Booking trends 2024 part one

James Berzins, Managing Director at TXGB, looks at the consumer booking behaviours affecting the UK travel sector in 2024 and shares some top tips on how you can align your business for the year ahead.

It has been great to kickstart the year travelling across the UK, including a quick trip to Belfast to meet with the incredible team at Tourism Northern Ireland. While writing this post, I reflected on conversations since the turn of the year and the busy calendar of events, meetings and travel in my diary. And it quickly became apparent that, despite the economic climate, changing weather, restrictions and chaos that life can throw at us, one thing remains constant; people’s unequivocal desire to travel, do business and experience new things.

Whether it’s a Sunday morning walk with family in a new location, a weekend away, or a business trip with time to explore, we are all in pursuit of feeling good and feeling connected. The latest UK domestic sentiment tracker by VisitBritain has revealed 79 percent of those surveyed in January 2024 intend to take an overnight domestic trip over the next 12 months (compared with 70 percent in January 2023). With a focus on short trips and day trips between February and May, this is a great opportunity to showcase all your destination has to offer, influence traveller booking decisions and make that process of booking quicker and easier.

To do this, it’s important to stay abreast of how people research, plan and book their travel. Change remains a dominant trend in this industry – as new technologies emerge and consumer behaviour evolves. So, to help inform your marketing and distribution strategies, we’ve looked at some of the latest travel trends and booking behaviour, which we’ll be sharing with you over the next few weeks.

Today, we dive into the first moments that inspire us all to travel – and the types of travel we’re seeking. 

What is influencing travel decisions?

At the early planning stage of a new adventure, social media and conversations with family and friends are the leading sources of inspiration. WeTravel, the Global Hotel Alliance, Arival and the Expedia Group all reported on the growing influence of short-form content and reels in providing both destination inspiration, and sparking the initial interest for a trip.

“75 percent of respondents say they travel to new places after seeing friends’ social media posts.” 

2024 Travel Trends report from Global Hotel Alliance (GHA)

This is largely driven by the growing number of Millennials and Gen-Z travellers who are prioritising spending on experiences over things. Most notable is the shift towards not only discovering destinations but also booking in-destination activities via influencers or their social media app of choice. Off the back of this, travel tech solutions that support influencers in converting travellers to bookers within social media apps are beginning to emerge – providing a seamless booking experience. TXGB is already starting to work in this space (for example with travel blogger BigfamilyLittleAdventures), as our existing technology enables direct bookings from social media posts – driving visibility as well as sales for tourism products. And for consumers, it makes the journey from looking at an attraction, experience or event to booking seamless, quick and easy.

As social media and influencer marketing continues to dominate, the importance of a brand’s digital footprint across all marketing channels and in a connected digital ecosystem, is evident. So, what can you do to stand out in a highly crowded and disparate online world?

Top tip: Be visible 

With Expedia Group reporting that 62 percent of UK travellers were undecided on their destination before booking, now is the time for tourism products and destinations to fire up their social media presence and optimise their online visibility. Travellers are open to inspiration during the early research stages, so create and plan content that showcases all the great things to do in your area as well as your own business. 

• Consistency and authenticity are key to building trust on social media. Build a bank of content that’s true to your values and tourism experience. 
• Identify a local ‘influencer’ to help you create short-form videos in exchange for a free experience. You can start small with just one person who represents your story and ethos. 
• Stand out from the crowd with a strong brand identity and make sure your content is easy to reshare.
• Encourage visitors to tag you by making your handles visible across all marketing channels. You can even incentivise tagging to encourage endorsement. 

The rise of the ‘experiential traveller’ 

Next to AI (which we will cover in more depth in a future post), I think ‘experience’ is quite possibly the most used word in the sector. This is for good reason, as travellers increasingly cite a desire for new and immersive experiences as a deciding factor for the destination they’re travelling to. From cultural tours to tasting local delicacies, or learning new skills, consumers are looking for ways to authentically experience different cities, regions and cultures.

This preference for unique travel is often combined with a desire to seek out more responsible and sustainable experiences. Travellers are becoming increasingly aware of the impact of their travel decisions and are, therefore, more conscious about where and who they spend their money with. To capitalise on the growing experience culture, it’s up to us to bring destinations to life through the art of storytelling and, importantly, collaboration. 

(You can read more about purpose-driven storytelling from the Arival 360 summit last year.)

Top tip: Be collaborative 

Excite visitors and champion ‘community’ by collaborating with other local tourism businesses to build out unique experiences for your destination or region. Working with local businesses and destination management organisations, you can create immersive, in-stay experiences that make it easy for travellers to visualise the great escape they could be making and keep them in the region for longer. Think themed ‘foodie breaks’, reboot retreats or active adventures for the thrill seekers. The Newcastle Gateshead Initiative’s New Adventures Campaign is a great example of this collaborative model in action. Working in partnership with TXGB, this campaign website has enabled smaller immersive experiences to be easily searchable and bookable online. Visitors can quickly search the region’s tourism products by ‘Active pursuits’, ‘Food & drink’ and ‘Winter escapes’, to find different activities such as the History Tour of Medieval Blackfriars with Lunch, Little Monks Cookery Class and seasonal events at Blackfriars restaurant. (See our new case study and talking head video to learn more).  

• Make it simple, quick and easy for travellers to book at the click of a button throughout their journey. Your destination website is a great central location to bring the community together and TXGB can help power the connections to streamline bookings. 
• Review and update your listings on online platforms with information about your people, local experiences, easy-to-reach locations, or new ways to travel to you. Humans are intrinsically emotional so take people on your brand journey and bring your destination to life through words, videos and pictures. 
• You can also extend your reach and presence online through strategic partnerships with interesting people and businesses in your region and cross-platform strategies. Our new Community App is a great way to bring tourism communities together online. Available via mobile or desktop, the app enables groups and their members to collaborate by sharing peer-to-peer advice, ideas and insights. You can learn more here.

Taking the time now to understand the changing tourism landscape and aligning with the emerging trends, in a way that is authentic and distinct for your brand, will enable you to focus on the key moments that remind us why we joined the industry in the first place – watching visitors enjoy the ‘happy place’ that you have spent time and money building into a unique experience.

In the next blog, I will be looking at the changing digital landscape and the key technologies transforming online distribution, booking and customer experience. In the meantime, if you have any questions about how to optimise your online distribution strategy, or want to know more about how we are collaborating with businesses across the travel industry, get in touch with myself or a member of the team.

James Berzins – TXGB MD