2025 Travel Trends: Visionary Insights from Industry Pioneers

As 2024 draws to a close, leaders in the travel sector are setting their sights on what lies ahead.

2025 is poised to unfold as yet another thrilling chapter in the annals of travel, building on a wealth of notable events, trends, and personnel shifts from 2024.

Industry experts offered their insights on a variety of subjects, including generative artificial intelligence, transparency in search, the funding landscape, and the evolution of branding.

Responses have been modified for conciseness and clarity.

Mia Morriset, principal, Inovia Capital

• The incorporation of fintech innovations is poised to transform travel platforms – we see this beginning with trailblazers such as Guesty, Hopper, and Super, who are leading the way for wider acceptance and growth across the industry.
• Though generative AI-scaled platforms in travel have yet to materialize, AI-driven firms are set to unleash even greater benefits, revolutionizing operations, improving customer experiences, and significantly boosting profitability.
• Anticipate a revival of late-stage funding in 2025, propelled by secondary market transactions and strategic consolidations reshaping the travel and technology sectors.

Greg Webb, CEO, Travelport

• As we venture into 2025, transparency will be pivotal to the travel sector’s initiatives aimed at building consumer trust. Travel suppliers are coming to understand that the only sustainable business model for the long haul is to prioritize customer lifetime value. Hence, they are focusing on repeat customers seeking enhanced experiences rather than one-off clients pursuing the lowest fares. The implementation of bundled pricing can facilitate choices, but consumers must grasp the elements involved to evaluate value. Sadly, there’s an increase in “consumer washing,” eroding trust as companies engage in actions they claim benefit consumers but aim primarily to enhance profits. Radical transparency is now crucial as consumers demand straightforward methods for comparison shopping that empowers informed decision-making.

Mario Gavira, vice president of global growth and brand, Kiwi.com

• Multiple converging trends will crystallize in 2025, casting a shadow over Google’s two-decade dominance in search. On one hand, AI is steadily reshaping how individuals browse and seek information. On the user front, short-form video is progressively altering information consumption from text-oriented queries to engaging, context-rich visual experiences, shifting search behaviors towards more pertinent platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Nonetheless, Google’s substantial user data, its extensive user ecosystem, and superior AI capabilities to offer marketers the most relevant engagement points for customer acquisition will remain unmatched in the travel sphere.
• The advent of autonomous agent AI systems that can execute genuine, multi-step processes with minimal human input will materialize in 2025. These multi-agent systems will enable significant automation of various rule-based workflows within travel company infrastructures. However, consumer-facing AI agents will find it challenging to replicate the human search and booking experience.

Cara Whitehill, vice president, Thayer Investment Partners, founder, Unlock Advisors

• Two interconnected predictions that I feel quite positive about include a revival of exit activity in the travel domain and a correlated unlocking of funding for emerging startups. Due to declining interest rates, a favorable M&A environment anticipated with the incoming administration, and a strong roster of mid- and later-stage firms fine-tuning their strategies over recent years, a perfect blend of supply and demand will develop throughout the year, driving a surge of activity. These exits will subsequently rejuvenate the capital pool for investors (and startup teams) to reinvest into other new and early-stage firms that have been in need of funding over the past few years.

Wilfred Fan, chief commercial officer, Klook

• Social networks will continue to reshape how travelers not only discover but also book their adventures. Social media platforms are evolving from being mere sources of inspiration to facilitating bookings directly, aided by integrated seamless booking features that allow travelers to make reservations in-app. Furthermore, genuine voices and creators will become increasingly vital collaborators for travel brands.
• This behavioral shift will further reinforce the pivotal role of experiences in trip planning, cementing a new booking pattern where travelers first identify desired activities and then decide on transportation and accommodation.

Patrick Andrae, co-founder and CEO, HomeToGo

• Although AI is already playing an instrumental role in travel, the experience remains fragmented. AI can assist in booking accommodations or enhancing customer service, but a seamless, end-to-end AI travel assistant? That’s still a rarity. I believe that starting next year we will witness travel technology companies presenting more comprehensive AI travel assistant solutions.
• In 2025, we anticipate observing a rise in companies creating tools specifically designed for travel agencies, as the amalgamation of technology and human interaction witnesses a resurgence as the preferred method for planning and booking travel.

Adam Harris, CEO, Cloudbeds

• The genuine AI upheaval in hospitality technology is unfolding behind the scenes. AI isn’t merely about flashy chatbots or glamorous interfaces; it is a stringent efficiency mechanism transforming hospitality from within. We’re referring to systems that can anticipate staffing needs with eerie precision, dynamically adjust room rates in an instant, and automate 30-40% of tasks that previously consumed human resources. This isn’t just incremental change — it’s a thorough operational transformation that will distinguish adaptive businesses from obsolete ones; it’s about being ruthlessly and intelligently efficient.
• Hospitality technology is in a fierce contest for total ecosystem supremacy. We’ll witness a surge in M&A activities, with scaled companies acquiring complementary technologies to build the ultimate operational platform for hoteliers. Only those who possess the most integrated and intelligent technological frameworks will endure. The next 12-18 months will focus not on capturing market share, but on constructing the definitive technological operating system tailored for hospitality professionals.

Catherine Donaldson, director of marketing,Canary Technologies

• Generative AI, tailored for the hospitality sector, will revolutionize the landscape for innovative hoteliers. AI can deliver automated replies that are tailored and relevant to each guest’s individual context. Hotels will flourish when they enhance guest interaction with hospitality-centric AI models capable of handling communication through various channels. Omnichannel AI empowers hotels to automate communications while elevating the guest experience with rapid, personalized answers.
• We anticipate that an increasing number of revenue managers will shift their focus towards enhancing TRevPAR (total), rather than solely RevPAR, as ADRs and occupancy gains plateau. Elevating conversion rates on hotel websites, increasing upsells, and utilizing additional strategies will drive revenue in 2025.

Richard Valtr, founder, Mews

• AI will alter our perspective on single-point solutions versus platforms and begin to yield measurable results as a tool for productivity rather than merely a technological instrument. We have observed minor incremental advancements in technology and its adoption, and this trend is set to continue into 2025. In the era of AI, user and guest expectations will expand, as they demand more comprehensive context, assistance, and customization. AI presents a significant opportunity for us to revolutionize customer engagement.
• I believe we will witness some properties becoming dual-branded, where brands will function more like affiliate programs. This will initiate a transformation in loyalty. Since the pandemic, there has been a notable rise in loyalty programs. However, these programs necessitate considerable investments from hotels, and as their member base expands, the benefits diminish. Credit card corporations are gaining more influence in this domain, owing to their digital points systems. Banks possess far more insights about guests and their behaviors compared to hotels, which minimizes the necessity for intermediaries, and I predict that banks will take over customer relationships while hotels maintain ownership of assets, facilitating more personalized offerings, partnerships, and bundled products, thereby broadening hospitality well beyond just accommodation.

Christian Watts, founder and CEO, Magpie

• In 2024, we witnessed the debut of the first AI agents. By 2025, they will emerge from various sources. The leading large language models will all have their tailored versions, and private firms will deploy them across numerous sectors. As LLMs continue to advance, and startups gain insights from initial customers and one another, growth will accelerate, and increasingly sophisticated tasks will become automatable. As AI agents showcase their capabilities, discussions regarding the role of intermediaries in the market will intensify as never before. Conversations that would have seemed impossible two years ago will soon be routine. The most established players in the sector, including Google and the largest OTAs, will begin to appear quite vulnerable.

Sarosh Waghmar, founder, co-chairman, and chief product officer, Spotnana

• As the travel sector progresses, providers are taking increased control over their distribution channels by emphasizing personalization and the direct distribution of their content via their own APIs. This transformation will significantly affect travel sellers, who will need to invest in updating their technology infrastructures to accommodate shifting customer expectations. The repercussions of this trend will resonate throughout the entire ecosystem, compelling all participants to adapt to a more fluid content landscape.

Rajnish Kumar, group Co-CEO, Ixigo

• A significant trend for 2025 is the growing involvement of first-time travelers from India’s Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. As household incomes rise and the aspirations of the middle class expand, experiential travel is poised to soar. These cities contribute not only to domestic travel but are also becoming prominent players in international travel. India’s outbound travel expenditure, which hit $17 billion in FY24, is projected to rise further, highlighting the country’s growing global travel presence.
• Religious tourism is expected to flourish further as enhanced government investment in infrastructure improves access to remote destinations. Notable religious sites such as Tirupati, Shirdi, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Amritsar have emerged as the top choices for travelers opting for bus trips. The ongoing governmental focus on infrastructure investments and new corridor developments in key religious locations is likely to stimulate further growth in spiritual tourism in 2025.