Travel Trends 2025 became a focus for a podcast discussion I had with our industry partner, the Business Travel Association, based in UK (the BTA), representing the business travel community and travel management companies.
I am pleased to share some highlights from the interview and would like to thank Clive Wratten, Chief Executive of the BTA, for his invitation and engaging conversation. Join us to explore the evolving patterns in traveler behavior and discover how the travel industry is adapting to new trends for 2025.
CLIVE WRATTEN: “Hi, everyone. I’m Clive Wratten, the chief executive of the BTA . Today I'm delighted to be joined by Rob Golledge, who is the head of research Amadeus talking about the Amadeus travel trends report for 2025.
You've partnered with Globetrender for this report but just give us a bit of background as to why you commissioned this report and why you as a technology company feel that trends are important to publish.
ROBERT GOLLEDGE: We've been producing trends in this format since 2019. Our mission at Amadeus is to make the travel experience better for everyone. We can only do that by understanding what travelers are really thinking and what is motivating them to travel in the coming years.
CLIVE WRATTEN: Going through the report one of the first things I saw is personalized flying as a key trend.
ROBERT GOLLEDGE: Travel in general has become more personalized over the last couple of years. But when you look at the flight experience, it hasn't really changed that much. We've got prebooked dining and seat selection and things like that, but they've been around for a long time.
In the report, there's a quote from one of our partners, Olivier Binisti from Adobe, saying that greater personalization is now possible thanks to the connection between data and content. Using in-flight entertainment as an example, as soon as the passenger is seated, the airline will be able to offer them all sorts of content that's relevant to them.
The report mentions Thales FlytEDGE, which was announced in 2024. It claims to be the world's first cloud based in-flight entertainment system that makes intelligent recommendations. It’s also cinematic with a 4K high-definition screen and two Bluetooth connections. I've heard it described as attempting to recreate what the multimedia entertainment set-up you have at home. The report also shares the example of an airline that provides premium passengers flying to the Maldives with Apple Vision Pro VR headsets as part of its in-flight entertainment.
CLIVE WRATTEN: It's going to be interesting to see how this develops. From a technology point of view, personalization is the buzzword now. Moving on, the report looks at where travel is growing. It mentions the change in Asia, because Asia was quite slow to pick up after the pandemic compared to the rest of the world, but it is clearly accelerating now. One example is Chengdu, which increased total traffic flown by 66 percent to 35.2 million passengers from 2016 to 2023.
ROBERT GOLLEDGE: The headline for that part of the report is that Asia is open for business in 2025. In China, domestic travel has recovered fully, but international outbound travel is still lagging. China was the number one source market for tourism globally, at least pre-pandemic. And there are other markets in Asia that are also booming. Japan is an immensely popular destination in 2025 with the World Expo taking place in Osaka this year.
Countries like Thailand are really making it easy to do business. They're welcoming digital nomads, which is especially attractive among younger businesspeople, who want the freedom to be able to work from anywhere. Thailand has expanded its visa free entry to 93 countries for 2025. So there's lots of opportunities to do business in Asia. India is another huge up-and-coming growth country for travel. In that same period from 2016 to 2023, outbound traffic from Delhi grew 31 percent to more than 30 million passengers.
CLIVE WRATTEN: There are also some interesting trends around cities like Miami growing massively.
ROBERT GOLLEDGE: This part of the report is talking about places that are perennial favorites. Miami is one that's grown its share of total traffic. US domestic air traffic to Miami increased from 22.8 percent to 32.8 percent from 2015 to 2024. Nostalgia is driving interest in these destinations. We call this trend New Heydays. 'Time' magazine named 2024 the year of the election, which has resulted in a lot of change.
People are looking for an antidote to change by seeking to experience simpler times, reliving a gap year, family holidays, or a honeymoon. There is also a psychological phenomenon that could be playing a part in this. The report mentions “rosy retrospection,” which is when people think everything in the past was better than it is today.
CLIVE WRATTEN: There is another phrase I hadn't really picked up until I read this report, which is Trailblazer Hotels. Explain a little bit about what that means.
ROBERT GOLLEDGE: Trailblazer Hotels are properties that have become the destination themselves. For leisure travel, typically you would choose the destination and then the next step would be to find somewhere to stay. But this is turning that process on its head. People are choosing the destination based on the attention-grabbing property they want to stay at.
This also has an implication for business travel. Years ago, there was the idea of keeping everything familiar. You could be in a hotel room in China, or you could be in a hotel room in Australia. It would look and feel the same. But those days are gone. We want memorable experiences, even on business trips.
Our report gives a couple of examples including the Reverb Hamburg Hotel that opened in 2024. It has been converted from an old wartime bunker. I never knew bunkers could be that tall and it's even got rooftop gardens. This appeal of staying at lodging with personality is one reason why there's growth in boutique properties. But the Reverb belongs to the Hard Rock Group.
We've seen the bigger hotel companies also getting in on the act. At Lake Como in Italy, Marriott has converted a 19th century mansion right on the water's edge. Lake Como is only one and a half hours from Milan, which is a center for business in Italy. People will travel for business, but then ask what else can I do to make the travel experience worthwhile and memorable? It’s a big opportunity for hoteliers.
To learn more about the trends and the implications for business travel, I encourage you to listen to the full episode of the BTA Podcast ."