Uncovering the Future of Travel with Further Forecast 2024

As Design Hotels celebrates 30 years, the Further Forecast provides important and widely accessible insights into the breadth of the brand’s knowledge and network. An extension of Design Hotels’ concept Further, the Further Forecast synthesizes the most pertinent developments in art, design, science, technology, and beyond to prompt conversations and collaborations across creative disciplines and inspire new paradigms in travel.

To compile the 158-page report, Design Hotels used an array of primary and secondary research, including expert interviews, consumer surveys, strategic foresight, and trend analysis. Primary data sources include the Design Hotels Community Survey comprising 1,789 responses from June 2023, more than 200 case studies, and interviews with industry thought leaders at companies such as Microsoft, teamLab, IKEA’s SPACE10, Beckley Retreats, and Bompas & Parr.

SOON Future Studies added to this field research by using proprietary data banks of signals to map out the macro-environmental drivers of change with emerging cultural trends. A PESTE (political, economic, social, technology, environment) analysis synthesized 400 cultural signals into six macro trends:

1. Age of Awe
2. The Intelligence Era
3. Remedial Pursuits
4. Ancestral Wisdom
5. Connected Quests
6. Ecology Urgency

Key statistics from the Design Hotels Community Survey 2023 that support the Further Forecast include:

‒ 63% of people are willing to invest more money in transformational or out of the ordinary experiences.
‒ 60% of people are interested in or actively increasing their practices and rituals such as meditation and breathwork, suggesting a rising interest in such in experiences in hotels.
‒ In the past year, 54% of people have experimented with AI tools, platforms, or services, such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, and DALL-E 2, and 23% of those people used AI to help them plan travel.
‒ 50% of people said they are seeking more community-led experiences or opportunities to connect with people in a deeper way, prompting a wave of new hospitality loyalty and membership models.

“The Further Forecast marks a significant moment for Design Hotels as a global brand,” says Sarah Doyle,Vice President, Global Brand Leader of Design Hotels. “We are committed to engaging in forward-thinking initiatives, challenging status quos, and pushing the industry further in a circular way. We hope hoteliers, designers, restaurateurs, and architects alike will be inspired from this forecast to introduce new strategies and creative initiatives based on its findings.”

“We are thrilled to have partnered with Design Hotels to create this ground-breaking report on the future of the travel industry,” says Sarah Owen, Co-founder and Global Futures Director at SOON Future Studies. “Our futures-oriented methodologies unveiled exciting developments and trajectories that will not only shape the industry but also the longevity of our planet and generations to come.”

Within every mega-trend is a series of micro-trends that underline the topic as well as outlined, actionable takeaways for readers, with a useful “Now,” “Near,” and “Far” format. Written for hoteliers, designers, architects, and cultural tastemakers alike, the Further Forecast will be published annually, ensuring that the Further creative community and Design Hotels members remain at the forefront of travel.

A free download of the Further Forecast detailing the mega- and micro-trends and offering a preview of the content is available at designhotels.com/further, which includes a link to purchase the full report for €495.

About Marriott International
Marriott International, Inc., (NASDAQ: MAR) is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and encompasses a portfolio of nearly 8,200 properties under 30 leading brands spanning 138 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the world. The company offers Marriott Bonvoy®, its highly awarded travel program. For more information, please visit our website at www.Marriott.com, and for the latest company news, visit www.MarriottNewscenter.com. In addition, connect with us on Facebook and @MarriottIntl on Twitter and Instagram.

About SOON Future Studies
SOON is a futures think tank focused on human insight, helping to illuminate a better path for businesses, brands, policy, and people. By distilling social sciences and triangulating findings with emerging attitudes, ethnographic foresight, and cultural signals, SOON uncovers the cues shaping tomorrow. The team tracks trends, developments, and disruptions — from micro to mega — and links them to actionable implications and strategies.

The global SOON team is composed of futurists, trend forecasters, strategists, and marketers with backgrounds in sociology, innovation, and behavioral science. Alongside the core team, our futures advisors around the world contribute cultural signals and localized insights to inform reports and research projects.