This year again, the Travolution Innovation Report sheds light on the forces at work in travel: stabilised post-pandemic expectations, a shift towards experience and well-being, increased permeability between leisure and business, and an acceleration of digital investments.
The Travolution Innovation Report 2025 was the subject of a discussion in London moderated by Kate Harden-England, editor-in-chief of Travolution, and featuring Noam Toister, CEO of Travelier, and Kevin White, vice president of corporate solutions, Mastercard.
The aim of this conversation was to analyse a year’s worth of technological investment dynamics in the travel industry.
While focused on the UK market, the report reflects trends widely observed across Europe and even globally: the consolidation of digital practices, the upgrading of the customer experience, and the reshaping of the purchasing journey.
Make the most of every trip
The projected growth in 2024 extends a trend that began in 2019, driven by travel that has become more “essential” (family, work, studies), but also more thoughtful and perceived as having high value.
“It’s the comeback of travel; we’ve seen continuous year-on-year growth since 2019,” summarises White.
“Customers want to start traveling again, but they’re also looking for different experiences.
“It’s not just about where to go next, but rather about why they want to go.”
Experiential travel and well-being are thus becoming central to travel motivations.
Business travel is also evolving with individual aspirations. Trips are getting longer and more structured, paving the way for hybrid trips that blend work and leisure.
Data indicates a significant increase in duration: “In 2019, the average business trip for an American traveler to Asia-Pacific was 8.8 days, and we expect this figure to exceed 10 days in 2024,” continues White.
This increased blurring of the lines between professional and personal reasons illustrates, according to the speakers, the desire to derive more value and benefits (discoveries but also relaxation) from every long-distance trip.
Investing to simplify
Travellers’ aspirations are evolving, and so is the direction of investment. Participants in the discussion noted, an acceleration of the digitalisation of land and sea transport.
These sectors are strengthening the integration of operators, simplifying payments, and improving financial services for SMEs that have long been underserved.
“The number of land and sea transport operators that are still not digitized and do not sell online is enormous ,” says Noam Toister.
“We add an average of 10 operators every day; that’s 3,000 to 4,000 operators per year worldwide who have not yet sold online or have been doing it poorly until now. ”
Furthermore, B2B is catching up to B2C in terms of user experience and automation.
“The B2B experience tends to lag behind the B2C experience, hence the drive for consumerization on the B2B side ,” explains Kevin White. “The focus is on simplification and automation on the B2B side, which is leading to agentic AI. “
The participants naturally focused on the evolution of payment practices but were able to agree on a broader observation at the end of 2025: travel is becoming structured around meaning and lived experience, while B2B infrastructure and non-airline segments are rapidly catching up thanks to digitalisation and automation.
This is certainly what awaits the travel sector in 2026.
