High Yield Tourism co-founder Gary Bowerman addressed delegates earlier today, 17th October, with a C-suite talk at ITB Asia 2025.
Touching on the theme Untethered Adventures: Mapping the Landscape of Independent Travel, Bowerman declared that independent travel is the future, particularly within the Asia Pacific.
He said: "We talk about travel and tourism as though it's an eco-bubble; as though travel and tourism exists in its own sense of being. But it's not: it's part of a lifestyle economy, and we have become a very disintermediated lifestyle economy."
A fragmented industry
According to Bowerman, fragmentation is probably the most important word in travel in Asia at the moment.
He explained that markets are fragmented, and that every market is splintering.
He said: "People's expectations about travel have changed, not just because of the pandemic, but because travel and tourism are now integrated into the way people view their lifestyles."
FITs take the floor
This ideological shift has helped spur on the rise of free and independent travellers (FITs).
Indeed, the global travel sector is seeing more travellers going off on more immersive experiential journeys rather than sticking to rigid group itineraries that only allow glimpses of key attractions.
Bowerman remarked: "The biggest growth and the most important changes in key travel markets are coming in the independent sector. Young people, older people, middle aged people who want to travel their way.
Consider knowing your customers better
As Bowerman puts it, there is no one-size-fits-all independent traveler.
In which case, he opines that travel professionals need to take time to know their clientele.
He asked: "So: who are today's independent travelers? What adventures are they seeking? What are their hidden travel agendas?"
These questions are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg, especially because trave lprofessionals made a lot of erroneous assumptions over time about travellers and their individual preferences.
Indeed, a lot of assumptions have been made about everything from payment methods to government policies in home nations.
For Bowerman, relying on outdated assumptions stands to do travel and hospitality businesses more harm than good; actually sitting down to know customers better is, thus, the way of the future.
He said of businesses slow to make the switch: "They don't know the way people travel, consume, and live day to day. If you don't know that, in the modern world, in this fragmented, disintermediated world, you don't know enough about your travellers."
Indeed, given how the travel market keeps splintering into smaller and more specific niche interests, knowing exactly what each traveller wants from their journeys is bound to make all the difference in the future.
