UAE travellers are starting to plan trips up to three months before departure, while booking windows have also increased as regional conflict changes travel behaviour, according to Mamoun Hmidan, Chief Business Officer at Wego.
In an exclusive interview with Lana on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), Hmidan said uncertainty over airline operations, flight frequencies and open travel corridors had pushed travellers to start planning earlier than before.
“I think this year is very different,” he said. “Due to the conflict, we are seeing lots of shifts in user behaviour. Planning is happening way earlier compared to before. Bookings are relatively earlier as well,” he said.
However, before the disruption, travellers began planning around six to eight weeks before a trip, he said. “It [planning] is kind of increasing to three months, pretty much.”
Hmidan said part of the change followed uncertainty during periods of the Iran conflict, when travellers were trying to establish which airlines were operating and what routes remained available. “There’s lots of searches, lots of concentration, lots of selection of, where to go, which travel or flight corridor is open.”
Booking windows have also moved. Hmidan said bookings that previously came between one and two weeks before departure are now being made around 10 to 20 days ahead.
“I would say the one week planning is gone,” he said. “People are pretty much booking now, you know, 10 to 20 days ahead.” The increase in the booking window has been smaller than the shift in planning time, he added.
GCC travel rises as destination patterns change
Visa access continues to influence where UAE residents travel, with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Montenegro among destinations that benefited from access arrangements following COVID.
“Visa-free countries and all of those visa for UAE residents – now that’s been a trend ever since COVID,” Hmidan said. During the conflict, however, Wego also saw more travel within the GCC.
“What we have seen more is basically kind of intra-GCC travel, so towards Saudi, towards Qatar,” he said, also pointing to demand for Egypt, India and Syria, including travel linked to people returning to see family and reconnect with their home countries.
He referred to people from Syria living across the region who were “reconnecting with the country and spending their summer holidays.”
However, demand moved in the opposite direction for parts of Asia, according to Wego‘s Hmidan. “Where we saw decrease is Far East. We saw less people going to the likes of Thailand and Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia.”
He said those destinations would normally appear among markets within the top 20. Europe also recorded some reduction in demand and changes in planning, although Hmidan said the difference was limited.
In addition, the US saw a larger decline during the period. “I would say US went completely out of the radar for people during this time,” he said.
More women from Saudi Arabia travel in groups
Yet, the overall mix of travellers has not changed by much, Hmidan said. “During the travel season, it is mostly families. Off season, it is mostly solo travellers.”
Many solo travellers are travelling for business or combining business and leisure. But Wego has also seen growth in groups of women travelling from Saudi Arabia.
“What we have seen as a trend in the past few years is more female travelling as groups, especially from Saudi. Ever since travel from Saudi for women became easier, we started seeing loads of women, putting their plans to travel together. And this is a growing sector.”
Wego is also seeing more youth travel, particularly on routes within a few hours of the Gulf. “We see lots of young travellers now, especially to nearby destinations for shorter trips,” Hmidan said, citing Georgia and Azerbaijan as high interest destinations.
Groups of young travellers are also travelling more frequently. And rather than taking one or two trips a year, some are now travelling four or five times on shorter breaks, he said.
UAE travellers use ChatGPT and Gemini to plan trips
Artificial intelligence (AI) is also changing how people prepare for travel, with travellers using tools including ChatGPT and Gemini to build itineraries and decide what to do at destinations. Hmidan said AI had started taking over some of the trip-planning activity that previously took place through search engines.
“Many people are actually using AI, especially ChatGPT and Gemini, for trip planning and things to do in the destination,” he said. “What people used to do on Google has kind of shifted primarily into AI.”
Even so, Hmidan said AI has not yet reached the point where one tool can manage the entire process from planning through to booking.
“I don’t think yet there is any full end-to-end AI-powered travel solution in the market that basically can really build the itinerary and book it for you,” he said. “We’re not there yet.”
But he expects that to change. “It will come 100 per cent, but it’s not there yet as an offering in the market.”
Staycations continue to drive UAE hotel demand
Staycations have also remained part of travel behaviour in the UAE despite disruption in the region. According to Hmidan, hotels and resorts recorded 100 per cent occupancy during the period, including beach and family resorts.
Hotels also introduced offers aimed at families. “They put lots of offers in the market, especially for kids,” Hmidan said, adding that these very promotions helped hotels respond to the disruption.
“That sort of created a massive turnaround for hotels in the market. Staycation continues to remain as a trend,” he added, especially in areas such as Yas Island, as well as Dubai hotels and resort destinations.
Oman also recorded an increase in demand during the early stages of the disruption, although part of that traffic came from people using the country as a point of departure. “Oman was always within the top 10, I would say. There was a little bit of the increase during that time at the beginning of the conflict, but that was mostly for people who basically used Oman as a corridor to travel outside,” Hmidan said.
Travellers crossed into the country by road before flying to their destinations. “Many people basically went to Oman – they drove to Oman, and they took their flights from there to wherever they wanted to go.”
However, demand stabilised after airspace reopened, he said.
Travel is ‘in the DNA’ of the people here
For Hmidan, one of the themes emerging from the year has been the ability of travel demand to return following disruption. “The big word I would say is resilience,” he said, comparing the pattern with what the industry saw following COVID-19.
“Despite whatever is going on, the moment there is a chance for people to travel, they will travel. It’s a part of their DNA.”
Hmidan said several factors support travel demand across the UAE, including the number of residents who travel to their home countries and the role of business travel.
“The culture here loves travel. And the culture is mixed – so you have some people who need to go home,” he said. “It’s also business hub – so lots of business travel needs to take place and happen because people need to continue doing what they are doing.”
AI set to move deeper into the travel journey
Over the next five to six years, Hmidan expects AI to move from research and planning into more areas of the travel process.
“You will see lots of tools, lots of prototypes, lots of trials on new businesses that basically will take the whole journey end to end,” he said adding that airlines are expected to apply AI to products and services once the industry develops the planning and booking side of the technology.
“I think you will see lots of additional products by the airlines that [are] being led by AI. I think it’s gonna become more or less data-driven, more personalised with the power of AI,” he said adding that concierge services could also move towards AI – with all these changes expected to be rolled out in the next five years.
AI is also expected to affect the way travel companies, destinations and advertisers reach customers. Hmidan said digital marketing practices developed over the past two decades could shift towards making products visible within AI platforms.
“Those will shift into how you can feature your product more within the AI, how you teach the machine to basically recommend this platform over the other one, how you acquire users over there. So it’s a different gateway altogether.”
He said, however, that the shift had already started. “I think it will reach maturity quite fast. The destination marketing mix is going to change.”
Hmidan also expects AI to reduce some of the production work involved in creating tourism marketing material. “Lots of stuff which required going and filming – it is going to become quite easier and faster. Lots of creatives [are] going to be prepared and done by AI.”
He also referred to virtual touring, IoT, wearables and glasses as technologies that could affect the traveller experience. But some forms of travel will continue regardless of technological change.
“MICE will remain MICE. Events like this will remain like this. Those kind of travel needs will happen regardless,” he said.
And that is also part of Wego’s process, Hmidan said as the company looks add products changing from its original metasearch model. “The focus for Wego today is to continue innovating new products,” he said.
“We moved from being a static metasearch comparison and handoff platform all the way to a marketplace where people can transact with us, to kind of a full-fledged travel super app, I would say.”
“We’re now kind of trying to figure out how we get some in-destination activities … to be more bookable,” Hmidan added.
AI is also being introduced into Wego’s customer-facing operations. “There are AI mandates in the company at the moment,” Hmidan said.
“Most of our customer service and customer touch-base kind of verticals are gonna be led by agentic AI,” he said adding, some have already been introduced. “Some of those are there in practice, so you can go and play with it now. But many more are yet to come in the near future.”
Wego is also working on its media business, including collaborations with tourism boards, airlines and other partners. Hmidan said the company wants to develop the use of data within that business.
The aim is to “close the gap between destination or an advertiser and a traveller”, with technology helping address some of the challenges involved, he concluded.
