As winter travel ramps up and 2025 comes to a close, DMOs are entering one of the most important windows of the year: the moment where traveler behavior, search patterns, viewing habits, and real-time intent set the tone for early 2026 demand. Connected TV (CTV) has become a central part of that shift. It’s no longer just an upper-funnel awareness channel; it’s a behavior-shaping engine that influences how people dream, plan, and ultimately book.

With more than 80% of U.S. households now streaming and consumers toggling between big screens and mobile devices seamlessly, CTV is becoming the DMO’s most reliable way to seed inspiration and build momentum as we head into the new year. And when layered with real-time travel intent signals from platforms like Travelogic™ CTV becomes even more powerful. DMOs can do more than target audiences; they can activate people who are already leaning toward their next trip.

Below are five CTV campaign concepts that DMOs can launch now to shape 2026 travel demand, grounded in what’s trending, what’s seasonal, and what’s meaningfully shifting consumer behavior.

1. Lean Into Winter Wanderlust: CTV for Snow, Wellness & Escape Travel

Winter is no longer a quiet season for DMOs; it’s become one of the most influential trip-planning windows of the year. Between holiday stress, early-year burnout, and colder weather patterns, traveler behavior leans heavily toward:

• Snow sports and alpine destinations
• Spa, wellness, and restorative travel
• Warm-weather escapes
• Regional “winter weekenders”
• Family-friendly post-holiday getaways

For DMOs, this is the time to use CTV to frame what winter “should” look like for specific audiences. With pre-booking signals already in play, DMO teams know exactly who is researching ski passes, browsing spa resorts, planning beach trips, or searching for winter festivals.

CTV creative angles that drive action now:

• “What your January escape could look like” (visual storytelling)
• Winter micro-itineraries (3-day snow, 2-day wellness, etc.)
• Locals-first positioning to capture drive-market demand
• Early-bird incentives for late winter or spring trips

Even when audiences don’t book immediately, CTV exposure shapes their early 2026 preferences and becomes the trigger for downstream conversion campaigns.

2. Retarget Holiday Travelers With Real-Time Intent (Your Winter Goldmine)

Holiday travel is one of the most valuable intent signals of the year. It tells DMOs three things:

1. Who is actively traveling right now
2. How far they’re willing to go
3. What motivates them (family, adventure, value, events, culture)

This is where the combination of CTV + real-time intent becomes truly high leverage. Holiday travel behavior becomes the fuel for precise winter and Q1 campaigns, especially when paired with big-screen creative that elevates a destination’s emotional narrative.

DMOs can immediately retarget:

• Travelers who visited similar destinations
• Drive-market audiences who traveled further than expected
• Families likely to book spring break trips
• International travelers planning for 2026
• Adventure travelers (skiing, national parks, winter hiking)

The strategic move:
Launch a rolling CTV retargeting cycle that mirrors how travelers behave during the holiday, planning on mobile, researching late at night, moving between screens, and making decisions quickly.

If DMOs start now, this creates a behavioral engine that continues producing results straight through early 2026.

3. Tap Into the Winter Sports Wave: CTV as a Gateway to Spring & Summer Travel

Between NFL playoffs, NBA and NHL mid-season stretches, NCAA bowl games, and the early hype cycle for the 2026 World Cup, winter is one of the most valuable sports advertising seasons. And live sports is the highest-performing CTV environment for DMOs.

The reasons are simple:

• Sports viewers are engaged, not passively streaming
• They watch on big screens, ideal for cinematic destination ads
• They tend to be high-intent travelers (sports events, bucket-list trips, regional travel)
• Sports programming offers unmatched reach + frequency

Sports fans also over-index for travel, particularly for:

• Weekend getaways
• Family leisure trips
• Adventure and outdoor travel
• Group travel with friends

This creates a powerful crossover moment: winter sports programming can seed spring and summer travel decisions, especially when DMOs align messaging with fandom or regional affinity.

Sample CTV concepts:

• “Before the playoffs, plan your own winter getaway.”
• “Turn your fan road trip into your next adventure.”
• “Your team’s road game is the perfect excuse for a new destination.”

Heading into 2026, sports-integrated CTV strategies are expected to grow rapidly—and DMOs launching them now are positioned to ride that wave.

4. Personalize for Seasonality Using AI-Driven Creative Variation

As more DMO campaigns adopt AI-supported optimization, personalization on CTV is about to enter a new era. Instead of showing the same creative to everyone, DMOs can now serve seasonally relevant variations that adapt to:

• Traveler psychographics
• Weather conditions
• Proximity
• Past travel behavior
• Booking windows
• Event cycles
• Travel style preferences

This winter is a perfect testing ground.

Travelers are dreaming, browsing, and planning but often without committing. That makes personalization especially powerful, because the creative itself nudges them toward making a decision.

Examples of seasonal creative variation:

• Ski content for households engaging with outdoor or adventure content
• Warm-weather escapes for viewers in colder metro areas
• Food festivals or cultural events tailored to interest-based segments
• Family-friendly itineraries for households with kids in streaming profiles
• Luxury-focused content for high-HHI audiences

What DMOs test now becomes the blueprint for full-scale personalization in 2026.
The winter window reveals which creative combinations spark intent and which sequences help audiences convert down the line.

5. Build Multi-Screen Planning Journeys: CTV → Mobile → Booking

One of the biggest shifts heading into 2026 is the acceleration of multi-screen travel behavior. Travelers don’t just watch an ad, they respond to it. Immediately.

The moment someone sees a destination on CTV, they reach for their phone to:

• Look up flights
• Browse hotels
• Search “things to do in…”
• Save the idea for later
• Watch social videos from the destination
• Compare against another destination

This is the new travel funnel.
CTV is the spark; mobile and social handle the research; desktop often gets the booking.

DMOs can build this behavior into their campaign architecture through:

• QR codes and shoppable media
• Sequential messaging on mobile and social
• Landing pages designed for mobile-first inspiration
• Retargeting users who searched after seeing a CTV ad
• Lightweight co-op extensions tied to hotel partners

The magic of launching this now during winter, is that audiences are already multitasking between screens during the holidays. Their behavior is predictable, and high-intent. DMOs can use this to engineer booking paths that convert consistently throughout 2026.

Why Starting Now Matters

Winter is the testing ground for future travel behavior, and CTV is perfectly aligned with how consumers plan today:

• Inspiration is happening on big screens
• Research happens seconds later on mobile
• Intent signals update in real time
• Households are streaming more during winter than any other season
• 2026 booking windows are beginning to form now

Launching these CTV concepts before the new year gives DMOs a strategic runway:

• They capitalize on holiday mindset
• They build early demand for spring and summer
• They establish a data foundation ahead of 2026
• They learn what creative actually shifts traveler behavior
• They maximize reach during peak streaming months

Winter creates the spark. 2026 grows the momentum. Together, they compound into ROI.

The Bottom Line

DMOs no longer have the luxury of waiting for spring to shape demand. Travelers begin dreaming, planning, and researching now during winter, during the holidays, and during the exact viewing behaviors that make CTV so powerful.

By launching these five campaign concepts today, DMOs can:

• Influence where travelers go next
• Capture intent before competitors
• Build persistent demand into 2026
• Learn which creative and targeting paths perform
• Turn winter inspiration into year-round revenue

Travel behavior is shifting fast.
CTV remains one of the only channels flexible and dynamic enough to keep up and DMOs that move early will shape how 2026 travel unfolds.

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