CJ's Travel Outlook for 2027 is here

Travel continues to grow. How people decide where to go, when to book, and who they trust along the way is changing dramatically. Those shifts are already showing up in marketing performance across virtually every channel.

CJ's research team has curated the market data, consumer surveys, and channel signals that matter most for travel advertisers and publishers. CJ's Travel Outlook 2027: Insights to Drive Action is a report that covers the rest of 2026 and looks ahead to 2027. It's available today, and this post walks you through what's inside.

Download CJ's Travel Outlook 2027: Insights to drive action now. >>

Overview: growth in a more volatile market

The report opens with a look at the global picture. International arrivals are still climbing, and travel spending is expected to outpace the broader economy through 2027, according to figures from the U.S. Travel Association and Statista.

However, this growth is happening in a less predictable environment. Geopolitical events, airfare increases, and safety concerns are redirecting demand from some destinations to others. The overview section explains where that demand is going and how advertisers can capture bookings that would otherwise go to a competitor. It also introduces one of the report's central themes: AI has become a primary source of travel inspiration, and brands that don’t consider LLMs and agentic commerce are being displaced in many planning journeys.

Travel e-commerce and consumer behavior

This is the largest section of the report, covering the behaviors reshaping how people shop for trips. You'll find a full breakdown of Travel Tuesday, the post-Cyber Week shopping event that has grown into a moment that is highly beneficial for affiliate partners. Travelers on that day compare offers aggressively, creating big opportunities for cashback, loyalty, voucher, and metasearch publishers and content publishers who make reasoned recommendations.

From there, it discusses the disruptive impact of social influence on the industry. This is particularly true for the burgeoning experiential travel segment.

The section then outlines consumer trends:

• How travelers are responding to global disruption
• What the summer surge revealed about flexible destination choices
• The rise of experiential travel as a trip trigger
• The expanding role of AI across every stage of planning
  
• Growth channels for travel marketing

Travelers are comfortable letting AI help them plan. But, so far, fewer trust it to complete a booking. That strengthens the opening for editorial publishers, creators, and trusted comparison partners. The section closes with strategic recommendations for affiliate programs and names specific CJ publishers you can activate across discovery, planning, booking, and loyalty.

Mobile and omnichannel trends

For Gen Z and Millennial travelers, every aspect of the customer journey takes place via mobile. That’s true for growing numbers of older shoppers as well. Inspiration comes from social feeds, research happens in AI tools and review apps, and booking increasingly runs through OTAs and metasearch on mobile.

The report maps this mobile journey and shows where advertiser budgets are moving in response.

The report also analyzes the behavioral differences between Gen Z and Millennial shoppers. The two groups don't book the same way and shouldn't be marketed to as one audience.

A closing look at AI-powered personalization explains why tailored recommendations are becoming increasingly common, as well as important.

Get the full report. Download CJ's Travel Outlook 2027: Insights to drive action now >>

2027 outlook

The forward-looking section starts with market sizing from the World Travel & Tourism Council, then gets into the shifts that will cause major changes in 2027. Remote work is extending trip lengths. Wellness and slow travel are pulling travelers away from packed itineraries. Creator content continues to send people to destinations they had never considered before. Climate and extreme weather now factor into destination choice for a majority of travelers, and more people are traveling outside peak season in response.

You'll also find a short list of emerging value destinations for 2027, along with a rundown of the technology trends, from super apps to biometrics, which will change how trips get planned and processed.

Key takeaways and recommendations

The report ends with eight actions travel marketers can take immediately to improve marketing effectiveness. No single publisher type owns the travel journey anymore. Advertisers must build a balanced partner mix across content, comparison, loyalty, and deals.