2025旅行趋势预测：放慢脚步，享受奢华之旅

• The action of travel is shifting towards relaxation and meaningful experiences.
• Countryside boutique hotels are becoming popular as base camps for travelers.
• Luxury travel is on the rise, with travelers focusing on experiences over possessions.
• Cool destinations like Scandinavia are trending for summer escapes.
• Rental car complexities are increasing, with new tech demands for drivers.
• Airlines are acquiring new planes while business travel costs increase.

See the action and dripping sweat at the same time. So you call yourself heat sensitive? I call myself fat. Now that's funny. Hashtag. Welcome to this week's edition of the Weekly Traveler. I'm Steve Glenn. I'm Paul Glen.

Hey, Paul. This is my favorite session of the whole year. For the next four weeks, we're going to cover my 2025 top predictions. Okay from Executive Travel. I've been doing this now for 22 years and about 71% of my predictions came true last year. Okay. I have pretty good crystal ball, huh?

You've got documentation of those numbers. Well, is that another made-up statistic? Another statistic. Well, here we go. We're gonna go lickety split through these.

Today we're gonna cover the top 15. These are put out by Executive Travel and our Weekly Traveler. Every Tuesday at 10:30 we try to send out 100,000 emails to people that have asked to be put on our list for some 30 years now. And here is my travel predictions for 2025.

Number one, 2025 is the year travelers want to slow down and cozy up. And I see that all over the world, Paul. They want to say, "I want to go at a slower pace. I want this to be very intentional. I'm looking for opportunities to cozy up and truly immerse with the locals."

It's basically focusing on relaxed travel. Not intense travel, but relaxed travel, meaningful experiences, and they want to extend their stays in areas they're very comfortable with. Don't feel like they have to rush to get there. Is that what you think?

Yeah, well that's actually what we just did over the holidays. We went in 13 days and didn't really have an agenda. So we could look at what the weather was going to do and decide. Do we want to get out and about today or do we just want to lay low and relax?

And it's nice because you know, so many times you go on vacation and your agenda is packed from the start of every day, from the time you land until the time you take back off. Then you need a vacation from the vacation when you get back.

That's right. It's nice to be able to have had some downtime, to be able to then back at it and not feel like you need to get some rest to get going again. That's number one, slow down and cozy up.

Number two, countryside boutique hotels will be the base camp for travelers in 2025. I think you just mentioned that you sat in the villa. Well, that was your base camp and then you went out to all these little small cities, right?

Yeah, it's one where, you know, we did big cities too. We did Florence and things like that. But it's nice too. And our friends that are over there right now. One of the comments from the husband to me the other night was, "You know, be able to get someplace and just have peace."

You know, when you've got your base camp and you're going out instead of traveling around and doing different places and packing and unpacking, people don’t want to do that every night. They want a base camp.

It's kind of like why you do a cruise, so that you can experience multiple destinations without having to pack and unpack. Well, you find a nice central spot, then you can do that. Go see Rome for a day, go see Florence, go see CNA or wherever you want to, but then have that key place you come back to: boutique hotels and villas.

Number three is 2025 is the year of luxury travel. Boy, we're seeing it. The baby boomers have bucks and they're wanting to spend it, and so they're wanting to live with gusto.

And they're out there traveling the world, having experiences, having experiences. They're moving away from possessions and they're moving to experiences. They're doing multi-generational stuff, which we'll talk about later. But most of them are moving up from that four-star hotel to the five-star hotel, from coach class into business class.

They're moving up in the world. And this is the year of luxury travel. Because once you go up, you can't go back. You can't go back.

And I was surprised how many, you know, teenagers and preteens were sitting in business class and they were paid for tickets here this last week because we were traveling. So, you know, that does say a lot to grandparents and parents are wanting to have those experiences and make the memories. Because, you know, when you look at it, at the end of the day, the memories last a lot longer than the money.

That's right.

Number four reads, “cool” CA is the hottest trend for 2025, Paul. This is right up your alley. People want to go to Scandinavia, they want to go where it’s cool. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland.

They just want to say, "Hey, I'm going in July and August, but I don't want to go where it's hot." And the crowds tend to be a little bit less when you're going to a cooler destination as well.

So, yeah, I think there's something to being able to get someplace and be comfortable. You know, I'm a guy, I'm very heat sensitive. So the last thing I want to do is be standing in long lines with thousands of people trying to go see.

See the action and be dripping sweat at the same time. So you call yourself heat sensitive? I call myself fat. No. That’s funny. Hashtag.

Okay, now, number five, hot destinations. These are the hot destinations for 2025, meaning these are where people are going to want to travel.

Number one, Italy. Number two, Greece, Vietnam, Iceland, Canada, Scandinavia, of course, we talked about all those. Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, South America, Peru.

And then if you want to go on a safari, you're going to go to Kenya, Tanzania, and Japan is back in vogue as well. So I think with a lot of these, you really want to jump on them sooner rather than later, because I think especially in places like Portugal, Iceland, we're seeing some of this.

And Scandinavia could go down this path as well. You're starting to see that people are moving on to those destinations and you're going to start seeing the crowd similar to what you're seeing now in some of the places that have been the hot destinations for a long time.

Hey, Paul. This weekend I put together my seven steps for the progression of travelers. We're going to cover that in February. It's going to be fantastic.

We're back to the 2025 predictions. What's not hot for travel in 2025? Barcelona and Nassau. Okay. Barcelona basically says we don’t want tourists. Well, guess what, folks? Don't go to Barcelona. Let's give them what they want.

And Nassau, you tell them about your Nassau. Last time we were there, there were six cruise ships in it. Once you've been to Nassau, recognize there's not a whole lot to do.

There's a straw market, some restaurants, and there's Paradise Island. But you want to get back on the ship. We did. I mean, that's ultimately what ended up happening was we got off for an hour, walked around, showed the kids the straw market and such.

And then they're like, “You know, we can't get into a restaurant or a bar or be able to sit down and relax anywhere. So let's head back to the ship.”

And of course, we've got three domestic areas. We've got San Francisco still a mess, a dirty mess. Seattle and Portland, you know, kind of lawlessness a lot of times. And a lot of people just don't want to put up with a hassle.

You know, they're going on vacation for no hassle, no mess. The easy button. And you want to miss that. And of course, a lot of people now are kind of skipping July and August in some of the Southern Europe destinations because it's a little bit too hot.

It will be interesting to watch that. Number seven, you'll need to watch a training video before you get into your next rental car. Paul they're so complicated. You've got hybrids. Do you fill it full of gas or do you plug it in?

You've got diesel cars and you've got a diesel story. Yeah, we almost got stranded in the middle of nowhere in Italy here just last week because I didn't realize and I couldn't read the Italian warnings in the car.

But something, an additive that's required by law, I guess, over there on certain diesel vehicles. And yeah, if you have this, the car will just stop working.

So it’s so complicated. I'm recommending that the rental car companies put a QR code on the dashboard so that I can take it, bring my camera out on my phone, watch a video that explains how to turn on the speed, you know, the cruise control, how to add Apple CarPlay. Right.

CarPlay to the screen and things like that because they're getting so complicated.

Number eight. On this week's edition of the Weekly Traveler reads, seatback TV screens are back in 2025. Paul, 10 years ago, all the airlines said, “Hey, we're getting rid of these screens that cost money. People don’t watch them. Maintenance problems.”

They're putting them... They're watching it on their own iPads and other things. Now guess what? All they realize there's revenue in those screens.

There's revenue, but they've also kind of failed with Wi-Fi over the last 10 years on a lot of airplanes. So I think there probably were quite a few complaints that kind of help drive some of this.

Now here's a cool thing. Number nine. In this week's edition of the Weekly Traveler, at the top 15 travel predictions for 2025, colorful baggage takes off. Paul, I'm a weirdo. I sit at a baggage carousel and I count the percentage of colorful bags.

Five or so years ago, they were all black. Okay? Now over 70% were color. So blue, purple, rainbow colors, all kinds of fun things on the luggage. What's your luggage color?

The new bag we just got is black. I'm black, too. How about you? Hashtag red. Red. All right, go big red. But you're going to see a lot more color this year in bags. It makes it so much easier to find your bag. So I can understand why.

Number 10 on this week's edition of the Weekly Traveler, Elon Musk and Starlink could transform airplane Wi-Fi. Finally, Paul, Elon Musk is gonna fix the problem. I hope so. And we're gonna get some good Wi-Fi.

All the new planes are coming with the Starlink attachments so that you're going to get good Wi-Fi all over the world. You know, if you can get Wi-Fi in Ukraine in war, I would think you could on a United flight over Toledo. Right.

So we're hoping that this will be a great year for Wi-Fi in 2025. A lot of progress.

All right, number 11, airfares now are less than 30% of business travel costs. Paul, years ago, used to be everybody looked at the cost of airfare before they went—that was the primary thing for consideration.

Yeah. Now you're going to spend $300 for a car rental, $500 for a hotel, $200 for meals, and that's $1,000 bucks for a short business trip. And you'll spend $400 on that airline ticket. So you spend less than 30% on it.

So now people are looking at the whole cost of the trip. And we do that with a lot of corporate travel managers: look at the whole cost of that trip. And sometimes you may not want to go. If you look at all the costs, it can add up really quick.

And I think it adds up a lot faster than what people think. Hey, we're going through the top 15 travel predictions for 2025. This is sponsored by Executive Travel. You can Visit us at executivetravel.com.

We've got a new YouTube page. What's up? Yeah, we were under Executive TRVL. Now we've been able to get that updated and we're Executive Travel all spelled out on YouTube. So go track down. I think we've got 50 or 60 prior podcasts out there on that website. So there's something of interest. Go check it out.

We're back to this year's predictions in the travel industry.

Number 12. Airlines will purchase thousands of new airplanes in 2025 and replace those smaller jets with large planes. Amen. Yeah.

So what happened last year is they were expecting to get hundreds of new planes, but Boeing couldn't produce them all, so they deferred those. And this year you're going to see all these new planes come on board.

And that's why we're seeing all this new European flights for this summer coming up on us: we've got planes to travel with. And those big 787s, 777s, all those big aircraft, the Airbus 350s coming on.

So those are all the good things that are going to happen. Hopefully, that'll keep the lid on prices. Hope so.

Okay, number 13, forget about a complimentary domestic upgrade unless you're a top elite airline number. Paul, they've got too many people that are now airline frequent elite travelers.

You were telling me how many people were on the upgrade list the other day. There were over 70 people on the upgrade. 70 people.

Now you've got people that are spending $50,000 to $70,000 a year and they're having a hard time getting upgraded. 1K people like yourself. You spend over $24,000 a year on United Airlines alone and you don’t get upgraded every time.

So ladies and gentlemen, if you want a first-class ticket or seat, you're going to probably have to buy it in 2025 because there are so many credit cards now that are giving people status that just… And the point is, they get the status, but they also, they get the credit card points and they're using the points to buy those tickets.

You bet.

So with that number 14, airline CEOs should be all castigated for allowing expenses to spiral out of control, making one giant little hiccup and all their profits go down to the directory.

Think about it, Paul. In the last year they gave 40% raise to the pilots, 40% to the mechanics. They're 20% to 40% for their flight attendants. Everybody got 20% to 40%.

Well, that works good when the airplanes are all full. But the airplanes aren’t always full. What happens if we get another pandemic? What if there's an economic downturn? What if people just don't have a job?

And so what's happened is now it takes 80% of the seats being filled to break even. Break even. And so they're running about what, 82%, 83% maybe this year. That's a 3% Delta.

Right. So they're right on the cusp. If things go south, these airlines are going to hemorrhage cash and cry to the government. They need another bailout. Shame on those CEOs.

You've done a poor job of management and you shouldn't earn all those millions of dollars that you earn. So there goes our sponsor. Good thing we're not sponsoring.

Okay, number 15, more companies will relax their travel policies and allow their travelers to pay $100 more for a direct flight. So if you look at what's going on in the world with snowstorms like we had this last week and other things, people are saying, “How do I get from Omaha to New York City?”

There's two or three direct flights, or do I go through Chicago, Charlotte, or Atlanta and risk missing my connection flight and taking three hours longer?

So people are going to say, corporate travel managers are going to say, “Yeah, we want you. It's okay to spend a couple hundred bucks more or hundred bucks more. Take that direct flight. You're going to get there, most likely.”

And I sense there's going to be a lot more openness to travel. Policies mitigate the risk of that misconnection, which could cause for additional expenses to the corporation.

So, yeah, lots of reasons. But also, and probably one of the greatest is, you know, when we've had some low unemployment. Should that continue?

You want to make sure that you're treating your travelers and respecting their time and energy. So I think that's a key to it as well, is those guys that are on the road every week or every couple of weeks make it so that it's less of an inconvenience for themselves, for their personal lives and family lives.

Hey, we've had a great time with you today, bringing you the top 15 travel predictions for 2025, sponsored by Executive Travel. Paul Glenn is the CEO Steve Glenn, and I'm the chairman.

And Paul's going to give you the zipping boom on how you can register and get with us every week. Please, like, subscribe, share, and add any comments on topics that would be of interest for future episodes. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next one.