Icons and Innovators Converge: The Phocuswright Conference 2025 Program

 

NEW YORK, NY, Sept. 12, 2025 – Phocuswright today announced the full program for The Phocuswright Conference 2025, the travel industry’s most important stage where global leaders, bold disruptors, and rising innovators converge to define the future of travel. Taking place November 18-20, 2025, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, CA, the event will spotlight candid conversations, cutting-edge research, and high-stakes debates at a moment of unprecedented change for travel, technology, and consumer behavior.

 

Leading Voices Take the Stage

Several of the industry’s most influential voices feature prominently in this year’s program:

• Barry Diller, Chairman & Senior Executive, IAC and Expedia Group
• Rich Barton, Co-Founder, Expedia; Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Zillow
• Erik Blachford, Former CEO, Expedia; Founder, Pine5 Partners
• Omri Morgenshtern, CEO, Agoda
• Travis Katz, General Manager & VP, Shopping, YouTube
• Geoff Freeman, President & CEO, U.S. Travel Association
• Rob Ransom, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer, Booking Holdings
• James Byers, Product Lead for Travel, Google Search
• And many more

 

These power players will share unfiltered insights into where travel is headed, how AI and distribution are reshaping the game, and the bold moves needed to stay competitive when the playbook is being rewritten in real time.

 

Fresh Voices Shaping Discovery

For the first time, leaders from Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube will take the stage to explore how social platforms are collapsing the path from inspiration to booking.  With creators driving demand, TikTok piloting direct hotel bookings, and Reddit and YouTube shaping new communities of travel discovery, this session signals a major turning point for how the next generation dreams, plans, and books travel.

 

Global Perspectives

The program brings a distinctly global outlook, featuring voices from every corner of the world:

• Omri Morgenshtern, CEO, Agoda on AI, Asia, and global expansion
• Frederic Lalonde, CEO & Co-Founder, Hopper on reshaping travel retail from North America
• Executives from Accor, Booking.com, Google, Chase Travel, Visa, Stripe, Marriott, Airbnb and Amadeus, sharing insights on travel’s most urgent challenges and opportunities

 

Program Highlights

The 2025 agenda addresses the critical inflection points facing travel:

• AI moves from hype to the operating system of travel.  From AI-first OTA strategies to deep dives with Booking Holdings, Amex GBT, Marriott, Airbnb and KAYAK, the agenda treats AI as core infrastructure – touching search, merchandising, service, and distribution economics.
• Candid executive conversations on strategy. Interviews with leading executives surface real tradeoffs: control of demand, AI investment priorities, and where profit pools move next.
• The New Travel Seller Arena. Banks, membership orgs, and fintech platforms step into retail, redefining loyalty, audience access, and economics and further splintering distribution beyond suppliers and OTAs.
• Payments, trust, and the agent era. Visa and Stripe (and a soon-to-be-announced AI platform) explore how AI agents will actually transact: identity, fraud, dispute risk, and the invisible UX that decides conversion and margin.
• Consumer reality checks. New research on U.S. traveler payments and luxury behaviors clarifies where consumers splurge vs. trade down, vital for pricing, packaging, and product strategy.
• Loyalty without the jargon.  Phocuswright’s loyalty work recenters on behavior and experience, where programs mechanics matter, and where they don’t, so brands can invest where repeat usage is actually earned.
• Leadership built for change. The New Leadership session tackles talent, org design, and product velocity in an era of agentic AI and digital identity, pairing mentorship with practical playbooks.

 

“Our agenda is designed to capture the forces reshaping travel,” said Pete Comeau, Phocuswright’s managing director. “This year’s speakers will spotlight AI-driven platforms, the rise of social discovery, new global competitors, and the increasingly empowered traveler. By bringing together the voices that matter most, we’re giving the industry a stage that both reflects its present and defines its future.”

About The Phocuswright Conference

For nearly three decades, The Phocuswright Conference has set the stage for travel’s most important conversations as well as provided networking opportunities that inspire connection and partnerships. Each year, decision-makers from across the globe gather to confront disruption, spot emerging trends, and forge the partnerships that shape the industry’s future. The Phocuswright Conference 2025 takes place November 18-20, 2025 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, CA.

Learn more and register at phocuswrightconference.com.