What Do Americans Want in a European Vacation? Fewer Americans
As the hottest spots get overrun with U.S. tourists, some visitors plan vacations to new countries and regions
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For some U.S. travellers, this summer’s hottest European destination is one without other Americans.
American tourists mobbed Europe last year, and 2023 is looking even busier, travel advisers say. Reservations for European trips rose 8% over last summer, according to data from Hopper, a travel app. Delta Air Lines President Glen Hauenstein said last week that 75% of seats on the carrier’s international flights this summer are already booked, even with added flights and seats.
Searches for round-trip flights to perennially popular cities such as Milan and London have increased over the past year, according to data from Skyscanner, a travel-search site. Also rising are searches for relatively obscure destinations such as Split, Croatia (up 73%), and Tirana, Albania (up 57%). The biggest gainer over the past year? Oslo, Norway, with a 307% increase in Skyscanner searches.
Airfares remain expensive, with the most recent consumer-price index for airline tickets up nearly 18% compared with a year earlier. Finding a hotel room in major destinations such as Barcelona or Rome—let alone an affordable one—takes serious work, travel advisers say.
Some travellers are instead looking to less-well-visited regions such as the Balkans and other corners of Eastern Europe. That is partly because of cost and partly because these tourists have already been to Paris and London, travel pros say.
Melissa Biggs Bradley, founder and CEO of New York-based travel company Indagare, says people who visited Europe last summer are leading the push toward these new destinations.
These travellers sought out tried-and-true destinations last year, she says, when they were resuming international travel as pandemic restrictions eased. After being isolated for so long, they weren’t scared off by the size of the crowds. The composition of the crowds was another matter.
“In a lot of the great resorts in Europe, people were just surrounded by other Americans,” Mrs. Bradley says.
Travellers also encountered large-scale problems with luggage at big airports and issues with service at understaffed hotels in major cities.
Erin Thibeau, a 31-year-old marketing manager who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., chose to visit Lisbon for her first European trip last year, since it was familiar.
“I knew I would have a really lovely time, and I could navigate around pretty easily,” she says.
Ms. Thibeau says she is seeking out places where she is “not one of countless Americans.” So she chose the country of Georgia for her next Euro trip, hoping it would offer more interaction with locals. Ms. Thibeau plans to use the capital, Tbilisi, as a base to tour the country, visiting wineries and monasteries.
Travel professionals say many clients are seeking places that closely resemble popular destinations. Albania has grown popular as a spot for Adriatic Sea vacations similar to what one might experience in nearby Croatia, says Laura Lindsay, travel trends and destinations specialist at Skyscanner.
Other substitute destinations: Slovenia for those considering vacations to Italy, and northern mainland Greece or Turkey as a swap for the Greek Isles.
It doesn’t take long for an under-the-radar destination to become a hot spot. Mrs. Bradley sent many people to Sicily last year because it had availability when the Amalfi Coast and Venice didn’t. The popularity of the HBO series “The White Lotus” has made Sicily an in-demand location this summer.
Now, she says she recommends Mediterranean islands such as Corsica and Sardinia, or regions of mainland Italy, such as Puglia.
Venturing to less-traveled parts of Europe comes with trade-offs. Major tourism hubs such as Paris or Rome have more lodging options and expansive transit networks, as well as plenty of English speakers at hotels, restaurants and shops.
For tourists, “the key there is how comfortable they are in a destination where English is going to be a bit more of a challenge for some of the locals,” says Mike Salvadore, owner and co-president of 58 Stars Travel, a luxury travel agency based in Seattle.
Going to a place such as Romania or Malta might not save much money, because direct flights can be rare, and connections take time.
Food and activities often will cost less in these regions, but hotels might not be much of a bargain. Average daily rates for hotels have risen by more than a third compared with last year in Turkey, North Macedonia and Bulgaria, among others, according to preliminary March data from hospitality analytics company STR. Apart from high demand, inflation has driven those prices higher across much of Europe.
Teressa Steinbach, a 44-year-old mother of two from Louisville, Ky., is set to venture with her family to Europe in June for her daughters’ first visit to the continent.
The family had originally planned to visit friends in Italy, an itinerary that would have cost them around $20,000, but the trip didn’t pan out, Mrs. Steinbach says.
Instead, they are taking a 10-day trip to Split, with jaunts planned to other parts of Croatia and neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mrs. Steinbach has tapped Facebook groups dedicated to Croatian travel for advice. Locals and past visitors have suggested a boat ride to the island of Brač, with its white-pebble beaches, and rafting down the Cetina river.
The Croatian vacation is hardly a bargain. Round-trip flights in premium-economy class will cost the family of four around $11,000, while their hotel will add around $6,000, she says.
It has proved a tougher sell for her daughters, ages 7 and 11, whose classmates traveled to France over spring break, Mrs. Steinbach says.
“My oldest said, ‘I’m going to lie and say that we went to Italy,’ ” she says. “She was like, ‘Who goes to Croatia?’ ”
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The latest trend in wellness travel is somewhere between a spa trip and a doctor’s appointment
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For some vacationers, the ideal getaway involves $1,200 ozone therapy or an $1,800 early-detection cancer test.
Call it the longevity vacation. People who are fixated on optimising their personal health are pursuing travel activities that they hope will help them stay healthier for longer. It is part of a broader interest in longevity that often extends beyond traditional medicine . These costly trips and treatments are rising in popularity as money pours into the global wellness travel market.
At high-end resorts, guests can now find biological age testing, poolside vitamin IV drips, and stem-cell therapy. Prices can range from hundreds of dollars for shots and drips to tens of thousands for more invasive procedures, which go well beyond standard wellness offerings like yoga, massages or facials.
Some longevity-inspired trips focus on treatments, while others focus more on social and lifestyle changes. This includes programs that promise to teach travellers the secrets of centenarians .
Mark Blaskovich, 66 years old, spent $4,500 on a five-night trip last year centred on lessons from the world’s “Blue Zones,” places including Sardinia, Italy, and Okinawa, Japan, where a high number of people live for at least 100 years. Blaskovich says he wanted to get on a healthier path as he started to feel the effects of ageing.
He chose a retreat at Modern Elder Academy in Mexico, where he attended workshops detailing the power of supportive relationships, embracing a plant-based diet and incorporating natural movement into his daily life.
“I’ve been interested in longevity and trying to figure out how to live longer and live healthier,” says Blaskovich.
Vitamins and ozone
When Christy Menzies noticed nurses behind a curtained-off area at the Four Seasons Resort Maui in Hawaii on a family vacation in 2022, she assumed it might be Covid-19 testing. They were actually injecting guests with vitamin B12.
Menzies, 40, who runs a travel agency, escaped to the longevity clinic between trips to the beach, pool and kids’ club, where she reclined in a leather chair, and received a 30-minute vitamin IV infusion.
“You’re making investments in your wellness, your health, your body,” says Menzies, who adds that she felt more energised afterward.
The resort has been expanding its offerings since opening a longevity centre in 2021. A multi-day treatment package including ozone therapy, stem-cell therapy and a “fountain of youth” infusion, costs $44,000. Roughly half a dozen guests have shelled out for that package since it made its debut last year, according to Pat Makozak, the resort’s senior spa director. Guests can also opt for an early-detection cancer blood test for $1,800.
The ozone therapy, which involves withdrawing blood, dissolving ozone gas into it, and reintroducing it into the body through an IV, is particularly popular, says Makozak. The procedure is typically administered by a registered nurse, takes upward of an hour and costs $1,200.
Longevity vacationers are helping to fuel the global wellness tourism market, which is expected to surpass $1 trillion in 2024, up from $439 billion in 2012, according to the nonprofit Global Wellness Institute. About 13% of U.S. travellers took part in spa or wellness activities while traveling in the past 12 months, according to a 2023 survey from market-research group Phocuswright.
Canyon Ranch, which has multiple wellness resorts across the country, earlier this year introduced a five-night “Longevity Life” program, starting at $6,750, that includes health-span coaching, bone-density scans and longevity-focused sessions on spirituality and nutrition.
The idea is that people will return for an evaluation regularly to monitor progress, says Mark Kovacs, the vice president of health and performance.
What doctors say
Doctors preach caution, noting many of these treatments are unlikely to have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, producing a placebo effect at best and carrying the potential for harm at worst. Procedures that involve puncturing the skin, such as ozone therapy or an IV drip, risk possible infection, contamination and drug interactions.
“Right now there isn’t a single proven treatment that would prolong the life of someone who’s already healthy,” says Dr. Mark Loafman, a family-medicine doctor in Chicago. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Some studies on certain noninvasive wellness treatments, like saunas or cold plunges , do suggest they may help people feel less stressed, or provide some temporary pain relief or sleep improvement.
Linda True, a policy analyst in San Francisco, spent a day at RAKxa, a wellness retreat on a visit to family in Thailand in February. True, 46, declined the more medical-sounding offerings, like an IV drip, and opted for a traditional style of Thai massage that involved fire and is touted as a “detoxification therapy.”
“People want to spend money on things that they feel might be doing good,” says Dr. Tamsin Lewis, medical adviser at RoseBar Longevity at Six Senses Ibiza, a longevity club that opened last year, whose menu includes offerings such as cryotherapy, infrared sauna and a “Longevity Boost” IV.
RoseBar says there is good evidence that reducing stress contributes to longevity, and Lewis says she doesn’t offer false promises about treatments’ efficacy . Kovacs says Canyon Ranch uses the latest science and personal data to help make evidence-based recommendations.
Jaclyn Sienna India owns a membership-based, ultra luxury travel company that serves people whose net worth exceeds $100 million, many of whom give priority to longevity, she says. She has planned trips for clients to Blue Zones, where there are a large number of centenarians. On one in February, her company arranged a $250,000 weeklong stay for a family of three to Okinawa that included daily meditation, therapeutic massages and cooking classes, she says.
India says keeping up with a longevity-focused lifestyle requires more than one treatment and is cost-prohibitive for most people.
Doctors say travellers may be more likely to glean health benefits from focusing on a common vacation goal : just relaxing.
Dr. Karen Studer, a physician and assistant professor of preventive medicine at Loma Linda University Health says lowering your stress levels is linked to myriad short- and long-term health benefits.
“It may be what you’re getting from these expensive treatments is just a natural effect of going on vacation, decreasing stress, eating better and exercising more.”
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