Luxury Travel & Lifestyle Trends

Are you ready for the next food trend? First it was organic, then local. Now, a new culinary movement is sprouting: urban foraging. As expected, this trend has been hot among foodies in California and New York City for years.

The trend of hotel alternatives continues as home-swapping and the vacation rentals continue to grow. Many services cropped up to meet demand. TradetoTravel is one luxury vacation home exchange service with a portfolio of 400 vacation properties valued between $1 million and $20 million. Uniquely, they meet any preferences in houses, designs or themes.

Wondering why you may not be as happy as you’d like? A glance at your passport might give at least one clue. A recent Gallup poll ranked 155 countries on their inhabitants’ well-being, based on in-person and phone surveys. By and large, rich countries are happier — and that’s no coincidence.

hotels have sold everything from beds and bathrobes to candles and a variety of home fragrances. Now the Dorchester Collection has taken this one step further by launching fashion accessories – their reasoning being that there is a Dorchester Collection hotel in every major fashion capital.

Taking the rooftop pools and other facilities to extreme levels, companies vie to launch ‘can-you-top-this?’ experiences and attractions to lure tourists. Here are a few, which caught our eye:

The traditional media pyramid has been shifting for years now. And as a result of social media, the historical model has been turned upside down and now the masses are dictating the news. (Historically, media - or news - has been designed, developed and pushed from a few at the top to the masses at the bottom.) History is being made before our eyes…..

A survey developed by KWE group for Casa Velas Hotel Boutique in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico indicated that 70% of their guests were interested in learning to put their best profile forward on Facebook, establish a Twitter account, upload videos and the like. Happy to oblige, the hotel is offering twice weekly workshops, free to guests.

with the growing awareness of carbon emissions associated with the mass production and transportation of food, the number of individuals who are cultivating at least some percentage of their own produce is expected to increase.

With the continuing desire to save the planet individuals and companies are working toward going greener in the next decade. Because if you haven’t already heard, green is gold in our industry. Paperless ticketing will become even more popular, not only from an ecological standpoint, but creates an ability to avoid long lines, eliminates printing and reduces distribution costs. The newest technology in paperless ticketing will be mobile ticketing, where consumer is given a barcode via email or SMS to be scanned at the venue with their mobile.

Restaurant and food pop-ups are flourishing in every shape and size. Intimacy and hipness is the attraction: the ‘I-know-something-or-somebody-you-don’t-know’ feeling. We’ve seen numerous examples of pop-up restaurants in recent years, including those with strictly three-month seasonal menus. Others use guerrilla gourmet dining clubs: strictly word-of-mouth, unlicensed, underground restaurants in unmarked buildings, blind alleys and urban caverns.