A Travel Journalist's Predictions for 2022 Travel

The year that everyone had hoped would be better than 2020 is finally ending, though it would seem like the pandemic and its impacts on the travel industry show no signs of abating in the New Year.

So just what will next year bring for us?

I began writing for TravelPulse during the summer of 2020, when lockdowns and stay-at-home orders characterized the pandemic response in America. Through 2021, I had the privilege to be at the forefront of the year's biggest news, including the cruise restart, vaccine mandate debates and the new traveler trends that will forever mark this decade as the one for sustainable travel.

I don’t know what the travel industry looked like before the pandemic, and while nobody can predict the future, I can make an educated guess as to what might happen with the industry in the Year of the Tiger.

First off, it’s a safe guess that the new Omicron variant will become the dominant strain of the coronavirus around the globe, no matter how many countries, like Thailand and Singapore, try to stop its spread. As we’ve seen from the recent outbreaks on Royal Caribbean and Carnival cruise ships among mostly vaccinated individuals, Omicron is more contagious than previous variants. While it might be less deadly (God willing), it will still shake some things up in the world, especially with travel.

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More cities than ever before in the U.S. are beginning to take a more European stance on combating COVID-19, instituting vaccine requirements for entry into restaurants, bars and other entertainment venues in the New Year.

Cruise ships, like Royal Caribbean and NCL, have once again instituted indoor mask mandates, and it’s likely that the cruise industry will modify their protocols even further to help combat the spread of the virus onboard, which has been hurting the trust that cruisers have in the industry, as the Royal Caribbean Group admitted in a recent press release on the new variant’s impact.

Tour operators will continue expanding their portfolios for domestic trips. That means that while they’ll continue to operate worldwide, adaptability and a focus on discovering native countries is going to be a trend for next year, as will be the road trips that have become more popular than ever due to the pandemic.

My biggest prediction: there’s going to be another variant in the New Year. While I can’t predict how or when the new variant will surface, it’s fair to say that this is possible, especially with such a surge in Omicron cases. If this variant is more spreadable, even among the vaccinated, then there’s more opportunity for it to mutate into another variant. Plus, 2021 brought us two new variants, the Delta and the Omicron. What’s stopping 2022 from bringing us the Pi, Rho or Sigma variants? Absolutely nothing. That doesn't mean the new variant-to-come will become a dominant one like Delta or Omicron, though. Remember Beta? Thought so.

I also think that countries will begin changing the term for full vaccination to include a booster shot due to this rise in cases and almost inevitable new variant. This means that there will be a bit more confusion, at least for a while, as different countries modify their entry restrictions. Countries within Europe and Asia will most likely be the first to modify their entry restrictions this way, as well as Canada.

My last prediction for 2022: will Australia and New Zealand ever reopen to international travel? These two extremely popular destinations have adopted some of the strictest pandemic measures in order to save lives, and it’s been successful so far. My prediction is that it’s possible they’ll reopen in 2022, but if so, it’ll be later than was originally predicted.

My predictions for 2022 might seem very doomy and gloomy, and for that I apologize. But I’m also trying to be realistic and follow the trends that have shaped the past two years of the industry.

Like any year, there will also be good things and good news, though these are sometimes harder to predict during hard times than the bad news. New ships, new hotel and resort openings and hopefully more international travel are at least some of the good news we can rely upon thus far.

I’m hoping more people will begin participating in regenerative travel: travel that’s good for them, for the environment and for the communities they impact along their journeys. I hope that “our new normal” becomes a kinder normal for everyone, and I hope that people stay safe, both at home and abroad.

Happy New Year, dear reader. May we weather it with greater wisdom than the year before.