Now that travel has returned to pre-pandemic levels, travelers travel the world in search of new experiences. As a case of force majeure to facilitate this journey, American Express conducts research to see how, where and why cardholders are exploring. The Effects of American Express Yesterday the Travel Global Travel Trends Report 2023 was released, detailing the findings of 8,000 respondents from around the world: 2,000 in the United States, 1,000 each in Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom, all with a circle of relatives earning $70,000 or more and who travel by air at least once a year.
Overall, the effects show it continues to increase: 85% said they will take two or more recreational trips this year; 74% said having a great experience was more important than cost; 78% said it was a very sensible budget priority. However, where they were going was torn between possible family options and new horizons.
For 89% of respondents, novelty is definitely an operating term: they need to move to off-the-beaten-path destinations rather than well-known resort cities, in fact, exploring those destinations on a granular level and local communities. This is especially true for Gen Z and Gen Y respondents who, in greater numbers than other respondents, express a preference for noticing a new vacation spot over others, shopping at small, local, original places when they’re there, and reveling in the destination like locales. do.
Travelers who made the decision to leave for Sicily this year probably would have done so after watching the current season of “The White Lotus,” demonstrating another trend called Set Jetting-floking to places they’ve already seen on screen, whether on TV. , movies or social networks. Gen Z and millennials also lead the pack in this category, and they look more closely at destinations they’ve seen in those media, especially Instagram and TikTok, and because of that, the places they know will look wonderful. in their own images on those platforms.
Wellness holidays have increased in recent years, largely due to pandemic-induced stress and continue to be. 88% of respondents said they would spend as much or more on this holiday this year at hotels like Amanyara in Turks and Caicos, The Cape, a Thompson hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and One.
Another trend that has grown and continues to do so this year is opting for a vacation spot based on its culinary scene: 81% of respondents said that taking a look at local cuisines is the component they look at ahead. A smaller number (37%) plan to make a stopover at a prominent component restaurant. Others focus more on a pure, original and easier dining experience, the kind of culinary adventure that now attracts the most prominent Israeli chef Michael Solomonov, winner of the James Beard Award, whose restaurants come with Zahav in Philadelphia and Laser Wolf in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
A crab shack on the Oregon coast, the kind of natural gastronomic delight that’s a chef’s favorite. . . [ ] Michael Solomonov.
“As I get older, more clever memories I have that shape my thinking about food don’t come from Michelin-starred restaurants, but from the little places that opened because that’s what they do, generations of other people who have been doing the same thing for a while. A long time. You can spice up the soul. That’s what I like,” he says. He chose Oregon’s southern shore, where he stopped at a Dungeness crab hut and ate the melted Yetter crabs he describes. like “I don’t forget to have dinner something so fancy. ” Other memorable reports come with ceviche from one of the locals in the town of Quepos, the town surrounding the hotel where he was staying in Costa Rica and the colorful granite of a cabin near a walking trail on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, surrounded by lemons, figs and olives.
Positano on the Amalfi Coast in Italy noticed from a lemon tree.
It’s not that he completely ignores the most serious restaurants, but he doesn’t regularly make a pilgrimage to the most prominent ones. He suggests looking for deals in second-tier cities in the U. S. Food reports like the perfect Vietnamese and Cambodian restaurants in Philadelphia. And a stay in a hotel, gives this false advice. “Instead of the restaurants they regularly recommend, I ask them where they and their families would go,” he says. In a restaurant, do the same with the staff. Ask them what they would like to eat. Say that you are actually interested in food, that you are not impressed.