TMR’s Travel Market Reports 2025

A couple of travel market research reports by TMR show geo-political tensions, overtourism, AI, and economic uncertainty are affecting the travel market. And travel company owners have to decide on how to respond.

Change and challenges like this generate opportunities, or gaps in the marketplace, which in turn helps you make the decision to use new marketing strategies to win them. The reports show too, that advisors are shifting their sales focus slightly. You’ll see here some that might make you want to shift more strongly, adjust your product/marketing, and fully capture these new customers.

The Road to 2026 is Here

Before you set your 2026 budget, product selection, and marketing plans, you might want to review both the Travel Market Report’s Outlook on Global Travel Trends 2025 and Travel Market Report’s Distribution Outlook 2025.

Each is a 42 page report published by Daniel McCarthy, TMR’s Vice President and Editor-in-Chief and explores the data they collected from polling over 700 travel advisors.  They capture a wide-angle view of where travel clients are headed in destinations and experiences, what motivates consumer travel spending, and how advisors in the U.S. and Canada are adapting supply/services to global travel audiences.

Finding Hidden Opportunity in the Reports

Changes in the market are afoot and the data uncovers them.  What’s not cited in these reports is the dissonance between traveler’s concerns and advisor’s concerns. It’s a gap in coverage that I want to point out, because it’s an opportunity to win the new market and influence key people through marketing communications.  This is something we can win.

Anytime you can be first to market, first to reach and influence, you’re first to capture the revenues and new loyal clients who heavily imprint on you and your most significant brand. It’s a new point of strength you can leverage for a long time.  It also gets you into an entrepreneurial mindset, where you’re educated and ready to evolve with 2027’s new opportunities. Because change will happen.

For instance, it’s taken for granted by many travel marketers/managers that targeting a niche is the only way to do travel marketing. This report however, suggests that travel agencies, tourism boards, hotels, and DMOs might fare better by targeting multiple demographic groups.  Because each destination, tour, and other experience is sought by a diversity of travelers.

Here we see what segments advisors and consultants are targeting and those they’re easing off:

Responsive Strategy: By targeting multiple groups with a personalized, unique content strategy, you will:

• • Gain visibility to more prospective customers
  • Open to support from various influencers or bloggers (and improved SEO/backlinks, offsite publishing opportunities)
  • Resonate with Google or ChatGPT search engine systems for more overall relevance
  • Support your quest for FAM trips because destinations screen you for best relevance to their marketing objectives

From bucket lists to digital-detox to AI to Japan to beach/ocean towns, it seems like 2025 was a different year for the travel sector. It’s an interesting mix with endless potential for smart-marketing strategy.

Why Do People Travel?

Why people choose to travel is critical to product choices, training choices, and marketing strategy.

The first item in the report to review is the challenges travelers face with trips to destinations outside of North America, which of course, require flights.  This graphic shows the challenges of the respective business parties.

Because advisors don’t cite safety and security, overtourism, language barriers, or digital connectivity, it means these issues might not be forefront in their marketing communications to travelers.  And advisors claim travelers have long-haul flight duration fears, yet travelers don’t may not be concerned about it at all.

The takeaway here might be that your online travel marketing content will address these comfort issues.  Certainly, reframing the cost of airfare, redirecting to new, less crowded destinations, advisor assistance with visa/entry requirements, and safety and transportation challenges are key topics and content themes you might want to cover in your content strategy.

Top Sources of Travel Leads in 2025

The next, most relevant section with respect to travel marketing is regarding the source of leads. From what I know of my past clients, they don’t really know where their customers originated, or what brought them again. Often, just as real estate agents do, they claim it is a word-of-mouth referral, yet with so much information, variety, options and sources available online, word-of-mouth referrals have diminished in all businesses.

The referred lead or returning customer likely was online, saw what they liked on their website or social media channel, then contacted the travel agent.  Google is famous for never getting credit for all the leads it generates. Attribution is given to the last touchpoint. Travel searches are in the tens of millions per day and these include your travel customers. They’re always online asking questions, checking availability, or new destinations, hotels, resorts and itineraries.

Of course, they conduct all of that pre-trip research and evaluation, and then still make a phone call to their usual favorite advisor.  Yet, their online search experience has affected their wants and desires, and their impression of a destination.

Most travel agencies don’t have thorough web or social analytics insights so they likely don’t really know how leads came to find them and choose them.  But we do know, that if you have minimal online presence, they’re likely not going to find you. And while all channels are nice to have, only a few are producing or contributing to new lead creation. The analytics tells us which you should prioritize. We shouldn’t spread ourselves thin, with a desperate “giant net to catch anything.”

With the OTA’s, suppliers and AI travel agencies grabbing more market share, it’s vitally important for travel companies to build their own “owned media” so customers have somewhere certain to head to, and view as their travel homebase.

For websites, the hosting arrangement often dictates how much value they will get out of their website and how flexible and adaptive their online marketing can be. Most advisors are wise (35%) are wise and choose to self-host their website, thus taking control of content, branding, and tailoring messaging to their audience. Having their own travel website helps to reduce erosion, something Realtors suffer from as their leads are drawn to the agency brand’s own website.  You work hard to attract customers, don’t let them get taken away through the agency website erosion scam.

Advisors Web Hosting. Screenshot courtesy of travelmarketreport.com

Have you been Dreaming of FAM Trips?

Stop dreaming and build a business case about why suppliers should choose you.  Advisors, influencers and consultants need support to build better professional competence, specialized knowledge, credibility of business focus, and improved marketing materials. Suppliers want to verify that you and your company are relevant lead generators for them. If you can back that up on your website and social channels, it might help you get approval for an essential FAM trip.  This is something you can take control of and master, for significant career gains.

Impact of AI Technology

Although travel planners and consultants seem to be shunning AI technology, the report shows many are using it. You might say they’re on their way to becoming an AI travel agency. Here’s a selection of tasks that AI is helping travel planning and sales.

More data and insights are available through TMRs Travel Market Reports.  You can view the 2025 Distribution outlook or the Global Travel Market Outlook on TMR’s website.

See more on travel marketing services and about a travel marketing service plan designed just for you — including focused travel content for your target audience(s).  I hope this helps answer the question of the best destinations to offer and about what each group might want in their itinerary.