New Destinations 2025 with Newsweek

At the Newsweek New Destinations 2025 summit, hosted at the Shangri-La in the Shard, Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com shared that the company sold out of a $200,000 luxury holiday package in 17 seconds.

At the same time, Spear’s is reporting on the rise of $1 million+ family holidays, with itineraries spanning continents, packed with private jets, yachts, round-the-clock concierge support, and fully carbon-offset travel.

These kinds of packages aren’t outliers, but part of a growing pattern. Despite broader economic pressure, there is clearly a segment of travellers whose appetite for high-spend, high-touch experiences is only increasing.

As part of the Newsweek summit, Sun shared that Trip.com which has seen exponential growth, attributes its success to a customer first approach. Putting service as their number one brand pillar. Of course, they utilise AI throughout the business (for example their TripGenie travel planning app which can translate spoken word for travellers as they speak, making communication and connection instant and super easy) – but she was clear that underpinning all the technology is human service. She put this trust down to the reason that even high value packages sell out instantly.

From a macro perspective, this high spend package shift highlights the widening gap in spending power—and the speed with which the wealthiest consumers are making decisions. Travel is no longer about where, but how: how quickly it can be booked, how few others have done it, how perfectly it reflects the traveller’s values.

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• Next-gen wealth: younger HNWIs who are digitally native, fast-moving, and expect seamless service with substance. Sun mentioned that the younger, tech savvy generation of travellers tend to book trips centred around an event they want to attend and have more of a focus on eco touches and wider sustainability initiatives.
• Luxury spending is decoupling from the broader economy. HNW and UHNW individuals remain largely insulated from inflation or cost-of-living pressures, and are actively seeking high-impact, rare, and emotive travel experiences.

• There’s growing urgency to ‘book the moment’. High-value travel offers are now treated like limited-edition drops, with exclusivity and scarcity driving lightning fast sale conversions.

In terms of key markets, Trip.com has seen that spending power has returned for Chinese consumers, ahead of US travellers. And that exploration is a key theme beyond obvious destination choices for this market – Norway, Finland and South Africa is now high on the list, especially during key holidays such as Chinese New Year.

Trip.com has also seen a growth in an elderly market, who are also curious to explore, energetic and of course less sensitive to seasonal travel, filling those low season bookings that busy professionals or families have to miss out on.

Underpinning all the discussion at the Newsweek conference, there was a clear reminder that travel is about shared connection and storytelling. Polyglot Arieh Smith highlighted the need to move away from ‘perfection’ and to embrace cross cultural connection by making the effort to learn even a few words to converse and connect with locals. Rene Frey of Rough Guides echoed this need for authenticity and enabling human interaction across cultures. He believes  creating a physical guide book with a small editorial team is the perfect counterbalance in an age when consumers are scrolling Instagram and TikTok from thousands of travel influencers and other online sources. He teased a few exciting new launches, including guides for those returning to familiar places multiple times and how to find new things in a well-loved destination.

Maeve Scanlon gave some brilliant examples of creative storytelling and flagged the need for destinations to constantly reinvent themselves, based on context, innovation and discovery.

Renee’s prediction for new destinations was Albania, while Arieh flagged China’s ‘Mountain City’ Chongqing.

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