2017 – The Big Surprise

A viewpoint from Travelsavers' Nicole Mazza

Mazza

Good move
We find that more suppliers are moving away from supporting large discounters. As an organization that celebrates the travel professional, we are thrilled that suppliers are moving more towards travel professionals who do not discount their products and provide them a more valuable client.
We were also surprised at how quickly areas hit by terrorism this past year have bounced back–or tourism to these countries was not affected at all.

2018 – The Next Big Thing

Off the beaten path
We definitely see customers stepping farther outside the tourist “norms” and into experiential travel. Renting treehouses, house boats, camping in jungles, sleeping in igloos to get the best view of the Northern Lights – we will see an increasing number of requests from consumers for out-of-the-box traditional travel requests. We anticipate seeing more and more travellers who want to get off the beaten path with bespoke travel experiences that have been handcrafted for them by their travel professional. We also expect to see the local travel expert trend continue to grow over the next decade.
We are also already seeing the beginnings of Virtual Reality marketing. It will become mainstream in the next few years and be coupled with AI technology, so that consumers will not only be able to see the destination, they will be able to smell the local scents!