Arabian Travel Market (ATM) has announced ‘Travel without boundaries: Shaping global travel through experience’ as the theme for its 2027 edition, highlighting how travellers’ interests, passions and expectations are transforming tourism and creating new business opportunities across the industry.
Taking place from May 3–6, 2027 at Dubai World Trade Centre
(DWTC), ATM 2027 will explore how destinations and travel businesses can
develop distinctive experiences that attract visitors, encourage spending and
deliver lasting value for local communities.
According to the ATM Travel Trends Report 2026, produced in
association with Tourism Economics, 56% of consumers are more interested in
exploring new destinations than they were two years ago. This rises to 68%
among prospective visitors to the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia
(MENASA). Meanwhile, 50% report greater interest in sampling local food and
drink, while 40% are more interested in meeting local people.
The report highlights growing demand for passion-led travel,
with culture, gastronomy, adventure, wellness, music and sport increasingly
influencing destination choices. Around 30% of consumers also report greater
interest in event-related travel compared with two years ago.
For tourism businesses, this trend creates opportunities to
develop experience packages, additional services and partnerships with local
providers. Restaurants, sporting events and hotels can increasingly serve as
key attractions, encouraging visitors to discover destinations through
distinctive local experiences.
Danielle Curtis, Regional Portfolio Director – UAE, RX
Global, said: “Travellers are looking more closely at what a journey allows
them to experience, whether that is discovering a culture, pursuing a passion
or sharing something memorable with the people around them. For destinations
and businesses, the opportunity is to understand those motivations and build an
offering that gives people a compelling reason to visit.
“‘Travel without boundaries’ reflects how these
opportunities extend across the industry. The same journey can combine business
and leisure, wellness and adventure, or premium experiences and everyday value.
Through ATM 2027, we want to explore what businesses can create together when
they look beyond traditional categories and consider the experience as a
whole.”
The 2027 theme will be explored through four pillars:
Experience without boundaries, Opportunity without boundaries, Innovation
without boundaries and Possibility without boundaries. These will examine
evolving traveller preferences, emerging markets, commercial opportunities,
technological developments and cross-sector collaboration.
Technology will remain a central focus, particularly its
role in creating personalised and seamless travel experiences. The report
highlights the growing influence of artificial intelligence on travel planning,
alongside the continued importance of human expertise, local guides and host
communities. ATM Travel Tech will return as a co-located event showcasing
technologies and innovators shaping the travel experience.
The report also forecasts international arrivals to grow by
8% worldwide and 17% across MENASA in 2027, as travel recovers following
disruptions in 2026. Worldwide visitor nights, covering domestic and
international travel, are projected to exceed 29 billion by 2030, with spending
within destinations reaching US$10 trillion.
ATM 2027 will feature discussions on these trends across its
Global Stage and Future Stage, while the Experience Hub will return with
peer-to-peer roundtables, specialised industry discussions and networking
opportunities.
The event will bring together destinations and travel businesses to examine how experience-led tourism is reshaping products, investment priorities and opportunities across established and emerging markets. -TradeArabia News Service