Luxury travel has long reflected deeper shifts in cultural behaviour. In 2025, it’s women who are shaping its next evolution. Across categories, from adventure itineraries to executive mobility, women are travelling more, and more deliberately.
Two overlapping trends stand out: the rise of women-only and small-group travel, and the continued growth of bleisure travel, which is the increasingly fluid space between business and leisure. Historically treated as separate phenomena, they’re now beginning to converge. For many accomplished women, they are part of a broader recalibration of time, autonomy, and connection.
Today’s version of the women’s trip looks different than it did even five years ago. According to Virtuoso, interest in women-focused travel rose significantly in the last year. It now includes everything from glacier hiking in Iceland to art immersion in Kyoto. Bookings are increasingly coming from women, often friends or professional peers, who are seeking a blend of cultural depth and downtime.
In the most forward-thinking programs, itineraries are designed by women, for women, with a focus on safety, agency, and cultural access. This is part of a wider trend: women now account for 71% of all solo travel bookings globally. According to Skift Research, nearly 40% of women say they’re planning a solo trip in 2025.
Rather than being a means for escape, these trips often return to something that gets lost inside routines: extended conversation, shared experience, and time not marked by deadlines or obligation.
Meanwhile, bleisure travel continues to gain traction. The market is expected to grow by around 500% or more in the next decade. Hilton’s 2025 Travel Trends report notes that nearly 30% of global travellers now take trips with "frolleagues", or friends who are also colleagues.
It’s increasingly common to extend a work trip by a few days, whether to explore a new city, reconnect with colleagues in a different context, or simply break from the pace of back to back meetings. In an environment where executive output is constant, a shift in physical context can reset thinking, especially when shared with peers who understand the same pressures.
Companies are adjusting. AllFly, a corporate travel platform, reports that one in four travellers extends their work trip. They've also introduced split-pay features, allowing personal and business expenses to be seamlessly divided. The more aspirational the destination, the more likely travellers are to extend. 42% of business travellers sent to Hawaii for business stay on longer, an indicator of how location shapes behavior.
This aligns with a broader behavioral shift: women in leadership are increasingly choosing to build recovery and connection into the structure of their professional lives. A work trip may be the starting point, but the add-on, like a solo hike, a villa weekend, a new city, is where decompression happens.
The travel industry is beginning to respond more directly to the expectations of experienced female travellers. Business Traveller notes the rise of female-led tour companies and hospitality brands rethinking everything from safety protocols to concierge services.
Hotels like Accor and Marriott are introducing layered security and better room placement for solo travellers. Female travel planners are building trips with more flexible pacing and richer cultural immersion, recognizing that the desire isn’t always to disconnect, but to go deeper.
And then there’s the scale: according to Condor Ferries, women now influence 82% of all travel decisions and are projected to control 75% of discretionary spend by 2028. Women are driving demand across nearly every category in the travel sector.
What connects these trends, in group, solo, business, and leisure, is a shift in how travel is being used. Increasingly, it’s not about escape or spectacle, but rather about recalibration. For women who lead, time off is a way to restore clarity, re-enter their roles sharper, and create memories with the people who matter.
Popular destinations reflect this: Lisbon, Mexico City, and Kyoto for solo design-forward trips; the Dolomites, Morocco, and Iceland for active, small-group itineraries. Wellness retreats are trending less around detox, and more around self-care.
In 2025, women are using travel to curate not just experience, but perspective. It’s not an escape from work. And it’s not a reward for burnout. It’s becoming part of how many successful women maintain pace, presence, and clarity.
And increasingly, they’re choosing to do it together.
Sources:
Virtuoso 2024 Luxury Travel Trends
The Women Traveler, Key Data and Insights – Skift Research, 2024
Travel Trends: Wander Women by Yi-Hwa Hanna, 2025
Bleisure Travel: The Rise Of Mixing Business With Pleasure by Roger Sands, 2024
