10 macro-trends, 42 trends, 10 blocks of actionable Marketing Insights and more than 30 verifiable sources. An in-depth guide, with no invented data, for tourism professionals who want to understand what is already reshaping consumer behaviour and turn every trend into practical action in their own business.
In 2025, 1.52 billion people crossed international borders. More people travelling than in any other year in history. For 2026, the projection rises to 1.58 billion. But the most important figure is not the volume.
It is the radical shift in why people travel, in how they choose and in what they expect from you, the travel trade. A trend is not what people buy, it is how and why they buy. And what is changing right now has nothing to do with trending destinations: it has to do with consumer behaviour.
What you will find here is the synthesis of more than 30 studies, reports and surveys, organised into 10 macro-trends and 42 trends. The distinctive value of this guide lies in three layers: global trends backed by real data, Brazilian and international cases that show each trend in practice, and a block of Marketing Insights you can act on at the end of every macro-trend. The goal is that you leave here knowing exactly how to turn each trend into concrete action in your business.
Each block is a standalone chapter, with structured arguments, verifiable data, application examples and pointed challenges for the trade. Click to dive in.
The biggest revolution in tourism in 2026 is not technological. It is emotional. A large share of travellers no longer ask "where am I going?", but "how do I want to feel?". Hilton called it the Whycation. Accor created the Vibe Menu concept. And the data shows we are facing a structural change in how the tourism product needs to be designed, communicated and sold.
Hilton, in a survey of 14,000 travellers across 13 countries, coined the term Whycation: travel driven by an emotional why, not by the destination. None of the three most-voted answers is a place. They are emotional states.
Accor surveyed 4,300 travellers in 9 countries and mapped the 8 emotions guiding travel in 2026. Picture a website that opens with "how do you want to feel?" instead of "choose a destination".
Emotional trends do not come from nowhere. They are a response to a context of permanent tension that defines the 2026 consumer.
Local validation of the global emotional wave: the Brazilian traveller has also stopped buying destinations and started buying meaning.
If your company still sells a destination, it is selling a commodity. Whoever sells emotion sells a differentiator. Review all your materials: where is the emotional "why" of the trip you offer?
Inhotim (Brumadinho, Minas Gerais) was included by The New York Times on its list of 52 places to visit in 2026. Travel + Leisure named Brazil destination of the year. The global emotional wave is asking for exactly what Brazil has in abundance: nature, living culture, authenticity.
In 2026, Joseph Pine (author of The Experience Economy, 1999) published the update to the concept that reshaped tourism over the past two decades. The new frontier is no longer offering memorable experiences: it is delivering transformative experiences. The traveller is not just looking for a trip, they are looking for a new version of themselves. That is why storytelling and deep narrative building are on the rise, and why both TikTok and Instagram started allowing longer videos: the platforms realised users were leaving when the content was too shallow, heading to YouTube, search engines and AI instead. Research shows that medium and long videos now win more attention than short ones.
Wellness is no longer spa and massage. It is a complete travel philosophy. The global market is projected to reach US$ 2.1 trillion by 2030, growing 12.4% a year. But what changed is that wellbeing became the reason for the trip, not an add-on to it. It was the number 1 trend identified by the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism's Trends Report, appearing in more of the 33 publications analysed than any other.
Real demand, verifiable on Google Trends, compiled by Trip.com's Why Travel? report with Google. Travellers choose the destination because it offers wellbeing, not in spite of it.
Hilton coined the term Hushpitality, joining "hush" and "hospitality". Travellers want a break from noise, from family, even from themselves.
Travel driven by thermal and water immersion. Travellers do not want only activity or only relaxation: they want both.
"Brain Rot" was Oxford Dictionary's word of the year in 2024. An APA review of 71 studies confirmed the link between excessive social media use and cognitive decline.
The fitness traveller does not want a hotel with a gym. They want to train, recover and learn new skills during the trip. A loyal audience that spends more.
Amadeus points to significant growth in air bookings for 2026 in destinations that already have a natural wellbeing vocation.
If your hotel still treats the spa as a "secondary leisure area", it is missing the biggest differentiation opportunity available right now. Wellness is not an amenity. It is the main product.
Wellness has become the product. But most of the Brazilian trade still communicates it as an amenity. Repackaging is the cheapest and most powerful marketing action of 2026. A resort with a thermal pool becomes a Soakcation destination. A guesthouse by a river, in silence becomes a Hushpitality retreat. A hotel with organic coffee and trails becomes a longevity destination. The offer does not change; the international language does.
86% of travellers value experiences over material goods (Hilton). And Mintel notes: the new status symbol is not what you own, it is what you live. Travel, food and exclusive access are replacing handbags and watches as markers of distinction, especially among Gen Z and Millennials.
An Expedia survey of 24,000 travellers in 18 countries. This is not a niche. It is mainstream. Mentions of farms in Vrbo reviews rose 300% YoY.
Pinterest searches for "book club retreat ideas" rose 265%. Vrbo reviews mentioning reading almost tripled YoY.
The building's history has become part of the tourism product. Massive growth in searches.
"Skillvenirs": instead of a physical souvenir, the traveller takes home a skill. Searches for cooking classes are exploding globally.
A fascinating tension: travellers want digital inspiration but human validation. They want the real thing, not the filtered one.
If your tourism product can be replicated anywhere in the world, it is not an experience. It is a commodity. An experience is what can only happen there, at that moment, with that community.
When experience outranks destination, less saturated places gain a competitive edge. The 2026 traveller wants to discover, not to confirm. Yet most of the trade communicates every destination the same way: "come and visit, we have beautiful landscapes". Whoever builds a specific editorial line about how to travel differently attracts qualified attention.
Sports tourism is projected to reach US$ 2.1 trillion by 2030, growing 17.5% a year. Live music: a further US$ 35 billion between 2023 and 2028. eSports reaching US$ 12.4 billion by 2030. Entertainment is the engine of tourism's next decade.
Boston grew 1,000% in the 3 days after the group draw. Monterrey: +330%. Mexico led the host countries with +70%.
This is not just youth culture. 85% of Thai travellers combine concerts with family holidays. Paris saw +60% in Airbnb bookings during Taylor Swift's 2024 shows.
Estimated potential impact in the US: US$ 8.45 billion. 2026 destinations: Yorkshire (Downton Abbey), Tuscany (Jay Kelly), the Dalmatian Coast (People We Meet on Vacation), France (the next The White Lotus).
92% of executives agree that "play" destinations will be crucial. Qiddiya City (Saudi Arabia) projects US$ 36 billion a year and 17 million visitors, with a 73,000-seat eSports district.
Carnival, the São João festivals, Lollapalooza and Rock in Rio already position Brazil strongly in Entertainment Tourism. Accor already offers experiences at Rio's Sambadrome paid with loyalty points. What is missing is for the Brazilian trade to package and monetise everything around these events with the sophistication of Las Vegas or Singapore.
Most of the trade still plans campaigns around the commercial calendar: Mother's Day, Father's Day, Black Friday. But entertainment tourism moves to the cultural calendar: concerts, festivals, sporting events, film and series releases. The search peaks are already mapped on Google Trends. Whoever anticipates them wins.
The family that travels together is reinventing itself. The "Sunday barbecue" is being replaced by the family trip (Ministry of Tourism Trends Report). And the numbers show new complexity: Skip-Gen Trips, Inheritourism, Hotel Hop, Silver Tourism. These are concepts that redefine how hotels, tour operators and destinations need to think in 2026.
74% of parents embrace trips with grandparents and children. 55% of grandparents plan and organise these trips, and half pay for them in full.
Cross-generational loyalty: 66% report parental influence on hotel preferences. 58% use their parents' loyalty programmes.
Silver Tourism is the most underestimated market in global tourism. Valued at US$ 1.72 trillion in 2024, projected to reach US$ 2.62 trillion by 2030, growing 7.3% a year.
If your destination is packed at weekends and empty from Monday to Thursday, the answer is not a discount. It is a dedicated programme for the 60+ audience: midweek packages with cultural curation, morning wellness, quality food. This audience does not want a discount. It wants an adapted experience and respect. And it pays above average.
The 60+ audience is one of the biggest untapped opportunities in Brazil. Gramado, Caldas Novas, the Serra Gaúcha and Campos do Jordão already attract this audience naturally, but without a dedicated strategy. Whoever structures it first earns their loyalty first.
The 60+ audience is the most underestimated and highest-margin segment in tourism. US$ 2.62 trillion by 2030 (Grand View Research). Yet the Brazilian trade keeps using condescending language. "Third age" and "golden years" have to go. The 60+ audience does not want a discount, it wants respect and an adapted product.
When you put Wellness, Silver, Inclusive and Pet together, you realise that the largest slice of global tourism today belongs precisely to the audiences the trade still underestimates.
If you are still debating whether to use AI in your tourism business, you have lost the race. The question now is how. And the answer is subtler than it looks, because the 2026 traveller does not trust AI blindly. They mix their sources. Amadeus called it Travel Mixology.
Travellers combine AI + Reddit + YouTube + word of mouth. Only 46% trust AI (KPMG). That is why word of mouth remains source number 1 (36%).
AI travel start-ups captured 45% of the sector's venture capital in the first half of 2025, against 10% in 2023. 71% of experts believe AI will drive productivity.
In Brazil, 49% cite social media as their number 1 source (Ministry of Tourism/Nexus 2025), but they trust spontaneous photos, not ads. Live travel streams are gaining ground.
"Algorithmic fatigue": consumers want to take back control of their digital identity. Trust will be built through organic channels and genuine discovery, not predictive personalisation.
AI will not replace travel agents. It will replace those who don't use AI. The agent who combines AI efficiency with human curation will be more valuable than ever. AI's 25% error rate is your opportunity.
LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization), also called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) or AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), is the hottest discipline in digital marketing in 2026. The Brazilian travel trade is almost entirely absent from it. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini: "what is the best guesthouse in (your destination) for a couple without children". If your brand does not appear, you are invisible to the 60% of Gen Z and Millennials who use generative AI to plan travel (Amadeus 2026).
ESG in tourism is no longer rhetoric, it is a purchase decision. 84% think travelling sustainably is important (Booking.com), and the consumer has turned pragmatic: they do not demand perfection, they demand authenticity. Inclusion has stopped being a niche and become market expansion, with US$ 262 billion in autistic travellers in the US alone.
53% of global travellers will not compromise on quality for sustainability. They want both: a good experience AND a positive impact, without guilt as the engine.
European summers are becoming unbearable. Travellers are migrating to cooler destinations. Searches for northern destinations are exploding.
Regenerative tourism is the new frontier. Supporting communities, regenerating ecosystems, leaving the destination better than you found it. An emerging luxury positioning.
A market certified by IBCCES. Mesa, Arizona, became the world's first "Autism Certified City". 96% of autistic people report anxiety when travelling.
Accessibility is not charity, it is market strategy. A person with a disability generally travels with 1 to 3 companions. Multiply your base.
Inclusion and sustainability are not "departments". They are the product. Anyone still treating them as a legal obligation is losing the audience that will spend the most over the next 5 years.
Brazil has the nature, biodiversity and human capital to lead regenerative tourism in the southern hemisphere. The Amazon, the Pantanal, the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado offer a unique setting. What is missing is narrative, certification and packaging. The window is open.
ESG and inclusion have stopped being institutional narrative. In 2026, what converts is real, first-person testimony on video. Guests with disabilities showing what the stay was like. Neurodivergent families describing inclusion. Travellers aged 60+ explaining how the destination accommodated their needs. Don't use a model, use a real customer.
The way people arrive has changed. Direct point-to-point flights connect secondary cities without hubs. Road trips are back in force. And the pet has become part of the tourism product, with a market projected at US$ 500 billion by 2030.
Long-range narrow-body aircraft make routes viable that would never justify a wide-body. Hubs lose weight. Secondary cities gain connectivity.
Freedom, control, predictability. The road trip fits multigenerational travel, travelling with a pet, and flexibility. Guesthouses along a route gain relevance.
Bloomberg's projection. 47% of owners travelled with their animal for the first time. In Brazil there are 160 million pets. Hotels, guesthouses and airlines are repositioning.
If your hotel still charges a "pet fee" as though it were a problem, you have lost the game. The pet is not an inconvenience. It is the second guest.
New mobility changes the paid media game. When a Brazilian city gains a direct international flight through Embratur's PATI, the local trade has a 90 to 180-day window to capture the source city's audience. When Florianópolis gains a flight from Buenos Aires, your guesthouse in Florianópolis needs to be in Buenos Aires feeds.
The 2026 consumer is rewriting basic notions of luxury, pleasure and value. Time has become far scarcer than money. Gen Z is sober. In Brazil, 64% of adults drink no alcohol. And psychological inflation is reordering priorities. The trade that understands this rearrangement gains decades of advantage.
CISA 2025 survey of Brazilians. Globally, Mintel points to time as the scarcest luxury. Travelling has stopped being "doing more things" and become "winning back quality time".
People using medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy and similar eat less, drink less and prioritise experiences over food. Hospitality and food service are reorganising.
Globally, Gen Z is drinking less than any previous generation. "Sober curious", "sober travel" and premium mocktails are gaining ground.
"Psychological inflation": consumers feel everything is more expensive, even when real inflation is falling. Justify your price with a narrative of concrete value.
Renting sports equipment, travel clothing, temporary premium luggage, toys for children at the destination. The traveller wants the experience, not the baggage.
If you still use a discount as your main sales lever, you are being short-sighted. The 2026 consumer does not want cheap. They want a narrative of value. And they pay more for it.
The new consumer is quietly reorganising consumption. 64% of Brazilian adults drank no alcohol in 2024 (CISA Brazil). People on GLP-1 medication (Ozempic, Wegovy) eat 30 to 40% less. People on a digital detox want 3 days with no schedule. Each niche generates a buyer persona with high lifetime value and is still poorly served by the trade.
Brazil is the only 2026 macro-trend that speaks Portuguese. Travel + Leisure named Brazil destination of the year. The NYT included Inhotim in its list of 52 places to visit. Embratur closed 2025 with 9.3 million international tourists (+38%, the highest growth in the world). And the domestic numbers are moving at the same pace.
The BRASIS Strategy sets the target at 16.2 million by 2030. Brazilian tourism GDP is projected at US$ 234.8 billion in 2026 (WTTC).
Tropical colours, handmade jewellery, high-cut bikinis, açaí, samba and bossa nova are entering international fashion. The "Brazilian summer" has become a reference for relaxed luxury.
A combination of PATI (the International Tourism Expansion Programme), infrastructure investment, international marketing and trade training. The first time in decades with a coordinated long-term plan.
Brazil's window will not stay open forever. 2026 and 2027 are the years to capture global attention. Whoever digitalises their product, professionalises their service and trains their teams now will earn the loyalty of the tourist who is arriving. Whoever waits will be selling a commodity once everyone else is already in the game.
Brazil has unprecedented international visibility in 2026. Travel + Leisure named it destination of the year, the NYT included Inhotim in its list of 52 places to visit, and Embratur closed 2025 with 38% growth in international arrivals. But the window does not stay open forever. The businesses that professionalise now will earn the loyalty of the tourists arriving.
Percentage growth in air bookings for 2026 according to Amadeus. International and domestic bookings combined. The ten states with the highest increase.
Generic packages with 2 days in city A + 1 day in city B will lose relevance to experiences organised by emotional vibe. The traveller will choose by feeling and the operator will build the logistics. The standard itinerary becomes a commodity with razor-thin margins.
AI assistants will handle preliminary research and simulations. But the human agent will handle curation, cultural context, problem-solving and relationships. Whoever combines the two multiplies productivity. Whoever ignores AI becomes obsolete. Whoever uses only AI loses their differentiator.
Hotels with no clear identity, no narrative, no focus on a specific "vibe" will face brutal margin pressure. Utility hospitality (bed + Wi-Fi + coffee) becomes a low-value commodity. Differentiation will lie in emotional curation, positioning and a clear target audience.
The sober generation, the Ozempic economy and digital detox will force resorts to rethink the economics of all-inclusive. Margins from the bar and the buffet will shrink. Margins from wellness, premium dining and curated experiences will grow. A complete overhaul of the model, not a cosmetic adjustment.
The 2026 World Cup, the BRASIS Strategy, Brazilcore and unprecedented international visibility create a moment that could define the next two decades of Brazilian tourism. But we need a professionalised trade, trained teams and investment in digitalisation. Brazil can be a global destination, or it can carry on being a regional destination charging in dollars. The choice is ours, now.
Short, direct answers to the most searched questions about tourism in 2026, with verifiable sources. Use it as a quick reference.
The 10 macro-trends in tourism for 2026 are: (1) The Age of Emotion, (2) Wellness 360°, (3) Experiences outrank destinations, (4) Entertainment Tourism, (5) Family, Generations and Silver, (6) AI in the traveller's journey, (7) ESG: sustainability and inclusion, (8) New mobility and pets, (9) The new consumer, and (10) Brazil, destination of the year.
These macro-trends unfold into 42 trends with verifiable data from sources such as Hilton, Accor, Booking, Expedia, Amadeus, Mintel, Embratur and more.
Whycation is the term coined by Hilton in a survey of 14,000 travellers across 13 countries (Hilton 2026 Trends Report, conducted by Ipsos). It means travel driven by an emotional why, not by the destination.
The three main "whys" identified by the survey: rest and recharge (56%), time in nature (37%) and mental health (36%). None of the three most-voted answers is a place; they are all emotional states.
The Vibe Menu is the concept created by Accor in a survey of 4,300 travellers across 9 countries (ALL Accor Experiential Travel Trends 2026, conducted by Dynata). It maps the 8 core emotions that are replacing the destination as the starting point of the traveller's journey.
The 8 emotions are: Awe, Joy, Liberty, Connection, Nostalgia, Serenity, Surprise and Prestige. 25% of travellers in 2026 want to search for trips by mood, not by destination.
The Tourism 60+ (Silver Tourism) market is projected at US$ 2.62 trillion by 2030, according to Grand View Research, growing 7.3% a year. It is bigger than the GDP of France and remains the segment most underestimated by the Brazilian trade.
The 60+ audience spends on average 20% more per trip than other segments, prefers the low season and shows a high loyalty rate when served well (AARP Travel Research 2025).
Brazilcore is the contemporary Brazilian aesthetic that became a global cultural trend in 2025-2026. It covers tropical colours, contemporary regional cuisine (neither rustic nor cliché), live music, bio-jewellery and original Brazilian design.
Vogue, Elle, Travel + Leisure and the Wall Street Journal already cover the theme. Brazil was named destination of the year for 2026 by Travel + Leisure, and Inhotim was included in the New York Times list of 52 places to visit.
The BRASIS Strategy is the coordinated long-term federal plan run by Embratur and the Ministry of Tourism for Brazilian tourism. It sets a target of 16.2 million international tourists by 2030, with coordinated investment in PATI (the International Tourism Support Programme), infrastructure, international marketing and trade training.
It is the first time in decades that Brazilian tourism has had a federal plan with a long-term horizon coordinated across the sector's main institutions.
Brazil received 9.3 million international tourists in 2025, against 6.77 million in 2024. Growth of +38%, the highest on the planet in the period (BRASIS Strategy / Embratur / Ministry of Tourism).
Argentines led arrivals, followed by Americans and Europeans. The domestic aviation sector also broke records: 103 million domestic passengers, 108% growth in Porto Alegre and 71% in Fernando de Noronha (IATA 2025).
The four key markets add up to US$ 5.48 trillion by 2030: Silver Tourism (US$ 2.62tn), Wellness Tourism (US$ 2.1tn), Pet Travel/Pawprint Economy (US$ 500bn) and Inclusive Tourism (US$ 262bn in the US).
That is more than the combined GDP of Germany and the United Kingdom. All of these markets are still considered "niches" by the conventional trade.
LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization), also called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) or AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), is the discipline of optimising so that generative AI models (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude) recommend your brand when users ask questions about travel.
According to Amadeus 2026, 60% of Gen Z and Millennials use generative AI to plan travel. If your brand does not appear in those answers, you are invisible to the largest emerging slice of the market.
The priorities for 2026 include: (1) professionalising digital communication (a PT/EN/ES multilingual site, schema.org, LLMO), (2) repackaging the offer with international vocabulary (wellness, longevity, transformation), (3) training teams in applied AI and personalisation, (4) categorising the product by emotional state and specific niche, (5) integrating the cultural calendar into campaign planning.
Brazil's window in 2026-2027 is unique. Whoever moves now earns the loyalty of the tourist who is arriving. Whoever waits will be selling a commodity.
Wellness Tourism is the segment that combines travel with the pursuit of physical and mental health. The market is projected at US$ 2.1 trillion by 2030, growing 12.4% a year (Global Wellness Institute, McKinsey & Company).
It includes meditation retreats, soakcations (thermal immersion), longevity travel, sleep tourism, biohacking retreats, Hushpitality and digital detox. According to the Ministry of Tourism Trends Report, it is the number 1 trend in Brazilian tourism by recurrence across the 33 publications analysed.
Set-Jetting is the trend of travelling to destinations seen in series, films and streaming productions. It grew strongly after the post-pandemic boom of Netflix, HBO and Disney+.
Examples: a surge in searches for South Korea after "Squid Game", for Croatia after "Game of Thrones", for Sicily after "The White Lotus". Brazil has the opportunity to capitalise on international and domestic productions that gain global circulation.
Every number presented in this guide is connected to a verifiable primary source. No invented data, no vague approximations. The list is organised for you to consult directly.
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