One of the most interesting and aucourant styles of vacationing will surely be the ‘Instagram Holiday’ what with most of us putting the “Instagrammability” of our holiday destination above all else. Catching onto this trend, Shoot My Travel is a vacation photography platform that pairs travellers with local professional photographers at the vacation destination to capture your trip memories.
In this era of both TV and digital entertainment platforms, travel based on shows aired/streamed will be big this year. And I’m sure that the upcoming last season of Game Of Thrones will also inspire trips to Croatia, Iceland and Northern Ireland, home of the famous Dark Hedges trees.
This year is also poised to be the year of the solo traveller and an increase in LGBTQ-friendly travel. Platforms such as Destination Pride are harnessing the power of multiple data sources to provide travellers with a ranking of how LGBTQ-friendly their chosen travel destination is.
As far as lengths of vacations goes, I see the ‘micro vacation’ being the “in” thing, so that one can now squeeze in more curated travel itineraries into shorter time frames. All this, thanks to improvements in flight routes, transport, cheap flights, on-demand car rentals and accommodation. Speaking of accommodation, Booking.com says that keyless room-access with your phone and the robotic concierge who can communicate with guests in their own language will be big.
2019
will also see more tech developed for use pre-trip at research stage with aids
like the virtual travel agent and augmented reality helping travellers
familiarise themselves with a destination before they arrive.