Hilton Predicts Family Travel Will Be on the Rise in 2026

For as many destinations as there are, there is an equally diverse range of reasons to visit. One person might be visiting, say, Stockholm for a new experience, while someone else might be traveling there for the 10th time.

The latest installment of Hilton’s Trends Report covers the year to come, and if the predictions cited within are any indication, 2026 will involve a lot of travel that blends novelty and familiarity. That might mean traveling to a distant destination with some of the people you know best, but it could also involve voyaging to the other side of the world while retaining the comforts of home.

As Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta phrased it, the word the company is using to describe this is the “whycation,” “a global movement rooted in intentionality, where travel begins not with a destination, but with a motivation.” The Hilton 2026 Trends Report is based on findings from the market research company Ipsos, who polled more than 14,000 adult travelers from all over the world on their upcoming travel plans.

If this report is any indication, next year will see an uptick in family travel in a couple of different ways. The survey points to a number of multi-generational groups traveling, some involving parents and children, others involving grandparents and children. Some families have opted for an even more expansive approach: 48% of Hilton staff surveyed saw groups including three or more generations of the same family. (Kind of like the second season of The White Lotus, though presumably with less drama.)

Another element of the trends report focused on “inheritourism,” a term used to describe both travelers whose preferences echo those of their parents and the phenomenon of parents taking their adult children along with them when venturing around the world. Of the travelers surveyed, 66% shared that their parents had influenced their preferred hotels.

Traveling around the world with parents or children (or parents and children) isn’t the only way Hilton predicts travel in 2026 will involve seeking the familiar in new places. One of the running themes of the trends report was the desire of many travelers to look for something recognizable, whether it’s in the type of hotel or eyeing “familiar menu items,” which 79% of the travelers surveyed gravitate towards. As one might expect from a survey that polled thousands of travelers from all over the world, the findings covered a lot of ground and represented some very different approaches to travel. Then again, travel has never shied away from contradictions.