Europe faces economic challenges, social media shifts, and sustainability concerns in 2025, reshaping tourism marketing strategies and travel trends.
As we prepare for this year's edition of Future. Destination. Brand., we're launching a new editorial series highlighting the 12 trends we expect will shape 2025 marketing strategies. Unfortunately, this series starts on a gloomy note, with January featuring stunted economic growth in Europe and increasing global sustainability concerns, while there has also been a significant redrawing of the social media landscape. But do these challenges open new opportunities?
This year started with a buzz of announcements from all the major social media platforms, presenting many strategic questions about how DMOs and leading tourism brands will continue to create impactful content. With social media a key channel for building awareness and, increasingly, boosting conversion, every change in how platforms operate has profound implications. Sparking much discussion, Instagram's new 4:5 rectangular grid layout replaced the 1:1 square aspect ratio. While this builds upon the popular Reels format, it has distorted how existing posts are displayed, requiring brands to quickly prioritise the reorganisation of their feeds and proactively change their approaches to producing new content to match this new layout. With much uncertainty about the future of TikTok, social media marketing will also need to become much more agile for the foreseeable future. Ethics is also playing a much stronger role in brand strategies, with much furore after Meta's announcement that it will remove fact-checkers for US audiences and replace them with community-style notes, potentially enabling the spread of misinformation to thrive. Similarly, with multiple movements encouraging brands to leave X, the reputational risk of getting the social media mix wrong is now a foremost concern for brands.
While there is much that needs to be considered, all these changes coming at the same time present a significant opportunity for brands to reset their relationships with social media marketing. Taking time to explore the value brought by each channel and their changing audiences gives scope for reevaluating the prominence of social media's role in paid media strategies. This might even give room for creating space to gain better insights into their diverse algorithms or to experiment with new features, but with new channels emerging, brands should also actively explore whether to follow users onto these platforms and become early adopters as they grow in prominence.
These widespread social media changes have been partially driven by a shift in political direction. This is also impacting the global economy, with Europe currently facing a period of slow economic growth. This lack of competitiveness is a major concern, as is a sense of pessimism about Europe's economic prospects. Only a quarter of economists believe that Europe will see moderate or stronger growth this year, while the UK is also facing a flatlining economy. Trade tensions with the US are a key issue, with the potential for new tariffs on European imports. These tariffs, combined with potential European retaliation, could significantly weigh on Europe's economic outlook. Goldman Sachs forecasts that Eurozone GDP growth could be as low as 0.7% in 2025 and a 10% tariff on all US imports from the EU could wipe out one percentage point of Eurozone growth. This economic instability may reduce consumer confidence and spending. If tariffs and trade tensions result in an economic slowdown, this could impact disposable income and reduce the ability of Europeans to travel. On the flip side, a weaker Euro could make Europe a more attractive destination, but the impact of a weaker Euro is complex and not guaranteed to lead to increased competitiveness.
While tourism is a resilient industry, these economic concerns mean price sensitivity is likely to remain a key factor in attracting travellers during 2025. Nevertheless, with holidays among the last areas of spending cutbacks, 2025 is expected to see the full recovery of tourism, having already reached 99% recovery in 2024. With APAC travellers supercharging growth, 2025 may even be a record year. During the Chinese New Year period, a 48% increase in outbound hotel bookings for Chinese outbound travellers was observed, suggesting that destinations should shift their targeting strategies back to attracting this high-value market following the post-COVID blip and consider resuming regular posting on WeChat and other China-specific social media channels as part of their revised social media strategy.
Alongside this mixed economic picture, 2025 started with the news that the annual average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level, the target outlined by the Paris Agreement, for the first time. Coinciding with this announcement, Southern California was ravaged by wildfires. The increasing frequency of such natural disasters will undoubtedly impact where and when people travel. While such shifts are not immediate, destinations must be prepared for changing travel patterns. Yet, with sustainability often coming with an added cost, it remains to be seen when the often-stated role of sustainability will translate into a significant impact on holiday choices.
As 2025 marks the beginning of a new generation in the form of Gen Beta, it is clear that generational divides are gradually shaping travel decisions. Growing up with environmental disasters being a frequent news story and a topic integrated in education, younger generations place a stronger value on ethics. With sustainability playing a more significant role in their choice of holidays, this must be a clear priority, especially with 78% of the global population by 2035 expected to be Millennials or younger. Even right now, the spending power of Gen Z is increasing, with this generation expected to become the wealthiest generation and overtake Baby Boomers' spending as soon as 2029. At the same time, the oldest members of Gen Alpha are almost ready to enter the workplace and gain their financial independence, emphasising that a values-focused outlook will be increasingly influential for brands to remain relevant as global demographics change.
Following January's focus on opportunities to refresh and optimise targeting strategies, what will February bring to the evolving marketing landscape? Stay tuned to find out what the next Future Destination Trend will be and how you can take full advantage of the situation to boost your destination brand creativity and activation to build lasting connections with travellers.
As we prepare for this year's edition of Future. Destination. Brand., we're launching a new editorial series highlighting the 12 trends we expect will shape 2025 marketing strategies. Unfortunately, this series starts on a gloomy note, with January featuring stunted economic growth in Europe and increasing global sustainability concerns, while there has also been a significant redrawing of the social media landscape. But do these challenges open new opportunities?
This year started with a buzz of announcements from all the major social media platforms, presenting many strategic questions about how DMOs and leading tourism brands will continue to create impactful content. With social media a key channel for building awareness and, increasingly, boosting conversion, every change in how platforms operate has profound implications. Sparking much discussion, Instagram's new 4:5 rectangular grid layout replaced the 1:1 square aspect ratio. While this builds upon the popular Reels format, it has distorted how existing posts are displayed, requiring brands to quickly prioritise the reorganisation of their feeds and proactively change their approaches to producing new content to match this new layout. With much uncertainty about the future of TikTok, social media marketing will also need to become much more agile for the foreseeable future. Ethics is also playing a much stronger role in brand strategies, with much furore after Meta's announcement that it will remove fact-checkers for US audiences and replace them with community-style notes, potentially enabling the spread of misinformation to thrive. Similarly, with multiple movements encouraging brands to leave X, the reputational risk of getting the social media mix wrong is now a foremost concern for brands.
While there is much that needs to be considered, all these changes coming at the same time present a significant opportunity for brands to reset their relationships with social media marketing. Taking time to explore the value brought by each channel and their changing audiences gives scope for reevaluating the prominence of social media's role in paid media strategies. This might even give room for creating space to gain better insights into their diverse algorithms or to experiment with new features, but with new channels emerging, brands should also actively explore whether to follow users onto these platforms and become early adopters as they grow in prominence.
These widespread social media changes have been partially driven by a shift in political direction. This is also impacting the global economy, with Europe currently facing a period of slow economic growth. This lack of competitiveness is a major concern, as is a sense of pessimism about Europe's economic prospects. Only a quarter of economists believe that Europe will see moderate or stronger growth this year, while the UK is also facing a flatlining economy. Trade tensions with the US are a key issue, with the potential for new tariffs on European imports. These tariffs, combined with potential European retaliation, could significantly weigh on Europe's economic outlook. Goldman Sachs forecasts that Eurozone GDP growth could be as low as 0.7% in 2025 and a 10% tariff on all US imports from the EU could wipe out one percentage point of Eurozone growth. This economic instability may reduce consumer confidence and spending. If tariffs and trade tensions result in an economic slowdown, this could impact disposable income and reduce the ability of Europeans to travel. On the flip side, a weaker Euro could make Europe a more attractive destination, but the impact of a weaker Euro is complex and not guaranteed to lead to increased competitiveness.
While tourism is a resilient industry, these economic concerns mean price sensitivity is likely to remain a key factor in attracting travellers during 2025. Nevertheless, with holidays among the last areas of spending cutbacks, 2025 is expected to see the full recovery of tourism, having already reached 99% recovery in 2024. With APAC travellers supercharging growth, 2025 may even be a record year. During the Chinese New Year period, a 48% increase in outbound hotel bookings for Chinese outbound travellers was observed, suggesting that destinations should shift their targeting strategies back to attracting this high-value market following the post-COVID blip and consider resuming regular posting on WeChat and other China-specific social media channels as part of their revised social media strategy.
Alongside this mixed economic picture, 2025 started with the news that the annual average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level, the target outlined by the Paris Agreement, for the first time. Coinciding with this announcement, Southern California was ravaged by wildfires. The increasing frequency of such natural disasters will undoubtedly impact where and when people travel. While such shifts are not immediate, destinations must be prepared for changing travel patterns. Yet, with sustainability often coming with an added cost, it remains to be seen when the often-stated role of sustainability will translate into a significant impact on holiday choices.
As 2025 marks the beginning of a new generation in the form of Gen Beta, it is clear that generational divides are gradually shaping travel decisions. Growing up with environmental disasters being a frequent news story and a topic integrated in education, younger generations place a stronger value on ethics. With sustainability playing a more significant role in their choice of holidays, this must be a clear priority, especially with 78% of the global population by 2035 expected to be Millennials or younger. Even right now, the spending power of Gen Z is increasing, with this generation expected to become the wealthiest generation and overtake Baby Boomers' spending as soon as 2029. At the same time, the oldest members of Gen Alpha are almost ready to enter the workplace and gain their financial independence, emphasising that a values-focused outlook will be increasingly influential for brands to remain relevant as global demographics change.
Following January's focus on opportunities to refresh and optimise targeting strategies, what will February bring to the evolving marketing landscape? Stay tuned to find out what the next Future Destination Trend will be and how you can take full advantage of the situation to boost your destination brand creativity and activation to build lasting connections with travellers.
.webp)
