Which destinations will lure the next intrepid generation? Ross Bentley reports
It is often said that those working in travel are ‘selling the dream’, and today holidaymakers can aspire to visit destinations that
a generation ago were out of reach for the average person.
As expectations increase, tour operators will be queueing up to offer new destinations to future travellers eager to see parts of the world previously off the mainstream tourist map. But just what destinations will be popular in 10 to 20 years’ time?
According to report by Thomson, which several years ago held a forum to predict popular holiday destinations in 2016, our penchant for city breaks will see us take short breaks to increasingly faraway locations such as Moscow, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town.
Other destinations tipped for big things include Qatar on the Persian Gulf with its positioning as the ‘Real Arabian Experience’, and countries along the Silk Road such as Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, which the report forecasts will be popular with a new generation of backpackers keen to “follow in the footsteps of their hippy grandparents”.
The Thomson report also predicts China will become the world’s number one tourist destination within 20 years – a point of view shared by Hayes and Jarvis product and contracting manager for the Middle East and Far East Andrea Loddo.
Loddo said that while the big three destinations of Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an are currently the most in demand “we are already starting to see interest in areas further off the beaten track.”
Loddo singles out the Yunnan province in southwest China as one to watch out for. She said: “People will want to see more remote areas of China, spurred on by some of the blockbuster films that have come out of the country in recent years.”
Destinations don’t get much more remote than the Arctic and Antarctic – places that will open up to more tourists over the next decade, according to Exodus agency sales manager Dan Jackson.
He also forecasts that socially aware and curious tourists will fuel a growth in demand for countries emerging from political difficulties such as Georgia, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. He also predicts an increase in holidays that combine sightseeing with learning a new skill.
“We are already seeing phenomenal growth in photographic tours to places such as the Masai Mara and India,” he said.
The chance to learn ranching skills is one reason why more holidaymakers will head for the US states of Wyoming and Texas in years to come, according to Jetsave programme director for escorted touring holidays Sarah Lax.
She added: “An increasing number of people have taken the more traditional tours of the east and west coast and now want to get under the skin of the country.”
But if you want an out-of-this-world experience then a trip into space has to be a must for the aspirational tourist of the future.
Sir Richard Branson’s high-profile Virgin Galactic project is expected to start taking passengers to the edges of the earth’s atmosphere within a decade, while experts predict space hotels based on the Skylab space station are not too far away either.
And with airports becoming more crowded, perhaps an increasing number of people will choose the hassle-free option of a virtual holiday, where you become a computer-generated character and explore a computer-generated world.
Already, a US company Synthtravels, which claims to be the world’s first online virtual travel agency, offers guided tours around popular virtual worlds such as Second Life and the Dark Age of Camelot.
Just think what you would save on sun lotion costs.
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