The UAE’s travel and tourism sector is enjoying a sustained period of growth, with international and domestic flight bookings up 5 per cent and 37 per cent (May 2025 vs 2024), and domestic flights within Saudi Arabia up 4 per cent over the same period. Travellers from India (14 per cent), Saudi Arabia (13 per cent) and the UK (8 per cent) are showing particular interest, accounting for over a third of total travel to the UAE. The market is buoyant, confidence is high – and competition for travellers’ attention is fierce.
Of course, we remain mindful of the evolving regional landscape and its potential impact on traveller sentiment and mobility, particularly given recent geopolitical tensions. However, the longer-term trajectory for travel to the UAE remains one of growth and resilience.
For marketers, this brings both opportunity and challenge. As more people consider the UAE for leisure, business, and blended trips, brands must not only be visible – they must be relevant. Reach and impressions, once the cornerstones of performance, now carry less weight in today’s fast-moving landscape.
In short: success lies in curation, not just coverage.
Why scale is no longer enough
Traditional programmatic advertising relied heavily on volume. Marketers bought inventory across large ad exchanges and hoped the algorithms would eventually land on the right user at the right time. This ‘spray and pray’ approach can still build awareness—but in sectors like travel, where margins are tight and customer journeys are complex, it’s not enough.
Today’s traveller expects tailored messaging, responsive offers, and seamless cross-device experiences. Whether they’re a UK-based couple booking a luxury weekend in Dubai or a family from Riyadh planning an Eid getaway, relevance is key to driving conversions.
This is why more brands across the Middle East are turning to curated programmatic strategies—ones that prioritise quality and intent over sheer reach.
So what exactly is curation in programmatic?
In programmatic advertising, curation refers to the practice of pre-selecting high-quality inventory and combining it with audience data to create more targeted and efficient media buys. Unlike broad campaigns that rely on generic third-party data, curated programmatic enables advertisers to build private marketplaces tailored to their industry and audience.
In the context of travel, this often means using real-time signals – such as flight searches, hotel availability, booking windows, and destination trends – to create granular audience segments that reflect actual traveller intent. These curated segments can then be activated across high-performing ad formats, including display, native, video, and social, to ensure messages appear where they’re most likely to influence decision-making.
This vertical approach to curation ensures that campaigns are not only more relevant but also more measurable, with less media waste and better alignment with sector-specific performance goals.
It works – especially in the Middle East
In key regional markets such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia – where mobile-first-behaviour is widespread, and booking windows are often short – a curated programmatic approach is especially effective. Rather than rely on generic audience segments or retrospective data, marketers can act on live travel signals – such as flight searches or hotel availability – to engage prospective travellers while they’re still in the planning phase.
This level of agility is especially valuable in the Middle East, where travel demand can shift rapidly around public holidays, major events, and seasonal travel peaks. By curating inventory and audiences based on real-time behaviour, brands can stay relevant and responsive in a region where timing and targeting are everything.
A new playbook for a new era
As travel rebounds and traveller expectations evolve, the UAE’s hotel and tourism marketers face a new reality: it’s no longer enough to just show up. You need to show up for the right person, in the right place, with the right message.
That’s where curated programmatic changes the game. It offers the precision of a direct buy with the scale and speed of programmatic—allowing travel brands to adapt faster, personalise better, and ultimately perform stronger.
And with the GCCs outbound travel spend projected to exceed USD$100 bn by 2028, according to the ATM Travel Trends Report, the stakes and opportunities have never been higher. In a region defined by ambition and innovation, this isn’t a future trend—it’s a now strategy.
So as we move into the second half of 2025, travel marketers would do well to shift from chasing impressions to delivering impact. The brands who invest in curated, intent-led marketing now will be the ones who win loyalty, protect margins, and lead the region’s next phase of growth.
By Stewart Smith, Managing Director, MEA, Sojern
