Will Experience Gifts Keep Growing?

The numbers from the National Retail Federation’s 2025 holiday survey were hard to ignore: spending on experience-based gifts rose 19% year-over-year while physical gift sales flatlined. For anyone tracking consumer psychology, the shift isn’t new, but the acceleration is. What’s less obvious is whether the momentum will hold once the post-pandemic travel frenzy cools.

The psychology that won’t go back in the bottle

Experience gifts tap into a well-documented paradox in behavioral economics — hedonic adaptation. A review published in Psychological Science found that material purchases trigger faster hedonic adaptation than experiential ones. The espresso machine becomes kitchen counter wallpaper within weeks. The truffle-hunting weekend in Tuscany keeps resurfacing in conversation years later, its emotional payload regenerating each time the memory is recalled.

This isn’t about millennials rejecting stuff. It’s about a fundamental recalibration of what counts as status. When everyone can order the same designer lamp on their phone, the lamp stops signaling taste. Mastercard’s global spending data shows that “in-person experiences” — concerts, workshops, guided mountain treks — have outpaced durable goods spending by a factor of 3.7 since 2022. The calculus is shifting: owning less signals curation, not deprivation.

The supply side isn’t sitting still

A decade ago, buying someone a pottery class meant printing a voucher from a local studio’s broken website. That friction is dissolving. Airbnb Experiences hit 47,000 listings in 2025, and niche platforms like Tinggly and Virgin Experience Gifts have built APIs that let shoppers layer restrictions, preferences, and digital delivery into a transaction as smooth as buying a toaster on Amazon.

What’s more interesting is the unbundling of luxury. High-end operators no longer own the category. You can now gift a $37 oyster-shucking class in a Brooklyn warehouse, a $60 bee-keeping morning in rural Oregon, or a $15 virtual Japanese tea ceremony. That pricing granularity turns experiential gifting into something repeatable, not just a once-a-year splurge for grandmothers.

The counterwave nobody talks about

The real ceiling on growth might not be disposable income or consumer appetite. It’s calendar depletion. People who have everything also tend to have full schedules. A 2024 survey by Eventbrite found that 28% of gifted experience vouchers go unredeemed within 12 months, not because the recipient didn’t like the idea, but because the 90-day booking window closed before they could find an open Saturday. The same report noted that providers are quietly experimenting with “evergreen” vouchers and concierge scheduling — moves that could push the redemption rate north of 85%.

That operational tweak matters more than any grand cultural narrative. If the industry solves the time-friction problem, experience gifting becomes a habit, not a headline. If it doesn’t, the growth curve flattens into a plateau of good intentions and expired reservations. Either way, the answer to “will experience gifts keep growing?” depends less on what people want and more on whether the logistics catch up with the longing.