It’s that time of year to think about the year ahead and how our travel clients and contacts can do things differently to try and increase their bookings. After looking through our own research and client data, along with trawling many other travel trend blogs, whitepapers, etc., we’ve put together what we believe are the key trends to look out for in 2025.
Here we go!
Destination dupes
The last 12 months have seen multiple protests about overtourism in popular hotspots such as Barcelona and Mallorca. While Spain remains top of the holiday pops (and that’s not likely to change any time soon), there are signs people are seeking out lesser-known holiday destinations. The standout example would have to be Albania, which has seen a staggering growth spurt (as documented in one of our recent blogs), but we’ve also seen impressive growth in places such as Montenegro and Sri Lanka.
(Source: From our Q3 travel trends report)
Early or late and not much inbetween
You’ll no doubt have heard chatter about how January peaks aren’t as big as they once were, but our search data doesn’t reflect this. On the contrary, there are many articles that surfaced earlier in 2024 that said many travel companies had ‘our biggest peaks yet’. The death of peaks predicted in 2023 for Q1 in 2024 didn’t quite pan out as some predicted (although it’s perhaps not quite as important as it was, say, a decade ago).
With the cost-of-living crisis rumbling on, people will be on the lookout for bargains in early 2025 as they always have. Cyber Month in 2024 has already shown that bookings will come if the offers are there. For those not tuned in enough to book in Cyber Month just gone, another set of travel offers will be along in January and travellers will be ready and waiting to book.
Whilst we don’t quite know how much the cost of living has hit users to make them change their products or destinations in favour of something less expensive, we expect them to search and book in peaks as much as ever.
And if they don’t book in peaks, our prediction is that they will sit tight on their savings and hold out until the summer / lates market once people have worked out their budgets or are confident on the weather for their destination. Will there be much in between? We expect not, with ‘shoulder’ months like March and April perhaps seeing a bigger dip than previous years once the peak offers have finished. We believe peaks and lates will be big, and the months and weeks in between to be quite hard going.
Value, value, value
One of the most popular words of the last 18 months at travel conferences has been ‘value’ – the idea that travellers are looking for the best bang for their buck. This trend is evident in the rise in ‘all inclusive’ holidays, where travellers appreciate the transparency of upfront costs compared to the unpredictability of half-board or self-catering options.
Linked to the above, 2025 is going to be the year that cheap mortgages start to fall out of the economy, with chunks of mortgage owners (up to several million) having to pay 4-5% for their house payments, up considerably from the sub 2% days. Whilst in terms of this only being a few percentage points difference, the actual impact on the wallet for many is going to be anything from a few hundred to perhaps a thousand pounds a month difference.
This graph from Knight Frank illustrates things perfectly.
For many, this will put a lot of stresses on monthly outgoings and whilst travel is often immune from financial sacrifice for many (with it being a near non-negotiable in terms of things to spend money on), it may drive people to pick different types of holidays or locations.
Where once a 4-star resort for two weeks might’ve been the preference, now it might be a 3-star hotel for a week in a lesser-known destination. Travel brands should focus on clearly demonstrating their value while addressing any concerns potential travellers have about unfamiliar places – more content, better imagery, engaging videos – they all help to paint a better picture for your customers.
Increasing divides in marketing
In the last decade, the marketing channels that we’ve been using have largely been the same – website, search, email, agents, social, print. While the toolbox is finite, each channel continues to play an important role. For instance, despite reluctance from many travel companies, printed brochures still perform remarkably well with certain audiences, serving as powerful tools for both brand building and driving sales.
But in recent years, the divide in generations and channels has started to grow in terms of how they can be reached. For a while, every event seemed focused on millennials and how they differed from previous generations. Then the spotlight shifted to Gen Z, and now it’s on Gen Alpha! But the really younger audience do appear to behave differently when it comes to researching and buying travel. Research carried out by ABTA this year highlighted these difference brilliantly. We’ve used their data and colour coded it a little more to highlight the research gender gap as per below. For example, showing that the over 65s prefer brochures, travel agents and newspapers, while 18-34 year olds rely on friends, video and TV more than other groups.
(Source: ABTA)
Final thoughts
There is no getting away from the fact that the state of the economy isn’t in great shape. It’s going to be another tough year for the new government and how they achieve growth remains to be seen. But regardless, it’s the money in people’s pockets that’s most important. While the budget changes of last month won’t hit hardest in 2025, their mortgage deals may well do so.
For those targeting older audiences, this is likely to be much less of an issue, so it is more about inspiring travellers both in terms of destination and value. When it comes to families and travellers in their middle years, the value message is increasingly important to demonstrate that the harder earned travel spend will deliver the best memories and experiences for the spend outlaid.
When targeting younger audiences, the appetite for travel appears to be as strong as ever, perhaps even more so when ‘big’ life things like houses and cars seem increasingly far away. Getting your message in the right places to grab attention will be crucial, as will trying ‘newer’ channels like podcasts and the various LLM tools out there.
