KWE Partners, a marketing firm specialising in travel and lifestyle, has published its study dedicated to travel trends of modern society that is simply inseparable from social media. The company has distinguished three mega trends and a series of smaller trends.
Mega-trend 1: Neo-tribalism. Networks are the so-called modern tribes, where people search others with shared interests and passions. Fans of particular types of travel or travel destinations are no exception.
Mega trend 2: Value hunting. Weak economies, recession, and the status symbol of a smart consumer make people use the web to search for hot deals and special packages. This has even given rise to a new type of promotion – gamification marketing.
Mega-trend 3: New experiences. Today travellers search for new experiences. These are not only new travel destinations, but also new unusual services. For example, there are hotels for food lovers and hotels for divorced people.
Other important trends include authenticity. Tourists want to visit authentic places, living and eating in local areas, not special places for tourists. Uniqueness is the key word here. Of course, tourists use social media to get information and feedback about the destinations they’re interested in. Another important trend is crowd-pleasing. People want to spend less, but get more, they want to adjust various aspects of their travel to make it more exciting and comfortable. Today many hotels even offer visitors to choose the color of pillows, mattress types, lightning, scent, etc. Even though we live in the time of social media, family and friends remain a top priority, thus there is a growing demand for various family packages, ladies nights and all kinds of parties for friends. Finally, popularity of handheld devices makes many hoteliers offer mobile apps and special versions of websites made for smartphones and tablets.