2026 Program

NOTE: This program requires a separate ticket from Phocuswright Europe

As WiT Phocuswright Middle East returns for its third edition, the region finds itself at a pivotal moment. Aviation is expanding rapidly, investment is surging, destinations are competing more aggressively, and AI is reshaping every layer of the travel ecosystem.

This program explores where the Middle East sits within the global travel transformation—and why the next 20 years will require bolder thinking, faster execution, and deeper collaboration than ever before.

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WiT Phocuswright Middle East Program

Kick off the conference at our opening reception, featuring a World Cup viewing party. Whether you’re there for the match or just the great company and conversation, join fellow attendees, speakers, and the Phocuswright team to connect, enjoy drinks and bites, and ease into the days ahead.

Register or check in and collect your conference materials. Attendee Services is the go-to spot for all your needs.

Meet with innovators and exhibitors one-on-one! The showcase is open for business and abuzz with activity.

Coffee and tea available through the day.

Ever wanted to pick the brains of people who've actually built, led and exited successful travel companies and are shaping where the industry goes next? Grab a coffee and join Rod Cuthbert, straight-shooting founder and former CEO of Viator (yes, the one he sold to Tripadvisor); Chris Hemmeter, managing director at Thayer Investment Partners and a seasoned entrepreneur and investor; and Mario Gavira, one of the sharpest voices on AI and travel marketing, for a candid and unfiltered session.

Between them, Rod, Chris and Mario have built iconic brands, backed the next generation of travel startups and navigated the AI shift rewriting how travel brands find and win customers. They'll share real-world lessons from the front lines of travel innovation, revealing what worked, what didn't and what they'd never do again.

New to Phocuswright Europe? This session is tailor-made for first-timers, rising stars and anyone looking to fast-track their understanding of what it really takes to succeed in travel today. But even seasoned pros will walk away with fresh insights, hard truths and maybe a few laughs.

No fluff. No filters. Just real talk from three of the best.

Immerse yourself in an intimate, interactive environment to learn about hot topics impacting today's travel marketplace.

Immerse yourself in an intimate, interactive environment to learn about hot topics impacting today's travel marketplace.

Witness the future of travel tech unfold at the Global Startup Pitch, a dynamic competition showcasing the brightest seed and scaleup companies! Sixteen innovative startups, selected from a pool of global applicants, will take the stage at Phocuswright Europe 2026 to pitch their groundbreaking ideas to a panel of industry-leading investors and mentors.

Global Startup Pitch Schedule:

14:00 PM - Welcome to The Global Startup Pitch!
14:10 PM - BizTrip AI
14:17 PM - EchoWi
14:23 PM - Lobby
14:30 PM - 1-CP GmbH
14:36 PM - Hands In
14:43 PM - BookAfrica
14:49 PM - DecisionRM.ai
14:56 PM - BaggageTAXI
14:02 PM - Vibe Adventures
14:09 PM - SocialSeal
14:15 PM - SPUN
14:22 PM - OneJourney
14:28 PM - Roame

Innovation Spotlight puts the industry’s most exciting breakthroughs front and center, giving startups, scaleups, and established companies a powerful platform to unveil game-changing innovations

Stop letting traditional fintech trap your working capital or stall ticketing with declined cards. Battle-tested by travel professionals, Zyzza delivers a dual-rail payment infrastructure that optimizes carrier acceptance and provides structured credit facility. It is the ultimate competitive lever to protect your margins, reduce cost of sale, and drive global volume.

Every AI travel app being built today misses the booking moment — the user searches within your product and is redirected to transact elsewhere. RouteStack fixes that. One MCP-native API gives developers real inventory across flights, hotels, and cars, and a deep-link checkout handoff that keeps the customer in a flow your team didn't have to build. Powered by 30+ years of direct supplier integrations.

Innovation Spotlight puts the industry’s most exciting breakthroughs front and center, giving startups, scaleups, and established companies a powerful platform to unveil game-changing innovations

Innovation Spotlight puts the industry’s most exciting breakthroughs front and center, giving startups, scaleups, and established companies a powerful platform to unveil game-changing innovations

The travel industry is entering a new phase of change, shaped by AI, shifting consumer expectations and a more complex competitive landscape. The opportunity is significant, but so are the risks for companies making the wrong bets or moving without a clear strategy. In this opening session, OAG CEO Filip Filipov shares a big-picture perspective on the forces reshaping travel, the questions leaders should be asking now and what the industry’s next moves could mean.

AI is rewriting the economics of building a travel company. Startups that once needed millions in funding and dozens of employees can now achieve meaningful revenue with a small team and little or no outside capital. The implications for the wider industry are significant. Drawing on Phocuswright's startup database and latest European consumer AI research, this session connects the dots among collapsing deal volume, the rise of AI-native competitors and what established travel companies need to do now about their technology, operations and go-to-market strategy before today’s advantages become tomorrow’s table stakes.

The era of easy money is over, but the need for innovation in travel is not. As investors raise the bar, startups face tougher questions about differentiation, durability and the path to value creation, while established players look more carefully at acquisition targets and strategic bets. This panel explores how the rules of travel investment are changing and what that means for founders, investors and the wider industry.

The Margin Shift Travel Has Been Waiting For

Join the Changemakers session to uncover the margin travel companies are quietly losing and the infrastructure built to give it back. We’ll expose the FX Exposure Gap, show why it’s the biggest profitability leak in global travel, and reveal how leading brands are taking control inside the booking workflow. And yes, there is a partnership announcement that will reshape what’s possible in travel.

Join us for drinks and enjoy networking with your fellow attendees, speakers, and the Phocuswright team!

Register or check in, and collect your conference materials. Phocuswright Reception is the go-to spot for all your needs.

Then, meet with innovators and exhibitors one-on-one! The showcase is open for business and abuzz with activity.

Coffee and tea available through the day.

Join us for coffee, tea and networking.

The travel industry is entering a new contest for attention, influence and conversion. AI-powered search, emerging agentic tools and shifting consumer expectations are reshaping the path to purchase and putting pressure on every player in the market. In this candid conversation, Booking.com’s chief business officer discusses how these shifts could change travel discovery and booking, where the competitive lines are moving and what they mean for major platforms.

As travelers shift from traditional search to AI-driven discovery, travel companies are being forced to rethink their product messaging—fast. From building partnerships with AI platforms and emerging aggregators to restructuring content for visibility in large language models, the rules of engagement are changing rapidly. In this session, leading travel companies share how they are reenvisioning product positioning, tech and talent—and review what’s working, what’s not and how they are reallocating resources to stay competitive in an AI-first landscape.

European travelers are making trip decisions at the intersection of convenience, confidence and control. From digital identity wallets and trust in travel technology to concerns about global instability, this session unpacks the forces reshaping consumer behavior. Drawing on new survey data, it offers a market-level view of what matters now and where the travel industry should focus as traveler expectations continue to evolve.

Digital identity in travel is moving closer to reality as the EU Digital Identity Wallet begins to roll out. For the industry, the questions are no longer about what the technology is but about how to prepare for it, where it can create real value and what it will take to make adoption work in practice. This panel examines what travel companies need to understand now about accepting digital ID and how it could change processes such as check-in, verification and service across the travel journey.

Younger travelers are reshaping parts of the market through different priorities around budget, social connection and the role of events in driving travel decisions. In this candid conversation, Gary Morrison, CEO of Hostelworld, discusses how traveler behavior is evolving, what it means for the way travel is discovered and booked, how it affects feature development and what preferences about young people's early travel experiences can teach the rest of the industry.

This session explores why the airport terminal is one of the most undervalued environments today, and how it’s quickly becoming one of the most data-rich media spaces in the world.

AI is starting to compress the path from discovery to decision-making, raising new questions about how travel sellers are found, evaluated and chosen. As agentic commerce develops and interfaces become less dependent on traditional websites, companies may need to rethink the assets, content and capabilities that drive visibility and conversion. This session begins with Microsoft’s perspective on the shift and expands into a broader discussion of what an agent-driven future could mean for travel.

Travel is more fragmented, unbundled, and patchwork than ever - yet traveler expectations for seamless care have never been higher. In this session, Allianz Partners explores how the industry must rethink responsibility across the end-to-end journey, and how travel insurance can ultimately serve as the connective tissue of travel - anticipating disruptions, connecting travelers to real-time support and providing continuity with a human touch when the ecosystem breaks down.

The Middle East was poised for another phase of travel growth. Now conflict is exposing how quickly momentum can shift and how vulnerable the industry remains to geopolitical shock. With traveler confidence under pressure and the region’s role in global connectivity under scrutiny, this panel examines what the war means for travel in the Middle East, how companies are responding and what the wider industry should take from a crisis that reaches far beyond the region.

More journeys now span multiple segments and partners, but travelers still expect the experience to feel seamless. As airlines look beyond traditional network models, new approaches to retailing, partnerships and connectivity are starting to reshape how trips are built, sold and serviced. This panel examines how the airline playbook is changing, what it takes to make more complex journeys work and what the shifts could mean for the wider travel industry.

Find out the winners of The Global Startup Pitch!

AI is generating no shortage of ideas across travel, but the more important question is where it is creating real utility. In this session, three companies share short case studies that show how AI is being applied in different parts of the industry, from identity and personalization to hotel technology and guest experience. The presentations are followed by a panel discussion on what these examples reveal about where AI is delivering value now and where the wider industry may be heading next.

Travel demand is shifting in more ways than one, shaped both by changing traveler preferences and by industry efforts to influence where, when and how people travel. This session begins with new data on the patterns emerging across destinations, then expands into a discussion of how the industry can respond through smarter dispersal, better coordination and a more thoughtful approach to growth. From destination strategy and traveler choice to distribution and transport, the conversation will examine what these shifts could mean for the wider industry.

Tours, activities, and attractions are more than just itinerary fillers—they make up the core of leisure trips and help to give each destination its unique flavor. But this travel vertical is also famously fragmented and hyper-localized. New partnership research between Phocuswright and Arival examines how travelers approach the "fun part" of travel. What are they doing, where are they spending, and who do they turn to when it's time to book? The session continues with perspective from Civitatis on the outlook for experiences and the opportunities ahead.

The Bridge Series brings together executives from across the globe to dissect the modern travel playbook. This session crosses segments and digs deep into product, examining innovative business models and technologies that are rewriting the rules. Get a firsthand look at how regional and global players are leveling up their strategies, winning new customers and adapting to shifting markets and cultures.

As the day comes to a close, this session brings a few thoughtful voices from the audience to the stage to reflect on the ideas, debates and signals that stood out most. What felt genuinely important, what challenged assumptions and what deserves more attention as the industry moves forward? The conversation may also open to the wider audience, creating space for a more candid and collective reading of the day.

Wrap up the conference on a high note! Network and reflect on key takeaways, and celebrate the connections made over the past few days.