Travel industry leaders gather on AI's role in competing beyond automation
More than 1,000 travel executives from over 50 countries attended ConX 2026 in Palma, Mallorca, where the central question was blunt: as artificial intelligence commoditizes technology across the industry, what actually makes a company irreplaceable?
The conference, hosted by Travelgate and part of Travelsoft Group, drew C-level executives and founders from over 500 companies across 50 countries. Huawei sponsored the event, which recorded a 99% attendance rate and facilitated more than 2,000 B2B meetings.
Differentiation becomes the strategy
Pedro Camara, CEO of Travelgate, opened the conference with a direct statement: "In a world where AI is making everything average, the question is no longer what technology you use - it is what makes you irreplaceable."
The theme, "Otherness: Where difference becomes strategy and AI makes everyone average," reflected a consistent message across panels. While AI will reshape how travel distribution works, competitive advantage still depends on customer understanding, trusted partnerships, industry expertise, and the ability to solve real market problems.
Luisa Camara, Chief Commercial Officer of Travelgate, emphasized the value of the conference itself as a venue where serious thinking happens. "The conversations that happen at ConX don't happen anywhere else," she said. "When you bring the right people together, away from the noise, the quality of thinking changes."
Distribution and visibility shift
A panel on hotel distribution identified connectivity and technology as now-standard requirements. What separates competitors: content quality, operational performance, regional expertise, and customer experience.
Visibility within AI-driven environments emerged as a concrete challenge. As discovery models evolve away from traditional search, hotels and distributors face new questions about how travelers find them.
Investment and consolidation accelerate
Henry Briance, Senior Managing Director at Certares, discussed AI's influence on investment decisions in travel. The technology is accelerating both innovation and consolidation across the sector.
Future differentiation, Briance said, will rely less on the technology itself and more on trust, customer relationships, and industry expertise - a theme that repeated across multiple sessions.
Conversational booking and organizational change
Travel discovery and booking are shifting from traditional search-based journeys toward conversational and intent-driven interactions, according to panel discussions on AI's impact on traveler behavior.
Organizations are likely to achieve better outcomes by using AI to strengthen existing capabilities rather than replace them. That requires adapting culture and operating models to match evolving customer expectations.
Entrepreneurship and real problems
Uri Levine, founder of Waze and Moovit, delivered a closing keynote on entrepreneurship and innovation. He emphasized solving genuine customer problems and highlighted persistence and resilience as core elements of successful business development.
Technology and data can accelerate execution, Levine said, but meaningful innovation still depends on addressing real human needs.
About Travelgate
Travelgate operates a global hotel distribution network connecting more than 1,000 buyers and sellers through an API-first, multicloud infrastructure. The company processes more than 65,000 bookings and 15 billion searches daily, representing over 5 billion euros in annual turnover. Since 2024, it has been part of Travelsoft Group, which operates across 90 countries through twelve brands.
For hospitality professionals managing events and working with distribution partners, AI for Hospitality & Events covers how the technology affects guest experience and service operations. For those making strategic decisions about AI adoption, AI for Executives & Strategy addresses investment and competitive positioning.
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