What’s Coming to Learn Tourism in 2026

Learn Tourism is entering 2026 with momentum, curiosity, and a relentless commitment to elevating tourism training, tourism marketing, and the global community of tourism professionals who make travel meaningful. Innovation is accelerating fast, and the new year brings a slate of tools, experiences, and learning opportunities designed to empower destinations, experience providers, and anyone passionate about enriching the visitor journey.

The road ahead is exciting. Here’s what’s unfolding.

A Learn Tourism Conference Designed for Doers

The Learn Tourism Conference is built for the endlessly curious: destination leaders, front-line staff, travel trade partners, and experience providers who crave hands-on learning. This gathering will blend tourism ambassador programs, DIY tourism marketing insights, regenerative tourism strategies, and expert-led workshops with the warmth and camaraderie that fuel our industry. It’s created for people who want to learn deeply and then apply those lessons the next morning.

AI Teaching Assistant for Tourism Training

Our new AI Teaching Assistant brings science-backed instructional design and business psychology to the fingertips of tourism learners. This tool enhances comprehension through instant support, personalized prompts, and real-time feedback, thereby increasing retention—a win for destinations seeking to build confident local champions and for organizations developing large-scale learning programs.

Research on adult learning consistently shows that immediate feedback and multimodal reinforcement accelerate mastery, which makes this tool especially powerful for busy tourism workers who learn on unpredictable schedules (Source: EDUCAUSE Review, 2024).

Next-Gen AI Course & Student Analytics

We’re adding advanced analytics that move far beyond completion rates. Partners will gain insights into engagement patterns, content effectiveness, knowledge trends, and friction points—enabling them to refine training, identify opportunities, and measure ROI across tourism training programs. This is where data meets destination development.

These tools also fuel better tourism marketing because informed workers create higher-quality guest experiences, which increase spending, satisfaction, and repeat visitation.

A Custom GPT Tourism Coach for Partners

This might be our boldest leap.

We’re giving partners a custom GPT-powered coach trained exclusively on industry best practices, real examples from working destinations, and Learn Tourism’s library of tourism training, trade engagement wisdom, and adult learning principles. It becomes a private, on-demand consultant—helping DMOs write better itineraries, answer travel trade questions more efficiently, design training modules, prepare presentations, develop community engagement plans, and enhance tourism ambassador programs.

It's a practical AI tool designed for real humans who don’t have time to sift through textbooks or reinvent the wheel.

Live “Learn Tourism Talks” with Sarah

In 2026, Sarah will host a series of live sessions that blend guest experts, field-tested insights, and rich storytelling. These talks will cover regenerative tourism, sustainable business practices, visitor experience design, DIY tourism marketing, and the psychology behind creating meaningful connections with travelers. They’re bite-sized, energetic, and designed for immediate implementation.

Speaking Engagements Around the Globe

Our team is traveling farther than ever. Expect keynote talks and workshops at tourism conferences, economic development summits, entrepreneurial gatherings, government tourism forums, and education-centered events. These sessions focus on workforce development, tourism sustainability training, community engagement, and the emerging science of visitor behavior.

100+ Online, On-Demand Tourism & Business Courses

Our course library continues to expand, encompassing tourism marketing, leadership, customer experience, DEI, organizational psychology, trade sales, and technical tourism training. Each course is built using adult learning science and updated regularly with new data and examples. Learners can explore everything from becoming a tourism ambassador in their community to mastering the art of storytelling or improving trade engagement strategies.

And yes—every course includes the full flexibility of multilingual variants, real-time dashboards, and modern mobility support.

And More Is Still on the Way

We’re developing new partner tools, launching new research initiatives, offering scholarships for emerging tourism professionals, fostering more collaborations with NGOs, and creating fresh programming shaped by the voices of learners, as seen in our recently collected testimonials.

Every update moves us closer to a world where tourism workers feel supported, communities feel empowered, and destinations thrive sustainably through knowledge and shared purpose.

2026 is the year of building smarter, training better, and elevating the tourism ecosystem together.

About Learn Tourism the nonprofit academy...
Learn Tourism is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the tourism industry through innovative educational practices and professional development initiatives. Our mission is to harness the power of science, business psychology, and adult education to build sustainable economies and enrich the tourism landscape.