Skift Take
The trend for groups of family and friends to celebrate birthdays and other milestones with travel is growing in scope. It's a likely niche for many travel advisors to pursue.
Celebration travel — trips where groups of family or friends gather to mark a significant birthday, anniversary, or other milestone — is not only a fast-growing niche but one where travel advisors can strengthen bonds with clients and hotels, boost profitability, and put creativity to the test.
While weddings are most commonly associated with celebration travel, countless other types of events are transforming the field, said Jennifer Doncsecz, a longtime destination wedding specialist and owner of VIP Vacations. “We’ve seen a huge growth in the past two years of groups that are not destination wedding related,” she said. “There are bachelorette groups, big milestone birthday groups, family reunions, high school or college reunions, sports and hobby enthusiasts, leadership retreats. It can also be a group of family and friends that traveled to a destination wedding and just want to continue traveling together.”
Jack Ezon, owner of Embark, a New York agency that focuses on luxury travel, is also seeing increased demand, so much so that 35 to 40 percent of his business now involves group celebrations, only half of them weddings.
“There’s a real trend to take the party on the road, whether it’s a family group of 20 or less or something that involves hundreds of people,” Ezon said. “The options for these are really growing in sophistication as well. Where you used to see a destination wedding in Mexico, now it might be in South Africa or Morocco. People are going to Bali for a 20th wedding anniversary.”
What is fueling demand for cele
