Soneva X WGSN: Who Are The Future Travellers?

When Sonu Shivdasani founded Soneva Fushi in 1995, the leading, luxury resort in the Maldives, the maverick hotelier set out to design a blueprint for sustainable hospitality, alongside creating innovative and thought-provoking experiences for travellers to tap into.

Across the past 28 years, the brand has gone on to open Soneva Jani and the Soneva in Aqua yacht, both in the Maldives, as well as Soneva Kiri in Thailand. In doing so, the Soneva brand has become synonymous with responsible tourism, combining sustainability with luxury and personalised service. Carbon neutral since 2012, it launched its ‘Total Impact Assessment’ to measure its social and environmental impact in 2016 – a first for the hospitality industry. As a concequence, a 2% environmental levy is added to every Soneva stay, with proceeds going towards the not-for-profit Soneva Foundation to offset carbon emissions and fund purposeful international projects.

Always with an eye on the future, Soneva has now collaborated with trends forecaster WGSN to see how our travel habits are changing. The result is the publication this month of ‘The Future Travellers’ report, which reveals the key trends that will shape the future of luxury travel.

For the report, WGSN canvassed leading industry experts for crucial insights, analysed cross-industry data and used their worldwide network to track socio-cultural global shifts that will impact and disrupt the luxury travel market in the years to come. The resulting report offers an insight into our shifting priorities and how they will be met by the industry in the coming years.

The white paper details how ‘socially responsible experiences’ take priority as we travel less but wiser. We want to seek out meaningful engagement over simply sybaritic pleasure. There’s also a growing focus on ‘nature and the pursuit of awe and self-prioritisation’. This translates into future travellers enjoying integrating modern and ancient wellness rituals, the pursuit of ‘intentional living’ and being increasinly open to ‘soul science’ – where spirituality acts as a medicine.

Another key trend is the need for travel to offer the chance to make ‘profound human connections’ and to ‘gain wisdom’. It is a potent counterbalance to our always-connected and overstimulated lives. Crucially, ‘impact’ will also matter more than ever. Future travellers will demand not only sustainability but regenerative travel that leaves a positive legacy.

Revealing these changing priorities helped WGSN to profile five future travellers: The New Romantics are fuelled by a deep need to reconnect with nature, with themselves, and with the shared human experience.

The Epicurean Adventurers are driven by a curiosity for new flavours, innovation, and the authentic cuisine of different cultures. The Global Citizens are an affluent evolution of digital nomads, who are equipped with the technology, desire, and resources to establish family life in multiple locations across the globe. The Wisdom Seekers are in pursuit of knowledge and self-improvement, emotional recalibration, and transformative wellness experiences. While, finally, The Virtuous Voyagers are cultural custodians whose objective is to leave a positive, regenerative legacy.

In response to the report, Sonu Shivdasani OBE, Soneva’s founder, and CEO, says, “At Soneva, our interpretation of luxury has always been that of time, space and peace. We see ourselves as simply guardians of the pristine natural environments where we operate, treading lightly on our precious ecosystems and empowering both local and global environmental and community efforts. This report reaffirms our SLOW LIFE ethos, which is our moral compass as well as our operating compass.”

The WGSN Future Travellers white paper is available to download here.