• TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATON
AI opportunities in automated voice rebooking, intelligent marketing, turnaround management and personalised offers. Julie Shainock, Managing Director, Travel, Transport and Logistics at Microsoft, said that “2026 will be a defining year” as airlines move from exploration to deployment. The next loyalty battle may be won during the worst 90 minutes of a journey. DIGITAL ID LEAVES THE PILOT LANE Digital identity is another 2026 trend moving from demonstration to deployment. Travellers want shorter queues. Airports want capacity. Governments want secure borders. Airlines want fewer document issues. Everyone would like fewer people unpacking their entire bag at the gate. SITA’s Passenger IT Insights 2025 found nearly seven in 10 travellers are comfortable with biometric scanning, more than 60% would choose digital checkpoints and 79% are ready to use digital identities on their phone or in a digital wallet. The same share would be willing to share identity before travel. IATA’s 2025 proof-of-concept work with airlines, airports and technology partners showed that contactless, biometric-enabled international travel is achievable, with wallet- based IDs, consent-based data sharing and biometric verification replacing repeated manual checks. MAKE YOUR TRAVEL PRODUCT EASIER FOR AI AGENTS TO UNDERSTAND • Keep names, descriptions and categories consistent across all channels. • Structure rates, availability, policies, inclusions and booking rules. • Update opening hours, access details, seasonal changes and disruption notices. • Add strong local context: location, transport, timings, neighbourhoods and culture. • Use multilingual content for priority source markets. • Invest in high-quality images, reviews, FAQs and sustainability proof. • Encourage detailed reviews that mention specific experiences, amenities, traveller types and practical tips. • Respond to reviews consistently so AI tools can read service quality, tone and issue resolution. • Make inventory, pricing and booking engines accessible to real-time search tools. • Audit what AI platforms say about your brand or destination, then fix the source material.
Willie Walsh, in his former role as IATA’s Director General, said digital identity “works securely and efficiently”. The barrier is less gadgetry than governance. Consent, privacy, interoperability and fallback options will determine how quickly this scales. Travellers may accept face-based journeys. They will be less forgiving if the system fails and nobody can explain where their data went. SMART DESTINATIONS STOP GUESSING The next phase of travel technology is spatial. Destinations, airports, hotels and mixed-use projects are using data to understand movement, congestion, energy use, sentiment and demand. Data Appeal identifies three big 2026 themes: AI moving from assistant to agent, automation becoming invisible infrastructure, and personalisation and sustainability becoming operational realities. It also points to digital twins and real-time data tools being used in cities and destinations, including Lusail in Qatar, where sensor data supports building management and mobility, and Seattle, where VR, AR and 3D mapping are used for tours and urban systems. This has major relevance for the Middle East. The region is building large-scale tourism districts, airports, cultural destinations, resort clusters and event infrastructure at speed. Smart destination systems can help manage visitor flows, reduce energy waste, support safety, improve transport and spread demand beyond obvious hotspots. OAG makes another important point: an estimated 70% of global travellers visit just 4% of destinations. AI agents could help redirect demand by surfacing lesser- known places, better times to travel and underused capacity. For destinations, the technology brief is not “attract more visitors”, but “attract the right visitor, at the right time, to the right place, without breaking the experience”. THE TRUST TAX Every new layer of automation adds a trust bill. Someone has to pay it through data governance, cybersecurity, integration, staff training and honest communication with guests. Wyndham’s report shows the pressure points clearly. The biggest barriers to further AI adoption among hotel owners are data privacy and security concerns at 46%, cost at 42% and difficulty
integrating AI with legacy systems at 40%. Staff training, staff resistance and weak data infrastructure also feature. Human oversight remains important. Wyndham found 40% of hoteliers are comfortable allowing AI to make operating decisions without human oversight, while 57% are comfortable only when humans remain involved. That balance feels healthy. Travel is too emotional, too fragmented and too high- stakes to run entirely on autopilot. A delayed honeymoon, a missed connection, a medical request, an accessibility need or a family crisis requires judgement as well as speed. McKinsey warns against AI fatigue and broad deployment without a specific purpose, advising travel companies to focus on a few high-value tools employees will actually use. That may be the most useful technology strategy of 2026: fewer toys, more outcomes. THE UPSHOT: LESS PANIC, BETTER PLUMBING The 2026 travel technology story is not about replacing the industry with machines. It is about making the industry legible to them. Agentic AI will reward companies with accurate content, connected systems, clean data, useful APIs, strong governance and teams trained to work with new tools. Digital identity will reward trusted, interoperable systems. Smart destinations will reward operators that share data responsibly. Personalisation will reward brands that understand the guest without becoming creepy. Travel has always been a human business. Technology does its best work when it removes the dull bits: the queue, the repeat form, the missed update, the wrong room, the broken link, the pricing guess, the 141 tabs. 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.
TRAVEL TECH IN NUMBERS
61%+ Travel businesses experimenting with or scaling agentic AI 2% Travel executives saying agentic AI is already in widespread use 50% EMEA travellers who have used AI to plan or research a holiday
69% Travellers relying solely on AI search summaries 98% Hotel owners surveyed by Wyndham who have started incorporating AI 79% Passengers ready to use digital identities on phones or digital wallets
ATM YEARBOOK 2026 | 71
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