This sponsored content material was created in collaboration with a Skift companion.
The standard tourism funnel has been turned the wrong way up as extra customers, particularly youthful generations, search alternatives to “play” once they journey. To fulfill this demand for play, they’re in search of dwell tourism centered on leisure, sports activities, and cultural experiences that aren’t outlined by a specific place however fairly a novel expertise at a particular time in an unforgettable area.
“As a substitute of selecting a vacation spot first, youthful vacationers particularly are actually deciding what kind of experiences they need to take pleasure in earlier than choosing a location that gives these experiences,” stated Ross McAuley, MD advisor and director basic of Play Qiddiya Metropolis DMMO, on the 2025 Skift Megatrends occasion in London. “This shift [toward ‘live tourism’] underscores a rising demand for locations that supply immersive, genuine experiences that transcend conventional sightseeing or ‘fly and flop’ journey.”
In response to a analysis report from Skift and Qiddiya Metropolis, greater than 90% of vacationers aged 44 and youthful agreed that collaborating in leisure, sports activities, and cultural actions once they journey is necessary to their general sense of happiness and well-being. Greater than 75% stated that these kind of play experiences have change into extra central to their journey plans previously 5 years.
Millennials and Gen Z are projected to account for 83 % of resort company by 2030, in keeping with an LG Enterprise Options report, and business leaders investing in the way forward for journey are primarily targeted on this era of vacationers.
Locations like Qiddiya Metropolis — particularly designed as a world-class vacation spot the place play takes heart stage — are fostering dwell tourism constructed round leisure, sports activities, and tradition to create mutually useful alternatives for all stakeholders within the journey enterprise.
“The objective is to share experiences, as a result of you’ll at all times bear in mind how you are feeling,” Mehdi Hemici, chief loyalty officer at Accor, instructed Skift Analysis. “Quite than the place you had been or why you traveled, that emotional side as soon as you’ve got skilled it and shared it with the one you love, your youngsters, your member of the family, your finest good friend, is in the end the emotional connection that we’re attempting to ascertain.”
How Dwell Tourism Drives 12 months-Spherical Funding Returns
Sporting occasions, live shows, and distinctive cultural points of interest have persistently impressed journey and raked in billions of tourism {dollars} yearly. As an illustration, World Market Insights estimated that sports activities tourism alone totaled greater than $600 billion worldwide in 2024, a determine that’s anticipated to double by 2032.
Skift reported that occasions comparable to FIFA’s 2022 World Cup in Qatar had 3.4 million followers, producing an event-record-breaking $5.8 billion, whereas System 1’s worldwide race circuit introduced in 5.7 million attendees in 2022 — up 36% from 2019 — pushing revenues to $2.5 billion.
The financial impression of those experiences is commonly a catalyst for development alternatives, however “funding shouldn’t be reliant on a single occasion,” Dmitri Cooray, Managing Director of Jetwing Lodges in Sri Lanka, instructed Skift. “You want to have the ability to maintain demand in the long run.”
In response to Bloomberg, Qatar’s authorities spent greater than $300 billion on infrastructure initiatives, together with freeway and airport expansions forward of the World Cup, and resort funding continued sturdy following the occasion, as reported by THP. For a single F1 occasion in Las Vegas — the primary of a now-annual occasion within the metropolis — roughly 145,000 guests spent about $561 million. The Taylor Swift impact has been well-documented, producing over $1 billion in direct journey spending within the U.S. in 2023 alone.
One other working example is Sydney, Australia. On a current episode of the Skift Journey Podcast, Pip Harrison, managing director of Tourism Australia, defined that the 2000 Sydney Olympics supercharged the financial system by about 10 years, however not in the way in which one may assume. The tourism bump drove extra visitation within the two or three years following the occasion, a blueprint they’re utilizing once more for the Summer time Olympics coming again to Queensland and Brisbane in 2032.
“We take a look at sporting occasions as moments not simply to fill the stadium; when the eyes of the world are on Australia for a specific occasion, we need to present up and showcase what there’s to see and what there’s to do exterior of the stadium,” Harrison stated.
12 months-round points of interest like these in Orlando, a vacation spot constructed round play, spotlight the worth of constant alternatives for visitation. In response to Go to Orlando, the area’s 74 million guests in 2023 contributed $58.5 billion to its neighborhood and generated a complete financial impression of $92.5 billion — a 5.6% enhance. “That is like internet hosting the Tremendous Bowl almost twice every week for a yr,” the group stated.
Mike Waterman, presently president and CEO of Go to Anaheim, previously labored with Go to Orlando and sees many related alternatives in southern California.
“The great thing about [these destinations] is that yearly as a DMO or CVB, now we have new points of interest, new occasions, new issues to advertise,” Waterman stated on stage on the 2024 World Journey Market. “So whether or not you come yearly or each two or three years, you’re going to have the ability to expertise one thing new.”
How Dwell Tourism Attracts World Guests and Advantages Native Communities
In response to Skift and Qiddiya Metropolis analysis, 93% of journey executives agreed that locations targeted on providing leisure, sports activities, and cultural actions will change into extra necessary within the world tourism panorama within the subsequent 5 years. Moreover, 84% of journey executives stated that they’re enthusiastic about investing in new locations designed completely for leisure, sports activities, and tradition.
Tourism development and growth require thoughtfulness, particularly as cities and areas with dense populations contemplate the constructive economics of extra visitation. The place well-tread locations like Barcelona and Amsterdam need to stem challenges from overtourism, development markets just like the Center East have a possibility to be extra considerate as they construct anew.
As an illustration, Qiddiya Metropolis is rising from the bottom up simply 40 minutes from Riyadh, a metropolitan space with greater than 7 million residents and an airport that noticed 37.2 million passengers in 2024, a 16.6% enhance from the yr prior, in keeping with journey retail writer Moodie Davitt Report. These elements compel Qiddiya Metropolis’s builders to assume holistically about its attraction and strategy.
Locations specializing in play are extra essentially inclusive and extra economically diversified for buyers since they’re catering to all kinds of demographics: sports activities fan bases, pageant goers, thrill-seekers, artwork fans, and critically, a constant move of home vacationers and native residents.
“Whereas Qiddiya Metropolis isn’t a treatment for all societal points, it represents a brand new imaginative and prescient for city residing centered on sustainable existence, fostering connections, and selling well-being,” stated McAuley. “We have now tried to reimagine what cities can provide to complement lives and communities. Individuals are going to dwell right here. It is going to be greater [in area] than the town of Orlando and have over 500,000 residents. In order we construct this grasp plan from nothing, it’s necessary that it’s common and accessible, and everyone seems to be welcome to return and play.”
Waterman agreed with this sentiment. OCVibe, a 100-acre, $4 billion “hub for a vibrant tradition [and] a neighborhood related via shared experiences,” undoubtedly goals to draw Disneyland vacationers to increase their stays in southern California, but it surely’s being constructed primarily for residents.
“Play is totally different for everyone, and I feel for us as entrepreneurs and DMO leaders, now we have to know what folks need to see,” Waterman stated. “And it varies by day, it varies by time of season. So it is [about having] this abundance of riches at our disposal, and in the event that they construct it proper and do it authentically, we’re going to ensure it’s as accessible as doable to each locals and out-of-town guests.”
Why Journey Buyers Ought to Prioritize Dwell Tourism
These classes apply throughout the journey business as world traveler demographics evolve and sentiments and conduct proceed to alter alongside them. Don’t be mistaken: Paris, London, and New York aren’t dropping off the listing of prime vacationer arrivals any time quickly.
Nonetheless, sensible journey executives searching for success within the subsequent period of worldwide tourism can be sensible to diversify their development by investing in locations which might be targeted on dwell tourism and play, which foster seasonality-proof income alternatives, help genuine experiences, and construct symbiotic relationships with the communities of which they’re an element.
“Play thrives on collaboration, and the journey business is inherently collaborative, bringing folks, concepts, and experience collectively to craft immersive experiences that resonate deeply with vacationers worldwide,” stated McAuley. “At its core, this shared course of of dialogue, ideation, and creation embodies the essence of play: vibrant, dynamic, and stuffed with collective power.”
Obtain the report from Skift and Qiddiya Metropolis for in depth analysis and deeper insights into the ability of play and its impression on the way forward for world tourism.
This content material was created collaboratively by Qiddiya Metropolis and Skift’s branded content material studio, SkiftX.
