Staying Current: 2023 Cultural Vernacular

Staying Current: 2023 Cultural Vernacular

Staying ahead of the cultural curve is a main priority for our strategy and insights team, and that includes keeping up with the constantly evolving world of vocabulary.

With an eye toward the travel, tourism and QSR spaces, where some of our biggest clients exist, we kicked the year off by getting smart on 2023 verbiage that could affect their business.

Below are some of the key words or phrases you need to know to stay savvy in 2023.

TWaTs

What it is: An acronym that stands for Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays.

Why it matters in 2023: Fears early in the covid-19 pandemic that people would never return to offices were misplaced, but so were hopes that people’s working habits would eventually return to normal. Instead, many workers have fallen into a pattern of traveling to the office only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (aka “TWaT”). For bars and restaurants, this means a packed house on Thursday evenings as workers say farewell to each other and make the most of their new in-the-city Friday. For coffee shops and cafes, this means slower Mondays and Fridays with outsized business on TWaT days. Luckily, both businesses can adapt fairly easily by planning ahead and altering shift rotas.

Read more about this nickname for hybrid workers.

Vertiport

What it is: Half-airport, half-subway station, that allows evtols (electric, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft) to be integrated with existing transport networks, such as road and rail.

Why it matters in 2023: Air taxis, also known as flying cars or evtol (electric, vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft, are essentially multirotor drones that are large enough to carry people. Several firms around the world hope such vehicles will win regulatory approval in 2023 as a fast, sustainable form of urban transport. But evtols can’t take off and land just anywhere. Instead, they will need designated places to do so—so-called vertiports. All of this poses a new challenge to architects and urban designers, who are already coming up with some distinctive designs, and of course begs the question of how traditional modes of transportation will be permanently altered if evtols really take off (pun intended).

Is it time to get on board with vertiports?

Mixed reality

What it is: Mixed reality is an alternative, computer-generated reality that allows real and virtual items to interact.

Why it matters in 2023: Virtual reality (vr) is like wearing a digital blindfold—it blots out the real world and immerses you in an alternative, computer-generated reality. Augmented reality (ar), by contrast, superimposes computer-generated elements onto your view of the real world. Mixed reality (xr or mr) goes a step further by allowing real and virtual items to interact. For example, you might play a game of table tennis in which the paddles are real, but the ball is computer generated. It is also a less clunky term than augmented reality, which makes it more likely to catch on. This seems like a natural next step in the progression of our worlds and the lines between real and fake becoming increasingly blurred, and as the percentage of adults who have never lived without tech grows, it stands to reason that mixed reality’s presence in our daily lives will also grow.

Further reading on another alternative reality, The Metaverse, from our CTO, David Stewart.

Cislunar

What it is: The space between Earth and the orbit of the moon.

Why it matters in 2023: America intends to send astronauts to the Moon in the next few years, with the long-term goal of establishing a permanent base there. As part of its Artemis program it intends to put a space station, called the Lunar Gateway, in orbit around the Moon to act as a communications hub, science laboratory and short-term living space. Lunar Gateway is set to launch in 2024, but a series of preparatory robotic missions to the Moon will blast off in 2023. Things are heating up in “cislunar” space, and it may be the start of a totally new travel destination that will become more and more accessible in the decades to come.

Learn more about cislunar space, the new frontier.

How you use this information is up to you, and will depend on the unique brands and situations you’re working with.

In our case, the strategy and insights team received a great deal of interest around vertiports from our tourism clients, and we agreed that it’s key to stay ahead of this particular trend in order to keep our partners at the forefront of tech and innovation in the tourism space.