143’s Travel Predictions for 2022 and Beyond
Despite the fact that the world had stopped traveling in 2020 and much of 2021, it was the busiest years to be working in communications for travel (and this is coming from someone who had worked at TripAdvisor, the world’s biggest travel company). I’ve never experienced a more unpredictable and tumultuous media landscape than I did in those years. It was also very clear that the world was changing forever and I was excited to see how the travel industry would pivot and innovate to accommodate those changes.
Now, as the U.S. begins to return to normal, I’m excited to see that there have been some fascinating and innovative travel trends to come out of this pandemic and I for one, can’t wait to see where they lead.
Read more on our travel trends below.
Glamping. When I worked in the vacation rental division of TripAdvisor, that industry was booming. Airbnb was on the rise and travelers were all willing to experiment with vacation rentals around the world. But the pandemic has married vacation rentals with camping and even more, so glamping. Skift reports that “variations of camping, like glamping and RVing, are replacing higher-maintenance leisure travel.” Companies like Under Canvas offer high end glamping accommodations for everywhere from Yellowstone to Acadia. I even got a chance to take my daughter to AutoCamp in Cape Cod and it was quite the experience. Didn’t expect to sleep in a king size bed in a tent! It’s also not something we would have ever tried had we not been living in a pandemic.
Vacation Rentals With Hotel Amenities: Companies like Mint House and Sonder are paving the way for a new category in travel that marries vacation rentals and hotel stays. Travelers can book a room for a night or a month and do it all from their phone. With so many companies extending their work from home policies indefinitely (Airbnb now allows its employees to work from another country for up to 90 days), I think this new category is here to stay and we can expect a lot more startups popping up in it.
Solo travel for women: As the world opens up again, more and more women across all age groups are looking to travel with other like-minded women. Two of the brands we are loving for this are Wanderful and Golightly. Wanderful is a community of female travelers who share resources, build community, get local tips, create support + advice when travel planning and meet up on their journeys. It’s perfect for a female solo traveler looking for a community when planning her next trip and bonus, they’re the women behind Wanderfest, the world’s first outdoor travel festival for women taking place in New Orleans, March 2023. On the vacation rental front, Golightly is an invitation-only, home-sharing and vacation rental club just for women. Their mission is to help women travel often and safely and after perusing through some of their listings in Europe, I’m ready to dust off my passport!
Writing this post certainly got my wheels turning on where my next vacation should be and whether it’s glamping in Acadia National Park or renting a Golightly villa in the South of France, I am more than ready to start traveling again.
Bon Voyage!
~Tess