Johanna Jainchill
On a recent episode of the New York Times' "The Daily" podcast, real-world daters found themselves looking for love at a wrestling event, where they were encouraged to challenge someone who caught their eye to step into the ring and tangle.
It's been well documented that singles are tired of swiping and that in-person meetups are sprouting up to ease dating-app fatigue.
What stood out to me was how nontraditional this singles night was. It was yet another example of the voracious appetite that younger generations, who grew up communicating on screens, now seem to have for real world experiences and events.
And it's a trend that the travel industry, and travel advisors, might want to go all-in on.
On Wednesday, Travel Weekly's sister company Phocuswright, in a joint research project with Arival, called experiences "the last big, untapped opportunity in travel," with sales of experiences expected to reach $342 billion by 2029. And that doesn't even include travel to attend major concerts and sporting events, which is increasingly driving travel decisions.
The trend started to make headlines in 2023, when the immense economic impact of people traveling to see Taylor Swift concerts was referred to as the "Swift Effect" by everyone from host cities to major hotel companies.
Douglas Quinby, CEO of Arival, calls it a "generational shift" in travel planning: While the traditional traveler mindset was to choose a place and then research what to do there, rising generations choose what to do and find the best place to do it.
Because the industry is still so fragmented, he said, it can be a difficult sector for travel companies and sellers to penetrate.
Quinby said that a lot of event content is not as "readily accessible" as other travel products to the distribution process, which is part of the reason the travel trade has not grown its share of events sales as fast as the desire people have to travel for them.
But people in the events business say there is opportunity for travel advisors to increase that share.
Kier Matthews is head of global luxury sales for On Location Experiences, a provider of premium, official hospitality and travel packages for major sports, music and lifestyle events, including the Olympic Games, the World Cup and NCAA Final Four.
According to Matthews, what On Location provides are not only great seats but curated, high-end and immersive experiences. Those people who run out on the field at the end of the Super Bowl? Some of them are On Location clients.
Many Travel Weekly readers know of Matthews. He's spent almost two decades in travel, including at Classic Vacations, Hilton Hotels and Virtuoso. He was brought to On Location to help drive agency sales.
"And I need not tell you how challenging that's been," he said, "because travel advisors are, for the most part, not comfortable in the events space."
Matthews said he understands why. They're wary because of the fragmented nature of events sales, and the number of companies in the space that have come and gone, leaving behind some burned travel advisors.
"Some had challenges delivering tickets," he said. "So everybody is really, really skeptical."
On Location's model as an official provider of the events it works with offers confidence in its ability to deliver, he said, and the agency channel's sales have grown by the double digits from a low baseline.
Matthews sees firsthand that desire to be part of tentpole events. It was evident during the Summer Olympics in Paris in 2024, when sales were strong not only before the Olympics but as the Games went on.
"Clients watched from home and said, 'Wait. We should have gone,'" he said. And they did. A similar pattern emerged during the Winter Games in Milan this year. One client of On Location who spent hundreds of thousands on an Olympics experience ahead of the Games dropped even more on tickets once they were on the ground.
Like Arival, Matthews said he sees especially high demand among younger generations, which he partly attributes to a mindset that doesn't measure aspiration in big homes and fancy cars and handbags.
"They live a different lifestyle that is really much more experience-based," he said. "This crowd is like, 'Keep your bags, I'm going to the Super Bowl.'"
His advice to advisors is to seize the upcoming opportunity: Between 2024 and 2034, the U.S. will host an unprecedented run of global sporting events; the FIFA World Cup this year, the 2028 Summer Olympics, the Rugby World Cup in 2030 and 2031 and the 2034 Winter Olympics.
It's a decade in which the world's biggest stages are literally in advisors' backyard.
"Events are driving travel, period," Matthews said. "There is so much opportunity out there."