6 Major Travel Trends for 2024, According to Industry Insiders

Let’s call this one the long-lasting ripple of pandemic isolation.  Travel experience boutique Black Tomato principal Tom Marchant explains this trend, in which a group trip is specially planned to get everyone off their devices and out of their rooms. The goal being to take a mental health moment—and a fun one at that—through connection. “Serving as an antidote to over-scheduled, time-poor stressors that pervade our busy lives, ‘See You in the Moment’ encourages being fully present in the moment with others; being mindful, which by design is innately therapeutic,” he says. “At Black Tomato, we have a deep understanding of the psychology of travel, pioneering travel experiences designed to be transformative and bring lasting impact, from getting lost to finding yourself in Mongolia, to harnessing travel as a self-improvement tool.” Marchant points out that groups—whether intergenerational families, friends, even wedding parties—will each have individual experiences each day and independence, so no forced interactions (tell that to the teens). Instead, each day fellow travelers will meet for dinner or drinks to share experiences.

According to Hilton Corporation, which did a multigenerational study of travel attitudes, “the number-one reason people want to travel in 2024 is to rest and recharge.” (Shout out to Gen X, the so-called “sandwich generation,” which had the most sleep-deprived members with 68 percent of respondents saying rest was the primary reason they want to travel in 2024). That means quality mattresses (including smart mattresses such as the Bryte bed), luxe bedding and accessories such as noise-cancelling headphones and sleep masks are going to become increasingly essential. At the Fairmont Century Plaza spa in Los Angeles, for example, one sleep-focused biohacking treatment has clients reclining on an anti-gravity bed with an infrared HigherDose mat to ease joint pressure, wearing a pair of lymphatic drainage booties for muscle tension relief and donning headphones emitting binaural beats to decrease anxiety.

We’re inspired by our streaming habits, according to Expedia, and now we’re not even waiting until the show is aired to plan a trip there. Expedia predicts that White Lotus fans, for example, won’t wait until the new season of Mike White’s show, set in Thailand, airs before booking trips to their South Asia islands. And Bridgerton fans have already been flocking to London, Bath and Windsor to enjoy Lady Whistledown’s home turf, and Emily in Paris viewers visiting her titular city. Expect new shows such as season two of Squid Game, Gladiator 2 and the new action thriller Argylle to result in an uptick of visits to Korea, Malta and Greece.

Emily Kaufman, the blogger who shares her 20+ years of travel experience as Travel Mom, says people will be skipping places that are popular and opting for a destination that has nearly all the appeal, but less crowded and more reasonably priced. Examples include visiting Taipei instead of Seoul, Liverpool instead of London and Memphis instead of Nashville.

Want a destination with a little something extra? How about Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, BTS and Blackpink? According to travel journalist Gillian Rhys, writing in the South China Morning Post, these are a few recent tours that have inspired fans to fly to a destination where the artist is performing, hit the venue and enjoy the show, while spending a few days enjoying the sights of the destination before and after the concert. Expedia predicts the trend is here to stay, so note to self: Taylor Swift has 48 scheduled shows in Europe next year, starting in May in Paris and ending in August in London.

Culinary travel expert Marco Marano of Countrybred has detected an uptick in week-long stays in one place—often a destination that’s not a world capital, but is instead a smaller town or rural region which ultimately benefits more from tourism dollars and enables “slow travel where time is spent getting deep into local culture and gastronomy.” Think a week spent in Umbria rather than a matchbook and a drink in Venice, Florence, Rome and Milan.