Holiday Package Shake-Up Puts UAE, Saudi Arabia and More in Focus as Travel Choices Influence Tourism Trends

A significant change in international holiday preferences is creating a new commercial question for travel companies across the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. Booking.com research published on 14 October 2026 found that 66% of surveyed global travellers wanted packages allowing them to remove services they would not use. Meanwhile, GCC tourism generated US$131.9 billion in inbound visitor spending during 2025. The emerging opportunity involves balancing all-inclusive convenience with flexible pricing, personalised experiences and transparent booking arrangements, although equivalent consumer demand has not been independently established across all six Gulf countries.

Global Travel Research Reveals a Powerful Shift Towards Flexible Holiday Packages

The traditional holiday package is facing a new test of consumer expectations. Travellers increasingly have opportunities to select accommodation, transport, meals and activities independently. However, the commercial appeal of removing unwanted services from an otherwise complete holiday package remains a separate question.

According to Booking.com’s 2027 Travel Predictions, released on 14 October 2026, 66% of surveyed global travellers expressed interest in packages that permit the removal of services they do not anticipate using.

The research covered 28,230 respondents across 32 countries and territories during July and August 2026. It included 511 respondents in the UAE and 509 in Saudi Arabia.

Two additional findings reinforce the importance of individual preferences:

• 67% reported that changes involving health, lifestyle or personal wellbeing had influenced their destination or holiday activity choices.
• 58% would allow dietary preferences to influence their choice of accommodation or destination.

These figures reflect international survey responses. They do not establish that the same proportions apply to UAE or Saudi travellers individually, or to Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

Nevertheless, the findings create a relevant research agenda for Gulf travel operators seeking to understand whether flexible holiday packages can improve customer satisfaction without undermining the commercial benefits of bundled services.

GCC Tourism’s US$131.9 Billion Spending Market Raises the Stakes for Holiday Customisation

The scale of the Gulf tourism industry makes the question commercially significant.

According to the GCC Statistical Centre’s September 2026 tourism assessment, inbound tourism spending reached US$131.9 billion in 2025, an increase of 9.7% from the previous year.

The Centre’s official tourism statistics platform records 75.7 million inbound tourists, 20.1 million intra-GCC tourists, 38.7 million outbound tourists and approximately 12,400 tourism establishments in 2025.

These figures establish the regional market’s scale. They do not measure package customisation or spending lost on unwanted extras.

Six GCC Tourism Markets and Their Different Holiday Package Opportunities

Sources: Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, Saudi Ministry of Tourism, Qatar Tourism, Bahrain Open Data Portal, Visit Kuwait and Oman National Centre for Statistics and Information. National figures have different definitions and reporting periods and must not be added together.

UAE and Saudi Arabia Offer the Strongest Evidence of Changing Holiday Preferences

UAE: Personalised Hotel Stays Meet an Increasingly Diverse Tourism Market

The UAE provides one of the clearest opportunities for investigating holiday package flexibility because it features in both Booking.com and Hilton’s 2026 consumer research.

According to Hilton’s 2027 Travel Trends research, 61% of surveyed UAE travellers belonged to a travel loyalty programme, while 56% planned a solo journey within the following 12 months.

Meanwhile, 36% placed a high-quality hotel stay among their three leading measures of holiday success.

Dubai’s tourism figures offer further commercial context. According to the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, GCC visitors accounted for 16% of international overnight arrivals during January–August 2026.

For hotels and travel agencies, this creates opportunities to test room-only accommodation, breakfast-inclusive stays, optional airport transfers and individually selected activities.

However, the existence of these options does not establish consumer willingness to pay for greater flexibility. That requires transaction-level evidence.

Saudi Arabia: Package Visa Rules Create a Different Challenge for Travel Customisation

Saudi Arabia presents a particularly important distinction between integrated travel arrangements and optional holiday experiences.

According to the Saudi Ministry of Tourism’s 2025 annual statistics, the Kingdom recorded 29.3 million inbound tourists and 93.3 million domestic tourists in 2025.

On 6 July 2026, the Ministry introduced a Package Visa pilot through approved travel service providers in selected markets.

The pilot combines return flights, licensed accommodation and electronic visa applications into an integrated arrangement. Events, tourism experiences and activities can be added separately.

This creates a practical boundary for package customisation. Optional experiences may provide flexibility, but agents must preserve the services required for visa eligibility.

Hilton’s research also found that 41% of surveyed Saudi travellers considered staying in an excellent hotel one of their three leading measures of holiday success.

The commercial challenge is therefore to provide greater personalisation while protecting the convenience and eligibility benefits of the original package.

Qatar: Optional Stopover Experiences Demonstrate How Flexible Packages Can Operate

Qatar provides an existing commercial example of accommodation-led packages supplemented by optional services.

According to Qatar Tourism’s official performance reports, the country welcomed 5.1 million international visitors in 2025. GCC countries accounted for 35% of arrivals.

The tourism authority subsequently recorded approximately 2.338 million visitors during January–August 2026.

The Qatar Airways Stopover programme provides eligible connecting passengers with hotel stays of up to four nights, with advertised starting prices of US$14 per person for a one-night standard package, subject to conditions.

Airport transfers, excursions and tours can be selected as additional services.

However, the programme distinguishes pre-booking choice from post-booking cancellation flexibility. Published conditions impose restrictions on cancellations and refunds for unused packages once travel has commenced.

Consequently, Qatar demonstrates the importance of clear optional pricing without providing proof that travellers can remove existing package elements and automatically receive refunds.

Bahrain: Short Breaks and Same-Day Tourism Require Different Package Structures

Bahrain presents a different commercial challenge because its tourism market includes substantial same-day travel alongside overnight stays.

The Bahrain Open Data Portal’s inbound tourism records distinguish between visitors staying overnight and those returning without accommodation.

Approximately 15.18 million inbound visitors were recorded during 2025, including around 7.34 million overnight visitors and 7.84 million same-day visitors.

A fixed accommodation-inclusive package is not relevant to every visitor in such a market.

For short-break travellers, flexible choices could involve room categories, breakfast, transport and leisure experiences. Day visitors may instead require independently priced attractions or activities.

Importantly, Bahrain’s Information and eGovernment Authority has established a tourism survey covering November 2025 to December 2027.

Its methodology includes visitors’ methods of organising trips, expenditure patterns, length of stay and travel purposes.

This provides a potential statistical foundation for studying package preferences, although published results do not yet establish demand for removing unwanted components.

Kuwait: Digital Tourism Services Create Opportunities for More Transparent Booking Choices

Kuwait’s emerging digital tourism infrastructure provides another perspective on the relationship between convenience and individual control.

The official Visit Kuwait tourism platform brings together visitor information involving accommodation, flights, visas, attractions and travel planning.

Meanwhile, Kuwait’s Central Statistical Bureau maintains tourism statistics covering hotel establishments, visitor characteristics and tourism-related services.

The government’s hotel licensing procedures also require classification and operational documentation, reinforcing the importance of using legitimate accommodation suppliers.

For tourism businesses, the immediate opportunity is to distinguish essential booking components from optional services during the purchasing process.

For example, a traveller could compare accommodation with a separate sightseeing arrangement against a prearranged combination, provided both options are genuinely available.

Nevertheless, no verified Kuwait-specific percentage establishes how many travellers would remove package components.

The country’s digital infrastructure provides an operational basis for investigating that question, rather than evidence of an already measured consumer shift.

Oman: Different Destinations Make Optional Experiences and Transport Choices Important

Oman’s geographic diversity creates another setting for analysing flexible holiday arrangements.

According to the Oman National Centre for Statistics and Information, the country recorded approximately 3.966 million inbound visitors in 2025.

The official statistical series distinguishes approximately 2.714 million overnight visitors from 1.252 million same-day visitors.

The national Experience Oman accommodation directory covers destinations including Muscat, Dhofar and Musandam, offering different types of accommodation and visitor experiences.

A traveller spending time in Muscat may require a different transport and activity arrangement from someone visiting more remote destinations.

This makes optional excursions, guided experiences and accommodation upgrades relevant areas for commercial testing.

However, essential transport should not be treated as an unnecessary extra merely to advertise a cheaper package.

For Oman’s travel operators, the important distinction is between genuine customer choice and the services needed to deliver an itinerary reliably.

The Critical Question Is Whether Removing Services Actually Reduces Holiday Prices

The strongest analytical finding from comparing these six markets concerns the difference between customisation and genuine unbundling.

A booking platform may allow travellers to add transfers, meals or activities without permitting them to subtract services already included in a compulsory package.

These are commercially different products.

For meaningful comparison, operators should show the complete package price, the revised price after removing an eligible component, and any change in cancellation rights or supplier benefits.

An apparently cheaper booking may become more expensive if essential transport, taxes or services must subsequently be purchased separately.

Conversely, a fully inclusive package may remain financially attractive when suppliers provide genuine combined-booking discounts.

The resulting measure of consumer preference should therefore be based on the final payable cost, not merely the number of configurable options.

Holiday Package Components That Travel Businesses Should Evaluate

These are proposed comparison criteria, not confirmed removal policies applying universally across GCC hotels or tour operators.

Travel Agents Need Booking Evidence Before Treating Global Preferences as Gulf Demand

The next stage of analysis requires a distinction between expressed interest and actual purchasing behaviour.

A reliable study would offer travellers comparable inclusive and modular holidays for the same destination, dates, room category and booking conditions.

Travel agencies could then examine how often optional services are removed, whether customers complete bookings and how their final expenditure changes.

Results should be separated by destination, country of residence, travelling party and trip duration.

Family holidays, solo journeys, short breaks and business-related extensions may produce different outcomes.

For B2B operators, the most meaningful commercial indicators would include completed booking conversion, average transaction value, optional-service attachment rates, net margin and cancellation frequency.

Comparing these measures would help identify whether customisation generates genuinely additional demand or simply redistributes expenditure between hotels, activities and transport providers.

Crucially, the Booking.com and Hilton surveys provide useful hypotheses for this investigation. They do not establish the outcome of such commercial tests.

Essential Operational Takeaways for GCC Travel Agents and Tour Operators

For businesses considering more flexible holiday packages, the following risk-management priorities should guide product development:

• Verify eligibility: Preserve mandatory arrangements where visas or supplier conditions depend on an integrated booking.
• Disclose final prices: Identify unavoidable charges and optional services before payment.
• Protect accommodation standards: Confirm licensing, room categories and supplier obligations.
• Separate refund policies: Explain cancellation terms for flights, hotels, activities and transfers.
• Monitor commercial performance: Measure conversion, customer satisfaction and net margins.
• Maintain booking continuity: Ensure changes to optional services do not invalidate connected reservations.

These safeguards are particularly relevant to multi-country itineraries, where suppliers and immigration requirements can differ. Qatar Tourism has identified progress towards a unified GCC tourism visa, but operators should not treat it as an already available substitute for current national entry requirements.

Gulf Tourism’s Long-Term Opportunity Lies in Combining Convenience With Genuine Choice

The emerging flexibility discussion does not indicate that all-inclusive travel is becoming obsolete.

Instead, the evidence points towards a more nuanced commercial opportunity: preserving the simplicity of organised holidays while giving customers greater control over genuinely optional expenditure.

For the UAE and Saudi Arabia, recent country-specific research supplies the clearest behavioural context. Qatar demonstrates an existing model combining core accommodation with optional experiences. Bahrain offers a developing statistical foundation for studying travel organisation. Kuwait provides digital visitor-planning infrastructure, while Oman’s varied itineraries highlight the importance of distinguishing optional services from essential logistics.

Across all six countries, the long-term opportunity will depend on transparent pricing, reliable delivery and measurable customer response.

Whether flexibility ultimately increases Gulf tourism revenues remains unproven. The most successful strategy may not involve removing the greatest number of services, but delivering the combination that travellers value and are prepared to purchase.

FAQs

1. Why are flexible holiday packages attracting greater attention in 2026?

Booking.com’s October 2026 global research found that 66% of respondents wanted packages allowing unwanted services to be removed. This supports interest in greater control over holiday inclusions, although it does not prove equivalent demand across the GCC.

2. Which Gulf countries are associated with this tourism trend?

The six countries are the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. They share opportunities to evaluate flexible booking arrangements, but only the UAE and Saudi Arabia were included in the two principal consumer surveys examined.

3. Are customised holidays always cheaper than all-inclusive packages?

No. The final price depends on supplier rates, optional extras, available discounts, taxes and booking conditions. Removing one service does not guarantee a saving if other necessary arrangements must be purchased separately.

4. Can travellers remove services from Saudi Arabia’s Package Visa arrangements?

Saudi Arabia’s July 2026 pilot integrates flights, licensed accommodation and electronic visa applications while allowing additional tourism experiences. Travellers must confirm any permitted changes with their approved provider because visa-linked components are not automatically removable.

5. What will determine whether flexible holiday packages become a major GCC travel trend in 2027?

The deciding evidence will come from actual purchasing behaviour. Booking conversion, removal rates, final expenditure, customer satisfaction and profitability will provide a stronger foundation than survey preferences alone for evaluating the future of modular holiday packages.

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