How we travel and choose to explore the world says a lot about who we are, but also about what we collectively seek in our time off. We believe that understanding the future of tourism starts with understanding people. What are they missing in everyday life? Which societal developments shape their expectations? And what do they increasingly seek when they step away from their routines? Ultimately, people travel to fulfil human needs: for rest, connection, discovery, personal growth or wonder. We’ve recently been working with several destinations, exploring the socio-cultural shifts that are reshaping the way people travel. Let’s explore some of our findings.

Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this changing mindset is the popularity of supermarket tourism. What is an ordinary weekly errand at home, becomes an exciting opportunity for discovery abroad. According to Skyscanner’s travel trends research, 69% of Dutch travellers always or often visit local supermarkets while travelling abroad.

Why? Because even something as simple as browsing supermarket shelves offers a glimpse into local life. Unfamiliar snacks, and colourful packaging etc.  reveal something about how people live. 

At the same time, travelling has never been easier to plan. Within seconds, AI can identify the best restaurants and suggest activities, while social media shows us exactly where to find the most photogenic viewpoints. Before we even arrive, we already know what to see and which experiences we supposedly shouldn’t miss. In fact, according to Booking.com’s 2025 Global AI Sentiment Report, 67% of respondents have already used AI in connection with a trip, while 62% have used it to plan or book travel.

Yet while technology promises to make discovery easier and more personalised, it may also be making our travel recommendations more similar. A 2026 study examining 420 AI-generated travel recommendations across ten AI systems found that recommendations repeatedly converged on a relatively narrow selection of well-known destinations, rather than consistently introducing travellers to unfamiliar places.

We are surrounded by a homogenised culture in which algorithms can flatten taste and discovery. This reflects a broader socio-cultural development. Everyday life is organised around efficiency and we want to do more in less time. Technology helps us with that.  But this mindset doesn’t stop when we go on holiday. In the process, we risk overlooking the very things that make travel meaningful: unexpected conversations, unfamiliar routines and small discoveries that cannot always be planned in advance.

This growing tension is visible in traveller behaviour. According to Accor and Globetrender’s Experiential Travel Trends 2026, 63.5% of travellers have deliberately avoided a destination, activity or restaurant because it felt too hyped or overexposed on social media.

The Tiny Tourist approach by It’s Nice That Insights challenges the tendency to make travel bigger and more spectacular. Instead, it invites us to pay attention to the smaller, often overlooked aspects of a destination. The local café where residents meet every morning. The family-run bakery. The changing landscape across the seasons. Instead of seeing more places, we start noticing more within a place. This connects to a growing desire for slow living: There is a growing desire to experience how people actually live in a place and how that way of life differs from your own, with travellers looking beyond the hotel for cultural enrichment and connections with local traditions. Slow living is also about experiencing a place more deeply. 

“What we do with our attention, in short, is at the heart of what makes us human.” – Rob Walker, The Art of Noticing (2019)

In The Art of Noticing, Walker proposes 131 exercises designed to help people rediscover things they normally overlook. His work reminds us that discovery doesn’t always require extraordinary experiences, it simply requires us to pay closer attention.

There is a growing appreciation for the everyday cultures and traditions that make places distinctive. And perhaps that’s where an opportunity lies for destinations: making the richness of everyday local life more accessible. Perhaps the future of travel is about learning to look closer.