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The Future Laboratory headlines TTG Luxury Travel Summit

Christopher Sanderson at TTG Luxury Travel Summit, UK

UK – Purpose-driven company philosophies, sustainability mindsets and changes in customer expectations for traveller experiences were all topics at the annual TTG Luxury Travel Summit, held in London on 3 November 2023.

The summit offered a state-of-the-industry discussion on the theme of The Future is Now: Designing a Business for Purpose and Prosperity, and explored issues affecting the current and future landscape for travel. The Future Laboratory co-founder Christopher Sanderson was a headline speaker at the event, highlighting how luxury travellers and a pent-up demand for global travel will fuel a tourism sector recovery.

But companies will need to embrace sustainability, innovation and ever-merging categories to stay ahead, he explained. ‘We are embarking upon a new era in luxury travel, one that is driven by The Transformation Economy and where throwaway interactions are traded for more meaningful, purpose-driven moments.’

Sanderson went on to unpack three key traveller mindsets that are driving new behaviours for the luxury travel sector: Illuminating Escapes will see aspirational consumers seeking hyper-personal holidays that bring educational experiences and moments of personal growth to the fore; Bleisure is becoming redefined as blended travel that shifts away from a work-centric focus to one that prioritises autonomy, balance and leisure; Supercharged Sustainability means thinking beyond impact prevention with hospitality brands needing to take on board sustainable solutions without failing to meet guests’ expectations of luxury hospitality.

Strategic opportunity

Look out for a detailed report on key topics discussed at the TTG event and what they mean for your business, coming soon to LS:N Global’s dedicated Travel & Hospitality and Luxury sector analysis

Are hybrid meat-vegetables the future of cultivated meat?

Broccopork, Mushchicken and Peaf by Leyu Li, The Netherlands

The Netherlands – At Dutch Design Week in October 2023, London-based food designer Leyu Li showcased three conceptual products combining lab-grown meat with vegetables.

Named Broccopork (broccoli and pork), Mushchicken (mushroom and chicken) and Peaf (peas and beef), Li’s inventions imagine meat tissue cells grown on a vegetable’s surface to create a new type of cultivated meat. Although the products are currently imaginary, Li consulted cellular agriculture company Hoxton Farms to ensure the products were science-backed and plausible.

Under a pseudonym account named Meaty Aunties, Li promoted the products to a virtual audience on TikTok, aiming to explore whether customers would be more open to buying cultivated meat (grown from real animal cells) if it came in the form of vegetables.

The Meaty Auntie TikTok videos have reached up to 4m views, with viewers equally intrigued and repulsed by the invention. But while Li’s products might seem far-fetched now, our recent Cultivated Meat market report revealed how lab-grown meat has already reached restaurant tables.

Strategic opportunity

High-end restaurants should consider introducing cultivated meat dishes from innovative products such as Li’s and position themselves as tech trailblazers for a higher price point

New tool allows artists to poison AI models to protect their work from scraping

US – A pioneering tool named Nightshade is placing the power back into the hands of artists by enabling them to sow chaos in AI models that appropriate their creations without consent. This follows outrage from swathes of artists condemning AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, Meta and Stability AI for using their work to train their generative AI models.

Ben Zhao and his team at the University of Chicago found inspiration in poison to create Nightshade. As AI training models often associate images with text descriptions found in metadata, the tool will manipulate the latter to create confusion. A dog picture, for example, is usually paired with the word dog in its metadata. Nightshade disrupts this pairing by making subtle alterations to the image, making it appear like a cat to AI models while still looking like a dog to humans. The goal is to contaminate future AI models so that companies have to revert to older versions or stop using artists’ works altogether.

As explored in The Future of Responsible AI, consumers and elected officials can and will have the potential to compel technology companies to do better. Acknowledging artists’ rights and providing compensation is the start of worldwide calls for more AI regulation.

Gaudism.AI

Strategic opportunity

Develop fair compensation models for artists whose work is integrated into AI applications or products within your business – promoting ethical practices

Stat: Junk food sales soar in India as industry turns to new markets

Mosa Meat, The Netherlands

India – According to Bloomberg, regulations, greater public health awareness and the popularity of appetite-suppressing drugs have slowed sales of packaged and processed food and drinks in Western markets, leaving the junk food industry in need of a new frontier.

It has consequently turned to populous emerging economies such as India, threatening a national health crisis.

Sales of snacks and soft drinks have almost tripled in India in the past decade, exceeding £24.2bn ($30bn, €27.9bn) in 2022. Unilever, which produces items such as mayonnaise and ice cream, expects the country to become its largest source of revenue within a decade.

Although extreme hunger still affects much of India, the opposite problem is now also true. In the past three decades of swift economic development and urbanisation, the adult obesity rate has more than tripled. According to the World Obesity Federation, among children, the annual rise in India is the steepest in the world.

At LS:N Global we’re tracking how weight loss drugs are affecting indulgence across the globe. For more information, look out for our upcoming Weight Loss Market report.

Strategic opportunity

As India wakes up to the health implications of increased junk food consumption, a gap in the market will appear for healthier alternatives to items such as fizzy drinks, crisps and sweets