Meet Milda – a Cultural Purist who values travel experiences over things

Ah! These ‘Cultural Purists’ use travel as an opportunity to completely immerse themselves in an unfamiliar culture, looking to break away entirely from their home lives and engage sincerely with different ways of life. Their enjoyment depends on the realism of the experience of being a true-born native. Fascinating isn’t it?

If the world is liberalising with borders becoming fluid, cultures melding, and markets intertwining, then this will undoubtedly bring many benefits for tourists. But for Cultural Purists, these drivers are taking away some of the diversity, authenticity, and mystery from the world. Or would they go a step further in finding new frontiers for themselves? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

Research will be sparing, and they will be inimical to pre-planning, preferring instead to follow their gut instinct for what is profound and legitimate over what is superficial, populist and commercial. They may avoid well-known research sources, or consult them only to get a sense of which are the well-rated and commercially successful destinations, attractions, and hotels that they should be avoiding. They will be educated, demanding and self-assured, and though they pose challenges to travel brands in this respect, their open-mindedness and receptiveness to propositions out of the ordinary also present terrific opportunities to airlines, rail companies, hotels and other travel players.

It can be argued that globalisation is producing a homogenisation of world cultures, often along Western lines, a trend which is sometimes described as ‘McDonaldisation’. If this is indeed the case, the effects on the number of Cultural Purists we can expect is not clear.

Will a diminishing supply of ‘Culture’ as a commodity decrease or increase demand for it?

Have a look at our Traveller Tribes 2030 report to learn more about Cultural Purist and be sure to have a look at the rest of the Amadeus Travel Lounge videos here .

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