Top 8 Travel Trends of 2020

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The changing year and times have led Travel trends to change all over the globe. It is no more just about places to visit around the globe. Travellers around are more responsible for their own carbon footprint. They wish to be part of a sustainable revolution and be more knowledgeable about their contribution.
If you haven’t been thinking about it then here are some of the travel trends that you need to know about.

1. Ancestral Tourism

A little spit in a test tube is going to land you into knowing a detailed and accurate bifurcation of your genealogical background. The years of digging through the library books, birth certificates and hospital records are far behind us. A kind of a new obsession of people around the world has started causing them to connect with authorities that lead them to detailed research that helps them track down their ancestral home. This latest trend has been the recent obsession with American and Canadian tourists. Research has stated that 23 per cent of long-haul visitors to Scotland travel there to track down their Scottish ancestry. The last estimated figure of Scotland tourists was calculated down to 2,13,000 trips in the year 2012. The country of Ireland is also among the few booming markets for ancestral tourism. Famous companies like My Ireland Tour and the Irish Emigrant Trails offer bespoke trips based on the bases of ancestral background. The year 2013 was termed as the Family History Year that targeted around 33 million Americans who were identified as part of the Irish’s. Though this trend is something that a person later in the comfort of their lives chooses to connect with their ancestral backgrounds. But it is actually the twenty-year-old crowd that has been showing an interest in finding the further nodes of their family tree.

2. Green Hotels

A dramatic upheaval in our environment pesters human beings into thinking twice about their way of living. This impact has leapt in bounds to affect their travel decisions too. Every traveller now is smarter and much aware than ever before. A surprising entry from the travel industry taking care of the concern regarding the environment is the vegan hotels. Veganism is no longer just a lifestyle people choose to inculcate among themselves. The United Kingdom is the first country in the world to host a vegan hotel by the name of Saorsa 1875 in Perthshire, Scotland. Many hotels and lodges are aware of environmental conditions. Hence, they have instilled numerous sustainable initiatives that will further lead to a better impact on the environment. The sustainable impact involves banning the usage of plastic products and introducing the usage of organic local produce. The famous eco-resort of Panama’s Islas Secas is responsible for being powered completely by solar energy and composts all of its food waste. Finca La Donaira in Spain uses organic farm produce to prepare its dishes and shelves out the surplus to the local community. One of the world’s leading travel tech companies states that the act of sustainability has to become a crucial factor for travellers across the globe for purchasing any form of travel and accommodation facilities. Travel companies are now prominently focussing on creating sustainably-focused package holidays. Companies are putting an extra amount of effort that leads to a positive impact on the globe and are also willing to take an interest in understanding how tourism negatively impacts or benefits a local economy.

Also Read: THE ULTIMATE NEW TRAVEL TRENDS TO TRY IN 2023

3. Single-use plastics

Travelling in an aircraft or staying at a hotel won’t be the same anymore. Many Airlines around the globe are taking special efforts in trying to eliminate single-use plastic. This helps travelling become an eco-friendly option. Plastic waste is one of the most important and concerning environmental affairs that severely affects our planet today. The luxury hotel chain of Mandarin Oriental at the end of the year 2019 took the pledge to stop the usage of single-use plastics by March 2021. According to sources, a leading stock site published a list of the twenty-three most common single-use plastics. It also stated that 86 per cent of these items have already been eliminated or are on the verge of being phased out. Sustainable substitutes such as equipping guest rooms with biodegradable toothbrushes, combs and shower caps. Using biodegradable laundry and rubbish bags are also being implemented at many properties. Last year Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced that 200 million miniature shampoo, conditioner and shower gel bottles per year will be removed from its properties and instead they will switch to bigger, refillable ones. This measure will be implemented across all its 843,000 guest rooms in 5,600 hotels globally. California has banned hotels from giving guests shampoo, conditioner, and soap in plastic bottles from 2023. Marriott International has dismissed the usage of plastic straws from its properties and plans to eliminate all single-use plastic toiletries by the end of 2020.

4. Solo Women Travelling

This and the coming year too foresees great travel opportunities for solo travellers especially women solo travellers. Many acclaimed researchers claim that this trend is being led by the new interest that is being evoked by the wishfulness to travel to offbeat destinations, cheaper airfare and the rise in the purchasing power of humans. Nowadays travelling is not just booking tickets and travelling up to your destination. Travellers now look for more to yield on. They now search for an experiential travelling that is sustainable too. Many people are shocked to know that the people willing to do so majorly involve women. Women of today aren’t bogged by the societal pressures. They wish to seek solace in part of the globe on their own two feet by spending their hard-earned money. They are willing to seek time for retreat. They see for a spiritual journey, some self-development, a spa getaway or a fitness beachy vacation. Hence, an opportunity to experience some form of healing, relaxing and empowering opportunities. Sadly the fear of safety looms on the top of the head of every woman solo traveller. This factor has played a crucial factor in leading to an upheaval in women-only hotels. This was once started as a great marketing initiative has now led to a change in the dynamic of solo travelling. The famous hotel hostess in Kerala is one of the greatest hotels for solo female travellers that is run by women.

5. Wellness vacations

The loading stress of mankind has led it to seek ways through which it can let go off it all. People nowadays are willing to spend money on programs that will help seek ways to feel better. According to the Global Wellness Summit, the wellness trend is one of the key trends that have managed to create a meaningful impact on the worldwide wellness industry. Many properties nowadays plan to offer a way for you to personally transform that just doesn’t focus on the body but also the mind. The program focuses on the mental and spiritual benefits of reconnecting with nature. One of the most famous ways of achieving wellness is through the aged sound of healing. The sound of healing has known to be a trustworthy source of reducing stress, improving your mood, and also helps in breaking down emotional blockages. Practices such as sound baths and aura healing ceremonies that involve ancient instruments such as gongs and Tibetian singing bowls are starting to be introduced in many special spas too. A study also reports that some wellness destinations are involved in incorporating modern acoustic therapies such as binaural beats. This practice involves the listening of different frequency tones in the left and right ears lead to a meditative brain state. Another popular wellness trend includes forest therapy. This term has been derived from a popular 1980 Japanese physiological and psychological exercise known as shinrin-yoku or forest bathing. It was introduced to people to inspire them to reconnect and protect the country’s forests. Forest bathing involves simple practices of walking amidst nature and connecting yourself with it. Many scientific studies have supported this practice and acknowledged the benefits of the natural world on the health of humans.

6. Bleisure Travel

Combining both work and leisure together is not an unheard phenomenon. But the only difference that this trend is making in the year 2020 is that people are starting to embrace this millennial travel trend. Though business travellers may be travelling for the sake of their own companies, employees nowadays expect their employers to consider prioritizing bleisure for them. A trend that is on a great rise has people adapting to it from countries across. According to a recent survey from a travel website, more than half of international business travellers seek to extend most of their business trips. They plan to do so as they wish to spend a few more days exploring the destination and not just visit an unknown place for a single purpose. A company that positively looks o to this trend and embraces its working culture is said to perform better in terms of the company culture. So, if your company employees are travelling frequently for business purposes then bleisure is an extremely useful way through which the risk of employee retentiveness can be enhanced. This will also be looked upon as a great incentive by the younger generation. However, this trend does not apply to every business as for example if someone is new in the industry they will look at their company trip differently as opposed to seasoned business travellers.

A survey also found that business travellers from North America are unlikely to embrace the bleisure trend. Out of which 29% of North American travellers stated that they strongly disagree with the idea of spending extra days on a business trip for fun.

7. Circadian Health

The human is stressed like never before. We have put our minds and brains to invent sleep-tracking Oura rings, the latest, smartest mattresses, meditative sleep headbands, and nap pods. But we still can’t fall asleep peacefully. Gulp down all the sleep tonic or sleep ice cream but stressed and worried humans can’t find the solution to sleep peacefully at night. Why? It is affirmed that most sleep solutions, and our stressful modern lives, challenge the basic facts of circadian biology. Humans have evolved to be ultra-sensitive to the twenty-four-hour cycle of the sun. The bedrock of circadian science states that the regular light or dark cycles are the daily time cues that are required to reset our circadian clocks every single day. Our circadian rhythms are responsible for controlling almost every system in our bodies, from our sleep cycles to our immune and metabolic systems. Hence, the importance of following a good sleeping pattern is essential for maintaining your productivity level and overall well-being. Hence, this trend helps people catch up on all the sleep that they have lost and will help restore their health.

8. Microcations

Microcations is also one of the newest travel trends to be introduced. Many experts believe that a two-week-long holiday has led to want for a small period of holidays. A micro cation is a simple trend of short vacations that are stretched up to a shorter duration of around three days. People nowadays due to their busy and stressful lifestyle conditions cannot afford to take out the time for a month or week-long holiday. Hence, the microcation travel trend inspires people to take shorter vacations that stretch over a longer period of time. Therefore this is the most ideal way for people to take holidays without worrying about their stressful lives. A little retreat over the weekend lets you relieve stress, open your brain to a world of possibilities, expose them to numerous places, people and cultures. According to the 2019 Vacation Confidence Index released by Allianz Global Assistance, many millennials, in general, are absolutely falling for this trend. It has also been reported that 72% of millennial respondents were recorded saying that they have taken at least one microcation over the period of the past year. Over a period of three months, they even said that they have taken at least 3 micronations in that same period.