Airalo is a Finalist for Best Travel App at the
2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and it solved a problem every international traveller recognises from the arrivals hall: the choice between extortionate roaming, airport SIM-stand queues and hotel Wi-Fi roulette. None of those choices survives contact with this app. As the world's pioneering eSIM marketplace, Airalo lets travellers buy and install a local data plan for virtually any country on earth in minutes, from the sofa, before the flight — connectivity as a two-tap purchase rather than a travel-day errand. Frequent flyers keep a global plan resident and simply top up, making connectivity a rolling utility rather than a per-trip chore to remember.
The product's elegance is its argument. Coverage spans essentially the entire map through local, regional and global plans; installation is a guided, few-minute affair on any modern handset; and plans activate on landing, top up in-app and coexist with the home number — the business traveller keeps their UK line for calls while data runs locally at local prices. The savings are not marginal: against legacy roaming rates, a week's data abroad routinely costs less than a single day's roaming charge, which is why
Travelling for Business has charted how
eSIMs are quietly replacing the roaming bill for UK business travellers — a shift Airalo did most to start.
The corporate proposition has grown up alongside. Team and enterprise offerings put travelling workforces on managed eSIMs with central billing and control, finance teams get predictable connectivity costs instead of quarter-end roaming shocks, and IT departments get a solution that needs no hardware, couriering or return logistics. Frequent travellers simply get their arrival hour back. The category Airalo created now has imitators by the dozen, which is its own tribute; the original competes on breadth, price and the operational polish of having done this longest — refunds, support and installation help included, at midnight, in any timezone.
The nomination recognises a genuine category creator — the app that made international connectivity boring, in the best possible way. Winners will be announced at the 2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and Airalo's users will hear instantly, wherever they have landed, without a roaming charge in sight.
