HOW TRAVEL WILL CHANGE IN 2020
Look forward to more carbon offsets, immersive packages and ‘prolonged’ holiday experiences
The 2010s were the decade when travel became easier. The arrival of short-term lodging services, the embrace of ‘second cities’, and the rapid growth of budget airlines both shrunk our globe and made it more intriguing.
The overwhelming number of booking channels and sources of inspiration has left travellers confused, too, struggling to figure out how to maximise every minute of their precious vacation days.
That’s why ‘slow travel’, which lets you get under the skin of a place by simply staying put there for a little longer, is gaining traction. The idea doesn’t just make for more restful time off, it’s also more environmentally sustainable and fulfilling. It underscores the majority of the trends that will reshape the way we think about our adventures in 2020 and beyond.
Enjoy zero-footprint travel
In 2020 that trend of carbon offsets will go much further.
Cool Effect, the company we like best for carbon offsets, will release tools to help you offset the carbon footprints of your cruise vacations. Several airlines are setting goals to offset their entire fleets’ emissions. And tour operators are getting in on the act, making sure that our footprint on the ground nets out, too.
Leading the pack is Natural Habitats. The company is one-upping that idea by offsetting travellers’ entire lives for a full year if they book one of its Climate Change & Our Wild World trips. (The offset calculations are based on home size, electricity bills, monthly expenses, and air and driving miles.) Led by experts from the World Wildlife Foundation, travellers can venture to see such spectacles as the whale migration in Cabo, the Amazon rainforest, or polar bears in the Arctic.
There’s also Intrepid Travel, which is aiming to be carbon negative in the year ahead rather than simply carbon neutral.
Gardens: The hot new hotel amenity
Gardens are becoming an increasingly popular hotel feature. It sounds quaint, almost boring—and yet that’s the whole point. You can already commune with nature this way in places like Gleneagles, the iconic Scottish estate which just redid its grounds to highlight more authentic local plants and flora rather than imported flowers.
Better proof of the trend lies in the Hamptons, where the new Shou Sugi Ban house puts a spotlight not on the ocean but on meditative Japanese gardens designed by landscape architect Lily Kwong. Or in Marrakesh, where the rambling Royal Mansour includes 3.7 acres by Luis Vallego, who’s been honoured with the Order of the Rising Sun from the Emperor of Japan for his work with bonsais.
Your vacation will start before you leave home
If you book a villa at Rosewood’s Las Ventanas al Paraiso in Los Cabos next year, and if you live in select cities including Chicago, New York and San Francisco, your stay will begin before you head to the airport: The property is arranging for butlers to greet you at your front door, drive you to your departure hub, and treat you to all sorts of personalised goodies along the way. It’ll also offer the service on the way home to prolong the joy of being on vacation as long as possible.
Similarly, Hawaii’s new Mauna Lani will offer a ‘pre-arrival experience’ when it opens in January, such as sending guests a customized, special-edition Arlo Skye suitcase enclosed with invitations for guided, stand-up paddleboard classes.
All-inclusive will no longer be a four-letter word
Several of the biggest hotel openings for 2019 were of an unusual variety: All-inclusive luxury resorts. But they weren’t exactly branded as such.
Blackberry Mountain opened in February with rates that include everything from meals to hand-thrown pottery and aerial yoga classes. That’s in contrast to its older sibling, the hyperluxurious Blackberry Farm, which charges US$175 for a treeclimbing session, US$250 for stand-up paddleboarding, and US$250 for a sevencourse dinner.
When the Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort & Spa on Fiji’s Yanuca Island reopened in April, it became all-inclusive, too, recognising that most guests who visit are happily confined to its offerings. Even Marriott International is getting in on the act. It acquired the all-inclusive brand Elegant Hotels in October and is renovating all seven of its Caribbean hotels. Says Marriott President Arne Sorenson, “There is a strong and growing consumer demand for premium and luxury properties in the allinclusive category.”
Travel clubs are cool again
Travel clubs might make you think of oldfashioned agencies and AAA programmes selling discount trips through generic brochures, but these days they might be one of the most sophisticated ways to book travel.
Take Inspirato Pass, a subscription that acts like an all-you-can-travel buffet. It starts at US$2,500 per month, which includes as many nights as you wish in the company’s partner hotels, luxury homes, or even on cruise ships. Certain exclusive experiences, like VIP access to marquee sporting events, are also included.
Spas will go high-tech
Somadomes, Bod Pods, virtual reality wellness - if you have no idea what these things mean, you will soon. The latter has just debuted at the Four Seasons Resort Oahu, where a spaceship-like device called Sensync claims to ‘reset’ spagoers’ brains by manipulating all five senses. During the 20- to 80-minute journey, a virtual reality headset ‘takes’guests to deep space, ocean coves, or zen gardens, while the machine pumps out related sounds and smells, simulates things like wind and temperature, and uses real-time data about your respiration and heart rate to guarantee that you’re calming down.