Pick a hotel, then figure out where to fly. Book a concert, then plan a city break around it. A growing slice of the travel industry is built on exactly that reversal — and it is quietly changing how trips get sold.
The traditional model ran destination-first: a place captures your imagination, then flights, accommodation and activities follow. But companies increasingly win customers through something they want to do — a specific stay, an event, an experience — and only then help decide where that happens. Skift's Rafat Ali explores this shift in a recent piece, arguing that the competition for travellers now starts before anyone has a destination in mind.
The clearest early signal came from Airbnb. Back in 2021, CEO Brian Chesky told the Skift Global Forum that for many people accommodation had become the starting point of travel planning rather than an afterthought — the thinking behind the company's "I'm flexible" search, which lets browsers explore stays and categories without naming a destination. Five years on, the idea has spread well beyond one booking site.
Why does this matter to the wider industry? Because whoever captures the traveller first — the hotel, the event organiser, the airline, the tour operator — gains the power to shape demand, effectively deciding where people go. That is territory destination marketers traditionally owned, and it means tourism boards and local marketing bodies risk entering the conversation late. For travellers, meanwhile, the practical effect is already visible: flexible-search tools, experience-led packages and event-based trip planning are becoming standard ways to book.
The takeaway for holidaymakers is simple. You no longer need to start with "where?" Starting with "what?" — a type of stay, a festival, an activity you have been meaning to try — can open up destinations you would never have shortlisted, often at better prices outside the obvious hotspots. For anyone working in travel, the message is starker: if your product isn't discoverable before a destination is chosen, you may never enter the conversation at all.
Story via Skift.
