Transformative technology provider Amadeus has today unveiled its Travel Trends 2026, an insightful look at the forces shaping travel over the next year – and beyond. Partnering with travel trends forecasting agency, Globetrender, and drawing on Amadeus’ proprietary data and insight, the report highlights six key trends for 2026, including a glimpse of the innovative destinations shaping how travelers will experience the world in years to come.

Travel Media plays a key role in shaping how travel experiences are discovered and promoted in today’s digital landscape. With more than 15 years’ experience in the hospitality industry, most recently as Managing Director at Accenture Song, Dan brings a wealth of expertise to continue to drive digital transformation within Amadeus Travel Media.

Any international hotel chains with properties in China, along with the global tech vendors they rely on, may be unknowingly violating Chinese data privacy laws, warns Ireckonu. At the heart of the issue are China’s data residency requirements, which mandate that guest data collected within the country must remain there. According to Ireckonu, a middleware and guest data platform provider for hotels, a significant number of global hotel tech providers are still storing or processing this data outside of China, exposing their clients to serious legal and financial risks if regulators decide to step in.

During my recent conversation with Emma Catterall, Senior Finance Director at The Belfry, I was reminded that the most powerful transformations in hospitality often occur when technology, people, and place work together in harmony.

Cloudbeds, the leading hospitality management platform powering lodging businesses worldwide, today announced a strategic partnership with IDScan.net, a leader in identity verification and ID scanning technology. The collaboration will deliver fully integrated ID scanning solutions that enhance the guest check-in experience, improve accuracy, and boost operational efficiency for hoteliers.

Agilysys, Inc. (Nasdaq: AGYS), a leading global provider of hospitality software and services, today announced that Agilysys InfoGenesis, its cloud-native, omnichannel enterprise POS platform, has been approved for IHG Hotels & Resorts portfolio of properties.

Shiji is excited to announce it is a finalist for a 2025 Geography and Global AWS Partner Award, recognizing leaders around the globe that are playing key roles in helping their customers drive innovation and build solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Shiji is excited to announce it has been named a finalist in the category of Industry Partner of the Year – Travel and Hospitality, recognizing top AWS Partner with the AWS Travel and Hospitality Competency who provide technology products and services to accelerate the industry’s modernization and innovation journey from behind-the-scenes operational efficiencies to guest-facing customer experiences.

AI is transforming industries, and hospitality is no exception. From revenue optimization to real-time guest messaging, the applications are endless. And while the buzzword of the year is undeniably “AI,” the data tells a different story: human touch remains irreplaceable.

The past three years have reshaped the role and expectations of modern property management systems in ways few could have predicted. When the 2022 IDC MarketScape PMS report was released, the industry was still navigating cloud migration, shifting guest expectations, and the lingering effects of the pandemic. Technology conversations centred on modernisation: replacing legacy systems, improving interfaces, enabling mobile access, and ensuring integrations worked reliably.

AI adoption is happening in hotels, and hoteliers are confident about the future role for AI in hospitality. While there are barriers and challenges as businesses come to understand AI adoption, there are positive ways AI is being applied. Here are three key areas that will influence the future of your AI-powered Find, Book, and Grow strategy.