Every December, something amazing happens as the entire world moves at once. Flights converge from every direction. Warehouses hum through the night. Gifts cross oceans, and families and friends cross time zones. While some delays and mishaps are inevitable, it almost always works out without a hitch.

We don’t think about the orchestration required for this kind of global choreography. But behind it is one of the most complex networks of data, planning, and technology on Earth.

The Invisible Infrastructure of the Holidays

The scale is staggering. The United Nations World Tourism Organization reported that global travel reached nearly 1.4 billion international trips in 2024, essentially back to pre-pandemic levels. In the U.S. alone, the American Automobile Association estimated that more than 119 million people traveled 50 miles or more during the year-end holidays last year. Based on Thanksgiving travel in the U.S. this year, many signs indicate that 2025 year-end travel could set a new record. This isn’t just a travel story. It’s a logistics story, a commerce story, and increasingly, a data story.

A backbone of data sharing is what powers flight schedules, delivery routes, hotel check-ins, and people moving through passport controls. It’s one of the few moments in the year when data becomes deeply personal and a great example of how business software has quietly become the trust layer of modern life. The more unpredictable the world becomes, the more essential that layer of coordination is.

A Shared Responsibility Across an Ecosystem

No single company or platform makes the world run on its own. Everything we do in this industry is part of a larger fabric of connection. The systems that help people get home for the holidays, or keep businesses moving every day, only work because developers, partners, customers, implementers, and especially workers on the ground play a role.

And because everything is connected, no disruption lives in isolation. A staffing shortage or a system outage at one airport doesn’t just impact travelers there. It puts pressure on the entire network and impacts people thousands of miles away.

That’s why this work is a shared responsibility. We’re all stewards of the trust our customers place in us. Collaboration across teams, companies, and even rivals is what keeps everything moving when the world is at its busiest.

How an AI-Powered Suite Can Make Holiday Travel Even Better

But as someone who travels frequently for business, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make this system run even better. And at SAP we have a unique view of how to do it.

More than 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. We support thousands of customers in the cloud. We have over 50 years of experience and operate in over 25 critical industries. This is the foundation from which we’ve built our AI-powered Business Suite.

When you look at holiday travel from traveler’s perspective, the needs are simple. People want reliable information, fewer surprises, and faster support when something breaks. The only way to deliver that at scale is to connect the systems that everyone relies on. That is where clean, semantically rich data in the public cloud becomes essential because it is the foundation for predictive insights to be built on top.

The result is a flywheel effect that makes entire processes runs better, becoming more adaptive and resilient. As a result, this allows more people to have better travel experiences and businesses to run most efficiently.

At SAP, we see this effect all the time with our customers, from one global airline using predictive intelligence to prevent maintenance issues to avoid canceled flights to an airport operator using our business AI to staff in smarter ways so families spend less time waiting in queues. Smarter operations aren’t just good for travel. They are also good for the planet since they move people and cargo with fewer resources. This is exactly how technology is supposed to work to make these connections faster, more comfortable, more sustainable, and more enjoyable.

The Season of Connection

The holidays remind us what all this technology is really for: human connection.

At SAP, we’re proud to play our part through our connected SAP Business Suite that is data-driven and AI-powered. But the truth is, this season belongs to everyone who keeps these systems running quietly behind the scenes.

So, to everyone building, maintaining, and advancing these systems, whether you’re in our ecosystem or another, thank you. You make the world run better in the most literal sense.

Because when the systems connect, so do people at the moments we all remember.



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