The travel enthusiasts of today are more connected and informed than ever. Travel trends have always morphed and changed with societal trends. However, with the invention of the Internet, traveler desires now evolve much more rapidly.
Now that prospective guests can find hundreds of hotels with the single click of a button, people have more options available to them. Before the Internet allowed for such accessibility, people would have to book hotels by word-of-mouth or calling around.
Now, customers can browse through long lists of hotels within a certain area, comparing features and pricing with just a few clicks. As such, more people have been exposed to what types of hotels are out there.
Societal events, generational preferences, economic conditions, and more all intimately affect the hotel experience guests will be looking for. So, it’s incredibly important for hoteliers to closely follow trends to stay ahead of their guests’ desires.
2022 Travel Trends to Implement for More Revenue
Travel trends in the past several years have evolved quickly. The global climate had to quickly adjust to the effects of a pandemic, which included economic uncertainty and remote work on the rise. Hotels saw huge impacts on their business from these events.
There are always changes occurring within society that can change travel patterns significantly – which is why it’s important for hoteliers to carefully track travel trends and global headlines. When hoteliers can stay ahead of trends, they’ll succeed.
Whether it’s an event or a shift in ideologies and values among travelers, it pays off to keep up. Below, we’ll highlight some of the top trends right now and what the future holds in travel trends.
The “Bleisure” Guest Market
First and foremost – what is “bleisure”? Bleisure travelers are exactly what the word suggests, someone who is traveling for business and leisure. This kind of travel really caught on in the late pandemic, when many workers were still remote, but travel was beginning to open back up.
According to research done by Zippia.com, 66% of Americans worked remotely, either full-time or in a hybrid model in 2021. Even more important for hotels, it’s estimated that 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely by 2025. This is a big deviation from pre-pandemic numbers, where only 7% of employees in the U.S. worked remotely.
The rise of remote work is great news for hoteliers. Now that more people have flexible work agreements, they can fly to their favorite vacation spot a few days early and finish up the work week there. That is, of course, if the hotel has the right equipment to support working remotely.
If hotels want to attract “bleisure” guests, they need to implement tech-centric features, like cloud-based PMS software that allows guests to access applications where they can check themselves in and out on their smartphones. Hoteliers will also want to make sure their Wi-Fi is sufficient. Some hotels are adding dedicated workspaces equipped with custom beverage taps and reservable conference rooms.
Loyalty Programs Promote Recurring Reservations (and Revenue)
The average American travels domestically one to two times per year, according to Expedia’s American travel habits survey. About 10% of respondents said they travel over five times per year!
A vast majority of people travel more than once per year. However, travel is expensive, and customers are attracted to whatever perks will be offered for their continued business. People will also gravitate towards the ease of setting up one account with a single hotel brand instead of searching for a reputable hotel every time they need to travel.
With hospitality technology, implementing a customer loyalty program is easy. Web-based booking engines don’t just help hotels get more online bookings, they can also capture guest data and convert it into a customer loyalty account.
Paperless Is In
Paperless billing, check-in, and check-out are attractive to the modern traveler for several reasons. For starters, paper receipts and confirmations often end up lost or crushed at the bottom of a bag. Receiving an invoice via email or text is much easier to keep safe for most.
Particularly for business travelers, digital invoices prove handy to send directly to managers or online reimbursement systems. With a proper PMS system, hotels can even divvy up receipts for a group of colleagues so they can all get their own itemized invoices to their email addresses.
Beyond convivence, paperless systems are much more sustainable, which is becoming increasingly attractive to a large demographic of travelers. A survey from FirstSight in 2020 showed that 73% of respondents in Generation Z are willing to spend more for sustainable or eco-friendly features.
The same survey found that 68% of Millennials would be willing to do the same. Considering the oldest members of Generation Z were 23 when this survey was taken, this shows that the trend of sustainable features is likely to only increase in the coming years.
Getting Social
Any hotel’s online presence should go beyond just a website to make the most impact. These days, the average customer spends a lot of time online, but only in specific places. One of the places online where hoteliers can find many of their customers would be social media.
Social media allows hotels to meet potential customers where they are. By presenting an aesthetically pleasing highlight reel of a hotel on social media, you’ll easily drive interested viewers to your profile.
Many modern property management systems offer Facebook booking plug-ins, which enable people to book a room directly from a hotel’s Facebook page. Hoteliers can also make use of digital marketing tools, running social media ads that are targeted toward key demographics.
It really is simple (and fun) to share photos and blurbs about your hotel on social media. It allows real people to interact with your content and share their feedback, too. Overall, having a well-designed social media page is a magnet for increased bookings.
Self-Check In
With the emergence of more people traveling for work, in addition to more people being conscious about limiting public exposure, it’s no surprise that self-check-in is trending today.
Self-check-in offers more benefits than avoiding unnecessary contact, however. It can unburden the front desk staff, allowing them to focus on more important tasks throughout the property. Plus, self-check-in makes it easy for travelers to arrive on their own time. If travelers need a speedy check-in process, they can count on it to meet their needs.
A cloud-based PMS offers the ability to integrate remote check-in applications with the property software. This way, when guests check themselves in, staff can still monitor at what time they arrived and where they are.
Bottom Line
Travel trends are everchanging. Often, these trends present exciting opportunities for hoteliers to create new solutions for their properties.
Hotelogix Editorial Desk
Hotelogix's team of researchers and writers are constantly innovating to share the latest trends from the travel and hospitality space. Got suggestions? Write to us on editorial@hotelogix.com.