Travel & Tourism Trends I’m Watching
By Traci, Destination Marketing Manager / Content Strategist | August 12, 2019
Our ways of traveling and how we experience places are constantly evolving. This inevitably results in calling out new trends, and new opportunities to market destinations. These are a few emerging trends I’ve been learning about, and helping our clients identify ways to take advantage of them.
Artainment – When a cultural institution starts to spice things up for their patrons with entertaining elements – most likely incorporating technology – you’ve got “artainment.” An example of this is Otherworld in Columbus, Ohio. The attraction features large-scale interactive art, mixed reality playgrounds, puzzles, and secret passageways. It describes itself as an art and storytelling experience, where visitors explore and interact with a surreal world of science fiction and fantasy.
It’s not necessary to develop a multi-million dollar installation like this to take advantage of this trend. You can develop a scavenger hunt inside your museum (with or without an app to help), bring in a live theatrical or dance performance, or incorporate VR or AR elements into your programs.
Bleisure – It’s not really a new way to travel, it just has a catchy new nickname. Bleisure is the combination of business and leisure travel – and more and more professionals are maximizing their time away from the office by blending it with vacation.
If you represent a destination, accommodation, or meeting space with regular out-of-town guests, what are you doing to promote longer stays that include sightseeing fun? At the bare minimum, you should be offering packages that incorporate tickets to attractions/events with lodging rates. Another idea is organize themed, guided tours (art, food, etc.) of your area scheduled the day before or after a business event.
DMOs as Sustainability Stewards – It’s time to get serious. Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) are hyper-aware of the negative impacts of overtourism, and travel brands understand that enacting environmentally-friendly practices is more important than PR posturing. Marriott, the world’s largest hotel company, is eliminating all plastic straws and stirrers this year. But it goes deeper and broader than this.
The Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index), whose mission it is to inspire destinations to become more sustainable places to visit, has identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals for DMOs to strive toward. One manageable goal to reach for now – promote and support a local food “revolution” based on local, organic, seasonal menus.
Keeping up with the latest travel trends is what we do – and we’re happy to get you up to speed! Contact us for help with your 2020 marketing strategy.
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