‘I love travel but climate change is a major issue’
Trends forecaster Chris Sanderson has some uncomfortable predictions about jet-setting, carbon emissions and the road ahead.
Trends forecaster Chris Sanderson – often called a futurist – has been working with businesses for more than 20 years to predict changes in consumer behaviour across travel, luxury, fashion, beauty, hospitality, retail and media. He founded The Future Laboratory in 2001 with his business partner Martin Raymond in London with the aim of putting the consumer front and centre in the thinking and strategy of companies across the world. “This leads to better choices [by the business], better product and better outcomes for all,” he says.
British-born Sanderson trained as a theatre director and designer in London and was communications director for surfwear brand Quiksilver. For the past two decades, Sanderson, Raymond and the Future Laboratory have been honing their research methodologies, which, he insists, do not predict the future.
“No one can accurately do that but we try to understand how mindset and behaviour are impacted by societal, technological, environmental, economic and political changes and how in turn, those factors influence the way we as individuals and communities behave,” he says.
“This is most definitely a science more than an art. As a team we are constantly curious, combing the world for what’s new and what’s next; intuiting, interrogating and observing that small cohort of “early adopters” who are ahead of the curve – doing things out of the norm before mainstream society embrace them and adopt them.”
Why readers may not like my travel trend predictions
As much as I love travel and talking about new hotspots and must-visit destinations, our uneasy relationship with climate change has to sit at the top of the agenda. This (2024) may not be the year of reckoning, but it will undoubtedly be the year when, as individuals, we start to take a more serious look at our own accountability for just how much carbon we’re personally responsible for generating. A round-trip flight to the US from Britain generates more carbon per person than an average individual expends in a whole year in 56 of the world’s countries.
We will soon be all tracking our carbon travel footprint
I believe carbon accountability will become a key trending topic for the year and beyond. Expect to see the arrival of handy apps and tools that enable you to have better oversight or your daily carbon footprint, across all your activities, especially travel.
The future is all about carbon passports
Moving further into the future, watch out for carbon passports and air-miles schemes; these are not reward points for how many miles you’ve traversed but restrictions on how much you can travel in a year. According to research we recently conducted for the independent travel agency Intrepid, in the future we should all be looking to limit our annual carbon emissions to 2.3 tonnes annually. That’s compared to a current carbon footprint for the average Australian of 15 tonnes. Ouch. That’s barely going to take you to the Gold Coast, let alone the Amalfi.
Ditching planes for trains in Europe
As a non-driver and someone based in London, I’ll endeavour to plan as much of my 2024 leisure travel as possible around the European train network. This is great, of course, when you have the time to take a more measured approach to moving around. But that in itself is one of the hot trends for 2024 – being a “Promad”, a proactive nomad; choosing to engage in the act and art of travel as much as the fact of arriving at your destination.
My favourite cafe in London
Summer also marks the arrival of my favourite London restaurant, Towpath, situated across the canal from my office on the Haggerston Riviera. Open only in the warmer months, it’s an al fresco feast that’s fresh and wholesome and there’s no better way to make lunch a meaningful event rather than a dreary desk-dining affair than to spend a long sunny afternoon there.
The rise of ‘last chance’ destinations
Over the next five years we expect to see increasing restrictions as the better-off battle with their “last chance” lists of places to see before they’re forever submerged or simply swept away. Ski and trekking seasons will shorten, July and August in much of southern Europe will be unbearable and we’ll be seeking the cooler climes of Scandinavia to escape the extremes of Spain, Greece, Turkey and Italy. Now is the time to visit the relatively under-developed Norwegian fjords (pictured), Iceland’s Akureyri and Finland’s Northern Ostrobothnia.
I cannot wait for …
The summer art shows in London. I’m lucky enough to live and work in a city of which I never, ever tire – London. After 18 months of royal interventions into our normal social cycle, I’m looking forward to a summer of what London does best – flowers, festivals and fabulous food. I’m also an art junkie, so I’ll be queuing up to visit the Gavin Jantjes show at one of my favourite galleries, close to home in London’s vibrant East End, The Whitechapel Gallery (pictured) and the Michael Craig Martin retrospective at the end of the summer at the Royal Academy of Arts.
No place like home
I’m going to be emphasising the “lo-cation” – as in low cost, local alternative – called home. Learning to love leisure in our own space, which we don’t spend enough time in, is my hot travel tip for 2024.
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