By 2034, travel is slated to be a $16 trillion industry, and a big reason for that growth is consumer prioritization of travel.
The industry is even outpacing total gross domestic product projections, Olaf Belgraver, head of chains at Booking.com, said on a recent episode of the CoStar News Hotels podcast, meaning that travel will grow its market share from 10% to 11.5% in the coming years.
"When you look at the five biggest travel markets around the globe — which are the U.S., the U.K., Germany, China and India — all five of them, based on a travel survey that was done, indicate that travel is the biggest spending priority for them," he said. "If you look at those five countries today, they represent about 34% of the total travel market, and by 2040 we expect that that will expand to 42%."
The prioritization of travel from citizens of these countries, as well as the growth of the middle class in global markets, are contributing to this travel demand trend, he said.
The rising use of artificial intelligence is also making a huge impact on the travel industry, and Belgraver said it represents "one of the biggest shifts that we see currently in travel since the internet."
Booking.com recently released its Global AI Sentiment Report, which found that 91% of global respondents are excited about AI and nearly 80% of them are familiar with the technology. However, only 6% of respondents said they fully trust the technology and only 12% said they were comfortable with AI making decisions on their behalf.
Belgraver said he sees agentic AI — where AI-powered technology makes decisions without human input — will rise in use in the near future. Already, 89% of consumers want to use AI in travel planning, per the report, and 24% consider AI assistants as trustworthy sources, which already outpaces travel bloggers (19%) and social media influencers (14%).
AI agents "could be rebooking flights if there's disruptions, or adjusting our itineraries, and taking all the end-to-end steps without us necessarily having to intervene, and that's something that we really need to somehow prepare for," he said.
Getting ready for this next stage of AI means optimizing in-house and back-end technology, whether through hiring a knowledgeable third-party AI company or optimizing internally. Belgraver said there are several ways to optimize operations with AI.
He added social media is also still a force to be reckoned with in terms of what's driving travel, so making sure your hotel is active and present on the major platforms is still as important as ever.
For more on recent travel trends from Booking.com's Olaf Belgraver, listen to the CoStar News Hotels podcast above.