PROGRESS REPORT

ISSUE #143

Growth for One

In 2014, I traveled to Colombia by myself for two weeks. Despite many trips around the world, this was my first time setting off solo. When I told friends and family I'd be traveling alone, I sensed confusion, tinged with worry. Heads tilted and brows furrowed. “Are you ok?” they asked. “Why would you want to do that?” they judged.

At the time, traveling alone was rare. Instagram travel influencers were just barely emerging, r/solotravel had been around for only four years, and r/femaletravels wouldn’t start for another seven. Eat Pray Love was one of the few cultural references contrasting the typical image of a 20-something backpacker. Against this backdrop, it’s no wonder that my friends and family responded like they did.

But I didn’t fit the stereotypes—I was an established professional with a full life, a partner, and friends. I was about to start a new job and looking to break from my everyday life, learn about a new place, and reset for my next chapter.

That trip ended up being some of the most memorable travel I've done. I watched locals erupt into spontaneous dance on street corners. I delighted in chocolate con queso—a cheesy bread dipped in thick, sweet hot chocolate. I met people directly impacted by the cocaine trade and learned the extent to which it haunts the Colombian people. Without someone to help pass the time, I felt a heightened level of attention, absorbing more of the people and place than I normally would have sightseeing and dining with a travel buddy.

Growth for One: The Boom of Solo Travel

Fast forward 11 years. I have now encouraged and helped plan solo trips for myself and those close to me. This includes floral school in Italy, a painting holiday in the South of France, a yoga retreat in the Netherlands, a dance festival in Romania, and homestays in the mountain villages of Uzbekistan.

Back then, I was an anomaly. Now, solo travel is the fastest-growing segment in the travel industry. The global solo travel market is expected to grow nearly 15% in the next five years to $1.07 trillion (€923M). Google searches for “solo travel” have shot up 223% over the past decade and 20% in the last year alone. According to The American Express 2024 Global Travel Trends Report, 76% of Millennials and Gen Z were planning solo trips in 2025. But it’s not just young backpackers. People of all ages and walks of life—professionals, parents, pensioners alike—are embracing solo travel. Hilton’s Annual Trends Report for 2025 showed that 47% of all travelers “often” travel by themselves.

More interesting than the rise is how industries are enabling this ‘growth for one,’ responding to the demand for solo travel as a mainstream, legitimate, and lucrative market. At Hilton, food and beverage teams are trained to identify and cater to the needs of 'MeMooners' (their name for solo trips), incorporating design elements like an odd number of bar stools and a variety of table types in their dining areas. Travel companies are providing airport transfers and personal safety devices to help solo travelers feel safe and secure while traveling alone. Clothing retailer REI “is expanding their one-person gear lineup and offering workshops that build confidence in going alone.” Other industries are adapting as well.

How did a once niche (and frankly, stigmatized) idea become normalized, even celebrated? Cultural momentum is helping: more people are living alone, experiencing greater financial independence, and, as The Economist recently put it, “The rise of singlehood is reshaping the world.” But there’s a commercial strategy at play as well. The companies recognizing and responding to solo travelers are also shedding traditional ways of thinking about growth.

A New Playbook for Growth

Brands often think of growing share of category, as defined by demographics: how can we grow the share of 21-35 year old urban dwelling females buying our product? Slightly more modern, data-rich brands might think of audiences in terms of behaviors: how can we grow our share of high frequency users? But as identities become increasingly complex and self-formed (as this piece by SYLVAIN strategist Edouard N'diaye beautifully describes), these ways of thinking about the opportunity in an audience become more outdated.

Solo travelers may not share demographics, but they do share common mindsets. They're craving more autonomy, independence, and freedom to explore on their own terms. They're seeking personal challenges and growth through authentic cultural immersion. They find focus, ease, and calm when they're alone—not loneliness. By catering to these mindsets brands are meaningfully driving innovation and growth in travel. What would have been lost if instead these companies prioritized competing for more young, female backpackers?

Seeing the Forest and the Trees

What if we embraced understanding demographically diverse audiences through common mindsets, and all of the complexity that comes with that? What if we accepted the unexpected truth that my travel needs may look more like my parents’ than my friends’? As one of my favorite thinkers, Esther Perel, would say—complex situations are “a paradox to manage, not a problem to solve.”

Here are a few ways to get started:

Break down your boxes.
People no longer fit into neat segments defined by age, marital status, or life stage. A married professional may have the same need as a Gen Z consumer. Are there common attitudes, modes, or needs that might transcend demographics, and perhaps even capture a larger swath of your audience? How can you design for these instead of age and life stage? Ikea has grown their mattress business by targeting those who want to sleep better and sending them Instagram DMs in the middle of the night, when they’re likely to be tossing and turning.

Build it, so they may come.

The solo travel industry is booming thanks not only to an emerging consumer need, but also to the brands that are creating demand. What if we experimented with incremental innovations to an existing product or service experience, as a front door for new audiences, letting the product grow the market? Airbnb continues to invest in Experiences as a way to grow their user base beyond tourists looking for short-term rentals.

Change the conversation.
Many businesses think within the context of 'category share'—existing sets of mainstream consumers already part of an established category. But solo travelers represent a new market that potentially expands the category. Once stigmatized, it took cultural shifts to legitimize solo travel into a now-accepted thing. What are the deeper, societal-level attitudes and mindsets that, if changed, would unlock new demand for your product or service? For decades, Nespresso has done this across the world, turning at-home coffee into a ritual both normalized and desired, moving coffee culture beyond cafés.

Solo travel teaches us that when brands relax the instinct to ‘type’ their audiences or compete for a narrow set of customers, they can be a part of the next big thing. How will your brand find a nascent niche and grow it into something as major, commercial, and delightful as solo travel?

About The Writer

Sherzad is a Partner at SYLVAIN and leads its EMEA business from Amsterdam. She built her career client-side in the tech industry, running global brand and marketing strategy teams for fast-growing brands like Uber. A California native, Sherzad brings a background in psychology and a passion for global cultures (she has traveled to nearly 50 countries and lived in four) to her work and teams.

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Progress Report is a bi-weekly newsletter of business considerations, cultural conversations, and fun recommendations from around the world and web.