APAC travel trends 2026 highlight how emotion, pop culture, pets, and technology are reshaping experiences, forcing travel providers to blend personalization, seamless digital journeys, and human connection across the region.
The travel industry across Asia Pacific (APAC) is reinventing itself at record speed. With the region’s travel and tourism market projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.81% to reach US$478.14b by 2030, this momentum reflects a fundamental shift in what travelers want from their journeys.
Today’s travelers are no longer satisfied with cookie-cutter itineraries. They’re looking for experiences that feel personalized, flexible, and emotionally meaningful, reflecting who they are and what matters to them. Understanding these motivations is increasingly essential not only at the individual travel provider level, but across the entire travel ecosystem. As customer expectations continue to evolve, the real opportunity lies in uncovering what drives their decision-making processes, and why those drivers are changing. Recognizing these motivations will help travel providers design experiences that genuinely resonate with modern travelers.
The emotional traveler: travel as identity
Across the region, travel has become a form of self-expression – a way to celebrate personal passions and cultural touchpoints, turning their digital interests into real-world adventures.
Our latest Travel Trends report reveals that story-driven consumption is playing a major role as travelers seek to step inside the world of their favorite shows, music, and games. The influence of pop culture on travel decisions is particularly striking. Following the global success of Netflix’s action-fantasy film KPop Demon Hunters, flight bookings to South Korea rose by 25% year-on-year, with an average 11% month-on-month growth since June.
Brands are responding creatively to this new wave of fandom-driven travel. Everland theme park recently launched a KPop Demon Hunters zone in September. A leading hotel chain’s loyalty program in Japan partnered with K-pop group ENHYPEN to create exclusive music-infused afternoon tea experiences, deepening emotional connections with fans beyond traditional loyalty benefits. Even collectible culture presents opportunities, with travel packages tied to viral phenomena like Labubu pop-ups and merchandise access. This wave of “pop culting” illustrates how entertainment is driving spontaneous travel decisions, particularly among younger demographics.
Beyond fandom, there is another emotional force reshaping travel in APAC: the “pawprint” economy where travel infrastructure is designed around pets and their owners. Pet-friendly stays have nearly doubled in South Korea (120%), Thailand (92%), and India (87%), while initiatives like China Railway Express’s pet-friendly pilot on the Beijing-Shanghai route are redefining what inclusive travel means. In fact, our research shows that 71% of pet parents now see their pets as more like a person than an animal, with 27% traveling with their pets for the first time in 2025. In Singapore, a heritage resort introduced pet-friendly staycation packages complete with tailored amenities, including welcome notes and curated guides to local parks. When providers address key concerns like travel stress and truly pet-friendly environments, pet parents are willing to pay up to 32% more to bring their companions along.
Whether it’s entertainment-fueled journeys or pet-inclusive experiences, emotional motivations are reshaping how and why people travel. Providers that design experiences around these passions will be better positioned to capture rising demand and stay ahead of shifting expectations.
The connected traveler: travel shaped by technology
While emotion drives the “why” of travel, technology is transforming the “how”. The region’s highly mobile-first and tech-savvy population has raised expectations for seamless digital journeys. In Southeast Asia, consumers rely on mobile technology for everything travel related, whether it’s research, booking or managing their trips.
At the same time, advanced technologies are being deployed across the traveler journey – biometric screening at airports, generative AI (GenAI) handling complex inquiries, and sophisticated platforms unifying the end-to-end experience. In India, a global digital travel platform launched an AI-powered vacation planner that combines natural language understanding with its global travel inventory to generate personalized itineraries in seconds. Meanwhile, a leading Southeast Asia travel platform has integrated advanced delivery management across flights, hotels, and services. This enables competitive pricing, tailored offers, and seamless post-booking support in a single digital environment.
Amid all this progress, the heart of travel is about human connection. Technology should elevate that experience, not compete with it. The best solutions are the ones that feel intuitive, like unlocking devices with a glance or paying for coffee with a quick tap of a phone. Travel technology should work the same way – invisible when it’s helping, available when it’s needed, and always giving travelers control over how they engage. This balance becomes even clearer during disruptions.
When unexpected situations occur, 30% of Singapore travelers would want to speak with a human assistant, though only 50% would wait hours for a human if an AI agent were available immediately. This reveals a pragmatic mindset: travelers value human interaction, but not at the cost of convenience. Increasingly, travelers use GenAI to plan and manage their trips – not as a replacement for human expertise, but as a complement to it.
Technology creates a continuous feedback loop between inspiration and action. Pop culture and niche interests feed into AI algorithms, which surface tailored content and travel ideas on social platforms. Travelers then use AI-powered tools to refine and plan itineraries based on those very interests. For pet parents traveling without their companions, smart devices bridge the separation: 42% have photos sent to them while away, 28% video call their pets, and 16% monitor them via cameras.
All these touchpoints reinforce a broader pattern: technology works best when it feels intuitive, unobtrusive, and genuinely centered around the traveler.
Setting the pace for what’s next
As APAC international visitor arrivals are forecast to reach 813.7 million by 2027, one thing is certain: the future of travel in this region will be defined by how emotion meets innovation. Neither element alone is sufficient – travelers demand experiences that are both deeply personal and effortlessly seamless. For providers, this means orchestrating disparate touchpoints into one connected journey, knowing when to deploy automation for efficiency and when to provide human expertise for empathy, blending data, content, and flexibility throughout to meet real traveler needs.