What will be the biggest travel trends in 2026?

Consumer travel demand is shifting toward niche, experience-led trips for 2026—highlighted by trends such as ‘glowcations’ (wellness and skincare-focused travel), literary and gaming tourism, set-jetting, multi-generational holidays and year-round Alpine escapes. Data points include Skyscanner reporting 71% of UK travellers considering a mountain escape for summer/autumn 2026 and mountain-view room bookings up 103% year-on-year, while Marriott Bonvoy notes AI holiday planning usage rose to 50% in 2025 from 41% in 2024; implications include opportunities for hotels, destination marketing and travel-tech providers to monetise hyper-personalisation, wellness services and niche experiential offerings.

Analysis

Market structure: Winners are niche-experience providers — OTAs (BKNG, EXPE), luxury & mountain-focused hotels/REITs (HLT, MAR, MTN), premium skincare/beauty names (EL, LVMUY) and major game publishers (TTWO, ATVI). Losers include mass beach/tour operator exposure (CCL, some LCC long‑haul carriers) as spend shifts to higher-ADR, lower-capacity experiences. Pricing power shifts toward owners of unique real‑estate and platforms that can hyper‑personalize (AI => higher conversion and yield); supply remains inelastic short‑term given labor/capex constraints, supporting 5–10% ADR upside in peak seasons.

Risk assessment: Tail risks include pandemic resurgence, major climate events (snow shortfall) and tighter data/AI regulation that could blunt personalization; probability low (<15%) but high impact. Immediate signals (days–weeks): booking velocity and STR occupancy prints; short (3–6 months): Q2–Q3 2026 booking trends; long (12–24 months): structural margin gains from AI and branded wellness products. Hidden dependencies: hotel retrofits (circadian lighting), third‑party platform partnerships, and IP licensing for set/gami tourism; catalysts: blockbuster game/TV releases or OTA AI feature rollouts.

Trade implications: Tactical overweight consumer discretionary travel & experiences (2–3% portfolio positions in BKNG, HLT, MTN) with 6–12 month horizons; tactical beauty exposure (EL 1–2%) to capture glowcation demand. Use pair trades (long MTN / short CCL) to express shift to mountain over mass cruise; implement defined‑risk options (9‑12 month call spreads on BKNG/HLT) ahead of summer booking windows. Rotate out of budget leisure and widebody‑heavy LCC exposure into experiential travel names as booking velocity confirms (>5% QoQ uplift).

Contrarian angles: Consensus understates fragility of Gen‑Z fads — glowcations/gami trips can be one‑to‑two year booms and will compress once supply chases demand; yet AI enablement of discovery is underpriced and could raise OTA EBITDA margins by 200–400bps over 12–24 months. Historical parallel: post‑2009 leisure rebound showed revenue recovery precedes capex and margin recovery by ~12–18 months; watch for overbuilding in secondary mountain markets which would compress returns and create localized winners/losers.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Establish a 2–3% long position in Booking Holdings (BKNG) and/or Expedia (EXPE) split 60/40, horizon 6–12 months; target +12–18% upside into summer 2026 booking season, initial stop-loss at -10% and add-on if monthly booking velocity > +5% YoY for two consecutive months.
• Overweight Hilton (HLT) by 2% (or add to existing hotel exposure MAR) to play premium/mountain ADR tails, horizon 9–12 months; add more if STR U.S. RevPAR outperforms market by >150bps for two months; set stop-loss at -12%.
• Allocate 1–2% to Estée Lauder (EL) to capture 'glowcation' skincare demand, horizon 12 months; target +20% on rollout of personalized/AI skin offerings or Asia sales recovery; add on pullback >15% or quarterly digital revenue beat >3ppt.
• Implement a pair trade: long Vail Resorts (MTN) 1.5% / short Carnival (CCL) 1.5% to express shift to mountain/experiential travel vs mass cruise; horizon 6–12 months, exit if spread moves > +15% in MTN's favor or if winter bookings decline >10% YoY.
• Deploy defined‑risk options: buy 9–12 month BKNG call spread (buy ATM, sell ATM+20%) sized to represent 1% portfolio risk and a similar HLT call spread ahead of Q2 earnings; rationale: leverage upside from AI personalization and summer booking prints while capping downside.