Egypt was one of the big cultural tourism trends for 2024, as was Japan. Indeed, as travellers schlepped their roll-ons halfway across the world to see ancient relics and antiquities, in Australia no fewer than three major Egyptian blockbuster exhibitions were presented, as well as the virtual reality experience Horizon of Khufu, immersing visitor in the wonders of Ancient Egypt.
Last week, the Australian cultural tourism specialist, Renaissance Tours, released its 2025 itineraries, within days of the Australian Museum (AM) announcing its next blockbuster, Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru (23 November – February 2025), and the National Gallery of Victoria releasing its attendance figures for the popular Pharaoh blockbuster exhibition, with more than 336,000 local, interstate and international visitors acting on their fascination for Egypt.
It was a success echoed by AM’s earlier exhibition, Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs – which clocked 508,000 visitors streamed through its doors, and the National Museum of Australia, which wrapped up its Discovering Egypt exhibition with the announcement of its next blockbuster, Pompeii (13 December – 4 May 2025).
Clearly, our passion for ancient cultures and exotic locations continues to drive both tourism and blockbuster exhibition trends. These exhibitions offer a way to bring the world to you when you can’t afford the expert-led tour, but how do these disparate strands fit together?
ArtsHub takes a look at the tourism sector’s trends and offerings for 2025, back-to-back with exhibitions at home, to better understand how we can tap into authentic cultural experiences, and how they are being sold to us both at home and abroad.
Read: Machu Picchu and Incan treasures come to Sydney
Expert-led tours shaping cultural tourism
Working in the arts, we have high expectations and are pretty self-driven when it comes to cultural tourism. Let’s face it, any international travel for arts professionals is a blend of work and life. That is why collector tours, often attached to art museums, foundations or societies, are so popular. They pull on sector expertise both as hosts and at venues.
But not everyone belongs to such a ‘group’, so operators are looking at ways to fill the gap. Managing Director of the Australian cultural experience company, Renaissance Tours, Evan Petrelis explains, “When we ask those who travel frequently with us why they keep returning, more than two-thirds say that the number one reason … is because of our tour leaders.
“Our tour leaders are not tour guides, breathlessly expounding facts and figures. They are subject-matter experts, who love nothing more than to share their enthusiasm for their specific fields of interest with others and to provide an exceptional travel experience,” continues Petrelis.
What sets Renaissance Tours apart, unlike a museum blockbuster exhibition imported to Australia, is that your ‘museum guide’ travels with you. It offers specialist-led tours for opera, music, ballet, visual arts, architecture and history – all wrapped up as bucket-list destinations. The only spoiler is that they can be expensive.
Among the specialists are arts broadcaster Claudia Chan Shaw, art historian and critic Christopher Allen, journalist and author Joyce Morgan, ABC Classic broadcaster Christopher Lawrence, opera buff ABC broadcaster Mairi Nicolson and archaeologist Iain Shearer – all taking their expertise on the road.
Examples include the Scandinavian Serenade tour of world-class opera and orchestral performances led by writer, editor and former ABC presenter Phillip Sametz, or author and broadcaster Lucienne Joy, leading punters on a tour that discovers why the French Riviera has been a source of inspiration for countless writers and artists over the centuries. That tour visits the favourite haunts of luminaries like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Pablo Picasso across Nice, Saint-Tropez, Monaco and Menton in the South of France.
They also tap into the biggest trend in tourism today – authentic connections.
Read: So you want my arts job: Arts Broadcaster
Riding the travel sector trends at home and abroad
A number of the major tour operators have announced their predictions for travel trends for 2025. While Egypt stays on the list for many operators, 2025 is promising some new equally exotic trends.
Archaeologist Iain Shearer is leading a tour in 2025 across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, a destination that Wild Frontiers predicts as an emerging trending destination. It also adds the Silk Road routes of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia, while Expedia opts for Abu Dhabi in the UAE.
Renaissance Tours and Trafalga are in sync, predicting that Albania and the Balkan regions of Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina are hot travel spots for 2025 – another destination that Shearer will lead a tour to – with Trafalga also including Tunisia in Northern Africa, while Expedia nominates Namibia in Africa as a trending destination next year.
Interestingly, among Trafalga’s recommendations for 2025 is Machu Picchu – in sync with the Australian Museum’s blockbuster.
Reims in France is one of Expedia’s Top 10 Trending Destinations for 2025, adding to its list northern Spain and the Basque Country, Croatia, Portugal and Costa Rica – destinations for which Renaissance Tours has crafted cultural itineraries, riding that wave of trending destinations.
Read: What’s changed in cultural tourism?
Overall, it is safe to say that while travel costs continue to spiral upwards post-COVID, so too do the demands for authentic, experience-led connections.
While in the past, we may have been cynical that cultural tourism was just a watered-down ‘sell-y’ option parcelled up by cruises or tour group operators, this tainted perception seems to have matured into a specialist industry that calls on arts professionals to lead the experiences.
And, balancing out the offering – and the budget – those same professionals are just as likely to be seen hosting public programs for blockbuster exhibitions at home.
