What to expect at ConX 2026

Luisa Camara, chief commercial officer at Travelgate, the Palma-based B2B marketplace founded in 2012 by Pedro Camara and now part of the Travelsoft group, says ConX reflects the company’s belief in human connection alongside technical connectivity. She recalls initial scepticism, looks back on the origins of the event, its place within the travel tech ecosystem, the central role of networking, and this year’s theme, “Otherness”, or the importance of uniqueness in the age of artificial intelligence.

The next edition of ConX is just around the corner. How was the event born?

Luisa Camara, CCO at Travelgate: ConX was born in 2019. It was Pedro’s dream. It was an idea he had been planning for a few years. When he first told me, “I want to do our own conference,” I thought it was crazy. But we launched the first edition in 2019. With around 300 people attending, it was obviously much smaller than what ConX has become today with more than 1,000 professionals. But from the start, the structure was already the same: one part of the day dedicated to content, and the other part dedicated to networking.

What makes this event unique in the travel industry?

"What we do, basically, is connect travel companies, more precisely, we connect their systems technically. But behind every system, there is always a person, or a number of people. ConX was born from that idea: bringing together in real life the people behind the systems we connect digitally."

Travelgate standardises and connects systems, but fundamentally we are also a network of human interactions. The more interactions there are between the players in that network, the more connections there are, in the broadest sense. So ConX is really the physical version of what we have built digitally.

Networking is at the core of who we are. Travelgate was built on three pillars: partnership, innovation and network. We are a tech company, always striving to innovate, but we are also a marketplace, a network of companies and partners. We always believed that if we brought our partners together in person, the chances of more connections happening online would be much higher. That is why networking is not a side element of ConX, it is really its reason for being.

At the same time, we always wanted the content side to remain strong. Unlike many other conferences, sponsorships are not linked to speaking opportunities at ConX. You cannot buy a stage. If a company is on stage, it is because it has something genuinely relevant to bring to the conversation.

Did the concept find its audience straight away?

Yes, even beyond what we expected. In the first year, it was not easy to convince speakers to join because we had never done this before. But we managed to bring really great guests. At the time, Travelgate was growing a lot in Asia, and we were able to bring some of our Asian partners to ConX. We were one of the first European companies in the sector to have so many Asian clients. Allowing our European partners to meet companies like Alibaba or Trip.com on site immediately gave the event a different dimension.

What kind of professionals come to ConX?

At the beginning, ConX was very much about C-level people getting together. But in reality, the people we work with every day are not only C-level executives. They are also account managers, business development directors, engineers, all the people who actually make connections between companies happen.

I felt it was a shame that these people, who are essential to the ecosystem, were not more integrated into the event. That is why in 2022 we created AfterX. The idea was to keep the conference side more strategic and C-level oriented, and then open up a second moment entirely dedicated to networking, something much broader, more informal and more inclusive.

Today, it is difficult to imagine ConX without AfterX. We host it at Nikki Beach in Magaluf as a full day networking event. People can schedule meetings through an app, have lunch on site, meet in a very relaxed setting, and then continue into the evening.

What changes everything is the environment. At a traditional trade show, meetings are lined up every thirty minutes in a very rigid way. Here, the interactions are more natural. People have a drink, sit by the pool, talk more freely. The setting makes networking flow faster and in a less forced way.

In 2024, Travelgate joined Travelsoft. Did that change anything for ConX?

Not really, but the moment itself was very symbolic because the acquisition was announced during ConX. Pedro received the final confirmation just a few minutes before going on stage to open the event, so he was able to announce it live.

It was a very strong symbolic moment, because ConX is such a personal creation for him. Seeing this project, which started almost from nothing, also become the place where he could announce a major new chapter in Travelgate’s history felt like a form of achievement.

This year’s theme is “Otherness”, uniqueness, singularity. Why did you choose it?

As AI develops, as tools become more standardized and content becomes more homogeneous, I believe uniqueness becomes a central issue. I use the word “otherness” to talk about that, what makes a person, a company, a product or an idea genuinely different.

It is an interesting theme for us because our job is precisely to standardize. We make connections simpler, smoother and more accessible. But at the same time, in a sector like hotel distribution, we know very well that what makes something sell is not always just price. It can be a detail in the description, a particular way of presenting a product, a nuance that creates preference.

As AI standardizes language, formats and certain practices, this ability to bring out difference becomes, in my view, even more important. That is true at the level of a company, but also at the individual level.

Our mission has always been to democratize access to connectivity, to make opportunities more accessible to more people. But the more access is democratized, the more the question of what makes you unique matters. At Travelgate, that is a question we ask ourselves all the time: what is our value, what is our purpose, what is unique about us? We operate in a very specific, very technical part of the chain, almost invisible to the end traveler. That forces us to constantly reflect on what really makes us different.

So is this a new stage in the adoption of AI? Have you seen a change in the way the industry approaches the technology?

Pedro Camara, founder of Travelgate: Yes, very clearly. Last year, a lot of people still saw AI as a direct threat, with the idea that it was going to remove jobs or replace entire professions. Today, the view is more mature. Professionals increasingly understand that AI is a tool, a productivity lever, not the disappearance of human value. It helps save time, automate repetitive tasks and make people more efficient. To me, that is the main shift.

What can we expect from the 2026 edition of ConX?

Luisa Camara: We are very excited to welcome Uri Levine, the founder of Waze. His journey is fascinating, but what really interests us is his view of building a company and of finding a strong value proposition. That ties in directly with this year’s theme.

We are also very excited about the venue. After a very ambitious 2025 edition in a stadium, we decided this year to make ConX slightly more exclusive again, a bit more focused, in order to bring back the C-level feel we look for every year. The event will take place at Pueblo Español, a venue that fits perfectly with the spirit we want to give this edition.

We want this edition to have a real local identity, with a lot of Hispanidad, warmth and attention to the experience. And very concretely, we are also happy that the conference part will happen indoors this time, in much more comfortable conditions, before bringing people outside again when it is time to network.

The last edition of ConX brought together more than 1,000 professionals and over 460 travel companies, generating more than 1,500 meetings. The <a href="https://conx.travelgate.com/">2026 edition of ConX</a> will take place on 2–3 June at Poble Espanyol, Majorca.