ReadeRsdigest.co.in 31travel dates and companions, letting
them handle the rest. It won’t all be per-
fectly app-predictable, though. Climate
change will mean that many summer
destinations will become less idyllic,
leading to tourism switching to new
places. The deepening climate crisis will
also lead to various regions becoming
more dangerous in terms of hurricanes
and tsunami risks. Heading further into
the future, we’re also going to see a few
travel experiences disappear because of
the damage we’re doing to the environ-
ment: Visit coral reefs and go on safaris
as soon as possible—if those are on your
bucket list—those plants and animals
might not be there for much longer. New
experiences will arrive, on the other
hand—giant malls in the Middle East are
already providing experiences from ski-
ing to diving indoors.
Another inevitable prospect is regula-
tion: Most major tourist hubs are already
groaning under the influx of thousands
of holidaymakers, so expect higher tour-
ist taxes, or even limits on the number of
tourists allowed. After all, we live in a
time where even Mount Everest is over-
crowded with tourists! There’s also likely
to be political instability worldwide, of
course, but you’ll have to look beyond
travel AI to keep track of that. Plane travel
might not get significantly faster, but air-
lines will deploy lower-carbon-footprint
technology, airport check-ins will turn
biometric—more invasive, but more effi-
cient, they’ll claim—and luggage will get
smarter and more difficult to lose despite
airlines’ best efforts. You’ll have more
stay options—post-Airbnb home-renting
experiences, social travel companies,
new tools for interfacing between tour-
ists and locals. Better live translation
technology should also open up coun-
tries not yet saturated by tourists, and
help you find what you want within your
holidays—whether it’s moments of gen-
uine disconnected calm, or a customized
checklist of images that will generate the
most envy when you share them online.
When augmented reality goes main-
stream, you’ll be able to interact with the
cities you visit in more interesting ways
that cater to your tastes—algorithms will
figure out whether you want to experi-
ence more history, culture, nightlife or
food, and guide you accordingly as you
wander. Further in the future, you’ll be
exploring crowdsourced social travel,
human-free robot-assisted living and my
personal fascination, virtual holidays.
For people from our part of the world,
the worst part of international travel is
waiting for visas before you can over-
spend in parts of the world that don’t
really want you there. It’s also unlikely
that moon tourism or deep-sea tourism
will be accessible to non-billionaires in
our lifetimes. So the idea of VR holidays
is fascinating—more so if you also ima-
gine historical tourism, fictional amuse-
ment parks or virtual interactive experi-
ences where you travel through real and
imaginary places of your choosing. Of
course, that’s also called reading a book,
so maybe we should all just get out
instead: The world is still beautiful, and
there’s so much of it we haven’t seen.Reader’s Digest