Editorial - How the world is changing: The role of micro trends

Citation

Yeoman, I.S. (2021), "Editorial - How the world is changing: The role of micro trends", Journal of Tourism Futures, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 159-161. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-05-2021-0110

How the world is changing: The role of micro trends

Building on Volume 6.3 of the Journal of Tourism Futures (Yeoman, 2020), we further explore the concept of micro trends and how they influence the business and management of tourism. Part 2 of this special issue clusters a series of short trends papers around Futures Thinking; Products and Destinations and Technology. Micro trends or emergent trends are seedlings now but are predicted to be become dominant in the future. They are important to observe as they are signals and sign posts for the future of tourism (Robertson and Yeoman, 2014). Certain micro trends are important to follow as they become the basis of big data and segmentation models for destination decision-making (Fuchs et al., 2014; Perera et al., 2020).

Future thinking

Postma and Papp (2020) discuss the methodology of trend pyramids, whereas Moscardo (2020) highlights the rise of stories in tourism practice, identifying the forces that are supporting and directing stories. Bhaskara et al. (2020) argue the need to better understand the determinants of adopting (more) collaborative, integrated approaches in strategic destination management plans and operational business procedures, which is to improve destination and business resilience towards the growing frequency, increasing number and accelerating impacts of natural disasters around the world. Then, Hay (2019) investigates the impact of two micro trends on the future marketing functions of national tourism organisations (NTOs): the increasing power of individuals and the irreverence of NTO’s current marketing functions.

Products and destinations

Ferrer-Roca et al. (2020) identify and describe the most recent (or emerging) trends likely to have a major impact in shaping the future of tourism in Europe. Specifically, millennials travel more than any other generation, and they account now for some 40% of Europe’s outbound travel according to Ketter (2020). As millennials travel peaks, the purpose of this paper is to shed light on European Millennials, their characteristics and travel behaviours and how their travel trends are shaping the present – and future – of the tourism industry. Heslinga et al. (2019) share the trend observed around irresponsible behaviour by tourists in nature areas and how this may affect future policy. Vargas-Sánchez (2019) reflects on the evolution of the tourism ecosystem within a circular economy, considering relevant factors that influence the transition towards the circular economy model.

Wengel (2020) reviews two micro-trends influencing the landscape of adventure tourism activities in Nepal. In spite of being a popular adventure tourism destination for more than half a century, the offer of adventure tourism activities in Nepal remained limited until recently. Goh and Yeoman (2020) look at the future development of new tourism attractions through the visionary project of a leading Vietnamese developer in a remote area of Northern Vietnam in the Quang Ninh province.

Haynes and Egan (2019) explore how the continued interest in the concept of “miniaturism” has seen the micropub develop into the new format of the microbar and examine the drivers of this trend. It then reflects on the possible implications of the rise of the microbar concept on the future of the urban tourism destination landscape. Bevolo (2019) discusses emerging trends in placemaking and digital destination management while providing a conceptual background on shifts in architectural design. To conclude the section, Reichenberger (2019) discusses the relevance of popular culture in a tourism context, highlighting how it can impact the future of tourism.

Technology

Parvez (2020) identifies how technological innovation has been changing the tourism industry precipitously and making the holiday experience more enjoyable and easier than before. The purpose of this study is to identify the current and future changes by the machine learning system as artificial intelligence in the hospitality industry. Pestek and Sarvan (2020) provide an insight as to how recent trends in virtual reality have changed the way tourism and hospitality industry communicates their offerings and meets the tourists’ needs. Coca-Stefaniak (2020) offers insights into the technological changes affecting our cities and urban tourism destinations and explores avenues for further research and practice in the context of smart tourism destinations.

Gharibi’s (2020) study aims to investigate the predictive technology acceptance models and their evolution in the tourism context. These predictive models make a knowledgeable decision about the possibility of future outcomes by analysing data. As futurists are interested in making a prediction about the likelihood of different behaviours over time, researchers of these predictive models have focussed on behaviour and predicting the intentions of users. This study proposes to demonstrate the revolution of these models and how these are changed overtime. It also indicates the role of them in future studies.

Wong and Sa’aid Hazley (2020) see technological advances in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 era escalate driving the advancement of the health-care industry, including the health tourism phenomenon. Based on the current trend in connected health care (mobile health-care technology, digital health, etc.), this paper aims to propose that the distance between health-care providers around the globe and its potential patients can be vastly reduced to almost on a real-time basis.