Overtourism: Everyone is talking about it. Everyone wants to do something about it. And nobody is going to stop traveling. So, what to do? One thing is for sure: In this hyper-connected, over-polarized, blame-happy era, the issue is not going away.

As fall gets into full swing and we start planning for 2020, I know that many of us are feeling the winds of uncertainty about the economic outlook—for the travel industry and for the world at large. Political instability in the U.S., Brexit, trade wars, the Hong Kong protests, the collapse of Thomas Cook—those and many other factors are contributing to a sense of trepidation, tingeing whatever optimism we may have about future bookings.

Wellness may be the biggest buzzword in our industry since experiences—and with at least as many different definitions. Everyone seems to be clamoring to capture a piece of the wellness pie, whose ingredients include fitness, spa, nutrition, spirituality, mindfulness, meditation, sustainability—you name it! The Global Wellness Institute uses a similarly broad definition to size the “global wellness economy” at $4.2 trillion in 2017—with “wellness tourism” accounting for $639 billion of that. 

New York City is hosting WorldPride next month, an international celebration timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which marked the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement. The city is expecting three million visitors to join the festivities. That’s an astonishing number for those of us in the industry who remember when “gay travel” was just an oft-ignored niche. Today, the annual value of total spending by LGBT travelers is estimated to be north of $200 billion, according to Out Now Consulting.

You may have seen the news in January that Ted Teng will soon be stepping down as President and CEO of Leading Hotels of the World. Most of you share my high regard for Ted, who ran LHW for 10 years. Interestingly, his departure was announced around six months after Filip Boyen left rival Small Luxury Hotels of the World; Boyen, in turn, was replaced by Jean-François Ferret, who came from Relais & Châteaux, yet another independent hotel collection.

Today in Sydney we launched the Australian Luxury Traveller 2019 study by Goldman Group – the biggest Virtuoso agency in Australia. The study was completed over the past three months by Strategic Vision in association with AccorHotels.

Increased wealth, interest in new experiences, and inspiration from social media outweigh concerns about economic headwinds and world events in Strategic Vision’s 2019 Pulse of the Industry Survey.