2024 traveller trends, what’s in and what’s here to stay
The team at Sparrowly Group has witnessed travel trends come and go over the years some of which become mainstays. As we move into a new year, there are three key areas we recommend incorporating into your destination and business planning.
Destinations and Tour/ Event Tourism
2023 saw unprecedented publicity of women’s sporting, music and film thanks to the success of our Matilda’s, Taylor Swift and the Barbie Movie. So what do all these iconic names have in common?
Loyalty and attachment
Each icon saw fans flock internationally and domestically to arenas, theatres and community spaces to immerse themselves in once in a lifetime experiences. Each saw the development of quirky and engaging ‘activations’ as businesses leveraged from the excitement and advocacy of fans. This loyalty and advocacy is not limited to iconic female movements, nor is it limited to simply sporting, music and film.
This trend is the evolution of visitor motivation.
The benefits of tour tourism cascade beyond the arena and acts. While visitors are planning their trips around events, they are also developing experiential holiday itineraries including well-known restaurants, landmark attractions and great shopping destinations. Visitors are increasingly spending more to fully immerse themselves not only in the event experience, but also the destination and in many cases are seen as ‘experiences of a lifetime’.
For destinations:
The City of Perth Council is the most notable in 2023 to take the plunge and invest in this visitor motivation by securing two exclusive Coldplay shows in November from the Asia leg of their tour resulting in sold out shows.
Some considerations to run these major events include:
High quality and reliable amenities such as accommodation, public transport, retail outlets and event spaces. Marvel Stadium located on the edge of the Melbourne CBD offers visitors great amenities, adjacent to a train station and in close proximity to accommodation and waterside restaurants.
Offers, packages and clusters of experiences to drive length of stay and spend beyond the tour.
Community engagement through volunteering, hosting accommodation and attending events. Brisbane Economic Development Agency (BEDA) as part of its preparation for the 2024 Olympics is undertaking training of volunteers and businesses across the city through a welcoming Guests Training Program which was activated with success across volunteers and industry more broadly for the recent FIFA World Cup (2023).
Leveraging events through activations both on and off line. City of Newcastle hosted Paul McCartney for the Australian leg of his tour and commissioned a mural in his honour by local artist Mitch Revs to immortalise the singer's presence as an attraction for visitors and the community.
Working with industry is key to creating immersive experiences. Businesses must be prepared and informed to be able to create supporting packages, unique offerings and aligned marketing.
For businesses:
Stay informed - monitor your relevant local, state and industry events calendar.
Be creative and fluid in business planning to maximise the opportunities and develop packages, add-ons or unique products or services in line with the event.
Develop topical theming that is smart, strategic and timely surrounding the event to draw visitor attention.
Deep Experience Travel
Experiential travel was first introduced around 2006 at which time the initial idea around visitors wanting to learn and spend greater lengths in regions opposed to destination hopping was considered. Over the last few years, the demand for experiential travel has deepened with businesses and destinations responding by designing responsive visitor experience journeys and bringing them to life through bookable experiences. As visitors continue to seek a more holistic approach in the form of ‘deep experiential travel’ to recharge, reconnect and learn, what does this look like in 2024?
Visitors are seeking destinations that will help them disconnect from their everyday lives and gain new perspectives and connections through their travels. Deep Experience visitors seek to experience life in a destination as a local, connect with the community and embrace the cultural practices and experiences of the destination.
This is further explored in our Connecting with ethical consumers insights article.
For destinations:
Immersion in the region drives positive outcomes to visitor length of stay and environmental impact (e.g. lowering of carbon emissions from multiple flights and lengthy road trips). Spendmapp and Localis are some great tools to help with tracking and measuring visitor spend and leakage. Tourism Australia’s Future of Demand Research provides deep insights across a number of visitor segments and demand drivers. This research is excellent in informing experience design and industry development programming to support the creation and sustainability of the responsive and competitive experiences.
For businesses:
Airbnb was an early adopter of experiential travel through their experience booking platform to complement accommodation. We are seeing this extended now through our work with boutique and larger hotel brands with a combination of all inclusive and bookable experiences offered to further enhance the visitor experience. This is certainly an area of opportunity in Australia and is a great way for brands to collaborate. Our Sensory experiences article provides further detail on developing immersive experiences.
Bleisure
Traditionally business travel provides professionals the opportunity to engage with their network, clients or colleagues in meetings, conferences, events and incentive activities. What was historically a type of travel reserved for conference speakers and their partners, bleisure travel is now a common and widely accepted style of travel. Bleisure allows business travellers to deeply immerse themselves to experience a destination extending length of stay and spend by engaging in a range of leisure activities. Since COVID-19 and the decentralisation of the way we work, employees are seeking a greater work life balance. Bleisure travellers benefit from a lower price point for their holiday with flights and a portion of their accommodation covered for business. As such, they have a higher willingness to spend on experiencing the destination.
But not all bleisure travel looks the same, there are a number of reasons these travellers may choose to extend their stay:
Visit friends and family in the area
Experience local culture, cuisine or attractions
Attend area festivals, tournaments and other events
Explore outdoor recreation opportunities
Enjoy a little peace and quiet or alone time
Environmental impact
For destinations:
Bleisure travellers value close proximity of activities and amenities to enjoy within their stay, typically located in the CBD of major cities. However, this does not mean the bleisure traveller is unwilling to venture outside of the CDB, destinations must develop hero experiences and attractions that are accessible for a day tripper to capture this visitor.
The incentive market offers a significant opportunity to leverage the Bleisure sector interests, Brisbane has secured a $12.6m international incentive event from Taiwan of 2,000 delegates that will immerse themselves in the culture, scenery and visit the brand new Queens Wharf’s entertainment and lifestyle precinct in May 2024.
Amenities such as multiple price points of accommodation, retail outlets and conferencing spaces are a must to cater for the conferencing elements of this sector.
Hero attractions and experiences drive the appeal of bleisure visitors to extend their trip for a must see or experience, site or activity.
Attractive food and beverage offering with high quality and visually appealing menus to entice visitors at the booking stage.
For businesses:
Ease is of the utmost importance for the bleisure traveller. They may only have one extra day in the region, so it’s crucial for operators to capitalise on this small timeframe with surprising and delighting immersive experiences. Experiences and strategies operators may adopt to deliver these experiences can include:
Visitor information - what’s on in the region, what are must see attractions on your website and available as handouts for your visitors.
Partnerships - organising family and reaching out to event organisers to raise awareness of your offering to this visitor sector.
Experience development - bleisure travellers are looking to unwind, disconnect and immerse themselves in the region. Refine your value proposition to this audience and develop unforgettable experiences at multiple price points and lengths.
Availability - bleisure travellers don’t strictly come on a Thursday or Friday, but all week round. It is crucial for operators to cater to this visitor around these events to capitalise on the influx of spend.
These travel behaviours are not the first to evolve and won’t be the last. What’s important is to be forward thinking, know your customer, understand their needs and listen to their feedback.
By making this an always on mindset in your destination development and experience design, you won’t need to wait to learn what the trends are…you will set the trend.
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