The publish Forecast 2026: The trends and trendsetters we’d like to see in global travel next year appeared first on TD (Journey Day by day Media) Travel Daily Media.
With 2026 looming on the horizon, we’ve taken a look back at the year that’s drawing to a close and searching in direction of what could come subsequent.
For us who cowl the fields of journey, tourism, hospitality, and aviation, meaning preserving a watch out for each upcoming developments and people who’re certain to set the world on hearth with recent concepts that can shake up typical considering, ushering in higher methods of displaying travellers the world round them.
On this explicit function, we current three people with the potential to drive the trade’s evolution, together with three developments we see taking centre stage within the yr to come back.
Three faces to observe in 2026
Beatrice Leong (proper) prepares to steer her masterclass on inclusive occasions at BE @ Penang 2025
Malaysia: Beatrice Leong, gender and accessibility advocate
We had each the honour and the privilege of assembly Beatrice Leong on the lately concluded BE @ Penang 2025 in Malaysia the place she made a robust case for accessibility in journey and tourism, significantly the place MICE is worried.
As an advocate for gender equality and accessibility for all, Leong famously mentioned: “Activist is only a fancy phrase for individuals who prefer to scold governments.”
In her case, although, scolding governments has yielded nice outcomes: Leong’s intrepid drive and that of different accessibility advocates has gone a good distance with regard to creating journey and hospitality in Malaysia extra inclusive.
She has not been afraid to ask the tough questions and is sort of upfront with ideas on how areas could be made extra accessible for individuals who understand or expertise the world in a different way from others, not solely on a bodily stage, however on a neuro-psychological stage, as properly.
With regard to residing design, specifically, she requested of her viewers: “Accessibility is definitely about how usable is your area, how usable is your product, your service design. How variety are you in coping with individuals who have anxiousness, who’re most likely dealing with melancholy, however nonetheless must exit to purchase groceries? These items require readability of data. How are you conveying the structure of data?”
Leong believes that, whereas full accessibility for all would possibly not likely be doable, people want accessibility on a regular basis; that, in flip wants adjustment on the a part of hospitality suppliers, airways, and facility managers, together with a higher understanding and persistence with travellers who see or expertise the world in a different way from everybody else.
Hers is a voice we stay up for listening to, particularly given the rising emphasis on accessibility the world over.
Miguel Cabel Moreno dishes up helpings of his Amor del Mar seafood speciality at a four-hands dinner at Crimson Boracay
Philippines: Miguel Cabel Moreno, Michelin-lauded chef and culinary heritage advocate
In a recent interview held within the wake of From Shore to South, a four-hands dinner collaboration at Crimson Resort and Spa Boracay, Filipino chef and culinary advocate Miguel Cabel Moreno informed us in regards to the lady who approached him simply minutes after he acquired two Michelin Bib Gourmand nods for his eating places Palm Grill and Cabel.
As Cabel Moreno remembers: “She went and informed me ‘I’d really desire to obtain your award than a Michelin Star.’ After I requested her why, she defined that it was an award given by the individuals fairly than the critics.”
To say that Cabel Moreno’s meals is a love letter to the individuals who like to eat can be significantly underplaying the significance of his work to the individuals of Southern Mindanao, a area that has been bypassed all too ceaselessly by Philippine tourism officers preferring to tout the colonial treasures of Luzon and the Visayas.
Certainly, selling the delicacies and heritage of such a far-flung and criminally underrated (and, certainly, oft maligned) vacation spot has been an uphill climb for the chef.
As he put it: “I used to inform potential diners: ‘Look, Mindanao meals is Filipino meals. It’s nearly as good as the same old Filipino aptitude that you just get pleasure from; just give it a strive.’ So, that has been a continuing battle. Regardless of our meager advertising and marketing efforts, presence, and all that, I’m grateful that we had been capable of keep. And the approaching of the Michelin Information validated all that onerous work for us; it helped pave the way in which for my eating places. Talking on my restaurant’s behalf, it opened so many doorways for Filipinos to lastly get to strive it because an entity as large as Michelin Information validated and acknowledged us for what we do. Because of that, it opened individuals’s eyes, and now they wish to strive it.”
As of press time, Cabel Moreno is poised to open a brand new department for Palm Grill at Tambayan, the brand new meals corridor at Ninoy Aquino Worldwide Airport’s Terminal 3.
Likewise, his kids’s books Migoy: The Tausug Boy and The Story of Putli Mandi, written in English, Filipino, and the chef’s native dialect Bahasa Sug, have gone a good distance in presenting the tradition of Southern Mindanao to children of the northern and central elements of the nation, in addition to the remainder of the world as these had been featured on the 2025 Frankfurt E book Honest.
Dr Bona Nahyun Lee (centre) listens as a information explains the historical past of Penang’s George City district
South Korea: Dr Bona Nahyun Lee, best-selling writer and tech evangelist
The great thing about modern expertise lies in the way in which it makes issues simpler for individuals, no matter what trade they might belong to.
Such is the case with the MICE sector, a area whose professionals too usually find yourself burnt out as they should cope with the tedium of planning and coordination properly earlier than the precise occasion goes reside.
However for BornTiger chief government and tech evangelist Dr Bona Nahyun Lee, modern applied sciences go a good distance in direction of making issues simpler and extra environment friendly for occasions professionals.
Throughout her speak The AI-powered Future of Business Events, Lee identified the rising number of instruments accessible for dealing with every thing from planning to precise showrunning.
Synthetic intelligence (AI), specifically, takes a lot of the stress out of the equation, seeing the way it allows professionals to create entire shows with only a few key phrases, put together precise occasion sequences, and even simulate venues in use to provide all stakeholders a complete preview of their endeavour, enabling them to make the required changes properly beforehand.
At current, most of Lee’s books are in Korean, however we stay up for the day when her knowledge on innovation and automation makes it to a wider international viewers.
Three developments to keep watch over in 2026
Regenerative and rehabilitative tourism past Asia
One of many main talks in the course of the 2025 PATA Vacation spot Advertising Discussion board in Thailand was a presentation on Doi Tung, a sustainable vacation spot within the north of the nation which was, alas, a hotbed for prison exercise within the infamous heyday of the Golden Triangle.
Many years on, nevertheless, Doi Tung has greater than cleaned up its act, because it now serves as a cultural hub that provides a number of the greatest espresso, tea, and even macadamia nuts on the continent.
That being mentioned, Doi Tung’s story ought to serve for instance and inspiration to different nations in terms of reworking areas with a lower than fascinating status into locations that provide classes from their historical past together with specialities endemic to the area.
In doing so, governments can assist communities by what is called regenerative tourism and primarily carry hope to areas with a darkish previous and provide a approach in direction of a brighter future.
We’ve seen such transformations in battle-torn areas like many elements of Japan, in addition to the Philippine islands of Bataan and Corregidor; in any case, anybody who fails to listen to the tales of the previous or heed their classes is certain to make the identical tragic errors.
Immersive studying experiences for the subsequent era of journey and tourism professionals
MICE isn’t only a approach by which industries can collect their greatest and brightest below a single roof, however these occasions additionally function a studying expertise for the subsequent era of execs.
We noticed this first-hand at BE @ Penang and at PDMF2025 when entire contingents of scholars and their mentors made their approach over to take heed to the trade’s foremost minds to achieve higher information.
Having been an educational myself, I can’t state sufficient on how publicity to precise trade professionals and experiences helps spherical out a person’s training: they get to see life in the true world, see the present execs at work, and achieve a higher understanding of the careers they face when schooldays finish.
Additionally, I’ve come to the conclusion that the concepts provided by college students nevertheless shyly do have an excessive amount of benefit: it takes somebody who has not but been jaded by the rigours and stresses of the career to give you recent concepts or new methods to method outdated points, bringing these nearer to decision.
Time to rethink MICE
MICE has developed considerably all through this yr, and the inclusion of devoted Experience Zones at occasions like ITB Asia have opened the eyes of many occasion organisers to varied prospects.
With expertise altering at such a fast clip, significantly interactive programming, MICE professionals want to take a seat down and think about the place they might greatest intrgrate these improvements of their occasions.
Certainly, fairly than simply hopping from one sales space or pavilion to a different while urgent flesh or gathering brochures, interactive applied sciences assist contributors get a higher understanding of the occasion or of current improvements, thus encouraging them to delve deeper and be taught extra.
Likewise, due to the introduction of hybrid occasions, nascent and present applied sciences make it doable for these abroad to get in on the motion while not having to truly be on website.
Whereas this will appear awkward, it does give the phantasm of really being there with out constructing an environmentally unsound carbon footprint, thus additionally incomes factors for sustainability.
We’ve a lot to consider for the approaching yr, however one factor is definite: with journey and tourism evolving so quickly, the very best factor we will do is sit again, loosen up, and simply be there for the journey into elements unknown.
The publish Forecast 2026: The trends and trendsetters we’d like to see in global travel next year appeared first on Travel Daily Media.
