From Seamless Trips to Visa-Free Access & Authentic Experiences to High-Value Tourists: 2025’s Top Travel Conference Buzzwords

Since the turn of the year, Gary and Hannah have been travelling across South East Asia and worldwide, speaking at various travel conferences. So, this week, we’ve compiled a long list of the most ubiquitous concepts, words and phrases we’ve encountered on stage and in the venue break-out spaces and receptions. We discuss the current contexts around popular buzzwords such as Authentic Experiences, Hyper-Personalisation, Seamless Trips and Frictionless Travel. We wonder where the Visa-Free Access debate goes next, and applaud the greater integration of Muslim Tourism themes into travel conference planning. Of course, we can't leave out Over-tourism, Agentic AI, Gen Zs, Digital Arrival Cards and Chatbots, and we make a forecast about how Trump Tariffs will be discussed in a travel context across the rest of 2025. Plus, what happened to Super Apps, the Metaverse and our most disliked phrase "Owning the Customer"?