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How will we travel the world in 2050?

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Senior Lecturer in Natural and Built Environment, Sheffield Hallam University

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Research Associate in Sustainable Urban Environments, Glasgow Caledonian University

Disclosure statement

Dr Keith Baker is a Researcher at the Built Environment Asset Management (BEAM) Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University; a Co-founder of the Energy Poverty Research initiative; an active member of the 'think and do' tank, Common Weal; and a volunteer for Scientists for Global Responsibility.

John Grant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Sheffield Hallam University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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If the aviation industry was a country, it would rank among the world’s top ten emitters of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Aviation emissions have risen by 70% since 2005 and as demand increases in rich and poorer countries, they’re forecast to increase by between 300% and 700% by 2050.

Arresting this incline will be the first step towards a sustainable system of international travel – but how could it be done? A frequent flyer tax would be relatively easy to implement but it could mean the richest can still afford to fly while the poorest are priced out.

Most plane passengers are already relatively wealthy. Only 18% of the world’s population have ever flown and in any given year, an elite 3% of the world flies. That’s about 230m people, but flights carried four billion passengers in 2017. So the average flyer takes eight return flights and aeroplanes rack up seven trillion air miles each year .

Rationing might be a fairer and more effective alternative.

Read more: We can't expand airports after declaring a climate emergency – let's shift to low-carbon transport instead

Flight rationing

Every person could be allocated a maximum number of “flight kilometres” each year. This allowance would increase the longer a person abstained from flying. The first year allocation would be 500km, then the following year it would be 1,000km and would double every year. It would take seven years to accumulate enough to fly from the UK to Australia and back.

Buying a ticket for a flight of any distance would reset the allocation rate to year one, but the kilometres saved in a “flight bank” could still be used. Anyone not travelling could exchange their flight kilometres for money, but anyone exceeding their ration could be fined or banned from flying for some time.

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Expanded and improved high-speed rail lines could also replace many flights. These journeys could be as fast as aeroplanes in some instances and emit 90% less CO₂ . Solar-powered train journeys are already a reality in Australia. The Byron Bay Company uses solar panels on trains and platforms to power onboard batteries and exported 60,000kWh to the grid last year.

Coupling low-carbon train travel with flight rationing would limit emissions in the short term, but people are accustomed to travelling half the world in a matter of hours, often at relatively low cost. The demand won’t go away, so what could replace carbon-intensive air travel?

Electric aeroplanes

Most electric plane designs are grounded on the drawing board, but there are some flight-ready aircraft. The world’s first all-electric commercial airliner was unveiled in Paris in June 2019. The craft is called Alice and it carries nine passengers for up to 650 miles (1,040km) at 10,000ft (3,000 metres) at 276mph (440km/h) on a single charged battery. It’s expected to enter service in 2022.

The fossil fuel costs of small aircraft are about US$400 per 100 miles . For Alice, the costs are projected to be as little as US$8 for the same distance, and if the electricity is from renewable energy – perhaps generated by solar panels at the airport – then the plane could be zero-carbon.

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How much energy each battery can store is increasing rapidly . But there are also strategies which can make electric planes more efficient . Capacitors are lightweight batteries that can hold a huge charge but only for short periods. They could be used for takeoff – the largest energy requirement of a flight – then more traditional batteries could power the majority of the flight.

Innovation could deliver mass electric flight in the next few decades, but an alternative to fossil fuelled flight exists right now.

Bring back the zeppelin?

For as long as humans have taken to the skies we’ve had a low carbon alternative to burning vast amounts of fossil fuels to keep us up there – balloons. The Hindenburg disaster may have condemned the industry to relative obscurity for almost a century, but it has never really gone away.

The balloons of most modern airships are filled with helium rather than the explosive hydrogen used in the Hindenburg. Concentrated helium is lighter than air and when divided into gas sacks, the vessel can stay aloft if any are breached while propellers powered by flexible solar panels can help navigation.

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Extracting enough helium fuel will be energy-intensive and there’s a looming global shortage . Luckily, advances made since the Hindenburg now allow airships to fly on cylinders packed with hydrogen jet fuel, which is cheaper, lighter, and relatively abundant.

Using hydrogen for fuel has become a lot safer since the 1930s – so much so that it’s now being considered for use in the home . Unlike jet aircraft, once airships are aloft they don’t need lots of energy to keep them there. At that point, the energy costs become comparable with rail travel .

Airships won’t get passengers to their destinations very fast – the Hindenburg set the current record for a transatlantic crossing at just under 44 hours – but they do allow time to enjoy stunning vistas . Think of them instead as air cruises. In the romantic era of early commercial flight , airships were expected to become “ flying hotels ” that could accommodate dining rooms and ballroom dances.

Orbital rings

There’s one more option, but you might struggle to believe it’s possible within the next thirty years. Still, the materials needed to build it already exist. An orbital ring is a strong steel cable in orbit just above the atmosphere – 80km above Earth. It rotates, creating forces which try to make the ring fly apart into space, while gravity tries to pull it down to Earth.

If the ring is spun at the correct speed, the two forces balance one another, allowing it to rotate seemingly weightlessly. A “cuff” can be built around the cable which would hold itself in place, unmoving, by magnetic repulsion. The structure would be connected to the ground by cables, with an elevator giving access to the ring in less than an hour.

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Two Maglev train tracks – which use magnets to move trains along without friction – on the underside of the ring and another on the outside could transport passengers at incredible speeds, reaching the other side of the world in 45 minutes.

If these options sound unrealistic, then remember that our current course of expanding carbon-intensive air travel is unrealistic for avoiding catastrophic climate change. Bold ideas are one thing, we need radical action to revolutionise how we travel the world.

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How will we travel in the future?

May 1, 2011 • 3 min read

Thinking about how we might be travelling in 10, 20 or even 500 years is enough to make the mind melt. Will we still even be using planes (perhaps we'll be flying our cars from Seattle to Paris)? What if in 100 years we could teleport straight to our next holiday destination?

While we fantasise, engineers and designers all over the world are testing out what could become the vehicles of the future. Witness the just-launched prototype of the 'Superbus', described by CNN as the love child of a DeLorean and a stretch limo. You get the feeling some of them have been dreamt up while sitting in traffic jams, but these vehicles are often designed to be fast, fuel-efficient and, well, out-of-this-world.

Granted, some of them may never make it to our roads, skies or 'teleportation passageways', but it's fun envisioning what the future may hold.

SkyTran: a pod of your own

Currently being developed at NASA, SkyTran , which looks a bit like an upside down version of the monorail at Disney World, could be the future of city transportation. Said to move at 240km (150 miles) per hour and using only the amount of energy it takes to power two hairdryers, SkyTran carries passengers in personalised 'pods' using magnetic levitation tracks and is designed to have the passenger capacity of a 6-lane highway.

What we've been waiting for: flying cars

If you’ve seen Back to the Future , you’ve probably wanted your own flying car ever since. Well, we seem to be getting there. Chinese design students Pan Jiazhi, Zhu Wenxi and Lai Zexin have designed a super sleek solar-powered flying car they've called the 'YEE' that doesn't need a runway to take-off. But if you don't want to wait for the YEE to become a reality, check out the Transition ® Roadable Aircraft , created by US company Terrafugia . If you have about US$200,000 to spare - and have always coveted a plane you could park in your driveway - you could own this vehicle soon.

An electric mini-bus that's good in a jam

Catching the bus could be a whole lot cooler if this electric mini-bus was on the road. The Cameo , designed by Martin Pes , revolutionises the concept of a compact bus, carrying 32 passengers but being small and agile enough to get its way out of a traffic jam. Its electric motor and low weight mean not only can it be recharged in seconds while stopping for passengers, it’s also zero-emission.

Plane travel without the eco-guilt?

For travellers who hate the idea of what their air miles are doing to the environment, a solution could be on its way. NASA, with help from Boeing and other manufacturers are developing an ultra-efficient airplane that they hope to have flying commercially by 2025. Looking like something George Lucas may have had a hand in designing, these eco-planes will apparently use a 70% more efficient fuel mixture that will leave you laughing with eco-friendliness (...the mixture is 75% nitrous-oxide).

An eco-taxi that turns into a mini-train

Ever been to a big city like Manhattan and wondered how bad all the taxis are for the environment and traffic jams? Enter the eco-taxi or, as Tanzanian designer Walter Robert has dubbed it, the 'Renault Runner' . Among others things, this zero-emission future 'taxi system' features transparent solar panel windows and a wireless system that allows individual taxis to form a train. Plus, they look like lunar buggies and who doesn't want to get picked up by one of them?

If you want to think about how far we've come already, read Lonely Planet's article: ' Travel then and now - oh how you've changed '.

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What next for travel and tourism? Here's what the experts say

In many countries, more than 80% of travel and tourism spending actually comes from the domestic market.

In many countries, more than 80% of travel and tourism spending actually comes from the domestic market. Image:  Unsplash/Surface

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Stay up to date:, travel and tourism.

  • In 2020 alone, the travel and tourism sector lost $4.5 trillion and 62 million jobs globally.
  • But as the world recovers from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, travel and tourism can bounce back as an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient sector.
  • Two experts highlight some of the key transformations in the sector going forward during the World Economic Forum's Our World in Transformation series.

The Travel & Tourism sector was one of the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving not only companies but also tourism-driven economies severely affected by shutdowns, travel restrictions and the disappearance of international travel.

In 2020 alone, the sector lost $4.5 trillion and 62 million jobs, impacting the living standards and well-being of communities across the globe. Moreover, the halt in international travel gave both leisure and business travellers the chance to consider the impact of their choices on the climate and environment.

Amid shifting demand dynamics and future opportunities and risks, a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient travel and tourism sector can be - and needs to be - built.

The World Economic Forum's Travel & Tourism Development Index 2021 finds that embedding inclusivity, sustainability and resilience into the travel and tourism sector as it recovers, will ensure it can continue to be a driver of global connectivity, peace and economic and social progress.

We spoke to Sandra Carvao , Chief of Market Intelligence and Competitiveness at the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), and Liz Ortiguera , CEO of the Pacific Asia Travel Association in Thailand (PATA), and asked them to highlight some of the key areas of risk and opportunity in the sector during an episode of the World Economic Forum's Our World in Transformation series.

Have you read?

Travel & tourism development index 2021: rebuilding for a sustainable and resilient future, towards resilience and sustainability: travel and tourism development recovery, how can we really achieve sustainability in the travel sector, what are some of the top global trends you're witnessing currently in the travel and tourism sector.

Liz Ortiguera: Given the extended lockdown that we had on travel with the pandemic, vacation for friends and relatives (VFR) is now a high priority for people who haven’t been in touch for a long time thanks to the pandemic. So, people are reconnecting. And that kind of links to the second trend, which is multi-purpose or blended travel. Never before, particularly now that we can connect digitally through Zoom, has the ability to work from anywhere enabled travellers to cover multiple purposes, like visits with friends and multiple business trips. So, we'll find that the duration of travel and the length of stay is longer. And third is the continued high focus on safety and wellness which is top of mind for travellers due to the pandemic. All travel is wellness-related now.

Sandra Carvao: I think there is a bigger concern with sustainability, which is very welcome in our industry. Consumers, particularly the younger generation, are much more aware of the impact they have, not only on the environment but also socially and on the communities they live in. We've also seen an increase in expenditure per trip, so I think people are very eager to go outside, and they're staying longer. And on the other side, I think there are some challenges: we’re seeing a rise in late bookings because restrictions can change at short notice and that’s having an impact on the decisions of travellers. This is putting pressure on the industry in terms of planning and anticipating fluctuations in demand.

Social media surveys have shown that travellers who have immersive experiences are more likely to post about them, which is good for the industry.

What is community-based tourism and why is it important?

Sandra Carvao: One of the positive impacts of the pandemic is that people are looking for local experiences and are spending more time with communities. So, the concept of community-based tourism is obviously one that puts the community at the core of every development, ensuring that it's engaged and empowered and that it benefits. At the UNWTO, we worked with the G20 and the Saudi presidency back in 2020 and produced a framework for tourism development in communities, which states that communities need to be part of the planning and management of tourism activities. We need to go beyond traditional definitions of community to a point where the industry leans on partnerships between the public and private sectors and communities.

Liz Ortiguera: In July 2022, PATA is hosting a destination-marketing forum and one of the key themes is community-based tourism. The purpose is really to put the community and authenticity-in-culture activities at the heart of the travel experience. There are benefits for all stakeholders. One is that travellers can have an authentic experience. They're not in overcrowded, touristic locations and they experience something new and unique within the community. These experiences are designed in partnership with communities who get the benefit of financial inclusion, and if activities are designed properly, the reinforcement of their cultural heritage. Governments also engage in economic development more broadly across countries. Another interesting trend is creative tourism, which means you create an experience for tourists to participate in, like a dance lesson, or a cooking lesson. Social media surveys have shown that travellers who have these kinds of immersive experiences are more likely to post about them online and that's good for the industry.

It is important to emphasize that virtual experiences, while they are a fun tool, can never replace visiting a destination.

How is technology and innovation helping to leverage cultural resources?

Sandra Carvao: One interesting trend we’re seeing is that more and more people are booking trips directly, so communities need to be supported to digitize their systems. Education and upskilling of communities are important so that they can leverage digital platforms to market themselves. From the tourists’ perspective, it is important to emphasize that virtual experiences, while they are a fun tool, can never replace visiting a destination.

Liz Ortiguera: People have been living virtually for more than two years. Amazing innovations have emerged, such as virtual reality and augmented reality, and all kinds of applications and tools. But the important thing is the experience. The destination. Real-world experiences need to remain front and centre. Technology tools should be viewed as enablers and not the core experience. And when it comes to staff, technology can really democratize education. There’s an opportunity to mobilize a mobile-first approach for those who are on the frontlines, or out in the field, and can’t easily access computers, but need to get real-time information.

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How is the sector dealing with labour shortages and re-employment of the workforce?

Liz Ortiguera: Labour shortages are much more dynamic in North America and in Europe. But it’s having a knock-on effect on Asia. If, for example, their air carriers are limited by staff and they have to cancel flights, which we're very much seeing out of Europe, seating capacity then becomes a limiting factor in the recovery of Asia Pacific. That's the main constraint right now. And compounding that is the rising price of fuel. But people in the Asia Pacific are keen to get reemployed.

Sandra Carvao: Labour shortages are a priority for the sector in countries around the world. Many workers left the sector during the pandemic and the uncertainty that surrounded the measures taken to contain it left many people unsure of whether the sector would recover. It is time to address things like conditions, scheduling, and work/life balance, all things which have been top of mind for workers during the pandemic. As the sector recovers, we need time to bring new hires on board and to train them to take over where those who switched jobs left off.

Are we seeing a growing trend towards domestic tourism?

Sandra Carvao: We’re talking about 9 billion people travelling within their own countries. And in many countries, for example in Germany, more than 80% of the tourism spending actually comes from the domestic market, similarly in countries like Spain and even smaller economies. Whenever it's possible to travel again, domestic markets tend to be more resilient. They kick off first mostly due to perceptions of safety and security issues. As the world economy recovers from the pandemic, there is a good opportunity for nations to rethink their strategy, look at the domestic market in a different way, and leverage different products for domestic tourists.

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When it comes to sustainable tourism, how quickly could we mainstream eco-friendly modes of transportation?

Sandra Carvao: Transport is one of the key contributors to energy impacts and tourism. But it's also important that we look at the whole value chain. The UNWTO together with the One Planet Sustainable Tourism Programme just launched the Glasgow Declaration, which includes green commitments from destinations and companies. We’re seeing a strong movement in the airline industry to reduce emissions. But I think, obviously, technological developments will be very important. But it's also very important to look at market shifts. And we can't forget small islands and developing states that rely on long-haul air travel. It’s important to make sure that we invest in making the problem much less impactful.

Liz Ortiguera: 'Travel and tourism' is such a broad encompassing term that it’s not fair to call it an industry: it is actually a sector of many industries. The pandemic taught us how broad the impact of the sector is in terms of sustainability. There's a big movement in terms of destination resilience, which is the foundation for achieving sustainability in the journey to net-zero. We now have standards to mitigate that impact including meetings-and-events (MIE) standards and standards for tour operators. There are multiple areas within our industry where progress is being made. And I'm really encouraged by the fact that there is such a focus not just within the sector but also among consumers.

This interview was first done at the World Economic Forum's studios in Geneva as part of 'Our World in Transformation' - a live interactive event series for our digital members. To watch all the episodes and join future sessions, please subscribe here .

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The biggest travel trends for 2024

By Sarah Allard

Glamorous train travel

If 2022 was all about a return to travel, then 2023 was the year we went further than ever before. Travellers took to the skies, rails, roads and seas to tick off major bucket-list moments, with Arctic adventures, luxury yacht cruises and even the first tourist trip into space .

In 2024, travellers will be putting what’s important to them front and centre of their plans, valuing deeper experiences that leave a positive impact, time spent with loved ones and wellness moments that last well after checkout. We’ll be choosing destinations carefully, slowing it down to enjoy the silence and the stars, indulging in our love of food in new and interesting places, and immersing ourselves in wellness practices that help us live longer.

These are the 20 travel trends likely to guide how we see the world in 2024.

Astro tourism

Astro tourism

1. Astro tourism

What’s the trend? Astronomy, of course, is a field of study that has been around since the dawn of civilisation, and the act of gazing up at the stars has long been a source of soul-soothing wonder. Today, the more society falls deeper into an ever-expanding virtual world, the more we feel a need to broaden our horizons in the real universe. Astro tourism, or star bathing, is the act of travelling with the aim of catching sight of astronomical phenomena – disappearing to lands devoid of any pollution, crowds and traffic, where we can focus solely on the skies above and while away hours gazing at the stars, planets and constellations overhead.

Why will it matter in 2024? Increasingly, wellness-centric hotels and spas are creating the space for guests to gaze upwards, watching for comets, spying constellations and identifying patterns in the glittering expanse. In the UK, Port Lympne has opened the Lookout Bubble, a glass dome allowing guests to sprawl out on king-sized beds and study the stars. Further east on the Arabian Gulf, Zulal Wellness Resort is surrounded by the expanse of the Qatari desert – the ultimate destination for pollution-free astromancy, with dedicated workshops and stargazing sessions for families and children looking to learn more about the cosmos. Safari company Desert & Delta organises trips for travellers looking to soak up the stars across Botswana and Namibia, where guests can sleep in tents at remote locations such as the Makgadikgadi Pans, one of the world’s largest salt flats, and spend nights with uninterrupted star vistas. Similarly, Tswalu is a South African safari camp with star beds set on a sleep-out deck in the Korannaberg mountains. And 2024 happens to be a big year, astronomy-wise, from mind-boggling eclipses to spectacular meteor showers – plus, scientists are predicting the best displays of the northern lights in 20 years, according to the Guardian , as we approach the next solar maximum (the sun’s peak of its 11-year activity cycle). Olivia Morelli

2. Eco diving

What’s the trend? A rise in divers choosing their travel destinations based on the sustainability of the scuba centres, and having a more positive, regenerative impact on the ocean once there.

Why will it matter in 2024? In 2022, UK marine ecology charity The Reef-World Foundation found that 95 per cent of divers wanted to book with sustainable operators, but struggled to do so. In response to this, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (Padi) launched its Eco Center accreditation on World Earth Day (22 April) 2023, with the United Nations Environment Program and Reef-World itself. The steps required to earn this green status are so rigorous – including sharing evidence of conservation activities and a real reduction in environmental footprint – that Padi advised operators to allow at least 12 months to hit the criteria, taking us to… Earth Day 2024. After an initial figure of just 11 worldwide, there are now 100, and Padi has set a goal to reach 660 by 2030 – a 10th of its membership. “South East Asia currently has the highest density (more than 20), along with the Caribbean ,” says Julie Andersen of Padi. So what does this mean for divers and their trips? “The type of conservation work done and reported on depends on the Eco Center,” Andersen explains. “Those in the Caribbean offer coral replanting programmes, key for regenerating coastlines. In Baja, Mexico , they’ve developed citizen science courses, collecting data for whale conservation.” There are also a number of new Padi courses being launched for any diver to take anywhere, including the Global Shark and Ray Census in August 2024, as well as the relaunch of the Coral Reef Conservation Specialty course before December. Becky Lucas

3. Home swapping

What’s the trend? Increasingly, discerning travellers are looking to stay away for longer stretches, while the rise of remote jobs post-pandemic means that working and living abroad has never been more appealing. The catch? Forking out on hefty accommodation fees while you’re at it. Enter home swapping: the perfect solution to guarantee yourself a (free) home abroad while you offer up your own in exchange – for weeks or even months at a time.

Why will it matter in 2024? As the cost of holidaying continues to climb, home swapping is an affordable alternative to splashing out on expensive hotels or Airbnbs. And while the concepts of couch surfing and house exchanges have existed for decades, several slick new platforms are redefining what home swapping looks like today. Twin City, which operates in cities as far-flung as Lisbon and Los Angeles , has curated a community of 1,100 plus carefully vetted users in just eight months. For an annual subscription fee of £150, members can find Twins to connect with through the platform, and are encouraged to exchange local recommendations for their city as well as their homes, enabling members to feel as if they’re swapping with a trusted friend rather than a stranger. Meanwhile, Kindred, a home-swapping platform where members rack ​​up credits for each night that they exchange homes, raised $15 million in funding this year to expand operations across the USA and Europe, and currently has 10,000 plus homes in more than 50 cities. Members simply pay a cleaning and service fee for each stay, while the cost of the stay itself is free. Or skip out on membership fees entirely and head straight to TikTok, where Gen Z appears to be spearheading the home-swapping movement on social media. Inspired by cult film The Holiday , trending tags #houseswap and #homeswap have garnered more than 23 and 20 million views respectively, with users utilising the platform as a means to advertise their homes, discover like-minded peers to swap with and document their adventures along the way. Gina Jackson

4. Train stations are the new food destinations

What’s the trend? Train stations around the world are usually passed through as quickly as possible, having not been designed for commuters to stay and hang out. Nowadays, as travel delays increase and visitors want more local experiences, it pays for train stations to welcome travellers with shops, restaurants and bars for them to explore. In an effort to create a more dynamic visitor experience, historic train stations are being revamped, with bespoke food and drink offerings as an integral part of the redesign.

Why will it matter in 2024? As train stations are renovated to accommodate more travellers and update old infrastructure, local restaurants and bars are being added to attract more customers. In 2023, the new Moynihan Train Hall in New York City became home to The Irish Exit, a bar from the team behind the acclaimed Dead Rabbit, and Yono Sushi by trendy BondST, plus outposts of beloved NYC restaurants Pastrami Queen and Jacob’s Pickles, with Mexican hotspot La Esquina coming soon.  Platform 1 a new bar and restaurant that opened in November underneath Glasgow Central Station . The cave-like space, with its historic brick arches, serves street-food-style dishes and craft brews made in the on-site microbrewery, plus there’s an outdoor beer garden. As part of its renovation, Toronto’s Union Station launched Union Market in May 2023 with favourite local food retailers Manotas Organics, Chocolatta Brigadeiro’s, Patties Express and Kibo. Meanwhile, in Somerset, Castle Cary station is in the process of a revamp, with nearby hotel The Newt creating a creamery, cafe and co-working space, which is set to open in 2024. Also on tap for the next few years is the completed renovation of 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, with plans for a 20 per cent increase in concession space that will focus on local purveyors. Devorah Lev-Tov

5. Sports tourism

What’s the trend? No longer the domain of lads on tour keen to sink as many pints as possible with one eye on a football game, sports tourism has evolved in the past few years with a new generation – and type – of sports fan emerging thanks to glossy TV documentaries ( Formula 1: Drive to Survive , we’re looking at you). Now, we’re taking our fandom out of the house and following a host of different sports in destinations across the world, planning holidays that hinge around seeing games, races and other activities in exotic locales, and extending trips on either side to see the sights too.

Why will it matter in 2024? A little event known as the Olympic and Paralympic Games anchors the 2024 sports calendar. It kicks off in Paris in late July and runs until early September , during which time more than a million tourists are expected to check in across the French capital. The games have inspired city-wide projects such as the €1.4-billion clean-up of the Seine, which , all going well, will allow public swimming in the river for the first time in a century. Elsewhere, the Tour de France starts in Italy for the first time in 2024, with competitors speeding off in Florence before heading to Rimini on the Adriatic coast and then north to the Apennines through Emilia-Romagna. New bike routes in the area have been released by tour operators such as Ride International Tours and Ride Holidays for cycling enthusiasts keen to join in the fun. Sarah James

6. Coolcationing

What’s the trend? For the vast majority of folk, summer holidays used to be about following the sun, seeking the heat – watching the mercury climb and hitting the sands. With the intense, record-breaking temperatures of recent years, however, many are considering travelling in the opposite direction: booking "coolcations" in temperate destinations, which also benefit from being less crowded.

Why will it matter in 2024? Rising temperatures caused by the climate crisis have resulted in the hottest recorded summer in the UK – just over 40℃ in July 2022 – while 2023, with a sweltering summer in much of Mediterranean Europe, North America and China – is on track to be the hottest year ever. Little wonder that many travellers are thinking again before booking literal hotspots such as the South of France and Sicily in July or August. A survey for luxe travel network Virtuoso found that 82 per cent of its clients are considering destinations with more moderate weather in 2024. Destinations such as Iceland, Finland and Scotland, according to Intrepid Travel, along with Latvia, which is surging in popularity. “We’re seeing an increase in those holidaying further north,” says Andrea Godfrey of Regent Holidays. “Scandinavia and the Baltics are both getting noticed more: they offer a more pared-back style of holiday but have some lovely beaches, and forests and lakes for both relaxation and adventure activities.” Cooler temperatures are particularly well suited to family travel too. “We’re getting far more enquiries from families for destinations that offer summer sun but also respite from the high temperatures being experienced in beach resorts across the Med,” says Liddy Pleasants, founder of family specialist Stubborn Mule Travel. “Kayaking in Norway, with its midnight sun, for instance, and cycling or hiking in Slovenia, which is also very good value.” Time to ditch the SPF50… Rick Jordan

Gig tripping

Gig tripping

7. Gig tripping

What’s the trend? For years, athletes and wellness gurus were the big headliners at retreats. But rock stars are, well, the new rock stars of travel. Call it the Swift Effect. Destination concert business is up more than 50 per cent, led mostly by Taylor Swift, says Janel Carnero, a travel advisor at Embark Beyond. In the USA, tickets for Swift’s Eras Tour cost thousands and were still impossible to score. Music fans are realising they can pay less and have a more memorable experience by seeing their favourite pop icons perform in say, Amsterdam or Milan . Tours from performers such as Pearl Jam, U2, Doja Cat and Madonna will anchor trip itineraries, while music festivals (Glastonbury sold out in less than an hour) will be major catalysts for travel.

Why will it matter in 2024? New music festivals, including Untold in Romania's Cluj-Napoca, are introducing travellers to undiscovered destinations, says Alexandrea Padilha of Fischer Travel. And it’s no longer just about the music, says Carnero. “It’s the social aspect of sharing experiences with friends,” she adds. Hotels and travel companies have taken note and are creating the equivalent of backstage VIP experiences for guests. Global adventure collective Eleven has recently introduced Music with Eleven. The programme’s dedicated team of music-industry insiders (including Chris Funk, guitarist from the Decemberists) custom design itineraries that might include sitting in on a recording session at Flóki Studios, just outside the Arctic Circle at Deplar Farm in Iceland. And Rhythm & Sails hosts musicians on its catamarans. The company’s music director, Anders Beck of the jam band Greensky Bluegrass, curates the line-up of artists who perform sessions onboard and in ports as you island hop around the Caribbean . Jen Murphy

8. Resorts will help you biohack your health span

What’s the trend? Longevity is the latest wellness buzzword thanks to best-selling books such as  Outlive  and the hit Netflix documentary  Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones . Between 2021 and 2022, venture-capital investment in longevity clinics more than doubled from $27 million to $57 million globally, according to analysis from longevity research and media company Longevity.Technology. Now, the science of extending life and optimising health has become the focus at hotels. Blue Zones retreats are the new boot camps and even sybaritic resorts are offering the latest biohacks. Poolside vitamin IV anyone?

Why will it matter in 2024? Since the pandemic, feeling good trumps looking good. “People have become aware of the critical importance of developing a more proactive, preventive approach to health on all levels,” says Karina Stewart, co-founder of Kamalaya, a wellness retreat in Koh Samui, Thailand . This means a new willingness to go beyond diet and exercise and embrace sci-fi-sounding bio-regenerative treatments such as ozone therapy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers, both on offer at Kamalaya's new Longevity House. Luxury hotel brands are embracing the trend too. Six Senses Ibiza recently teamed up with biotech company RoseBar to offer guests full diagnostic testing. Maybourne Hotel Group is collaborating with wellness tech pioneer Virtusan to help guests boost performance. And Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea administers treatments such as stem cells and NAD+ (aka the fountain of youth) through its partnership with Next Health longevity centre. At 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay in Kauai, guests are welcomed with a B12 shot instead of bubbles and the resort’s new wellness-specific rooms come with recovery-boosting mod cons including infrared light mats. If the trend continues, the secret to longevity may be as easy as taking more holidays. Jen Murphy

9. Peak season gets the cold shoulder

What's the 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. Luxury travel specialists Original Travel has launched new shoulder season itineraries to locations traditionally in demand during the summer – including the crystalline seascapes of Sardinia and Corsica – after seeing 14 per cent more bookings for September 2023 than for August 2023. Pegi Amarteifio of Small Luxury Hotels of the World shares similar insights. “Comparing phone reservations in 2023 against 2019, we’ve seen a 33 per cent increase for March to May and a 58 per cent increase for September to November , a pattern reflected across our other booking channels too.”

Why will it matter 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 per cent of respondents to Booking.com’s 2024 travel trends survey, this is a limiting factor for 2024 travel planning, so much so that 47 per cent 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. Layered on top of these practical considerations is an emotional motivation too: travellers are craving authenticity more than ever, seeking a tranquil, local feel when abroad, rather than Where’s Wally beach scenes. Toyo Odetunde

10. 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 savour the moment, from 3G 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 per cent 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 travellers 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? Other groups are taking to the water, with Red Savannah reporting an increase in bookings for Turkish gulets, Egyptian dahabiyas and Indonesian phinisis. Scott Dunn have seen an increase in bookings amongst groups of friends, with 30 per cent of respondents in a recent survey saying they were planning trips for 2024 that included ski trips to France, adventure travel in South and Central America, and beach breaks on Antigua and Barbados. 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 travelled to Jordan and Sicily together.” Rick Jordan

11. AI aims to be your sidekick

What's the trend? Early last year, after OpenAI’s ChatGPT broke the record as the fastest-ever growing consumer app, travellers started playing around with AI chatbots to get inspiration on where they could go. More recently, major travel booking platforms have started to integrate AI chatbots into the booking experience. But if 2023 was the year of AI chatbots wanting to plan your trips , 2024 will be all about how AI aspires to be your travel sidekick. A wave of new AI-powered features and products aims to support travellers on the ground – all while raising concerns around the potential negative impacts as AI becomes more widely integrated with our travels.

Why will it matter in 2024? AI will start to make more real-time interventions in our travels in 2024. One practical example is live translation , which Samsung plans to launch on its 2024 Galaxy devices. Imagine calling somewhere you want to visit to get information without worrying about whether staff speak the same language as you. Another example is greater AI personalisation in popular apps you already use. Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has recently touted the company's increasing use of personalised AI algorithms , which will learn about your habits and make suggestions based on what you’re doing. For the true early adopters, real-time travel interventions could also mean ditching your screen entirely and clipping a screenless personal translator and travel assistant to your chest. This is the unusual idea behind the new talking and projecting AI Pin from Humane , a start-up backed by investors including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, that promises to function a bit like the universal translator from Star Trek . Will anyone want to actually wear the pin or will it go the way of previously hyped devices such as Google Glass? It certainly raises a host of ethical questions about privacy and data protection. Yet the more that AI products successfully help in addressing on-the-go problems, the more travellers will come to rely on them too. JD Shadel

12. Skip-gen travel

What’s the trend? Skip-gen travel describes when grandparents holiday with grandchildren, in other words, "skipping" a generation. “In the past few months, I've had around twice as many enquiries as usual for grandchild/grandchild bookings,” says Clio Wood, founder of family retreat company &Breathe . “There’s been a rising trend of grandparents taking their grandchildren away,” agrees Ollie Summers, Head of Sales at bespoke operator Scott Dunn . “Often to places that have a sentimental meaning to them.”

Why will it matter in 2024? Several travel agencies have created itineraries to cater specifically for this demand in 2024. “Skip-gen safaris are emerging as a micro-trend from the UK, reflecting a niche traveller group now well established in the US luxury market,” says Liane Goldring of Mahlatini Luxury Travel . “The grandparents are usually in their 70s and still active enough to fully embrace a fully guided safari adventure.” Original Travel, meanwhile, has relaunched its Bonding Holidays Collection , featuring trips focussed on discovering something new together, such as its 14-day Family Ranching itinerary in the American West. Some of this growth can be attributed to big-ticket lockdown promises coming to fruition. Now, amid the UK’s cost of living crisis, parents are also keen to make the most of the time and childcare support of their typically baby boomer, more comfortably retired parents. Plus, the global ratio of living grandparents to grandchildren is higher than ever, thanks to a combined increase in life expectancy and drop in the number of children per person. We’re even said to be living in the "the age of the grandparent". Don’t expect this trend – or your grandparents – to slow down anytime soon. Becky Lucas

Glamorous train travel

Glamorous train travel

13. Train travel gets glam

What’s the trend? Rising climate consciousness has fuelled a rail travel revival, the luxury train niche is reaching new heights of popularity, extravagance and ambition. Travel booking platforms are reporting growing demand for luxury rail trips , where the journey is, yes, the destination. In fact, new design-forward train lines increasingly rival the finest hotels for the culinary experiences and bells and whistles on offer.

Why will it matter in 2024? A new wave of rail lines and itineraries launching in 2024 puts an emphasis on deeper immersion into the culture and landscapes of the destinations, which are more and more off the beaten track. Responding to growing demand for luxury train travel among its user base, specialist platform Railbookers plans to launch arguably the most geographically extensive and expensive luxury train itinerary around. With prices per person starting at $113,599, the 80-day Around the World by Luxury Train voyage will cross four continents and 13 countries. Beginning in August , the slow journey will string together existing luxury rail trips including Canada’s Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Jasper and India’s Maharajas Express from Delhi to Mumbai. In Asia, the previously paused Eastern & Oriental Express is making a grand comeback starting in February, with carriages getting an upscale revamp and its legendary route being retraced through Malaysia's landscapes. Meanwhile, Japan is a hot destination for its scenic train journeys such as the exclusive Train Suite Shiki-shima , which quickly closed applications for its 2024 trips due to demand. And in Europe, six new train lines will commence or terminate in Rome under Accor's La Dolce Vita umbrella, with suites designed by starchitects Dimorestudio, building on the cultural legacy of the famous Orient Express . JD Shadel

14. Restaurateur-owned hotels

What’s the trend? Restaurants and hotels are the two linchpins of the hospitality industry. And naturally, the two are often intertwined on one premises. Until recently, though, most hotels weren’t started or owned by restaurateurs. Yet as food-focused travel keeps increasing, with people hankering for the next hot reservation and planning entire trips around discovering a culture through its food, it makes sense that restaurateurs are adding hotelier to their CVs – and ensuring their new properties have impressive food offerings. We’d be remiss not to mention Nobu, which began as a restaurant in 1994 and in 2013 launched its global hotel brand, as a harbinger of the trend.

Why will it matter in 2024? Just as design brands (RH, West Elm) have opened hotels in recent years, now restaurateurs are getting in on the action. In the USA, restaurateur and 12-time James Beard award nominee Sam Fox has just launched the Global Ambassador in Phoenix, Arizona, with five restaurants. Santa Barbara’s Good Lion Hospitality is relaunching Petit Soleil , a Californian wine country boutique hotel, with a new bar and restaurant slated for next spring. The Lafayette Hotel & Club was debuted last summer in San Diego by Arsalun Tafazoli, founder of a local hospitality group that operates 16 bars and restaurants. The hotel has five restaurants and bars, with two more opening by the end of the year. In Dallas, Harwood International, which owns a dozen or so restaurants in the area, opened Hôtel Swexan in June. In the St Gallen region of Switzerland two hotels were recently added to beloved restaurants: the revamped Mammertsberg  and  Gasthaus Traube . In Slovenia, AS Hotel is a new place to stay launched Sebastjan Raspopović, son of chef Svetozar Raspopović-Pope of renowned restaurant Gostilna AS in Lublijana. Aside from a restaurant by Raspopović-Pope, the hotel has an eatery by Michelin-lauded chef Ana Roš. Finally,  R48 , and its lauded Chef’s Table, was opened in Tel Aviv last spring by R2M Hospitality Group, which also runs restaurants CoffeeBar and Herzl 16. Devorah Lev-Tov

15. Silent travel

What’s the trend? 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-fuelled 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 per cent 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. Silent travel opportunities abound in 2024. Kick off the year with a silent retreat in Portugal (with Innate ) or Italy (with Mandali ). More adventurous silent-seekers can trek the peaceful Japanese Kumano Kodo trail, or explore Finland’s Arctic landscape with a Silence & Nature Tour . For a tailor-made silent experience, Black Tomato’s Blink camp offers luxury accommodation in the world’s most remote settings, while its Get Lost programme promises to help you find yourself by getting lost in a far-flung location. Tasha Kleeman

16. Urban gardens

What’s the trend? Never mind the biophilic office and those pot plants you forget to water: whole cities are going green as architects and planners create leafy microclimates amid the grey concrete to help keep us cooler, connect communities and even feed us.

Why will it matter in 2024? Having trees and gardens in our cities is a pretty good idea. King Nebuchadnezzar certainly thought so, which is why his Hanging Gardens of Babylon made it into travel’s first-ever bucket list – the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – back in the 2nd century BC. Nowadays planting trees creates much-needed shade, stores carbon and increases biodiversity, but it also makes our cityscapes so much nicer. While Valencia, an early adopter of urban greening with its 12km-long Turia Garden in 1986, is the 2024 European Green Capital, France is busy planting trees like there’s no tomorrow: go to Paris for the 2024 Olympics and you’ll spot budding new forests growing in Place du Colonel-Fabien, Place de Catalogne and in the Charonne district, while Bordeaux’s Grandeur Nature project includes urban cooling islands, micro-forests and rain gardens. All of which will doubtless be discussed at the ISHS Green Cities 2024 symposium, hosted by RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey, England, in September. Meanwhile, on Cyprus – an island that experienced temperatures of 44℃ in 2023 – the new Salina Park opens in time for summer shade in the seaside city of Larnaca. In Brazil, Rio’s Hortas Cariocas is a groundbreaking achievement that will be completed by the end of 2024: the largest urban vegetable garden in the world, connecting 56 community gardens across favelas and schools. And in London, the £1-billion Google building in King’s Cross will show just what can be done with one structure. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the "landscraper" – only 11 storeys high but stretching out longer than the Shard is tall – is hoped to provide a blueprint for future urban projects: running along the rooftop is a multi-level garden, with wildflowers, lawns and decked seating areas, set with more than 55,000 plants and 250 trees. Can you dig it? Rick Jordan

17. Back-of-house tours

What’s the trend? Greener hotels giving us a look behind the scenes to show us – not just tell us – they're sustainable. We don't mean a look-see at solar panels or composting, but heart-lifting experiential tours that help us appreciate why it matters to support socio-economic uplift through tourism. In South America, Blue Apple Beach invites visitors to get up close and personal with the community work it does in Colombia through its impact fund. Founder Portia Hart wanted more than token-gesture carbon offsetting, where locals themselves could decide how money was spent. In Africa, guests of the Bushcamp Company contribute to initiatives through the Luangwa Conservation and Community Fund. A popular excursion in Zambia is visiting the boreholes that are installed with outreach funds. Each pump provides fresh drinking water to hundreds of people a day, and visitors who spend time with those gathered get a very tangible insight into how such provisions funded by hospitality can literally change lives in regions most affected by a warming planet.

Why will it matter in 2024? Transparency is on the up as the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive comes into force and greenwashing is coming close to being officially outlawed. A year of droughts, floods and heatwaves also reminds us we need to make better-informed choices in our travel planning – and all the better if we can also get a crash course in the science and sociology of positive impact. Experiences that go beyond explaining responsible practices, but demonstrate a deep respect for communities on the climate-change frontlines and help make their challenges relatable to visitors are especially helpful. Juliet Kinsman

18. Wild feasting

What’s the trend? Have you ever noticed how food always tastes better outdoors? But in today’s modern world many of us are more used to eating a sandwich while staring at a screen. Wild feasting describes the trend for beautifully curated culinary experiences in natural environments with the incorporation of hyper-local and foraged ingredients. In Sweden, for example, you can tap into a network of do-it-yourself outdoor restaurants where you book a table in a scenic location, search for nettles, birch leaves, lingonberries and trumpet chanterelles, and then cook them on an open fire according to a recipe card provided by a Michelin-grade chef.

Why will it matter in 2024? A greater range of wild feasting opportunities will give urbanites a chance to properly connect over food. Leading the way is Noah Ellis, founder of the UK's Nomadic Dinners. “Since launching in 2018, we experienced compounded year-on-year growth for our feasting and foraging experiences,” he says. In 2024 he will be hosting a new series of fire feasts, including one set among the bluebells. Also tapping into the zeitgeist is TikTok star Alexis Nikole Nelson (aka the Black Forager) who will publish a book about wild food in 2024. And don’t forget, 2024 is the last year you will be able to eat at Copenhagen ’s legendary, foraging-focused restaurant Noma before it turns into a test kitchen and closes to the public. Another innovator is Holmen Lofoten’s Kitchen On The Edge Of The World series in the Norwegian Arctic Circle, where guests can participate in four nights of wild feasts cooked by top chefs. In 2024, these will include Lennox Hastie, José Pizarro and Heidi Bjerkan. Ingunn Rasmussen, owner of Holmen Lofoten, says: “Now, as when we were little kids, gathering around a bonfire in the wilderness, sharing stories, feasting under the stars in these magical, remote surroundings is one of the absolute highlights, both for our guests and for us.” Jenny Southan

19. Plan-free travel

What's the trend? Saying no to endless scrolling to plan every inch of a trip, and saying yes to spontaneity instead. The power of the algorithm-spawned era of Fomo travel is waning, with those once secret spots made Insta-famous becoming tired and cookie-cutter, and the drive to plan a trip around them losing momentum. The rising counter movement is travel with no plans at all.

Why will it matter in 2024? The plan-free appeal is going one step further in 2024. Booking.com recently reported that 50 per cent of UK travellers want to book a surprise trip in 2024, where everything, even the destination, is unknown until arrival. And it’s possible to do it via travel companies such as Black Tomato, whose Get Lost service offers customers the ability to simply select a preferred environment – polar, jungle, desert, mountain or coastal – and leave its team decide everything else. “While we launched Get Lost several years ago, post-pandemic we’ve seen a notable and rising uptick in bookings and enquiries,” says Black Tomato co-founder Tom Marchant. Journee offers a similar surprise element, with travellers only finding out where they’re going at the airport. The service, which includes a full itinerary and access to a team via Whatsapp, is particularly popular with solo female travellers, while overall demand has grown so much that the London -based brand recently launched trips in the USA. Lauren Burvill

20. Frontier tourism

What’s the trend? To go above and beyond. Or below and under. As crossings of the tumultuous Drake Passage to Antarctica rack up millions of TikTok views and traffic jams form on Everest, canny travellers are seeking more individual, less obvious experiences that combine thrill-seeking with more meaningful self-empowerment.

Why will it matter in 2024? One person’s frontier is another’s backyard, of course, so frontiers are entirely subjective here. For some, this could mean being the first to camp under the stars in a remote landscape, or hike an ancient pilgrimage trail that’s been off the map for centuries. It’s still possible to bag a rare place on a Kamba African Rainforest Experience in the Republic of the Congo, being one of just 12 people to explore a game park the size of Belgium. Black Tomato, meanwhile, is designing an intrepid new expedition to the remote Mitre Peninsula in Argentina, along with a trip in Peru navigating the Sacred Valley of the Incas by raft. “This sort of adventure goes beyond bragging rights and is more akin to self-empowerment and the gratification of pushing our own horizons,” says Black Tomato co-founder Tom Marchant. The Ultimate Travel Company is also heading to Peru, a country repositioning itself for luxury travellers, with stays at Puqio, its first tented exploration camp,, in the remote Colca Valley in the Southern Peruvian Andes. Wilderness camping is also pegging out fresh terrain in Kyrgyzstan, with yurt stays on the steppes trending for 2024, according to Wild Frontiers, as is Mongolia ; while Albania, Mongolia, Pakistan and the Empty Quarter of Oman are all on the radar for an increasing number of travellers. And while the space-age pods of White Desert have already sold out for New Year’s Eve 2024 and 2025, latter-day frontiersfolk can take the path less travelled and explore the frozen continent’s southern coast (99 per cent of visitors go from South America to the northwest) with The Ultimate Travel Company’s new Ross Sea cruises, seeing the Ross Ice Shelf and Transantarctic Mountains. Don’t forget to pack your penknife. Rick Jordan

future of travel

  • Travel Updates

The Future Of Travel: What To Expect Post COVID-19

We know you’re anxious about beginning to travel again. We’re here to help you understand what travel in the near future can look like, and how you can make the best of it.

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Countries across the world are slowly re-opening their borders to allow the entry of travellers and visitors. While the coronavirus pandemic is still a global threat, governments believe that after months of lockdowns and restrictions, it is finally time to restart normal life. We can’t truly predict the future of travel, but there are some early indicators that hint at certain changes.

With hotels and flights resuming their services, are people ready to kick start travelling? Self-isolation and extended periods of quarantine have been the norm for nearly four months of 2020. How are people going to approach travel now that they have the opportunity to visit places again? More importantly, how has travel changed in a post-coronavirus world?

Here’s What We Think The Future Of Travel Will Look Like After The Ongoing Pandemic Subsides

1 people will gravitate towards local travel and staycations.

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While international travel may open up, most people are going to be apprehensive about visiting a foreign country. The fear of being exposed to the virus will restrict travel to more local destinations. Domestic travel will be the first step in reviving people’s interest in tourism. Staycations, road trips and weekend getaways will give people an opportunity to ease back into travelling for leisure before they start planning international vacations. 

2 Anxieties About Flying And Spending Long Hours At The Airport Will Remain

Choosing to take a flight is going to be decidedly more complex for everyone. Given how easily the virus is transmitted from person to person, most people are going to be anxious about getting on a flight and maintaining close contact with strangers for an extended period of time. Long lines at the airport (because of more stringent regulations surrounding hygiene and social distancing) may also deter passengers from readily hopping onto a flight. 

While there have been multiple reassurances about air travel being hygienic and secure, it is left to be seen if people will be enthusiastic about using it as a mode of transportation anytime soon.

3 Cleanliness And Hygiene Will Top Everyone’s List Of Priorities

The most important thing the coronavirus pandemic has led to is a renewed focus on the importance of hygiene in everything we do. Something as mundane as washing your hands is now potentially life-saving. Industries have had to reevaluate their health and hygiene strategies to create a safe space for consumers and encourage them to start travelling again. 

Hotels and the airline industry especially are working tirelessly to let the world know that sanitation is their top priority. Travellers themselves are going to be extremely particular about where they stay, what places they visit, and how hygienic and clean their surroundings are. 

Also read: What are the best cleaning and hygiene tips to follow?

4 Wellness Travel Might Be More Important Than Ever

future of travel

People’s heightened concerns about their immunity may drive them towards wellness travel experiences that will help them focus on their physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. After spending so much time indoors, travellers will seek more open spaces and look to explore the outdoors, away from large crowds. 

5 Lots Of Great Deals, But Will There Be Any Takers?

A major part of getting people to travel again will include a variety of offers, discounts and deals. Given the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, a certain section of travellers might choose to go on budget vacations. But will these low prices be enough to evade their concerns and apprehensions about going on a trip? 

The New Normal For Travel

The ongoing global pandemic has forever changed our idea of what it means to lead a ‘normal’ life. These notions have seeped into how we will approach travel as well. It might take several months for travellers to feel secure about going on extended vacations to foreign destinations. However, we must remain hopeful that the ‘travel bug’ will make a comeback with a renewed vigour and we will be enthusiastic about exploring the world once again. If you have any thoughts on the future of travel, let us know in the comments below.

Also Read: What Will Travel Be Like After The Coronavirus?

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Travel Trends of the Future – Here’s to the Next 100 Years

Written By: The Planet D

Travel Tips

Updated On: February 14, 2024

Did you know that American Express originated with the Pony Express ? I wonder if the riders of that famous route could even imagine how much travel has evolved today. Even I can see a difference.

When I took my first trip to Guam in 1992, there weren’t Internet cafés or cell phones. I was on the other side of the world and very far from home. When I phoned home to talk to Dave, I had to walk a mile to a post office where I stood in line waiting for a private phone booth to be connected to an international operator. I crossed my fingers that Dave would pick up and when he did, I barely heard a word he said.

Travel Trends of the Future – Here’s to the Next 100 Years

Early days of travel.

During the early days of travel in Kenya, people left notes on a thorn tree asking travellers to pass messages along or bring notes home with them. It was a lot tougher to stay in touch then. When you went travelling, your family wasn’t sure if they’d ever hear from you again.

We’ve Come a Long Way Baby!

It’s hard to believe American Express is celebrating 100 years of travel service. Back then it seemed like travel was only for the truly adventurous. Not many people were traveling for pleasure compared to today’s standards, but Amex has been there for travellers before it was popular.

They’ve been helping Cardmembers realize their travel dreams for decades providing end-to-end services from booking, to the airport to wherever in the world they   touchdown.

Remember the days of traveller’s cheques?   We would never leave home without them. Our American Express traveller’s cheques gave us peace of mind. Traveller’s cheques may have gone the way of the Dodo, but the great service continues.

Travel Trends of the Future

Having just returned from the ultra modern city of Dubai , Dave and I have been thinking a lot about the future of travel and what travel trends are ahead. That city is as futuristic as it gets and has given us plenty of ideas of where the world is going.   After looking back at the past, let’s look at the future of travel.

Mega Malls

Ever since we took part in the Mongol Rally, we think that mega malls will be the future of travel. In Astana, the Capital of Kazakhstan, there is a giant mall that looks like a spaceship. The Kazakhstan malls have midways, skating rinks, arcades, and movie theatres and today it’s not uncommon for many malls in Asia and the Middle East to have these amenities.

Dubai takes the cake for the most amazing malls. The Dubai Mall has an enormous aquarium where people can scuba dive with sharks, cage dive with great white sharks, and walk under a glass tube to see all the marine life on display and the Mall of the Emirates has an indoor ski hill complete with snowboard park.

With luxury hotels attached to the malls that continue to get bigger and bigger, people will be booking their vacations around the mega mall. There’s something for everyone. Mom and dad can go to the spa followed by a romantic dinner while the kids go skiing, and can catch a movie. Sounds nice, right?

Complete Connection

You think we’re connected now, wait until the future takes hold. With Periscope and Snapchat taking over the bandwidth, more and more people will be sharing every single moment of their travel experience with others. Attractions, restaurants, and hotels will be completely connected and you’ll be able to check your smart watch or smart phone to find out about daily specials and instant deals.

You won’t even have to do a Google search anymore. If you are downtown Toronto and you have your latest travel app set to “tell me what’s up” you may get information telling you the times that the Hockey Hall of Fame closes, how much it costs to go up the CN Tower , where the best place around you is to eat, and how long the queue is for the latest Star Wars movie.

Technology Interventions

On the opposite end of the spectrum, people will need a break. People have talked about the digital detox for some time now, but I really believe it is going to come to life soon. We are all overloaded with noise and social media and people need a break from their smart phones and computer screens. Computer neck syndrome is a very real and true ailment.

I have a feeling cameras and photography equipment won’t even be allowed on a digital detox vacation. What would people do if they couldn’t document every single moment of their lives? The technical intervention vacation will find out.

Luxury Travel will Explode

It seems that the days of the broke backpacker is disappearing. When we first started travelling, Dave and I could get a basic beach bungalow for $5 a night. It was a no frills room with nothing but a bed and a squat toilet bathroom, but it was cheap and it was all we needed. It seems that people aren’t willing to rough it anymore, even the twenty something’s want luxury.

I admit, we don’t want to stay in basic accommodations anymore either. Dave and I now require a more lavish set up. We don’t want to rough it anymore and it seems that millennials don’t want to rough it either. The world is turning to luxury and premium   experiences.

Rewards and Loyalty Programs Continue to Grow

Luckily, there are rewards programs out there offering deals on luxury accommodation and premium experiences. As people become savvy travellers, they will look for ways to stretch their dollars for the best deals and discounts.

They’ll remain loyal and true to one program to reach optimal benefits and shop smart for their next vacation. Our American Express Platinum Card gives us luxury perks like elite tier status at hotel programs and Front Of The Line for events.  

When travelling, we breeze through security, take advantage of free WiFi and have access to free valet service at Toronto Pearson International Airport.

We have access to more than 850 airport lounges around the world offering us Platinum travel experiences wherever we go. We might not be a celebrity, but we often travel like a star by using our Membership Rewards and Platinum benefits.

The Future of Travel

I think travel will constantly evolve and change in the years to come. It’s fun to try to predict the future, but who knows if we are accurate or not. A lot has changed in 100 years, it’s hard to imagine what will happen in the next centure.

It doesn’t matter though, because the world is travelling. More people than ever are crossing continents and exploring the globe and they are looking to programs to help them travel more. We use American Express to help us reach our travel goals. What do you use?

To learn more about the breadth of Amex’s travel offerings and the benefits offered by being an Amex Cardmember visit americanexpress.ca/potential

How Travel Helped Us Live a Full Life

How to be a Travel Blogger – From Dream to Reality and How We Make Money

Our 27 Best Travel Tips from 16 Years Traveling the World

Travel Planning Resources

Looking to book your next trip? Why not use these resources that are tried and tested by yours truly.

Flights: Start planning your trip by finding the best flight deals on Skyscanner

Book your Hotel: Find the best prices on hotels with these two providers. If you are located in Europe use Booking.com and if you are anywhere else use TripAdvisor

Find Apartment Rentals: You will find the cheapest prices on apartment rentals with VRBO . 

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About The Planet D

Dave Bouskill and Debra Corbeil are the owners and founders of The Planet D. After traveling to 115 countries, on all 7 continents over the past 13 years they have become one of the foremost experts in travel. Being recognized as top travel bloggers and influencers by the likes of Forbes Magazine , the Society of American Travel Writers and USA Today has allowed them to become leaders in their field.

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7 thoughts on “Travel Trends of the Future – Here’s to the Next 100 Years”

Definitely agree with you when it comes to the rise of the digital detox… While I’m a huge fan of health &/or fitness retreats, I never thought I’d see the day the idea of completely ditching the digital for a couple of days actually sort-of delighted me. Turns out, even full-time bloggers & freelance writers like me need to re-tune occasionally. Being on call, online, 24/7 just can’t be good for us, no matter how much we love our laptop & phone (possibly more than our right leg) 🙂

Incredible!!! Thanks for sharing!

awesome article! I agree, the technology will evolve, so do our preferences when we travel.

So awesome.Thank you so much for sharing

Insight is well appreciated. Coming form the hospitality industry, I’d like to add that the world of Travel ahead will be a bit more competitive than the one we are accustomed to. Global business environment seeks global collaborative actions to enhance commerce. The question to ask would be, are we, the Americans, ready to compete in the global travel markets exploding with the niche marketing ideas your article cited?

Good question. When we travel the world ,we see it ahead of North America. I think that Americans and Canadians aren’t ready to compete at this moment. Hopefully they’ll get organized soon. Places like Asia and the Middle East are embracing tourism and definitely looking to the future in a gran way.

Awesome!!!!

Bolavip US

Future Travel: 15 Game-Changing Innovations

Posted: October 25, 2023 | Last updated: October 25, 2023

<p>Safety is the number one priority for many people when it comes to traveling. Biometrics have helped make significant progress on that criteria. Biometric technologies like fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, and iris scanning offer a higher level of security compared to traditional identification methods.</p> <p>Airport security and immigration processes have sped up thanks to biometrics, reducing wait times and eliminating the need for physical documents and manual verification. Biometrics also enable personalized travel experiences by linking individuals’ biometric data with their travel preferences and profiles.</p>

Safety is the number one priority for many people when it comes to traveling. Biometrics have helped make significant progress on that criteria. Biometric technologies like fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, and iris scanning offer a higher level of security compared to traditional identification methods.

Airport security and immigration processes have sped up thanks to biometrics, reducing wait times and eliminating the need for physical documents and manual verification. Biometrics also enable personalized travel experiences by linking individuals’ biometric data with their travel preferences and profiles.

<p>Smart travel accessories have solved many inconveniences and issues for travelers. For instance, portable Wi-Fi hotspots or smart travel routers enable travelers to stay connected to the internet while on the go, which is crucial when exploring unknown areas.</p> <p>Some travel gadgets, like portable chargers, noise-canceling headphones, and smart suitcases with built-in GPS, enhance convenience and optimize travel. These kinds of smart accessories are also used for safety purposes.</p>

Smart Travel Accessories

Smart travel accessories have solved many inconveniences and issues for travelers. For instance, portable Wi-Fi hotspots or smart travel routers enable travelers to stay connected to the internet while on the go, which is crucial when exploring unknown areas.

Some travel gadgets, like portable chargers, noise-canceling headphones, and smart suitcases with built-in GPS, enhance convenience and optimize travel. These kinds of smart accessories are also used for safety purposes.

<p>Online Travel Agencies have resolved many obstacles regarding travel accommodations. Platforms like Expedia, Booking.com, and Airbnb have made it easier to find and book accommodations wherever you go.</p> <p>Providing a wide range of options and competitive prices, OTAs eliminate the need to visit multiple websites or make many phone calls to organize trips. User reviews and ratings, with 24/7 availability and customer support, have helped travelers get references about possible destinations and accommodations.</p>

Online Travel Agencies (OTAs)

Online Travel Agencies have resolved many obstacles regarding travel accommodations. Platforms like Expedia, Booking.com, and Airbnb have made it easier to find and book accommodations wherever you go.

Providing a wide range of options and competitive prices, OTAs eliminate the need to visit multiple websites or make many phone calls to organize trips. User reviews and ratings, with 24/7 availability and customer support, have helped travelers get references about possible destinations and accommodations.

<p>In a world where there’s air pollution nearly everywhere, the transportation industry is trying to change that with electric and hybrid vehicles. The quest for environmental sustainability has allowed these vehicles to change the way we travel.</p> <p>Electric and hybrid vehicles produce lower or zero carbon emissions, helping to fight air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change. In that way, sustainable and eco-friendly travel can be achievable in countries that have and produce these kinds of vehicles.</p>

Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

In a world where there’s air pollution nearly everywhere, the transportation industry is trying to change that with electric and hybrid vehicles. The quest for environmental sustainability has allowed these vehicles to change the way we travel.

Electric and hybrid vehicles produce lower or zero carbon emissions, helping to fight air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change. In that way, sustainable and eco-friendly travel can be achievable in countries that have and produce these kinds of vehicles.

<p>One of the most important aspects of traveling is trusting the people who are in charge of the transportation, accommodations, tours, and other trip activities. Travel sharing platforms have gained a lot of popularity over the course of the years thanks to the facilities they provide for both parties to connect and interact.</p> <p>Another key part of travel sharing platforms are the user-generated reviews and recommendations. Platforms like TripAdvisor and Yelp help travelers make informed decisions based on other travelers’ opinions.</p>

Travel Sharing Platforms with User Reviews

One of the most important aspects of traveling is trusting the people who are in charge of the transportation, accommodations, tours, and other trip activities. Travel sharing platforms have gained a lot of popularity over the course of the years thanks to the facilities they provide for both parties to connect and interact.

Another key part of travel sharing platforms are the user-generated reviews and recommendations. Platforms like TripAdvisor and Yelp help travelers make informed decisions based on other travelers’ opinions.

<p>In a data-driven modern world, Big Data allows businesses to gather and process large amounts of data from travelers. This allows them to offer personalized travel experiences tailored to individual preferences, customized promotions, and personalized recommendations.</p> <p>Big data enables businesses to gain a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences. Business-wise, it analyzes market trends and demand patterns to optimize selling strategies and pricing. It also helps travelers improve their planning and trip management.</p>

In a data-driven modern world, Big Data allows businesses to gather and process large amounts of data from travelers. This allows them to offer personalized travel experiences tailored to individual preferences, customized promotions, and personalized recommendations.

Big data enables businesses to gain a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences. Business-wise, it analyzes market trends and demand patterns to optimize selling strategies and pricing. It also helps travelers improve their planning and trip management.

<p>Technology has advanced so much that it allows us to travel to a certain place before actually going there. How? Virtual reality allows travelers to go through immersive experiences. Through VR headsets or immersive displays, users can virtually “step into” different locations, allowing them to explore and interact with their surroundings as if they were actually there.</p> <p>These kinds of experiences can help people take a look at places that they haven’t been able to visit. It also provides helpful information that can help travelers make decisions ahead of their trip.</p>

Virtual Reality

Technology has advanced so much that it allows us to travel to a certain place before actually going there. How? Virtual reality allows travelers to go through immersive experiences. Through VR headsets or immersive displays, users can virtually “step into” different locations, allowing them to explore and interact with their surroundings as if they were actually there.

These kinds of experiences can help people take a look at places that they haven’t been able to visit. It also provides helpful information that can help travelers make decisions ahead of their trip.

<p>The long-awaited alternatives to traditional car rentals and taxis have finally arrived in the last couple of years. Companies like Uber and Lyft have revolutionized transportation with their convenient ways of getting a car to move around a city.</p> <p>Smartphone apps help travelers request a ride, track their driver’s location, and pay for the service without the need for cash. Pricing models, such as dynamic pricing based on supply and demand, can offer competitive rates, especially during non-peak hours when regular taxis are not available or hard to find in some cities. These companies usually offer safety and transparency by providing driver background checks, vehicle inspections, and real-time tracking of rides.</p>

Ride-Sharing Services

The long-awaited alternatives to traditional car rentals and taxis have finally arrived in the last couple of years. Companies like Uber and Lyft have revolutionized transportation with their convenient ways of getting a car to move around a city.

Smartphone apps help travelers request a ride, track their driver’s location, and pay for the service without the need for cash. Pricing models, such as dynamic pricing based on supply and demand, can offer competitive rates, especially during non-peak hours when regular taxis are not available or hard to find in some cities. These companies usually offer safety and transparency by providing driver background checks, vehicle inspections, and real-time tracking of rides.

<p>While still in the early stages, autonomous vehicles promise to change the way we travel forever. Brands like Tesla and cities like San Francisco have begun experimenting with driverless vehicles. The main advantage of autonomous vehicles is that they can eliminate human error, which is the leading cause of accidents due to distractions, fatigue, or impaired driving.</p> <p>They detect advanced sensors and cameras and use artificial intelligence algorithms to navigate and make decisions on the road. Autonomous vehicles also have the potential to increase accessibility and mobility for people who cannot drive.</p>

Autonomous Vehicles

While still in the early stages, autonomous vehicles promise to change the way we travel forever. Brands like Tesla and cities like San Francisco have begun experimenting with driverless vehicles. The main advantage of autonomous vehicles is that they can eliminate human error, which is the leading cause of accidents due to distractions, fatigue, or impaired driving.

They detect advanced sensors and cameras and use artificial intelligence algorithms to navigate and make decisions on the road. Autonomous vehicles also have the potential to increase accessibility and mobility for people who cannot drive.

<p>The AI takeover is real. Platforms like ChatGPT and Bard are regularly used by Internet consumers. When it comes to traveling, artificial intelligence can be very useful, and these chatbots can be used to provide information and assist with bookings.</p> <p>AI algorithms can analyze large amounts of data, including user preferences and past travel behavior. Using that data, AI can offer personalized travel recommendations. For businesses in the tourism industry, AI algorithms can analyze market trends and demand patterns to generate selling strategies and offer the best prices to maximize revenue.</p>

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The AI takeover is real. Platforms like ChatGPT and Bard are regularly used by Internet consumers. When it comes to traveling, artificial intelligence can be very useful, and these chatbots can be used to provide information and assist with bookings.

AI algorithms can analyze large amounts of data, including user preferences and past travel behavior. Using that data, AI can offer personalized travel recommendations. For businesses in the tourism industry, AI algorithms can analyze market trends and demand patterns to generate selling strategies and offer the best prices to maximize revenue.

<p>Augmented reality apps help travelers by providing real-time information about particular places, attractions, and destinations. AR can help people navigate unfamiliar cities and learn about those places along the way.</p> <p>Interactive guides, real-time translation, and personalized recommendations are some of the features that AR apps provide to travelers. They improve users’ engagement with the destination where they’re at and provide much-needed information when discovering new places and navigating unknown territories.</p>

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality apps help travelers by providing real-time information about particular places, attractions, and destinations. AR can help people navigate unfamiliar cities and learn about those places along the way.

Interactive guides, real-time translation, and personalized recommendations are some of the features that AR apps provide to travelers. They improve users’ engagement with the destination where they’re at and provide much-needed information when discovering new places and navigating unknown territories.

<p>The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the network of everyday objects connected to the internet via embedded devices with sensors, software, and other technologies. IoT devices have also impacted the travel experience.</p> <p>Whether it’s smart luggage trackers or hotel room controls, these kinds of devices improve the traveler’s experience and organization. It also helps to ensure safety when traveling with devices such as smart surveillance systems equipped with IoT sensors.</p>

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the network of everyday objects connected to the internet via embedded devices with sensors, software, and other technologies. IoT devices have also impacted the travel experience.

Whether it’s smart luggage trackers or hotel room controls, these kinds of devices improve the traveler’s experience and organization. It also helps to ensure safety when traveling with devices such as smart surveillance systems equipped with IoT sensors.

<p>The days of using gigantic maps to move around unknown territory on your trips are over. Travel apps have changed the way we organize and manage every journey. It seems like every problem or issue can be easily resolved by just unlocking a smartphone and downloading different apps.</p> <p>Airlines have their own apps to book flights. Some hotels and activities can also be booked through apps, while car rentals and tickets for other modes of transport can also be secured online. Moreover, any Maps application on smartphones can provide real-time information and even travel guides while spending time far from home.</p>

Mobile Apps

The days of using gigantic maps to move around unknown territory on your trips are over. Travel apps have changed the way we organize and manage every journey. It seems like every problem or issue can be easily resolved by just unlocking a smartphone and downloading different apps.

Airlines have their own apps to book flights. Some hotels and activities can also be booked through apps, while car rentals and tickets for other modes of transport can also be secured online. Moreover, any Maps application on smartphones can provide real-time information and even travel guides while spending time far from home.

<p>Mobile payment solutions have been playing a major role in the evolution of travel. In fact, the globalization of these payment solutions has enhanced travelers’ experiences wherever they go, reducing the need for physical cash.</p> <p>Many mobile payment solutions are widely accepted globally, allowing travelers to make payments in different countries without dealing with currency exchange or international banking issues. It also provides financial inclusion by providing access to digital payment methods to people who may not have access to traditional banking services while on the move.</p>

Mobile Payment Solutions

Mobile payment solutions have been playing a major role in the evolution of travel. In fact, the globalization of these payment solutions has enhanced travelers’ experiences wherever they go, reducing the need for physical cash.

Many mobile payment solutions are widely accepted globally, allowing travelers to make payments in different countries without dealing with currency exchange or international banking issues. It also provides financial inclusion by providing access to digital payment methods to people who may not have access to traditional banking services while on the move.

<p>When it comes to cybersecurity and transparency, blockchain technology has had a major impact on travel. Passenger identities and booking records are stored on the decentralized blockchain, reducing the risk of fraud, identity theft, and data breaches.</p> <p>Blockchain technology also helps with payments. In the travel industry, the blockchain eliminates any intermediaries in the payment, like banks, enabling peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, saving time and transaction costs, and enhancing transparency. It also plays a big part in loyalty programs, with the use of blockchain-based tokens or cryptocurrencies that allow more flexibility in the program’s rewards and can be redeemed through multiple participating travel providers.</p>

When it comes to cybersecurity and transparency, blockchain technology has had a major impact on travel. Passenger identities and booking records are stored on the decentralized blockchain, reducing the risk of fraud, identity theft, and data breaches.

Blockchain technology also helps with payments. In the travel industry, the blockchain eliminates any intermediaries in the payment, like banks, enabling peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, saving time and transaction costs, and enhancing transparency. It also plays a big part in loyalty programs, with the use of blockchain-based tokens or cryptocurrencies that allow more flexibility in the program’s rewards and can be redeemed through multiple participating travel providers.

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How Will We Travel In The Future?

It seems strange to think about the future of travel now. Our minds wander to the immediate future and trips not taken, flights cancelled and trains postponed. Will we be able to, or even want to travel in 2020? Will Barcelona, Venice and Amsterdam, places so ravaged by over-tourism, but left empty by the Coronavirus, be busy once more? What comes next? While the immediate future is uncertain, and booking travel is generally off the books, this article seeks to look a little further into the future. Looking at the next generations of travel. Those trips we can’t yet take. To answer, not where we might be travelling in the future, but how we might be travelling in the future.

Hybrid Air Vehicles

HAV’s iconic Airlander 10 made the headlines for numerous reasons, but mostly because it was the world’s longest aircraft and because it looked like a big bum floating atop the quaint British countryside. And while its extremities do look like one of Sir-Mix-A-Lot’s daydreams come to life, the technology within is a proven mixture of aerospace, fixed-wing flight and helicopter technologies. It’s basically a blimp filled with buoyant helium, that uses familiar engines and vectored thrusters to move its more than ample frame along at a safe and ever so slightly indulgent pace of 146 km/h. And HAV is currently working towards a greener model with a fully electric engine (to replace the now decommissioned Airlander 10), which it turns out, is a common theme of the future, and a hint that the travel industry, so plagued as it is by numerous environmental issues, is starting to move more seriously towards sustainability.

But most interesting is HAV’s desire to bring these hybrid airships to the luxury travel sector (as well as things like point-to-point cargo transit), so much so that they’ve partnered with Ocean Sky Aviation to offer a season of trips from Svalbard to the North Pole with renowned arctic explorer Robert Swan. But of course, that’s the true intrigue of these vehicles. Like Zeppelins before them, they won’t need an airport to take off from or land in, and they can quite literally land on the North Pole — like a helicopter — but infinitely more romantic and so much more luxurious, with their huge beautiful cabin spaces, hyper-modern public spaces and dreamy landscape views.

travelling future

Supersonic Travel Reimagined

The Concorde may have been one hell of a glamorous ticket to ride, but Supersonic travel is all about arriving. It’s not really about the journey, it’s about making the earth more accessible, the (super fast) connection from A to B. The broadband of travel, if you will. And one could say, with its 2.5m passengers served, that the legendary Concorde gave us a sneak peek into the future of supersonic aviation. Because now there are two sparkling new supersonic aircrafts entering production, both of which boast of their future carbon neutrality as much as their quietness and prettiness.

The first is the Overture by Boom Supersonic. A passenger jet marketed to commercial airlines ( Virgin and JAL have already put in orders), whose aim it is to cut travel times in half. Whether that’s London to New York in three hours and fifteen minutes or San Francisco to Tokyo in five and a half hours, the jet will be able to travel at a flabbergasting Mach 2.2 (2,335 km/h) for fares that could be on par with current business class rates. Those worrying about sustainability will be interested to know that Boom is testing alternative fuel sources with an end goal of carbon neutrality, but they also have a zero-waste policy, planning for everything from tool repurposing through to end of life recycling. And if all goes to plan, travellers should be able to start taking advantage of Overture’s twice-as-fast flight times in the early 2020s.

A second passenger jet, the Boeing-backed AS2 from Aerion Corporation hopes to conquer the executive jet market with promises of Mach 1.4 speeds, a stylish design, and the first engine ‘made for 100% biofuel operations’. And while the first flight for Aerion isn’t due to take place until 2021, Flexjet has already ordered 20 AS2s to add to their fleet of shared ownership jets by 2023.

travelling future

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At its most basic, Elon Musk’s open-source Hyperloop is a combination of existing technologies spliced together. A variation on magnetic levitation (like Maglev trains ) but launched through near-vacuum tubes at speeds of Mach 1 (1234.8 km/hr) via an electric propulsion system. And while the image of a tube lit by neon lights, with a train thrusting through it at the speed of sound, sounds and looks like science fiction, it’s already science reality … sort of. For example, Virgin Hyperloop One has already built a test tube (:-0) close to Las Vegas, and the first commercial route has been given the green light in India and is set to connect bustling Mumbai to Pune in 35 minutes. Elsewhere, Musk’s own Boring Company has been given the go-ahead to construct a Hyperloop Tunnel between Washington and New York , and a 100% electric Hyperloop linking Abu Dhabi to Dubai has already passed its initial planning stages.

In Europe, Hardt Global has one of the more ambitious Hyperloop projects. A 10,000km network promising to link European cities like Amsterdam and Paris in an impressive 90 minutes. And it’s all presented online with a website that reads like a utopian love letter to European togetherness, connectivity, sustainability and the overcoming of boundaries, so it’s hard not to be intrigued if a little sceptical. And it’s proposed as a clean alternative to short-haul flights and a faster alternative to trains, although instead of windows looking out to the bucolic hills of the countryside, there will be a series of info-screens and a single ceiling light that will glow in tune with the weather conditions outside.

Looking even further ahead, Hardt hopes that the bulky old-fashioned stations of yore will be swapped for striking modular hubs that integrate a full city’s worth of transport options under one pristine roof. And though clearly a long way from completion, they’ve already attracted numerous partners to help fine-tune the project, including Deutsche Bahn and Tata Steel, and, with the aid of multiple investors, are currently building a second (high-speed) test centre in The Netherlands, hopefully bringing Hyperloop a step or two closer to becoming a commercial reality here in Europe.

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Travel on TikTok: Top Trends, Longer Videos and the Future of Booking Trips

Dawit Habtemariam

Dawit Habtemariam , Skift

March 7th, 2024 at 10:56 AM EST

TikTok has become an influential force in travel discovery. Selling travel more directly would make it formidable.

Dawit Habtemariam

Millions of people look to TikTok every day to plan their next vacation. So airlines, destination marketers, and hotels create short videos on the platform to influence final booking decisions.

Over 60% of users in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland say they’re likely to book a holiday based on recommendations they’ve seen on TikTok, according to Stuart Flint , who heads TikTok’s global business solutions for Europe and Israel.

Flint spoke with Skift Wednesday after his on-stage presentation at ITB Berlin, the travel trade show.

Flint discussed the platform’s niche communities, TikTok’s tests of long-form videos, why some celebs struggle on the platform, tips for appealing to users, and other issues.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

How Travel Brands Work With TikTok

Skift: 2022 seemed like the year when travel brands really started using TikTok. How much has your travel advertising revenue grown since?

Flint: As they came out of Covid, people started to think about travel. They wanted to explore the world. People wanted just to get away. And then because TikTok was more front and center than previously, that’s why brands started to use it.  

Inspiration is a big part of that. Certainly, using the search and the discovery bar has been a significant shift in the way people behave on the platform. So that inspiration piece is great.

Then there’s the education piece. The idea of airlines like EasyJet or Ryanair, for example, is to really have fun with the platform. They’re quite humorous but stay true to their brands. This also allows them to educate, whether it’s a pilot telling you about turbulence or something else, or sharing a little hack about how to use the sick bag on the back of your seat.

We don’t share any information about revenues. But I can tell you that there’s been some really interesting travel brands working with us.

Booking.com is a very key customer for us. Travel booking, destinations, and airlines have become really, really big for us. So we’ve seen a lot of growth.

By the way, that’s not just paid. They’re also investing a lot of their time and energy into organic.

Food, Fitness, Fashion: Travel Trends to Watch

Skift: Can you go into the diversity of the travel community on TikTok? 

Flint: Food is one of the big trends that now bridges the gap between those communities. Travel is such an important part, but we understand that the second most popular reason to book was not just excursions but food and drink. People love to experience different cultures of food, whether it’s a market or it’s a backstreet restaurant. 

Fitness is such a big community in itself. It’s about CrossFit but not necessarily related to travel. Some people like to go on travel experiences where it’s a healthy weekend where they’re keeping fit, and they’re eating great food, and they’re not drinking alcohol.

So this becomes this really huge trend now saying, ‘I just want to go up into mountains in Austria and just be zen, be at one with my body and where I have a really great weekend with my partner.’

Fashion and beauty are big communities on our platform, too, and they inspire what to wear when you go to the beach or to a certain destination. For example, how do I get that ‘Cali look’?

It’s really important for travel brands or travel companies to not just associate themselves with that one vertical of travel. You’ve got to be in all these areas and having conversations with users that are inspiring those travels. All of those communities will help drive any inspirational travel decision or purchase that they may make.

travelling future

Honest Experiences Help Creators Thrive

Skift: What has been the evolution in the creativity of TikTok’s content creators?

Flint: What’s happening is we’re seeing more and more creators become more and more popular. They’re almost becoming celebrities in their own right. They used to be called influencers, but I don’t think they exist anymore. I think the celebrity effect on our platform isn’t there.

I don’t think celebrities necessarily thrive on TikTok in the same way that they do maybe on other platforms. As long as they’re incredibly authentic and they’re creating content that shows you especially travel the highs and the lows of any travel that you go on. It’s not all uphill all the time in beautiful and turquoise waters.

Sometimes, you have a really rough day. It’s not always going to be beautiful sunshine and mountains in the Alps. And so having those honest experiences is what helps creators thrive and become very, very popular, and then bringing that element of humor, which is often overlooked.

‘We’re Always Testing’

Skift: TikTok became successful in large part due to its short-form vertical format, but it has started to allow longer videos. 

Flint: We’re testing that. We’re always testing. Right now, it’s a maximum of 10 minutes on the platform. Would we increase that again? I think if it was right.

Right now, we’re trialing the idea of moving and turning your phone 90 degrees and making it in landscape format rather than vertical.

So we’re trying all these things, I think, just to give a point of difference for creators and make it an enjoyable experience. 

I remember seeing a video of a man just kind of experiencing the wilderness, and I think it was in the U.S. Imagine that in the landscape format. That’s the opportunity. We’re saying, well, we can bring more creativity to the way that you are constructing your videos.

‘Small Niche Communities Are Driving Mass Cultures Now’

Skift: Meta and Google have adopted short-form videos into Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, respectively. Can they copy your secret sauce?

Flint: When I look at other platforms, potentially they’re a much more glossy experience for me. It’s like reading a magazine, whereas TikTok, it’s authenticity and people being real with each other. It is hilarious.

The humor piece is important. If someone is taking themselves too seriously, you see a lot of responses to that on TikTok.

Being yourself is a plus. It’s a safe space for people to be themselves. And I think that’s what TikTok always stood out to be. You only have to look at the comment section when people are putting themselves out there actually being quite emotional about it.

The responses you get in the comments area are fantastic. People care about their communities and the communities are what’s driving TikTok. These communities are the lifeblood, and they support each other. And these communities, these small niche communities are driving mass cultures now, which I think is a wonderful experience.

Booking Travel on TikTok? ‘Watch This Space’

Skift: TikTok allows users to buy products directly on their platform. Why doesn’t TikTok allow travelers to book directly on the platform?

Flint: All I’ll say is ‘watch this space.’ We see commerce as a really important part of our growth. Commerce is going to be huge. Beauty and fashion are right now the areas where most people are thriving. 

It’s fascinating how people interact not only with video content and other users but also how they’re interacting and making purchases based on those influences on a peer-to-peer recommendation.

People they trust that look like them, sound like them, are like them. They’re in the same community as them. And that same type of person, same sort of age. I trust that person and that’s a really cool outfit that they’re wearing or that’s a really cool adventure that they’re going on.

For example, about 60% of DAC [Germany, Austria, and Switzerland] users are more likely to book a holiday based on inspiration on the platform.

travelling future

Travel ‘Dupes’ Trend

Skift: One thing tourism boards have liked about TikTok is that they can drive traffic to hidden gems without needing a large follower base.

Flint: That’s really the ‘travel dupes’ trend, where people are making recommendations on alternatives, more budgeted alternatives. Say, don’t think about Korea because that’s quite expensive to go to right now and the flight’s expensive. Go to Taipei instead. You’ll have a phenomenal experience both in terms of cuisine, both in terms of culture, of architecture. Someone saying that would be an example.

So, these alternative dupes are one of the big trends that we have started to see. And that’s helping small economies grow as well.

By the way, Taipei is not a small economy, but it’s certainly helping young businesses thrive because more people are going there. I didn’t really think about Taipei, but now I’ve been to Taipei and it’s incredible. It’s a great place to go. 

Building a Trusted and Safe Environment

Skift: There’s been recent pushback from the European authorities in regards to data privacy and user safety. What do these recent developments mean for TikTok?

Flint: Well look, we are constantly talking to the European Commission. We’re constantly talking and having communication about how we can do better. I think that’s what we’re all trying to do. And the fact that this is happening is a really positive thing for the industry. By the way, our number one priority, the bedrock of everything we’re doing, is keeping our users safe. I really care about the communities that exist on our platform. 

That’s not just about the content, by the way. It’s also about the brands and the importance that brands want to be associated around content that’s relevant to them but also equally incredibly safe.

We’ve now got 40,000 professionals who are effectively trust and safety employees who are looking out for those communities and those brands on our platform. And there are a number of tools that I can control as a parent that allow me to effectively make sure that my son or my daughter are kept safe. And there are a number of things that we’ve put in place that have put restrictions in place to make sure we’re keeping these people safe.

So, if you’re under 17, for example, there is no direct messaging. There are a number of different things that we’re doing that don’t necessarily get the headlines, but we’re always, always looking to build a much more trusted and safe environment for our users. 

More context: TikTok Chips Away at Google’s Dominance in Travel Discovery

The Daily Newsletter

Our daily coverage of the global travel industry. Written by editors and analysts from across Skift’s brands.

Have a confidential tip for Skift? Get in touch

Tags: digital markets act , direct booking , direct booking wars , direct bookings , european union , instagram , online travel , regulation , regulations , social , social media , social media marketing , tiktok , tourism , youtube

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Self-Service for Airport Security? It’s Happening in Las Vegas.

At security lanes at Harry Reid International Airport, travelers with PreCheck clearance can test a new self-service screening process with remote T.S.A. agents and video monitors.

Two conveyor belts at an airport are empty but ready to carry air passengers’ personal belongs through security.

By Christine Chung

As most air travelers can attest, the experience at an airport’s security checkpoint can be far from serene. There are many rules — often shouted by Transportation Security Administration officers — about what you can bring with you, how to array your belongings and where to stand. Lines can be painfully long and anxieties sky high. And throughout the process, there are security officers.

But at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, a new kind of security screening , unveiled by the T.S.A. on Wednesday, is led by the passenger themselves.

The system, which uses video monitors, facial recognition software and body scanners, is not about shaving time off the travel journey, but about improving the overall passenger experience, said Christina Peach, a deputy assistant administrator for requirements and capabilities at the T.S.A.

“Individuals want to be able to complete the screening process at their own pace and with minimal interaction with our officers,” she said.

The new pilot program officially opens to the public on March 11. Here’s what to know.

Where is it and who can use it?

The self-service screening process, which is only available for travelers with T.S.A. PreCheck clearance, will be available at two security lanes within the “Innovation Checkpoint” at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. (The airport tests emerging technologies and new processes at six “Innovation Checkpoint” lanes.)

Traditional security screening will continue to be available for passengers.

How does the screening work?

As a traveler approaches the security lanes, a screen will display instructions about how to arrange personal belongings in bins and what possessions to remove (electronics and belts, for example). With a camera feature on a small tablet, facial recognition technology will be used first to verify your identity.

Then, you’ll go to a divestment station, the area by the conveyor belt where you drop your belongings and put them in a bin. There are two stations per lane, allowing two passengers to use the lane simultaneously. Video monitors at each station will play step-by-step instructions. The aim is to get one bin per passenger, Ms. Peach said.

You’ll push your bin to the conveyor belt, which then moves the bin to be scanned. After this, you will step through a body scanner that resembles a glass box.

If a bin is flagged, it is routed down a different path and a T.S.A. officer will conduct a search.

Once you collect your bag, you can leave the empty bin and it will move automatically back to the stack.

Video player loading

Will T.S.A. officers be nearby?

T.S.A. personnel will still be on hand, but not as many of them will be manning the screening lanes. On any given day, there are usually between 10 to 15 officers working at the Innovation Checkpoint’s six lanes, Ms. Peach said.

Now, some can be remote. Passengers who need extra help can push a button to speak to an officer by video monitor, and officers will still handle security pat-downs and extra bag checks.

How long does the screening take?

It will vary, based on the individual passenger’s pace, Ms. Peach said.

When does the pilot end? Will it move to other airports?

The initial pilot is expected to run for several months. Ms. Peach stressed that it’s a prototype and that the agency will be collecting data and passenger feedback.

Some elements of the system, however, may eventually trickle out to checkpoints across the country, she said.

Will the future of security screening be one without any T.S.A. officers physically present?

T.S.A. officers will always be working at security checkpoints, Ms. Peach said, either standing by the passengers or working in remote screening locations.

“The officers are their most valuable assets,” she said of the government agency. “It really is having the officer as a part of the system, even if they’re maybe not as visible.”

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024 .

Christine Chung is a Times reporter covering airlines and consumer travel. More about Christine Chung

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

Italy :  Spend 36 hours in Florence , seeking out its lesser-known pockets.

Southern California :  Skip the freeways to explore the back roads between Los Angeles and Los Olivos , a 100-mile route that meanders through mountains, canyons and star-studded enclaves.

Mongolia : Some young people, searching for less curated travel experiences, are flocking to the open spaces of this East Asian nation .

Romania :  Timisoara  may be the most noteworthy city you’ve probably never heard of , offering just enough for visitors to fill two or three days.

India: A writer fulfilled a lifelong dream of visiting Darjeeling, in the Himalayan foothills , taking in the tea gardens and riding a train through the hills.

52 Places:  Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

NASA

NASA Concerned as Voyager 1 Sending Back Incomprehensible Code

"it basically stopped talking to us in a coherent manner.", senile probe.

NASA's two Voyager spacecraft have spent almost half a century traveling through distant space.

The probes, which launched less than a month apart in the summer of 1977, have survived a lot, from dwindling power supplies  and  grimy thrusters  to  near-fatal software glitches .

Voyager 1, in particular, which is currently floating past the generally-defined edge of the solar system some 15 billion miles away, is looking worse for wear these days.

Most recently, scientists became worried after the lonely probe started sending nonsensical messages back to Earth — as if its senility was catching up with it.

"It basically stopped talking to us in a coherent manner," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd told NPR . "It's a serious problem."

Nonsense Code

Instead of beaming back binary code over billions of miles, Voyager 1 is sending 1s and 0s that just alternate.

Efforts to reset the aging probe have failed so far — but that shouldn't come as a surprise, considering the technology dates back to the mid-1970s.

"The button you press to open the door of your car, that has more compute power than the Voyager spacecrafts do," Dodd told NPR . "It's remarkable that they keep flying, and that they've flown for 46-plus years."

Meanwhile, the team back on the ground is trying to "get into the heads of the original developers and figure out why they designed something the way they did," per Dodd, to find ways to fix the probe.

Over the next months, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab will try a variety of different approaches to get Voyager 1 back to doing science.

"We haven't been getting science data since this anomaly started," Caltech astronomer Stella Ocker told NPR , "and what that means is that we don't know what the environment that the spacecraft is traveling through looks like."

The probes' plutonium reserves, which provide them with electricity, are also starting to run low, prompting their operators to take measures to preserve the dwindling power supplies.

"My motto for a long time was 50 years or bust," astronomer Stamatios Krimigis, who has worked on the Voyager 1 mission from the very beginning, told NPR , "but we're sort of approaching that."

More on Voyager: Things Are Looking Pretty Grim for Voyager 1

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  • THE BIG IDEA

Why travel should be considered an essential human activity

Travel is not rational, but it’s in our genes. Here’s why you should start planning a trip now.

Two women gaze at heavy surf while lying on boulders on the coast.

In 1961, legendary National Geographic photographer Volkmar Wentzel captured two women gazing at the surf off Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia. This and all the other images in this story come from the National Geographic image collection.

I’ve been putting my passport to good use lately. I use it as a coaster and to level wobbly table legs. It makes an excellent cat toy.

Welcome to the pandemic of disappointments. Canceled trips, or ones never planned lest they be canceled. Family reunions, study-abroad years, lazy beach vacations. Poof. Gone. Obliterated by a tiny virus, and the long list of countries where United States passports are not welcome.

Only a third of Americans say they have traveled overnight for leisure since March, and only slightly more, 38 percent, say they are likely to do so by the end of the year, according to one report. Only a quarter of us plan on leaving home for Thanksgiving, typically the busiest travel time. The numbers paint a grim picture of our stilled lives.

It is not natural for us to be this sedentary. Travel is in our genes. For most of the time our species has existed, “we’ve lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers moving about in small bands of 150 or fewer people,” writes Christopher Ryan in Civilized to Death . This nomadic life was no accident. It was useful. “Moving to a neighboring band is always an option to avoid brewing conflict or just for a change in social scenery,” says Ryan. Robert Louis Stevenson put it more succinctly: “The great affair is to move.”

What if we can’t move, though? What if we’re unable to hunt or gather? What’s a traveler to do? There are many ways to answer that question. “Despair,” though, is not one of them.

wall-to-wall seaside sunbathers in Ocean City, Maryland

In this aerial view from 1967, wall-to-wall seaside sunbathers relax under umbrellas or on beach towels in Ocean City, Maryland .

During a fall festival, each state shows off its costumes and dances.

A 1967 fall festival in Guadalajara, Mexico , starred traditionally costumed musicians and dancers.

We are an adaptive species. We can tolerate brief periods of forced sedentariness. A dash of self-delusion helps. We’re not grounded, we tell ourselves. We’re merely between trips, like the unemployed salesman in between opportunities. We pass the days thumbing though old travel journals and Instagram feeds. We gaze at souvenirs. All this helps. For a while.

We put on brave faces. “Staycation Nation,” the cover of the current issue of Canadian Traveller magazine declares cheerfully, as if it were a choice, not a consolation.

Today, the U.S. Travel Association, the industry trade organization, is launching a national recovery campaign called “ Let’s Go There .” Backed by a coalition of businesses related to tourism—hotels, convention and visitor bureaus, airlines—the initiative’s goal is to encourage Americans to turn idle wanderlust into actual itineraries.

The travel industry is hurting. So are travelers. “I dwelled so much on my disappointment that it almost physically hurt,” Paris -based journalist Joelle Diderich told me recently, after canceling five trips last spring.

(Related: How hard has the coronavirus hit the travel industry? These charts tell us.)

My friend James Hopkins is a Buddhist living in Kathmandu . You’d think he’d thrive during the lockdown, a sort-of mandatory meditation retreat. For a while he did.

But during a recent Skype call, James looked haggard and dejected. He was growing restless, he confessed, and longed “for the old 10-countries-a-year schedule.” Nothing seemed to help, he told me. “No matter how many candles I lit, or how much incense I burned, and in spite of living in one of the most sacred places in South Asia, I just couldn’t change my habits.”

When we ended our call, I felt relieved, my grumpiness validated. It’s not me; it’s the pandemic. But I also worried. If a Buddhist in Kathmandu is going nuts, what hope do the rest of us stilled souls have?

I think hope lies in the very nature of travel. Travel entails wishful thinking. It demands a leap of faith, and of imagination, to board a plane for some faraway land, hoping, wishing, for a taste of the ineffable. Travel is one of the few activities we engage in not knowing the outcome and reveling in that uncertainty. Nothing is more forgettable than the trip that goes exactly as planned.

Related: Vintage photos of the glamour of travel

travelling future

Travel is not a rational activity. It makes no sense to squeeze yourself into an alleged seat only to be hurled at frightening speed to a distant place where you don’t speak the language or know the customs. All at great expense. If we stopped to do the cost-benefit analysis, we’d never go anywhere. Yet we do.

That’s one reason why I’m bullish on travel’s future. In fact, I’d argue travel is an essential industry, an essential activity. It’s not essential the way hospitals and grocery stores are essential. Travel is essential the way books and hugs are essential. Food for the soul. Right now, we’re between courses, savoring where we’ve been, anticipating where we’ll go. Maybe it’s Zanzibar and maybe it’s the campground down the road that you’ve always wanted to visit.

(Related: Going camping this fall? Here’s how to get started.)

James Oglethorpe, a seasoned traveler, is happy to sit still for a while, and gaze at “the slow change of light and clouds on the Blue Ridge Mountains” in Virginia, where he lives. “My mind can take me the rest of the way around this world and beyond it.”

It’s not the place that is special but what we bring to it and, crucially, how we interact with it. Travel is not about the destination, or the journey. It is about stumbling across “a new way of looking at things,” as writer Henry Miller observed. We need not travel far to gain a fresh perspective.

No one knew this better than Henry David Thoreau , who lived nearly all of his too-short life in Concord, Massachusetts. There he observed Walden Pond from every conceivable vantage point: from a hilltop, on its shores, underwater. Sometimes he’d even bend over and peer through his legs, marveling at the inverted world. “From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow,” he wrote.

Thoreau never tired of gazing at his beloved pond, nor have we outgrown the quiet beauty of our frumpy, analog world. If anything, the pandemic has rekindled our affection for it. We’ve seen what an atomized, digital existence looks like, and we (most of us anyway) don’t care for it. The bleachers at Chicago ’s Wrigley Field; the orchestra section at New York City ’s Lincoln Center; the alleyways of Tokyo . We miss these places. We are creatures of place, and always will be.

After the attacks of September 11, many predicted the end of air travel, or at least a dramatic reduction. Yet the airlines rebounded steadily and by 2017 flew a record four billion passengers. Briefly deprived of the miracle of flight, we appreciated it more and today tolerate the inconvenience of body scans and pat-downs for the privilege of transporting our flesh-and-bone selves to far-flung locations, where we break bread with other incarnate beings.

Colorful designs surrounding landscape architect at work in his studio in Rio de Jainero, Brazil

Landscape architects work in their Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , studio in 1955.

A tourist photographs a tall century plant, a member of the agaves.

A tourist photographs a towering century plant in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1956.

In our rush to return to the world, we should be mindful of the impact of mass tourism on the planet. Now is the time to embrace the fundamental values of sustainable tourism and let them guide your future journeys. Go off the beaten path. Linger longer in destinations. Travel in the off-season. Connect with communities and spend your money in ways that support locals. Consider purchasing carbon offsets. And remember that the whole point of getting out there is to embrace the differences that make the world so colorful.

“One of the great benefits of travel is meeting new people and coming into contact with different points of view,” says Pauline Frommer, travel expert and radio host.

So go ahead and plan that trip. It’s good for you, scientists say . Plotting a trip is nearly as enjoyable as actually taking one. Merely thinking about a pleasurable experience is itself pleasurable. Anticipation is its own reward.

I’ve witnessed first-hand the frisson of anticipatory travel. My wife, not usually a fan of travel photography, now spends hours on Instagram, gazing longingly at photos of Alpine lodges and Balinese rice fields. “What’s going on?” I asked one day. “They’re just absolutely captivating,” she replied. “They make me remember that there is a big, beautiful world out there.”

Many of us, myself included, have taken travel for granted. We grew lazy and entitled, and that is never good. Tom Swick, a friend and travel writer, tells me he used to view travel as a given. Now, he says, “I look forward to experiencing it as a gift.”

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Travis Kelce Arrives in Singapore as a Source Reports He and Taylor Swift ‘See a Real Future Together’

preview for Taylor Swift’s Iconic Career Evolution

His friend Harry Clark , who traveled with him, shared footage of the city’s skyline on his Instagram Story. Kelce hasn’t posted anything from Singapore yet, but he just recently landed. The flight from Cleveland, where Kelce was seen on March 5, is over 20 hours long.

the singapore skyline

A source also gave new intel to Entertainment Tonight about where Kelce and Swift stand. “Taylor is super busy with her tour, but Travis and her are continuing to make things work,” that insider said. “He is enjoying his life in the off season while trying to be as supportive as possible of Taylor. They make a great match, and both see a real future together. They have talked about next steps and are on the same page.” The source did not share what those next steps are. Swift and Kelce started dating in the summer, so they’ve been seeing each other romantically for less than a year.

News of Swift’s breakup from her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn , whom she dated for six years and about whom she is speculated to have written The Tortured Poets Department , didn’t break until April 2023. A source told Entertainment Tonight on April 8, 2023 , that Swift and Alwyn broke up a few weeks earlier, and it wasn’t dramatic: “The relationship had just run its course. It’s why [Alwyn] hasn’t been spotted at any [Eras tour] shows.”

Kelce, meanwhile, attended Swift’s concert in Kansas City, Missouri, before they were dating , as well as in Argentina and Sydney .

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Florida is once again trying to break up with bad spring breakers

Miami beach and other destinations are ramping up policing and setting curfews. will it work this time.

travelling future

Florida beach towns and spring break have a long, sometimes sordid history. These days, the relationship is complicated.

Visitors pump billions of dollars into Florida’s economy; last year, an estimated 135 million people visited the state. But as high-schoolers, college students and adults flock to the state’s beaches starting in force this weekend, destinations from the Panhandle to the Southeast are preparing for the influx with drones, bag checks, beach closures and extra police. A lot of extra police.

“Like eight times the amount,” said Eric Feldman, the police chief in Central Florida’s New Smyrna Beach.

Miami Beach is taking the biggest swing at spring break, mounting a breakup campaign complete with cheeky video and a host of fines, fees, rules and vows for strict enforcement. The island city has struggled to curb violence during the spring holiday for the past few years, culminating in hundreds of arrests and two fatal shootings in 2023.

“This isn’t working anymore,” an actor says in an ad posted Friday on YouTube. “And it’s not us, it’s you. We just want different things.”

The video includes footage of last year’s violence and spells out what visitors can expect for the next few weeks: curfews, bag checks, restricted beach access, DUI checkpoints and $100 parking fees.

“Whatever it takes, because it’s time to move on,” the video says. “Maybe we can talk when you’re done with your spring break phase.”

Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner said in an interview that the city still wants visitors — and that the vast majority of tourists are just coming to have a good time without any trouble.

“The challenges we’ve faced are the number of people that come in during a short period of time and a very small area on Ocean Drive,” he said. “Unfortunately, a small percentage of people have created some serious problems for our city.”

On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a news release that the state’s law enforcement agencies will be on hand to help in Miami Beach, as well as Daytona Beach and Panama City Beach.

“Florida’s a very welcoming state, we welcome people to come and have a good time. What we don’t welcome is criminal activity. What we don’t welcome is mayhem and people that want to wreak havoc on our communities,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Miami Beach Tuesday. “Make no mistake about it: If you’re coming here in order to enjoy Florida and ... have a good time, fine. If you’re coming for these other reasons, if you’re committing crimes, causing havoc, you are going to pay the price.”

About 35 miles north of Miami, Fort Lauderdale is taking a more welcoming approach — but still preparing with stepped-up policing. Officials are distributing Narcan nasal spray in case of overdoses and test cards that can show if a drink was spiked. Parking fees there, too, could climb to $100 if elected officials okay a measure Tuesday allowing it.

“It’s a pretty well-oiled machine we have in our city to make the experience a good experience,” said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis. “Not just for kids, not just for spring breakers, but for families, too.”

Spring break has been a thorn in the side of Florida cities for decades. After years as a raucous destination, Fort Lauderdale officials decided in the mid-1980s that they were ready for their own spring breakup. The party moved north to Daytona Beach, where MTV showcased the party scene for years. The “Girls Gone Wild” series captured the scene in Panama City Beach in the early 2000s — to the destination’s dismay .

Today, the tourism bureau in Daytona Beach promotes the city as a “Family Friendly Spring Beach Vacation.” Fort Lauderdale kicked out partyers so effectively that it became “kind of a ghost town,” Trantalis said.

“Miami is going through the same experience that the city of Fort Lauderdale had 40 years ago,” he said. “It’s basically pressing that reset button, and I think that’s what Miami Beach is trying to do today.”

Thanks to school calendars, spring break is generally predictable. But the popularity of social media as an event planning tool has taken some cities by surprise. That was the case in New Smyrna Beach two years ago, when teenagers from cities farther inland spilled into the beach town unexpectedly thanks to Snapchat and TikTok, the police chief said.

“It got a little out of hand,” Feldman said. “They were up on the roof of the 7-Eleven throwing furniture.”

A temporary curfew for people under 18 has become permanent, and Feldman said the city’s plan is to “flood that area” with police to act as a deterrent for bad behavior.

“It’s not that we want them out of town,” he said. “We’re trying to constantly update the public safety plan to keep them safe.”

In Walton County in the Florida Panhandle, the goal is also to keep teens on vacation with family in check. Last year, they ended up in large crowds on the beach, said Corey Dobridnia, spokeswoman for the Walton County Sheriff’s Office.

She said there will be triple the number of deputies on duty in affected areas, with bike patrols and ATVs, keeping large groups from congregating.

“We’re just going to try to keep the crowds from impacting quality of life issues,” she said.

Panama City Beach , which allows people to drink alcohol on the shore most of the year, restricted drinking on the beach back in 2015, police chief J.R. Talamantez said.

“We don’t want this party atmosphere anymore,” he said. “But we’re realists. We can put whatever message we want out there, but we know people are still going to come for the spring season.”

Bars in the Northwest Florida city will close earlier this month, and some parts of the beach where crowds have gathered in the past will close overnight from mid-March through the end of April. In a community letter last month, he laid out an eight-point initiative for this year’s spring break period.

“It’s the idea that we’re a town of law and order all year long and … March and April is no exception,” he said. “That’s truly the only strategy that we have been able to see that works."

More travel news

How we travel now: More people are taking booze-free trips — and airlines and hotels are taking note. Some couples are ditching the traditional honeymoon for a “buddymoon” with their pals. Interested? Here are the best tools for making a group trip work.

Bad behavior: Entitled tourists are running amok, defacing the Colosseum , getting rowdy in Bali and messing with wild animals in national parks. Some destinations are fighting back with public awareness campaigns — or just by telling out-of-control visitors to stay away .

Safety concerns: A door blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 jet, leaving passengers traumatized — but without serious injuries. The ordeal led to widespread flight cancellations after the jet was grounded, and some travelers have taken steps to avoid the plane in the future. The incident has also sparked a fresh discussion about whether it’s safe to fly with a baby on your lap .

travelling future

'Life-threatening' blizzard conditions, as much as 10 feet of snow forecast in Sierra Nevada region

Forecasters are warning of a Western blizzard that is expected to move through the Sierra Nevada, bringing high-intensity winds, large snowfall amounts and periods of whiteout conditions with zero visibility.

"This storm has the potential to rank with some of the biggest the Sierra Nevada has ever seen in modern times," said AccuWeather meteorologist Alex DaSilva.

The National Weather Service in Reno , Nevada, has issued a blizzard warning for a 300-mile stretch of the Sierra, a mountain range running along the eastern edge of California, from Thursday through Sunday in areas near Lake Tahoe and Plumas National Forest .

Areas around Lake Tahoe's shore could see between 2-4 feet of snow, and areas in higher elevations above 6,500 feet could see between 5-10 feet, according to the latest area forecast.

Winds could also be a factor across the region with the weather service forecasting gusts as high as 70 mph and and ridge-top gusts of over 100 mph.

“Do not take this storm lightly,” the weather service in Reno warned.

Life-threatening conditions are expected Friday night through Saturday morning, according to the warning. Light, fluffy snow can be easily blown around, creating whiteout conditions with near-zero visibility at all times.

Forecasters say travel is not advised during the blizzard warning, and if you plan to travel, to pack an emergency kit and prepare to be stranded in your vehicle for an extended period of time.

Sierra avalanche watch

In addition to the blizzard warning, an avalanche watch has also been issued for the central Sierra Nevada mountains, which includes the Greater Lake Tahoe area.

According to the Sierra Avalanche Center, high to extreme avalanche danger may occur Friday morning through Sunday night due to large amounts of snowfall and high winds.

Traveling in, near or below backcountry avalanche terrain should be avoided.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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Women on Site: Building a future for women in construction

Women in roanoke are starting a new organization aimed at connecting women in trade jobs.

Abbie Coleman , Multimedia Journalist

ROANOKE, Va. – In a male-dominated industry, more and more women are pushing through.

“The assumptions and the way you’re treated by people who have not met you yet are going to be based off of your gender,” E.C. Pace Project Manager Anna Bosco said.

Anna Bosco and Kinsey Roe are just two of the women working at E.C. Pace — a construction company in Roanoke.

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They said while their company is great with women workers, they’ve faced challenges with others.

“Most of the time they give me the chance to prove myself, but sometimes you do still have to take that extra step because of your gender,” Bosco said.

Along with another woman at their company, Roe and Bosco created the first U.S. chapter of Women on Site — an organization geared towards connecting women in construction and other trade jobs.

“To be able to have people to look to for advice, and just a community where we can all gather together and really, relate on things that not a lot of women have to face in their daily life at their work,” Roe said.

Even the youngest girls can get involved in construction, and Kid’s Square in Roanoke is helping them get there, one nail at a time.

Kid’s Square has a construction play space sponsored by Branch Builds and Carter Machinery, and in honor of Women in Construction Week, they’re holding a contest.

If you take a picture of your girl playing in the space, Executive Director Felicia Branham said you’ll be entered to win one of two free memberships to the museum.

“We see just as many girls in this space as we do boys, they love it. We have our pink jackets and our pink helmets and they gravitate to those right away,” Branham said.

Roe said she’s excited for the newest generation of female construction workers.

“I’m encouraged to see more women interested and more girls interested and I hope in the future it really does change a lot,” she said.

You can find information about Women on Site here .

You can find information on the Kid’s Square contest here .

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Abbie coleman.

Abbie Coleman officially joined the WSLS 10 News team in January 2023.

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UK Budget 2024:

Hunt Prepares to Hike Business Air Travel Taxes to Fund Budget Giveaways

  • Chancellor looking for ways to pay for cuts to personal taxes
  • Finance minister under pressure from Tories for election boost

A passenger jet comes in to land&nbsp;at London City Airport.

A passenger jet comes in to land at London City Airport.

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt is considering raising air passenger duty on business travel as a potential revenue-raising measure to help pay for personal tax cuts in the budget on Wednesday.

Air passenger duty on business class travel is currently charged at £13 ($16.5) for domestic flights, £26 for flights up to 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers), £191 for flights up to 5,000 miles and £200 for flights longer than that, with some small increases already due to come in on April 1. But Hunt is now considering a further rise alongside options such as scrapping the non-domiciled tax status and extending a windfall tax on oil and gas company profits, according to people familiar with the matter.

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