Shanghai hosted the 2026 TravelDaily Conference on September 22-23, drawing more than 1,900 travel industry professionals to the Shanghai International Convention Center. Under the theme “Change,” the event convened leaders from OTAs, hotel groups, airlines, cruise lines, TMCs, destinations, travel technology firms, cultural tourism businesses, and investment institutions. Notably, 85.1% of attendees were key decision-makers from travel companies, underscoring the event's strategic focus.
The conference, structured around three main forums—the main TravelDaily Conference, the Hotel Marketing Conference, and the Business Travel Conference—addressed a wide spectrum of topics, from tourism consumption and hospitality to corporate travel, distribution, and artificial intelligence. Despite the breadth, several clear threads emerged, signaling a decisive shift in how the industry approaches growth.
From traffic to value: the new growth imperative
One of the central themes was the move from mere visitor numbers to tangible economic value. In a session titled “From Viral Buzz to Lasting Value: Turning Inbound Tourism Interest into Tangible Growth,” Trip.com Group CEO Jane Sun and TravelDaily CEO Charlie Li discussed how rising international interest in China can be converted into incremental demand. The conversation highlighted that while inbound travel is gaining momentum, the industry must focus on encouraging longer stays and higher spending, enabling hotels, attractions, transportation, and retail to capture more of the value generated by international visitors.
Tongcheng Travel CMO Zhiwei Bai reinforced this by exploring how stronger digital infrastructure and destination service capabilities can transform short-term attention into sustainable tourism consumption. Together, these discussions underscored a broader market shift: attracting travelers is only the beginning. Destinations and travel companies now need the products, infrastructure, and services to retain visitors and convert demand into lasting value.
AI moves from pilots to profitability
Artificial intelligence was another dominant thread, with the conversation moving beyond what generative AI can do to whether it can deliver measurable business outcomes. Amadeus Senior Vice President of R&D, Fabien Blondet, examined how trusted data, ecosystem integration, and deployment at scale are becoming critical to applying AI across travel operations.
The discussion deepened with Emerging Travel Group (ETG) CEO Felix Shpilman and VariFlight Global Managing Director Joseph Xia, who explored how AI could reshape travel distribution—from inventory aggregation and demand-supply matching to customer service and operational efficiency. Plug and Play Managing Partner Amir Amidi pushed further, questioning how AI can transition from pilot projects to profitability.
The consensus was clear: AI is no longer just a front-end tool for search, recommendations, or customer service. It is increasingly embedded in the operating infrastructure of travel businesses, connecting demand, supply, distribution, and execution. The next competitive advantage may not lie in having the most advanced AI model, but in integrating AI into real workflows and turning that capability into measurable results.
Hotels move beyond the scale game
The hotel sector showcased a parallel transformation. As China's hotel market matures, the focus is shifting from expansion speed and room counts to property-level efficiency, differentiated products, owner returns, and deeper customer relationships. Senior executives from Hilton, IHG, and Shangri-La discussed how international hotel groups are localizing products for Gen Z and emerging cultural-tourism demand. Accor Greater China CEO Kent Zhu examined what comes next for international hotel groups in China, as competition moves “beyond scale, beyond luxury.”
Chinese hotel groups are asking similar questions from a different angle: after years of rapid expansion, what capabilities will define the next stage of growth? Technology is accelerating this transition. Fliggy CTO Dr. Alex Chen explored how agentic commerce and AI-native travel could reshape travel discovery, recommendations, and transactions, while Delonix Group CTO LingHang Meng examined how hotel AI can connect guest requests with actual service execution.
The search for new operating models extends beyond China. NUMA Group Founder & CEO Christian Gaiser discussed digital opportunities arising from structural changes in Europe's hotel market, while GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang brought a global and Asia-Pacific perspective on the economic and technological forces shaping corporate travel. These discussions reflect a broader industry-wide pivot from scale-driven growth to value-driven operations.
A global industry seeking its next growth model
The diversity of companies represented in Shanghai highlighted how widely these questions are being felt. Global players including Marriott International, Accor, Hilton, IHG, Shangri-La, Amadeus, GBTA, Mastercard, American Express Global Business Travel, BCD Travel, MSC Cruises, Warner Bros. Discovery, Emerging Travel Group, and Plug and Play joined major Chinese travel and hospitality companies such as Trip.com Group, Tongcheng Travel, Fliggy, BTG Hotels, and Homeinns.
The conference also touched on adjacent industry developments, such as the recent oneworld's Skytrax win and the WTTC Malta Summit's growth forecasts, which underscore the sector's resilience and evolving dynamics. As the industry moves beyond the old playbook of traffic and scale, the new growth model will be defined by value creation, AI integration, and operational efficiency—principles that were front and center at TravelDaily 2026.
