AI In Travel Technology

Hilton and Marriott International just added AI to their risk factors in regulatory filings this week. The two largest hotel companies in the world are formally warning investors that AI could erode brand loyalty, shift bookings away from direct channels, and increase distribution costs. Most of the industry conversation around AI and travel has focused on what happens to OTAs. Will ChatGPT replace Expedia? Will Gemini kill Booking.com? Those are the wrong questions. The bigger question is what happens to the brands themselves. Think about what hotel brands actually do. They aggregate supply, create trust, and give consumers a reason to book direct instead of shopping around. Hilton and Marriott are, at their core, distribution companies. The loyalty program IS the moat. Now imagine a world where AI knows your preferences better than any loyalty program. Where your agent can search every hotel in a market, read real reviews, match your exact needs, and book instantly; no app downloads, no rate plans to wade through (should I use points??), no brand allegiance required. In that world, what exactly is the value of the brand? Here's my take: supplier direct always wins. It has to. The hotel, the actual property, the people, the experience, is where all the value is created. Every intermediary layer between the guest and the hotel is a tax on that value. OTAs were the first tax. Brands, increasingly, are the second. AI doesn't just threaten the middlemen. It threatens anyone who sits between the guest and the property without adding real value. The hotels that win in the new era won't win because they're part of a larger brand. They'll win because they own their guest relationships, control their own commerce, and deliver experiences that no algorithm could ever curate for them.

Let’s stop pretending. AI is not “coming” to travel. It’s already rewriting the rules. Most of the industry is still debating: • Direct vs OTA • TMC vs Supplier • GDS vs NDC • Commission vs margin • Loyalty vs distribution But AI just walked in and flipped the table. No ads. No bidding wars. No SEO games. No “preferred partners”. Just one simple question: 👉 “What’s the best hotel for me?” And one terrifying reality for hotels: You don’t control the answer anymore. Sam Altman wasn’t talking about a feature. He was talking about the death of the traditional booking journey. We’re moving from: Search → Compare → Click → Book to Intent → Conversation → Decision And AI doesn’t show 48 results. It shows one. So ask yourself: • Will your hotel even be mentioned? • Can AI describe it accurately? • Is your story clean… or messy? • And when AI recommends you… can it actually BOOK you? The real irony? We spent 20 years fighting OTAs… only to ignore the one thing that could make them irrelevant. This isn’t a “tech trend.” This is a power transfer: From platforms → conversations From budgets → truth From who paid → who deserves And here’s the uncomfortable part: Most hotels are still optimizing for: • Google • OTAs • Brand.com • Rate parity • Channel mix While the next generation of travelers will simply say: “Book it.” No UI. No website. No scrolling. Just trust. So the question isn’t: “Is AI going to impact travel?” It’s: 👉 By the time it’s obvious to everyone… will your hotel still exist in the conversation? Because in an AI-driven world… You are not fighting for ranking. You are fighting for relevance. And relevance is earned. Not bought. Travel doesn’t need more channels. It needs more truth. Who’s ready for that conversation? 👇 #FutureOfTravel #ArtificialIntelligence #Hospitality #TravelTech #OpenAI #ChatGPT #HotelDistribution #Innovation #Leadership

It's the one question everyone is asking: What does the rise of AI mean for the online travel industry? I believe it will make it more personal and more human. I’m convinced we’re standing at the edge of the next great platform shift. The internet empowered online booking giants like Expedia and Booking to digitise flights and accommodation. The platform shift to smartphones enabled GetYourGuide to bring incredible experiences to everyone's fingertips. Now AI is changing everything again. Just as the web made travel bookable and mobile made it instant, AI will make it personal, predictive, and invisible. 👉 Personal because it will understand each traveler’s style, pace, and passions. AI will craft recommendations like a trusted local. 👉 Predictive because it will anticipate what we want before we ask — surfacing the local food & wine experience in Tuscany or the perfect family boat trip in Miami. 👉 Invisible because planning won’t feel like searching a commoditised department store anymore, it will feel like interacting with someone who truly knows you. Every technological wave first automates what exists, then transforms how it works. Travel is entering that second phase. The future traveler won’t use AI. It will fade to the background. They’ll simply experience a world that feels effortlessly unlocked. This will bring travel back to its core: Human connection ❤️

OpenAI just quit the booking business. Expedia jumped 12%. Booking Holdings up 8%. The headline everyone ran: AI won't replace OTAs. Wrong read. OpenAI didn't fail. They confirmed exactly where generative AI hits its ceiling in travel. And where agentic AI will need to pick up. Google tried owning bookings from 2015 to 2022. "Book on Google." Killed it. OpenAI tried the same play. Same outcome. The pattern is clear. Generative AI captures discovery, not transactions. Agentic AI might close that gap. But only with the right data underneath. ChatGPT usage for travel research grew 124% in one year. But only 2% of travelers trust AI to book without human oversight. People browse inside AI. They buy through brands they trust. McKinsey calls this "selective delegation." From the new Skift + McKinsey report on agentic AI in travel. So the real question isn't who builds the best agent. It's whose data is clean, real-time, and structured enough for those agents to work with. Today, fewer than 15% of brands are built to show up in AI-generated answers. In hospitality, that number is probably lower. The companies that will define the next era of travel distribution aren't building agents. They're building the data layer agents depend on. Everyone asks, "When will AI book my trip?" Better question: Whose data will the agent trust enough to recommend?

OTAs have just Hijacked ChatGPT AI has officially redrawn the travel distribution map. With Booking.com and Expedia now embedded inside ChatGPT, the world’s most advanced conversational AI has effectively become a new booking channel, one that hotels don’t yet control. Guests can now plan, compare, and reserve rooms without ever leaving ChatGPT. It’s seamless, intuitive… and entirely within the OTA ecosystem. As hotel company CEOs, we must recognize what this means. The implications are profound: Discovery is being rewritten. The guest journey may now begin, and end, inside a chatbot. Data gravity has shifted. OTAs are capturing not just the booking, but the intent, the conversations that reveal who the guest is and why they travel. AI is the new distribution frontier. Visibility in this emerging layer will define tomorrow’s winners and laggards. Hotels have two choices: be aggregated by AI, or augmented by it. The same technology powering the OTAs can empower hotel companies to build intelligent, branded experiences that speak directly to guests. This isn’t a call to resist innovation. It’s a call to lead it. The next great competitive advantage in hospitality won’t be a loyalty program or a pricing engine, it will be the strength of our AI presence. Anthony Capuano, Chris Nassetta, Elie W. Maalouf #AI #HospitalityInnovation #HotelTech #ChatGPT #Expedia #Bookingcom #Marriott #Hilton #IHG #Hyatt #Accor #FourSeasons #TravelTech #DigitalTransformation #RevenueManagement #HotelDistribution #Leadership #FutureOfHospitality

We just ran the first study of its kind on AI booking behavior in travel. 300 booking tasks. 71,000 words of transcripts. One clear finding: When AI gives travelers a recommendation that matches their preferences, they trust it. And they stop searching. This isn't how travel research used to work. Expedia's 2023 study found travelers look at 277 pages of content over 45 days before booking. That research journey is compressing fast. When ChatGPT Atlas or another AI agent says "based on what you told me, here's the best option," most people take it. They don't open five more tabs. They don't compare across booking sites. They book where the AI sends them. So the real question isn't "will AI agents change travel search?" The question is: which travel companies will AI agents recommend? Because if your brand isn't in the training data, isn't cited as a source, or isn't accessible through API partnerships, you're invisible to these systems. And being invisible means being out of consideration entirely. This is a bigger shift than SEO ever was. With Google, you could optimize your way onto page one. With AI agents, you need to be part of the answer before the user even asks the question. You need to be in the knowledge base, in the partnerships, in the data these models pull from. The implications are huge: Brand visibility now depends on AI citations, not just search rankings. Direct bookings will increasingly flow through whoever controls the AI recommendation. Smaller brands without partnerships or strong online presence risk getting locked out completely. We're moving from a world where travelers compared 10 options to a world where they trust one AI-recommended option. That's not a small change. That's everything. For more travel marketing insights, subscribe to our bi-weekly deep dive, the NavLog. You can find it at propellic[dot]com/navlog #travelmarketing #AI #digitalmarketing #travelbooking #futureoftravel

The world just shifted, and most of the hospitality industry hasn’t even blinked. OpenAI just launched a browser that can book travel. Not search. Not compare. Book. With Agent Mode, it can complete entire reservations on your behalf. Flights. Hotels. Transportation. Everything. This isn’t a future scenario. It’s live right now. That means how people book travel is changing, and it’s changing fast. Let’s be real. If someone can just tell an AI to book them a beachfront hotel with great Wi-Fi and strong reviews, they won’t be scrolling through your website or getting impressed by your Instagram feed. They won’t be reading your brand story or weighing five different options. The AI will make the decision for them. And if your property isn’t integrated into the digital ecosystem that these AI agents are pulling from, you won’t even make it onto the list. That’s not losing market share. That’s becoming invisible. This is where hospitality needs to wake up. You need to stop treating AI like a buzzword and start treating it like the next distribution channel. You need to make sure your property is discoverable and bookable through AI. That starts with structured data, clean pricing integrations, accurate availability, updated descriptions, and machine-readable content. If your hotel still runs on outdated systems and clunky legacy tech, you’re handing your future to your competitors on a silver platter. Think about what happens next. AI agents will prioritize brands with the best digital infrastructure, clear guest value, verified reviews, and seamless booking capabilities. If your property isn’t optimized for that, the AI won’t “consider” you. It will skip you. Full stop. Here’s what you should be doing now: 💡 Audit your digital presence. Make sure everything from your website to your OTA listings is structured for machine readability. 💡 Tighten your data. Your pricing, inventory, and room categories need to be clean, accurate, and consistent. 💡 Invest in infrastructure. If your systems can’t integrate with AI-driven booking platforms, you’re already behind. 💡 Train your marketing team to understand AI search behavior. This isn’t traditional SEO. It’s a different game. The hospitality brands that win in the next two years will be the ones that position themselves at the front of this AI booking wave. The ones that sit back and wait will find out too late that their guests have already booked somewhere else, without ever seeing their name. This is not the time to be passive. It’s time to build for what’s already here. --- If you like the way I look at the world of hospitality, let’s chat: scott@mrscotteddy.com.

Google announced agentic AI travel booking. The question isn't if it works. It's who owns the data. They're building AI that books flights and hotels directly within search. Partners include Booking.com, Expedia Group, Marriott International, IHG Hotels & Resorts. Three days later: "We have no intention of becoming an OTA." They don't need to. They're becoming the data layer. What you lose when bookings happen inside Google: 1. Search patterns before booking 2. Price sensitivity indicators 3. Alternative options considered 4. Rebooking behavior When customers book through your platform, this data is yours. When they book through Google, it's theirs. Hotels with their own platforms have first-party data on preferences, behavior, and pricing sensitivity. They can build better AI, optimize dynamically, and reduce acquisition costs. Hotels relying on aggregators have traffic numbers. Airlines learned this with Google Flights. United, Delta, and American invest heavily in direct channels because they learned: whoever owns the customer data owns the pricing power. Your booking engine should feed: 1. Customer data platforms 2. Personalization engines 3. Revenue management systems If it's just processing transactions, you're leaving strategic value on the table. Google's move accelerates the timeline. Companies that built data infrastructure three years ago are optimizing. Companies starting now have 12-18 months. Companies that haven't started will pay premium acquisition costs forever. Platform dependency isn't about convenience. It's about who controls your margins. #TravelTech #DataStrategy #Hospitality #DigitalTransformation

The OTAs Just Hijacked AI Search Expedia and Booking.com just planted themselves inside ChatGPT. Their new integrations mean travelers can now search, compare, and even book stays directly inside ChatGPT. Skipping Google, skipping DMOs, skipping your website. That’s not just a tech update. That’s a distribution shift. When AI starts deciding which hotels appear, and the OTAs own that space, independents risk being written out of the story entirely. 💡 What This Means AI isn’t just influencing travel search anymore. It’s replacing it. ChatGPT is becoming the first stop for trip planning, and the platforms feeding it are the ones that’ll win the booking. So while OTAs move to own AI discovery, independents need to build visibility on new terms, what I call AI Search Visibility. 🧭 What To Do About It 1. Structured Data = Your New SEO. Add hotel schema (Schema.org/Hotel), FAQs, and Q&A-style content to your website. This helps ChatGPT and Google’s AI-driven search actually understand your property. 2. Active Content Signals You’re Alive. Post recent reviews, photos, and updates to your Google Business Profile. AI scrapers reward fresh, consistent signals. 3. Collaborate Locally. DMOs, associations, and tech partners can share verified data sets and destination info that make all your properties more discoverable. AI search could’ve been the great equalizer, helping small properties compete on guest experience, not ad budgets. But only if we prepare for it. Because when AIs decide who gets seen, invisibility isn’t a glitch — it’s a death sentence. So here’s my question for you all: 👉 What’s one way your property (or destination) can get more AI-ready before the end of the year?

Everyone is talking about AI as a growth lever. But if you actually read the 10-K filings from the largest travel companies, AI is framed first as a competitive threat. Expedia Group states that the rapid emergence of generative and agentic AI is likely to intensify competition. Booking.com warns that AI-powered platforms and new entrants could change how travelers search and book, increasing competitive pressure and potentially shifting demand. On the hotel side: Marriott Hotels flags that AI introduced by intermediaries can disrupt marketing and distribution, erode loyalty, and increase distribution costs. Choice Hotels International explicitly calls out AI-powered booking flows inside third-party apps that could divert bookings away from direct channels. Hilton notes that large language models entering travel booking could redirect demand and heighten cybersecurity exposure. IHG Hotels & Resorts acknowledges uncertainty around how guests will discover and interact with hotels in an AI-driven environment. Read that again. Every major player in travel is signaling the same structural shift: AI is becoming the new booking interface. It is about control of intent at the moment of decision. If the AI layer lives inside Booking or Expedia, demand concentrates there. If the AI layer lives inside Google, demand concentrates there. If the AI layer lives inside your own infrastructure, you intensify competition instead of absorbing margin pressure. That is the foundation of Agentic Hospitality Cloud. AI-native infrastructure that: • Connects directly to CRS, PMS, loyalty, and revenue systems • Makes hotel inventory machine-readable and surface agnostic • Executes booking, modifications, and cancellations in real time • Preserves brand authority at the moment of intent Booking and Expedia are investing heavily in agentic AI to intensify competition. Hotels can either fund that future through higher distribution costs, or build the capability themselves. AI will intensify competition. The only strategic question is whether you are participating in it or paying for it.