Dubai becomes the meeting point for travel’s next big conversations.
- ATM 2026 brings global travel leaders together in Dubai this September.
- Travel 2040 explores artificial intelligence, mobility and changing traveller expectations.
- ATM Travel Tech creates a dedicated space for technology-led travel.
- Global tourism partnerships take centre stage at Dubai World Trade Centre.
By September, Dubai’s event calendar starts moving at full speed, with conference halls filling, hotel lobbies buzzing and international visitors moving between meetings, dinners and networking events. This year, Arabian Travel Market arrives with a bigger question than where people are travelling next: how will technology, partnerships and changing expectations shape the way they travel?
A packed exhibition floor can reveal plenty about where an industry is heading. At Dubai World Trade Centre, ATM 2026 will bring destinations, airlines, hotels, travel technology companies and tourism professionals together from September 14 to 17, creating four days where business conversations happen alongside product discoveries. It starts with connection.
For visitors moving between meetings, one of the most interesting additions will be ATM Travel Tech, a dedicated co-located exhibition with Sabre as strategic partner. AI, immersive technology, robotics, fintech and smart mobility will also feature within the Tech & Innovation Hub. These aren’t abstract ideas for Dubai travellers. They touch everything from how trips are planned to how guests move through destinations.
A traveller booking a holiday today may already expect instant answers, smoother digital planning and experiences that feel tailored rather than generic. ATM 2026 puts that behaviour into a wider industry conversation through its Travel 2040 theme, examining how artificial intelligence and digital transformation could influence tourism over the years ahead. The future gets a room of its own.
For Dubai’s hospitality crowd, the conversations also stretch beyond technology. Conference sessions across the Global Stage, Future Stage and Experience Hub will look at aviation, luxury travel, accessibility, sustainability, investment and destination resilience. A hotel executive might be discussing guest data one morning, while a tourism policymaker is considering destination growth that afternoon.
Between coffee runs and back-to-back appointments, the value of an event like ATM often happens in the conversations between sessions. Dubai’s role as a global meeting point gives the show a natural setting for that exchange, with strategic partners including Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism, Emirates, IHG Hotels & Resorts and Al Rais Travel helping shape this year’s programme.
For Emirates, ATM remains a place to build tourism partnerships and connect with specialised traveller segments. Al Rais Travel will also unveil its new AlRaisTravel.com platform, featuring Voice AI and Chat AI, while highlighting its growing medical tourism offering. Nearly five decades of travel experience meets a very different digital era.
As September visitors cross Sheikh Zayed Road toward DWTC, ATM 2026 offers a glimpse at a travel industry trying to balance two things at once: trusted relationships and faster technology. That tension makes the event worth watching, even beyond the exhibition floor.
Arabian Travel Market returns to Dubai from September 14 to 17, with registration now open for visitors and industry professionals. If travel shapes how Dubai connects with the world, this is where some of those next connections will begin!
Registration is live for ATM 2026. Media can register here; to register as a visitor, click here; and for enquiries related to exhibiting, please click here.
