February 19, 2025

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Using TikTok to plan trips isn’t a crazy as it sounds: opinion

Using TikTok to plan trips isn’t a crazy as it sounds: opinion

And, as can be expected, there are many reels poking fun at older travellers. “Make sure you only travel in a group of 60 to 100 other Boomers. If you’re travelling to a developing nation, make sure you haggle and barter as much as possible.”

Lengthy holiday slideshows are now a thing of the past.

Lengthy holiday slideshows are now a thing of the past.Credit: Getty Images

Gen Z travellers have every reason to be smug now that the Boomer generation has begun to “age out” of travelling. (A nice way to put it.)

According to Deloitte’s recent report, “Facing Travel’s Future”, 42 per cent of Gen Z travellers and about one in four millennials use TikTok to plan trips, while only 7 per cent of Gen X and older users do this. Young travellers prefer creative videos and storytelling over still images.

Videos are much more relatable, especially when you’re following goofy young travellers who, like you, are flying overseas for the first time. Or you’re getting life advice from another 18-year-old who travels on the cheap by sleeping in airports. Or you’re glued to the adventures of a young Australian woman who can’t get tampons in Bali.

Older generations, raised on keeping their personal lives private at all costs, find it hard to understand why the youngest generations use social media as a confessional.

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Deloitte projects that Gen Z and millennials will account for more than half of leisure trips in the US in summer 2030, up from about one-third last summer. The demands of younger, tech-savvy and conspicuously conscious younger generations will steadily become more prominent.

Boomers currently have a disproportionate share of wealth to pursue their bucket lists. Younger generations, with less spending power, travel more frequently, making shorter trips. Thirty per cent work on their holidays, reflected in the number of TikTok reels about how to blend work and travel on a shoestring, according to the report.

Younger generations are also embracing purposeful travel more than older generations. They are more sensitive to perceived authenticity, and increasingly align purchases and brand affinity with their values.

Travel is all about discovering destinations for yourself, so maybe all young travellers need is a bit of inspiration and undaunted positivity. I worry about the world being too depressing for them, but when I look at TikTok travel I see confidence and joyousness. Hopefully, TikTokers do more when they visit a country than practising their dance routines.

But maybe they’re not much different to the Boomers, who were once young backpackers and travelled lightly, with hunger for adventure.

Except they’re really “suitcasers” now.

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