Sabrina Faramarzi is a trend forecaster, futures researcher and journalist who’s obsessed with all things trend, innovation and design. When she’s not uncovering patterns across socio-cultural phenomena, she can be found at the latest electronic music night, swimming marathon lengths at her local pool, or worshipping cats on the internet.

Vaccination programmes sparked a tentative return to travel in 2021. But following months of remote working and an increased focus on community, approaches to leisure have changed. “Travel and leisure is really built around the idea of space – conflating space and expanding space,” says Dr. Anna Sulan Masing. “The pandemic made us think ‘is travel and leisure the opposite of home or part of the home?’” With people shifting away 

 but not yet pursuing the kinds of experiences they sought pre-pandemic, brands are having to adapt to this transitionary period. Those that found success during the crisis – Peloton and Disney+, for instance – are seeing their success plateau. In the US, 

 of fitness club members returned to their gyms at the start of 2021. In the UK, meanwhile, 10% of people have expressed some kind of guilt over their lockdown purchases and are searching for ways to get rid of them, showing that appetites for leisure experiences are starting to shift.

No longer satisfied with rushing around well-trodden routes, many people are looking for regenerative travel experiences – both for themselves and the communities they visit. An increased interest in train journeys, sailing, and other slower means of transport reflects a desire to be more eco-friendly, all the while making the trip as important to the holiday experience as the destination. Meanwhile, some people are exploring the 

, highlighting how novel travel and leisure experiences can be found on one’s doorstep.

For those interested in going further afield, the uncertainty of the pandemic has meant that 

, with many providers offering flexible booking to keep their businesses buoyant amid ever-changing restrictions. It has also provided an added benefit – discovery. 

 to its platform in 2021 to offer further flexibility to its customers, ensuring they don’t feel tied down to a fixed booking. On the flip-side, some businesses in the sector are becoming more discerning with the guests they accept, acknowledging that heightened standards are vital to keep everyone safe. From an 

 for the vaccinated to New Zealand’s focus on 

, travel and leisure destinations are pushing back against the kind of tourism they feel negatively impacts their communities.

In this chapter of Canvas8’s 2022 Expert Outlook, sustainable tourism expert Dr. Jonathon Day talks about how people are looking to make a positive impact through their holidays, Dr. Anna Sulan Masing walks us through the new rituals emerging around slow travel, and tech and travel consultant Ian Moss explores how 2022 will be a major year for train operators.

People will look for ways to make a positive impact through travel

Dr. Jonathon Day is an associate professor at Purdue’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. He has over 20 years of experience in destination management, sustainable tourism, and destination marketing.

What has changed in the travel and leisure sector over the past year?

People have realised how much they appreciate travel. I think that we're going to see a very, very sharp return to travel for many people. Yet the shifting priorities that we’re seeing in other sectors are also happening in travel, and there are early adopters in areas like transformative travel. We're also seeing a move towards mindful travel – people want to make sure that they're not contributing to the negative impacts that travel can sometimes have.

I'm really excited about this bubbling interest in regenerative travel. Regenerative travel is about saying, ‘not only do I not want to make this place worse, I actually want to make it better. When I come to a place, I want to make sure that the way that I spend my money and the way that I interact with people is positively contributing to that place’.

There's a difference between a destination or a product being sustainable and then actually telling a story that is meaningful to the consumer looking for great experiences and knowing that they don't want to have a negative impact. One of the challenges is how do you effectively communicate sustainability in a way that doesn't sound like greenwashing or marketing jargon and really meets people where they're at. I'm excited about some of these destinations that are doing great work, but it's taking some time to really diffuse through the system.

What predictions do you have for your sector in 2022?

We know exactly what our places look like when there are no tourists because of lockdowns. Now, we can compare and contrast what it's like with lots of tourists and no tourists. I think that has contributed to a lot of communities stopping and asking ‘why do we have tourism? Why don't we promote tourism?’ I think for a lot of destinations, tourism is a way to improve the quality of life of the people who are there and create economic and cultural benefits. So, there’s been a shift from thinking about the consumer traveller to thinking about the community. People in tourism are shifting from the behaviour of selling their souls to please the guest – regardless of the negative impact on the community – to saying, ‘travellers are welcome, but you need to contribute to the community while you're here’. When travel becomes more available, I doubt we'll continue to be as focused locally and I think the big job for the industry is making it easy for travellers to be their best selves.

Business travel is also changing pretty dramatically. Currently, large corporations are making commitments to sustainability and reducing their emissions. What is happening now is that those corporations are asking travel suppliers to tell them the carbon footprint of their business travel so they can start to reduce it, and if not reduce it, then at least offset it. All of a sudden, hotels and airlines are now expected to give their biggest customers this information. The industry has never had to answer these questions as specifically as it does now. This corporate trend is a pretty big driver of a lot of the things that are happening in travel and leisure right now and the way the industry is reorganising itself.

More and more people are scrutinising the carbon footprint of air travel

People will make slow, local discovery part of everyday life

Dr. Anna Sulan Masing is a journalist, editor, and communications consultant with experience in the arts and hospitality industries. Her experience covers Southeast Asia as well as race, community, and identity.

It's going to take years for us to really process the last couple of years, and that'll have a continued effect on the way we understand travel and leisure. Accessibility to travel has been curtailed in so many different ways and we've had to really think about what travel means to us, what leisure means to us. People are still going to be working from home, so finding boundaries within our everyday lives for micro leisure or micro travel – which is done within the bounds of our neighbourhoods – will continue. The idea of travelling to your community and actually understanding who your community is, as opposed to having more destination travel, is starting to be seen as a kind of travel experience in itself. We're looking much more into how we connect with the community and how those places can be places of leisure.

But there are patterns and rituals we want to reproduce. For example, if you're someone who is into food and wine, you might travel to specific restaurants or do wine tours or culinary classes. What I've noticed in the last year is the development of those same routines but closer to home. So, in the UK, some people are going on dedicated wine tours in Sussex that mirror wine tours in France. Then, in France, there are wine tours that are focused on local people as opposed to programmes that speak to an international market. So, it's a real shift in how travel and leisure experiences are talking to their own markets as opposed to international ones.

Places that allow for time and connectivity are what people are going to look for. These spaces can provide human nourishment and that ability to do things that allow for connectivity, as opposed to rushing around quickly consuming bucket list experiences. Travel is taking longer because there's more admin to do with pandemic restrictions, so it means that when you get somewhere, you want to have time to then relax into it and enjoy the new environment. The other thing I think is really topical is not just where you're going, but how you're getting there. I think that with the ideas around sustainability, there is more interest in slow travel and taking your time.

The last thing is about how travel brands will tell the story of the world we're in without making it feel scary and a big deal. Amtrak is doing some compelling campaigns around this. It’s highlighting the beauty of travel and taking the anxiety out of it by showing beautiful vistas alongside other travellers casually wearing their masks, while Qatar Airways is offering smart little hygiene packs that look cool and are so handy that you want to keep them as a souvenir. This way of subtly embedding that into your experience and incorporating this idea of safety as standard – instead of the ‘we are protecting you’ angle – will help change what travelling during a pandemic can be like.

Local tourism will continue to thrive as sustainability remains front of mind

People’s appetites for experiential travel present a major opportunity for train operators

Ian Moss is a technology consultant, start-up mentor, and founder of 196destinations.com – the community for making it a little easier to travel by train.

People have been locked up at home for a long time and now they just want to get away. But they are also starting to ask how they can get there more sustainably. Trains are the obvious answer to that. Obviously, with COVID-19, travel was reduced to a bare minimum, and even when it began to pick up again in 2021, it was still happening at a greatly reduced rate. However, it was an interesting time for train travel. We saw new lines and routes emerge and there are glimmers of hope for an increased number of trains in 2022.

Outside of trains, we also saw the boom of e-mobility formats as a key tool for local tourism. E-scooter companies such as Bolt, Voi, and Tier are doing well across Europe and expanding. They’re investing heavily in the next generation of technology for their fleets so that those products have more longevity – like being able to better withstand wear and tear, better battery life for less recharging, and building better storage options so they don’t litter pavements.

Over the last 20 years, low-cost carriers in Europe have invested very heavily in good websites as well as low prices for flights. There are good options for train travel in Europe but how much more do people want to pay for taking the train? People often think, ‘well, if it's going to take more time, I'm not going to pay more money as well’. There's a big barrier there on price, and there are rarely discounts offered. There are options like the Interrail pass, which is a popular choice among young people, especially as the EU has been promoting it and giving away free tickets each year. This has helped reduce initial barriers and get young people used to the idea of taking long-distance trains, whereas older demographics have been used to taking a plane for those same routes for a long time and many don’t even think about taking a train there instead.

My prediction is that new players will have to find ways to showcase the benefits of train travel. Midnight Trains is introducing new ways to premiumise the train experience, which has not been attempted since the classic train lines of the past. It'll be interesting to see what they bring to the market, but it might be some time yet. European Sleeper is launching next year, so it will also be interesting to see how people will engage with new night train formats.

When it comes to sustainability, the numbers vary but, typically, taking a train has between six and eight times less carbon impact than taking a plane. Of course, it really depends on where the electricity comes from, but Midnight Trains is saying that its service will have 20 times fewer carbon emissions compared to flying over the same route, which will appeal to eco-conscious travellers.

Revamped rail journeys may help attract younger and more mindful travellers

How our mindsets will shape the travel and leisure sector

For the Culture Steward, travel and leisure are all about community. “Managing the return of travellers is going to be a big topic in 2022, and the Culture Stewards will be asking ‘how do we make tourism work for us as opposed to being something that happens to us?’” says Day. “Many people feel like hyper-tourism is something they can't do anything about and the Culture Steward will be trying to change that.” Whether they’re opting for a community-focused 

 that’s making art more enjoyable for visually-impaired people, the Culture Steward wants to ensure travel and leisure experiences benefit as many groups as possible. They also want to tell their local stories globally – from 

 impacting healthier forms of tourism to Patagonia’s movie about 

, the Culture Steward knows that helping local communities begins before travellers arrive.

For the Systems Sceptic, travel and leisure are part of their daily routines – not something they participate in when work is done. Additionally, they want their experiences to be eco-friendly above all else. “The challenge for brands will be finding new ways of communicating with the Systems Sceptic,” says Masing. “They have a reluctance for the well-trodden routes, and just because their money isn’t sitting in traditional spaces, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire for travel and leisure – it’s just approached differently for them.” The Systems Sceptic expects brands to be 

 on the planet, whether that’s by opting for 

. Brands have a role to play in making these experiences more accessible, with 

, for instance, making it easier to identify sustainable travel providers.

In 2022, the Contrarian wants a full return to travel and leisure experiences – and won’t settle for anything less. “They’ll still be taking flights from budget airlines for weekend city breaks, but perhaps trains can appeal to them through clever marketing and onboard experiences like nice bars that have a Gen Y feel to them,” says Moss. “I imagine once COVID-19 fears die down a little, we’ll start to see Instagram influencers on trains having a drink on a Friday night for a weekend in Barcelona or Berlin.” While 2021 saw a rise in 

, the Contrarian has a tendency to stick to what they know. In turn, there’s an opportunity for legacy brands to revamp their experiences to attract those who want familiar journeys and events to feel novel again. For instance, 

 in London for Britons seeking a different kind of domestic holiday.

 is looking to disrupt the image of sleeper trains in Europe by offering a premium experience. It’s launching its first routes in 2024, with eventual routes planned from Paris to Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Denmark, and Scotland.

 is an overnight sleeper train company that’s launching in April 2022. Its route will go from Brussels to Prague via Amsterdam and Berlin.

American train operator Amtrak will offer 

 along the Northern Corridor in 2022 with an increased focus on hospitality.

 is a US-based leisure operator committed to offering more sustainable travel experiences.

Anna Sulan Masing is an academic and a food, drink, and culture writer. Her PhD explored identity and storytelling. She co-founded Sourced, a public research project that explores people's relationships with food and drink. In 2021 she launched the global magazine 

 along with three other food and media professionals. Anna Sulan is one half of the podcast and event series Voices At The Table.

Global

Travel and Leisure

How are brands rethinking travel experiences for 2022? Why are train journeys on the rise? What are local communities doing to combat over-tourism? In this part of the 2022 Expert Outlook, we speak to three experts about how people will choose to spend their leisure time post-pandemic.

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