Report From London: The Top Travel Trends

It remains one of the largest travel trade shows in the world and it continues to grow. I’m talking about London’s World Travel Market (WTM), held Nov. 3-6 as usual in the EXCEL exhibition space in the city’s East End just past Canary Wharf.

In preliminary figures release last week, this year’s show recorded a 7 percent increase in visitors for a total of 12,582 with overall delegate figure up 5 percent. On the other hand, the number of exhibitors attending was up just 1 percent to 9,975, according to the organizers.

I returned from London this past Friday and I’m exhausted after four days of virtually touring the world all in one place. You can walk through four football fields of exhibitions covering nearly every destination on the planet, including some fairly exotic ones, and quite a number of travel suppliers.

Yes, the Caribbean region seemed a bit sparser this year and I’ve always wondered why there aren’t more cruise lines exhibiting, but overall WTM is one of the best shows in the business—and one I try to attend nearly every year if I can.

PHOTO: World Travel Market London saw visitors increase 7 percent, but exhibitors grew just 1 percent. (photo by James Shillinglaw)

For the past five years WTM’s organizers also have issued an annual industry report examining the market trends in many of the regions represented on the floor of the exhibition. These are, to be exact, rather broad trends and sometimes verge on the esoteric. But at least they attempt to identify some key findings on travel and tourism that often prove interesting. Here’s a sampling of the major trends cited in the report:

More travel business overall: One of the top trends, according to a poll of WTM exhibitors and buyers, was optimism for the future of the travel business. More than half of all exhibitors and buyers said they expected to do business with greater value in 2014 at WTM than they did the previous year. WTM organizers predicted exhibitors and buyers would conduct 2.5 billion British pounds (nearly $4 billion) in business while at the show, compared to 2.2 billion pounds (nearly $3.5 billion) in 2013.

Rise in peer-to-peer travel: This trend, most evident in the U.S., focuses on the growth of home stays through such websites as airbnb, HomeAway, Housetrips and others. According to the poll, 14 percent of all U.S. travelers have used such peer-to-peer sites, with 85 percent saying they will do so in in the future. In the U.K., 10 percent of travelers say they have used such websites, with 86 percent of them saying they are likely to do so again.

According to the survey, 20 percent of the travel industry has been affected by the growth of peer-to-peer travel and the new "sharing economy"—and two thirds of industry executives believe the effect has been negative. Just think of the impact on hotels and resorts of such home stays and you get the picture.

Growth in responsible tourism: This trend has long been evident among travel consumers interested in the impact of tourism on the environment, but the survey found a growing recognition of responsible tourism among industry executives as well. Forty percent of industry respondents said responsible tourism is important to their companies, while 36 percent said it was quite important and 10 percent said it was of central importance. Sixty percent of industry respondents also said the importance of responsible tourism will increase over the next three years.

Greater impact from sports tourism: The impact of large sports events on a country’s tourism has long been debated, but this year’s WTM survey found most of travel executives polled believe it does have a substantial impact. For example, 69 percent of those industry executives said they believe Rio de Janeiro would see an increase in bookings following the recent World Cup (not to mention the upcoming Olympics).

Two in three travel executives said they would travel to Russia and Qatar for World Cups in those countries. On a more local level, more than half of the trade believes England’s Yorkshire will benefit from hosting the first leg of the Tour de France earlier this year.

What the future holds for travel: Some of most interesting aspects of the report were its predictions about the future of travel in roughly 35 years (WTM celebrated its 35th year in 2014 and was looking ahead to the next 35). So what will the travel industry look like in 2049? Eight out of 10 industry executives and two thirds of U.K. vacationers say the traditional passport will be extinct, replaced instead by fingerprint passports (a good thing if you’ve been on line at London’s Heathrow or New York’s JFK).

And in a somewhat shocking survey result given the news about the Virgin Galactic accident just before WTM, 34 percent of industry executives said space tourism will be in place by 2049 (the poll was conducted well before news of the crash). On the other hand, nearly two thirds of industry executives polled did not believe space tourism would be a significant form of travel by 2049.

As I wrote in my earlier column on the Virgin Galactic accident, I do believe space tourism will be developed within the next decade. Whether it becomes a growing segment of travel remains to be seen. What’s clear is that if it does grow, there will be a whole section for it on the floor of the WTM in London! 

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