Most of what Trip.com Group announced at Arabian Travel Market 2026 this week reads like the standard expansion playbook of an online travel agency: a new agreement with a tourism board, a run of hotel partnerships, an airline deal. However, one item was considerably more interesting: a demonstration built with Mastercard of an AI agent that doesn’t just suggest trips but also pays for them.

The showcase put TripGenie, the company’s AI travel assistant, to work searching, selecting and completing purchases inside a single booking flow, with Mastercard’s Agent Suite for Merchants handling the payment step and Network International processing the transactions on the merchant side. It’s limited for now to attractions and ancillary services, but the partners plan a phased commercial rollout from early 2027.

“As traveller expectations change, technology and AI will play an increasingly important role in how people plan their journeys,” says Schubert Lou, CEO of Trip.com.

Meanwhile, in more conventional news, CEO Lou and Saleh Mohamed Al Geziry (Director General for Tourism at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi), signed an agreement building on the two organizations’ existing partnership, with joint marketing and Abu Dhabi destination content to be pushed across Trip.com Group’s platforms.

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On accommodation, the group expanded its partnerships with JA Hotels & Resorts, Ishraq Hospitality and Aleph Hospitality and deepened its work with Silkhaus, which brings vacation homes into a portfolio that has so far leaned on hotels. Jazeera Airways signed a strategic partnership intended to widen the Kuwaiti carrier’s reach and encourage earlier bookings, tied to Kuwait’s own tourism ambitions.

The company moved into a larger Dubai office earlier this year and describes its long-term aim as a two-way ecosystem: sending Middle East travelers abroad while drawing international visitors in.