The Asia Travel Capital Corridor

Close to 400 senior travel executives from more than 30 countries will gather for Skift Asia Forum in Bangkok next week.

The registration list alone functions as a kind of intelligence product. Read as a map, it describes an industry that has quietly reorganized itself around three simultaneous flows of capital, supply, and demand — and it locates the center of gravity, for the next decade, somewhere between the Gulf and Southeast Asia, with India as the accelerant.

Flow One: Gulf Capital Moves East

The first force is Gulf capital flowing decisively into Asia.

Saudi sovereign-backed entities — PIF-connected hospitality groups, the national tourism apparatus, the state carrier — are in the room alongside Emirati capital, Qatari airline leadership, and the UAE hospitality sector.

Gulf institutional money is no longer content to fund inbound tourism to its own shores. It is in the room where Asian supply gets allocated, because Asian supply is where Gulf outbound demand, Gulf-backed investment, and Gulf-managed brand portfolios are all headed.

The insurance and risk layer follows the capital, which is why Vinay Surana, Allianz Partners’ managing director for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, is on the Bangkok stage.

Flow Two: India as the Accelerant

The second force is India, and the scale is what surprises. 

Approximately 45 Indian executives are registered — the second-largest country contingent in the room after ASEAN itself. 

Representation spans the full stack:

• Independent hospitality
• National aviation
• Online travel
• Founder-led hotel tech

Amit Saberwal, founder and CEO of RedDoorz, and Ritwik Khare, founder and CEO of ELIVAAS, are both speaking. Both represent a generation of Indian hospitality entrepreneurs building at scale into Southeast Asia, not away from it. 

The weight of the Indian registration sits on both sides of the trade: Indian outbound platforms scouting Southeast Asian supply, and Asian supply building distribution into the Indian booking market. 

Neither side can afford to be absent. Both sides have shown up.

Flow Three: The Quiet Consolidation of Platforms

The third flow is intra-Asian platform consolidation, the least remarked-upon dynamic in the industry and the most structurally important. 

Every major regional OTA, super-app, and distribution platform is sending senior commercial leadership: 

• Omri Morgenshtern of Agoda
• Laura Houldsworth of Booking.com
• Boon Sian Chai of Trip.com Group
• Tejveer Singh Bedi of Traveloka
• David Liu of Klook
• Ross Veitch of Wego
• Philipp Kandal of Grab
• Jihong He of H World International

These are not executives comparing notes on incremental growth. They are executives mapping out which of them will still exist as independent brands in five years, and in what combination.

The Hospitality Supply Side Is Fully in the Room

Underneath the flows, the hospitality supply side is close to fully represented. 

• Rajeev Menon leading Marriott’s Asia Pacific excluding Greater China
• Alan Watts leading Hilton APAC
• Andrew Langdon leading Accor’s development for Asia
• Ian Di Tullio, chief commercial officer of Bangkok-headquartered Minor Hotels
• Alex Schellenberger at Mandarin Oriental

Every major global hotel group with Asian exposure is in the room, independent regional groups across Southeast Asia are in the room, and the owner side — REITs, private equity, family offices — is there to match.

The Institutional Layer: The Quiet Signal

The managing director of the World Travel and Tourism Council. Senior partners from McKinsey’s travel practice and EY Japan. Strategic advisory from CBRE. National tourism organizations from Saudi Arabia, Korea, and the UAE.

And then the institutional layer, the quieter signal and arguably the most important one.

• World Travel & Tourism Council leadership
• Senior partners from McKinsey & Company and EY
• Strategic advisory from CBRE
• National tourism bodies from Saudi Arabia, Korea, and the UAE

The people who allocate, advise, and track capital are in the room alongside the people who deploy it.

A Room That Can Sign Deals

The density is notable:

• Around 80% are director-level or above
• Nearly half are C-suite, founders, or SVPs
• More than 35 are founders

In other words, Skift Asia Forum 2026 is a room full of people who can actually sign things.

But density alone misses what makes this room specifically interesting. 

You can assemble a director-heavy audience in most major travel hubs now; the convening economy has matured in that respect. 

What this audience describes is something narrower: the handful of people who will determine how Gulf capital, Indian demand, Southeast Asian supply, and East Asian platform consolidation resolve themselves over the next cycle. 

That resolution will happen whether Skift Asia Forum exists or not. It will happen faster, and with more informed counterparties, because it does.

A Deliberate Precursor

The day before the main Forum, on April 28, the inaugural Women Leading Travel Asia Global Leadership Exchange convenes at the same venue — an invitation-only gathering for senior women leading at scale across travel and hospitality.

Both Gulf and Indian markets are under-represented in almost every other convening for women in this industry. The timing and location of the Exchange are deliberate.

Where the Future Gets Decided

If you want to understand where the Asian travel business gets done in 2026, look at who is in this room. Because this is where the next decade of travel in Asia is being quietly negotiated.