Are Surprise-Destination Holidays Set to Change the Way We Book Our Trips

This is a phenomenon known as the paradox of choice.

This is where mystery holidays could come in. Some companies have already trialled surprise-destination trips where people don’t find out where they’re going until the last minute. This type of innovative promotion has the potential to catch on.

The Power of Innovative Promotions

When shopping for holidays, travellers often look for the best deals or whether anything is offered for free. Many online travel websites now come with flash sales, discounts, or special perks for members.

This can also be seen in other competitive online industries. For instance, when people sign up to a bingo site, they get a bingo welcome bonus that offers them some free credit to play with. For example, UK players could get £10 of free bingo if they meet the eligibility criteria. Likewise, other platforms such as trading sites give users free tools before offering a chance to upgrade.

Freebies aren’t the only way to stand out, though. It’s also important to spark interest in customers and encourage them to interact. This is an advantage of surprise-destination holidays, as they can be promoted through engaging campaigns.

They even offer the potential for a gamified approach where people have to gather clues or trigger interactive reveals to find out where they are going. Ontario Tourism offered a great example of this, with a campaign that showed pictures and asked people to identify an unknown destination. It came with an interactive website too, which showed people how close their guesses were.

 Surprise Holidays from Travel Companies and Airlines

There are a few examples of companies that have already tried out the concept of mystery holidays, with UK-based travel company Journee allowing customers to book trips without knowing their destination until they arrive at the airport.

If you want to take one of these trips, you simply provide information about your preferences and budget. This allows the company to organise a suitable experience while keeping the location secret. This is marketed as embracing the unknown, with the company organising authentic local experiences in an “unconventional destination” as well.

Some airlines have experimented with this concept, with Scandinavian Airlines’ Destination Unknown experience. This invited select passengers on a mystery trip where they discovered their destination mid-air. Thousands of EuroBonus users applied for the opportunity using loyalty points, but only 180 of those were selected. Still, this suggests that there’s a lot of interest in this type of holiday.

Given the various ways for holiday companies and airlines to offer mystery holidays, this idea could catch on and become more widespread. Companies could even use technology such as AI and big data to research their customers and provide holidays suited to their preferences.