by Pádraic Gilligan, Co-founder, SoolNua Consulting | Head of Research & Consultancy, SITE

In 1915 Nobel prize winning poet, W. B. Yeats published his poem “Ego Dominus Tuus” opening with these lines:

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain
I sought it daily for six weeks or so

These lines, committed to memory eons ago as an English & Italian major in University College Dublin, materialise in my mind whenever I think I should post something here, if only for the sake of consistency. But then I face the dreaded anxiety of the blank page, and don’t know what to write.

If one of the world’s greatest ever poets had days like this, then maybe I’m not so bad after all?

Strangely, it’s not a lack of themes and topics. It’s the exact opposite: a surfeit of them.

The Incentive Travel Index, that SITE undertakes with our partners the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) continues to be the gift the keeps giving and I’m conscious that we’ve only really socialised the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much still to say.

I’m enthralled by AI and have a lot to say about it, both positively and in cautionary terms. If the internet turned our industry on its head, then AI is sending it into a perpetual tailspin leaving us dizzy, confused but, let’s admit it, exhilarated.

I’m concerned that many incentive travel programs seem to be choosing transaction over transformation, opting, for instance, for the safety and sanitisation of all-inclusive resorts. We’re actively replacing Cesare Pavese’s brutality of travel with the banality of travel. And that’ll hardly build the business case for incentive travel, now will it?

On a macro scale, I’m deeply worried by the black hole vacuum in moral leadership across politics, religion and society at large and I sometimes despair for my grandchildren’s futures – we’re at an existential crossroads for humanity, not merely our little industry!

So there’s lots I could write about but perhaps 2026 will be less about finding the right answers and more about asking better questions?

Here are 5 “industry” questions to consider as 2026 unfurls itself to a society caught somewhere between a blizzard of utter chaos and, perhaps, and with fragile hope, a brave new world.

1. When did predictability quietly replace ambition in incentive travel — and what would it take to reverse that slide?
We’ve become extraordinarily good at delivering programmes smoothly, safely and predictably. But somewhere along the way, have we confused operational excellence with experiential greatness?

In a world optimised for speed and certainty, what does ambition in incentive travel even look like now and who is still brave enough to demand it?

2. Are we still designing programmes to change people — or simply to satisfy procurement?
Incentive travel has always claimed the higher ground: transformation over transaction, memory over margin. Yet the gravitational pull of procurement, compliance and risk mitigation grows stronger each year.

Can transformation survive inside a framework designed to minimise deviation and if so, how?

3. What genuinely differentiates an incentive travel program in an era when everyone has access to the same tools, destinations and data?
With AI democratising research, creativity and logistics at breathtaking speed, advantage no longer lies in access. It lies in judgment, taste, sequencing and intent.

But are we cultivating those skills or quietly letting technology flatten distinction across the industry?

4. Have we become too nervous to challenge clients ?
Partnership implies dialogue, tension and trust. Yet many suppliers now feel trapped between the fear of losing business and the desire to protect the integrity of the experience.

When and how should we be prepared to say no, or at least not like this?

5. If incentive travel is to make a credible case for its future, what values must it actively stand for — not just quietly assume?
Beyond ROI models and performance metrics lies a harder question: what does this industry reward, reinforce and normalise?

As social, environmental and ethical pressures mount, can incentive travel articulate its purpose clearly enough to justify not just its cost but its existence?

I don’t offer these questions as a manifesto, nor even as a provocation — more as a working notebook for the year ahead.

They’re the questions I hear murmured in corridors, half-formed in panels, and occasionally admitted over a late glass of wine.

I don’t pretend to have the answers and I’m increasingly suspicious of those who do.

But if 2026 can be a year in which we slow down just enough to sit with these questions, to argue about them honestly, and to let them shape how we design, sell and defend incentive travel, then perhaps that, in itself, would be a meaningful place to begin.