
3. Silent travel
In an age of overstimulation, silence might be just what we need from our travels in 2024. Offering a chance to restore and reset, silent travel represents a more mindful kind of trip, one that doesn’t leave you needing a holiday to recover from your holiday. Silent meditation retreats are an increasingly popular wellness trend, but silent travel also encompasses secluded nature resorts, sleep retreats, quiet hotels, silent walking tours and even silent disco and concert experiences.
Why will it matter in 2024? Saturated with stress and screen time, many of us are looking for ways to disconnect. The silent walking trend that recently took TikTok by storm reflects a growing impulse to escape the noise of our tech-fueled lives and embrace the quiet, with promising implications for wellbeing. One 2015 study suggests silence may help to stimulate brain development, while another found that two minutes of silence during or after relaxing music increased the music's calming effects. With the Global Wellness Institute forecasting a 21% increase in wellness tourism in the next two years, what better counter to the chaos of our always-on lives than silence? Silent travel is also part of a move towards more sustainable tourism. Quiet Parks International, for example, offers unique nature experiences in dedicated quiet spaces, reducing noise pollution for the surrounding wildlife.
4. Wellness & Biohacking
Since the pandemic, feeling good trumps looking good. Longevity is the latest wellness buzzword thanks to the hit Netflix documentary Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. Now, the science of extending life and optimizing health has become the focus at hotels. The secret to longevity may be as easy as taking more holidays.
5. Private group travel
What’s the trend? The post-pandemic desire to gather friends or family and embark on a shared holiday experience shows no sign of abating. In fact, it’s on the increase in luxury travel, as people appreciate the benefits and savor the moment, from three-generation family groups to 50-something empty-nesters keen to rekindle life-long friendships. Just don’t take Succession’s family outing to Tuscany as a role model.
Why will it matter in 2024? “While some predicted group travel would peak post-pandemic, we’ve seen it have a lasting, positive impact with private group bookings continuing to be a dominant trend,” says Tom Marchant of Black Tomato, for whom group travel now accounts for 30% of bookings. The company has just launched its See You in the Moment series to cater for the demand. It uses a mood board of over 35 experiences themed around key flash points, from The Meal (a backcountry feast served on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, for example) to The Challenge (rafting down the Apurímac in Peru, perhaps), all designed to create lasting memories. For Scott Williams, meanwhile, multi-generational travelers are thinking big: Why take one house when you can take a whole estate, such as Meli on Paxos in the Greek Islands, which sleeps 17?
Empty-nesters are also a growing force, with groups of couples in their 50s to 70s hiring villas in the shoulder season for cultural weeks away, and all-female groups—mainly aged between 50 and 65—who are proactive in wanting to renew long-term friendships. “We had one repeat group that included several cancer survivors,” says Sarah-Leigh Shenton at Red Savannah. “A hammam afternoon in Turkey was a deeply bonding experience and they’ve since traveled to Jordan and Sicily together.” —Rick Jordan
6. Skip-gen travel
What’s the trend? With the global ratio of living grandparents to grandchildren higher than ever and with people in their latter years enjoying better health has led to the emergence of a new niche market, Skip-Gen Travel. This new phenomenon describes when grandparents holiday with grandchildren, in other words, ‘skipping’ a generation. This is a small but noticeable trend emerging but is becoming more established in the US luxury market.
