In this keynote, we explore how GenAI is getting fresh momentum into the pursuit of the (occasional) leisure traveler — one of the most significant yet untapped spend segments in the travel industry.

While past initiatives like NDC, modern retailing, and attribute-based selling have aimed to serve this segment, it is the advent of GenAI — particularly its ability to scale meaningful, conversational engagement — that truly unlocks its potential, especially during the inspiration phase of the travel journey.

Destination content will also play a pivotal role, not only in sparking inspiration but in fostering long-term loyalty. We’ll also touch on the emerging influence of agentic AI and the evolving promise of frictionless travel.

The fusion of social media and e-commerce has already begun to revolutionize many industries, and travel is no exception. Social platforms, already a well-known source of travel inspiration, is now being used for travel planning. In this new world where consumers put more trust in friends, family and authentic travel creators, this panel discusses the role of AI and the degree to which AI Agents will either support, complement, or even replace traditional travel agencies and even influence business travel habits and expectations. For companies to thrive in this new paradigm, adaptation is key. An insightful panel discussion featuring Joel Bailey, Chief Technology Officer at CTM and Ori Gal, Co-Founder at Via.ai.

As travel industries embrace rapid digital transformation, the ability to share and collaborate on data has become a cornerstone for operational excellence and superior passenger experiences.

This session will delve into:
– How secure, real-time data sharing between airlines, airports, and technology partners is streamlining operations
– The role of advanced analytics, AI
– Overcoming challenges in data governance, privacy, and legacy system integration to build a culture of collaboration and trust across stakeholders

Join our panel discussion with Steve Armitage, Head of Innovation at London Heathrow; Tino Klähne, Director of Strategic Innovation & Intelligence at Lufthansa; and Jérôme Bousrez, Head of AirOps Engineering at Amadeus. Each panelist brings a unique perspective and deep expertise in leveraging data to drive collaboration and transformation across the travel ecosystem, ensuring a lively and insightful discussion on the future of data sharing in air travel.

Join us for an energizing deep dive into the power of partner-driven innovation, featuring senior executives from IBM, Microsoft and Amadeus. In today’s rapidly evolving travel-tech landscape, no one innovates alone — collaboration is the catalyst that turns big ideas into breakthrough solutions.

– Discover real-world success stories: Hear how IBM and Microsoft co-create cutting-edge offerings with Amadeus to solve complex industry challenges, accelerate time-to-market and unlock new revenue streams.
– Unpack the playbook for co-innovation: Learn the practical frameworks and best practices these leading organizations use to ideate, prototype and scale joint solutions — from AI-powered personalization to seamless cloud integrations.
– Explore untapped “white spaces”: See how Amadeus and its partners are venturing into adjacent markets and commercial models, potentially shaping new categories in travel, hospitality and beyond.
– Get in the front seat of partnership: Gain insider perspectives on how to build a truly symbiotic go-to-market engine — where shared vision, aligned incentives and joint marketing create unstoppable momentum.

Session participants will explore why sustainability in travel is no longer optional and how Travel Tech must shift from intention to action. They will examine the regulatory, consumer, and business drivers that are turning sustainability into a core operating requirement.

The session will highlight concrete examples of how technology can reduce emissions, improve transparency, and enable new eco-friendly business models.

Participants will leave with a clear understanding of why the industry must act now, and what types of solutions Travel Tech founders, investors, and corporates should prioritize to stay relevant and competitive in a climate-constrained world.

This session offers a comprehensive view of innovation in the travel industry through three distinct lenses.

Starting with a data-driven analysis of the current state of travel innovation across the sector, we’ll narrow our focus to share key lessons distilled from studying over 100 innovation units within aviation.

Finally, we’ll offer exclusive insights from Lufthansa Innovation Hub’s 10-year journey, highlighting our most valuable learnings and sharing our vision for the future of both LIH and the broader travel ecosystem.

This session dives into how innovation fuels effective change, drawing on 20+ years of leading transformation in the dynamic aviation sector. We’ll explore not just adapting to change, but actively driving it through innovative strategies.

From implementing Agile Delivery Models to developing future-focused loyalty programs and distribution strategies, we’ll see how fresh thinking reshapes the industry. Veronica will share how to build a culture that embraces new ideas, uses technology to its advantage, and ultimately, leads to tangible results like enhanced revenue and customer satisfaction.

You’ll gain practical insights on using innovation to navigate and spearhead change.

In this session, Christian will outline how to ensure that a transformation project ends up being a process that adds continuous value to the organization.

Making sure that there is a purpose, be it increasing revenues, improving customer satisfaction, or becoming more efficient.

Ensuring that you are not doing it alone, sharing accountability and control with business functions, and ultimately creating a need in those who will be affected so they embrace the change.

Eliminating silos, making sure different skills, cultures, and knowledge help create new ideas and break the walls of what has been done before.

This session will explore how Amadeus Ventures identifies and supports early-stage start-ups at the intersection of technology and travel.

Suzanna Chiu will provide valuable insights into the latest trends, share success stories, and discuss the future of innovation within the travel industry. We will also highlight the strategic value these collaborations bring to both the corporation and the portfolio companies.

This is an excellent opportunity to gain an insiders view on corporate ventures.

Innovation plays a crucial role in enhancing both guest experiences and hotel management within a global hospitality group.

At Accor’s Innovation Lab, we focus on three main types of innovation: incremental, disruptive, and breakthrough. Our efforts are aimed at developing new solutions that continuously improve services and address evolving market needs.

These innovations cover a wide range of areas, from collaborating with startups to testing new technologies, enhancing in-house solutions, and rethinking business models.

Our projects aim to create value by not only improving operational efficiency but also transforming the guest experience, introducing novel concepts, and exploring new opportunities for the future of the hospitality industry.

By focusing on these key areas, we strive to stay at the forefront of industry trends and provide exceptional experiences for our guests, while also optimizing hotel management through innovative strategies and technologies.

In this talk, Adele will share the ins and outs of the workings of Accor’s Innovation Lab

How do you drive real innovation in complex, heavily regulated industries like aerospace?

In this session, Nichola Bates, Managing Partner of Aerospace Xelerated, shares lessons from scaling startup collaboration within Boeing’s accelerator.

Learn how open innovation, diverse perspectives, and aligned incentives can help heavy industries overcome inertia, support sustainable growth, and build future-ready ecosystems.

This session will explore pivotal learnings in B2B innovation and the commercialization of internal technology for the travel sector.

It will focus on the critical challenges of people, culture, and organizational alignment, emphasizing the necessity of fostering collaborative environments and integrated teams.

The discussion will address the complexities and failures of aligning diverse business teams & organizational cultures through product discovery, piloting, business case development and go-to-market approaches.

The innovation playbook in travel has been rewritten.

With infrastructure commoditized, AI accelerating product cycles, and startups outpacing internal teams, traditional R&D-driven approaches are no longer enough.

Innovation today isn’t about owning everything — it’s about how fast you can partner and orchestrate.

This session explores why legacy travel companies struggle to innovate and how partnerships with startups unlocks the speed, agility, and focus required to stay competitive.

Attendees will gain a practical framework for identifying the right partners, structuring and accelerating pilots, and scaling what works — with actionable insights drawn from both corporate leadership and startup execution experience.

In this session, we’ll explore how TUI is shaping the future of travel through a structured yet adaptive innovation process that bridges internal capabilities with external ecosystems.

Using high-level frameworks and real case studies—from AI-led customer experiences to cross-functional experiments—we’ll show how innovation unfolds across different TUI entities.

Key takeaways include strategies for engaging startups and vendors, lessons from scaling AI pilots, and best practices we’re adopting this year to foster more inclusive, data-informed, and value-driven innovation.

Whether you’re in corporate, startup, or public sector—this session offers insights into making bold ideas fly in complex organizations.

Join Klaus for an interactive session exploring how one of hospitality’s leading SaaS companies approaches innovation at scale.

You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how, in just three years, the IDeaS Innovation Lab has scaled innovation into a rapid, repeatable, process—delivering at least one new, market-ready solution beyond its core offering to the industry each year.

Discover how bold ideas are rapidly tested and transformed into real-world value, and how AI is being used not just to enhance our products, but to accelerate the innovation process itself.

Through practical examples, we’ll explore how a structured, yet agile approach can drive meaningful transformation in travel technology.

What if airports were places you are eager to arrive at — not just to catch a flight, but a feeling?

Airports are evolving beyond transit hubs — they are becoming spaces of transformation, connection, and emotion. In this session, we will explore how emerging technologies and emotional design can meet travelers’ growing desire for meaning, calm, and connection. Drawing from Gharage’s latest research and foresight reports, we invite you to reimagine airports as a destination in themselves.

Gharage is a collective of foresight strategists, researchers, designers, innovators, and venture capitalists aiming to inspire and enable solutions in spaces of transit to guide the direction for a better future of travel.

Rebels make our lives impossible with their endless questions and crazy ideas. But are they really? What if they are actually your agents of change? The ones who see things differently, bring cretive solutions to long lasting problems, and are brave enough to commit themselves and get it done?

Rebels are the ones who get the ball rolling. Are you the one to stop them, or will you create the right context so that your rebels will move mountains for you?

In this session, we learn what makes a rebel, discover their superpowers, and explore which existing and non-existing roles would be perfect for rebels. By the end of the session, you have a handful of practical tips to empower the rebels in your organisation.

Amazon builds on its mission to be the most customer-centric company in the world through a combination of culture, mechanisms, tenets, and technology.

Learn how Amazon empowers organizations to capture the voice of the customer in real time and use generative AI and the AWS extended customer experience (CX) solution portfolio to maximize the value of data.

We will also be exploring how Amazon build a cutomer service experience and how other travel enterprises are doing the same.

This session dives into how a legacy railway company is expanding into the future of travel by engaging a new generation of travelers through personalized, digital travel experiences — harnessing the power of corporate venture building.

As mobility habits evolve and younger generations seek more flexible, and experience-driven journeys, traditional transport providers are broadening their role in the travel value chain. We will discuss how a railway company is moving beyond its core activity of rail transport to enter the world of personalized travel and outdoor experiences.

At the heart of this transformation is bold business model innovation, powered by corporate venture building. The panel will provide an insider’s view on how a broad exploration of opportunities evolved into a real business model. They will also share how using a Legal Sandbox enabled faster testing and market entry while reducing legal and operational risks.

This interactive round table discussion will feature three innovative startups: Blinkoo, hivr.ai, and The Trip Boutique.

Each of these startups is revolutionizing different aspects of the travel industry, and the session aims to explore their stories and insights.

The discussion will focus on the experiences and challenges faced by these startups in securing collaboration and investment opportunities. The session will include introductions, sharing from startup founders, and interactive Q&A segments.

The goal is to foster a deeper understanding of the dynamics between startups and corporates, highlighting the mutual benefits and the importance of communication and trust in successful partnerships.

Quantum computing is associated with enormous expectations. It is expected to change the world and make new classes of problems accessible and computable. But the key questions are: for which problems and applications will it provide a practical advantage over classical computers and supercomputers? And when will we be able to fully utilize this advantage?

In this session, we will present the current state of the technology and the IBM Quantum Computing roadmap, with a particular focus on synergies of Quantum Computing and AI, the travel industry, and the progress being made toward achieving a practical quantum advantage.

Romain will present the best practices for designing AI user experiences and present the HAX design patterns.

HAX design patterns describe flexible and actionable solutions to recurring human-AI interaction problems.

Each pattern follows the same structure that guides you from the Problem the pattern can solve, to a Solution, When to use, How to use, User benefits, and Common pitfalls to avoid.

You’ll leave this session with guidelines on how to improve the human to AI user experience, straight from the Microsoft HAX Toolkit.

Discover how AI is redefining innovation – powered by ServiceNow.

• How can technology accelerate innovation and put AI to work for your business?
• How do we continue innovating while maximizing the value of our existing technology investments?
• What does it take to balance modernization with operational continuity?

Join us in this interactive session as we bring innovation to life with a hands-on lab. You’ll see a real-world AI use-case in action as we build an app from idea → innovation → implementation. Get inspired by success stories and leave with practical insights you can apply immediately.

Many see Amadeus, and in particular its business incubator Nexwave, as innovation driver in the Travel & Tourism Industry. Nexwave identifies and grows new businesses to shape the travel experience of tomorrow.
The Nexwave methodology is unique. With the support of Frank Mattes, they have developed a proprietary stage-gate process to create, incubate and accelerate businesses in a fast and bold way.

In this workshop session, you can take a look behind the scenes. Discover how Amadeus Nexwave innovates.

Organizations of all sizes often ask how they can innovate like Amazon.

Since its humble beginnings as the “”world’s largest bookstore,”” Amazon has not only innovated across ecommerce and other adjacent segments, it has also introduced entirely new and unrelated businesses to the organization.

In this session, we discuss how Amazon views and leverages technology as a utility to increase the pace of innovation across the organization and discover how Amazon accelerated the journey to customer centricity at organizations across various industries, including travel, with customers like Melia, Amadeus, Accor, Ryanair.

In this session, you’ll learn how to apply the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) framework to make better product decisions.

From conducting interviews to synthesizing insights and prioritizing product ideas, you’ll gain practical experience in using JTBD to align teams, uncover real customer needs, and drive strategic focus.

JTBD acts as a powerful filter for AI. It ensures that AI isn’t just another trendy buzzword, or another technology search of a problem, but a well-considered tool that enhances the user experience by addressing core user needs in a meaningful way.

In this talk, we’ll delve into how JTBD can guide the strategic use of AI. We’ll explore how AI can be leveraged to fulfill the Jobs identified within your meticulously crafted job maps, transforming them from simply understanding user needs to creating innovative solutions that truly resonate with your target audience.

In this session, Luciano will share the journey to becoming fluent in AI—not just learning to use it, but learning to think with it.

From using AI for simple productivity gains to integrating it as a true cognitive partner in how we solve problems, make decisions, and drive innovation.

Along the way, Luciano has personally redefined his relationship with knowledge, focus, and creativity.

This is a story of mindset transformation—about moving beyond automation and learning how to collaborate with AI to expand what’s possible in work and thinking.