What Travel Advisors Ought to Be Ready for in 2026

As 2025 attracts to a detailed, journey advisors are assessing crucial points the brand new 12 months might deliver, together with options for addressing them. Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes heart stage, with advisors weighing its advantages and disadvantages. Other points that advisors are expressing concern about embody the rising variety of unqualified brokers getting into {the marketplace}, geopolitics and rising luxurious resort charges.

Artificial Intelligence

While all 5 advisors interviewed for this piece agree that AI has the potential to negatively affect their companies, in addition they word that it may’t replicate the human contact and experience provided by brokers.

Nonetheless, they word that AI might pose a formidable menace to their companies.
According to Richard Turen, managing director for Churchill & Turen, the “use of custom-created personal AI travel consultants who are totally knowledgeable about the guest’s background, travel history, preferences and travel desires” is the most important problem for advisors subsequent 12 months — one that can develop extra critical over time until the main AI traders fail to ever flip a revenue, he provides.

The treatment?

“Masses of the nation’s very best advisors need to launch major campaigns designed to show all the reasons why having a network of several trillion wires doing the planning may not be the best way to design the perfect vacation,” Turen stated. “The best advisors need to expose the practices of online booking engines and their giant call center mentality. They need to point out the dangers of giving one’s financial details to outsourced call centers that can be located virtually anywhere.”

Janel Carnero, a luxurious advisor with EMBARK Beyond, has the same take.
“With AI ‘coming in hot,’ clients can get a generic itinerary in seconds,” she stated. “Our challenge is to pivot from being information providers to being curators of context.”

Personal Connection

“We need to utilize technology to speed up our workflow so we can spend our time doing what AI can’t: understanding the client’s unstated desires and adding the personal, emotional depth that turns a trip into a memory,” stated Carnel of EMBARK. “Speed is the baseline; depth is the luxury.”

James Berglie, president of Be All Inclusive, shares the identical sentiment.

“Advisors need to double down on what AI and mass-recruitment models can’t replicate: personal connection, real-world experience and trusted relationships,” he stated. “That means being selective about the type of business you take on, clearly communicating your value and positioning yourself as an advisor — not an order-taker.”

According to Mandee Migliaccio, CEO of Stepping Out Travel Services, one of many largest challenges advisors face — one that can proceed in 2026 — is the rise of purchasers who arrive with hours of on-line “research” that always contains outdated or inaccurate data, together with AI-generated itineraries that will look polished however are continuously incomplete or not tailor-made to real-world logistics.        

“With travel content exploding across TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook and now ChatGPT, many travelers feel fully informed before ever speaking to a professional,” she stated.

Advisors can deal with this by positioning themselves as a trusted filter who brings readability to the noise, Migliaccio says. Instead of dismissing what purchasers discover on-line, acknowledging their enthusiasm after which providing the true context creates a collaborative and respectful relationship.

“When advisors take the time to explain what’s currently true and what applies to a client’s unique situation, they reinforce their expertise, build trust and gently guide travelers away from misinformation and toward decisions that genuinely serve their vacation,” she stated.

Unqualified Advisors

One perennial problem on the radar of seasoned advisors is the ever-increasing variety of unqualified brokers getting into {the marketplace}.

“One of the biggest issues facing advisors is over-saturation — specifically, the rise of large host agencies marketing the idea that anyone can become a travel advisor overnight,” stated Berglie of Be All Inclusive.

When inexperienced brokers enter the area with out correct coaching or assist, it usually results in poor consumer experiences, mismanaged expectations and repair failures, he provides.

“Unfortunately, those experiences don’t just reflect on the individual agent; they chip away at the credibility of the industry as a whole,” Berglie stated.

However, whereas over-saturation might develop, so will the chance for critical professionals to separate themselves from the noise, he provides.

Geopolitical Issues

Global Guardian, an organization that gives country-specific security rankings, reviews that geopolitical and geoeconomic components will noticeably impacttravel patterns going ahead.

Turen of Churchill & Turen couldn’t agree extra.

He believes there could also be “psychological payback” from international locations which can be against what they see as an America First Nationalist motion rising from President Trump’s authorities insurance policies. “If we set up some of the world’s strictest requirements for visitors to our shores, how will the residents of those countries that cannot visit the U.S. on vacation react?”

He provides that European tv reviews are airing movies of ICE brokers manhandling youngsters and pulling adults out of their vehicles.

“Why do we think that Europeans will continue to separate what they think of Americans from what they think of our government?” Turen requested. “It is our clients who will be entering those changed perceptions of who and what we are.”

Rising Luxe Rates

A surge in last-minute bookings is making it tough to arrange some 2026 journeys, given restricted availability, based on Peggy Purtell, proprietor of Purtell Travel, an affiliate of Travel Experts.

Exacerbating the problem is the truth that premium properties are experiencing increased demand, particularly in standard locations, which drives up nightly charges, she provides.

“Since the onset of COVID, rates have increased approximately 35-40%,” Purtell stated.

Typically, she gives purchasers with a strong vary of lodging choices, together with each four- and five-star motels. “Lately, many clients have been choosing four-star hotels, allowing them to allocate more of their budget toward unique experiences and activities,” she stated.

Some clients, nonetheless, aren’t keen to compromise resort lodging.
“A client of mine wanted to travel to New Zealand last year, but every property was booked,” Purtell stated. “Rather than compromise, they decided to delay their trip by a year to ensure they could stay exactly where they wanted.”

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