As many readers will know, travellers of all ages can have very different ambitions and desires for their trips. This means it’s important for travel sellers and providers to stay ahead of emerging trends to be able to offer the best possible service. 

Francisco Pérez-Lozao Rüter, as president of Hospitality at Amadeus, knows this better than most. Overseeing the hotel, destinations, mobility and insurance offering from the transformative travel company, he is charged with ensuring the range of solutions on offer allows Amadeus’ customers to effectively meet these ever-evolving traveller expectations.

As part of this ongoing process, Amadeus has released Travel Dreams, a new project designed to understand how organisations can track customer desires and match that with existing and emerging technologies to build the best travel experiences possible. 

Here he talks Breaking Travel News through the findings. 

Breaking Travel News: Can you give a little background into the report – what were the motivations and ambitions for the project?

Francisco Pérez-Lozao Rüter: It’s been a real pleasure to see Travel Dreams come to life over the past few weeks. We launched the project in early 2025, working to understand how traveller expectations are changing – and how the industry can respond.

Working alongside Opinium Research, 6,000 travellers in six markets – the USA, China, Germany, the UK, France and India – were interviewed to understand their end-to-end travel experience. This included both leisure and business travellers, to offer deep insight into regional, age and traveller type (business or leisure) preferences. 

We looked in turn at each stage of the journey, asking how travellers choose where to visit, what shapes their booking experience, what factors impact a trip once they are on the road and what they dream of when they think of future trips.

BTN: What stood out from the research - did anything surprise you in the research or its findings?

Pérez-Lozao Rüter: Some of the most interesting findings from Travel Dreams revealed the differences between regional expectations. 

While recommendations from friends and family are still a top source of inspiration, as noted by half of travellers as a key motivator, there has been a sharp increase in the number of travellers citing ‘social media adverts and posts’ as a source of inspiration.

The number of travellers regarding this a top source of motivation was up from 23 per cent to 33 per cent over the past five years, with ‘travel influencers’ up from 20 per cent to 29 per cent over the same period.

There were also significant differences between countries. In China, around a third (30 per cent) of those questioned said travel celebrities would influence their choice of travel destination, though this falls in European markets. For example, the percentage stands at just six per cent in both France and Germany.

New channels to reach travellers during the inspiration phase of a journey are rapidly evolving and hoteliers must ensure their offerings are promoted in the right place to drive bookings.

We saw the trend repeated in the insurance sector. Travel Dreams also drew on the support of Amadeus’ partners, with Soraya Ait Ouamara, Head of International Travel Partnerships, AXA Partners, revealing how trends of this kind impact on the market. 

For example, in the United States, American consumers often evaluate whether the insurance offers good value relative to the trip’s cost. They’re more likely to purchase for expensive international trips. They indeed rely on health and credit card insurance benefits, thinking that it covers “enough”. This makes it less likely they need to purchase separate insurance when they travel.

In China, the opposite is the case. Travellers from China look to take zero risk – so they do purchase insurance when they travel. Saying that, many Chinese travellers rely on travel agencies for planning, and insurance is often bundled into package tours.

This limits individual decision-making about coverage. They are more likely to buy insurance when it’s conveniently offered as an add-on during ticket purchases than to buy on their own.

It is vital to invest in understanding these nuances to get the best results. 

BTN: Travel Dreams offers seemingly strong support for attribute-based selling (ABS) – is this a technology for which the time has finally arrived?

Pérez-Lozao Rüter: One of the key takeaways from Travel Dreams was that two-thirds of hotel guests (63 per cent) are willing to pay extra for features such as a specific view or floor, to have an Xbox in their room or to have local attractions added to their package. 

The research also shows these features could add around 12 per cent to the average daily rate (ADR) charged by the hotel, which could increase revenues by over US $5,300 per room, per year, for an average mid-range hotel chain looking to sell these extra features.

It is vital for hotels to deepen their understanding of what guests expect from a stay, as well as establishing methods to get offers into the right channel at the right time. Often, guests do not know what opportunities are available, so creating new avenues to communicate can drive significant sales opportunities. 

BTN: How are things changing on the ground?

Pérez-Lozao Rüter: It is important to understand the differing needs of various groups of travellers. Leisure tourists, for example, crave the personal touch from hotels, with half saying that receiving a personalised service and welcome would be top of the list in achieving their ideal hotel experience in the future. 

Nearly half (48 per cent) of all leisure guests also shared a preference for a traditional check-in desk, with a person to talk them through the hotel amenities.

By contrast, business travellers are looking for more technology in their pursuit of efficiency, with 71 per cent interested in a form of online or self-service check-in. 

For business travellers, ‘flexible room rental’ (including early check-in or booking for less than 24 hours) was also a top priority for 19 per cent, while 20 per cent were also seeking a ‘business centre or appropriate workspace’. Finally, ‘loyalty points’ were also a draw for 13 per cent of business travellers - compared to just seven per cent of leisure travellers.
Sustainability, including carbon offsetting options, was cited as a factor in the hotel selection process by nine per cent of all travellers, rising to 13 per cent among business travellers. Chinese (15 per cent) and Indian (11 per cent) travellers were among the most environmentally conscious.

Nearly a quarter (22 per cent) of business travellers also want the option of paying with crypto currency or a digital wallet in the future – suggesting the payments landscape may also be shifting.

BTN: How is Amadeus working to address the findings of the Travel Dreams research?

Pérez-Lozao Rüter: It is our mission to enable our customers to deliver exceptional experiences at every step of the journey, from the moment travellers start to think about a trip to the moment they return home. Our data insights, digital media services and technology allow hotels, destination management organisations (DMOs), and travel providers to better merchandise what they have to offer so that they can inspire new and repeat customers. 

We have two central reservations systems in our portfolio to address the needs of different types of properties and chain scales. Our iHotelier CRS and Booking Engine provides a personalised booking experience, equipping complex independent and simple hotel groups with the right insight and intelligence to stand out from the crowd with experiences unique to each guest’s preferences, ultimately increasing loyalty and driving repeat business.
 
Meanwhile, the Amadeus Central Reservations System (ACRS) is a centralised, scalable, and cloud-native platform designed for enterprise chains managing multiple properties and accommodation types. While today the industry still primarily sells by room type, ACRS enables experience-based merchandising that moves beyond traditional bookings to support room personalisation, non-room products, and guest preferences at the core of the system. 

Inside hotels, our technology is designed to put efficiency at the heart of operations so that teams have as much time as possible to focus on customers, freeing them up to deliver the great service that will keep people coming back for more. 

And it is not just hotels that we have in focus. We know that having the ability to deliver a continuous journey from end-to-end is important which is why we are working to easily connect our customers with the largest travel marketplace available today. From delivering a seamless digital experience in mobility to offering best-in-class travel insurance, we are enabling our customers to offer packages that drive more revenue and deliver what travellers want. 

BTN: Interesting you mention mobility. What does the research tell us about how the landscape is evolving there?

Concerns about the environment are most starkly illustrated in the car rental sector, according to Travel Dreams. Here, the number of travellers citing ‘having a range of electric or hybrid cars’ as an important factor in deciding to use a hire car company has increased from 18 per cent to 25 per cent over the past five years – a near 40 per cent increase.

Electric or hybrid cars were also more important for younger travellers, with 28 per cent of Gen Z travellers seeing a range as a deciding factor today, compared to 16 per cent of Baby Boomers. Similarly, more Chinese travellers (35 per cent) saw hybrid vehicles as an important factor in car rental today, more than in any other market.

Over the same timeframe, the number of travellers citing ‘having a range of petrol or diesel cars’ on offer as a deciding factor fell from 27 per cent to 22 per cent, illustrating a gradual transition toward less environmentally damaging vehicles.

More Information

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