No Show

2026 Travel Trends: Less Noise, Better Value, Smarter Choices

• Jeff Borman and Matt Brown

Share episode

We're here, it's happening, 2026 is officially a thing. As we restart our brains for the new year, we ponder:

  • Is Hushpitality a thing?
  • The good news about global growth
  • Fatigue as a good thing in travel
  • The shift away from marquee names and places
  • The shift toward shoulder seasons and cost concerns
  • How travel will be shaped less by whims and more by economic realism
  • Eastern Europe's rise as a travel alternative
  • How refinancing pressure is going to reshape hotel ownership structure
  • The literary and movie travel trend


Matt Brown:

It's twenty twenty six. Happy new year, everybody. It's me, Matt Brown, and Jeff Borman, and this is No Show. This is our fifth year, our fifth year of doing this as a little independent jewel of a hotel and travel podcast. And I love it. I love it now more than I did five years ago.

Jeff Borman:

Well, it's because we're getting decent at it.

Matt Brown:

It's good. Yeah, yeah. It only took it only took five years to actually know what we're doing.

Jeff Borman:

Actually, pretty fast. We've outlasted most marriages.

Matt Brown:

Well, okay. We are talking today about trends. Everybody's going to give you trends right now, and I get it. But I think ours are we put some thought into what we actually think legit trends in 2026 are going to be. And to kick this off, Jeff is going to bravely go first.

Jeff Borman:

Well, let's start by celebrating a little bit of 25. Record tourism numbers across the globe, uh, visitation on the rise. Uh, Matt, you've you once mentioned the US is the only country that will see an international arrival decline this year. So if we get a little less parochial and out of outside of our American perspectives, global travel is rising and at record numbers. Global travel is going to outpace economic growth in 26. Arrivals looking like they're going to grow 8% around the world, uh, while GDP only grows 2.7 globally. So travel as an industry continues to be extremely healthy. Uh, a lot of this is happening in Asia Pacific, China both inbound and outbound, but especially outbound, powering Southeast Asia. Travel is a very healthy place, but you know, there are shifts too. Even though the market's going to hit 1.6 trillion this year and expect it to hit 1.75 trillion next year. Regionally, that's very different. Um, we look around the globe. Uh the US is still by far the largest market on the planet. About 450 million billion. Uh, the next closest would be China all the way down to 200, and Japan around 150 billion. So uh the rest of the world is growing much faster. The US maintains a very sizable lead in terms of just the total size of the industry. And of course, Matt, you know, you and I care about the economic impact, not just the uh specific dollar in the tourism trade, uh, but it's still hovering at 10 to 1. So, you know, at a $1.7 trillion travel industry globally in 26, and 375 million jobs are tied to that travel. So it's going to be an outstanding year again in 2026. There, of course, are geopolitical concerns. You know, the world doesn't know where it's going. A major driver will be events. Uh, we got the Winter Olympics coming up. Uh, we've got the FIFA World Cup in the US. Uh, and you know, we're hoping, I think one of the more common outlooks for travel in the United States next year is around 3.9%, around 4% year over year on international visitors coming in. Uh, but a third of that is specifically tied to World Cup. So hopefully, because there's a lot of hope in that number, when a third of your total industry prognostication is coming from one event. I granted it's a hundred events, but one major event uh and and one administration actively chasing people away. That's about a third of our inbound visitors that are at risk right now. So uh on balance map, things look pretty good for 26, but certainly with a lot of caveats to it. So you are bullish. You are bullish on 26. Uh, I think people like soccer more than they dislike the US. True. You know, listen, even you know, even Red Sox fans show up at Yankee Stadium.

Matt Brown:

That's true. That's true. Good point. What do you see? Well, leading off here, we need to workshop the name. But anybody who uh follows a lot of travel news, especially on LinkedIn, first of all, I'm sorry, I feel your pain and I share your pain. Um, you know, we're consuming it all the time, every day. And some of the phrases that you'll hear are around hush pitality. I don't know if I like the name or not. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it in the arsenal for a second just to just to kind of test drive it. But you also hear quiet vacation, silent travel. Now, these terms have been around for a second. You know, if you look at what the dominant feeling, I think, for a lot of Americans over the last year, I think, well, I think it's a lot of feelings, but I think a word that would come up is fatigue. There is an endlessness in politics and in media and in Instagram and in work. And so there every other article in the New York Times and the Atlantic is about burnout and that there's no alone time and that you have to disentangle from the phone, which has become an easier thing to say than to do. Because when when's the last time that you forgot your phone on the way to the grocery store and and you freak out, right? It's like, what if I get in an accident? What if I need to text somebody about what I need to pick up at the grocery store? It's like we've we've moved into the space where oh, just put your phone down is is I I think the addictive properties of of uh and the dopamine hits of what a phone does to you have become very evident over the last few years. Whatever. That's pretty obvious.

Jeff Borman:

I Matt, I'm sorry, I uh I recently switched to a new iPhone. And so for an entire weekend, I thought, I can't even pay for anything.

Matt Brown:

Right. You're right, I know. Well my God, what'll I do? Um, I think the minute that you do set it down, even for a few hours, you start to feel a little bit of a cleanse. And I think for vacations and for the wellness retreats that have popped up everywhere that are no cell phone, can't be reached, I will be in a dark zone at work, I'm not gonna be on Slack. Announcing that and committing to that to your friends, to your to your family to some degree, to, and especially to your work, I think is become is going to become even more of a premium in 2026 than it than it's ever been. Now, meditation centers in India and Thailand have been doing this for years, like the silent retreats. You know, so many regions around the world, the Scottish Highlands, New Zealand, you know, remote monasteries, they're all drawing upon this idea. And while they are relatively affordable, it still takes some expense to get there. So I think what we're gonna see is sort of a rolling down the hill of kind of the premium charges that you see for you know, the privilege of not using your phone. So instead of saying that staying at a white lotus and paying white lotus prices, you're gonna have this uh offered to you as a premium at destinations up and down the price scale, uh, so that you you don't feel like you have to pay a thousand bucks a day uh to go somewhere and and not use your phone. For instance, there's this place in New Jersey, it's it's called the Loyal Jesuit Center, and it's the Century Old Garden, and it's a Catholic retreat space, and the growth rate is something like 25% of new attendees over the last year. I think, I think for the the shorter kind of 24-hour silent retreat they have, there's like a six-month booking in advance. So it shows you the hunger that I think is out there to unplug. And I think that's real. And I think that's one of the things Jeff, you and I talk about all the time is is like, especially some of the more remote national park trips, the real value add for us is to be able to tell everybody and to tell ourselves that we're gonna be off grid and off signal. And you'll check it back at the cabin or the hotel or the gas station at night. But uh, but during the day, uh, we get a lot of value from going deep deep into America's uh national parklands and forest lands and having uh a glorious SOS signal um pop up on your phone. Don't worry, just take bear mace to take some bells with you and to ward off uh any critters, and after a few hours you will feel great. So I think more silence and more silence as a value add premium in hospitality experiences in 2026, for sure.

Jeff Borman:

I like that term hospitality. Uh a couple others that are along that line. The farm charm, and that's not limited to travel. Uh, you see it with the popularity, farmers markets, which has been a while, but still enduring. Uh, farm charm is similar. And you know, we talk about wellness and experience a ton. You have to. Uh, a newer-ish term uh that seems to be popping up more often in consumer travel that I like is skillcation, where travelers learn something new on their holiday and they come home with new knowledge and new hobbies. We're starting to see this, or at least I see this pop up a lot. That's a not a very scientific way of describing a trend, but you know, if frequency of mention was something that I could just intuitively give you, skilcation seems to be a really hot one. Some of the trends that are going with the consumer behavior are becoming also very pronounced, meaning that travel in 26 is going to be shaped less by wanderlust and more by economic realism. Right? There's a behavioral fatigue uh that you've talked about, but uh focus right did a study recently shows leisure travel breaking into smaller chunks, where you know 40% of hotel searches in North America, up from 33%. So it's a pretty sizable increase, are now looking at one night stays. They are also now booking 57% within 28 days of arrival. That is a major increase, or you should say decrease in booking window. And I think a lot of this comes to that fatigue you mentioned. I only got one night, but I got to. And I can't plan outside 21 days, you know, 28 days. Uh, hey, next Friday, let's go and turn it off. Right. And it's so we're seeing that kind of hurried almost uh that that need for wellness and all the hushed fatality and the things that you just described. We're seeing that show up in inability to forecast for travel industry people too, because people are acting much more last minute with much more stays and more shorter stays. And people, because of that, we're seeing efficiency matters more both in planning the trip and during efficiency, meaning can somebody just do it for me? That factor is increasing.

Matt Brown:

I think fatigue is going to be the sneaky theme of this episode. I don't think we quite realize that. I say fatigue, battling fatigue. I think we're exhausted. I think Americans are exhausted by just the pace and the ridiculousness of American life. I think a big part of what's coming are remedies and solutions for that fatigue versus wallowing it, which is a good thing, right? For instance, you know, overtourism, social media saturation, pricing pressure, all these things are pushing travelers away from marquee names and cities. I gotta go visit Paris, I gotta go visit Rome, I have to go visit this tourist attraction outside of Mexico City, I have to do but what fill in the blank. I think people are stressed out and they don't need more stress as they travel. And as we were looking at statistics for today's episode, in 2025, nearly 50% of U.S. travelers took off-peak trips. 40% roughly of Gen Z are specifically targeting off-peak travel to save money. And the shoulder seasons are typically 20 to 40% cheaper than peak times. As a result of that, not only are you getting the shoulder seasons, but you're getting them traveling to places that are detour destinations or what we've heard a lot over the last couple of months, destination dupes. According to Expedia, 63% of consumers are likely to visit a quote unquote detour destination, which is a town or city that's kind of close to a popular hotspot that offers a comparable experience on their next trip. For instance, the Philippines is becoming a very cost-attractive alternative to more expensive kind of white lotusy alternatives in Asia Pacific. And even things down to like Lyon versus Paris, or, you know, visiting one of the 8,000 other Greek islands versus just Santorini. And even in the United States, kind of hitting on the parks thing again, you know, heading out and maybe trying to go see Capitol Reef versus going to see Arches, or driving an extra couple of hours to go see Lassen Volcanic in California versus Yosemite. And you get up there and you're not dealing with tour buses, you're not dealing with crowds, maybe you're not seeing the iconic thing on the postcard, but you have peace. And I think, again, that is going to be at a premium for travelers.

Jeff Borman:

I think you really hit it that off-peak travel, which is a great thing for the destination and the traveler, is really happening on, and I and it for the first time to me feels sustainable because it is coming with economic benefit that the market clearly craves. Uh, and it's also coming with the benefit of the experience people want instead of being jam-packed into the Louvre where the line is seven hours. Uh everything about that is finally kind of coalescing, if you will, to where there may actually be uh less over tourism fatigue because you got both ends of those. It's what people want, and it saves them in the wallet. You know, also Matt, on these points, uh, Focuswire did an article that was very similar to your points on traveler fatigue, where uh travelers are defecting from their preferred airline or hotel or OTA. Uh, some of the numbers in that study that really stood out to me. Uh 39% who flew on a recent leisure trip claim that they're gravitating toward something outside of their go-to brands. Uh, and the reasoning by this uh is simply to try something new, right? That's it. That's the only reason. They want to do something else. So they may travel quite a bit uh for work, they may become very loyal to the local airport, the local airline, the hotel chain with the point scheme, all those things. But for leisure travel, 40% are jumping just for the purpose of doing something different. The attitudes more prominent among younger travelers, uh, half of Gen Z and millennials are doing this intentionally. They go into their leisure trip saying, I'm specifically not going to do what I have to do when I book through my work program. And of course, that market is growing.

Matt Brown:

Yeah, and I, you know, we've been reading a lot of economists' kind of views of what 2026 is going to bring for travel. Economists all come down to one thing as being helpful to any industry, not just travel. It comes down to stability, that economic stability creates long-term planning, full stop, for housing, for jobs, for travel, for the whole thing. And we need more of it, and we need more of it now. People won't plan if government shutdowns and tariffs and entanglements with other countries and iffy job markets are in the way.

Jeff Borman:

Along those lines, the refinancing pressure is going to reshape, at least in the hotel side of things, the ownership structure significantly. As in, you know, since COVID, frankly, uh, as interest rates really spiked and owners of businesses carried uh unserviceably high debt. Uh predict, you know, I think built into a lot of GDP predictions and thus travel industry projections, is that there will be, at least in the United States, we're seeing this in the UK right now already, but we're gonna see interest rates very likely to drop during 2026. Uh that's not just me making an economics prediction. I think that's widely assumed because even if the current Fed chair doesn't do it, he's gonna get replaced at least in May. So at that point, if not before, then some of those things are going to happen. And what you're finally gonna see is you know, several years of very muted transactional volume, the buying and selling of hotels and the composition of different ownership groups in the hotel side, that is very likely in 206 to really start gaining momentum. So transactional volume is likely to increase in 26. Um, but things that won't change, uh, the insurance costs that are still anywhere from three to 10 times higher than 2019, that stuff's not coming down. Right. The the disaster world, you know, natural disasters in particular, uh, that's not changing. The cost to replace is not changing. And also, in the last five years, the seismic increase in building costs is not going to change. So because of those things, insurance costs will continue to be a major drag in our business uh for the foreseeable future. Labor shortages, we're gonna continue to face this. This is not just in the United States, but it's very US focused. We don't have the quality and volume of labor we need, uh, and that's unlikely to change. It would take seismic change to immigration policy. Uh, and you don't see that, I don't think anybody really predicts that to happen in 26. So labor shortages are gonna continue to be a very hot topic and a real constraint. Uh FIFA World Cup could also have something to do with that. You know, as you have these major events, uh, it gives labor an opportunity to step up and tighten the noose a little bit. Like, oh, what if we don't show up during World Cup games and clean rooms, right? I mean, that that's just a reality. Anytime there's a major world event, Olympics, you know, that kind of thing. So I think some of the fundamentals on our, you know, in the hotel business aren't going to change in that way in terms of the cost structures. But hopefully the first one I led with there, which is really the interest rates and the reshaping of these businesses, resizing them, uh, 26 could prove to be a very transformative year in that way.

Matt Brown:

The World Cup alone, it's estimated that like 1.2 million people international are gonna come into the US for it. Maybe that's a that's as of right now. Who knows if that's gonna change over the next few months? But I do think that these events and this kind of traffic are gonna offer us a prism in which to see our place in the world, yet another prism to see our place in the world. And it's gonna force us to start thinking about solutions. It's time to kind of talk about the future and not rant about the past. And I think travel offers some great questions to ask uh to help us get to those solutions. You know, what's the government doing to help my business? What is AI doing to help me in my travel and hospitality related job? What value am I getting from a place or an experience or a travel-related purchase? Is this worth it? Okay, but enough of all this. Let's bring in the new year with a light note and let's talk about some of the hot destinations, some of the interesting things that were going to make our lives better in travel in the coming 12 months. Jeff, hit me with your best shot.

Jeff Borman:

Uh fun things in travel in 26. Airfares are decreasing uh for US domestic travelers by about 3%, more importantly, 10% internationally. Uh huge, wildly important. So more affordable. Finally, uh getting someplace is uh the price of it's getting down dropping. But where to go? Matt, here's the fun part. Uh Eastern Europe dominates 2026. Heard it here first. That's probably not true. You probably heard it before. Uh Prague, number one rising destination, as it you know, rightly deserves to be a but here are a few that you wouldn't predict. Sofia in Bulgaria, travel interest up 136%, Krakow, Poland up 100% year over year in searches by Americans for outbound travel to Eastern Europe, or just globally. Uh Budapest up 86%, Tirana, Albania, 66%, uh a combined Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 62% up in travel interest searches, uh, the world's fastest growing destination for American outbound, Christchurch in New Zealand up 200%. Year over year.

Matt Brown:

Do you believe in this uh in this trend? Have you heard of this one, the book talk trend, where where people are doing uh literary travel? Like you go and you want to visit like um something inspired by TV and film, or you want to go to like a place where certain books are set, or um like fantasy or romancy type novels. You want there that they're destinations out there that are kind of marketing themselves as the real life experience. I guess this is sort of like a takeoff of visiting New Zealand after the the all the Lord of the Rings movies, right? Where it's like, oh, we're gonna go and we're gonna we're gonna kind of see all the sets and and live in the land of it. But I don't know, I don't know how real that is. I guess it's real if if people are talking about it, but I also don't know if it's something that it feels a little bit like a PR machines putting that out. Because you were talking, I think you mentioned the other day, I was thinking about this, like when we we had uh uh David Goldstein on from uh travel Alberta, and you were talking a little bit about like what's gonna cause because you live in Dallas, and we're like, oh, what's what's gonna bring people to Midland, Texas? What's gonna bring people to kind of the plains of Texas? And right after we stopped the episode, I had it. I had this great idea. We do the landman tour. Like we do the Taylor Sheridan Landman thing, wherever you stand on Taylor and Landman. I get it, I hear you. But you come out there and it's almost akin to like when they do the Sopranos tours in New Jersey, and it'd be these people to kind of stopping off on the side of the road in these nondescript places, these tour buses coming through to see the club that was the bottom bang exterior for sopranos. Maybe we should workshop it a little bit.

Jeff Borman:

Yeah, Matt, one of the only travel letdowns of my 25. Heather and I had a wonderful trip to Sicily. The day we did the Godfather tour.

Matt Brown:

Skip it, folks. Okay, what was the problem? And you and tread carefully.

Jeff Borman:

Uh yeah, they they might be listening. Um there were there were a few memorable uh scenes that we where we then got to experience. So do you remember this cafe where Michael asks Apollonia's father uh for her hand in marriage? I do, and he shares his vulnerability. Uh you know, how many people would kill to know this? Uh, but your your daughter would you would lose a daughter instead of gaining a husband, something to that effect, right? Like so that cafe was pretty cool. Uh, but for a full day, there just wasn't really enough. And it's still there's a lot of Hollywood setting to it. And if I'm really showing some bias here, Matt, there was too much Godfather three. Oh wow, really. Nonetheless, it was one of those things that we definitely looked at. Hey, we're gonna spend eight days in Sicily, what do you want to do? Oh, let's do that for sure. So, to the travel trend you're talking about, we went in hook, line, and sinker, and it was also probably the only day we wish we had repurposed.

Matt Brown:

Okay. News you can use. So went in Sicily, enjoy the fine beaches, the natural attractions, the other many beautiful historical sites, and maybe reconsider your godfather trip. Good advice, good advice for anyone, I feel. And in closing, 2026, gonna be bullish. I think things are gonna be okay. We just need to get some rest. Think about the seasons we want to go, think about what we want to do, put the phone down, and let's just hit reset. Let's hit reset, everybody, and I think we'll be okay.