The Tourism Sector: Facts & Figures
Tourism Industry Revolution: Trends and Insights
Artificial Intelligence has transformed the travel industry in recent years. By 2026, however, AI is no longer a differentiator, it has become core infrastructure. The question is no longer who is experimenting with AI, but who is scaling it to drive efficiency, profitability, and better traveler experiences.
Travel and hospitality companies are entering a new phase where automation is embedded across operations, data enables real-time decision-making, and personalization becomes predictive. At the same time, traveler expectations continue to rise: journeys must be seamless, hyper-personalized, secure, and increasingly sustainable.
The competitive edge now lies in execution: integrating AI, data, cloud, and automation into scalable business models that deliver margin, efficiency, and superior traveler experience. At the same time, the traveler has evolved. Expectations are instant, hyper-personalized, seamless across channels, and deeply experience-driven. Trust, transparency, and security are critical. Sustainability is not a trend — it is a demand. The industry must move beyond pilots and prototypes. 2026 is about industrializing innovation. At TIS – Tourism Innovation Summit 2026, we bring together the leaders who are building this next phase of travel:
Tourism Innovation Summit brings technology closer to the tourism sector to improve its competitiveness and restart the new ways of travel.
65% of travelers worldwide are now comfortable using AI-powered tools to plan their trips, highlighting a growing trust in technology for travel personalization.
Spain’s market, with approximately €200 billion in tourism GDP and nearly 100 million international visitors, is both a strategic consumer and a growing travel tech innovation hub. Spain’s total tech investment is expected to reach around USD 2 billion in 2025 (~€1.7 billion), up approximately 18% year-on-year.
Tourism is a multi-trillion dollar economic engine — a top employer and a core contributor to GDP globally and in Europe. Tech investment in travel is accelerating — not just in platforms, but in AI, personalization and sustainability.
Technology investment is one of the fastest-growing segments within travel and tourism. The AI in tourism market is forecast to reach USD 13.9 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 26.7%.
The global travel technology market was valued at about USD 11.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to approximately USD 18.7 billion by 2034 (≈ 5.7% CAGR).
Spain has allocated hundreds of millions of euros from the Next Generation EU recovery funds toward the digitalisation of tourism destinations and platforms (≈ €225M+).
The European Union invests in digital technologies (~€180 million in related programmes) that support innovation ecosystems across sectors including tourism.