This report provides the global community of hospitality professionals with critical insights into emerging trends and developments, with a particular focus on the future of business travel. Business travellers play a pivotal role within the tourism industry, contributing significantly to international travel, GDP, and business revenues.In light of recent disruptions and evolving challenges, this forward-looking study aims not only to reflect on the past but, more importantly, to anticipate future developments and uncertainties in the realm of business travel. By doing so, it offers strategic insights to help hospitality leaders navigate the ever-evolving landscape of the industry.Key findings from the Yearly Outlook include:• Recovery of International Travel: By 2024, international travel arrivals have surpassed 2019 levels by 2%, signalling a full recovery in the sector. In Amsterdam, there was a 13% decrease in business traveller numbers, offset by an increase in the average length of stay from 2.34 to 2.71 days. Notably, more business travellers opted for 3-star accommodations, marking a shift in preferences.• Future of Business Travel: The report outlines a baseline scenario that predicts a sustainable, personalised, and seamless business travel experience by 2035. This future will likely be driven by AI integration, shifts in travel patterns—such as an increase in short-haul trips, longer stays combining business and leisure—and a growing focus on sustainability.• Potential Disruptors: The study also analyses several potential disruptors to these trends. These include socio-political shifts that could reverse sustainability efforts, risks associated with AI-assisted travel, the decline of less attractive business destinations, and the impact of global geopolitical tensions.The Yearly Outlook provides practical recommendations for hospitality professionals and tourism policymakers. These recommendations focus on building resilience, anticipating changes in business travel preferences, leveraging AI and technological advancements, and promoting sustainable practices within the industry.
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The influence of the built environment on travel behaviour and the role of intervening variables such as socio-demographics and travel-related attitudes have long been debated in the literature. To date, most empirical studies have applied cross-sectional designs to investigate their bidirectional relationships. However, these designs provide limited evidence for causality. This study represents one of the first attempts to employ a longitudinal design on these relationships. We applied cross lagged panel structural equation models to a two-wave longitudinal dataset to assess the directions and strengths of the relationships between the built environment, travel behaviour and travel-related attitudes. Results show that the residential built environment has a small but significant influence on car use and travel attitudes. In addition, the built environment influenced travel-related attitudes indicating that people tend to adjust their attitudes to their built environment. This provides some support for land use policies that aim to influence travel behaviour.
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Why people conduct different sharing about their travel is unclear. Understudied areas include the roles of tourism activity type, tourist well-being, and social context. Under the framework of construal level theory, three studies which combined secondary data and experiments revealed that: 1) challenging (relaxing) tourism activities lead to more desirability (feasibility) sharing; 2) eudaimonia (hedonia) occupy the dominant position and mediate the relationship between challenging (relaxing) tourism activity and desirability (feasibility) sharing; and 3) social context induces the transformation of the relationship between eudaimonia and hedonia, and has a significant moderating impact on the mechanism of travel experience sharing type. Theoretical and managerial implications of travel experience sharing type and mutual transformation between eudaimonia and hedonia are discussed.
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This study links self-concept and place attachment to generate a better understanding of travel behavior patterns by migrant populations, in this case, Western professional migrants who live in the Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions of China. Five discrete Western professional migrant groups are identified, each with different demographic profiles, travel patterns, propensity, and intensity. The findings challenge the view that migrant populations are homogenous and also challenge the widely held notion that home return travel is their dominant mobility pattern. Conceptual and managerial implications of migrant travel behavior for destination marketers are briefly outlined.
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How to reduce carbon emissions and contribute to climate change mitigation? For years the carbon-intensive travel industry has been struggling with this question. Research has addressed the relation between climate change and tourism (e.g., Gössling et al 2015; Becken, 2013; Gössling, 2010; Gössling et al 2010; Bows et al, 2009). Their work produced models and measurement methods, and recommended mitigation policies and actions (Scott, 2011; Dwyer et al, 2010; Gössling et al 2010; McKercher, 2010). Major industry players have since adopted carbon reduction measures in their CSR policies (Thomas Cook group, 2015; TUI Group, 2015). However, the bulk of the travel industry consists of SMEs that typically have limited resources available for CSR. CARMACAL may offer a solution for the sector at large. CARMACAL is a user-friendly application that enables tour operators to accurately measure the complete carbon footprint of their tour packages and integrate carbon management in their business (CSTT, 2016a). The industry acknowledged its relevance: in April 2016 CARMACAL won the WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Innovation Award
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This paper reviews the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the global travel industry, drawing on a survey of businesses in the youth travel sector. It reviews the current and likely future impact of the crisis on different sectors of youth travel, and assesses the prospects for recovery
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The section - Travel Psychology - contains 3 chapters. Chapter 1 starts by listing different types of travel constraints facing all citizens. For travelers who negotiate their travel constraints and are able to travel, two seminal models for tourism motivations are reviewed. First, the pull and push factors are mentioned along with examples. In a second model, travel motivations are categorized into traveling to gain something and, travelling to get away from something.After reviewing various travel constraints and motivations, Chapter 1 continues by discussing how travelers’ mood and tendencies at any given time could affect the type of travel destination they pursue – historical vs. natural vs. manmade; warm vs. cold; urban vs. country; crowded vs. quiet; familiar vs. novel vs arousing; and, the type of experiences and activities travelers pursue on their vacation. Also, the relationship between less dynamic personality traits and travel decision-makings are discussed: who to travel with, where to stay, what to do; perceived risks; and information seeking behavior. Chapter 1 ends by discussing how travel service providers could play a significant role in helping customers make more informed and authentic decisions that would eventually feed their psychological needs, wants, and wellbeing. This wellbeing perspective to travel is contrasted with a service quality and money-driven perspective in tourism industry and research. Chapter 2 starts by reviewing the fundamentals of the science of positive psychology, defining wellbeing, happiness, and quality of life, and how tourism could be accounted as one element linked to all the above. A page is dedicated to memorable tourism experiences and its different dimensions such as hedonic and eudaimonic experiences, and how some of these memorable experiences positively impact travelers’ subjective wellbeing. In the core of chapter 2, travelers’ diverse needs are discussed under: (a) physiological needs such as quality and attractive local food and drinks, physical activity, and adequate sleep on vacations; (b) mental needs including topics such as expressing emotions before, during, and after vacation, causes and fluctuations of emotions; mood regulations on vacations; mindfulness; technology use; stress recovery mechanisms during vacations namely relaxation, detachment, control, mastery; and optimal challenge and flow states for individuals and group of travelers; (c) interpersonal needs of the traveler including interaction with host community, service providers, and other travelers, e.g., joint experiences of romantic partners and family members. Throughout chapter 2, how service providers and experience designers could more effectively monitor, identify, and address these physiological, mental, and social needs are thoroughly discussed. Moreover, evidence and research-based travel tips are offered to general travelers for observing, attending to, appreciating, and enhancing positive emotions during the anticipation phase of a vacation, during the actual trip, on the way home, and up to two weeks post-vacation. A small section at the end of Chapter 2 is devoted to the psychology of holidays and staycations for employees with stressful jobs. Chapter 3 discusses how small occasions during vacations can accumulate and sometimes have long-term psychological effects on travelers. This chapter reviews the psychological of souvenirs, savoring, and photography on vacations. It continues by talking about the concepts of self-awareness, learning, growth, meaning and transformation, related to vacations, using examples. Chapter 3 ends by encouraging travel planners and designers to invest in long-term benefits of vacations.This handbook contains a total of 42 chapters on a range of topics aimed at educating employees at tourism service providers in Iran. This book is in press and distribution, and will be the official source for the national exam for the national travel agency certification in Iran. Topics of this book include the following: tour design and operations, travel psychology, air travel, tour marketing, human resource management, accounting, travel technology, travel start-ups, strategic management, and ethics.
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Travel-related attitudes and dissonance between attitudes and the characteristics of the residential built environment are believed to play an important role in the effectiveness of land use policies that aim to influence travel behaviour. To date, research on the nature and directions of causality of the links between these variables has been hindered by the lack of longitudinal approaches. This paper takes such an approach by exploring how people across different population groups adjust their residential environments and attitudes over time. Two latent class transition models are used to segment a population into consonant and dissonant classes to reveal differences in their adjustment process. Interactions between (1) the distance to railway stations and travel-mode-related attitudes and (2) the distance to shopping centres and the importance of satisfaction with these distances are modelled. The models reveal mixed patterns in consonant and dissonant classes at different distances from these destinations. These patterns remain relatively stable over time. People in more dissonant classes generally do not have a higher probability of switching to more consonant classes. People adjust their built environments as well as their attitudes over time and these processes differ between classes. Implications for policies are discussed.
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