At the end of 2024, dozens of industry leaders contributed to WiT’s three-part Year in Review series – offering predictions, provocations, and warnings about what 2025 might hold. We revisit their predictions a year later to see who got it right and give our verdicts.
Rob Rosenstein, Co-founder & Chairman, Agoda
- One word for 2024: Exuberant
- One word for 2025: Tricky (Rated 4/10 for optimism)
- Prediction: AI should solve real customer and operational problems, not chase “shiny new objects”
- Silent trend: Looming economic crisis
- Buzzword to retire: “Growth hack”
- Biggest problem to fix: Efficiency during trip fulfillment – example, seamless check-in
WiT Verdict: He was right about the looming economic crisis which will continue to loom, and partly right about AI – it’s still being used to chase “shiny new objects” but there is growing momentum in its deployment in solving real customer and operational problems. Long may that continue into 2026.
Laura Houldsworth, MD APAC, Booking.com
- One word for 2024: Fast
- One word for 2025: AI (Rated 10/10 optimism)
- Prediction: AI will be the key driver of innovation; business focus is on building team resilience to deal with pace of change
- Silent issue: Cybercrime – difficult to predict or track
- Buzzword to retire: “Proximity bias”
- Biggest problem to fix: Seamlessness across platforms still a major barrier
WiT Verdict: She was right about the fast pace of change, and her optimism for APAC paid off with the region performing strongly across key markets. Booking.com did innovate, launching more predictive AI search tools, but fraud (especially phishing and clone sites) spiked, proving her cybercrime warning accurate. “Seamlessness across platforms” remains the Holy Grail to solve.
Stephan Ekbergh, CEO, Travelstart
- One word for 2024: “It’s the end of the post-normal era”
- One word for 2025: Renaissance (Rated 9/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Explosion of AI, decentralization, and “sampling” – mixing old + new to create unexpected products
- Silent trend: “Less is more” – criticism of overloaded platforms like TripAdvisor and Google
- Buzzword to retire: “Sustainability” and overused terms like “circle back” and “ecosystem”
WiT Verdict: Ekbergh’s “sampling” metaphor reflected how travel tech evolved: tools like generative itinerary builders began combining content, pricing, and inspiration fluidly. We saw a renaissance of old concepts in certain segments – unplugged holidays, back-to-basics luxury travel. His pushback on bloated platforms also resonates with the trend toward minimal UX design.
Amy Wei, Senior Product Director, Trip.com Group
- One word for 2024: Reinvention
- One word for 2025: Intuitive (Rated 9/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Predictive, always-on travel assistants will define next-gen travel
- Silent trend: “Predictive travel curation” – AI proactively suggesting trips based on life events
- Buzzword to retire: “AI-powered” (ironically)
- Biggest problem to fix: Fragmented travel data preventing seamless experience
WiT Verdict: Trip.com and other major OTAs began embedding proactive nudges and suggestions into apps – early moves toward her “always-on” vision. And yes, AI might just disappear from the travel vocabulary because soon, everything will be AI-powered so there’s no need to say it anymore.
Ethan Lin, CEO & Co-founder, Klook
- One word for 2024: Transformative
- One word for 2025: Upward (Rated 10/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Rise of social commerce and seamless booking through platforms like TikTok & Instagram.
- Silent trend: AI freeing up human time, not just replacing jobs – creating more space for flexible, travel-oriented lifestyles.
- Buzzword to kill: “Travel recovery” – it’s time to talk about growth.
- Biggest problem to fix: Overtourism and the need to promote under-visited destinations.
WiT Verdict: His optimism was well-placed. Klook ended the year on a high, poised for an IPO everyone’s watching. Social commerce exploded across Asia. Klook’s integration with social platforms drove record engagement and influencer-driven bookings. AI didn’t replace jobs, but it did boost productivity behind the scenes. However, overtourism remains unresolved, especially in Japan and Thailand.
Caesar Indra, (Former) President, Traveloka
- One word for 2024: Growth
- One word for 2025: Transformation (Rated 9/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Travel becomes more transformative and deeply personalized, led by AI.
- Silent Trend: Silent travel – “growing interest in quiet, introspective experiences”
- Buzzword to retire: “Overtourism” – suggesting a move toward regenerative tourism instead.
- Biggest opportunity: Expand into new APAC markets; serve the fast-growing middle class.
- Key concern: Execution discipline – scale only if you can maintain service and impact.
WiT Verdict: Traveloka expanded into Australia and broadened its suite of AI-driven offerings, especially around trip planning and deals. His bet on APAC’s intra-regional growth paid off, but “regenerative tourism” remained more aspirational than operational in many destinations. Meanwhile, the trend towards “silent travel” is gaining noise.
Kei Shibata (CEO, Trip101 & Travel.jp)
- One word for 2024: Watershed
- One word for 2025: Flux (Rated 7/10 optimism)
- Prediction: The most powerful businesses will combine great humans + great AI.
- Silent trend: Climate-responsive tourism.
- Buzzword to retire: “War”
- Problem to fix: Travel’s lack of influence on policy despite its scale.
WiT Verdict: Shibata’s human+AI idea was echoed in product strategies across OTAs and tour providers, where AI supports but doesn’t replace staff. Climate-responsive travel has emerged in luxury and eco-tourism circles – but still not mainstream. His concerns about industry influence proved accurate during 2025’s visa and airspace policy shifts that caught travel players off guard.
Chan Chee Chong, CEO, GlobalTix
- One word for 2024: Dynamic
- One word for 2025: Expansion (Rated 7/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Tours and Activities will shine; operators will digitalise. Corporate travel is evolving fast.
- Silent trend: Customised small group/private tours.
- Buzzword to retire: “10X”, “Revenge Travel”
- Problem to fix: Over-tourism is getting worse; locals are pushing back.
WiT Verdict: His cautious optimism was well-placed. While there was strong growth in the tours and activities sector overall, some markets were patchier than others, and with price wars and competition on the rise, a lot of smaller businesses are being squeezed. His call on customised small group/private tours is spot on – many see this as the more profitable segment to double down on in 2026. His callout on over-tourism also hit home, with resistance in Kyoto, Bali, and Amsterdam rising sharply – leading to new tourist taxes and restrictions.
Johnny Thorsen, VP Strategic Business Development, Serko
- One word for 2024: Pressure
- One word for 2025: Disruption (rated 9/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Digital traveller ID and elimination of expense reports; platform integration is the key 2025 trend.
- Silent trend: Expense report extinction
- Buzzword to retire: “Fragmentation”
- Problem to fix: Seamless digital identity in travel
WiT Verdict: Progress in digital ID – notably IATA One ID and EU Digital Travel Credentials –accelerated. Expense report automation rose, but not yet extinct. Integration between booking, payment, and duty-of-care platforms improved, especially in enterprise travel.
Doris Goh, CCO, COMO Hotels & Resorts
- One word for 2024: Grateful
- One word for 2025: Unpredictable (Rated 7/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Return to basics, “quiet luxury,” and wellness-focused travel.
- Silent trend: Sustainability fatigue and deeper calls for action.
- Buzzword to retire: “Post-pandemic”
- Problem to fix: Climate change and over-tourism
WiT Verdict: Demand for low-profile luxury grew. COMO’s brand promise of wellness and sustainability aligned with the “meaningful escape” mindset. However, climate action across the industry still lags far behind rhetoric – her caution about the scale of the challenge remains relevant.
Mike McGearty, CEO & Co-founder, Meili
- One word for 2024: Momentum
• One word for 2025: Evolution (Rated 10/10 optimism)
- Silent trend: Technical debt in legacy systems
- Buzzword to retire: “Digital Transformation”
- Biggest opportunity: Simplicity, transparency, traveller-first UX
- Problem to fix: Booking complexity, industry-wide fragmentation
WiT Verdict: He is right to continue sounding the alarm on outdated infrastructure, a problem that will continue to haunt the industry. Those not so burdened blazed ahead with improved UX, while travel tech startups focused on clean APIs and modular integrations stepped in to offer solutions to suppliers looking to break through legacy tech stacks. Solving technical debt remains the biggest challenge, and the biggest opportunity, for 2026.
Tan Bee Leng, Chief Commercial Officer, The Ascott Limited
- One word for 2024: Unlimited
- One word for 2025: Growth (Rated 8/10 optimism)
- Prediction: Micro-Sabbaticals.
- Buzzword to retire: Work-from-home
- Problem to fix: Manpower challenges
WiT Verdict: Across Asia, there was certainly a rise in “short, purposeful breaks designed to recharge, refocus, and pursue personal growth with immersive, short-term experiences”. Manpower challenges remain THE problem to fix particularly with the question of AI and its implications on future skills and core competencies.
Rod Cuthbert, Founder, Viator
- One word for 2024: Scary
- One word for 2025: Scary (Rated 4/10 optimism)
- Silent trend: Travellers choosing experiences first, before flights and hotels
- Buzzword to retire: Cancelled
- Biggest opportunity: Finding ways to take advantage of AI
- Problem to fix: Overtourism
WiT Verdict: As scary as he thought 2025 would be, he survived to see another year, as did lots of tours and activities businesses which benefited from the “experiences first” trend.
Chris Hemmeter, Managing Partner, Thayer Ventures
- One word for 2024: Accelerating
- One word for 2025: Experimentation (Rated 9/10 optimism)
- Silent trend: The global backlash to accelerating change
- Buzzword to retire: AI
- Biggest opportunity: Expanding relationships with strategic LPs across the globe.
- Problem to fix: Data quality and orchestration
WiT Verdict: He was spot-on about experimentation as travel giants doubled down on deploying AI in back-end as well as customer-facing processes, and startups emerged with AI-this and AI-that ideas and solutions. The global backlash to accelerating change is no longer as silent.
What’s in store for 2026? Watch this space
So, what’s in store for 2026? Watch out for our Year in Review 2025 & Looking Ahead to 2026 Series coming up soon.
Related articles:
Rise of Silent Travel and Micro-Sabbaticals: More predictions for 2025
“Overtourism needs to be fixed, we’re so over with metaverse”: More predictions for 2025
