Every year, the travel industry looks to Skift for signals about what’s next. Their latest 2025 travel outlook distills an enormous amount of industry intelligence into a handful of powerful insights. While the headlines highlight resilience and recovery, the deeper message is this: the industry is entering a new phase defined by adaptability, personalization, and a shifting global power map.
Below, we unpack the most compelling takeaways from the report and offer our perspective on what they mean for brands navigating everything from AI disruption to loyalty reinvention.
The Booking Funnel is Gone. Expectation is Now Instant.
Travelers want relevant, bookable options the moment inspiration strikes.
Skift’s analysis confirms what many in the industry have already felt: the traditional planning funnel has collapsed. AI, mobile behavior, and social discovery have blurred the lines between dreaming and booking.
The implication is clear: travelers expect immediacy, relevance, and low-effort experiences. Brands must deliver suggestions that feel both intuitive and personalized, not generic lists of options. This requires more than surface-level recommendations; it demands a deep understanding of customer intent and real-time availability across categories.
AI Is Expanding Across the Traveler Lifecycle
Whether through autonomous planning tools, chat-based agents, or voice-activated assistants, travelers are shifting from “search and compare” to “ask and receive," and generative AI’s impact has moved from hype to infrastructure. The growing comfort with AI-powered travel planning marks a major shift in how products get discovered.
This emerging behavior raises important questions: How are offers structured for AI interpretation? Are packages, rates, and experiences easily surfaced by intelligent assistants—not just humans? And what happens to brand visibility in a world where AI narrows the field before a customer even reaches your site?
To remain relevant, travel providers must think beyond AI as a search or booking tool. The future lies in systems that can recommend, adapt, and resolve across the full traveler journey—before, during, and after the trip.
Sustainability Is Becoming a Purchase Driver
Eco-conscious travel is no longer niche, it’s normalized. Skift’s research reaffirms the mainstreaming of sustainability in travel. Many travelers aren’t just passively interested in sustainable options—they’re willing to pay more for them. According to Skift, 60% of travelers globally say they would spend more for sustainable travel, and nearly half say it influences where they go.
But signaling sustainability isn’t enough. It needs to be integrated into the booking experience in ways that feel authentic and actionable. From carbon offset opportunities to curated “low-impact” itineraries, brands will increasingly be expected to embed environmental responsibility into product design, not just marketing.
The Traveler Identity is More Fluid Than Ever
Work, leisure, family, and wellness are blending in new ways. The rise of “bleisure,” slow travel, and remote flexibility has created a more complex traveler identity. Skift’s findings show that traditional segments like business vs. leisure or solo vs. group, no longer capture how people move through the world.
This shift challenges travel providers to build flexibility into every layer of the experience. It’s not just about booking a hotel or flight; it’s about enabling multi-purpose, multi-intent journeys that flex with a traveler’s needs in real time.
Travelers Are Spending Differently—Not Less
The focus is shifting from volume to value. While 41% of U.S. travelers expect to spend more on travel in the next 12 months than in previous years, they’re making different trade-offs. Spending is increasing for flexible booking options, travel insurance, and experiences, while budgets for dining and accommodations are under more scrutiny.
Similarly, Skift and Epsilon found that 73% of travelers are actively looking for budget-friendly travel, yet many are also investing in extras like trip protection and early check-in. This suggests value-driven intent rather than simple bargain hunting.
This means brands need to be concerned about offering the right options, not just more options. Brands should provide control and confidence; let travelers customize their experience while offering transparency on value. Personalized bundles, trip protection, and curated upsells are increasingly valued by travelers and must be surfaced intelligently in the booking flow to help close the gap.
Experience-First Travel Is Replacing Destination-First Travel
Trips are now built around culture, events, and authenticity—not just landmarks.
Skift and its partners report a growing preference for immersive, locally grounded experiences—from music festivals to culinary tours. This shift goes hand-in-hand with a rise in spontaneous, short-term bookings and “slomad” travel.
Brands should focus on packaging experiences, not just transportation or lodging. Experience-based inventory needs to be accessible and relevant, especially for loyalty members seeking something meaningful and memorable.
Resilience Requires Diversification
One product line isn’t enough. Travelers want options, and so should you.
Companies that performed well in Skift’s future-readiness ranking shared a common trait: diversified revenue streams. Ancillaries, subscriptions, dynamic offers, loyalty integration, these are no longer add-ons, they’re core business levers.
Diversification isn’t just about capturing more revenue; it’s about creating stability in a volatile market. Offering a broader range of travel experiences, bundles, or price points can insulate against demand shocks and improve customer lifetime value.
Loyalty Is Being Redefined in Real Time
It’s less about tiers and more about relevance. And, consumers want value, immediacy, and identity alignment, not just points.
Traditional loyalty mechanics such as points, status levels, and delayed gratification are losing traction with younger consumers. Skift’s report highlights that future-ready companies are rethinking what loyalty looks like in the age of immediacy and personalization.
That doesn’t mean loyalty is dead. It means brands need to deliver recognition and value at every touchpoint, not just after repeat purchases. This is a pivotal moment to reimagine loyalty as an engine for engagement. Programs that offer instant rewards, personalized travel perks, AI-driven recommendations, and exclusive access toidentity-based benefits will be better positioned to win traveler trust.
The Competitive Advantage is Adaptability
The most future-ready brands aren’t necessarily the biggest. They’re the most agile.
Skift’s rankings of industry leaders emphasized not just revenue or scale, but flexibility. As generative AI, economic volatility, and global shifts reshape the industry, the path forward won’t be defined by scale alone.
It will be defined by how quickly a brand can sense change and act on it.
For brands, this is a clear call to action: invest in systems that enable flexibility. Build in ways that allow for experimentation. And design with change in mind, from product packaging to loyalty structure to distribution models.
The Future is Responsive
Skift’s 2025 outlook doesn’t predict a single future; it highlights a set of directional truths. Travelers are more dynamic, more informed, and more values-driven than ever before. The most successful brands will be those that meet them with flexibility, intelligence, and empathy.
At Switchfly, we’re not just observing these shifts; we’re thinking about how infrastructure, experience, and engagement need to evolve in response. We believe the future of travel isn’t just about more technology. It’s about smarter, more adaptive technology that puts the traveler at the center.
