You’re walking up to the doors of the Congress Centre in Valencia and you’ve got this tingling in your fingers and your toes. Regardless of whether you’re an Arival regular, or a first-time attendee, that feeling of eager anticipation comes from being among your industry peers of what is affectionately known as the Best Part of Travel. Here’s why.
You walk in. The revolving doors whisk you through towards the smiling faces of people like Brittani and Christine from the Arival Team at registration. A lot of conferences have quite an anonymous welcome with venue or agency staff hired in. But at Arival, every touch point is a beaming member of the team. You arrived planning to grab a quick coffee before you get stuck into the day, but immediately someone who’s eager to talk to you smiles and waves you over. The coffee will wait.
What follows are three days packed with an energetic mix of panel discussions, debates, workshops, Q&As and in-depth chats; opportunities to ask industry experts your most pressing questions and develop new skills in practical workshops. Plus, of course, discussion in every form: chance meetings, guided networking, and introductions to people who might just go on to change the course of your business.
That’s no understatement: I’ve seen it with my own eyes, time and time again. And it’s what keeps people coming back year after year – myself included.
What were the highlights of this event? Cliched but true, there were too many to count – and as last year’s recap put it, everyone’s highlights list will look a little different. Here are a few that stood out to me as well as some of the people I met along the way.
Claude Who? The roundtable workshops and practical sessions.
Unanimously popular, practical and packed with value throughout, I’ve already seen lots of people sharing what they built in the AI sessions. People took to their seats with laptops open, ready to do the work, not just hear about it. Learning about Loveable and vibe coding was one of the top takeaways for me – I managed to build a copy generator to help marketers avoid overused travel phrases like ‘hidden gem’ and replace them with more emotive, descriptive copy based on prompts about their business.
The best learning is using AI as much as possible. Best tool for the business. And this is overall my best Arival event after Arival Bangkok 2023. I had many connections now which will help to boost my business into different markets especially with Multi-Day OTAs.
Abhinav Dodia, Seven Wonder Tour and Travel
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New This Year: Guided Networking Sessions!
Another highlight was undoubtedly the runaway success of the guided networking sessions: some people came back repeatedly for all three of the sessions! Arival’s Membership & Community Manager Lauren and I facilitated and hosted these, and I admit on the first one I wondered how many would come and how ‘into it’ people would get – I needn’t have worried!
We offered simple prompts, which led to detailed and animated conversations between people who would never normally get to meet or hear about each other’s businesses. The sessions concluded with people excitedly scanning each other’s badges and arranging follow-up conversations long after the session’s end.
The networking events were well guided, powerful collaborations were built.
David Merten, Light in the Dark
The Best Laid Plans: Forward-Thinking Sessions & Spirited Debates
Of course, I have to give a big mention for the mainstage sessions. However, this Arival was a little bit different. The unexpected absence of Douglas, Janelle and Martin for the majority of the conference (due to a sudden bout of sickness – don’t worry they’re fine now) was felt by all. Their absence, though, gave a rare opportunity for others to take to the stage – and showed massive resilience and adaptability across both the team and those that stepped in on short notice to help fill gaps in the program.
That being said, some highlights from the main stage sessions included a panel on who’s going to win in the AI distribution wars, how OTAs will fare over the coming year, and live Q&As with people like Kristin Dorsett, GM of Experiences at Tripadvisor, and Doug Weiss, Global Head of Airbnb Experiences, where operators had the chance to ask questions and give feedback live in person. Sometimes small frustrations with OTAs and tech providers get big, and that opportunity to be heard is invaluable.
Culinary and multi-day were two of the hottest topics on the agenda, each with a dedicated stream of related content, and personally I really enjoyed the session on the value of human connection and experience design in culinary tours with Cyra Alcock of Walks & Devour Tours. Being a 9am session, it brought the perfect opportunity to taste some breakfast wine and hear the story of the bar and owner behind it. It tasted like Christmas and was a totally unexpected start to my day.
First time at Arival Valencia as speaker and attendee: proud to be involved in the Culinary Tourism vertical and see how big players / leaders and emerging voices / talents shape together true collaborations for the future. The openness of human conversations in small groups was excellent.
Laura Sileo Pavat, Pernod Ricard
It has to do with reframing some situations and descriptions. For example during the session of The Future Menu, how we can include guests with special requests, allergies, vegan or vegetarian wishes, without excluding the local culture and gastronomy.
Nicolien van den Berg, Guide in Bilbao
And, true to the conversations rippling through the social media afterwards, this year the AI debate dominated: not as a man-versus-machine question, but as a question of how operators harness it to the benefit of freeing up human time to keep connection at the heart of what we do so well.
Human connection over scale.
Teddy Florea, EcoManka
Finally, usually on the last day of a conference, attention spans and energy levels are falling and sessions become quieter. But with the wider global conflicts and geopolitical volatility, the auditorium remained packed as Brennen Bliss from travel marketing agency Propellic took to the stage to share what the data from a large set of industry clients was showing around changing travel trends and consumer behaviour as a result. What I love about Propellic is that they are so hot on insights that not only do they share what is happening but they also share how brands are shifting and what operators can do in response amidst ongoing uncertainty.
Join us at an upcoming Arival event to connect, learn, & grow your tours, activities, & attractions business
Serendipitous Conversations, Valuable Exchanges & Spanish Hospitality
One of the things I enjoy the most about Arival events is those accidental conversations – the ones that, by chance can lead you onto a topic that you would never normally talk about, or a part of the sector you know very little about. For me that was a chat about the evolution of museums as experiences at the closing party and a lunchtime show-and-tell of something I’d proudly built in one of the prior sessions.
In addition, I want to mention the exhibitor and sponsor experience because as far as conferences go, I think they’ve found a pretty great balance. What I mean by that is, a lot of the time in conference halls with sponsors lining the walkway, it feels like running the gauntlet: you need to put your head down and get through as quickly as possible before someone tries to sell you something. Arival is, refreshingly, the opposite. Conversations were wanted, meetings were organized, schedules were full, and the exchanges were genuinely valuable, tailored and focused on mutual success.
The legendary opening and closing parties are always set in beautiful surroundings; this time an ancient Spanish monastery and a picture-perfect orange grove. Yes, conversation turns to lighter topics but the networking continues. I met so many fascinating people; trying to note down names and remember context after a few hours of sipping beautiful local red wine isn’t always easy I admit. Amongst the people I met were an operator from India and a European tour company founded out of the hustle of selling tickets for the Colosseum.
These things sum up the overriding premise of Arival for me: sit next to someone new. Find someone different. Ask a different question.
So when you first arrive and start walking down the main conference hall, torn between that good coffee and the welcoming smile of a new or familiar face… these are the small but mighty moments of connection that quietly add up alongside the immense value of the seminars and workshops – and why I keep coming back.
About the Author
Catherine Warrilow from The Plot works exclusively with visitor tours, attractions, destinations and days out to help them find the gaps in their brand proposition and plan out marketing that will engage more visitors and sell more tickets. She’s worked in tourism for the most part of her career and is the go-to expert for brands who are shifting, growing, adapting or even just feel a little lost.
Join Us at the Next Arival Event!
Want to get in on the action next time? Join us at the next Arival event in Brisbane, Australia in June 2026, Spokane, U.S. in October 2026 or Bilbao, Spain in April 2027, and stay tuned for future event location announcements!
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