Meeting Huawei at ConX 2026: On AI, Differentiation and Why Travel Infrastructure Is the Next Frontier

Huawei was the main sponsor of ConX 2026 — Travelgate's annual gathering of over 1,000 travel distribution professionals at the Poble Espanyol in Mallorca. We sat down with Matteo Conte, Senior Sales Manager at Huawei on the day to talk about AI, differentiation and why one of the world's largest technology companies is choosing the travel distribution sector as a strategic focus.

Huawei is the main sponsor of ConX 2026. What drew you to this ecosystem?

Travel is one of the most demanding digital industries in the world. It combines massive transaction volumes, real-time decision-making, global operations and very little tolerance for downtime.

What attracted us to ConX 2026 and Travelgate ecosystem is that it brings together the companies that are actually building the infrastructure behind travel: marketplaces, distributors, hotel groups and technology platforms.

For Huawei, this is not simply about sponsoring an event. It is about becoming part of the ecosystem, understanding its challenges first-hand and working with the industry on the next generation of travel infrastructure.

The theme is OTHERNESS — choosing to be different in an age of AI standardisation. Does that speak to how Huawei differentiates?

Absolutely. AI is becoming widely accessible, so the technology itself will not be the only differentiator. The real difference will come from how companies apply it, integrate it into their operations and turn it into measurable business value.

Huawei brings a different proposition because we combine cloud, connectivity, infrastructure and AI within one technology ecosystem. We are not trying to replicate what already exists. We want to provide companies with more choice, stronger technological alternatives and the ability to innovate without depending on a single path.

For me, OTHERNESS is exactly that: not being different for the sake of it, but having the courage to challenge the standard model when there is a better way to do things.

Huawei operates in 170+ countries. Where is the travel distribution industry most ripe for transformation?

The biggest opportunity is in the infrastructure behind distribution.

Travel companies are processing an enormous amount of searches, availability requests and transactions, but not all that traffic creates the same value. The industry can become much more intelligent in how it manages demand, capacity, conversion and infrastructure costs.

AI can help companies understand which traffic is valuable, optimize matching between supply and demand, automate operations and improve conversion. At the same time, modern cloud architectures can give travel platforms the scalability and resilience they need without forcing them to overprovision infrastructure.

The next transformation will therefore not only be about selling more travel. It will be about making every search, connection and transaction more efficient.

What is the most exciting technology initiative Huawei is bringing to the travel sector right now?

The most exciting area is the combination of cloud infrastructure and AI models as a service.

Travel companies can now access advanced models through APIs, experiment rapidly and build use cases without having to deploy and manage the full AI infrastructure themselves. That can support software development, customer service, content generation, operational automation and smarter travel distribution.

But the real opportunity is not just adding a chatbot. It is embedding AI into the core processes of the business.

Our ambition is to help travel companies move from isolated AI experiments to scalable, production-ready solutions that generate tangible value: lower cost, faster innovation and better commercial performance.