What Luxury Travellers Want in 2026: The Behaviour Shift in 30 Statistics
Forget the mood boards. The 2026 trend reports from American Express, Tripadvisor, British Airways, Skyscanner and HBX contain something better than vibes: numbers. Dog-friendly bookings up 260%. Luxury rail the single most-wanted alternative stay. Two-thirds of travellers building holidays around other people's milestones. Here is what the affluent traveller actually wants this year — as a trend index, every figure sourced.
Half the trends below — milestone trips, multigenerational holidays, celebration extensions — describe groups of six or more moving together. That is precisely where private charter stops being extravagant and starts being arithmetic.
Compare a private charter quote →- Travel became non-negotiable
- Milestones are the new itinerary
- The experience economy went vertical
- Luxury rail is the most-wanted bed
- Doing beat seeing
- Time itself became the luxury
- Three generations, one villa
- The trillion-dollar wellbeing chase
- The growth leaderboard
- Source registry
- Questions travellers ask
The defining economic fact of 2026 travel: the affluent traveller treats it as a fixed cost, not a discretionary one. American Express Travel's Global Travel Trends Report puts numbers to the mindset — and they explain why luxury demand keeps rising through a cost-of-living squeeze.
40%
of global respondents plan to spend more on travel in 2026 than last year
74%
of Millennials & Gen Z call travel a "non-negotiable" expense
64%
would take a job with fewer benefits if it allowed more flexibility to travel
Source: American Express Travel, 2026 Global Travel Trends Report. A related tell: 75% of Millennials and Gen Z plan to arrive at the airport early — to use their lounge access. The perks are now part of the holiday.
The wedding invitation, the significant birthday, the family reunion — in 2026 they aren't interruptions to travel plans; they are the travel plans. Amex calls it "Miles on Milestones", and the extension behaviour is where the luxury spend hides.
66%
plan a 2026 trip to celebrate a milestone for someone else
82%
build buffer days around the main celebration
72%
extend the stay by at least 3–4 days
79%
of Millennials & Gen Z say milestone trips feel more rewarding than a typical holiday
Source: American Express Travel, 2026. Birthdays are the top milestone trigger (40%) among younger travellers. For the group-stay side of this trend, our guide to luxury villas for group celebrations covers the economics.
Tripadvisor's 2026 Trendcast is built on more than one billion reviews and contributions, which makes its growth rates the closest thing travel has to a census. The pattern: travellers now plan trips around activities first and destinations second — and the growth is at the extremes.
+260%
pet-friendly experience bookings, year-on-year — the fastest-growing category on the platform
+79%
extreme adventure experiences (lava fields lead the sub-categories)
+56%
heli-hiking adventures
+64%
listening bars, as nightlife turns restorative ("soft clubbing")
Source: Tripadvisor Trendcast 2026 (28 January 2026), Tripadvisor Group internal data 2024–2025, with trend forecasting partner Stylus. Fitness tourism is its own force: marathon weeks bring Chicago +300%, Boston +228% and Berlin +222% more visitors than those cities usually see.
The single most useful accommodation statistic of the year hides in Amex's "lore chasing" chapter. Asked about unconventional stays, the young affluent traveller's first choice is not a treehouse or an ice hotel — it's a train.
91%
of Millennials & Gen Z are interested in an unconventional accommodation on their next trip
45%
of them choose luxury rail travel — the top pick
37%
choose converted historical spaces — second place
Source: American Express Travel, 2026. The sleeper-train renaissance is demand-led, not nostalgia marketing — which is exactly why we maintain a full costing of the flagship: what the Orient Express actually costs.
Amex names it "Sight-Doing": the shift from observing a destination to practising it. The numbers say passive sightseeing is structurally losing to hands-on immersion — and that the skills outlast the souvenirs.
79%
of Millennials & Gen Z will seek out local workshops or destination-specific activities in 2026
76%
of all travellers believe skills gained on a trip last longer than any material souvenir
83%
of younger travellers prioritise authentic experiences over popular tourist attractions
87%
leave room in the itinerary for unexpected local discoveries
Sources: American Express Travel, 2026. The family version is just as striking — Tripadvisor records cooking classes booked with children's tickets up 47% and heritage tours up 40% year-on-year. When an experience makes the shortlist, book it on a platform with real cancellation terms — GetYourGuide is our benchmark for that step.
British Airways Holidays' 2026 report with trend forecaster Globetrender and a bespoke YouGov survey coins the year's best trend name — "Chronocations" — for holidays that reject the clock entirely. The data behind the name:
~1 in 5
UK travellers (19%) ignore the clock entirely on holiday — eating, sleeping and exploring whenever they choose
55%
will do experiences at unusual hours when it's special or unique to a destination
47%
say vintage or retro experiences offer an authentic connection — rising to 63% of 18–24s
Source: British Airways Holidays Travel Trends 2026, with Globetrender and YouGov. Late checkout as lifestyle, in other words — the operating principle behind everything we mean by genuine luxury.
The quiet giant of the trend reports: the multigenerational trip is now the largest single group type in travel, per figures compiled in the HBX Group Travel Trend Report 2026.
47%
of travellers opted for multigenerational or family trips in 2025 — surpassing all other group types, up 17% on 2024
74%
of parents embrace getaways involving grandparents and children
55%
of grandparents are the ones planning and organising — with 48% sharing costs
Source: HBX Group Travel Trend Report 2026. Eight people across three generations is villa territory, not hotel territory — Plum Guide vets staffed houses to a standard the listing sites don't attempt, and our villa vs hotel guide maps when the switch pays.
Two categories are compounding faster than everything else in travel, and both sell the same underlying product: a changed self at the end of the trip.
$2.1T
projected wellness tourism market by 2030, growing at ~12.4% a year from 2023
$2.1T
projected sports tourism market by 2030 — at a faster 17.5% annual rate
62%
of travellers took or planned solo trips in 2025, up from 58% — self-discovery as wellness
22%
of European travellers now skip peak season specifically to avoid heatwaves
Source: market projections and traveller figures compiled in the HBX Group Travel Trend Report 2026, drawing on Statista and Skift research. The same compilation puts belief in the importance of sustainable travel at 84% of travellers worldwide, up from 80%.
The Growth Leaderboard
Every year-on-year growth figure from this index in one view, bar lengths proportional. All from Tripadvisor Trendcast 2026 booking data unless marked:
Experience Categories by YoY Booking Growth
Tripadvisor Group internal data, 2024–2025
Source: Tripadvisor Trendcast 2026. One footnote from the food side: Skyscanner finds food is now the single most important destination factor for Gen Z at 61% — ahead of the weather (57%) and the shopping (39%).
The single-sentence synthesis: the 2026 luxury traveller is buying transformation over relaxation, groups over couples, activities over monuments, and time-freedom over schedules — and treats the budget for all of it as untouchable. Trips built this way involve more moving parts than any package tour; cover the whole itinerary once with SafetyWing and stop thinking about it.
Milestone trip, three generations, eight people, two connections. That's not an airline itinerary — that's a charter quote.
Get a charter quote in minutes →Source Registry
Every figure in this index traces to one of these published reports. Check our working — the links go to the publishers, not to summaries of summaries.
- American Express Travel — 2026 Global Travel Trends Report. Spending intent, milestone-trip behaviour, sight-doing, lore-chasing and unconventional-stay figures.
- Tripadvisor — Trendcast 2026, published 28 January 2026; based on 1 billion+ reviews and contributions, Tripadvisor Group internal data 2024–2025, with forecasting partner Stylus. All experience-category growth rates and marathon visitor figures.
- British Airways Holidays — Travel Trends 2026 report, in partnership with Globetrender and a bespoke YouGov survey. Chronocations, unusual-hours and vintage-experience figures.
- HBX Group — Travel Trend Report 2026. Multigenerational travel, wellness and sports tourism market projections (drawing on Statista and Skift research), solo travel and climate-avoidance figures.
- Skyscanner — Gen Z Travel Stats & Trends 2026. Food-as-destination-factor and trip-frequency figures.
Questions Travellers Ask
What are the biggest luxury travel trends in 2026?
The data points to six dominant shifts: milestone-anchored trips (66% of travellers plan to travel for someone else's celebration), experience-led planning (Tripadvisor's billion-review dataset shows travellers building trips around activities rather than destinations), unconventional stays led by luxury rail (the top choice for 45% of interested Millennials and Gen Z), wellness heading towards a $2.1 trillion market by 2030, multigenerational travel at 47% of trips, and time-rebellion holidays where nearly one in five travellers ignores the clock entirely.
Are people spending more on travel in 2026?
Yes — 40% of global respondents plan to spend more on travel in 2026 than last year, according to American Express Travel's Global Travel Trends Report, and 74% of Millennials and Gen Z call travel a non-negotiable expense. Deloitte's US data shows the same pattern from the other side: more travellers increasing marquee-trip budgets (24%, up from 19%) and the travelling public skewing wealthier.
What is the fastest-growing travel experience category?
Pet-friendly travel, by a distance. Tripadvisor's 2026 Trendcast, drawn from over a billion reviews and contributions, shows bookings for dog-welcome experiences up 260% year-on-year. Behind it: extreme adventure up 79%, listening bars up 64%, heli-hiking up 56%, and cooking classes for families up 47%.
How big is the wellness travel market?
The wellness tourism market is projected to reach roughly $2.1 trillion by 2030, growing at a compound annual rate of around 12.4% from 2023, according to figures compiled in the HBX Group Travel Trend Report 2026. Sports tourism is projected to reach a similar $2.1 trillion by 2030 at an even faster 17.5% annual rate — the two fastest-compounding categories in travel.
What accommodation do luxury travellers want instead of hotels?
Rolling ones. Among the 91% of Millennial and Gen Z travellers interested in unconventional accommodation, American Express found luxury rail travel the most popular choice at 45%, ahead of converted historical spaces at 37%. It's the clearest data signal yet that the sleeper-train renaissance — Orient Express, Rovos Rail, the new European sleepers — is demand-driven, not nostalgia marketing.
Are milestone trips replacing traditional holidays?
Increasingly, yes. Two-thirds of global travellers (66%) plan to travel for someone else's milestone in 2026, 82% build buffer days around the celebration, and 72% extend the trip by at least three to four days — effectively converting a wedding invitation into a full holiday. 79% of Millennials and Gen Z say milestone trips feel more rewarding than a typical vacation, per American Express Travel.