Figure 2 Airbnb Gross Bookings Have Bounced Back Quickly A bar chart with a series of popular travel booking websites, along with their 2021 gross bookings indexed to 2019. This graphic has an associated spreadsheet that includes all data presented. Please access the spreadsheet for details. Figure 3 OTAs Grow Market Share Of Online Travel A bar chart showing the gross bookings of combined popular travel sites from 2016 to 2023.

Online retail and online travel will increase their share of the global digital economy and see 9% and 7% CAGR from 2023 to 2028, respectively (see Figure 2). Different types of digital economies exist: consumer driven, tech-spend driven, and ICT-export driven (see Figure 3). Consumer e-commerce. Consumer e-commerce for retail and travel captures the largest share of digital economy spend in China and Australia. In 2024, our forecast shows 18% of Australian retail sales are online.

Base: 47 online adults in the US and UK who have used an answer engine to autonomously complete tasks and 149 online adults who used AI for travel and hospitality reasons in the US and UK. Source: Forrester’s ConsumerVoices Market Research Online Community Survey, March 2026.

GUI’s dominance will likely continue because of online shopping and payments. Digital payments have established a solid foothold in Australia, driven by perceptions of added convenience and security when compared to cash or debit cards (i.e., physical instruments). Australia’s high share of retail and travel bought online is a testament to Australia’s strong e-commerce and digital payment infrastructures.

In fiscal year 2025, Accenture’s genAI bookings reached $5.9 billion and genAI revenues tripled to reach $2.7 billion and capture 3.8% of overall revenues. Exports help drive IT service growth: US net exports of tech services grew 66% to reach $8.8 billion in 2024 (see Figure 4).

Amazon’s DeepFleet AI model coordinates robot movements to find optimal paths, reduce bottlenecks, and improve robot travel efficiency. In Europe, online fashion retailer Zalando launched AI-driven discovery feeds to replace the app home screen to further personalize content, boost customer engagement, and grow advertising revenues.

But you likely also need extraordinary components, specific to your industry, like a travel booking engine instead of a retail cart, an electronic medical record system instead of an order history, and interactive conference streams instead of static videos. Business Value Your DXP delivers content and interactions across channels your customers use.

Consider an airline: It doesn’t operate in isolation but is part of a broader value ecosystem that includes online booking platforms, taxi services, airport facilities, and baggage handling services. These entities work together toward a common goal: providing the customer with a smooth travel experience. Similarly, a bank’s digital strategy should explicitly delineate its role and the distinct value it contributes to both customers and the entire value ecosystem.

In Asia, Alipay, Gojek, Grab, Paytm, PhonePe, Sea, and WeChat integrate services such as e-commerce, rewards, mobility, travel booking, mobile ticketing, on-demand movie streaming, games, and digital identity in their lifestyle platforms. Payments and identity unify the platforms, and the generated data enables further expansion into financial services.

Retailers spanned seven sectors (beauty, consumer electronics, fashion, home goods, multicategory, specialty, and travel).