Skift Global Forum 2026 opens in New York City on Tuesday 22 September and runs to 24 September, on a stage that drew 5,983 attendees from 5,391 companies across 92 countries in 2025, 62% of them at director level or above. WiT Singapore follows at Marina Bay Sands from 30 September to 2 October. The previews Skift published this week already name the argument both rooms will have: the money in travel has moved from booking to servicing.

Here are the five threads of the week, one number each, and the names to book meetings with before the rooms fill.

1. Spotnana puts a number on servicing: 50%

Spotnana CEO Steve Singh told Skift this week that AI automation can cut servicing costs by 50% or more, and that Spotnana’s AI already handles cancelled flight segments, unticketed flights and refunds. “Servicing. We talk endlessly about search, distribution, and booking. What really matters is what happens after the trip is purchased,” Singh said. Why it matters: for a travel management company or an OTA, servicing is the cost line that grows with every booking, and 50% is the first hard figure a vendor has put on it in public ahead of the forum.

2. Singh’s 95% test for curation

Singh set a second number in the same interview. Curation, on his definition, means presenting the options a traveller would have chosen 95% of the time out of the full available list. Why it matters: that is a testable bar for any agent or search product an operator is being sold, and a question to put to every vendor on the floor in New York and again in Singapore.

3. IHG rebuilds its hotel content for machines

IHG Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer Heather Balsley told Skift that IHG is launching a new content platform later in 2026 and restructuring its hotel content to be machine-readable, so that AI tools surface its properties. She argued that the models will not own the guest relationship. “AI tools can only be as helpful as the content they’re drawing from, so content has become increasingly important,” Balsley said. Why it matters: a global chain treating content as distribution infrastructure sets the bar for every hotel group in Asia Pacific whose room and rate data is not yet readable by an AI agent.

4. WiT Singapore 2026, 30 September to 2 October

WiT Singapore 2026 runs from 30 September to 2 October at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, six days after New York closes. Why it matters: an operator can hear the same argument twice in eight days, once from the US side and once from Asia Pacific’s hotel groups, OTAs and airlines, and the gap between the two answers is the brief for the fourth quarter.

5. PATA and ATTIA sign an MoU in Bangkok

PATA and ATTIA signed a memorandum of understanding in Bangkok on 15 September to run policy dialogue and to support each other’s conferences and webinars across Asia Pacific. Why it matters: two associations pooling their conference calendars means one more organiser-side channel for travel-tech speakers in the region, and one more table where policy on the technology gets argued before it reaches a ministry.

Who to watch

Two names to book before the rooms fill. Steve Singh of Spotnana, on the 50% servicing figure and the 95% curation bar, and on which servicing tasks the AI handles without a human today. Heather Balsley of IHG, on the content platform due later in 2026 and what machine-readable hotel content looks like in practice for a property in Tokyo or Taipei. In Singapore, the WiT programme team, whose three days at Marina Bay Sands are the Asia Pacific reading of the same agenda.

Key takeaway

Fly to New York if the servicing cost line is on the fourth-quarter plan, and put Singh’s two numbers, 50% and 95%, to every vendor on the floor. Fly to Singapore if the business runs on Asia Pacific supply, because the same argument will be made again at Marina Bay Sands with the region’s hotels, OTAs and airlines in the room. If only one trip is possible from Asia, we would take Singapore and read the Skift sessions from the desk.

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