2018 Travel Trends - somewhere new

Where are the 2018 travel trends ?  American Express recently surveyed travelers in the US and the results were somewhat surprising.  Here's the Amex source document in case you want to read the report.

Bali is a top 2018 travel trend

2018 Travel trends - per Amex

Here's what American Express shows as the top ten 2018 travel destinations:

• Bali
• Costa Rica
• Dubai
• London
• Portugal
• Rome
• Tel Aviv
• Utah and Colorado
• Vietnam
• Zurich

Not surprised in these 2018 travel trends

Vietnam Halong Bay

Portugal has become red hot.  Most of 2018 Douro river cruises in Portugal are sold out and many 2019 Douro River cruises are selling strongly as well.  Portugal is a lovely and rather unassuming country with Lisbon a rather low cost alternative to the more well known Rome, Paris and London.  And Vietnam has become very popular as well.  We will be going there ourselves April 2018 so really look forward to that.

Rome and London are always popular.  And we've booked many more trips to the US National Parks.  Both Tauck and Collette have been strong. And of course people love to go skiing in Utah and Colorado.

Really?  Tel Aviv and Dubai?

We've seen little interest in Dubai and Tel Aviv.  Perhaps these are business travelers or perhaps just not our customer bases.  So we were surprised to see these cities named as top 2018 travel trends.

Survey says

The American Express survey also has some other results:

• 20% of people claim they will travel in 2018 to experience new languages and customs
• Over half say exploring a new destination in 2018 is an important goal
• Lots of interest in trips with adventure and excitement (49%) , finding culinary experiences (43% and discovering new places to eat and shop in a new neighborhood (52%) while on vacation
• Luxury travel continues to be popular mode with  many (56%) travelers saying they are willing to pay more for better service.
• About half those surveyed view travel as "energizing"

What's behind the survey of 2018 travel trends?

Places noticeably absent the above trends are perennial favorites like France and Spain.  We suspect geo-political unrest in the world is driving some of this.    To our way of thinking, this just means that these popular spots might be a better bargain in 2018 than they were in the past.  We're certainly seeing more interest in other domestic locations like the Columbia River and Alaska.   Also surprising absent is China, Iceland and Ireland.

Trendy trends

We've written about travel trends before, check out these posts:

Travel trends from Avoya 2017 conference

Wish list destinations

New destinations await in 2018

New ships, new destinations

A great travel agent can help you find new destinations of your own.