Travel and hospitality redesigns, live commerce, cloud gaming, hygienic food delivery as well as fitness and well-being are among major trends gathering pace in Thailand, says Wunderman Thompson, a global marketing communications agency.
"The pandemic has been shaping consumer behaviour and the impact will continue to evolve in many sectors so marketers and brands will need to catch up," said Maureen Tan, chief executive of Wunderman Thompson Thailand, discussing the company's annual Future 100 report, which sheds light on the trends shaping 2021.
The report touches upon trends set to go mainstream along with shifts in consumer behaviour across 10 sectors.
According to Ms Tan, the travel and hospitality industry in Thailand has turned to domestic travel while hotels and resorts seek to offer more family-sized packages to capture multigenerational family travels.
"Workcations" represent another big theme for the country's tourism for foreigners while "staycations" would also gather pace as Thais may want stay in hotels and services for a long stay.
"By blurring the lines of being always on and connected to work all the time, consumers can work anywhere and this can be an interesting proposition for Thailand to attract tourists to stay and work remotely from Thailand," said Ms Tan.
Limited Alternative State Quarantine (ASQ) hotels have expanded tremendously in Thailand, offering inbound tourists more family-friendly packages and bespoke experiences during their quarantine period to attract more tourists, she said.
According to Ms Tan, cloud gaming is also on the rise with Amazon, Google, Tencent, Microsoft and Sony joining the foray while the latest contender, Facebook, announced free-to-play cloud-streamed games to its existing Facebook Gaming platform.
"This will make gaming more social and extensive," she said.
The online food delivery industry will grow further, she said. Food delivery packaging will be more scrutinised to respond to consumer's heightened concerns of food safety.
In October 2020, San Francisco strategic agency Designsake Studio unveiled Matter, an antimicrobial protective coating that can be used on materials including paper, card, glass, metal and textiles.
"This may be something Thailand may start adopting for hygienic food packaging or even more sustainable and recyclable food packaging," said Ms Tan.
Live commerce, which features influencers presenting products through live streaming, has been popular in Asian markets for several years and is "experiencing a global boom and Thailand will follow this trend a lot more in 2021," she said.
Health, fitness and wellness also continue their momentum, she said. Organic and super ingredients and home-cooked and fresh food will continue to dominate Thais' efforts towards eating more healthily to build immunity.
Physical fitness is also on the rise with traditional sports and e-sports converging.
"We see sports equipment fitted with GPS to track simulations and multi-athlete work outs from the same sports equipment -- thanks to lockdowns, during which consumers are forced to stay home yet want to stay on track with their fitness goals."
