While the travel industry is looking into its crystal ball to forecast the most popular destinations in 2026, we at Beach.com had a novel idea: Where does generative AI think everyone will be going in 2026? More specifically, where does AI think every type of traveler will go next year?
In the first of our series of AI prediction articles, the cities, countries and world regions that generative AI thinks everyone will be flocking to in 2026 were pretty clear-cut. However, the destination predictions change depending on who’s traveling. We asked seven of the most popular AI models to predict the destinations that will be travel hotspots for ten different types of travelers.
From adventure seekers and luxury travelers to backpackers and families, we asked these AI models 3,500 times where everyone is headed. Generative AI is good at predicting the next word, but can it predict the next travel hotspot? Read on to find out where it thinks your holidaymakers, your solo travelers and everyone else is going next year!
Table of Contents
Key Findings
- Bangkok emerges as the top AI-predicted 2026 city destination across all travel groups.
- Thailand emerges as the top AI-predicted country destination for 2026.
- Europe emerges as the top AI-predicted region.
- The United States leads for business and family travelers in 2026.
AI’s Trending 2026 City Destinations by Traveler Group
The cities that AI forecasts to be popular in 2026 are concentrated around just a few urban hubs. These hubs appear to be selected based on cost, connectivity, culture, or versatility, depending on the traveler type.
Bangkok immediately stands out in this list. Across thousands of predictions, AI most frequently forecasts the Thai capital across all traveler types. The city is the top forecasted travel destination for backpackers, budget travelers and solo travelers in 2026. There is clearly a shared logic among the models. Bangkok is inexpensive, has a dense transportation network, and a well-worn tourist infrastructure. These factors are priorities when affordability, independence and mobility matter most.
Interestingly, AI predicts adventure travelers to route elsewhere. Instead of a megacity, AI seems to believe this traveler archetype prefers a functional launchpad for experiences beyond city limits. So the #1 prediction for adventure travelers is Queenstown, New Zealand. This is a city better known for the opportunities surrounding it, such as the mountains, the lake and the parks. It offers the proximity to nature with all the high-intensity activities and outdoor experiences an adventure traveler could desire.
AI forecasts for cultural travelers are a safe bet for the models. Rome, the certifiable open-air museum, is the top-predicted destination for this group. The dense historical landmarks, long-standing cultural reputation, and institutions make Rome a no-brainer for any cultural traveler.
Group travelers are forecasted to gather in the cosmopolitan capital of Spain’s Catalonia region — Barcelona. This is actually a very good forecast by the AI models. Barcelona has a bit for everyone in your party. It has culture and amazing food, but it also has a vibrant nightlife, excellent transportation infrastructure and amazing beaches! It’s both walkable and easy to get around with public transit. No travel group is a monolith. Barcelona hits that sweet spot, offering something for everyone to feel like they got what they came for.
Rounding out the list, AI forecasts holidaymakers and luxury travelers will be flocking to Paris in 2026. Paris came out as the city AI predicts will be the overall #1 destination in 2026 as well. For family travel in 2026, AI takes us stateside, to Orlando, specifically. Similarly, AI forecasts New York City as a top destination for business travelers in 2026.
AI’s Trending 2026 Country Destinations by Traveler Group
At the country-level, the AI forecasts are more consolidated, but also rhyme with the city predictions.
Like Bangkok for cities, Thailand emerges as the dominant forecast overall across traveler groups. Unsurprisingly, AI predicts Thailand to be the top destination for backpackers, budget and solo travelers. The same affordability, infrastructure, culture and geography that make Bangkok great for these traveler types also apply to Thailand as a whole.
Similarly, for adventure travelers, AI forecasts New Zealand as their top country destination in 2026. New Zealand is the country equivalent of Queenstown as a launchpad for thrills, experiences and escapades.
As is the case with Italy, the top forecasted destination for cultural travelers. AI forecasted Rome as the top cultural city. It’s no surprise Italy lands the top forecasted country spot for this group.
Speaking of groups, Spain ranks #1 among forecasted country destinations for group travelers. With Barcelona taking the #1 city spot, this is also no surprise. What is notable is the AI’s selection of destinations that align both at the city and country levels. There is a sort of consistency in these predictions, regardless of whether we’re examining city or country-level forecasts.
However, there is a slight difference for holidaymakers. While Paris is the top predicted city for this travel group, Spain pans out as the #1 forecasted country destination in 2026. AI doubles down on its luxury-traveler predictions, forecasting France as the top destination, with Paris as the top city.
For family travel in 2026, AI forecasts the U.S. as the top country destination. The U.S. is also the top-forecasted destination for business travel. At the city level, AI chose U.S. cities as the #1 destinations for both family and business travelers. Since AI chose the U.S. at the country level for both groups, we see AI forecast consistency here again.
AI’s Trending 2026 Regional Destinations by Traveler Group
When we zoom out to the regional level, AI’s predictions nearly totally converge. AI forecasts Europe to be the top region in 2026 for half of all our travel groups. Europe also dominated in our overall 2026 travel predictions study.
AI says Europe is the top regional destination for cultural, group, holidaymaker, luxury and solo travelers in 2026. The city and country predictions for most of these groups were also in Europe. Notably, solo travelers are rerouted to Europe at the regional level, away from Bangkok and Thailand.
The Southeast Asia and Pacific region comes out on top for backpackers and budget travelers. This forecast is in line with Bangkok for city-level predictions and Thailand for country-level predictions. However, for adventure travelers, the AI models switch it up here again. Instead of Queenstown or New Zealand as a whole, the models forecast that Latin America and the Caribbean will be the #1 regional destination for adventure travel in 2026.
Finally, AI forecasts North America to be the #1 regional destination for family and business travelers in 2026.
When Algorithms Agree With the Beach
You can call us biased, but across all 10 traveler groups, AI models consistently elevate destinations known for some of the world’s best beaches. If you think about it, it’s a pretty safe forecast. These locations have great food, rich culture, year-round accessibility, and, of course, amazing shorelines!
If you identify as a group or holidaymaker traveler, AI thinks Spain is a solid bet for you in 2026. If you’re a backpacker, budget or solo traveler (or a backpacking solo traveler on a budget), then AI says Thailand is the place for you. And if you’re like most people who are not taking destination suggestions from AI quite yet, we at Beach.com have you covered for the intrepid traveler you are. Hop on over to explore human-curated travel suggestions written by the very people who experienced them firsthand. What are you waiting for? The shore is calling — let’s go!
Sources and Methodology
We used seven popular Generative AI models to predict the destinations that will be travel hotspots in 2026 by traveler type. We created a prompt containing 30 prediction questions and sent it to each of the seven models 50 times. The models were asked to predict the cities, countries and regions that will be travel hotspots in 2026. We did this for 10 different traveler groups. Models were asked to rank their choices from 1 to 10. All responses were collected in a database, standardized, and analyzed to identify the most common predictions.
This article is part of a series about AI travel predictions. Read our first AI predictions article to learn more about overall travel predictions for 2026. Seasonal predictions will be released in a future article.
Click to Expand the Full Methodology
AI Models: The models used in this analysis were selected based on market share. Those models are: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Meta, Grok, and Copilot. Brand-new accounts with no chat history, memory, or other usage were created to handle all queries. The chat history for all 7 models with these new accounts is solely the 50 queries we sent to each model. Free accounts were used for each model, and we selected model features to achieve the most consistent cross-model capabilities.
These specific AI model setups were as follows:
- ChatGPT: Using the free plan, model GPT-5 Thinking Mini (which includes web search), with no additional features.
- Google Gemini: Using the free plan, model 2.5 Pro (which includes web search), with no additional features.
- Perplexity: Using the free plan, “best” model with normal search (no pro), with no additional features. Perplexity’s free plan only lets you choose the “best” model, meaning Perplexity chooses which model to respond with. This means Perplexity may answer using its own model, Sonar, or GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini 2.5 Pro or Grok 4. There is no way to know which model is answering the question.
- Claude by Anthropic: Using the free plan, model Sonnet 4.5 with web search turned on and normal style, with no additional features.
- Meta AI: Using the free plan, model Llama 4 (which includes web search), with no additional features.
- Grok: Using the free plan, model Grok 4 Expert (which includes web search), with no additional features.
- Microsoft Copilot: Using the free plan, model Smart (GPT-5, which includes web search), with no additional features. All of Copilot is built on GPT, but Microsoft claims to offer a unique blend of tools, personality and real-time intelligence layered on top of GPT that, according to Microsoft, should set them apart from just using GPT.
The Questions: Each prompt we sent to the AI models contained 30 different questions. The questions surround three core categories: The hotspot destinations that AI predicts for 1. Cities 2. Countries and 3. Regions for 2026 for 10 different types of travelers. For cities and countries, models were asked to provide 10 predictions per question, ranked 1-10 in order of predicted hotspot activity. Within each prompt, models were provided with an 8-region world breakdown and asked to rank those regions 1-8 in order of predicted hotspot activity. We repeated these three core questions for all 10 different traveler groups. Those groups are:
- Holidaymakers
- Family
- Budget
- Business
- Luxury
- Adventure
- Solo
- Cultural
- Group
- Backpackers
In the prompt, models were told to produce outputs that were copy-paste-friendly in Excel, with comma-delimited code blocks. Answers were directly pasted into our database using a text-to-table function. Responses were organized in one row per question, with the model that answered, the query number, the category, and all 10 ranks (8 for regions). See the “Click to Expand the Full AI Prompt” line at the bottom of this methodology for the full AI prompt we sent to each model.
The Numbers: In total, 350 prompts were sent to the 7 AI models. With 30 questions per prompt, the models answered a combined 10,500 questions. At 10 ranks per city and country and 8 per region, a total of 98,000 individual predictions were made.
Standardization: All city, country, and region responses were standardized for consistency. I.E., UK, U.K., and United Kingdom became United Kingdom. St. Barts, St Barts, Saint Barts, St. Barths, St Barth’s became Saint Barthélemy. Other character formatting issues were also cleaned, such as random parentheses, hyphens, spaces, commas and more. Any hallucinatory comments by the AIs “thinking” through prompts were also removed. For example, in response to a top-10 country question, an AI “thinking” comment could return results like this: “Patagonia (Wait, user wants countries, not regions) – Chile.” Hallucinations like this were reduced to the final answer. In this case, Chile. Hallucinations, such as suggesting a country rather than a city or a region rather than a country, were not altered. Only name standardization, character correction and “thought process” hallucinatory slips were removed from the collected data.
At times, the AIs did not fully complete a prompt, resulting in missing city, country or regional ranks. In those cases, we did not start a new thread or resend the prompt; instead, we prompted the AI within the same thread to provide the missing data by specifically pointing out which ranks were missing. The missing data was added to the first answer, which was counted as one prompt response in our database.
For city suggestions, regarding small regions, especially islands — if an AI suggested a region containing multiple towns, the area was labeled as “not a city” in the database. If the region or area does not contain smaller sub-cities, the suggestion was kept. For example, Koh Chang Island in Thailand has no capital or sub-cities, and the suggestion was kept. The country, the Maldives, has multiple cities with a capital, and therefore is marked as “not a city” and not counted in city categories.
Analysis: To arrive at our list of the #1 predicted destinations by traveler group, we used a very simple sport ranking-type panel. We tallied the number of times each location was ranked #1 across all AI models. The locations with the highest tallies are the study’s #1 predicted destinations for each traveler type. Each individual prediction per travel group is based on 350 total queries across all models. All destination ranks use the same method, with the tallies directly informing their rankings.
Click to Expand the Full AI Prompt
Note: The prompt below contains 15 additional questions not reported in this article. All questions related to overall travel (not by group) are covered in our main AI predictions study. Insights on seasonal predictions will be released in a future article. We asked the AI models all questions at once, so the full prompt is provided here for transparency.
Full AI Prompt:
I’m asking you a series of repetitive questions with slight modifications. Follow the prompts, answering each in the order they appear. There are 3 main groups of questions. I’ll ask them for an overall traveler answer, then again for 10 different travel groups, and again for overall travelers for each season. I’m sending you all the questions at once.
Output in a format that is copy-paste-friendly for Excel with comma delimitations, so that when I paste it, the hyphenated words at the start of each question go into column A, one cell per question. I want all your ranks to go in column B onward, one column/cell per rank. I.E., Cell A2: Overall-regions. Cell B2: region rank 1, Cell C2: region rank 2, etc. Cell A3: Overall-cities. Cell B3: cities rank 1, cell C3: cities rank 2, etc. Format the entire answer in a single code block, ensuring no blank rows between lines. Ensure comma delimitation is correct with no spaces before words after a comma.
For all of the region questions, use the following 8-region model:
- North America
- Latin America & Caribbean
- Europe
- Africa
- Middle East
- Asia
- Southeast Asia & Pacific
- Oceana
Overall:
- Overall-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Overall-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Overall-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
Travel Groups:
- Holidaymakers-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for holidaymakers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Holidaymakers-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for holidaymakers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Holidaymakers-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for holidaymakers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Families-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for families in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Families-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for families in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Families-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for families in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Budget-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for budget travelers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Budget-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for budget travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Budget-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for budget travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Business-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for business travelers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Business-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for business travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Business-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for business travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Luxury-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for luxury travelers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Luxury-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for luxury travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Luxury-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for luxury travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Adventure-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for adventure travelers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Adventure-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for adventure travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Adventure-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for adventure travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Solo-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for solo travelers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Solo-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for solo travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Solo-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for solo travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Cultural-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for cultural travelers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Cultural-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for cultural travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Cultural-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for cultural travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Group-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for group travelers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Group-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for group travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Group-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for group travelers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Backpackers-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for backpackers in 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Backpackers-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for backpackers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Backpackers-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots for backpackers in 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
Seasons:
- Spring-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Spring 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Spring-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Spring 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Spring-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Spring 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Summer-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Summer 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Summer-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Summer 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Summer-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Fall 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Fall-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Fall 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Fall-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Fall 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Fall-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Fall 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Winter-regions: Using the common 8-region global model, what regions do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Winter 2026? List all 8 ranked by predicted popularity
- Winter-cities: Out of all the cities in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Winter 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
- Winter-countries: Out of all countries in the world, regardless of size or population, what do you predict will be the biggest travel hotspots in Winter 2026? List 10 ranked by predicted popularity
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