At ExCeL London on 3–5 November, Expedia’s Stephen Cheng, Skyscanner’s Kirsty Webster and Booking.com’s James Healey join a four-stage programme, alongside a private Leaders’ Summit and the attendee-accessible WTM Ministers’ Summit.
At ExCeL London on 3–5 November, Expedia’s Stephen Cheng, Skyscanner’s Kirsty Webster and Booking.com’s James Healey join a four-stage programme, alongside a private Leaders’ Summit and the attendee-accessible WTM Ministers’ Summit.
WTM London 2026 takes place at ExCeL London on 3–5 November, with climate risk, artificial intelligence and changing traveller expectations among the themes across four stages. The official WTM London conference programme sets out those dates and stages. Named speakers include Stephen Cheng of Expedia Group, Kirsty Webster of Skyscanner and James Healey of Booking.com. The event also introduces an invitation-only Leaders’ Summit; unlike that closed gathering, WTM attendees may attend the Ministers’ Summit on 4 November.
The structure develops technology, sustainability and inclusion strands already visible at WTM London 2025, while giving the 2026 programme clearer stage identities and adding a forum for national tourism leaders.
On the Trends Stage, Stephen Cheng, Expedia Group’s B2B vice-president, will open with The Business of Trends — Identifying a Fad or the Future? The session asks how travel businesses distinguish short-lived consumer interests from longer-term changes. A specialist report on WTM’s 2026 speaker line-up also places Skyscanner’s head of sustainability for industry, Kirsty Webster, in a day-two discussion about the commercial effects of heatwaves, wildfires and flooding.
That climate session will consider demand for cooler destinations, shoulder-season travel and journeys with smaller carbon footprints. Other Trends Stage discussions address luxury travellers, wellbeing, family tourism and emerging outbound markets. These are programme questions rather than predictions: attendees should treat them as issues the industry is testing, not settled evidence of where all demand will move.
The Future Stage will feature James Healey, Booking.com’s vice-president of product experience, and Julie Cheetham, chief executive of Travalyst. Its programme covers AI, data and automation alongside aviation, cruising, recruitment and responsible growth. For attendees choosing between concurrent sessions, the useful divide is practical: Trends focuses on demand signals, while Future examines the systems and operating choices intended to respond to them.
The Experience Hub turns to accessibility, marketing and product development. Speakers include Richard Thompson, whom Inclu Travel Group identifies as its co-founder and CEO, and Experiment Media founder Grace Miller, whose keynote examines experimentation and failure. The Hub is therefore the most applied of the four spaces, with attention on how ideas are translated into products and communications.
On the Wanderlust Headliner Stage, the WTM Global Travel Report 2026, produced with Tourism Economics, will be presented on 3 November and repeated on 5 November. WTM’s Headliner Stage announcement also names Sir Michael Palin, tourism ministers and senior travel-industry executives among the stage’s speakers.
The inaugural WTM Leaders’ Summit is an invitation-only gathering for heads of national tourism offices and other senior industry figures. Two trade reports carry the organiser’s programme details; TravelPress’s account of the announcement places it in the Maritime Suite’s George V Room 1 on Tuesday, 3 November. It starts at 13:00 with a working lunch, followed by the themed sessions; 13:00 is not a post-lunch start time.
Spain is then due to present its approach to accessibility and inclusion under the theme Spain: A Country for All. WTM’s accessibility partnership announcement confirms Spain’s role in the Leaders’ Summit, while the fuller trade programme lists a subsequent World Travel & Tourism Council panel on the Seven Principles of Investment, including a Puerto Rico case study.
The closed Leaders’ Summit is separate from the 20th Ministers’ Summit on Wednesday, 4 November, held in association with UN Tourism and WTTC. Crucially for planning the exhibition diary, WTM’s official Ministers’ Summit notice says WTM London attendees may attend that discussion. The distinction is simple: the Leaders’ Summit requires an invitation; the Ministers’ Summit is available to registered show attendees.
