Photos and Recap from Live Show at Travel Massive London with Stripe and Travel Trends Podcast (WTM Eve)

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Stripe’s London HQ on the eve of World Travel Market for our Live Show at Travel Massive London, with two panel conversations on payments, infrastructure, AI and where travel is heading in 2027. It was a full house, and this year we also tried something new: Dan Christian from Travel Trends Podcast recorded the first panel live in the room as a podcast episode.

Earlier in the day, around 40 people joined an AI Workshop hosted by Christian Watts. A small group of builders created a working Nordic-focused booking site in a single afternoon, with WhatsApp booking, live hotel inventory from Nuitée and payments through Stripe. A big thanks to James Lemon and the Stripe team for hosting us again, to Matthew Gardiner for bringing this event to Travel Massive London, and to Dan Christian for recording his podcast with the room.

Here’s an overview of the conversations, and photos (in the gallery), from the evening.

Live Podcast Recording: Why Payments and People Will Decide Who Wins in Travel

Dan Christian hosted James Lemon (Global Lead – Hospitality, Travel & High Growth Industries, Stripe) and Claire McCarthy (Director of Account Management & Business Development, Nuitée) for the live Travel Trends Podcast recording. The conversation covered payments, the “plumbing” of travel distribution, and where people still matter.

James argued that payments is still rarely a top priority for travel boards, even though it shapes conversion, ancillary revenue and fraud protection. Claire explained how infrastructure like Nuitée’s lets companies launch booking products quickly. She gave the examples of Yonder, which went live with a white label in two weeks, and Revolut, which kept travel bookings inside its own app.

On where humans remain essential, Claire described booking a trip from an AI-generated itinerary only to find the rates were no longer available. Her point was that someone needs to be there when things go wrong. James hoped AI would free frontline teams to focus on hospitality, but warned the workforce could split between people who learn these tools and people who fall behind.

Looking to 2027, Claire highlighted accessibility, with technology opening travel to more businesses and travellers. James saw three shifts: a better era for travellers, more openings for entrepreneurs to build, and a need for leaders to learn AI hands-on. Audience questions turned to fear of AI and where trust will sit. Both panellists agreed that trust will be the defining issue, and that startups will often borrow it from the infrastructure they run on.

Our take: treat payments as part of the guest experience, build on existing infrastructure rather than from scratch, and keep a human on hand for the moments AI gets wrong.

When AI Agents Start Booking: What Travel Brands Need to Change

James Lemon moderated Christian Watts (Founder and CEO, Magpie Travel), Carlo Del Mistro (Founder, Stiplo), Jule Owen (Group Chief Product Officer, Forge Holiday Group) and Kate Cox (Chief Marketing Officer, Guesty).

Christian described how coding tools now let people build complete products from start to finish, but said the pace leaves many feeling overwhelmed. Kate explained that Guesty offers property managers pre-built AI agents, and that the real question is what operators do with the time those agents give back. Jule shared that guests are increasingly discovering holidays through AI, though it isn’t yet turning into bookings, so Forge Holiday Group is placing several bets at once.

Carlo shared findings from Stiplo’s research into how AI assistants recommend hotels. The number of Google reviews, more than the scores, was a strong driver of visibility. Good SEO still matters for winning the direct link, and in a sample of around 5,000 hotel booking journeys, roughly 12% had terms and conditions issues that blocked AI agents.

James made the case that personal AI agents such as Instinct and Muse by Meta mark a turning point. He urged businesses to make their checkout work as well for an agent as for a human. Christian expected intermediaries to be squeezed, while Jule stressed that the personal relationship with owners and guests is not something AI should replace. Kate summed up the year ahead as “machine-readable but human-bodied,” and James left the room with a question: if a tenth of your demand came from AI agents a year from now, what would you change today?

Our take: make sure AI can find you through reviews and SEO, make sure an agent can complete a booking on your site, and keep the human relationship as your edge.

From Tokyo to Vietnam: Travel Massive’s Year Ahead

At the beginning of the event, we also heard from Travel Massive’s founder Ian Cumming with a look at the past year: in-person events in over 20 countries, including new chapter leaderships and events in Morocco, Tokyo, Melbourne, Lisbon, Bucharest and Singapore, and research reports on new business growth with Stripe, and the global creator economy with Stay22. He also previewed what’s coming next: a new Travel Massive Advisory, the return of our Asia conference in Vietnam, and a sneak peek at Travel Massive conference in London next year.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, asked questions and stayed for pizza and conversation. Explore the full photo gallery above, and we hope to see you at the next event.

Photos by Becca and Joel from Global Convoy.