What Two Major Travel Trade Shows Taught Us About the Industry in 2026
The first quarter of 2026 was an intense one for the easyGDS team. In the space of a few weeks, we were present at two of the travel industry’s most significant events: ITB Berlin and Aviation Festival Asia. Between the conversations at our stand, the meetings with airlines, and the questions from travel agencies, we came away with a clear picture of where the industry is heading.
Here is what we heard.
Travel agencies are under more pressure than ever
The single most common theme across both events was margin pressure. Independent travel agencies and OTAs are squeezed from both sides: supplier costs rising on one end, OTA competition driving down booking fees on the other. The agencies that were most engaged at our stand were not looking for more content or more inventory. They were looking for tools that help them compete without increasing their operational costs.
This is exactly the problem easyGDS was built to solve. A white-label booking engine that gives an independent agency the same technology as a major OTA, without the transaction fees, without the setup complexity, and without losing control of their own brand and client relationships.
Airlines are rethinking ancillary revenue
At Aviation Festival Asia, the conversations with airline representatives kept returning to one word: ancillaries. Seat upgrades, baggage, lounge access, stopover packages. Airlines know that the margin is not in the base fare anymore. The question is how to distribute ancillary products effectively through agency and GDS channels without losing revenue to intermediaries.
easyGDS’s integrated stopover engine, live today for Etihad Airways, is a direct response to this need. It allows airlines to offer branded stopover packages bookable directly through travel agencies, with full revenue visibility and no third-party margin erosion.
The technology gap is still real
Perhaps the most striking observation from both events was how wide the technology gap remains between large carriers and the mid-market. Many of the businesses we spoke with at ITB Berlin were still managing bookings across multiple disconnected systems: a GDS here, a hotel wholesaler there, a separate payment gateway somewhere else.
The appetite for consolidation is strong. Businesses want one platform, one login, one view of their inventory and their revenue. That is the direction easyGDS is heading.
What this means for 2026
The travel industry is not short of ambition. What it is short of is accessible, affordable technology that delivers enterprise-grade capability to businesses that are not enterprise-sized.
easyGDS exists precisely for that gap. If the conversations at ITB Berlin and Aviation Festival Asia told us anything, it is that the market is ready.
If you would like to see how easyGDS could work for your business, book a demo here.