lastminute.com reveals the future of travel

April 19, 2010 | Online Travel

UK's lastminute.com has partnered with think-tank Future Foundation to understand how the way we travel and spend our free time will be changing in the future.

Trekking the landscape of a brand new country, staying in a technological black hole where your phone will never ring, and pushing the limits of ‘extreme adventures’ further than ever before. These are just some of the ways in which the way we travel and spend our free time will evolve over the coming decades says a report from lastminute.com.

The leading online travel and leisure retailer has partnered with think-tank Future Foundation to understand how the way we travel and spend our free time will be changing in the future.

The Future of free time report has found that the UK is becoming a nation of ‘Novelty Seekers’ who look for more daring, more dangerous and more bizarre travel experiences, ‘Go-Nowhere Gamers’ who would rather socialise online and play games than explore the world, and with single travel bigger than ever before, ‘Social Soloists’ who travel alone will become the staple of package deals.

Countries such as Lebanon and Columbia which are not currently recommended for travel due to political instability are tipped to offer pioneering appeal in the future. A similar ‘opening up’ took place in the 90s as Eastern Bloc cities such as Prague and Tallinn emerged from behind the Iron Curtain to become hugely popular tourist destinations. Whole new countries to explore will emerge as borders are redrawn in peace-time following conflict.

In the future tour operators will offer the ultimate escape from the real world in a place where your phone never rings, and holidaymakers will go back to nature entirely: staying in simple huts heated with fire and eating simple, traditional foods. Such environments will truly allow travellers to cut themselves of for a week or more. These trips will be popular with families as parents can show their children a way of living which they will have only read about in books.

Thrill seekers will not be content with sky diving and bungee jumps. Improvements in technology will facilitate greater predictions of volcanic eruptions, allowing operators to charter helicopters that let tourists to experience the sights and smells of a live eruption as it happens. Companies have even begun offering ‘Kidnapping Experiences’ where people can pay to experience the ordeal of being abducted. While most people would not want to experience such shocks, the travel industry will increasingly cater to such niche and extreme tastes.

“Since launching in 1998 lastminute.com has been at the forefront of travel innovation” said Patrick Hoffstetter, vice president at lastminute.com. “The next five years are going to bring big changes in the way we all plan and enjoy our free time. If that means instant recommendations from locals when planning a trip, or a guarantee that their phone will not ring on holiday, we’ll do our best to provide that.”

When compiling the Future of free time report, lastminute.com consulted with a range of experts from bodies such as Visit Britain, Which? Travel, travelmole.com, and author of Tomorrow’s Tourist, Ian Yeoman (Wellington University). The report also rigorously surveyed consumers gathering both quantative and qualitative data and utilised the Delphi method to gain insight into the theories and focus on only the most likely possibilities.

The lastminute.com Future of Free Time identified these other trends:

- Authentiseeking - As people turn their backs on the conspicuous consumption that defined the pre-credit crunch 80s and 90s, a new type of traveller is emerging that demands a luxury experience over simple material luxury – camping will thrive after the recession gave a taste of back to basics breaks.

- As we age as a nation, a new band of Ageless Aspirations travellers will emerge. This new group refuses to be defined by age and will continue to demand increasingly active and enriching activities, from medical travel to personal improvement, mental wellness to active holidays where older people set the pace.

- A new kind of demographic mixing will take hold in the form of GranTravel, a new generation of active grandparents who travel with their grandchildren – theme parks such as Disney World will be catering with deals to attract this new family unit.

- The increasingly Connected Recommendation Society where decisions are influenced by online communities, more instant-than-ever booking facilities, already beginning to gain prominence through the iPhone and similar products.

- Instant Booking – a new world where interactive, instantaneous and location based technology promises to fundamentally change the way we enjoy our free time – one in three hotel booking in Tokyo are already made on the day of arrival.

- Technology will continue to disrupt and improve lifestyle experiences too. iLeisure sees future leisure activities become more interactive – booking a ticket to an exhibition will come with audio and visual files explaining the background of the event you are about to attend.