Meditative travel: The quest for a mindful, jitter-free expedition

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  Quantumrun Foresight
• June 27, 2023

Insight highlights

The travel industry is increasingly integrating meditative services as a strategy to enhance passenger experience and minimize travel-related stress. These include offering hypnotherapy sessions via wellness apps and providing meditation and stretching classes. This trend towards offering meditative add-ons aligns with a broader effort to address common travel stressors like baggage handling and transfers. As the sector anticipates a return to pre-pandemic travel rates, there's potential for these services to become subscription-based, featuring advanced tech equipment, and extend beyond the travel industry as part of broader corporate wellness initiatives.

Meditative travel context

In 2021, travelers surged, reaching closer to pre-pandemic levels of about 2.5 million daily passengers in the US, according to McKinsey’s consultancy firm. A survey by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) of 4,700 respondents from 11 countries showed that 57 percent expected to travel within two months of the pandemic’s containment. Meanwhile, 72 percent planned to travel as soon as they could meet friends and family.

In 2021, long-distance train operator Avanti West Coast started offering a free hypnotherapy session on its trains. The UK-based operator partnered with well-being app Clementine as part of an exclusive offer for those traveling on the West Coast Main Line. Clementine offers sessions to help users relax or be more productive, depending on their needs for their journey. 

Additionally, as of 2021, Avanti Media provides free streaming of Clementine’s selected material on customers’ devices. The sessions are between three and 20 minutes long and focus on visualization techniques. These include recharging to overcome tiredness or feeling overwhelmed, power-napping resources to improve productivity, and confidence-building measures to make users feel more in control.

Also, in 2021, Delta Airlines started providing fitness company Peloton content on its seatback screens. These seatback screens offer five stretching and meditation classes created by Peloton just for Delta Airlines. The classes, which last from five to 20 minutes, are led by well-known instructors like Matty Maggiacomo and Chelsea Jackson Roberts. These particular classes were chosen to help Delta passengers relax or fall asleep.

Disruptive impact

Travel companies are increasingly experimenting with offering add-on meditative services designed to make passengers feel at ease. For example, as of late 2019, the London-based meditation app Headspace has become the go-to app for in-flight meditation, partnering with airlines like Virgin Atlantic. Airlines JetBlue and meditation app Inscape also agreed to bring flying-specific meditations to passengers in 2019. 

Such partnerships between airlines and meditation apps are not surprising. There’s hardly anything more stressful than a delayed flight, checking your bags at the gate, getting stuck in a middle seat, or dealing with limited legroom. And, of course, some people have legitimate flying anxiety. According to a 2019 Air Industry Review survey, baggage collection and transfers are most passengers’ primary stress sources.

As more people return to their routine travels for work and leisure, travel companies will continue to explore how meditation apps and hypnotherapy can eliminate some of these passenger anxieties. These services can expand to include program subscriptions, including premium equipment, such as head-mounted devices and smart glasses. 

Additionally, as these services become normalized, their applications can extend outside the travel industry, including helping people sleep well or focus on tasks. Companies can also offer these subscription programs to their employees as part of their wellness initiatives, particularly healthcare workers and military personnel.

Implications of meditative travel

Wider implications of meditative travel may include: 

• Ride-sharing apps incorporating meditation guides for commuters to help them relax through traffic.


• Airlines and railway operators partnering with more meditation apps and devices to be competitive, encouraging startups to focus on this space.


• Advanced meditative programs, such as live guided therapies and sessions, being offered to first-class or premium passengers.


• Increased opportunities for meditation and therapy professionals to design travel-specific programs.


• More passengers downloading meditation apps as traveling increases.

Questions to comment on

• If you use meditative apps for traveling, how have they helped you?


• What are other possible applications for meditative apps?