Do new trends emerge? Insights from the booming of the domestic traveling

No rule will ban you from traveling from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, but this may happen when traveling between Helsinki and Shanghai.

Being forced to stay in the home countries, travelers start to explore the surrounding areas as long as it’s safe to go out of their houses. Especially during the summertime, people want to leverage their holiday time on some domestic travel experiences which they may never be thinking of before C19. You see, the once-in-a-lifetime experience is not necessarily far away from one’s home country like Greenland or South Africa – it’s just in your “neighborhood”.  For example, you can go on a road trip to your neighbor countries, visit your family members, or escape from city life by driving 1hr towards the countryside.

As the travel industry has been relentlessly transforming, the business models need to follow emerging trends to stay afloat.

It’s expected that EU countries will lift gradually the travel restrictions and domestic traveling is booming already. One of the Norwegian fjord sites was already crowded and chaotic in July with local travelers that never happened before. Meanwhile in China, thanks to the “Unlimited Flight Pass” from China Eastern Airlines and other airline companies, there are nowadays more than 8,000 domestic flights daily in the greater China area.

A couple of insights that tourism service providers need to pay more attention:

“Foreigners from local”

If your main customer segment is from international, e.g. China, with the current travel restrictions, why not try to find Chinese travelers who are studying or working in the EU? They are in easier access to any destinations within the EU border and well advanced in communicating in English. Weibo, Tiktok, and Chinese travel agencies are potential sales channels for such a customer niche. The international market is not necessarily meaning far east, but it can be just “local”.

“Narrowed Booking Windows”

When facing uncertainty, travelers will not plan their trips as before, which affects their booking windows. To motivate customers’ purchase with fewer risks, tourism service providers have to get ready to provide flexible terms and conditions. This is especially important to domestic travelers – who are close enough to the destinations and making their decision as close to departure date as possible.

With the gradual new normalization, the tourism business is coming back, of course, with different trends that emerged through the year 2020.