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Even today, more than one in two trips is booked online. In the case of short trips, the rate is even higher than 80 percent. Services such as rental cars, tours, or local events can be booked with just a few clicks too. In the future, AI agents are supposed to put together and book entire packages for a personally curated trip. These software systems combine major language models like GPT-4 by OpenAI with the computer programs of tour operators. North-German startup Droidrun is in the process of developing an AI agent that not only operates web-based but also with the smartphone apps of various providers – which used to be an insurmountable obstacle so far. And what’s coming up next? “AI requires the travel sector to completely reimagine its business,” says Alex Mirschel, an expert in AI for tourism. It won’t be only about where people want to go but also about who they are, why they want to travel, and how they want to feel while traveling. A report billed as “Future Journeys” by travel booking platform Omio also says that tomorrow’s travelers are going to interact via a variety of platforms and devices with AI-based intuitive travel assistants – smart companions that rebook things in real time, provide local tips, and dynamically respond to individual needs. “Artificial intelligence and smart algorithms are going to create hyper-personalized travel experiences oriented to emotional needs, the traveler’s motivation, and self-image,” the report says. Due to the interaction between the AI agent and other vacationers, even mutually harmonized excursion sports, or multicultural dinner rounds might form. Perhaps even a holiday flirt? Linguistic hurdles are gradually disappearing thanks to AI language models anyway. “Yet any movement also always has a counter-movement,” says AI vacation expert Mirschel. “Perhaps we’re going to switch back into offline mode in the future or take a left-hand turn against any recommendation and allow ourselves to simply drift on a pathway of unplanned imperfection.”

The force with which artificial intelligence is penetrating nearly all areas of life is awesome. Read more here.

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Activity holidays are trendy and modern technology boosts that trend. Electric bicycles are a prime example. Thanks to electric motor assistance, even people that are not in good physical shape can become endurance cyclists. Wouldn’t it be great if electric power could boost the leg power of hikers? That wish might be coming true sooner than later – with so-called exoskeletons. These artificial kinetic devices are worn directly on the body, supporting the natural work of muscles with their electric motors. Sports article manufacturer Arc’teryx is planning to launch hiking pants with a permanently integrated exoskeleton before the year is out. An electric motor around the knees provides walking assistance while absorbing impact forces on downhill stretches that relieve the load on the joints. Hikers feel 14 kilograms (31 lbs.) lighter while wearing the device, the manufacturer promises. One battery charge is supposed to suffice for a three-hour hike. The current costs amount to around 4,600 euros. The pre-production stage Dnsys X1 exoskeleton is even supposed to take care of 50 percent of the muscular work. Boosted in that way, even non-athletic people could run at a speed of 27 km/h (16.8 mph). “As if you had a racing motor in your legs,” a marketing promise says. Uses in healthcare, such as in rehabilitation programs or to mobilize paralyzed patients, or in physically stressful work environments could accelerate the development of these technologies and reduce prices due to economies of scale. In that case, exoskeletons attached to their arms and legs might gain traction in similar ways as we’ve seen with electric bikes – not only with hikers but also with mountain climbers. Higher, faster, wider: that’s what activity holidays look like in 2050…  

Another item of interest: Read here what motion technology company Schaeffler has to do with the world of humanoids.

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Even at this point, some recreational vehicles seem to have come directly from a science fiction movie: electric surfboards speeding through the water on foils, jetpacks pulling snorkelers through water, or motorized skateboards accelerating by means of remote control. Talking about skateboards: What about the flying version called a hoverboard gliding on magnetic fields that caused a sensation in 1989 in the movie “Back to the Future Part II?” In fact, automaker Lexus in 2015 showed a functioning version, albeit the Lexus hoverboard hovered only about an area equipped with permanent magnets and the board itself used supra-conductors that had to be cooled down to minus 197 degrees C (-322 degrees F) with liquid nitrogen. Thanks to the rapid technological progress for instance in battery technology or in the form of innovative control systems such as a gyroscopes and acceleration sensors, plus the high scientific interest in levitation technologies, experts do think that it’s possible for the technology to become suitable for mass production in the next 20 to 30 years – also in terms of recreational fun. Or would you rather zip through the woods on a flying motorcycle like the assault troops on their speeder bikes in the Star Wars movies? That’s a vision that doesn’t really seem to be so far-fetched because in the spring of 2025 a video appeared on the web showing a flying air bike, weighing just 30 kilos (66 lbs.) and traveling at 200 km/h (124.3 mph) powered by a mini turbine engine. Sensitive sensor systems are supposed to ensure a stable flight attitude. Instead of an instrument panel, there’s a VR display in the helmet visor. Future vacationers could also be riding offroad in a saddle, but with greater traction, on the back of a riding robot called Corleo. Motorcycle maker Kawasaki recently presented this “new category for personal mobility.” Possible launch year: 2050. The four-legged mechatronic animal has the dimensions of a touring Enduro bike (1.7 meters/5.6 feet long, shoulder height 1.6 meters/5.2 feet) and is supposed to gallop at a speed of up to 100 km/h (62 mph). A hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine is supposed to provide the power in the electric motors for the legs. As the saying goes: the future is an arena of possibilities – and that also goes for the future of recreational vehicles.

Also interesting: Next stop, airspace – the current state of urban air mobility and how Schaeffler plans to give it wings.

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In the Swiss mountains, a group of tourists is enjoying the summer sun while looking at a winter landscape full of skiers through a VR headset. In Dresden, city tourists are standing in front of the restored Frauenkirche while traveling back to the war-torn city center by means of a VR headset. At the Loire palace of Chambord, a “histopad” brings history to life. Pipe dreams? Not at all. These are just three examples of immersive excursions that can already be booked today. Logically expanded, those kinds of digital extensions of the real world could lead to an all-new branch of virtual tourism sooner or later. Immersive technologies will revolutionize the way we travel and interact with the world, Patrick Johnson is convinced. In a tech article, the CEO of RPR, an agency specialized in immersive storytelling writes that the potential for the utilization of extended realities in tourism is boundless with the market for virtual tourism seeing an expected annual growth rate between 2023 and 2028 of 30.2 percent to a value of 23.5 billion U.S. dollars.  Besides augmented reality, i.e., the context-related enhancement of the real world, excursions into fully virtual worlds are increasingly becoming the focus. Expert Johnson is sure that with VR tourists will be able to conveniently explore famous sights, interactive museums, and natural wonders from their homes, being able to look at 3D models of iconic buildings like the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal and even taking virtual walks through busy streets or remote wilderness. Besides audiovisual experiences, the progress of sensory technologies are supposed to address other senses in the future as well, such as feeling or tasting. So, soon we may be able to genuinely feel like we’re strolling through ancient Alexandria by walking on a treadmill in our living room. Or what about a VR excursion to a Saturn Moon including a simulated gravitation experience? In the future, these technologies will open all-new possibilities of experiences especially to mobility-impaired people. Yet nearly all tourism experts are sure that real-world travel for those that can do it will remain irreplaceable. A large part of tourists will tend to use extended realities more as a smart complement to real-world wanderlust because they offer a foretaste, inspiring the desire to travel. Or vacationers will experience trips they’ve previously taken once more in a digitally curated way: with even more beautiful sunsets, more intensive downhill skiing, or maybe even enhanced by exciting holiday flirts that never happened.

Read here to find out which holographic worlds you can already visit today.

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Futurist Horst Opaschowski predicts that in the next 30 to 40 years manmade floating islands will be built. In an interview with online trade magazine tophotel.de he said, “That people will find everything there that they’ve always imagined from their childhood days on in terms of fairytales from One Thousand and One Nights and legends. Oriental, exotic, and tropical elements – everything concentrated on an island in the ocean, practically a dream location as an offshore holiday resort. Mobile cruise ships become stationary cruise ships. In the future, the differences between an original and a copy will increasingly disappear.” The forward-looking Japanese Dogen City project shows what such an island could look like. The floating lagoon city with a diameter of 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) is supposed to be able to support 10,000 residents plus 30,000 tourists totally self-sufficiently. For instance, the interior of the four-kilometer (2.5-mile) ringwork that protectively envelops the lagoon is planned to accommodate vertical farming areas, recycling, desalination, and water treatment systems, plus data servers underneath the water line. Above it, there will be shops, common areas, healthcare facilities as well as residential areas and offices. For physical activities, gyms, parks, and natural water areas, and even a sports arena are planned.

Also of interest: Could the Zeppelin be making a comeback as a flying cruise ship? This is what it could look like.

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The world is becoming increasingly urban and the more people are living in cities the more attractive vacations on farms seem to be. Whereas vacations on farms were considered provincial around the turn of the century more and more urbanites are now taking to rural regions. In Spain, a recent poll found, 92 percent of all farm vacationers would book this type of vacation again. In other industrial nations, people find this type of break in the country attractive too – a trend that’s reinforced by growing environmental awareness. People fleeing the cities are attracted by the peace and quiet of country life, an intensive experience of nature, and the cordial hospitality of their hosting families, plus, not least, due to gaining authentic insights into farming. These insights reveal that more and more farmers are already operating in smart ways, using sensors, satellite technology, or drones, and data analysis for more efficient and eco-conscious “precision farming.” In line with that trend, vacations on farms are changing as well, turning into a fascinating mix of experiencing nature and high-tech convenience that might look like this: Guests reside in energy-independent bio lodges with panoramic windows that automatically adjust to the position of the Sun. Virtual assistants help plan their days while drones deliver fresh products to the accommodations directly from the field. Children in a playful way learn with augmented reality how farming works and can feed real animals. Vertical farming and aquaponics show modern farming methods while evenings around campfires under star-studded skies without light pollution make for real deceleration. Sustainability, education, and recreation merge into an experience combining tradition and future. Farms with intact agriculture are going to be central to this in the future as well. “Because,” says travel trend researcher Martin Lohmann, “farms are the unique selling point for holidays on a farm. Vacation rentals are available elsewhere too.” Closeness to nature will continue to be appreciated by many guests in the coming decades, Lohmann added. “It’s important to find a position that fits oneself and one’s farm and that harmonizes with the guests.”

Also of interest: The meat of the future won't come from the field, but from the laboratory. Read more…

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The dream about traveling into outer space is older than real-world space travel per se. French author Cyrano de Bergerac thought about it in relatively specific terms as far back as in the 17th century. Rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun designed a visionary ring-shaped orbital accommodation in 1952. He estimated it would take ten years to build it and assessed the costs to amount to some 4 billion dollars – a far cry from reality. Nearly half a century would pass before Braun’s fantastic vision came close to becoming reality in the International Space Station (ISS). Compared to von Brauns’ hotel ring, the space station is more akin to a flying garden shack – still to the tune of estimated 100 billion dollars in total costs. At least, Dennis Tito’s journey to the ISS from April 28 to May 6 2002 is regarded as having marked the birth of space tourism although stays in space lasting several days are still more of an exception than the rule, which is no surprise considering costs in the double-digit million range. Less costly are suborbital flights of the kind offered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, or Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic where the price lists start in the medium six-digit range. Most recently, pop star Katy Perry made headlines with such a ten-minute trip – and collected many negative comments due to the related environmental footprint. Even so, spending one’s vacation in orbit still holds great attraction. But why is space travel so attractive? Ullrich Walter, an astronaut and book author (“Reiseziel Weltraum”) puts it this way, “Because we’re gaining a previously unknown distance, we see our life in a different light – things we share with one another become more valuable than those that separate us.” Walter also says, “Space travel will become very realistic when the prices drop.” He estimates that in just a few years from now ticket prices of around 30,000 euros will be possible for flights to outer space. And when does he see a hotel on the horizon? Currently, there are two consortiums working on that – even with NASA support. “The modules for the hotels have already been built and are deposited somewhere in halls in the United States,” Walter said in an interview with the Bayrische Rundfunk radio station. Installation in space is scheduled to start in 2027. Starting in 2030, the first guests could check in, the expert assumes. The facilities that tend to be designed more for functionality than for coziness could accommodate 30 to 50 people, Walter is convinced that once the first steps have been taken in the space hotel business they’d soon pick up momentum. Even so, it’ll take some time until there’ll be earthly hotel luxuries in space, the greatest challenge being weightlessness. Even though it’s a highly exciting experience, permanent floating makes everyday life extremely difficult. Showering, Walter cautions, is life-threatening because the water would not drain off the body but just stay on it resulting in the threat of drowning. That was also why von Braun conceived his space accommodation as a ring. A wheel-shaped space station could generate gravitation through fast rotation and thereby create traction in the facilities.

If you would like to read more about the infinite interconnectedness in the universe, click here.