Every year, Ving presents a "Holiday Report" where they look at travel trends. Yesterday, this year's report was presented, where they chose to focus on some specific questions about travel and health. What travel experiences (internal and external) do guests want? Can you combine exercise and enjoyment on the same trip, and if so, how? Is the health trend here to stay or do we want to take holidays from our healthy lifestyle when travelling abroad in the future?
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ShareTo find out more about the trends in these areas, we explored Ving from its travel panel (30,000 members), its holiday survey (300,000 customers) and the Ving Advisory Board. The results are presented in five 'hunches'. What do you think about travel in the future - do you recognise yourself and others in these predictions?
Table of contents
1) Travelling with like-minded people
As humans, we have always found comfort in belonging to a group, so we tend to seek out like-minded people - even when travelling. As travel becomes more niche, tour operators are faced with the challenge of offering the right kind of travel to attract different types of customers with different needs and preferences.
2) Training and experiences in symbiosis
Holiday travel has increasingly moved from 'where do you want to go? to "what do you want to do?". On holiday, we want to experience something out of the ordinary; we no longer just want to see and contemplate. We seek a symbiosis where experiences and physical activity go hand in hand. We want to go back to nature - and exercisers are happy to experience the destination by exercising in nature.
3) From "tourist" to "localist"
When we travel, we want to experience the local. We want to discover the culture, food and country we are visiting to get a more genuine local experience, but also to have a cool and exciting story to tell when we get home. This is why localised activities such as bike tours and food tours in big cities are becoming increasingly popular.
4) Easily accessible training that inspires
The majority of Swedes do not travel on a pure training trip. However, a large group takes the opportunity to exercise during their holidays, when the demands and needs of everyday life are absent and there is time. "We want to be spontaneous and choose how we want to exercise and what we want to do, a bit like a Hop-on Hop-off bus.
5) Pleasure points without pointers
More and more people want to exercise on holiday, but the most important reason to go on holiday is still to relax. It may sound paradoxical, but exercising gives us the pleasure points we need to relax in the sunbed. Our goal is for our customers to find their way to exercise - on their own terms.
Top image in the post: Travel and health. Photographer: Ted Lindholm
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Ditte says:
Also saw this report as I am part of the Vings travel panel. Interesting!
But I do not like to go on charter trips....I myself think I am good at putting together our trips.
And walking about a mile a day, that's what I do. If I don't cycle.
05 November 2015 - 18:40
BP says:
Here I can safely say that only point 3 suits us. Long walks absolutely, but other exercise I/we have stopped;-)
05 November 2015 - 19:26
admin says:
Ditte, what fun that you are on the travel panel! I saw that there were many when I thought that you should know someone 😉.
BP, the third probably fits too! That activity is included naturally while getting a local experience, yes, I believe in that!
Steve, neither you nor we are part of Vings main target group 😉 We like the freedom to plan ourselves, and then no tour operator is needed. At the same time, it is a bit interesting that even those who travel with tour operators want more niche and be able to choose concepts. Guess the tour operators have to keep up - otherwise more and more people will start travelling on their own, perhaps?
06 November 2015 - 7:48
Steve says:
They have missed the category to which I now belong, "We who travel without travelling". For example, I am no longer able to travel in real life, but I can still "travel" by following travellers like you online.
When I was still travelling for real, I had become more and more of a "localist", but I never went on a bicycle sightseeing or food walk in a group because I have never been a "group person" in my travels. Nor was I a pure exercise traveller, but I wore out several pairs of shoes on my searching walks.
However, it is good that travel concepts are being created to cater for many different tastes. The best thing about today's travel is that you can completely customise your own trip. What freedom, FREEDOM!
06 November 2015 - 7:17
Resfredag says:
Ving is absolutely right about the exercise trend, it is so clearly visible in "everyday life" and is of course also reflected in the way we travel.
I've written more about the reconnaissance + personal reflections here: http://resfredag.se/vings-semesterrapport-2015/
I'm not really a group travel person, but I really wanted to go on that STS trip to the Alps!
06 November 2015 - 9:44
Ama de casa says:
I usually go on pure NON-training trips 😉 Then I am probably more looking for experiences and to see new things and meet new people than to relax. Relaxing is probably best done at home in the sofa corner 😉.
06 November 2015 - 10:17
Maggan och Ingemar says:
Nowadays we travel as we want, but in the past when it was holiday trips that applied, then it was me who planned. (I do that now too) Group trips are nothing for us not training trips either, but experiences I could imagine. Fortunately, we are all different and there is something for everyone.
06 November 2015 - 11:00
admin says:
Travel Friday, I'm not usually in favour of group travel either, but in a special context I could probably imagine it.
Ama de casa, haha don't try, I know you usually go on a skiing holiday! 🙂
Maggan and Ingemar, that is probably what attracts us most of the above as well. For example. a food walk in a big city I would love to be able to jump on!
06 November 2015 - 11:09
Elisabeth says:
It is probably the three with food and local experiences that suits us. The exercise is now what our walks provide. When you walk, you have time to see a lot and also the opportunity to talk to some of the people you meet.
06 November 2015 - 12:51
Alexandra says:
I'm a real charter lover haha and I think these trends definitely sound likely! I definitely think the "exercise trend" is here to stay, although I think health trend is a more appropriate word. I think many people notice that they feel much better by moving and eating with common sense and then you do not want to ignore it and go crazy bananas just because you are on holiday. Living healthy is not a punishment that you need a holiday from as well 😉.
07 November 2015 - 21:42