Davos 2026: Why Tourism’s Next Chapter Is Being Written Now

Every year, Davos is a strange kind of mirror.

It reflects what the world says it cares about - and, more importantly, what leaders privately agree can’t keep going the way it has. It’s not just speeches and soundbites. It’s a pressure test. A place where the global operating system gets questioned in real time.

And this year, something stood out.

Not because tourism was suddenly trendy, but because tourism showed up as what it truly is: one of the world’s largest and most complex systems - and one that is being forced to evolve faster than its structure allows.

The real headline from Davos 2026 wasn’t “tourism will adopt AI.” That conversation is over.

The real headline was this:

Tourism is entering its agentic era - and the rules aren’t written yet.

Tourism Is No Longer a Sector. It’s a System.

Tourism is often spoken about like an industry. Hotels. Flights. Destinations. Experiences.

But in Davos, the framing shifted.

Tourism isn’t a collection of businesses - it’s a connected visitor economy. A system made of hundreds of stakeholders that must behave like one seamless journey.

Think about what it takes to deliver a single trip:

– Airlines and airports

– Border and immigration

– Mobility providers

– Hotels and short-term rental

– Restaurants, venues, experiences

– Local governments and national ministries

– Payment systems, safety systems, sustainability rules

Now multiply that by millions of travelers, in real time, across peak seasons, global events, disruptions, weather shifts, geopolitical changes, and economic volatility.

That’s not an industry. That’s a living system.

And living systems don’t scale through isolated optimizations.

They scale through coordination.

MENA Is Building Tourism at a Speed the World Has Never Seen

If there was a region that dominated the tourism future conversation, it was MENA.

Across the region, tourism is being reimagined not as a side sector, but as a strategic growth engine tied directly to long-term national transformation.

Saudi Arabia is the clearest example: ambition goes far beyond volume. It’s about sustainability, cultural preservation, economic diversification, and long-term value creation.

Scale introduces complexity.

At the destination level, tourism is not one product - it’s thousands of interdependent decisions made across public and private ecosystems. While each player is adopting AI quickly, the overall journey remains fragmented.

Intelligence in tourism is advancing faster than coordination.

That’s Why We Launched the Agentic Tourism Initiative with TOURISE

In Davos, we didn’t just talk about the future.

We helped start building it.

Together with TOURISE and the Saudi Ministry of Tourism, we launched the Agentic Tourism Initiative - a step toward addressing the biggest gap in the visitor economy: the missing coordination layer.

The idea isn’t “more AI.” Tourism already has AI.

The point is: what happens when AI stops being a tool and becomes an actor?

When systems don’t just generate insights, but take autonomous action.

When AI can sense, decide, and execute in real time.

When multiple agents coordinate across stakeholders under shared rules.

From insight → autonomous action.

What Davos Made Clear: Three Signals You Can’t Ignore

1) Coordination Is the Missing Layer

Tourism doesn’t lack AI tools. It lacks the ability for systems to sense and respond to each other across the journey.

– Airlines optimizing their own systems

– Hotels optimizing their own systems

– Airports optimizing their own systems

– Destinations optimizing their own systems

But the traveler experiences the gaps.

2) Governance Must Be Designed In (Not Added Later)

– Transparency

– Auditability

– Human oversight

– Ethical and regulatory boundaries

– Interoperability standards

3) Real Execution Beats Abstract Frameworks

Credibility will come from production-grade proof - bounded pilots embedded in real operations, designed to scale.

The Question Isn’t Whether Tourism Will Become Autonomous

It will. The question is: who will define the rules?

– Digital experiences → digital ecosystems

– AI insights → AI coordination

– Automation → autonomous action

– Innovation → operating models