10 Years of Skift Megatrends: How Did We Do?

25.08.2023 - 14:28 / skift.com / Dennis Schaal

Skift Megatrends is arguably our largest companywide exercise every year, and we’ve been making our research-driven and editorially informed prognostications for a decade now.

From its earliest days, Skift found its footing collaborating with industry brainiacs and our readers, in formulating our take on the future of travel in the coming year.

Here are some highlights of how we performed every January since way back — and it does seem a long time ago — in 2013 to the present.

We’ll be releasing our 2023 Skift Megatrends on January 10, the same day we kick off our annual Megatrends events in New York City and the next day in London. You can register here.

Many of the inaugural Skift Trends that we published in 2013 — we didn’t start calling them Megatrends for another two years — today are taken for granted as just the way things are. Among those trends, Everyone Wants A Chinese Tourist is a truism now more than ever. Ancillary Fees Are The New Normal without a doubt, although in 2023 they are not so new. And the Blurring of Business and Leisure Travel has become fuzzier than ever thanks to Covid-19 dynamics.

Among the misses, The Rise of Myanmar didn’t happen because of its descent into genocide and military dictatorship. And Airports As Destinations in themselves is true in dribs and drabs, but didn’t become particularly widespread.

The travel industry is still grappling with our 2014 anchor Trend, The Rise of the Silent Traveler, which we defined as travelers who are “adept at all online and mobile tools,” making human interactions as part of the front-line hospitality experience less fundamental. In 2023, is it all about digital keys to unlock hotel room doors or the general manager who knows your kids’ names and reserves your favorite table at the hardest restaurant to book in town?

Speaking of hotels, 2014’s The Rise of Local in Hospitality was a trend that resonates today with an emphasis on experiences over “things,” as strongly as ever. On the other hand, that year’s The Relaxation of Visa Regulations currently seems like a cruel joke given the year-plus visa wait times in many countries around the world.

Indeed, it must be said, Hospitality Is Driving Innovation in Travel, which we highlighted as our lead Megatrend in 2015, although the hotel and short-term rentals sectors don’t of course hold the exclusive patent on that phenomenon in 2023, which will see artificial intelligence continue to make smart strides throughout travel.

We called it mostly correctly in 2015 that The Online Travel Duopoly Won’t Reign Forever, referring to Booking.com and Expedia. We correctly cited Google and China’s Ctrip, now called Trip.com Group, as up-and-comers in the travel industry, but omitted mention of