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There was a time when artificial intelligence at a travel conference meant a clever chatbot, a recommendation engine and, if everyone was feeling particularly futuristic, a robot waving politely beside an exhibition stand.

At Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2026, that conversation has plainly moved on.

The Future Stage opened at Dubai World Trade Centre with a far more consequential proposition: AI is no longer merely being bolted onto the traveller journey. It is beginning to reshape the plumbing underneath it: the data, distribution, discovery, governance and partnerships that determine how people find, compare, book and experience travel.

That shift gave ATM Travel Tech’s Future Stage considerably more weight than another round of “AI will change everything” conference theatre.

The argument being put to the industry in Dubai was sharper.

If AI becomes one of the principal gateways through which travellers discover destinations and make decisions, tourism organisations, airlines, hotels, governments and travel technology companies must ensure their information is accurate, connected and intelligible to machines as well as people.

In other words, the travel industry is being asked to rebuild some of its foundations while the building remains very much open for business.

AI moves from the concierge desk to the engine room

Rachel Travers, President, UK Hub at RX Global, officially opened the Future Stage within the Tech & Innovation Hub, welcoming delegates to four days of discussion around the technologies and ideas influencing global tourism.

The first keynote, “AI’s True Role in Rewriting the Travel Landscape,” was delivered by Dr Marwan Alzarouni, CEO, AI at the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET).

His central message was refreshingly practical.

Travel has spent several years becoming excited about what AI can say to customers. The next challenge is whether the systems feeding those answers are reliable enough to deserve the customer’s trust.

Dr Alzarouni said:

“Traditional search rankings are no longer enough. As travellers turn to AI for answers, we have to make sure Dubai is not only visible, but represented with timely, accurate and authoritative information across our entire tourism ecosystem. Where we find gaps, we treat them first as content and discoverability challenges, not just technology issues.”

That observation goes to the heart of a rapidly changing battle for travel discovery.

For years, destinations and travel businesses have devoted enormous effort to search engine optimisation, paid search, social media reach and direct website traffic.

Those disciplines are not disappearing.

But AI-generated answers are creating an additional layer between the traveller and the supplier, and that layer increasingly decides which information receives attention.

A destination can have a splendid website, an expensive campaign and a perfectly respectable Google ranking, but if an AI platform cannot reliably understand its products, opening hours, transport options, policies, hotel inventory or attractions, that destination risks being poorly represented at precisely the moment a traveller is asking for advice.

For tourism boards and travel sellers, that makes content accuracy considerably less glamorous than a launch party, but potentially far more valuable.

Dr Marwan Alzarouni CEO -AI-Dubai DET

The new travel battleground: being understood

The implications stretch well beyond marketing.

AI agents are moving towards more complex travel tasks: comparing itineraries, interpreting preferences, identifying suitable flights and hotels, and potentially completing transactions.

Every additional step increases the importance of clean data, compatible systems and clear rules governing how information is created, exchanged and used.

It also exposes an old industry weakness.

Travel remains one of the world’s most connected industries, yet also one of its most fragmented.

Airlines talk to airports, hotels talk to distributors, destinations talk to operators, agents talk to suppliers, governments set rules, and technology companies try to make it all communicate without something important disappearing down the back of the digital sofa.

Dr Alzarouni’s second warning was therefore equally significant.

“You cannot use AI in silos. The real value comes when you integrate AI across your partners and your systems so that destinations, airlines, hotels, and government all move together. That is how you turn AI ambition into practical solutions that reshape travel.”

The word integration is doing a great deal of work there.

An airline may use AI to improve disruption handling. A hotel may use it to forecast demand. A tourism board may use it to tailor recommendations. Each can deliver worthwhile gains.

But the larger opportunity comes when relevant data and processes can work across the traveller’s journey without creating new blind spots, conflicting answers or security headaches.

That requires governance, standards and cooperation three words that seldom produce queues around a conference stage, but which may determine whether the industry’s AI investment becomes genuinely transformational or merely very expensive decoration.

From experiment to infrastructure

Danielle Curtis, Regional Portfolio Director – UAE at RX Global, framed the change as an industry-wide move from individual AI applications towards the infrastructure supporting travel itself.

Curtis said:

“The conversation around AI in travel is evolving incredibly quickly. We have moved beyond asking how individual businesses can use AI to improve a particular part of the traveller journey. The bigger question now is what happens when AI becomes embedded within the infrastructure and ecosystems that support travel itself.”

She said the shift carried significant implications for destinations, airlines, hospitality companies, technology providers and policymakers, bringing governance, connectivity, data and collaboration into the same conversation as the technology itself.

It is an important distinction.

The travel industry has never suffered from a shortage of technology demonstrations.

What matters commercially is whether new systems can reduce friction, improve conversion, lower operating costs, strengthen service recovery or help people make better decisions.

ATM’s Future Stage programme reflected that more mature focus.

Sessions examined AI agents, conversational search and autonomous trip planning under the banner “Winning the Discovery Layer”, while “AI vs Human: What It Really Means to Be a Professional in the Age of Intelligence” turned attention to the continuing value of human judgement, creativity and expertise.

That final point should interest travel advisors in particular.

If AI becomes better at assembling information, the value of the professional does not automatically disappear. It changes.

Advisors who simply repeat information freely available elsewhere may find the ground shifting beneath them.

Those who can interpret complexity, recognise risk, understand a client, solve problems and exercise judgement still possess something machines struggle to replicate: responsibility for the recommendation.

Technology can produce an itinerary in seconds.

It remains somewhat less adept at looking a client in the eye when that itinerary goes pear-shaped.

Sheikh Mohammed tours an industry in transition

The significance Dubai attaches to travel and tourism was reinforced when His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, visited the 33rd edition of Arabian Travel Market.

Accompanied by His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Second Deputy Ruler of Dubai, and senior officials, Sheikh Mohammed toured national and international pavilions and reviewed technologies, tourism initiatives and emerging trends.

His stops included Kuwait Airways, Bahrain, Qatar Airways, Qatar, the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism, Abu Dhabi, Etihad Airways and Spain.

The tour also included international hospitality groups Minor Hotels, STORY Hospitality, Marriott Bonvoy and IHG Hotels & Resorts.

Sheikh Mohammed said:

“The UAE continues to strengthen its position as a global hub for travel and tourism, while Dubai continues to reinforce its standing as a leading destination shaping the future of the sector, guided by a clear vision centred on innovation, openness, strong partnerships and exceptional visitor experiences.”

His visit was more than ceremonial window-dressing.

Dubai has made tourism, aviation, hospitality, events and international connectivity central components of its economic model.

ATM provides a considerable shop window for that strategy, bringing commercial buyers, tourism authorities, airlines, hotel groups, technology providers and investors together under one very large roof.

Sheikh Mohammed also described Arabian Travel Market as a global platform bringing industry leaders, decision-makers, investors and innovators together to identify growth opportunities and improve the competitiveness of travel and tourism.

For exhibitors, that remains the practical test of any trade show.

Big stands may catch the eye, but contracts, distribution agreements, partnerships and qualified meetings pay the invoices.

Travel Tech gets a much larger stage

Technology has been given substantially more physical and strategic space at ATM 2026.

ATM Travel Tech has debuted as a dedicated co-located show, with more than 180 exhibitors from 30 countries participating across two dedicated halls.

Its 850-square-metre Tech & Innovation Hub is showcasing developments spanning artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, robotics, fintech and green technologies.

The Future Stage sits at the centre of that push.

The expansion is telling because travel technology is no longer some specialist corner of the business occupied by people who enjoy discussing APIs over coffee.

Distribution technology affects agents.

Revenue systems affect hotels.

Biometrics and digital identity affect airports and airlines.

AI affects virtually everybody.

Fintech influences payments and international commerce, while sustainability technologies increasingly affect regulation, reporting, procurement and operating costs.

The industry’s technology conversation has, in effect, become the industry conversation.

ATM 2026 is being staged under the theme “Travel 2040: Driving New Frontiers Through Innovation and Technology,” with its programme addressing digital transformation, changing traveller expectations, destination resilience, smart mobility and sustainable long-term growth.

The 33rd edition is running from 14–17 September 2026 at Dubai World Trade Centre, after RX confirmed revised September dates earlier this year following consultation with exhibitors and industry partners.

Heritage still has a seat at the table

Yet amid the screens, algorithms and predictions about 2040, another ATM 2026 message offers a useful counterweight.

Technology may change the operating model, but hospitality still has to feel like hospitality.

Hospitality Management Holding (HMH) is marking its 16th consecutive year at Arabian Travel Market, using the occasion to emphasise cultural authenticity, operational resilience and owner returns.

The home-grown regional operator was established in 2003 and operates five brands: Bahi, Coral, Corp, EWA and ECOS catering to different segments of the Middle East hospitality market.

Its current portfolio illustrates that breadth.

Properties range from Bahi Ajman Palace Hotel and Coral Beach Resort Sharjah to Corp Amman Hotel and the more contemporary ECOS Dubai Hotel at Al Furjan, alongside operations in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region.

HMH’s ATM message is built around an unfashionably durable proposition: good hospitality requires both warmth and arithmetic.

Guests may remember the welcome, the room and the service.

Owners, with commendable consistency, also remember the return on investment.

HMH says its operating approach combines central oversight with empowered hotel leadership, focusing on procurement, revenue management, commercial distribution, service consistency and brand governance.

Those are not phrases likely to appear on a holidaymaker’s Instagram feed, but they are the machinery that keeps a hotel commercially healthy long after the launch photographs have been filed away.

The group’s positioning also illustrates why hospitality operators should be cautious about treating AI as a substitute for identity.

A hotel can automate processes, improve forecasting, accelerate responses and personalise offers.

It can use technology to remove friction from check-in or help staff make better decisions.

But if every property follows identical data signals and serves the same algorithmically optimised experience, differentiation becomes harder rather than easier.

For regional operators such as HMH, the opportunity is therefore to use technology behind the scenes while keeping culture, service and a genuine sense of place firmly in front of the guest.

That sounds almost old-fashioned.

It may also prove rather clever.

Hospitality Management Holding – HMH

What ATM’s AI message means for travel sellers

For travel advisors, tour operators and other intermediaries, ATM 2026’s opening technology message produces several immediate consequences.

First, AI discovery matters.

Product descriptions, destination content, policies and availability must be current, structured and consistent across channels.

What once looked like a simple content-management problem may increasingly determine whether a product appears in an AI-generated recommendation.

Second, trusted information becomes more valuable as machine-generated answers multiply.

Incorrect information can move quickly, and confident technology is not necessarily correct technology.

Authoritative sources, accurate product data and clearly maintained content therefore become valuable assets.

Third, integrations will matter as much as interfaces.

A dazzling consumer tool is of limited use if the inventory, pricing or policy information sitting behind it is stale.

The customer does not care how impressive the algorithm looked during the demonstration if the room it recommends disappeared from inventory yesterday afternoon.

Fourth, human expertise will be judged more harshly.

If a machine can retrieve basic information instantly, travel professionals will increasingly earn their value through judgement, context, relationships, negotiation and problem-solving.

That is not necessarily bad news for good travel advisors.

It may be excellent news.

Fifth, governance cannot be left until the end.

Privacy, data ownership, transparency, security, accountability and bias are commercial issues as well as technical ones.

The more AI becomes embedded within travel infrastructure, the harder it becomes to treat those questions as something for the IT department to sort out later.

People are not leaving the picture

None of this means the travel trade is marching towards a machine-run future in which customers converse exclusively with silicon and hotel lobbies are staffed by cheerful androids.

The more plausible future is considerably messier and more interesting.

AI will increasingly become embedded in systems customers barely notice, while human service may become more valuable at moments of uncertainty, complexity or emotion.

A traveller whose flight is cancelled does not necessarily want more information.

They want the right answer.

A family planning a once-in-a-lifetime holiday may be perfectly happy letting technology compare hundreds of hotels, but still want reassurance from somebody who understands why adjoining rooms, accessibility, or a child’s food allergy actually matter.

AI is very good at processing scale.

Travel is still a deeply human business because travellers do not always behave according to scale.

They get tired, worried, excited, delayed, married, stranded, upgraded, disappointed and occasionally arrive at airports without checking whether their passports are still valid.

Human unpredictability still offers considerable employment security.

Travel 2040 starts with fixing travel today

ATM 2026’s opening programme has therefore produced an unusually coherent picture of where the industry may be heading.

At one end sits Dr Alzarouni’s argument that AI must be integrated across the travel ecosystem and supplied with timely, authoritative information.

At another sits Dubai’s wider tourism ambition, reinforced by Sheikh Mohammed’s visit, to remain a global meeting point where tourism, aviation, technology and investment intersect.

Alongside both is HMH’s reminder that hospitality companies still require cultural identity, disciplined operations and the ability to deliver consistently.

Those ideas are not contradictory.

They are complementary.

Technology should make the complicated machinery of travel work better without erasing the people, personalities and destinations that make somebody want to travel in the first place.

That distinction is important.

The winners in travel’s next phase are unlikely to be the companies that shout “AI” most loudly across an exhibition hall.

They are more likely to be those that quietly use it to make complicated systems work better, information more reliable, decisions faster, and journeys less frustrating, while preserving the judgement, trust, and human welcome that made travel worth buying in the first place.

That may not sound quite as dramatic as a robot revolution.

For the travel industry, it is probably far more important.