#Trending This Week - Noctourism, Naked Traveling, Inspired Hotel Brands, And Millennial Vacation Habits Waning
Issue 228 • January 7, 2025
Welcome back to the office after what seemed like an incredibly extended period of time off! We’re starting off the new year with a check on the latest trends to inspire your marketing and PR strategies. We are seeing a SHIFT TOWARD NOCTOURISM, which is travel focused on nighttime experiences. And speaking of travel habits, there is a NOTICEABLE CHANGE IN MILLENNIAL TRAVEL, with many of their generation-specific travel behaviors dying out. Have you heard of NAKED TRAVEL? It’s not exactly what you think, but it could offer some hotels and travel service companies an opportunity to create new revenue streams. And you knew it had to happen one day as ATLANTIC CITY ANNOUNCES A MONOPOLY-THEMED HOTEL. Finally, the Taylor Swift impact of live music tourism is not going away any time soon as a relatively new hotel brand founded by Universal Music Group remains committed to creating hotels which function as cultural hubs. Check it all out in our three-minute read below.
2025 Will See An Increase In “Noctourism”
Booking sites are seeing a noticeable rise in “noctourism,” travel which is hyper-focused on nighttime experiences. One of the best examples would be seeing the Northern Lights. A recent Booking.com survey revealed 62% of travelers are considering “nighttime” destinations where seeing the sky and stars in all their glory takes top priority. In fact, there seems to be a growing sentiment of ditching daytime crowds for midnight magic. Read more in Vice here.
Millennial Travel Habits Dying Out
Millennials were seen to have redefined the travel landscape in many ways, but now many of their iconic travel habits have shifted — and are predicted to go away sooner versus later. This includes their tendency to want to sprint through multiple countries while traveling overseas, the belief that travel was a status symbol, the focus on travel that's all about getting the perfect Instagram shot, extreme budget travel, as well as a shift away from all-inclusives and influencer-curated trips. Read more in Newsweek here.
Naked Traveling Opens A World Of Possibilities
One of the hottest trends to hit the sky these days is "flying naked”. No, we don’t mean people taking off without any clothing — well actually we kind of do. “Naked traveling” refers to a growing group of passengers who choose to fly with literally only the clothing on their back — no checked or carry-on luggage and no backpacks. So for hoteliers and other members of the travel and hospitality industry, this opens up a world of possibility — think clothing rental, lobby markets with toiletry kits, luggage forwarding services, and referral programs to local stores with revenue shares. Read more in Thrillist here.
A Hotel Inspired By A Board Game
There’s a distinctive movement these days for hotels to break out of the cookie-cutter model of the same style hotel no matter where you travel to those which create something new and different — quite often inspired by the destination or local culture. So it’s perhaps no surprise that a new hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey (the inspiration behind the Monopoly board game) will itself be inspired by Monopoly. The facade will feature a large Monopoly hat token on its roof and the iconic car token protruding from the hotel's façade. Read more on App here.
A Hotel Brand Riding The Live Tourism Trend
The success of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and the resulting boost to the local economies (including hotel revenue) wherever she played is great proof of concept for a relatively young hotel brand. Universal Music Group believes consumers will pay $400 a night to stay at its new Umusic Hotels, which will be "cultural hubs" that combine hotel, entertainment, and local music heritage. The plan is for every hotel to have adjacent spaces which deliver live music and entertainment — whether that’s an arena, stadium, theater, or nightclub. Read more in Skift here.