SINGAPORE: Forget self-guided tours and DIY holidays – all-inclusive resorts are experiencing a revival.
Once regarded as convenient but uninspired family destinations, all-inclusive resorts – where the price of stay includes accommodation, meals, drinks and activities – are drawing in Gen-Z travellers with their modern design and amenities.
In 2024, searches on Hotels.com using the “all-inclusive” filter spiked 60 per cent from the year before. In a survey conducted by Expedia Group of over 25,000 travellers, 28 per cent of travellers said their perception of all-inclusive hotels had improved in the last 12 months, and 64 per cent of young travellers had already stayed in an all-inclusive hotel.
Social media is also fuelling interest, as TikTok’s #allinclusive hashtag has appeared in around 200,000 posts worldwide.
Travellers considering all-inclusive hotels shun big-city locations, favouring beach-front properties, wellness and food. This ties in with the rise of detour destinations, where travellers add a side-trip while visiting major cities, for instance to Krabi, Thailand (detour from Phuket), Fukuoka, Japan (from Tokyo) and Reims, France (from Paris).
So what’s driving the rise in interest for all-inclusive stays?