Travel Insurance
It seems mundane and travel insurance only seems to be necessarily when something goes wrong, which is why many people prefer not to think about it. (Currently a quarter of Britons travel abroad knowingly or unknowingly without insurance). Insurance, like many other industries, is undergoing rapid change, not least due to the Internet. Price comparison websites will continue to be influential, although the convenience of booking everything at once should not be underestimated. What we are likely to see, however, is more holidays-makers buying insurance ‘on the fly’, which not only means via a mobile device sitting in departures, but also halfway up a mountain when the conditions turn nasty.

For example, if you suddenly fancy some off-piste skiing, but the snow conditions look a bit risky, in the future you will be able to instantly buy cover whilst sitting on a ski lift. If you are using a smart mobile the insurance company will be able to pinpoint your exact location and local snow conditions and assess your risk. You will be able to pay via your mobile and a digital cover note will be issued within minutes for the duration of your descent.

Holiday makers of the future might also wish to consider personal weather insurance (you get paid if it rains essentially) or perhaps indulge in a bit of holiday spread betting (you pay lots if the weather is glorious but very little if it’s nasty). Other emergent forms of insurance might include not only digital device cover, but insurance against lost for things that only exist in cyberspace (digital photographs, digital music collections and so on).

To be continued…

Paying
If anyone is still paying for any aspect of his or her summer holiday with a cheque in 2030 we’d be surprised. Paper forms of payment seem to be disappearing faster than the Maldives. A few die hard coin and paper note hoarders will no doubt survive, but most will be paying with plastic (Credit and debit cards), direct electronic debits or some form of virtual or private currency. Once on holiday the same pattern is likely to persist, unless travellers go totally off the beaten tourist trail. Whether or not the Euro will still exist in 2030 is unclear, but if you are a betting type if might be worth digging out a few old Drachma from the ‘Man Drawer’ and placing a bet that it won’t – certainly not in its current form.

Something far more certain is that an increasing number of payments, especially for cheaper holidays or shorter breaks, will be made via mobile devices, especially phones. The idea of turning a phone into a wallet has been around for a while, but by the end of the current decade we’d expect significant steps in this direction, especially with the development of Near Field Communications (NFC).

In 2013 a patent was filed by an American consortium developing a technology whereby a mobile device senses a gesture performed by the user with the mobile device and modifies it accordingly flag an item for review during the transaction, cancel the transaction, receive a subtotal for parts of it, and so on. So going further into the future, even micro-payments and pre-pay might appear old fashioned if we end up having our life savings (or debts) embedded in our bodies with the ability to move money in and out with a physical handshake.

One final thought about money. In some ways the travel industry is very vulnerable to short-terms shocks, but in another it is extraordinarily resilient.
The economy and the amount of disposable income in peoples’ pockets is clearly a major factor impacting whether or not and how people go on holiday.
However, the fact of the matter is that when times are good people have the money to spend and when times are bad economically there is in a sense even more need to escape.

To be continued…

Booking Travel
How will people research and book holidays in the future? One suspects that the answer to this question will be in principle much the same as they already do. People will look at travel “brochures”; listen to the opinions of others they trust (social networks and blogs, but also travel agents ‘super-recommenders’ in social networks). They will also consult, the opinions of specialist travel writers, especially those writing in physical or digital newspapers, magazines and specialist travel publications.

But the way in which we will do all of this will change. The demise of the physical travel agent has been foretold for some time. 52 per cent of UK consumers, for example, claim that holidays are better value for money when booked online, while 40 per cent like being able to personalise their own holiday on the internet. A staggering 14% even say that they’ll book with someone they’ve never heard of online if it’s cheap enough.

However, while many people prefer the cost and convenience of booking things themselves, for others it is monumentally stressful and time consuming. Furthermore, for holidaymakers suffering from Too Much Information and Too Much Choice, for people that don’t know what they want or for those looking for expert and specialist travel knowledge, the travel agent will still have a significant role to play.

The market will almost certainly split between travel superstores in the manner or Nike or apple and small, niche specialists.

In 2030 we’ll see fully interactive “try before you fly” experience superstores, where customers will be able to vicariously experiment with a complete virtual holiday. So we’ll be able to walk round the resort, have a 360 degree tour of the different room types, remotely test the bed softness, talk to the reps on 3-D Skype and go into a simulator booth that will demonstrate what the temperature and humidity of Vietnam in high summer feels like or experience the effects of reduced oxygen when walking up to Machu Picchu. Smaller satellite locations would have a similar offer on a more concentrated scale.
At the other end of the spectrum, online and physical specialists will address emergent geographies, and individual audiences such as older travellers, adventure holidays, niche cultural interests.

On the subject of holiday brochures it is perhaps worth noting that they shouldn’t still exist. Surely we should all be going on line or browsing hotels on an iPad?
The reason this isn’t happening is possibly the same reason that magazines are still flourishing despite the well-known woes of the newspaper industry. Holiday brochures, like magazines, do not tend to deal with hard news. Both tend to deal with lifestyles and dreams and these have a much longer shelf life

Even if we still want the in hand experience of the brochure, virtually all 2030 bookings will be done online. Just as with Ebay now, people will be able to bid for holidays – competing with other travellers, leaving it to the last minute to swoop for a followed favourite.

As for whether bookings are made well in advance or at the last minute (see previous point about resorts becoming full due to the rapid growth in numbers) both will be true and will be heavily influenced by such mundane factors as school holidays (whether or not they are changed to allow more flexibility), the economy (whether people have enough money to travel) and work (whether or not an increasingly project-based and freelance workforce has the ability to plan ahead).

With both though, it would appear that planning will become more continuous, with customers using the web and social media to constantly adjust plans and iterineries. As such supply chains will need to become more responsible to such flexibility – a point that travel operators could leverage by being as helpful as possible, possibly providing ‘nurturing’ customer service to smooth out any last minute difficulties and changes of both heart and mind.

One thing that does appear somewhat strange is that while airlines and hotels have operated various loyalty schemes, the idea seems relatively new among travel operators and many customers are not aware of such schemes. In the future micro-personalisation means that such ideas will expand further, possibly allowing holidaymakers to stock their hotel mini-bar in advance, choose the toiletries for their bathroom or order their meals in advance.

Another warmly received development might be holidays that you can barter online. Given enough warning, most holiday companies will grant customers a full refund if for some reason (work, health etc.) they can no longer go away. However, it is the nature of emergencies that they happen without warning, so perhaps a holiday company could set up a website where customers that are no longer able to go away can auction their holiday online or exchange it for another. Other missing bits of the jigsaw might be ‘try before you buy stores’ (referred to earlier) where customers could try out the airline seats and even the food, music and movies. Replicating the travel experience isn’t easy, but even if all an agent does is serve a selection of national dishes from top destinations or organise 2030 Skype equivalent calls with hotel managers it would surely help.

We can also predict a future where peer-to-peer contact and recommendations are increasingly important – before, during and after holidays. Members of forums on anything from football to crocheting are already seeking the advice of what they see as like minded people on destinations and what to do there, as more reliable and unbiased opinions than those found on specialist travel sites. Services such as couchsurfing, airbnb and wimdu tap into the desire of people, especially younger travellers, to not only save money, but also get a more authentic experience locally.

In some respects it’s the “paying guest” model with a digital overlay. But as these younger travellers get older, we can expect to see this type of behaviour normalised for older holidaymakers and families, who may currently see this as too risky. And where there’s a market there’s always a potential segmentation, so expect to see different lifestyles, interest groups served at a micro level as this type of service matures.

Car hire companies – already lagging in customer satisfaction behind estate agents and politicians will have to brace themselves for the further expansion of peer-to-peer travel. Whether it’s hitching a ride, car sharing or renting someone else’s, the alternatives to traditional hire companies are growing with services such as Relayrides and Flightcar, which rents out your car from the airport cars while you are travelling or Lyft, an on-demand car sharing service. Many of these services are aimed at commuters and single destinations, but the automotive version of the Boris Bike at holiday venues can’t be far away.

Travellers to emerging destinations will have to become used to being mobbed by random people selling their expertise as local guides. Often taking in important sites such as the guide’s brother’s carpet shop en route. So we can expect to see an increase in digitally sourced personal guides. Locals who are in the know, who have expertise in specific interest areas who can give you a unique insight into your destination, and who will be assessed by their peer-to-peer ratings.

The only thing older than yesterday’s newspapers is yesterday’s guidebooks (sales down 46% in the UK between 2006 and 2012). The disappointed shock at finding that little tavern you remember from 20 years ago now trading as a karaoke bar is one that many of us have experienced.

Rather than online aggregated reviews which date quickly, we can expect in the future to find daily ratings of places, so we can be sure not only that they’re still there, but that they didn’t poison anyone this week. People will post pictures of their meals with comments as a matter of course – so you will know when today’s special looks uncannily like yesterday’s.

What these trends deliver is immediacy and personalisation. A recent Nielsen survey of mobile travel searchers showed that a third wanted to complete the transaction that day. And as digital immediacy grows, our attention spans become shorter and the “Just in time” quality of our lifestyles increases, we can only anticipate this becoming accentuated by 2030.

But being connected at a personal level is also a growing trend. No matter how cocooned our lives become, there is always a desire to see behind closed doors or outside the compound, depending on how you view it. People want to come back from holidays with memories, but also stories. And getting up close and personal with the environment and the people who live there is a need that is unlikely to go away.

To be continued…

What we’ll bring home
If three major needs in relation to holidays are to see somewhere different, relax and reconnect then a fourth might be the need to remind others and ourselves where we have been. The creation of memories and story telling around events is a fundamental human need and various objects and images can be used to facilitate this. One of the oldest customs in relation to travel has been the picture postcard, although this seems to be dying out in favour of instant updates to social networks such as Facebook and the streaming of events on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter. Nevertheless, we would expect physical postcards to endure a little while longer, especially with older holidaymakers in traditional resorts.

Another item of the way out, or so it seems, is the physical photo album. Not only do albums increasingly exist online (no more post holiday family slide nights) they are increasingly narrow in their subject matter. Selfies (photographs taken by a photographer of themselves) now account for 30% of all pictures taken by 18-24-year-olds in the UK, so even if the photo album does survive, they will be thinner, or at least less broad, in the future. Perhaps what will happen is that, realising this, individuals will crowd-source images of themselves with others or buy library images of sights much like we used to buy Viewmaster slides.

To be continued…

What else we’ll do on holiday
The desire to see things that others haven’t (or can’t) should create an interesting premium niche for what might be called Behind Close Doors discovery. This is not simply visiting a country that your friends haven’t, but seeing things people can’t usually see. For example, having a meal with a local family, attending a local school or workplace, seeing a local farm or vineyard or being allowed into a building that is usually closed or reserved for members. This will be a rare growth area for travel operators,, as many people will still be reluctant to rely on the randomness and risk of uncontrolled peer-to-peer activity.

Another thing that links directly with this is the thought of doing something useful or good whilst on holiday. A whole week spent digging a well in a remote part of Africa won’t appeal to many, but hotels, tour operators or websites that connect holidaymakers with skills to share for a day or two might. Twinning something raw or authentic with a luxurious week on a beach might work in other ways too. Combining camping out and cooking for yourself with pampering in a five-star hotel could be an example of future Fusion Holidays.

Beyond such experiences there’s always shopping. In some cases this will mean bagging a designer label bargain, often duty free, whereas in others it will mean looking for local souvenirs to prove to yourself and the people back home that you have indeed been away. In the future this may mean using a mobile device to determine whether the price being asked is really such a bargain or whether something sold as ‘antique’ really is (One other useful bit of technology – a bargaining app that haggles with the seller – in any language – until a fair price is agreed).

To be continued…

Where we’ll stay
For most holidaymakers going away involves staying in a hotel, so what are guests looking for now and what can they expect to see when they check-in five, ten or fifteen years hence? According to a survey by Hotels.com, what people want now is free and easily accessible Wi-Fi. This ranks above high-end coffee makers, iPod docks, video-game systems and DVD players. 38% of survey respondents stated that free Wi-Fi was a must when staying at a hotel, with 35% saying it was the single amenity they wanted to see more of in hotels. By 2030, lacking wifi access will be inconceivable. It will be freely available and ubiquitous – and crucially phone charges abroad will all be at domestic rates, or with free calls and costs made up from other bundled services as the use of skype and facetime will have totally transformed the telephone business model

Hotels and resorts will provide an e-Butler service to help you understand all the technology you’ve bought tax-free and a large safe to store valuables – especially iPads, laptops and phones (will someone please invent a safe for electrical devices that charges devices while they are in the safe!).

Apart from cleanliness, safety, value for money, location, privacy and perhaps a good view out of the window, other desirables might include a bathroom or kitchen area better that guests have at home, breakfast to go, happy hours, a technology ‘bar’ to charge, buy or borrow devices, bedtime menus (everything from fluffy teddy bears to fur-lined hand-cuffs).

Premium hotels will also offer services such as the ability to download personal exercise programs onto hotel gym equipment and the ability to buy many of the items showcased in the rooms themselves – especially technology, sleep and bathroom related items.

Beyond these ideas, what people will want above anything else are comfort, personalisation and convenience. For example, why not check yourself in via your mobile phone or iPad and use the same device to open your bedroom door via a Q-code or ID reader. For example, you’ll check yourself in via your mobile phone or iPad and use the same device to open your bedroom door via a QR-code or ID reader. Similarly, rather than asking the front desk for advice about where to eat or what to see, why not download the hotel’s app (or borrow one of the hotel’s low cost mobile devices – the Casio watch equivalent of a tablet, retailing at around £10) that will contain daily updated suggestions for local restaurants, cafes and bars and include a hologramatic avatar to get you there (and importantly in more far flung exotic destinations, with signage in a foreign language), back again.

Personalisation (guests bringing their own entertainment) also means plugging devices into the hotel’s hardware (TVs, music systems etc.), the ability to change, (before arriving in some instances), room temperature and lighting and even pre-order a mattresses on an international scale of softness to suit particular body weights or sleep patterns, along with special pillows that sense allergies or the presence of insects that may have escaped the hotel’s bug detector system.

In the future guests may even be able to personalise hotel rooms according to what mood they are in or want to create. For instance, flick a switch (or select an app) to instantly create ‘business’, ‘romantic’, ‘relaxing’ or ‘invigorating’ (and heaven forbid if you mix them up!). Perhaps we’ll see switches in hotel rooms that can be turned to age settings, thereby adjusting lighting, sound systems and TV channels according to whether a guest is 18 or 80 years-of-age. Personalisation also means managing your own instant room upgrades and communicating with a hotel directly in advance about meal requirements.

Going further out in time, we can imagine intelligent surfaces in hotel rooms, walls that become giant TV screens and even windows that become screens (to play movies, display exterior temperatures or simply to change the view of the one outside if this doesn’t appeal). A view of the Serengeti from your hotel in Ibiza! Why not? And why not have screens in various parts of hotels connected to webcams showing real-time beach, snow and airport traffic conditions too? And what about using 3D printing to make items that travellers have left behind by accident? Need a plastic comb or a toothbrush? A favourite toy, lost in transit? Easy. Just download a design and print one in your hotel room.

Sooner rather than later, hotel rooms will feature screens onto which guests download or stream their own news and entertainment via The Cloud. Hotel phones (a traditional and highly lucrative revenue stream) will have long gone.. As we’ve seen with airlines, what’s needed in the future is not devices or necessarily content, but large screens and fast Internet and the ability to connect these to a guest’s own media choices, which might include online Bibles or other religious texts of the guest’s choice.

Technology could enable guests to check on things back home, not by calling up friends and family that are keeping an eye on things (has the cat been fed, do the tomatoes need watering?), but via sensors and apps that can monitor doors, windows, central heating and even the family cat.

More usefully, communications (especially video) could allow guests to talk with their local doctor back home rather than relying on someone that doesn’t know them or their existing conditions. Conversely, thanks to the ageing UK population, we’ll also see more people going away on medical holidays to recover from illnesses or to have medical procedures performed in another (lower cost) country.

As for not speaking a foreign language (62% of Briton’s don’t) Google has already launched Google translate, which may one day make learning or speaking a foreign language totally obsolete. Your phone will not only become a simultaneous translation device, allowing you to communicate fluently in real time, but also a screen that can translate everything from road signs to menus into English.

Guests bringing their own devices (BYOD) means something else too – big data and analytics. This links with the thought of personalisation and prediction and hotels (and airlines and holiday companies for that matter) will be in a much stronger position to recognise individual holiday makers and respond to or predict their likes and dislikes. This happens already with high-end hotels and airlines, but the idea will trickle down to budget hotels and low-cost airlines too.

Clearly there are logistical issues around this and knowing too much about an individual or family might appear rather creepy. Nevertheless, recognising people and communicating with them directly rather than through an intermediary is likely to be big business.

As for using online holiday review websites, 44% of Britons claim that they trust reviews written on websites such as TripAdvisor, although we’d expect to see a reversal of this trust sooner or later.

Reviews will be attributed and people will follow those with a trusted reputation of specialist knowledge (often travel agents and travel bloggers that travel themselves of course!). We expect guests to continue to rate hotels and resorts, but there will be a shift here too towards the segmentation of results for “people like us” thereby sidestepping misleading aggregations. This links to personalisation, but don’t expect all the traffic to be one way. One development we are likely to see in the future is hotels, travel companies and airlines rating their customers, especially those that cause trouble.

One trend that is likely to endure though is people posting reviews about bad experiences. Unfortunately, it’s human nature that the people that tend to complain tell their friends about their experience, while those that have an enjoyable experience often keep this to themselves. One thing that we can be fairly confident of therefore is that bad experiences will become more public in the future and complaints will travel faster and will consist not only of angry letters but also of irate photographs and professionally edited video. The big difference will be that travel companies will be able to intervene in real time and fix the problem on the spot rather than be arbitrating after the event.

Micro-personalisation will also mean telling your travel company what kind of toiletries you prefer, what kind of newspaper you’d like in the morning (physical newspapers – printed at the resort – will still be available and will be especially welcome as a reconnection to past, more leisurely habits, when people finally have enough time to read them).

We’ll also see personalisation around health and wellness with guests pre-ordering wheat free, gluten free, diary free, vegetarian and vegan meals and selecting wellness rooms such as the ‘stay well’ rooms already available at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. These rooms feature antimicrobial coatings on bathroom fixtures and TV remotes, filtered air and even vitamin C infused shower water.

Apps and sensors will allow guests to ‘sample’ food and drinks to check that they are to their taste and safe and apart from photographing their food and sending images to friends back home (done already) might use augmented reality to find out more about where their food has come from or how it’s been prepared. Augmented reality may be used outside to allow sightseers to check what sights used to look like in the past (complete with sounds and smells in some instances) or might look like in the future (see, for instance, postcardsofthefuture.com). This thought could be especially powerful in the area of ‘dark tourism’, where people travel to the location of former battles and crimes against humanity. On the one level this means battlefield visits (due to grow from 2014 onwards due to various anniversaries such as 1914 (outbreak of WW1), 1915 (Battle of Waterloo), 1916 (Battles of Jutland and the Somme) and so on, but it also means visiting the scenes of genocide (part London Dungeon and part Imperial War Museum). Perhaps some ‘roots tourism’ holidaymakers will even one day be able to interact with their own ancestors using some form of holographic telepresence.

Technology such as RFID tags, smart dust or sensor motes on bath robes, towels and pillows will help hotels to prevent theft of these items but will also allow housekeeping to count them and see how many items are in the laundry. Of course, many guests will want to avoid technology altogether when on holiday. They are tethered to various devices while at work, which will increasingly invade home too, so some hotels will feature tech-free floors where rooms do not contain a phone, television or Internet connection.

Such ‘tech-no’ rooms and Wi-Fi ‘cold spots’ would logically connect to various sustainability initiatives too, although you can expect many hotels to move in the opposite direction, with more business floors and further business services available to guests, even in low-cost family hotels.

We’ve already seen towel and linen re-use programs, water efficient showers, energy efficient LED lighting, recycled construction materials and local food ingredients, so why not go even greener by limiting carbon emissions linked to the charging of electronic devices and to the use of the Internet. This will be easiest in high-end eco-luxe resorts frequented by burnt out business types, but may also appeal to husbands, wives and especially children who would like to interact physically with their parents and spouses while on holiday (i.e. have their mental attention and their physical presence). Other sustainability initiatives might include hotels that make a point of employing more local staff (rather than flying them in from elsewhere), the use of locally harvested water and energy (especially solar) and encouraging guests to pick or catch the ingredients for their own dinner (links both with nature deficit disorder and the fact that few people nowadays have much of a clue as to where their food actually comes from – in the USA, “locally sourced” can mean within 500 miles). Replacing expensively imported foreign bottled water with filtered local tap water should grow in popularity, although hotels in regions such as Africa will have to be especially careful not to use sources such as bore water if this has an impact in local populations. Generally speaking, rainwater harvested from hotel roofs will be far more sustainable than water from the ground or desalinated seawater.

As to what people will actually do whilst on holiday the list will continue to be varied. Some stressed out people will want to do as little as possible and not think at all (hence a continued and rising popularity of all-inclusive resorts where even meal choices are limited or non-existent – another example of simplification and of paying more to get less). Other guests will want to take eating and drinking to extremes with bars featuring huge selections of drinks and restaurants catering to an increasingly hungry (and huge) clientele (cue extra-large meals, but also extra large beds, baths and doorways).

One factor that does stand out is that an ageing UK (and European) population and this will tend to create a shift in the kinds of activities that tourists engage in, with more people wanting cultural and events-based tourism. This could also segueway into healthy food choices, onsite medical facilities and various celebrity-based exercise activities. This happens already on cruise ships, but we’d expect the idea to take root in hotels too. Perhaps celebrity sports coaching on the Algarve, where celebrity sportsmen and sports women from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s coach people in their 70s, 80s and 90s with a view to keeping fit.

Ageing populations across Europe could have another impact too, with hotels increasingly designing facilities so that older couples (and singles) do not have to mix with noisy families, especially those will small children. Hotels with kids only and adult only pools already exist, but we might see kid-free floors of accommodation, kids – free dining options and perhaps kid – free flights to complete the package.

Ageing populations will also mean more senior-friendly food and easier access bedrooms and bathrooms (e.g. low-rise and bungalow hotels). Improved accessibility to hotel facilities will also appeal to disabled travellers and those travelling with small children.

Ageing tourists should also create a demand for familiarity in the sense of tourists going back and reconnecting with places they have visited before (‘Take me back travel’), which in some instances may be aligned to both roots tourism (where was I born/where did I grow up/get married and so on) and Faith Tourism (where do ‘my people’ come from?). A more conservative clientele might also mean more risk aversion in terms of where people go and what they do once they are there, although this aversion to physical risk will be no means be limited to older audiences. However, the opposite will also be true, with many people seeking out extreme physical and sensory experiences.

We’ve mentioned the growth in tourist numbers, especially those coming from the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the Next 11 nations (Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam). Many of the more distant nations will clearly holiday closer to home, but some will visit Europe, making the annual scramble for sunbeds even more intense (pre-booking of sunbeds via mobile phone perhaps?). Rising numbers of tourists will also mean that while last minute booking (via mobile devices) will soar, so too will holidays planned a long time in advance to guarantee not only the hotel and airline seats but admission to popular sights too. Indeed, it might not be too far fetched to suggest that by 2030 some sights will only be seeable by booking years in advance, which, of course, will open up the opportunity for travel operators to pre-book places and make these available to loyal premium customers (i.e. a travel version of O2s Priority Moments). Rising tourist numbers also means that back in Britain, we are about to have the holiday tables turned on us. Rather than Britons visiting every nook and cranny of the world, we are set to become one of the most visited nations. Perhaps in the future we will have to go away on holiday at peak times simply to avoid the millions of people coming to Britain on holiday.

Of course, this, in turn, opens up the possibility of travel agents and operators facilitating the rental of empty holidaymakers’ homes to inbound holidaymakers and more initiatives like airbnb (currently facing legislative issues in the USA)

Anything else? Given that people can get nostalgic for places they’ve never been, we might see more hotels opening shops selling not only foods from ‘back home’ but also foods and foods in packaging from way back when. We’ve already got Vintage Vacations (formerly known as camping and caravanning on the Isle of Wight) so why not provide the whole package?

This last thought taps into another, which is that as the world becomes faster, more virtual and more complex what some guests will want is simplification and the ability to shut things off and other people out.

The more technologically orientated and accelerated life becomes, there will be a growing and significant desire for the opposite, which in the hotel context means simplicity and the human touch. Again, paying more for less. It also means getting somewhere more slowly and unwinding more once you are there. For example, how about ‘silent flights’ (no communications or auditory media allowed) or ‘silent hotels’ run along Trappist lines.

At one end of the market we could see tech-free eco-resorts where guests hand over mobile phones and other devices when they arrive to low-cost resorts where all you get is a tent under the stars. Of course, some of these tents will have room service, but that’s ‘glamping’ and the contradictory customer for you.

Of course, resorts don’t have to be far away if what you’re after is simply to get away. The artificial beach next to the Seine in Paris proves that what some people want is sand regardless of where it is. The ‘beach’ by the river Swan in Brisbane (Australia) and Camden ‘beach’ in London similarly prove that a mini-break works, even if it’s only for a matter of hours. Given that we’ve already got resorts with domed swimming pools and ‘islands’ and artificial snow domes in Dubai, how long before someone creates a totally ‘authentic’ fake resort in a former steel town in Eastern Europe with artificial sun, artificial sea, artificial sand, artificial birdsong and frighteningly realistic prices?

As to how far such fake destinations could go it would seem the answer is quite a long way. At the moment many people are intent on seeing the ‘real thing’ in the sense of experiencing the Temples at Luxor or the canals of Venice. But evidence suggests that in many cases people don’t care if well-known sights are faked. Examples of replica towns or replica sights might include parts of Las Vegas, but increasingly it is within China that such destinations are found. For example, Thames Town looks a bit like an old English town and attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year, but it is located on the banks of the Yangtze River. There are even plans to build a cute replica of the historic Austrian village of Hallstatt in Austria in Guangdong Province. Perhaps in the future we will see attempts at recreating Machu Picchu in Spain, Venice outside Mumbai and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Hanoi.

Back in the real world, kids will remain the centre of the holiday universe for many parents (and travel companies) so additional attention will be paid to their needs whether they like it or not. In some instances this will simply mean buckets and spades, but for others we’d expect new ‘soft’ cultural and educational opportunities to evolve. On the one hand this might mean a Dangerous Club for Boys and Girls, where normally sedentary and nature starved kids are coaxed into activities that allow them to rediscover their physical selves (tree climbing, camp building and so on). Fewer than ten per cent of kids play in wild places nowadays; down from 50 per cent a generation ago, while the roaming radius for kids has declined by 90 per cent in just one generation. Perhaps resorts will teach, or reteach, the 3Rs through interactions with historical sites. ‘Edutourism’ could also include adults and whole families signing up for various volunteering projects in foreign countries, even if 2 days of being good ends up being twinned with 5 days being a sloth.

The need to relax on holiday is also likely to result in further growth of spas, which in some instances could be modelled on the Victorian spa resorts of yesteryear. The search for sensory experiences is an established trend outside of travel and is set to grow in it as well. Finnair, for example, have what is essentially a spa at Helsinki airport that features no less that five different types of sauna. Add a need for serious medical monitoring equipment and a proper nights sleep and we could see some interesting hybrid hotels develop that are part traditional hotel, part hospital and part sanctuary. Obviously, the growing aesthetic sophistication and design literacy of travellers means that these won’t look anything like a hospital.

Finally, a word about pricing. The spending power of the new global rich means that luxury hotels will become more luxurious and commonplace. At the other end of the price spectrum, budget hotels should also grow, especially “capsule hotels”. The Japanese first thought of the idea of capsule hotels, small rooms with only a bed and tiny television, for travellers on a budget. Then Heathrow and Gatwick airports in the UK opened cabins for hire by the hour with a minimum booking of four hours. As one manager said, “Once you take the window out you can just pack them in”. There’s a good reason for this development. Many cities and popular resorts are under-served with budget hotels.

It will be interesting to see whether travellers are willing to give up their windows onto the world. People may more easily accept a pod at an airport, when they are most likely to be exhausted and desperate to lie down. There’s not much to look at there. Some may find the idea of a windowless “pod” claustrophobic, but many budget hotels don’t have much of a view anyway and if all you want is to lie on a beach, eat, drink and fall asleep then they will make perfect sense for some. Some cities in the USA are already relaxing their legislation around limited build sizes for homes to as little as 20 square metres. So we will see micro-hotels becoming commonplace, with modular rooms and all facilities concealed in walls, ceilings and floors.

To be continued…

How we’ll get there
Air-travel will remain a key component of the foreign holiday experience, although we will start to see some significant changes, both in the air and on the ground. A key change will be the development of lighter, quieter, cleaner and more fuel efficient aircraft that conform to both the environmental wishes of governments and the profit prerogatives of private companies. Low-cost flying is likely to expand further, both in terms of market share and geographical reach, and overall travel will continue to polarise between low cost and luxury segments, with the former stripping out all kinds of services (adding them back in for additional payment in some instances) while the latter continues to add personal pampering and indulgences for “free”.

Things could even polarise further, with airline travel becoming free at the one end with passengers paying to sit down, eat, drink or use the bathroom, while business class passengers club together and migrate by hiring small private jets operated by luxury hotel brands out of regional airports at the other. But before people contend with the on-board aircraft experience, there’s the small matter of navigating the airport. Currently, one of the most common complaints passengers have about flying is delayed flights and especially inaccurate or misleading information about departure times.

As mobile devices become (literally in the future), part of us surely a lack of information will be one thing that future passengers won’t have to contend with. If information and to some extent identity can be verified by mobile device then not only will queuing at a check-in counter disappear in the future, but so too will paper boarding passes.Even passports may one day become obsolete, being replaced in the first instance by ID verification via mobile phone (supplemented by automated biometric checking and malicious intent detectors).

The more people will be willing to surrender data about themselves to the providers, and become “trusted travellers” the faster the travel experience will become. Holiday companies that encourage customers to make use of personal data in a secure and confidential way will be able to provide a far more seamless and easy experience.

Indeed, the entire airport experience will one day be paperless and hence much simpler. Check-in will be via self-service terminals (not necessary at the airport) and bags will be dropped off either via unmanned terminals or via drive-through bag drops when passengers park their car at the airport.

As for the bags themselves, many will contain GPS so that not only the airport, but the passengers themselves can track bags in real time – much in the same way that FedEx etc. currently allow customers to do with parcels. BA is already testing reusable wireless luggage tags using e-paper displays that allow customers to create their own identifiers at home, although a more secure solution might be to have the tag embedded within the bag itself.

Overall then, more of the passenger and baggage processing will be done by passengers themselves, often outside the direct airport environs. For example, why not avoid baggage reclaim at the other end of your flight and have the airline deliver your bags to your rental car, hotel or resort for an additional fee. Unless, of course, unless you are flying First Class, in which case onward delivery will be free and you’ll also have the option of having your bags personally delivered to the ‘freshen up’ suite at the arrivals lounge or unpacked, ironed and placed directly in your hotel room.

The use of smart phones and tablet devices will revolutionise the airport experience in other ways too. Online maps will help guide passengers through airports, although even these might appear quaint if people start using augmented reality glasses to create 3D route maps. Such devices might not make much of an impact at Tenerife or Majorca airports, but even here customers will see a significantly more automated airport process and it would not be too far fetched to suggest that in a more distant future all physical airport signage would disappear because all airport information will be replicated virtually.

For example, we may see the disappearance of flight information boards because passengers would be told directly when their flight was boarding and from which gate by their mobile device and even manned boarding gates could disappear because ID would be checked automatically with bio-metric boarding gates.

Paper immigration forms could disappear too, as these would be online, filled in prior to boarding or on the plane itself and supplemented with biometric ID checks at kiosks. Virtual reality may make an impact in other areas too, We’re already seen Tesco launch a virtual store at Gatwick’s North Terminal that allows customers to pre-order groceries and other essentials to be delivered directly to their home on their return from holiday. This could work in the other direction too, with groceries and travel necessities from home being sent to hotels abroad. Ideal for families with children who are fussy (or xenophobic) eaters.

But if physical objects like check-in counters were to disappear, what could be put in their place? From being places to park, shop and be sent into the air, airports could recapture the magic they held at the start of the travel revolution by becoming places of discovery and entertainment, where people will want to spend time, rather than being forced to. At Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, for instance, there is a farmer’s market for passengers to graze, while Munich Airport has its own brewery. Other options to fill space and time might include ski-slopes (try ski equipment before you arrive at the mountain resort), tanning kiosks, swimming pools, hot tubs and spas (the last two are done already, but they tend to be located in premium airline lounges) and giant wall-sized screens showing video of various destinations (similar to the video installations used at LAXs Bradley International Terminal). Airports could even reinstate viewing platforms and link these to virtual reality flight simulators. In other words, airports will become destinations in their own right and will be increasingly redesigned to add to the holiday experience rather than detracting from it, which all too often is the case nowadays.

On-board aircraft change will be significant too. Entertainment options will start to mirror what happens on the ground, with access to almost anything at almost any time (paid for in Economy, free in Business and gift wrapped in First). By around 2025, it will be possible to access any movie or song ever made at 39,000 feet and we would certainly expect passengers to be able to access their own films, music or games via The Cloud or via their own devices (but displayed on seat-back screens, with some screens available in 3D or even hologrammatically) much sooner than that. On board Internet access will be ubiquitous and passengers will no longer be told to turn off electronic devices during take off and landing. Similarly, communications will mirror the access that passengers increasingly expect on the ground. For example, passengers might be able to send their holiday videos for editing back home while still in the air.

Although the technology exists, whether people will start to make voice calls during flights is uncertain. In 2012, the CEO of AeroMobile, which provides mobile connectivity to a large number of airlines predicted that around 1,000 aircraft would be fitted with the company’s systems by 2015, using international mobile rates, rather than the prohibitive costs of fitted phones. Anecdotal evidence suggests that not everyone is happy with the idea of sitting next to someone making a 21-hour phone call all the way from London to Sydney, but texting does seem more acceptable. Perhaps what will happen is that airlines will segment planes into voice and non-voice sections, much in the same way that some InterCity train operators separate carriages into quiet zones.

As for airline food, this too will polarise between choice and almost no choice at all – a sandwich (or none) at one end of the plane and line-caught salmon, grilled organic beef or Moroccan chicken at the other. Food will also offer a choice between good for you (healthy and light) and sheer indulgence (naughty but nice). It will split between free and paid-for depending on airline and seat class, although the option of buying business class food while travelling economy could become increasingly popular as people demand greater personalisation and flexibility throughout the flight experience. (When are low-cost airlines going to realise that at least some of the passengers squeezed in to the back of the plane in Economy also fly Business when working or are travelling on to a luxury hotel after the plane has landed?).

One further food development that could become more popular is the personalisation of food via the pre-booking of meals, or meal times, although some operators may ditch the idea of food service altogether, replacing it with vending machines or help yourself fridges in galley areas. Some may also locate these vending machines and fridges at boarding gates so that passengers can select their meals and drinks before they board their plane (please more rubbish bins by these gates too so that people can dump rubbish and unwanted sections of newspapers – thus saving weight – prior to boarding the flight).

One further big step could be the development of cabin baggage only flights. Currently, the price of air travel is hugely impacted by the cost of jet fuel, the burning of which is heavily influenced by the weight of passengers and their luggage. One way to reduce the amount of fuel burnt (and hence the cost of the ticket) could be to ban hold luggage altogether or charge passengers according to the combined weight of the passenger and their luggage. This idea has been tested by Samoan Airlines, but it has the potential to be rolled out by other airlines too One advantage for passengers (at least small ones) is simplification – everyone knows in advance that extra pounds will cost extra pounds and can pack accordingly. Alternatively, why not allow passengers with no checked luggage – or those with the smallest or lightest carry on bags – to board the aircraft first?

Clearly, carry-on only flights won’t work over long distances – or in colder climates when people need more clothes – but if a holiday is a week in Spain during July there’s no reason why many of the essentials cannot be pre-booked, bought locally and be placed in a hotel room awaiting the guest’s arrival or sent in advance by other modes of transport, as happened a century or more ago with travellers sending their luggage on ahead.

If we fly further into the future, things could get even more interesting.
We’ve already read about concepts such as glass-topped aircraft from Airbus (like bottomless boats but the other way up), planes flying in V-shaped formations (like geese) to reduce drag, planes with ‘clip on’ cabins, enabling a switch between cargo and passengers, smaller planes flying to even smaller airports (booked via passengers that aggregate into buyer groups on the Internet) and planes with touch screen windows that can display outside temperature and interactive journey maps. All very sci-fi, so how about pilotless planes? This thought fills most passengers with fear, but most passengers are experiencing hands-free flight already, at least during cruising altitude.

All very sci-fi, so how about pilotless planes? In Spring 2013, the first pilotless test flight took place in UK airspace as part of the ASTREA project (Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation), using a standard Jetstream aircraft with banks of computers, sensors and high definition cameras. This thought fills most passengers with fear, but most passengers are experiencing hands-free flight already, often without knowing it, at least during cruising altitude.

Finally, there’s the future development of eco-friendly hybrid jet planes.
Hybrid planes would involve a combination of jet engine and electric power, conventional jet fuel being used for take off and landing, switching to environmentally friendly electric power once cruising altitude has been achieved. Or electric take off with the battery being recharged while cruising. A number of developments are at an early stage at the moment, but Siemens has created a two- seater aircraft powered by an electric series hybrid drive system which made its maiden flight in early 2013. It is estimated that a hybrid jet liner would use 25% less fuel than current aircraft, which means this type of technology is likely to be fast tracked and in partial use at least by 2025. The plane that the 2025 holidaymaker sits in will almost certainly not have been produced in the same way as in 2013. 3D printing will be used to produce many of the component parts with speed, precision and low cost as benefits. By 2050 it is not inconceivable that fully 3D printed planes will be flying the skies.

Other holiday transport used in the future will almost certainly include high-speed cross-country trains (many with sleeping carriages containing not only flat beds, but private cabins and even showers). This development will primarily be cost and convenience driven. Journeys to and from major cities can be frustrating partly due to the time spent getting to and from the airport. If the destination is another city, even one a thousand miles away, high-speed trains, especially ones that connect via moving platforms, can deliver passengers more or less point to point.

Alternatively, going out further into the future we might see the development of vacuum tube transport systems, which are a bit like the vacuum tubes used by old-fashioned department stores to move cash payments from one floor to another, but with people inside. One version of this, the “Hyperloop” envisages solar-powered, vacuum-sealed tubes, which could transport people and cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 30 minutes at speeds up to 800 miles per hour, while the passengers inside would only experience G-forces similar to a car ride.

Another old form of transport that could enjoy a comeback is shipping. The holiday cruise industry is well established, but future ships will appeal both to a rapidly ageing population and to people seeking out safe discovery. Ships are relatively secure and minimise onward travel in that the sights can be brought to the ship. For those wanting to see foreign cultures without actually being exposed to them directly, ships, like coaches to some extent, offer a convenient form of voyeurism. Perhaps we’ll see glass bottomed (or at glass-tipped) cruise ships much in the same way that me might see aircraft with transparent roofs?

Finally there are cars. It is unlikely that cars (electric or otherwise) will threaten airplanes over long distances in the future, but once at a resort we’d expect more people, especially younger travellers in cities, organising their own sightseeing activities using car-sharing services (frequently electric or hybrid) rather than using traditional rental cars. Car2Go in the US is a shape of things to come in this regard.

Where we’ll go
If some people are to believed, we will soon be taking holidays on the moon, but the reality within our time frame is likely to be more prosaic for most. Yes, space tourism has some potential – even at the low level of zero gravity trips and Antarctica is becoming an aspirational tourist destination, but both are likely to remain the preserve of (super) wealthy travellers for the foreseeable future. A more likely prospect sees Britons travelling further and faster thanks to developments such as low-cost long-haul flights and long-distance, high-speed, rail. Conversely, we will also rediscover old places, especially places closer to home, and choose to get there more slowly in some instances (hiring a vintage Citroen 2CV for a week of slow travel in Normandy, for example).

One development that we are already experiencing is a growth in tourist numbers, especially the rise in those from countries with a rapidly developing middle class such as China, India and Russia. Chinese tourists are already the third most important inbound market for Italy, and 1.4 million of them visited France last year. Half a million Indians flock annually to the Bernese Oberland, where many Bollywood productions are now set.

As many resorts fill up with such tourists, many UK holidaymakers will either be priced out or will choose to stay somewhere else. Travel is often tribal and most people prefer to holiday with people similar to, or exactly the same as, themselves. Witness the English and Germans occupying sun loungers in Majorca or the Russians invading bar stools in Kemer (Turkey). In fact some Russian tour companies are already offering trips for discerning Russians to where their fellow countrymen don’t go.

Countries such as China and India are, of course, developing their own resorts and we can expect at least some Britons to travel in the opposite direction. How about booking for 2 weeks at a 5-Star eco beach resort in Sanya (China) in 2030, for example. Other nations that should enjoy an influx of holidaymakers, especially from the UK, include countries that are developing economically (e.g. Ukraine), those transitioning to stable democracies (Burma etc.) or those set to benefit from changing weather patterns (Dubai, Oman et al). There is, of course, also the thought that there are more than 200 countries in the world, but the average person only regularly visits 20 or fewer in a lifetime. There are countries, especially in Asia and Africa that British holidaymakers haven’t even heard of let alone visited.

Future long distance holiday hot spots may include: Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Argentina, Iran, Syria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Angola, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Gabon, Zambia and Namibia.

As a counter-trend to this exoticism, many will also choose to stay at home and the significance of domestic tourism should not be ignored, especially given that many people perceive a UK break to be cheaper than one abroad, although a recent (April 2013) survey by the Post Office revealed that many European resorts have become cheaper of late (Spain is highlighted as being up to 20% cheaper than in 2012). And at the further end of the spectrum, in our economically straitened times, 30% of Britons can’t afford a holiday anywhere

Overall, as people’s thirst for variety and discovery grows, allied to the increased speed and convenience of long haul, what we’ll see is the popularity of Hybrid Holidays – either a weekend in a tent in Wales and a week in Majorca or one or two weeks in Spain that includes a couple of nights in a stylish air-conditioned tent. Similarly, more people may opt for a week in a traditional hotel in the Algarve, but twin this with a motorhome to explore the unseen side of Portugal.

Destinations will clearly evolve, but overall, what most holiday-makers will want in 5, 10 or 15 years time will be much the same as what they wanted 5, 10 or 15 years ago – value for money, reliable weather (generally warm and sunny) safe adventure, personalised experiences and above all the opportunity to get away and relax and spend time with people they care about.

In 2012, Wanderlust Magazine, asked independently minded travellers for their top emerging destinations and the list included Sudan, Greenland, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Pakistan , Cook Islands, Taiwan, Lebanon, Fiji, Iran. The WTTC have also compiled a list of the world’s fastest growing destinations. Clearly many (if not most) of these are not obvious sea and sand destinations, and future political circumstances are always uncertain. but where the pioneers go, the mass market tends to follow.
World’s Fastest Growing Holiday Destinations

1. Qatar
2. Azerbaijan
3. Kyrgyzstan
4. Montenegro
5. Uzbekistan
6. Belarus
7. Panama
8. Philippines
9. Tunisia
10. Chile

Source: World Travel & Tourism Council
Top destinations for the 19th Century British Traveller

1. River Nile
2. Paris via Brussels and the Rhine
3. Davos
4. The Holly Land
5. Niagara Falls
6. French coast (Nice, Biarritz, Deauville)
7. Italy
8. Scandinavian Fjords
9. Bath, UK
10. Shanghai
Source: The Guardian.

To be continued…

Back in the (northern) summer I was involved with a project looking at the future of travel and holidays. In the end the client didn’t like it and it was all junked. Seems a shame to waste the material so here is a bit of it. More to follow.

Going on Holiday
The impulse to travel links to human inquisitiveness and the need to rest, relax and reconnect and the continued popularity of holidaying is a sure sign that in an era characterised by upheaval, some things remain remarkably consistent.
In 2012, a record one billion people travelled internationally. By 2020, this figure is expected to reach around 1.4 billion (1.5 billion by 2025) and travel remains one of the largest and important economic activities worldwide, representing approximately 1 in 12 global jobs and around 5% of global GDP.

One might imagine that in times of economic austerity, geo-political turbulence, climate concerns and technological change, the opposite might be the case – that we would all be holidaying at home, in virtual worlds or nowhere at all – but for a great many people this is simply not the case. Despite SARS, Asian Flu, 9/11, oil price shocks, climate change concerns and the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, the leisure travel industry has remained remarkably resilient of late– bouncing back quickly after short-term shocks.

In Britain, Spain remains the most popular holiday destination and thoughts of a sun drenched (or snow covered) elsewhere still remain at the forefront of most peoples’ minds. This may change over time, but while destinations and modes of transport will evolve, the need to get away and reconnect with oneself or with others, especially loved ones, will, we believe, remain constant.

Why we’ll still want to get away
Logically, travel makes little or no sense. Why leave the comfort, convenience, connectivity and relative certainty of home to travel hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to do what often amounts to very little?

Some people travel to discover new things, to immerse themselves in new cultures, but for most, the need to slow down and do next to nothing trumps the wish to follow in the sandy footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson. A key reason for this appears to be work. In 2011, nearly 50 per cent of UK adults reported relatively low satisfaction with their work-life balance.

A fundamental driver of most holidays is the desire to unwind and escape from work or to get away from ‘life’ for a while. Increasingly we are working more than we realise too. The middle classes probably have the strongest reason to go on holiday, because they work the longest hours. Full-time managers and senior officials in the UK are paid, on average, for 38.5 hours a week, but actually work for 46.2 hours, a difference of 7.6 hours. Similarly, the professional classes are paid, on average, for 36.6 hours per week, but end up working for 43.4 (a gap of 6.8 hours). (ONS).

Hence the need to stop, switch off and get away, even if all people do is cross the channel and spend the next two weeks still tethered to work via a mobile device. If the future is faster, more volatile, more uncertain and contains more work, then the need to get away and unwind will almost certainly grow.

The same will broadly be true if families become more atomised, relationships become more virtual and people do not see their loved ones as often as they would like – they will want to invent ways to reconnect and bring the family back together.

Who we’ll go with
The travel industry, like other sectors, tends to equate family with ‘nuclear family’, which is the traditional unit of married mother and father and two smiling children.  However the make up of households is changing rapidly and will continue to do so. So companies that recognise changing needs and respond flexibly will flourish. Nowadays, the largest single household type in the UK, as in many other countries, contains just one person – there were 8 million of them in 2012 or just under 30% of all UK households and this is projected to rise to over 10 million by 2025.

Only about 20% of households contain dependent children and so whilst the ‘family holiday’ still exists, and is still big business, the majority of holidaymakers now comprise people travelling alone, single parents, married and unmarried couples and groupings of friends. Additionally, adults are having fewer children and are having them later, which means more mature parents – the average age that people have children in the UK is now 29 (vs. 23 in 1975).

There are also more couples without children, more same sex couples, more couples with children from more than one relationship, more adults living with parents (30% of 25-year-old men currently live at home), more couples living together that are not married (1.5 million opposite sex couples living together in 1996 compared to 2.9 million in 2012) and many more (much) older couples. (14 million aged 60+ now with a forecast of 17.5 million 60+ by 2025), all of which makes the idea of a ‘family holiday’ slightly ambiguous.

In the future we can expect to see single parent ‘family’ holidays together with single parent discounts, more multi-generational leisure experiences and more singles travelling alone to meet other singles, especially people with similar interests (Cue social network airline tickets that match seating plans to interests, allowing us to connect in different ways).

We might also see holidays tailored to recently separated singles – not so much a seven-year itch as a 57, 67, 77 and 87-year itch (the number of over-60s divorcing has risen by over a third in a decade while divorce rates for younger couples has fallen). An increase in older people living alone also means more pets as companions. This could, in turn, create a boom in pet friendly travel – or the opportunity for holiday companies to offer boarding services with the same reassurance and attention to detail that the owners receive, as pet boarding costs become a significant part of many peoples’ total holiday expenditure.

We should also not forget ethnicity. ‘British’ used to mean white or at least born and bred in Britain. This is no longer the case. The 2011 UK Census showed that one in eight of the population were born abroad, so increasing migration and ethnic diversity could open up a whole new segment of travellers less motivated by “traditional” fish and chips on the Costa Brava and more interested in reconnecting with their roots.

Similarly, we should remember that in many instances friends are the new family and people will travel not with direct family, but with colleagues, neighbours and virtual friends.

To be continued…