Travel in 2025 completed its seven-year post-pandemic recovery — global arrivals surpassed 2019 levels by roughly 3%. But the industry on the other side is not the industry that went in. Prices have consolidated up, labour has consolidated tighter, and the shape of who travels, where, and when has shifted meaningfully. This is our read on what happened, what's coming, and what the industry still hasn't solved.
The Year That Was
1.1 · Recovery completed, but not uniformly
Global international arrivals reached approximately 1.48 billion in 2025 (UNWTO preliminary data), completing the long recovery from the 2020 collapse and finishing roughly 3% above the 2019 baseline. But the recovery has been unevenly distributed. Southeast Asia outpaced the average — Thailand exceeded 2019 arrival counts by 8%, Vietnam by 14%. Western Europe came in roughly level (Italy +1%, France +2%, UK -2%). The weakest recoveries were in destinations that shifted their tourism economics during the pandemic (Japan, New Zealand).
The distribution pattern is worth attention. The places that grew faster than the average were the places that held prices steadier. The places that grew slower were the places that let prices drift upward. Travellers responded more to price signals than any other variable — not to safety, not to ease of access, not to marketing.
1.2 · Luxury hotels priced themselves differently
Our ongoing Luxury-per-Dollar tracking shows that 5-star hotel ADR in the top 30 global cities rose an average of 23% against 2019 baselines — significantly above the 15% general inflation rate. The premium was not uniform. London 5-star ADR rose 31%, New York 27%, Paris 22%, Tokyo 14%. The structural shift is that luxury hotels have largely absorbed the idea that their value is inelastic — customers who can afford $1,800 a night for a Park Hyatt can afford $2,200. Whether the absorption holds through a potential 2026-27 economic softening is the open question.
The single most-cited finding from our Luxury-per-Dollar Index: Bangkok, Cape Town, Ho Chi Minh City, Istanbul, and Mexico City deliver genuine luxury experiences at 30-50% of the cost of equivalent Western experiences. The spread is not closing; it's widening.
1.3 · The visa map shifted materially
Four significant visa changes in 2024-2025:
The UK introduced an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) in stages through 2024-2025, adding a £10 pre-authorisation step for previously visa-exempt nationalities including US, EU, Canada, Australia. Schengen will follow with ETIAS in mid-2026 — €7, online, but an additional friction point for Western travellers that did not exist in 2019.
Kenya replaced its visa system with an eTA in January 2024 — $30, applied online, but an additional 5-day lead time. Several East African destinations have signalled intent to follow the Kenyan model.
Brazil reintroduced visa requirements for US, Canada, and Australia passports in April 2025, reversing its 2019 policy of unilateral reciprocity-waiving. This was the most consequential reversal in 2025, given the traffic volume from North America to Brazil.
China liberalised its visa policy significantly. The 144-hour transit-without-visa programme expanded to more airports, and a 15-day visa-free pilot launched for specific European nationalities in late 2024. The signal is that China wants Western tourism back; the practical effect is modest so far but trending positive.
The aggregate effect: visa friction has increased for Americans and Canadians (UK ETA, Schengen ETIAS, Brazil visa, Kenya eTA) and decreased for some Europeans (China pilot). Our Visa Friction Index tracks the full landscape.
1.4 · Flight reliability remained stubbornly regional
Our Flight-Delay Index confirmed what regular travellers have observed for years: Asian mega-hubs (Haneda, Changi, Incheon, Hamad) consistently operate at 87-90% on-time arrival rates, while major European (Heathrow, Frankfurt, Gatwick) and North American (O'Hare, Newark, SFO) hubs hover between 62% and 72%. The gap widens rather than narrows; capacity investment in Asia outpaces Western hub expansion.
The Year Ahead
2.1 · The shoulder season becomes the season
Our Shoulder Season Score showed 52% of 2025 trips tracked through booking aggregators occurred in shoulder months (April-May, September-October, late-November for tropical destinations). That's up from 41% in 2019. The shift reflects both pricing (shoulder is genuinely cheaper) and overtourism pushback (peak destinations increasingly feel hostile to travellers). We expect shoulder-season bookings to account for 55%+ of total discretionary travel in 2026.
Practical forecast: Mediterranean destinations will continue to see late-September/early-October bookings surge; Japan's late-November autumn-foliage season will hit pre-sakura booking intensity; Caribbean late-November will approach traditional-December-peak booking volumes.
2.2 · AI planning begins to reshape discovery
The first wave of AI-powered travel planning (ChatGPT Travel, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini trip-planner features) had measurable but modest effects in 2025. Roughly 14% of US travellers report using AI in some phase of trip planning — mostly during the research phase, not booking. The booking-phase share remains under 2%.
Our forecast for 2026: AI planning becomes ubiquitous at the research stage (50%+ of travellers will use it at some point) but remains marginal at the booking stage. The implications for travel content: original-reporting depth, named sources, and verifiable facts become more valuable, not less, because AI answers tend to flatten and aggregate. Publishers that depend on AI-generated content will struggle; publishers with genuine editorial authority will benefit from AI-summary citations.
2.3 · Overtourism pressure tips from signal to action
2025 saw genuine enforcement of overtourism mitigation in specific destinations: Venice's €5 day-tripper fee in 2024-2025; Amsterdam's banning of new short-term rentals in the centre; Barcelona's sharp reduction in tourist apartments; Kyoto's restrictions on certain geisha-district streets. Expect more in 2026: Mallorca, Dubrovnik, and Santorini are all on observable trajectories toward peak-visitor caps or entry fees.
Our Quiet Index tracks the opposite side: destinations that remain genuinely uncrowded remain uncrowded not by accident but by structure — Bhutan's high-value-low-impact cap, Faroe Islands' arrivals limit, Botswana's private-reserve pricing.
2.4 · Hotel loyalty programmes continue to diverge
The 2022 shift to dynamic-pricing awards across Marriott, Hilton, and IHG produced a clear result in 2025: loyalty programmes yielded roughly cash-back-equivalent value (0.5-0.8 cpp) rather than the premium value they did pre-2022. World of Hyatt held its category-pricing system and remains the clear value leader. Our Hotel-Points Value Index shows Hyatt at 2.0 cpp consistent, Marriott aspirational redemptions at 0.4-0.85 cpp. Our forecast: Marriott faces increasing competitive pressure from Hyatt-adjacent credit-card transfer programmes (Chase's Sapphire, World of Hyatt directly). If Marriott doesn't adjust, attrition at the top of the programme accelerates in 2026.
2.5 · Climate windows shift in specific destinations
Three climate-related travel shifts are becoming impossible to ignore: (1) Icelandic summer expanded by roughly 3-4 weeks between 2019 and 2025 — June and early September are now workable, previously marginal; (2) Mediterranean summer heat regularly exceeds 40°C in Athens, Rome, and Marseille for multi-day stretches in July-August; (3) South Pacific cyclone season has shifted roughly 2 weeks later, into November, affecting Fiji and Vanuatu high-season calculations.
Practical implication: the "when to visit" question for several destinations has shifted by 2-3 weeks over the last 5 years. Our When to Visit destination guides are refreshed annually; pay attention to the "Verified" date.
The Unresolved Questions
3.1 · The cruise industry still hasn't solved environmental impact
Cruise traffic recovered past 2019 levels in 2025. The industry-wide environmental-impact numbers have not meaningfully improved — the largest cruise operators still emit per-passenger-km roughly 4x jet aviation. Incremental improvements (LNG, scrubbers, shore power) have been real but small. No large operator has committed to substantial 2030-2040 decarbonisation roadmaps. This is the structural sustainability question the industry can't duck for another decade.
3.2 · The short-term-rental market faces a 5-year correction
Airbnb + short-term rental counts in major destinations have plateaued or declined for the first time since 2010 — new enforcement in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Lisbon, and parts of New York has reduced supply. Simultaneously, demand has plateaued as consumers increasingly distrust the "cleaning fee / surprise fee" model. Expect further consolidation in 2026-2028: smaller operators will exit, hotel-like standards will emerge, and genuine peer-to-peer economics will be largely gone from major cities. The rural/remote-stay segment remains healthy.
3.3 · Labour shortages haven't resolved in several key regions
Hotel labour in the Caribbean, US resort destinations, and parts of Southern Europe remains structurally undersupplied — our reporting at multiple 5-star properties in 2025 confirmed staff-to-guest ratios that were 15-25% below 2019 levels. This is the background variable driving much of the service-quality complaints that appear in reviews: less staff, same premium prices. The industry's solutions (automation, reduced service standards, price increases) are all active; none are solving it at industry scale.
3.4 · AI-generated travel content threatens search quality
An estimated 30-40% of English-language travel content published in 2024-2025 was at least partially AI-generated. Quality varies from acceptable to actively-wrong. Google's March 2024 Helpful Content Update was the first attempt to penalise low-quality AI content; the January 2025 core update extended this. The structural issue is that AI content is cheap to produce and Google's algorithms take time to catch up. Expect the gap between AI-generated content and verified editorial to widen in 2026.
Our own editorial stance: no AI-generated copy under bylines, ever. The full editorial standards explain our AI-use policy.
What We're Betting On in 2026
Short-form bets on 2026, with confidence levels:
High confidence: Japan's October-November autumn foliage becomes harder to book than sakura. Mediterranean shoulder-season will be a hotel-availability problem by mid-September. The UK's ETA rollout will cause 30-60 minute immigration-line delays at LHR through late 2026.
Medium confidence: A major cruise operator announces a serious decarbonisation commitment, triggered by shareholder pressure. At least one Mediterranean coastal city introduces a visitor cap — most likely Dubrovnik or Venice. Hyatt gains 300-500 basis points of share from Marriott in the top premium-hotel-loyalty tier.
Lower confidence: A US passport visa reciprocity reversal with Brazil or another major Latin destination. The Schengen ETIAS system causes significant first-month confusion when launched. A major AI-travel-planning tool becomes a genuine booking channel (not just research).
We'll revisit these bets in the 2027 report. The structural pattern we expect to hold: travel continues to normalize upward in price, continues to shift toward the shoulder, continues to reward travellers who book early and think carefully, continues to separate the genuinely-useful editorial content from the aggregated generic content.
The travel year, in three sentences: 2025 completed the recovery. 2026 will test whether the recovery sustains. The difference between good travel years and bad travel years for individual travellers increasingly depends on the information you bring to the booking, not the travel itself.