Business travel Weekly · 2026 · Week 42 · 12 Oct — 18 Oct

The Houthis attacked Abha International Airport in southern Saudi Arabia and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Tuesday and Wednesday. Earlier reports said the attacks killed 3 people and injured 36; later reports said the October 10 attack killed at least 12 people and injured 309, with the dead including four Saudi citizens and one each from Bangladesh, the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Sudan; the injured were all receiving treatment in hospitals, some in critical condition, and property damage was still being assessed. The terminal was hit again on October 11, killing 1 person and injuring 11. Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation announced an extension of the suspension of operations at King Khalid International Airport, closing it until midnight Saudi local time on October 18, and it has not been confirmed whether commercial flights can resume by then. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, 312 of the 1,194 flights departing Saudi Arabia on Thursday were canceled or did not take off, more than a quarter of the total; later reports said one-third of Saudi flights were canceled and several high-profile events were postponed. Yemen's Houthis claimed responsibility for the attacks, explicitly listing Saudi airports and airspace as targets and warning international airlines and travelers to stay away. Delta Air Lines had planned to launch a direct Atlanta-Riyadh route on October 23, but said on Monday it would delay the launch until March 2027 because of the successive attacks on airports in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration warned airlines to exercise caution when flying to or over Saudi Arabia, citing military activity and navigation system interference, and said the threat could affect all altitude phases including overflight, approach and departure. Saudi airlines have resumed service, but the confidence needed by international airlines and event organizers has not been restored. Travel industry executives said corporate travel to Saudi Arabia has been almost entirely suspended, few inbound and outbound flights are still operating, travelers already there are leaving by land via Bahrain or Dammam, and most Umrah pilgrims are also abandoning flights for road travel. The latest reports say the attacks have affected Gulf tourism, with hotels and tour operators in the UAE and Oman reporting softer forward bookings and more security inquiries, but available hard data show the two countries are far less affected than Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis attacked Abha International Airport in southern Saudi Arabia and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Tuesday and Wednesday. Earlier reports said the attacks killed 3 people and injured 36; later reports said the October 10 attack killed at least 12 people and injured 309, with the dead including four Saudi citizens and one each from Bangladesh, the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Sudan; the injured were all receiving treatment in hospitals, some in critical condition, and property damage was still being assessed. The terminal was hit again on October 11, killing 1 person and injuring 11. Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation announced an extension of the suspension of operations at King Khalid International Airport, closing it until midnight Saudi local time on October 18, and it has not been confirmed whether commercial flights can resume by then. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, 312 of the 1,194 flights departing Saudi Arabia on Thursday were canceled or did not take off, more than a quarter of the total; later reports said one-third of Saudi flights were canceled and several high-profile events were postponed. Yemen's Houthis claimed responsibility for the attacks, explicitly listing Saudi airports and airspace as targets and warning international airlines and travelers to stay away. Delta Air Lines had planned to launch a direct Atlanta-Riyadh route on October 23, but said on Monday it would delay the launch until March 2027 because of the successive attacks on airports in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration warned airlines to exercise caution when flying to or over Saudi Arabia, citing military activity and navigation system interference, and said the threat could affect all altitude phases including overflight, approach and departure. Saudi airlines have resumed service, but the confidence needed by international airlines and event organizers has not been restored. Travel industry executives said corporate travel to Saudi Arabia has been almost entirely suspended, few inbound and outbound flights are still operating, travelers already there are leaving by land via Bahrain or Dammam, and most Umrah pilgrims are also abandoning flights for road travel. The latest reports say the attacks have affected Gulf tourism, with hotels and tour operators in the UAE and Oman reporting softer forward bookings and more security inquiries, but available hard data show the two countries are far less affected than Saudi Arabia.

On October 14, 2026, Hospitality Technology reported that Amex GBT announced the launch of Hotel Lobby, a set of autonomous multi-agent AI capabilities, within its global hotel procurement and consulting business, to automate data cleansing, wish-rate calculation and RFP validation. The report stated that the capability covers enterprise procurement of $5 billion in hotel spend. As of the latest report, the development is that Amex GBT has officially launched this multi-agent AI capability.

On October 14, 2026, Hospitality Technology reported that eDreams ODIGEO connected its travel engine to Amazon Alexa+ via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), shifting flight, hotel and car rental transactions to voice prompts, with the search interface taken over by big tech companies, and the two parties partnering to build the first agentic GDS. On the same day, the outlet published a separate roundup report stating that the move was described as a blueprint for building the first agentic GDS, and mentioning that the hotel industry is accelerating its adoption of AI booking. The report did not disclose the transaction amount, launch timetable or phased implementation arrangements.

On October 12, 2026, SAP announced at SAP Connect the launch of multiple AI innovations in SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass and SAP Concur, including Spend Analytics Assistant. This is the latest report on the event; previous reports only covered SAP Concur releasing new AI expense management features.

An October 16, 2026 report said that Vietnam, from the 12th of this month until the end of 2027, is trialing visa exemption for Chinese citizens traveling to Khanh Hoa in groups of at least two people, with a stay of no more than 30 days. Tourists must fly directly from mainland China to Khanh Hoa's Cam Ranh International Airport and book package tour products organized by Vietnamese international travel agencies; the policy applies to holders of valid ordinary Chinese passports and does not include persons holding passports issued by China's Hong Kong or Macao Special Administrative Regions. The policy is one of the measures under the framework of the 2026-2027 "China-Vietnam Tourism Cooperation Year." An October 19 report reconfirmed the above trial visa exemption arrangement; the start and end dates, group size, duration of stay, port of entry, and package product requirements were all consistent with earlier reports, with no contradictions in figures or statements. The October 21 report mentioned only in the headline that Vietnam is trialing visa exemption for Chinese citizens traveling to Khanh Hoa in groups, and did not disclose specific conditions such as the trial's start and end dates, group formation method, or duration of stay.

On 15 October 2026, SITA announced that it had agreed to acquire the airport solutions business of Collins Aerospace, which provides passenger processing, baggage and airport operations technology capabilities. SITA said the acquisition will extend its products and capabilities and strengthen support for passengers, baggage and broader airport operations. On the same day, PhocusWire reported that the acquired entity is Collins Aerospace Airport Solutions, Collins Aerospace's airport IT division; the transaction amount was not disclosed; the division provides self-service check-in and bag drop, biometric identity management and passenger verification, baggage tracking technology and airport operations solutions. Both reports said the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to closing conditions including regulatory approval; SITA's own release said "customary closing conditions," while PhocusWire said "customer closing conditions." On the same day, Web in Travel reported that SITA had agreed to acquire the airport IT division, amount undisclosed, expected to close in the first half of 2027, pending regulatory and other approvals. On 21 October, TravelDaily China reported that SITA announced it had agreed to acquire the airport IT business of RTX's Collins Aerospace, amount undisclosed, expected to be completed in the first half of 2027; the business covers self-service check-in and bag drop, biometric identity management, baggage tracking and airport operations solutions; the report also mentioned that SITA acquired aviation disruption management technology company Big Blue Analytics in June this year.

On 14 October 2026, IATA, Airbus and Accenture published a study on the market for SAF Environmental Attribute Certificates (EAc). The study estimates that corporate purchasing could support 1 million to 1.9 million tonnes of SAF by 2030, up from a level of about 323,000 tonnes in 2024.

On October 14, 2026, GBTA published its official position paper on the EU passenger package legislation. The legislation includes proposals to simplify rail ticketing and multimodal booking and to strengthen rail passenger rights. GBTA calls for simplifying European business travel booking and management, recommends guaranteeing non-discriminatory access to rail and multimodal content under FRAND terms, and for TMCs, online booking tools and authorized distributors to obtain the same rebooking, reissuance, cancellation and refund service capabilities as suppliers' direct channels.

On October 9, 2026, PhocusWire reported that Operto released the "State of Predatory OTAs 2026" report, based on an independent analysis of the Google Ads Transparency Center from May 22 to June 21, 2026, finding 1.1 million predatory OTA ads targeting hotel brands within one month. On October 14, Hospitality Technology further reported that this global benchmark study, based on the same 31-day window, identified about 1.1 million predatory ads targeting brand searches, covering 204,000 hotels in 205 countries, with targeted hotels facing an average of 3.9 competitor ads. The current status of the event is the research results presented in the above two reports.