Global Tourism Must Confront These 3 Consumer Shifts in Its Sustainability Push
Photo Caption: A lively Plaza Bolivar in Bogota, Colombia – May 2022. Lebawit Lily Girma
Skift Take
Travelers are hitting the road and the skies again in droves, but their mindsets and habits have morphed. How will the industry tackle the long-term impact of those changes, beyond surface implications? Sustainability discussions still remain far too lofty, far too slow in solutions, and far too focused on the outside visitor.
Amid incessant global disruptions, from war to inflation and a zoonotic virus that has spread to 11 countries through cross-border movement, travelers remain undeterred for now in making up for two years of caution and restrictions. What remains true as well is that their "how, what, where and why" has changed and their actions are starting to confirm it, for the first time since the great travel pause.
Novelty, purpose, connection — and not specific destinations — are now travelers’ primary goals in the first year of broader rebound since 2020. That means it’s about passion over place, and interest over a specific country, at a time when life feels closer than ever to a post-pandemic reality. Those are the key findings in the new traveler sentiment report from social media marketing agency Sparkloft Media, shared exclusively with Skift.
“If we look now, people are really starting to think about this post-pandemic world and they're pu
