By Pippa Jacks - Editorial Director, TTG Media
03 March 2025
Delegates at Adventure Travel Networking’s 2025 conference last week heard encouraging research on the state of the adventure sector and the business opportunity within it – and TTG Media was proud to be media partner on the event once again. Here are six takeaways from the conference that outline the positive outlook for the sector.
The sector is buoyant, and confident of growth this year
A survey of 120 adventure travel specialists by Spike Insight showed that around half (52%) of adventure specialists felt more confident about their business in recent weeks than at the same time last year, while a third (34%) felt the same. Only 14% felt less confident about business for 2025/26.
Responsible Travel’s joint managing director, Richard Skinner, agreed there was encouraging confidence among his own partner network of hundreds of adventure suppliers. “We’ve asked the same question about how companies are feeling, and there’s a really strong positivity,” he reported.
2025 Market Insights & Adventure Travel Trends
Adventure’s core market won’t compromise on travel
Spike director Roy Barker defined the 50-60-year-old age bracket as the biggest demographic for adventure travel, and said this market has plenty of money to burn, with travel a non-negotiable purchase for them. “I’m calling this concept ‘essentialism’, whereby people are more willing to forego a new car than give up on their holiday”, he explained.
“The clients you have in this market have a financial resilience; there’s a bulge of affluent 50-60-year-olds that should drive growth for many of you in the coming years”.
In a later session, Accord Marketing’s strategy director Jas Ahmad agreed that adventure travellers have money to spare for travel in 2025 and beyond. “Adventure travellers are three times more likely than ‘normal’ holidaymakers to say that they are financially comfortable and can afford luxuries,” he pointed out.
Adventure travellers will pay more (and more?!)…
Spike’s consumer research asked travellers to rank five different factors that affected their buying decision for an adventure trip, with destination by far the biggest driver. Price was ranked only third out of the five, which Barker said was promising for the sector. He even went as far as saying the sector could likely increase prices without damaging business.
“We think many of you are operating in a price inelastic market. That is, that as prices go up, demand is not affected to the same extent,” he explained. “Many of you could possibly be charging more without affecting the level of demand you experience.”
…and travel more frequently
Ahmad also shared that adventure travellers will typically travel far more frequently than other holidaymakers. Three or four trips per year is the most common frequency of travel for this demographic, versus once a year for all holidaymakers. Very few adventure travellers holiday as infrequently as every second or third year.
Adventure travel has been all over the TV
While total advertising spend by adventure travel brands in the UK was higher in 2023 than in 2024 (£7.99 million versus £6.74 million last year), Ahmad revealed that collective spend on TV advertising in 2024 was the greatest at any point post-pandemic.
TV made up almost a third (31%) of spend by the sector last year, growing year-on-year from a low of 13% in 2021. Digital advertising, on the other hand, has taken an increasingly smaller share of total spend, from 84% in 2021 down to 35% last year.
Destination choice continues to expand
The well-established adventure destinations of Italy, France and India were the three countries identified in the Spike Insight survey as this year’s top sellers, but panellists revealed it is other destinations that have shown most growth.
For Explore Worldwide, Japan, Botswana and Namibia are all on the up, but it’s the relatively new destination of West Africa that’s grown most this year. “We don’t quite know why it’s doing so well, though there is brilliant value to be had in the region” said Explore marketing director Jae Hopkins.
Several destinations that have faced challenges in recent years are also seeing a resurgence: Nomadic Thoughts boss Jono Vernon-Powell said Sri Lanka was coming back quickly for his company, while Transindus’s managing director Amrit Singh said she’d seen overwhelming interest in the Silk Road region.
Explore’s Hopkins added the operator was seeing a search for travel to cooler climates such as the Nordic region, and a real interest in “dark skies” trips to see the Northern Lights or stargazing in the Jordan desert, for example.
TTG Media has been the trade media partner of ATN since its inception.
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