Consumer Travel Trends for 2018 [Infographic]

Summer might seem a long while off yet, but a lot of us are in the process of planning holidays for later in the year, if indeed we haven’t made those all-important bookings already. For those of you currently making travel arrangements, this infographic from the Ard na Sidhe Hotel is worth reading, as it identifies some of the standout trends in the travel market for 2018.

It’s no surprise to see that many holidaymakers are taking full advantage of the Internet before organizing travel, with consumer reviews becoming a major guideline in recent times. Another increasingly popular asset is the offering of virtual reality tours of landmarks and destinations so that travelers can get a very accurate impression of a place before spending money on visiting it.

At the other end of the scale, there is a growing trend towards tech’ detox’ holidays where travelers deliberately visit remote places with little or no Internet connectivity so that they can truly switch off from the pressures of everyday life. Given how connected our world has become, even holidays can be punctuated with emails from work, something that effectively defeats the purpose of taking a holiday in the first place.

A survey by Booking.com showed that a lot of travelers wish to sample once-in-a-lifetime experiences during 2018. Examples include sub-aqua diving in the Great Barrier Reef, embracing the magic of Walt Disney World or maybe going to the FIFA World Cup in Russia. The experience holiday is becoming ever more popular as travelers seek to make 2018 the year in which they complete a few bucket list items.