Biggest travel trends for 2026 and how to save

Going.com’s Katy Nastro outlines the leading travel trends for 2026 and provides practical tips for consumers to save on trips as the new year begins. The piece is qualitative guidance for consumer travel behavior and booking strategies rather than a source of hard financial metrics, offering potential directional signals on demand in the travel and leisure sector but no immediate market-moving data.

Analysis

Market structure: Rising 2026 leisure travel trends (longer stays, bleisure, value-seeking consumers) favor asset-light digital platforms (BKNG, EXPE) and flexible-living models (ABNB) plus branded hotels with loyalty pricing power (MAR, HLT). Airlines face bifurcation: economy leisure demand lifts capacity utilization but premium/business mix may remain ~20–30% below pre-COVID levels, capping yields for legacy carriers while low-cost carriers capture share.

Risk assessment: Key tail risks are pandemic resurgence, geopolitical shocks (Mediterranean/Red Sea disruption) or oil >$100/bbl which would compress airline margins and erase expected upside within 0–3 months. Over 3–12 months, macro recession or consumer credit stress could cut discretionary travel spend by 10–25%, hitting cruise lines and luxury segments hardest. Hidden dependency: credit-card funded travel demand — rising delinquencies >150bps would reduce bookings velocity.

Trade implications: Favor long exposure to digital distribution and asset-light lodging through Q1–Q3 2026 while using options to cap downside; expect 6–18% upside in positive scenario. Rotate away from capital-intensive cruise and legacy premium airlines; commodities exposure (jet fuel/crude) and FX (weaker USD supports inbound tourism to the U.S.) create hedgeable cross-asset flows.

Contrarian angles: Consensus may overvalue full-service airlines and cruises expecting uniform recovery; instead expect dispersion — ABNB and BKNG underappreciate extended-stay and fragmented demand, hotels with strong loyalty (MAR, HLT) will outperform unintegrated cruise operators (RCL, CCL). Historical parallels (post-2010 recovery) show marquee leisure names rerated faster than heavy-capacity carriers.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Establish a 2–3% portfolio long split 60/40 between Marriott (MAR) and Hilton (HLT) now and scale +1% into Jan–Mar 2026 if RevPAR for US markets >3% YoY; target 12–18% 12-month upside, trim if RevPAR underperforms by >5% QoQ.
• Buy 3–6 month call spreads (15% OTM) on Booking Holdings (BKNG) and Airbnb (ABNB) sized ~1% notional each ahead of spring booking season (Mar–May 2026) to capture asymmetric upside from higher leisure bookings while limiting premium paid.
• Enter a 1:1 pair trade long MAR (notional 1.5%) and short American Airlines (AAL) (notional 1.5%) through Q2 2026 — hotel loyalty/ancillary pricing should outperform legacy airline unit revenue; exit if WTI crude falls below $75/bbl or airline unit revenues beat consensus by >5% QoQ.
• Initiate a defensive position against discretionary downside: buy 6–9 month put spreads on Royal Caribbean (RCL) (target 10–20% OTM) sized 0.5–1% notional as protection against demand shock (pandemic/geopolitical) that would disproportionately hit cruise operators.