Criteo’s Spring/Summer 2026 Travel Pulse finds demand is rerouting rather than rebounding, as travellers grow more deliberate and booking journeys become more complex across the region

New data from Criteo, a global commerce intelligence platform, shows APAC travel demand remained resilient heading into the spring season, with hotel traffic rising over the period and a late spike nearly 30% year-on-year, even as OTA conversion rates softened 10% year-on-year in Q1. The findings come from Criteo’s Spring/Summer 2026 Travel Pulse report, drawing on data from hundreds of travel providers and insights from more than 6,000 consumers worldwide.

Travel demand in APAC remains resilient, but travellers are becoming more selective about how and where they travel. While air traffic in the region fell 17% year-on-year in Q1 2026 as ongoing tensions in the Middle East prompted many travellers to rethink long-haul plans. Yet the appetite for travel hasn’t disappeared — it has just shifted closer to home. In April, air bookings gained 1.0% for short-haul and 1.8% for medium-haul travel year-on-year, as compared to a decline of 2.8% year-on-year for long-haul flights, signaling a move toward regional and closer-to-home trips. Rather than a pullback on travel altogether, this reflects a recalibration in demand, creating opportunity for destination marketers and OTAs serving shorter-haul routes.

Criteo finds that today’s APAC traveller is browsing more, comparing more, and hesitating longer before committing. This pattern mirrors a broader global trend: travellers now browse an average of 25 hotel listings before making a single booking and 66% cite good reviews as their top decision factor when comparing providers. For APAC travel brands, where conversion pressure is already among the steepest globally, the challenge is no longer attracting attention — it’s closing the deal.

The report highlights that extended deliberation is playing out across a longer season than anywhere else in the world. Travel bookings in APAC consistently outpaced retail sales week-on-week from early July through mid-October 2025 — a longer sustained lead than either EMEA or the Americas. For marketers, this signals an extended activation window and a stronger case for always-on campaign strategies rather than short bursts around peak dates.

Criteo’s data shows that even as travellers grow more cautious, they are turning to new tools to plan with confidence, with APAC leading the way on AI adoption. Holistic, full-trip AI planning is most prevalent in the region — 45% of Japanese travellers and 47% of South Korean travellers are actively turning to AI for end-to-end trip planning, compared to a global average of 30%. AI is also becoming a high-impact channel in the travel path to purchase. In March 2026, ChatGPT drove a higher share of travel booking page visits than traditional search by 13 points, and 72% of Criteo’s travel clients recorded at least one ChatGPT-referred booking.

The report outlines that instead of optimising for volume alone, identifying and reaching genuinely high-intent travellers is what separates the brands that convert in this environment from those that don’t. In partnership with Criteo, global travel platform Skyscanner redefined its measure of mid-funnel success from clicks to Engaged Search Sessions in which users didn’t bounce and completed at least one search for flights, hotels, or car hire. Campaigns optimised against this signal in India and Canada achieved up to a 67% lift in ROI and an 80% increase in engaged search sessions.

“In Japan and South Korea, nearly half of travellers are now turning to AI in their trip planning, a strong signal for the rest of APAC. How a hotel, airline, or destination is surfaced and described by AI now matters as much as how it’s advertised,” said Szi Wei Lo, Executive Managing Director, APAC, Criteo. “Travel brands no longer win simply by outbidding competitors — they win by making it easier for travellers to understand, compare and choose their offering. The travel brands that pull ahead will be those treating content and product data as the driver of discovery, not a back-end concern.”

As travellers across Asia Pacific navigate a more complex and cost-conscious travel landscape, the brands best positioned to convert will be those drawing on real-time commerce data, AI-powered targeting, intent-based audience strategies and full-funnel reach to meet travellers wherever the journey begins.