Tag: travel

Travel Industry Outlook for 2026: Key Trends, Technologies & Market Forces Shaping the Future of Global Travel

Kuldeep Sharma Leave a comment

The travel business has a lot of momentum going into 2026. Global travel demand is stabilizing after years of recovery and recalibration. Digital adoption is speeding up, and travelers are expecting more personalization, openness, and journeys that are led by experiences. New research from 2024–2025 in the travel industry makes one thing very clear: smarter technology, stronger corporate governance, and deeper integration across booking, finance, and sustainability will shape the next phase of travel.

1. Travel Demand Will Continue Rising into 2026

IATA’s 2025 traffic data shows that airline passenger traffic grew by 4.6% year-over-year in September 2025, with high load factors around the world. This pattern is likely to keep going until 2026, when airlines add more seats and routes.

Drivers of growth include:

  • Increased international mobility
  • Expanding middle-income populations
  • Recovery in long-haul travel
  • High demand in Asia-Pacific and Middle East
  • Strong outbound and inbound tourism markets

Airlines are also planning 3–4% global seat capacity growth in 2026, signaling business confidence and market stability.

2. Corporate Travel Is Returning – With New Rules

Corporate travel is not going back to the way it was before the epidemic; instead, it is becoming more planned, strategic, and policy-driven.

  • According to research in the field, global corporate travel spending is expected to reach USD 1.64 trillion by 2025 and will keep going up in 2026.
  • The most important things are sustainability, keeping costs down, and making sure policies are followed.
  • Digital-first tactics are being used by travel programs to get approvals, make sure they are following the rules, and keep track of expenses.
  • “Bleisure,” or business and leisure travel combined, is becoming more popular as employees want for longer, more meaningful vacations.
  • Businesses will want systems that are smarter, itineraries that are flexible, clear fare displays, and financial operations that operate together.

3. AI & Automation Will Become the Backbone of Travel Operations

AI usage in the travel sector is rising rapidly. Travel advisors using generative AI jumped from 41% in 2024 to 59% in 2025, with adoption expected to rise further in 2026.

AI is now powering:

  • Personalized flight and hotel recommendations
  • Automated airfare comparison
  • Quality checks & mid-office automation
  • Predictive disruption handling
  • AI chat-based itinerary support
  • Smart expense categorization

This shift marks a movement toward practical, daily-use AI, not experimental features. As labor costs rise and travelers demand instant service, automation becomes essential for travel providers, TMCs, and corporate travel programs.

4. Modern Airline Retailing & NDC Will Transform Distribution

Airline distribution is undergoing its largest structural shift in a decade. The adoption of New Distribution Capability (NDC) allows airlines to offer richer, retail-like fare content:

  • Fare families (Light / Value / Flex)
  • Ancillaries (baggage, meals, Wi-Fi, seat selection)
  • Real-time availability and dynamic pricing
  • Transparent product comparisons

NDC adoption is accelerating for 2025–2026 as airlines reduce reliance on traditional distribution and move toward direct, personalized retailing.

For travel buyers and booking platforms, hybrid content (GDS + NDC + LCC) is no longer optional – it is a competitive requirement.

5. Travel + Expense Integration Will Become a Standard Expectation

Finance teams are demanding real-time visibility and tight financial control across travel spending. Trends for 2026 include:

  • Automated reconciliation
  • Mobile-first expense capture
  • Seamless corporate card integration
  • Policy-linked expense approvals
  • Centralized reporting for tax, audit, and compliance

As firms scale globally, manual expense workflows will be phased out.
Integrated travel + expense platforms will dominate the enterprise space.

6. Sustainability Will Shape Travel Policies & Behavior

Sustainability has moved from a talking point to an operational requirement. By late 2024:

  • 46% of travel managers ranked sustainability as a high priority
  • 44% had already started implementing sustainability-focused travel policies

Airlines, governments, and global travel groups continue pushing for:

  • More Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) adoption
  • Clear carbon reporting
  • Lower-impact travel routes
  • Eco-friendly hotel and ground transport preferences

Travelers themselves – especially younger demographics – are embracing low-impact tourism, meaningful experiences, and environment-conscious travel choices.

In 2026, sustainability will strongly influence travel approvals, supplier selection, and corporate travel frameworks.

7. Personalized & Experience-Led Travel Is Becoming the Norm

Current travel behavior shows a clear shift toward personalization and experience-centric planning.

Recent trends include:

  • Strong demand for custom itineraries
  • Flexible booking and cancellation policies
  • Growth in bleisure and extended stays
  • Preference for local, authentic travel experiences
  • Digital-first planning and mobile app usage

Travelers expect more than just a list of options – they want relevant recommendations, transparency, and options aligned with their personal preferences and company policies.

Industry Implication: Travel Tech Must Rapidly Evolve

With so many moving parts – hybrid distribution, AI, sustainability, corporate controls, and global expansion – the travel industry needs platforms that offer:

  • Unified booking + expense + accounting workflows
  • Automated mid- and back-office processes
  • NDC + GDS + LCC + direct contract support
  • AI-based personalization and smart search
  • Compliance-driven travel policies and approval chains
  • Real-time financial visibility for finance teams
  • Scalable architecture for large TMCs and corporates

This is the foundation required to manage the next generation of global travel efficiently.

Conclusion: What 2026 Means for Travel Stakeholders

Travelers will expect seamless personalization and friction-free booking. Corporates will demand control, compliance, and sustainability. Agencies & TMCs will lean heavily on automation and integrated workflows. Airlines & suppliers will push richer retailing through NDC.

The industry in 2026 is not just growing – it is fundamentally modernizing. Those who invest early in digital, AI, NDC, and integrated expense capabilities will lead this new era of global travel.

How QuadLabs’ Travel Technology is Helping Businesses Enter 2026 With Confidence

QuadLabs supports travel businesses, TMCs, and corporations with a unified, automation-driven ecosystem built for the demands of 2026. Its core platforms work together to deliver speed, accuracy, and complete control across the travel lifecycle. With smarter corporate travel & expense through our leading corporate travel platform – Travog gives companies a modern self-booking and expense platform with policy-aware search, automated approvals, traveler profiling, integrated expenses, and a seamless employee experience. Konnect.Travel powers agencies with hybrid content (GDS, NDC, LCC, direct contracts), automated markups/commissions, booking management, and finance workflows – providing the operational backbone for scalable travel businesses.

Agentic AI in Travel – The Gamechanger for Travel Platforms

Kuldeep Sharma Leave a comment

For travel and hospitality organisations, the next big step is not just better chatbots or smart analytics – it’s agentic AI: systems that act on behalf of users, make decisions, execute tasks and adapt in real time. In the travel world with frequent disruptions, complex policies and high customer expectations, agentic systems promise real value.

This article explains what agentic AI means for the travel business, what to consider, how it fits into the buyer journey, and how for a product like Travog it becomes a practical differentiator.

What agentic AI means (vs generative AI)

  • Generative AI: models that generate text, images, suggestions on request.

  • Agentic AI: a system of autonomous agents that set goals (for example: “re-book this cancelled flight within budget”), plan steps, call systems, evaluate results and act with minimal human direction.

#DimensionGenerative AIAgentic AI
1Core taskCreates answersCompletes tasks
2Policy handlingSuggests onlyEnforces 100%
3Tool accessZero APIsMultiple live connections
4Human neededEvery stepOnly exceptions
5End-to-end booking7–12 minutesUnder a minute


In travel: generative AI might draft a message to a traveller; agentic AI might recognize a flight delay, check alternatives across carriers, rebook according to corporate policy, notify the traveller – all with little manual intervention.

Why travel is ideally suited for agentic AI

  • Lots of moving parts: Flights, hotels, transfers, supplier rules, corporate policies. An agentic system can pull everything together in one flow.

  • Disruption is the norm: Delays, cancellations, change of plan – if you can automate recovery, you reduce cost and improve the traveller experience.

  • High expectation of personalisation: travellers expect offers, seats, hotels, transfers tailored to their tastes and company policy. Agents can maintain preference history and proactively surface options.

For regions like India and the Gulf (UAE) where business travel is growing, and travel-SaaS is rising, the combination of scale + complexity means early movers can win. For example, SaaS travel solutions in the UAE emphasise real-time booking, policy compliance, local integration.

Practical use cases you can deploy now

  • Automated disruption handling: If a flight is cancelled, the system scans alternatives from all carriers, checks hotel/transfer implications, selects the best options, and sends the top choices for approval or auto-book.

  • Smarter shopping for corporates: The system proposes the best fares/hotels that match the traveller’s past choices + company policy + cost efficiency.

  • Proactive traveller support: Instead of waiting for the traveller to ask, the agent monitors their itinerary and sends timely messages (“Your hotel check-in starts in 2 hours, standard early-check-in available, would you like me to book?”).

  • Revenue and upsell optimisation: For hotel groups or airlines, agents can identify which travellers to offer ancillaries (meals, upgrades) and when, based on behaviour and context.

  • End-to-end self-service for managers: Travel managers can issue a single request (“Book a trip to Dubai next week with 2 nights hotel, economy + lounge access under $1000”) and the agent executes the booking, policy check, expense setup, itinerary generation.

Before you can deploy agentic AI seriously, you’ll need:

  • Clean, connected data: Traveller profiles, past bookings, company policy, supplier inventory. Without this all the “smart agent” work fails.

  • Real-time integration: Live feeds from airlines, hotels, GDS/aggregators, internal workflows.

  • Clear workflows and approvals: Decide what the agent can do automatically versus what needs human sign-off.

  • Governance and audit logs: Especially in regulated regions (UAE, India) you must show why a decision happened, how it followed policy.

  • Scalable infrastructure: Travel traffic can spike during big events, seasons, or corporate campaigns. SaaS platforms must handle this.

Especially in the UAE-SaaS market, companies emphasise cloud-based, scalable travel software that handles bookings, operations and service from anywhere.

How QuadLabs is implementing Agentic-AI based personalisation in Travog

  • Step 1 – Travog’s agentic engine tracks each traveller’s preferences (for example: “prefers non-stop flights”, “chooses specific hotel chain”, “loyalty member of X airline”) and company policy (budget, preferred carriers, seat-class).

  • Step 2 – When a booking request arises, the system identifies three optimal fare/hotel options ranked by how well they match preferences + cost + policy.

  • Step 3 – The user sees these three options with clear reasons (“Option A: lowest cost, meets your stated preference; Option B: marginally higher cost but better timing; Option C: same cost but includes lounge access and allows late check-out”).

Our approach creates speed, relevance and trust – three things that resonate with enterprise buyers in the industry.

Summary
Agentic AI is no longer a future promise; it is the decisive differentiator for every travel platform that wants to own the $42 billion Indian corporate travel market and the 21% YoY-growing GCC segment. While generative AI drafts polite emails, Travog’s autonomous agents already enforce policy, with top global suppliers and return three perfect options instantly. The platforms that master clean data, real-time integrations, and configurable guardrails today will lock in enterprise wallets for the next decade; those who wait will spend years catching up. Travog is live and scaling now; the future of B2B travel has already started; make sure your organization is in it.

Saudia appoints QuadLabs to power the B2B Business Travel Solution

Kuldeep Sharma Leave a comment


Saudia, the national flag carrier of Saudi Arabia, signed a strategic partnership with QuadLabs, a leading travel technology solutions provider, to launch an advanced B2B solution tailored for corporates. The solution aims to revolutionize the business travel experience for companies across the region.
This collaboration marks a significant milestone in corporate travel management. It combines QuadLabs’ innovative technology with Saudia’s renowned service and extensive network. The solution is designed to meet the unique needs of business travellers, offering a comprehensive suite of features that streamline the entire travel management process.

The new solution is based on QuadLab’s next-generation platform, “Travog,” which provides a range of value-added benefits specifically designed to support business travel requirements. With a focus on convenience, efficiency, user experience, and cost-effectiveness, the platform offers seamless booking management, allowing corporates to manage their entire travel itinerary and ancillaries, through an integrated and user-friendly interface. It also features flexible travel policies, enabling companies to easily enforce travel policies and budgets, ensuring compliance and optimizing travel expenditures.

Arved von zur Muehlen, Chief Commercial Officer of Saudia, said: “This partnership aligns with our commitment to enhancing our corporate guests’ experience. It builds upon our digital transformation, which has optimized our operations, improved customer service, and enhanced our overall business performance by offering tailored solutions that address our guests’ specific needs.”

Gaurav Chiripal, CEO of QuadLabs, said: “We are excited to partner with Saudia to deliver a state-of-the-art B2B solution for corporate travel using our next generation “Travog” platform. Our combined expertise in technology and travel services positions us to provide an unparalleled experience for corporate clients, helping them navigate the complexities of business travel with ease and efficiency.”

-Ends-

About Saudia
Saudia (Saudia Airlines) is the national flag carrier of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Established in 1945, the company has grown to become one of the Middle East’s largest airlines. 

Saudia has invested significantly in upgrading its aircraft and currently operates one of the youngest fleet. The airline serves an extensive global route network covering around 100 destinations across four continents, including all 28 domestic airports in Saudi Arabia.

A member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO), Saudia has also been a member airline in SkyTeam, the second largest alliance, since 2012.

Saudia was recently recognized as the World’s Most Improved Airline 2024 by Skytrax, marking the third time it has received this accolade, alongside 14 other distinguished awards. Saudia has also been awarded the “World Class Airline 2024” for the third consecutive year at The APEX Official Airline Ratings™ awards. Additionally, also ranked top among global airlines for best on-time performance (OTP) according to a report by Cirium. 

For more information on Saudia, please visit www.saudia.com

About QuadLabs

QuadLabs is a global leader in travel technology and expense solutions, offering a wide range of products and services designed to streamline the travel management process. With a focus on innovation and customer satisfaction, QuadLabs has been at the forefront of the travel technology industry for about two decades, providing solutions that enhance the travel experience for businesses and individuals alike.

For more information, please visit www.QuadLabs.com  

Contact:

Mr. Kuldeep Sharma
Kuldeep.sharma@quadlabs.com
QuadLabs Technologies Private Limited
720, JMD Megapolis,
Sohna Road, Sector 48,
Gurgaon, Haryana, India.
O (IN): +91 124 663 6999, (US): +1 646 518 9528, (UK): + 44 203 821 6814
Email: info@quadlabs.com Web: www.quadlabs.com




QuadLabs once again recognized as ‘World’s Leading Travel ERP Technology Provider’ at World Travel Awards

Kuldeep Sharma Leave a comment

QuadLabs Technologies world leader in travel technology, emerged as the winner of the ‘World’s Leading Travel ERP Technology Provider 2016’ for the second consecutive year by World Travel Awards. The honour was unveiled in the prestigious ceremony held at Sun Siyam Iru Fushi , Maldives on Friday, 2nd December, 2016.

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Do you provide Travel Insurance online?

Kuldeep Sharma Leave a comment

Do you provide Travel insurance to your customers? Travel insurance can come in extremely handy for any International travellers to cover unforeseen medical emergencies, lost baggage claims, flight delays and cancellations. It also provides the Travel Agency an opportunity to not only cross-sell but also provide a comprehensive service to a traveller. In today’s competitive scenario, it will serve agencies better to be pro-active and recommend the right insurance to the traveller and explain the benefits thereof.

While the trend of including travel insurance at the time of check out has become the norm over the last 4-5 years, some are even beginning to offer stand-alone travel insurance regardless of the fact if the traveller books the actual travel with them or not. www.tbiholidays.com is one example of a leading agency that now sells Travel Insurance as a product on their online portal.

So which Travel Insurance company is the right partner for you and your customers? The choice could vary depending on the country of origin as well as the destination countries. Here is our list of some global Travel insurance providers to help you decide.

Aon Taeds- Taeds provides specialized insurance broker in tourism industry. AON is a leading company in insurance brokerage and consulting along with Taeds provides the most advanced solutions for wholesalers in tourism industry, travel agencies, airlines and other stakeholders in the travel industry. The company has strong international presence with offices in more than 100 countries.

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