Five hospitality and travel trends for 2017
By George Sell
Uploaded 19 December 2016
BHN editor George Sell looks at five industry trends
which will make waves in the boutique and lifestyle hotel space in
2017.
• Going solo
One of the biggest recent changes in travel is the increase in the
number of solo travellers. The ABTA Consumer Service Report 2015 on holiday
habits reported that nearly one in six people - 15 per cent of the
population - have travelled alone, and this number is rising,
particularly in a number of key demographics. Female travellers are
increasingly striking out alone, aided by technology such as the Tourlina app which enables likeminded women to
meet up and share experiences on their adventures.
And older travellers are causing the biggest surge in solo travel demand. Holiday companies such as including Cox & Kings, Caribtours and Journey Latin America are offering incentives to attract people who are single, divorced or widowed, such as dedicated holidays for people travelling alone and, increasingly, the scrapping of single supplements. Operator 101 holidays said: "Our research showed that the average age of a solo traveller is now 54, and this is predicted to rise in future years. Not everyone holidaying alone is single, with more women leaving husbands and partners at home as they tick items off their bucket lists. The new figures also reflect changing UK demographics with a growing population that is older, healthier and wealthier."
Another growing phenomenon is the 'grown up gap year' - people putting successful
careers on hold for a year to travel and recharge their batteries.
Starwood's Aloft brand has cottoned on to this trend and now offers special rates for gap year travellers.
"We always say that Aloft Hotels doesn't appeal to one demographic,
it appeals to those of a similar psychographic- those early
adopter, perpetually curious travelers who want something
different," said Paige Francis, vice president of global marketing
at Aloft Hotels. "These travellers are the ones taking time off to
find themselves or in some cases, lose themselves in local cultures
and experiences. They love staying with us on these journeys, and
fortunately, because of our impressive footprint, Gap Year
travellers can find us just about everywhere."
• Giving something back
Many travellers are increasingly uncomfortable with conspicuous
excess and displays of luxury in poorer destinations, and there is
a growing number of options for people who want adventurous travel
with a conscience. Around 10 million people spend their holidays
volunteering in a foreign country every year. These 'voluntourists' work for one to four weeks in
orphanages, or women empowerment projects in slums, or teach in
underprivileged communities.
An industry has even grown up around volunteering cruises, while other hospitality
brands are enabling socially conscious travellers to give back in
seamless hi-tech ways. Tapping into the 'kindness economy',
US-based website Kind Traveler offers individuals the
opportunity to make charitable donations in exchange for exclusive
rates and packages with a growing range of luxury and boutique
hotels. Travellers need to log onto the Kind Traveler website and
make a donation to one of 10 causes, which include animal welfare,
disaster relief and human rights. After completing their donation -
which start at as little as $10 - they are eligible for generous
discounts at a variety of smart US hotels, including 1 Hotel South
Beach in Miami and The Benjamin in New York. "Kind Traveler's
mission is to transform travelers into a force that benefits local
and global communities, the environment and animals," said Jessica
Blotter, chief executive co-founder of the site.
• Overcoming choice paralysis
The sheer volume of lodging and travel offers online is simply
overwhelming for many, and a new generation of websites and apps is
setting out to make the decision process better and quicker. 2017
will see the rise of alternative search engines, which allow users
to search according to mood, budget and even chance, breaking free
from 'filter bubbles'.
New search engine Flykt says: "Tell us what you
love and your budget - we'll find you the perfect destination!
Enjoy the journey!" Flykt combines "expert knowledge with an
understanding of your profile and wishes (budget, interests and
schedule) to find and suggest choices that would work best for you.
Flykt's technology merges data mining, user profiling, machine
learning, text and sentiment analysis with live access to a wide
range of flights and hotels so each result is customized specially
for you"
Lucky
Trip offers a similarly fresh approach, introducing an element
of chance while taking away what it calls "hours of planning". In
this app, users simply enter their budget and click a button to get
suggestions for their next trip. Behind the scenes, this radical
approach has slightly more conventional partners such as
Booking.com and Skyscanner to provide content.
The aforementioned Tourlina app is one of several which uses
Tinder-style swipe technology - a feature that will become
increasingly common on travel and hospitality apps in 2017.
• Experiential goes mainstream
In a recent presentation on the future of travel, Mandy Saven of
Stylus.com said of the millennial traveller: "Experience supercedes
possessions - the more instagrammable the experience, the better it
is for building up our cultural capital."
2017 will be the year when added experiences for hotel guests become a necessity rather than a luxury. Boutique hotels have always been good at this, their scale allowing them to offer personalised activities, often with a distinctly local flavour. Fishing, foraging, hiking, watersports, cookery, painting and more are becoming pillars if many hotels offers' and are an effective way of generationg guest memoriesd which will hopefully have them coming back for more and advocation your property to friends and family.
But this year the experiential movement is going mainstream, with Airbnb getting in on the act with the launch of its Trips and Experiences offers. Trips enables guests to book "immersive" travel experiences, aiming to bring together "where you stay, what you do and the people you meet all in one place". The tours and experiences, which can be multi-day activities or one-off events such as concerts, are all hosted by locals. Tours can be tailored to a traveller's interests, including food, fashion, music, sport and history.
Airbnb has already teamed up with one hotel group to offer
exclusive experiences - Châteaux & Hôtels Collection has created
four gourmet experiences, overseen by French super-chef Alain
Ducasse and exclusive to Airbnb, that will be offered to
travellers. Trips represents a great opportunity to offer their own
particular experiential offer to a huge previously untapped
audience.
• An army marches on its stomach
"Food and beverage is the number one priority in terms of every
type of trip planned," says Judy Stein, co-president of US tour
operator Ovation.
Although F&B has always been an important element of travel
and hospitality, a whole industry is springing up around marketing
and promoting local food to visitors. Erik Wolf, of World Food
Travel says: "For the UN, the unique food of many destinations
is regarded as an intangible cultural asset, unlike tangible
cultural assets we already know, like a building or painting. It
might not always be easy to explain how a dish like Irish Stew has
evolved since its creation, hence its intangibility. So far only
Armenia and Mexico have had portions of their cuisine certified as
an intangible cultural asset by UNESCO. More nations have
applications pending. While UNESCO approval is the holy grail of
culinary culture preservation, many areas are taking other steps to
protect their food cultures. Consider the Southern Food &
Beverage Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana; the Cork Butter Museum
in Ireland; or the Guinness Storehouse factory and museum, also in
Ireland."
Happily for boutique hotels at the luxury end of the scale, 2017
is set to see a significant drift back to more formal dining for
special occasions - perhaps as a backlash against the informal
trend which may have reached its ultimate conclusion in 'naked
dining' and 'dining in the dark' establishments.
Travel writer Peter Lindberg is seeing a return to fine
dining after years of 'casualization', saying: "There's a certain
specialness that's coming back." This also manifests itself in the
storied hotel bar, which has seen a renaissance alongside the
continued rise of cocktail culture. "The hotel bar is the pinnacle
of our industry," says Charlotte Voisey, director of brand advocacy
and portfolio Mixologist for William Grant & Sons. "There is a
sense of occasion about them, which inspires the new
generation."
Social media is a great way for hotels to publicise temporary
F&B activities which can attract new guests, such as 'food
jams' - hosted social gatherings where friends and strangers come
together to prepare meals - and and pop-up restaurants, street food
outlets or cocktail bars.
What do you think will be the major trends in our industry
for 2017? Email [email protected] and let us
know.
