The founder of a luxury hotel chain says today's tourists look nothing like they did 30 years ago

• Banyan Group laminitis Kwon Ping Ho has spent implicit 30 years successful the hospitality industry.

• Ho's luxury edifice concatenation launched its archetypal edifice successful 1994 and present operates implicit 90 hotels globally.

• Ho told BI that tourists contiguous person vastly antithetic expectations from their parents' generation.

Kwon Ping Ho has travel a agelong mode since helium opened his archetypal edifice successful Phuket successful 1994.

Ho's luxury edifice chain, Banyan Group, present operates implicit 90 hotels worldwide, including successful countries similar Cuba and Saudi Arabia. The 72-year-old told Business Insider that it's not conscionable his institution that's changed. His customers look overmuch antithetic than they did 3 decades ago, and they privation antithetic things retired of travel.

"When you speech astir the radical of my generation, erstwhile planetary question conscionable started, radical were blessed to spell connected radical tours. They conscionable spell to a edifice and they devour successful a hotel," Ho said connected the sidelines of the International Conference connected Cohesive Societies held successful Singapore past month.

"But young radical contiguous person agelong go jaded astir planetary travel. They've been traveling with their parents," helium added. "Today, erstwhile they're traveling connected their own, they are looking overmuch much for things that are retired of the way."

Ho said today's much seasoned travelers are a vastly antithetic breed from yesterday's checklist sightseers.

"They are overmuch much into experiences, and not conscionable to spot thing beauteous due to the fact that they've astir apt seen that, done that with their parents already. They are looking astatine experiences which are deeper and let them to interact with the section community," helium continued.

Ho isn't the lone 1 who has noticed the generational displacement taking place.

Last year, McKinsey surveyed 5,000 travelers from China, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the US. The consultancy said that 52% of Gen Zers surveyed said they are consenting to splurge connected question experiences compared to 29% of babe boomers surveyed.

"One-size-fits-all tourism offerings of the past person grown outdated" arsenic travelers question "creative experiences that are tailored to their priorities and idiosyncratic narratives," McKinsey wrote.

Another alteration Ho said helium noticed was successful the countries from which tourists tended to hail and the places that they chose to visit.

"When I archetypal started successful hospitality 30 years ago, the quality of tourism was 1 absorption and 1 color," Ho said. "It was fundamentally achromatic radical from Europe, traveling successful 1 direction, from westbound to east."

"Over the years, what I telephone 'rainbow tourism' has travel up due to the fact that of expanding wealthiness successful different processing countries," helium added.

Ho said this has led to a "multicolored, multifaceted, breathtaking tourism of radical from each implicit the satellite traveling to each implicit the world."

"You've got Indians, you've got Africans, you've got Arabs, you've got Chinese, and Japanese, and truthful on, and past of people you've got young radical from wrong the region," helium continued. "That to maine has been the biggest change."

In January, UN Tourism's World Tourism Barometer said an estimated 1.4 cardinal tourists traveled internationally successful 2024, an 11% summation implicit 2023. UN Tourism said it expected planetary tourism accomplishment numbers to turn by 3% to 5% successful 2025.

Read the archetypal nonfiction connected Business Insider