Skyscanner has highlighted seven trends it expects to shape travel in 2026 to mark the launch of its latest Travel Trends report.
The flight-booking app forecasts that travellers are curating trips that feel ‘more in tune with who they are and what they love’ for 2026.
With the cost of living still top of mind, it predicts trips in 2026 are being built with ‘purpose’, shaped around ‘passions, priorities and a personal sense of ‘worth it’.’
Chief executive Bryan Batista said: “Skyscanner’s 2026 Travel Trends report shows how travel is about to get more personal than ever.
“Whether it’s building a trip around a must-stay ‘destination hotel’, getting lost in a new favourite book on a reading retreat, incorporating a beauty routine into their travel itinerary or bringing the whole family along for the journey, travel will become more curated, grounded and unique.”
The trends report combines Skyscanner’s data with global consumer research of 22,000 travellers and insights from Reddit, Malin and Goetz, All Trails and Penguin Books to identify the seven trends shaping travel in 2026.
It found that 33% of global travellers want to experience local beauty culture and 20% say that they’re influenced by TikTok and social media in this area.
The report suggests that, in 2026, skincare and beauty routines will ‘move beyond social feeds and into real-world travel behaviours’. This could include inflight skincare routines to visits to iconic local beauty retailers to buy cult products.
It says Seoul, in South Korea, ‘continues to grow as a global symbol of beauty culture’, but that the trend is ‘less about where to go, and more about how beauty shapes the way people travel’.
With 35% of respondents saying they plan to check out or shop at local grocery store during their next holiday, Skyscanner says culinary tourism is ‘swapping restaurant reservations for supermarket safaris’.
It says that ‘to eat like a local now means heading to the snack aisle’, whether its Japanese vending machines and 7-Eleven Slurpees to Iceland’s geothermal baked bread, ‘gastro-tourism is changing’.
How people travel for food is now ‘part cultural deep dive, part budget hack, offering a unique glimpse into local life that’s affordable and authentic’.
More than three quarters (76%) of travellers are considering or planning a mountain escape for summer or autumn 2026.
Whether it is for snow or stillness, Skyscanner’s report shows travellers are chasing year-round alpine escapes.
From the Dolomites to Annapurna to the Canadian Rockies, alpine escapes are luring people year-round, the report shows. Skyscanner has seen a 103% YoY increase in hotel bookings using its ‘Room with a mountain view’ filter.
Some 57% of travellers responding to the survey said they have booked or would consider a trip inspired by literature.
This could be tracing the footsteps of fictional heroes, planning a slow holiday around a reading retreat or chasing the world’s most beautiful bookshops and libraries.
This trend is translating onto how people are searching for hotel bookings on Skyscanner, with the use of its ‘library’ filter up 70% YoY.
More than half (55%) of travellers have gone or considered going, overseas specifically to meet new people, for example for friendship or dating.
Skyscanner saw hotel bookings using the ‘solo’ filter jump 83% YoY.
Nearly a third (31%) of travellers plan to travel with their family, including multi-generational journeys, the report found, saying this is not just to share costs but reclaim time together and create long-lasting memories.
According to Skyscanner, travellers are choosing where to go based on where they want to stay ‘more than ever’.
Its report was told that 29% will pick accommodation that’s part of the travel experience or destination itself with hotels ‘no longer a place to just bed down’.
Skyscanner concluded in its report that ‘the future of travel is curated, considered and cleverer than ever before’
Some 84% of respondents said they will go abroad as much, or more, in 2026 compard with 2025, and that many will be stretching their budgets to make room for ‘richer, more rewarding experiences’.
The OTA says AI is set to shift from assistant to agentic, where multiple systems work together to solve complex traveller needs, from trip inspiration to in-the-moment support.
This, it says, is ‘a whole new operating system for travel’.
Social and search, it says, are now ‘the go-to tools for inspiration, research and planning’.
