Gen Z Is Ditching Package Holidays for Good

The "Ditching Package Holidays" trend finally has hard numbers behind it. A decade after the all-inclusive, wristband-style break defined youth travel, new research shows under-25s building trips around culture, hobbies and lesser-known places instead of hotel-centric formats and predictable party hotspots.

According to Dragonpass, 47% of Gen Z travelers actively seek emerging, lesser-known or trending destinations, while half want holidays where they live like a local rather than staying inside a hotel bubble. More than half now build trips around hobbies, food, culture or specific interests instead of defaulting to the beach format. Two in five prioritize solo travel and feel confident planning alone.

The turnaround from 2016 is stark. That year, more than half of young adults took a package holiday abroad, and the all-inclusive resort strip was the default setting for a first trip with friends. Today, younger travelers are moving decisively away from that model, treating the destination and the accommodation as parts of the experience itself rather than fixed-format inclusions.

Five destinations illustrate the shift. In Montenegro, interest centers on Kotor Bay and Durmitor National Park — coastline, hiking and historic towns rather than resort complexes. Albania draws travelers with its Riviera, value, food culture and locally run stays in historic cities like Gjirokastër. Cape Verde offers music, water sports and island-hopping between São Vicente and Sal. South Korea trips are built around Seoul neighbourhoods such as Hongdae and Itaewon plus Busan's coastal districts. And Taiwan rewards discovery-driven itineraries: Taipei's night markets, island rail travel and the Taroko Gorge.

Gen Z vs Millennials: what the bookings say

Booking data published by IndexBox tells a similar story across generations. Researchers examined nearly five thousand youth-travel reservations from the previous twelve months and split travelers into generational cohorts. Thailand came out on top for Gen Z with a 29.2% share of bookings — the highest figure recorded for either group — while Australia led for Millennials. Cambodia, Laos and New Zealand all made Gen Z's top ten without appearing on the Millennial ranking; Japan, Greece and Iceland did the reverse.

Social feeds help explain the gap. Clips mimicking the mobile game Temple Run inside Cambodia's Angkor Wat have passed two million views, while Laos's Kuang Si waterfalls keep landing on bucket lists. Thailand's draw is price: Koh Tao reportedly offers the world's cheapest scuba-diving certification. New Zealand's appeal links to its working-holiday visa, open to eighteen-to-thirty-five-year-olds for up to three years — an option many Millennials have aged out of. Travel expert Jane McLellan-Green summed up the price gap: a five-pound coffee in Reykjavik is a hard sell for Gen Z when the same money covers a night's stay in Vientiane.

The crowd factor matters too. Three in four Gen Z travelers say they would pick a lesser-known location over a popular one, half have deliberately planned quieter trips, and one in three say overcrowding ruined a past holiday — figures that help explain the pull away from packed resort strips.

What it means for your next booking

Agoda's Travel Outlook survey of Asian travelers found Gen Z travel increasingly experience-led: cultural exploration, outdoor activities and culinary discoveries top the motivation list, while nearly three in four plan between one and six trips a year — mostly short stays of a week or less. Nearly a quarter choose off-peak periods to trim their environmental impact, and almost two in five look for stays with recognized sustainability certifications.

For readers, the practical upshot is clear. A quarter of young travelers now bypass online travel agencies entirely, booking direct instead; feeds and maps have replaced the brochure; and shoulder-season, indie-stay itineraries stretch budgets further. Nearly a third of Gen Z call travel a higher financial priority than saving for a home, and a quarter typically book the next trip right after returning — the Ditching Package Holidays mindset is a habit, not a phase.

The package is not quite dead, though. All-inclusive deals still win on price protection and convenience for families and first-time travelers, and big operators are already rebranding around experience-led bundles to meet the shift halfway. The Ditching Package Holidays wave is real, but it is also a story of who can afford to travel independently — time-rich, feed-fluent young travelers are leading it.

Whether the shift holds through the next downturn, one thing is clear: the default youth holiday no longer comes with a wristband. Related reading: the room-rotting getaway, AI travel planning, and lore-tripping.