FX.co ★ Top 4 travel trends in 2021

Domestic tourism

No matter how threatening the infection can be, people still need leisure time. Otherwise, they may face various health issues. Because of tough restrictions on movement, people no longer can travel from one country to another. The only option left is to explore their homeland. By the way, it has been a real discovery for some tourists. Thus, domestic travel gives people an opportunity to get to know the culture and traditions of their own country better. On top of that, travelers are now able to see that domestic tourism is quite competitive and sometimes even less expensive compared to the international one. Domestic travel offers many advantages from the absence of a language barrier to tangible investments in the tourism sector, which will only boost its development. Since the tourism industry has close ties with a great number of economic sectors, it will also provide tremendous support for the country. In particular, airlines have already reported on an increase in the number of domestic flights. Plenty of countries have already witnessed a surge in the popularity of domestic travel, which is expected to only increase in 2021.

Bleisure

The word "bleisure" is the combination of "business" and "leisure". Bleisure travel is a term used to describe travel which combines both business trips and short vacations. This means that regular business trips are expanded and several vacation days are added to them. On the one hand, people can save on travel tickets. On the other hand, it makes business trips less stressful for most employees. The popularity of this kind of travel has skyrocketed last year. According to polls, the demand for bleisure increased by 20%. The fact that people started to work remotely from home made bleisure a highly-requested kind of travel. Company executives and employees have realized that when they go on business to other regions, they do not stop working properly. Therefore, why not make bleisure official.

Switch to e-commerce mode

The pandemic has fundamentally changed the entire trade and services sector. For a certain time, it was almost completely blocked. As a result, companies had to find alternative ways of interaction with their customers. They are online booking and online shopping. Before the pandemic, online shopping was popular among a rather limited number of people. Today, it became widespread. In fact, people continued to purchase things online even after the reopening of public places. During the lockdown, clients saw how convenient, quick, and simple online communication with sellers of goods and services could be. Notably, the tourism industry derived substantial benefit from the switch to the e-commerce mode. So far, almost 89% of all tourists have enjoyed all the conveniences of this option. Thus, people no longer need to go to a travel agency. They can reserve a trip date themselves, change it if needed, book a hotel with the possibility of free cancellation of your reservation, and find return tickets for the flight.

Isolated journey

Another reality of 2020 is social distancing. The need to keep distance from other people is now firmly embedded in our minds. Thus, the tourism sector had no other choice but to adjust as remote and isolated trips have become a new trend. The ecological tourism is also gaining popularity as it does not imply massive gatherings of travellers on a certain territory. Large cities and famous tourist centers are now experiencing some outflow of visitors. However, enough travellers still come to such places. Nevertheless, when people go on vacation to a high-density city, they prefer to choose luxury hotels that can provide them with a certain amount of privacy. As a rule, these are 4- and 5-star hotels. The demand for them last year increased by 45% and 15% respectively. The number of hostels and cheap hotels has dropped significantly. The trend will undoubtedly continue in 2021.