New insights by international journey big Amadeus reveal findings related to anybody working an lodging property proper now.
Amadeus surveyed 6000 leisure and enterprise travellers globally — together with a devoted Australian cohort — plus 500 senior hoteliers worldwide (50 from Australia) for its new analysis paper, Journey Goals 2026: From information to thrill.
Primarily based on the paper’s findings, HM spoke with Amadeus Regional Vice President, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific, Nicole Dobson, to unpack what Australian travellers will prioritise this 12 months.
Inform us how lodge operators ought to seize the rise of “wellness journey”?
The Amadeus Journey Goals 2026 information makes it very clear: wellness is not a spa add-on, it’s the core purpose many Australians journey within the first place. Almost half — 45% — of Australian travellers surveyed wish to return house with a calmer nervous system, and 30% describe their very best vacation spot as someplace that naturally pulls them away from their cellphone. That alone tells us one thing in regards to the frame of mind Australians are travelling with proper now.
For lodge operators, the chance is to reframe what “wellness” means at a property stage. It doesn’t require a six-star spa or a $50 million fit-out. It begins with intent — designing areas, programming, and repair touchpoints that genuinely assist friends decompress. Suppose quiet zones, digital-detox ground insurance policies, morning mindfulness periods, regionally sourced menus, and nature-connected experiences.
The brand new motels main this area in Australia perceive this intuitively. Monarto Safari Park’s new resort close to Adelaide, for instance, contains a world-class spa, thermal plunge pool, ice tub, sauna, and a number of out of doors swimming pools— a full wellness ecosystem. Elysium Noosa Resort has taken a equally deliberate strategy, with devoted wellness suites that includes infrared saunas and even a concierge centered particularly on friends’ health objectives
The broader wellness tourism motion can be being pushed by Australia’s quickly rising bathhouse and thermal spa tradition. Demand for bathhouse tradition in Australia is signalling a shift from solitary, treatment-based experiences to social and immersive wellness rituals — protecting every thing from magnesium swimming pools and sizzling saunas to chilly plunges and holistic therapies. Lodge operators who can carry this power inside their property partitions, or accomplice with close by wellness venues, will win the friends looking for a psychological reset.
The paper reveals greater than half of Australian friends keen to pay a premium for wellness add-ons like ice baths, saunas and in-room health, how can motels higher implement this?
That is the place the Journey Goals 2026 information will get notably thrilling for operators and buyers. The report exhibits 57% of Australian friends would pay further for an ice tub or cell sauna, and 58% would pay further for in-room health tools. This isn’t aspiration, it indicators shopping for intent, and we predict hoteliers needs to be constructing income methods round it.
The sensible implementation comes down to a couple ideas. First, begin with what you may deploy shortly. Transportable sauna pods, chilly plunge items, and compact in-room health kits are getting more and more modular and comparatively low-cost in comparison with full-scale structural renovations. These might be trialled throughout a handful of rooms or on a devoted wellness ground earlier than scaling. The secret’s merchandising them accurately — surfacing these choices on the level of reserving, throughout pre-arrival communications with friends, and thru cell check-in flows, slightly than burying them in an in-room facilities information.
Second, take into consideration attribute-based promoting. The report identifies “sleep optimisation packages” — premium bedding, white noise units, aromatherapy — as producing as much as $342,000 yearly for a mid-scale 150-room lodge working at 70% occupancy. That’s earlier than you layer in air high quality rooms, native expertise kits, and early check-in. The buyer base is confirmed; it simply wants motels to fulfill it with the precise product.
Third, leverage information to focus on the precise friends. Gen Z globally present a willingness to pay for sleep optimisation packages. Households and bleisure travellers reply in another way to wellness messaging than solo company friends. Figuring out your segments and tailoring the provide accordingly — slightly than broadcasting a generic “spa bundle” — is what separates a revenue-generating programme from one which will get ignored.
Talk about the report’s findings on AI funding from a lodge proprietor or investor’s perspective?
From an funding standpoint, the AI findings in Journey Goals 2026 ought to get the eye of each lodge proprietor and investor in Australia. Globally, a rare 499 out of 500 hoteliers globally plan to spend money on AI this 12 months, spending a mean of US$319,000 per property. That could be a strategic dedication and the aggressive hole between properties that deploy AI nicely and people who don’t will solely widen.
For lodge house owners, the ROI case is multi-layered. Essentially the most rapid returns come from income administration — AI-powered dynamic pricing and competitor charge intelligence are already being utilized by 40% of surveyed hoteliers. Occupancy and labour scheduling forecasting, cited by 38% of hoteliers, is equally compelling from a value administration standpoint — optimising labour spend towards actual demand indicators might enhance EBITDA, notably related in Australia’s tight labour market.
Trying barely additional forward, AI’s position in personalisation is the place the compounding worth will get very fascinating. A lodge that is aware of a visitor prefers a excessive ground, an early check-out, a plant-based breakfast, and silence after 10pm — and might act on that information throughout each touchpoint — constructing loyalty in a means that no loyalty programme can replicate.
The necessary caveat for Australian operators is that AI needs to be working within the background, not changing the human contact friends nonetheless clearly worth. The info exhibits that throughout room service, check-in, concierge, and housekeeping requests, a majority of travellers nonetheless need folks, not robots. The profitable system is AI dealing with the intelligence — pricing, forecasting, personalisation — whereas employees deal with the heat.
Inform us about AI-generated search summaries and what sensible steps ought to hoteliers take to seize this viewers?
That is presumably probably the most pressing advertising shift occurring in hospitality proper now, and it’s one which many Australian properties are nonetheless making ready for. The Journey Goals 2026 information reveals that 59% of Australian travellers rely solely on AI-generated search summaries — they’re not clicking by to a number of web sites, studying critiques intimately, or evaluating OTA listings within the conventional means. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, or Perplexity one thing like “finest boutique lodge within the Mornington Peninsula with a wellness focus” and reserving from the handful of properties that seem within the reply.
If conventional search engine marketing is about rating in search outcomes, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is about incomes visibility inside AI-generated solutions. For hoteliers, it means ensuring your property exhibits up when a visitor asks one thing very particular comparable to ‘Greatest household motels near [event] this weekend’.
With Gartner reporting that conventional search engine volumes will drop 25% by 2026, GEO is changing into important to spice up a model’s visibility on this new period of search.
Getting discovered by AI-generated search instruments comes down to creating your property simple for AI to grasp and belief. That begins along with your lodge’s web site — is it structured with clear headings, FAQ sections, and pure conversational language that mirrors how your friends truly ask questions?
On the identical time, it pays to maintain your Google enterprise profile clear — constant title, handle and cellphone quantity throughout each itemizing and media commercial. These are the foundational indicators that AI platforms draw from when deciding which properties to advocate.
The second layer is popularity and authority. AI instruments don’t simply learn your individual web site — they synthesise what the broader web says about you. Which means incomes mentions in trusted media journey publications, native directories, and curated “better of” lists is now as strategically necessary as any paid marketing campaign.
It additionally means managing your critiques actively. With 88% of Australian travellers saying critiques affect the place they keep, a sample of unaddressed unfavourable suggestions doesn’t simply harm your TripAdvisor rating — it indicators to the AI agent that your property is probably not value surfacing in any respect. Hoteliers should reply, resolve and earn the sort of genuine visitor endorsements that may make an AI agent wish to advocate you.
Sustainability continues to affect reserving choices, how can lodge house owners and buyers higher faucet into a better ROI from sustainability choices?
The monetary case for sustainability in Australian hospitality is evident because the Journey Goals 2026 information places actual numbers behind it. 68% of Australian travellers say sustainability credentials affect their lodge selection, and people who worth sustainability are keen to pay a mean 9.8% premium per night time. Scale that throughout a full 12 months of bookings and the income affect might be important.
Globally, each single hotelier surveyed by Amadeus is planning sustainability funding in 2026, averaging 6.7% of complete enterprise expenditure. That’s a transparent sign that that is now an operational mainstream, not a advertising test field.
For house owners and buyers, the bottom line is shifting from “behind the scenes” sustainability — which is necessary however invisible to friends — towards experiential, seen eco-practices that friends can really feel and speak about. The report is direct on this level: friends more and more count on sustainability to be embedded into the keep itself, not simply disclosed in a CSR report.
The chance hole proper now’s for mid-market and regional Australian properties to maneuver quicker. Boutique eco-leaders like 1 Lodge Melbourne — constructed utilizing recycled supplies, draped in native greenery, with regionally sourced sustainable linen and non-toxic natural mattresses are exhibiting that sustainability and luxurious are usually not in battle. The properties that construct these credentials now, whereas the aggressive area remains to be catching up, will maintain a sturdy benefit because the market matures.
