What’s Trending for Travelers in 2025
As we start gearing up for 2025, we’re noticing a few trends among our clients as well as within the industry overall.
Maybe one of these resonates with you - and we’d love to work with you to bring that trip to life. Many of our preferred partners specialize in the type of travel that is growing in popularity so we can make it easy for you to just get away!
Next week we’ll share a few of the trending destinations for 2025.
Set Jetting
Honestly, I really don’t like this term, but it is an undeniable trend. Set jetting refers to travelers wanting to visit destinations and hotels or resorts made popular by TV shows or movies. The most obvious recent example of this trend is White Lotus and its impact on tourism to places like Taormina, Sicily. The show is filmed at Four Seasons hotels in each of the series locations and has made the hotels even more popular. Season 3 of the show was filmed at the Four Seasons in Koh Samui, Thailand, the largest and most luxurious island in the Samui island chain. Expect Koh Samui to get more popular once the show debuts sometime next year so maybe plan your own trip there sooner rather than later!
Solo Luxury Travel, especially among Women
An increasing number of luxury travelers are embarking on solo journeys, seeking personal growth and self-discovery through curated experiences that cater to individual interests. This trend has been made more popular as hotels, group tour operators, and cruise lines make solo travelers feel increasingly welcome. Many cruise lines have eliminated single supplement fees and/or have catered to solo travelers with specific room categories. There’s also been a growing trend in women starting to travel solo, particularly among women 50+. Whether they travel on their own or in a group of likeminded solo women travelers, more and more women are getting out on their own to explore on their own terms. We work with partners like Backroads that offer women-only group trips perfect for these kinds of travelers.
Luxury Train Journeys
The revival of luxury train travel, exemplified by services like the Orient Express set to debut in 2025, offers travelers a nostalgic and opulent way to traverse scenic landscapes. We’ve talked about these luxury train experiences before; Belmond has a number of trains in Europe, South America, and Asia that offer a luxury experience for 1 to 3 nights.
Cruising Continues to Grow
The luxury cruise industry continues to grow and we see many of our clients seeking luxe amenities onboard and unique itineraries around the world. With more and more new cruise lines and cruise ships debuting over the past few years, including the latest set of yacht cruises here’s also increased demand among younger generations who are seeing cruises in a whole new way.
Planning Ahead is Back
Now that we are a few years away from the ‘worst’ of the pandemic, it’s starting to feel reasonable to plan ahead for travel. We have many clients coming to us 9-12 months (or more!) in advance to start planning their next trip. Not only is it ideal to plan ahead to get the best options for flights, hotels, tours, and more, it also give you, the traveler, time to really think about how you want to spend your time and work with your travel advisor to plan an incredible, thoughtful itinerary. We love it when our clients come to us early in their trip planning because we can spend more time finding the best destination and curating an ideal itinerary.
Upgrading Your Travel Experience
Travelers are starting to invest more in the way they travel to and from their destinations, not just where they lay their head once they are on the ground. This means we are seeing more interest in business class and first class flights, especially for longer trips or milestone occasions. For many travelers, sitting in a Premium Economy seat for 8+ hours is no longer how they want to start (or finish) their trip. We have partners like Regal Wings that specialize in booking these premium seats and they can usually offer great deals (and service) that you won’t get with the airline directly. If you’re thinking about adding a business or first class ticket to your trip, let us know and we can help arrange that for you.
Contact us to get started on your next incredible trip!