Katanox, the hospitality industry’s financial infrastructure for direct distribution and payments, and Selfbook, the AI-native booking and payments platform powering the industry’s fastest-growing Direct Distribution Network (DDN), today announced a strategic partnership designed to unify how hotels manage bookings, payments, and settlements in an increasingly agentic world. By combining Selfbook’s modern payment and booking experience with Katanox’s real-time financial and distribution infrastructure, the two companies are creating a more connected and reliable foundation for hotels, travelers, and travel sellers.

Cottar’s Safaris, Africa’s oldest family-run safari company, is proud to announce the launch of Mara, an AI-powered Safari Travel Assistant designed to support both guests and trade partners, alongside the launch of its new website – together bringing a century of safari heritage to life and making it easier, smarter, and more engaging to plan journeys to Cottar’s 1920s Camp and Cottar’s Bush Villa in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.

Thrillophilia, India’s leading AI-powered multi-day tours platform, has released its Women & Travel Decisions 2025 report, revealing a quiet but powerful shift inside Indian households. The country’s real travel decision-maker today is not the travel agent, the algorithm, or the loudest voice in the room; it is the woman who plans, filters, budgets, and ultimately shapes the family’s entire travel experience. Based on an analysis of 212,000 itineraries and 8.9 million planning signals, the report finds that women now influence or directly design 72% of India’s leisure trips, taking ownership of everything from budgeting and safety to emotional comfort and experience curation.

Qatar Airways, operator of the largest number of Starlink-equipped widebody aircraft, has achieved a major milestone in its Starlink rollout programme and equipped over 100 widebody aircraft with the fastest Wi-Fi in the sky. This achievement represents one of the most rapid and ambitious Starlink installation programmes in the aviation industry, that’s being implemented ahead of the initially expected schedule, to bring the service to passengers even sooner. With more than 50 percent of its widebody fleet now Starlink-connected, the World’s Best Airline, as voted by Skytrax in 2025 for the ninth time, has already operated over 30,000 flights with uninterrupted, high-speed, gate-to-gate* connectivity. This pace further cements Qatar Airways’ position as the only carrier in the MENA region to currently offer Starlink onboard, and a global leader in Starlink-enabled long-haul and ultra-long-haul connectivity.

New data on personalization trends in the hospitality industry in Asia-Pacific shows that 70% of travelers in the region would pay up to 30% for an upgrade tailored to their needs. The same study highlights that 68% of APAC travelers would spend extra for personalized experiences, signaling a significant opportunity for hotels to increase revenue through personalization and foster long-term guest loyalty. However, personalization goes far beyond points programs or accommodating simple dietary requests. It requires strong data foundations as well as compliance with regional regulations, which are becoming increasingly stringent.

Artificial intelligence isn’t just reshaping travel technology, it’s reshaping the way travel leaders think, work, and create. From using AI to communicate more clearly to embedding it into enterprise platforms that forecast demand and personalize experiences, executives across the industry are finding new ways to collaborate with machines. Some embrace AI as an everyday assistant; others approach it with caution, mindful of preserving human creativity and judgment. Yet all agree: the potential is enormous, and we’re only at the beginning of understanding how these tools will redefine travel, business, and leadership itself.