guest messaging, cleaner workflows and fewer repetitive admin tasks. Wyndham’s own platforms show where this is heading. More than 5,000 hotels have adopted Wyndham Connect, logging nearly 12 million guest interactions. According to the company, hotels on Wyndham Connect PLUS have seen almost 200 basis points of improvement in direct voice conversion and 400 basis points in overall guest satisfaction. In a nutshell, the lesson is: stop asking whether guests want to talk to a robot. Start asking where automation removes friction without removing care. PERSONALISATION GETS A PRICE TAG Personalisation used to mean putting a guest’s name in an email. In 2026, it is much closer to retailing. Amadeus research says 74% of travellers want personalised trips, while a 150-room midscale hotel could generate an additional $1 million annually by monetising six popular stay attributes. These include early and late check-in, room view or floor, personalised welcomes, sleep optimisation, air quality and local experience kits. That is a serious number. It turns personalisation from a marketing slogan into an owner conversation. Travellers are already behaving differently. Marriott Bonvoy research across EMEA found 50% of travellers have used AI to plan or research a holiday, up from 41% the previous year and 26% the year before. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, usage rises to 71%, while half of all respondents said they would be comfortable booking accommodation through AI. Simon-Kucher’s 2026 global travel research points in the same direction, with 42% of travellers using AI for itinerary planning, 33% for translation and 31% for “The future does not belong to the loudest AI strategy, rather the travel companies that make the journey easier to find, easier to buy, easier to manage and easier to love”
Above: 7 in 10 travellers are comfortable with biometric scanning
travel search. Adoption is especially high in Asia and the Middle East, including China at 81%, Saudi Arabia at 76%, India at 71% and the UAE at 64%. The catch: travellers notice when AI gets it wrong. Among dissatisfied users, Simon-Kucher found 52% cited inaccurate responses, 47% said the output felt impersonal and 38% said tools failed to understand their needs. Personalisation needs permission, data quality and restraint. Nobody needs a “curated” offer for a romantic turndown because they once booked a twin room with their accountant. THE CONNECTED TRIP GETS REAL Travel is still messy. Flights, hotels, transfers, activities, payments, visas, weather, staffing, bags and customer service often sit in different systems. AI can make that complexity feel easier, but only if the plumbing connects.
OAG argues that travellers already carry too much of the research burden, citing Travelport data suggesting trip planning involved 141 web pages in 2024, up from 38 in 2013. In the US, the figure was 277 pages. Its view is that AI will increasingly carry that burden, assembling options, detecting constraints and managing changes when things go wrong. This matters most during disruption. Amadeus’ Connected Journeys research found 75% of travellers believe disruption shows the true quality of a provider, while 74% are likely to book again if the provider handles a problem well with proactive solutions. Human reassurance still matters, especially for older travellers, but the operational opportunity is obvious: faster updates, automatic rebooking, better compensation handling and joined-up service recovery. Airlines are already testing this. Amadeus and Microsoft identify agentic
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