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Travel Trends 2022

In 2021, Covid-19 guided our travel behavior. This year’s trends are a further enigma to the pandemic fall-out. The dominos continue to roll down the path of how the disease affects our lives. But they are taking a slightly different turn. Australia was predicted to be a major destination with borders expected to open, however, the government has closed at least a part of the country again in recent days with a 2-week quarantine to boot. Long-distance vacations are at the top of the list… as long as people can find flights and accommodations that offer failsafe options for cancellation. Last year, we chose destinations close to home or staycations. The 2022 travel trends point back to bucket lists and a general Covid/ lockdown fatigue that has us throwing the door to life’s opportunities wide open. Let’s have a look!New in 2022 – Since vaccines and booster jabs, the implementation …

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What it means to be a responsible tourist

The concept of tourism is going through a massive shift. The term awareness has entered our bloodstream. Climate change as a global concept has been presented to us for years as an abstract need to heal our home Mother Earth but through it all we just kept on travelling, setting our bucket list as the higher priority without the necessary imagination to understand or embrace responsible travel. There is nothing like a pandemic to make us see how fast the environment can heal and how we can have a positive effect on the world by taking travel away. Now we’re learning  about the effect of our carbon footprint and the effect we have on local economy. We long to travel and we want to be a responsible tourist. But what is that?As late as last year’s travel trends, travelling was seen as an activity with nothing but positives attached. Travel …

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Moving forward: tips for small-business digital housecleaning during Covid-19

We’re at the start of tourist season here in the Vendée but in times of uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, when we’ve all had to scale down our “business as usual” activities or shut them down altogether. Of course, time is a gift. There are things you can do to keep moving forward, to make your online business presence stronger than ever. This may involve precisely the tasks you never have the time, or take the time, to do because they’re not your favourite, but like your antiques, your online life deserves-needs- a polish too. UPDATE YOUR IMAGE INVENTORY Spring is here. No doubt, with all this extra time, spring cleaning and gardening is a productive activity right now. But spring also translates to our online business life. With flowers beginning to bloom and blossoms on the fruit trees, spring is a perfect time to update our business image …

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Travel Trends 2020

Generational shifts – A number of last year’s travel trends have climbed right into the new decade but as trends go, they shape and mold to our ever-evolving sociological needs and issues. Social media has certainly managed to blast every world border out of existence up to and including… space. Yes. Puzzling as it is, what with space tourism not quite a reality just yet, the rising excitement around Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic’s progress toward space tourism has pushed space travel right onto the Travel Trends 2020 list.  Internet millionaires from Gen X on down, appear to be ready to take on the challenge! The Influencer Effect – We can’t help but wonder how Greta Thunberg feels about the notion of blasting toward the skies in a rocket? The next generation to enter the travel market is Gen Z (currently 10 – 25 years old). While environmental consciousness is certainly …

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Ready for the 3rd annual #bookdirect guest education day?

The first Wednesday in February is #BookDirect Guest Education Day, a worldwide campaign of solidarity for owners and managers of holiday rentals to work together towards a better balance between direct bookings and reservations through online travel agencies in their business. Everybody is invited to participate this year on February 5th, 2020 and at inthevendee.com we’re ready to support and help you! Big online booking websites such as Airbnb, HomeAway (Expedia), Booking and TripAdvisor add a high percentage of booking fees to the reservation total and as a third party they act as a wall between you and your (potential) guests. Booking directly with the owner or manager ‘deletes’ any 3rd party commissions. Dealing with the customer directly creates not only trust but also a positive (human) relationship with future contact at its beating heart. The long-term result is a better balance of direct bookings and reservations through online travel agencies. What started …

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A look at 2019 travel trends

The higher purpose of social media – It was bound to happen that social media would become a goldmine for measuring travel statistics and especially trends. In addition to tourism statistics released annually by your local tourism board such as the Vendée Tourism Studies 2017 (French only), social media can offer useful insight into how our travel habits as a society evolve over time. Especially Pinterest and Instagram have become the go-to research -and travel journal medium for travellers. Over-tourism – iconic destinations live not only in our own dreams and goals, but in that of just about everybody. Who doesn’t want a holiday in Paris or Barcelona or Rome or New York or London, the French or Spanish Mediterranean? In fact, the most popular places are probably at the top of our own bucket-lists more often than not. In some ways these destinations are the victim of their own success. Overcrowding …