Dublin, 15 October, on the transatlantic corridor
The Skift Transatlantic Summit runs on 15 October 2026 at Portmarnock Resort & Jameson Golf Links in Dublin, from 9:30 to 18:00. Tourism Ireland hosts the event, and the European Travel Commission is the partner. The 2026 theme is Travel in a Fractured World.
Attendance is for senior leaders at director level and above. Skift reviews applications and states that places are limited and not guaranteed.
The demand figures the pre-read carries
Europe’s international arrivals were up 5.0 percent year to date in 2026, per the European Travel Commission. Overnight stays were up 4.8 percent. Northern Europe led the subregions, with arrivals up 10.0 percent and nights up 8.4 percent.
The Commission reports that performance varies sharply by market and region. Its work finds travellers prioritising destinations they perceive as safe and good value, travelling closer to home and spreading trips more evenly across the year.
Roughly 80 percent of European travel demand is intra-regional, which the Commission cites against the corridor’s growth potential.
The five decisions
The day is built on five decisions across demand, politics, destination strategy, artificial intelligence and mobility.
On demand, the questions cover which markets and routes carry too much concentration risk, what should drive the plan, and how changing costs should move budget between source markets.
On politics, the day asks when political risk becomes large enough to change the commercial plan, and where the industry can shape policy.
On dispersal, the test is whether marketing changes where and when people travel, and how gateway and secondary destinations coordinate.
On artificial intelligence, the questions cover the shift from discovery into transaction, the segments that already plan trips with it, and how much marketing investment moves toward content that AI systems can read.
On mobility, the questions cover what airlines, rail operators, destinations and platforms can connect now, and the tier-two and tier-three cities that ground connectivity reaches.
The figures behind the AI question
Seventy-one percent of travellers are comfortable using artificial intelligence for inspiration, and about half are comfortable letting it make a flight or hotel booking. Forty-nine percent cite greater trust in a supplier’s own site as their top reason for booking direct.
Artificial intelligence accounts for 21 percent of touchpoints during inspiration and 6 percent at booking. Skift Research publishes the touchpoint split. Skift Research and McKinsey & Company publish the comfort and direct-booking figures.
Europe’s rail network carries roughly 30,000 stations. Speakers at the 2025 Transatlantic Summit estimated that travellers were touching about 15 percent of them.
Who holds the floor
The programme names the European Commission’s Maja Bakran, Ireland’s Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke, Skift Research’s Lindsey Roeschke, Tourism Ireland’s Alice Mansergh, Mastercard’s Ailish Campbell and Rome2Rio’s Wendy Olson Killion.
Atout France, Sojern, Trip.com, Certares, Aer Lingus, Rail Europe, the Icelandic Tourist Board and the National Tourism Organisation of Montenegro also sit on the programme.
Skift states that the goal of the summit is a clearer view of what has changed, and what leaders should do differently in 2027.