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Sep 3Thu
  1. Skift Feed

    The Race for Chinese Travel Demand Is Now a Fight to Get on the AI Shortlist

    A study by Create Consulting China tested 240 travel queries across five major Chinese AI platforms: Baidu's ERNIE Bot, ByteDance's Doubao, Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen, DeepSeek, and Tencent Yuanbao. The research finds that AI's most consequential influence on travel happens early, at the consideration set stage, by determining which destinations even make it into a traveler's shortlist. How a question is phrased dramatically alters recommendations: broad, open-ended queries cluster around a handful of safe, familiar, visa-friendly, and nearby destinations like Singapore, Thailand, and Japan, while continent-specific queries surface places like South Africa and Mexico that never appeared in op…

Sep 2Wed
  1. Skift Feed

    The Economics of Flight Search, Post-Google

    The article analyzes the financial performance of three flight search companies: Skyscanner, Kiwi.com, and Wego. Skyscanner generated approximately $660 million in revenue, up 24%, with a 32% operating margin. Kiwi.com's revenue fell 20% to $264 million, facing debt pressure. Wego doubled revenue to $63.5 million but with near-zero margins. These companies illustrate divergent outcomes in the Google- and AI-exposed travel sector.

  3. Web in Travel

    What Big OTAs Are Betting On: AI and Experiences as the Next Frontier

    At a WiT panel, executives from Booking.com, Expedia, Trip.com, and Webjet discussed AI's role in OTAs. Expedia's AI-drafted responses are accepted over 75% of the time; Trip.com's AI Trip Planner handles about 18% of itinerary planning. OTAs collectively process nearly half a trillion USD in transactions annually. AI excels in discovery, but trust remains crucial for transactions. Experience bundling shows potential, e.g., Trip.com sold ~20,000 hotel+concert packages in Hong Kong.

  5. Hospitality Technology

    Predatory OTAs Infiltrating Direct Booking Funnels

    According to Operto research, up to 8% of direct hotel bookings are intercepted by third-party sites that bid on hotel brand keywords and mimic official listings, causing hotels to pay extra commissions. The article notes that standard channel reports fail to identify such interception and recommends hotels use AI to monitor branded search and protect direct demand.

Aug 31Mon
  1. Skift Feed

    AI-Generated TikTok Go Hotel Videos Mislead Travelers, Skift Finds

    A Skift investigation found that AI-generated videos and influencers are promoting hotels through TikTok's new TikTok Go booking feature, often depicting rooms, amenities, and landscapes that don't exist. The Ambiente Sedona luxury resort was a focal point, with 17 videos flagged as AI-generated (80%+ confidence) by Resemble.AI, including fabricated suites, a non-existent pond, and merged footage. TikTok Go functions like a travel-focused TikTok Shop, enabling bookings via partners such as Expedia, Booking.com, Viator, and Trip.com, with creators earning roughly 5% commissions. This incentivizes low-effort, high-volume AI content. Hoteliers worry about brand control and misleading guests, b…

  2. Web in Travel

    Report: 72% of APAC rail bookings now online

    WiT's latest report shows that in 2025, 72% of rail bookings in APAC are made online, with state-owned operators retaining most traffic through their own apps. Car rental online penetration is only 47%, but expected to surpass offline by 2027. OTAs like Trip.com and Klook are integrating direct rail APIs and expanding bundling. AI is increasingly used in booking, such as Booking.com's ChatGPT-based car rental helper.

  3. TripVivid

    Fliggy Releases 2026 Summer Travel Report

    Fliggy released its 2026 Summer Travel Report, showing record summer travel orders. Domestic hotel room nights grew 66% YoY, and domestic ticket sales grew nearly 30% YoY. Top domestic destinations include Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.

Aug 28Fri
  1. Agoda Newsroom

    Agoda Announces Leadership Team Updates and New CFO

    Digital travel platform Agoda has announced updates to its leadership team, including several internal appointments and the arrival of a new Chief Financial Officer. Ittai Chorev has been appointed Chief Operating Officer, Matteo Frigerio as Chief Product Officer, Kris Suebjaklap promoted to Senior Vice President of Marketing, and Oliver Webster joined as CFO. These changes aim to clarify leadership responsibilities across key business areas.

Aug 27Thu
  1. Web in Travel

    NZ tourism leaders: Connection, not adrenaline, defines iconic experiences

    Leaders from five iconic New Zealand tourism brands (NZSki, RealNZ, Skyline, AJ Hackett Bungy, Ngāi Tahu Tourism) discussed that connection, not adrenaline, defines iconic experiences. Topics included high direct booking rates (up to 85%), OTA value in new markets, social media content creation, AI's impact on discovery, and the shift from 'seeing' to 'becoming' in the experience economy.

  2. TravelDaily China

    AI Era Battle: Hotels vs OTAs - Price Chaos is Key

    In a commentary, TravelDaily China CEO Li Chao argues that despite Marriott CEO's view that AI will benefit hotel direct booking, chaotic pricing across hotel channels drives consumers to compare on OTAs after AI screening. The author's experience shows hotel quotes were 20-50 euros higher than Ctrip, highlighting hotels' lack of price competitiveness.

Aug 26Wed
  1. Agoda Newsroom

    Agoda and NTT DATA Advance Renewable Energy and Data Center Efficiency in Singapore

    Agoda announced that electricity for its eligible IT infrastructure hosted at NTT Global Data Centers' Singapore facility is matched with 100% locally generated renewable energy certificates. The collaboration includes measures to reduce electricity use, achieving up to 16% energy savings for eligible workloads and approximately 40% cooling energy savings per server. This supports Booking Holdings' emissions-reduction targets.

Aug 25Tue
  1. Skift Feed

    Ixigo Tests Packaged Tours for Trains, Uber Becomes a New Distribution Engine

    India's Ixigo has made two strategic moves that extend its business beyond selling individual travel components. First, it launched Ixigo Bharat Darshan, its debut into packaged tours, offering curated spiritual and family travel packages sourced from state-owned IRCTC and bundled into single itineraries on the Ixigo app. The initial offering targets high-demand pilgrimage circuits and family destinations like Kashmir and the Northeast, with prices ranging from about $73 to $3,135, and notably solves a key pain point for Indian rail travelers by including confirmed train tickets alongside hotels and transfers. Second, Ixigo partnered with Uber to embed train-ticket booking directly within t…

Aug 24Mon
Aug 22Sat
  1. Skift Feed

    In Praise of Kayak, 21 Years Later: Still the Best Travel Search Tool

    This opinion piece by Skift founder Rafat Ali argues that Kayak remains the best travel search tool, despite parent Booking Holdings writing it down by $457 million in October 2025 and co-founder and CEO Steve Hafner stepping down in February 2026. The article contends that Kayak's struggles stem from rising Google-driven customer-acquisition costs and stalled revenue (around $500 million, down from ~$600 million pre-Covid), not a failing product. Meanwhile, competitors like Trivago and Skyscanner are growing but require higher ad spend. Booking is investing in a new AI travel brand, Lola, built by Kayak's founders, rather than leveraging Kayak's 21 years of brand recognition and user base.

Aug 21Fri
  1. TravelDaily China

    Homestay Trends Shift: What Else Can Be Sold Beyond a Room?

    TravelDaily reports that the homestay industry is shifting from accommodation to experiences. Meituan Homestay data shows users staying 7+ nights grew nearly 30% YoY, with young users up 75%. Meituan launched 'Special Experience' tags covering 8 experience types in 136 cities; listings with such tags have occupancy nearly 3 times that of ordinary ones. Global OTAs like Expedia and Tripadvisor are also expanding into experiences.

  2. TravelDaily China

    Marriott CEO: AI Can Bypass OTAs, But Not Hotels

    Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano said AI agents may weaken OTAs' intermediary value, but hotels have a moat by controlling the stay experience. Marriott is undergoing a multi-billion-dollar tech upgrade replacing PMS, CRS, and loyalty platforms, potentially enabling AI agents to connect directly.

Aug 19Wed
  1. Hospitality Technology

    Operto Launches Tools to Counter OTA Brand Hijacking

    Operto launched a property-level assessment tool and AI marketing agent to counter OTA brand hijacking. Data shows 75% of branded hotel searches feature competing OTA ads, with properties competing against an average of nine third-party sites, resulting in an estimated 8% loss in direct bookings. The AI agent monitors and counter-bids automatically.

Aug 15Sat
  1. Skift Feed

    Airbnb-CarTrawler Partnership Details Revealed

    Airbnb's car rental partnership with CarTrawler, launched a month ago, is generating about 500 bookings per day across five markets: the US, France, Italy, Spain, and Australia. CarTrawler controls the top-of-page display, monetizing through marked-up wholesale rates and split commissions, and tilts toward suppliers with volume incentives. However, data sharing raises concerns: CarTrawler receives extensive customer data even when users merely click a link. Expedia's pending acquisition of CarTrawler heightens conflict-of-interest stakes, though Expedia asserts strict data separation.

  2. Skift Feed

    Expedia Opens Silicon Valley AI Hub to Compete for Top Tech Talent

    Expedia Group has opened a nearly 50,000-square-foot engineering hub in San Jose as the epicenter of its AI and machine learning efforts, located less than 10 miles from Google's headquarters. The move aims to compete directly with tech giants like Google, Cisco, Adobe, PayPal, and eBay for top technical talent. Expedia offers Silicon Valley-level compensation, such as up to $338,500 for a principal ML scientist, and has already recruited senior talent from Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Meta. About one-third of the site's 300 seats remain intentionally empty, awaiting a future AI workforce.

  3. Hospitality Technology

    Entravel Group Raises $7.5M to Scale White-Label Hotel Distribution, AI Booking, and Stablecoin Set…

    Entravel Group has raised $7.5 million in funding co-led by Ethereal Ventures and Finality Capital. The travel infrastructure provider has launched over 40 white-label travel booking portals for crypto exchanges, fintechs, and enterprise platforms, including Kraken, MetaMask, and Swiss corporate benefits network Digt AG. The funds will expand supplier credit lines, increase booking volume processing, and support commercial expansion into traditional corporate travel and non-crypto enterprise channels. Its infrastructure stack includes MocatravelX for direct contracting, Ratestellar for AI-powered mapping and normalization (aggregating 2.2M+ hotel properties), Entravel for white-label bookin…

Aug 14Fri
  1. Skift Feed

    Saudi OTA Almosafer on Track for Year-End IPO Despite Iran War Disruption

    Almosafer, Saudi Arabia's largest travel company, plans to list on the Tadawul main market by end of 2026 in a secondary offering, with proceeds returning to shareholder Seera Group. Despite the U.S.-Iran war impacting consumer, corporate, and UAE businesses, Almosafer posted record Q2 revenue and EBITDA, driven by hajj and umrah (net booking value up 43%) and surging domestic travel (45.5% of bookings). Corporate travel net booking value fell 25%, described as the war's longest-lasting impact.

  2. PhocusWire All News

    Agoda VP on Online Travel's Broken Promise and AI's 'Reddit' Dilemma

    Agoda's VP of Corporate Development Tim Hughes said at WiT Queenstown that online travel's promise to simplify the messy process between customers and suppliers remains unfulfilled, with content and booking increasingly separated. He noted that AI models like ChatGPT source most travel content from Reddit, which is not good advice, and OTAs should be the solution to this dilemma. He emphasized a commercial rather than moral responsibility, and discussed Asia's QR-code payment advantage and friction for inbound travelers.

Aug 13Thu
  1. TripVivid

    Fliggy Hotel Business Grows for Four Consecutive Quarters

    On August 12, Fliggy released hotel business data showing high growth for four consecutive quarters. From April 2026 to date, average daily fulfilled room nights grew about 50% YoY, with early August growth approaching 70%. Growth benefits from deep integration with Taobao App, with 88VIP users driving significant impact. In June, deduplicated MAU grew over 30% YoY.

  2. PhocusWire All News

    Fliggy Launches Latest Agentic AI Travel Assistant

    Fliggy, part of Alibaba, has launched its latest agentic AI assistant powered by Alibaba's Qwen model. It can handle complex multi-step tasks like reservations, seat selection, itinerary changes, and cancellations, and manage long-running tasks such as room upgrades. The assistant features improved memory for personalized support across the travel journey.

Aug 12Wed
  1. TripVivid

    Ctrip Issues Mid-Year Bonuses at 95% Amid Antitrust Penalty

    On August 10, Ctrip officially issued mid-year performance bonuses, with all business lines paying 95% of the benchmark tier. For flight business, benchmark tiers are A: 2.5 months, B: 2 months, C: 1-1.5 months. On July 25, Ctrip was fined a total of 5.179 billion yuan by the State Administration for Market Regulation for monopolistic practices, setting a record for antitrust penalties in the industry. Ctrip responded that operations are normal and complete rectification measures have been formed.

  2. PhocusWire All News

    Airbnb partners with Tripadvisor to scale Experiences

    Airbnb has partnered with Tripadvisor Group to bring a selection of Tripadvisor experiences to the Airbnb platform, with certain tours and activities bookable later this year. The move aligns with Airbnb's strategy to scale Experiences, as CEO Brian Chesky noted on the Q2 earnings call that they added 1,000 new experiences, increasing supply by nearly 80% year over year.

Aug 11Tue
  1. Hospitality Technology

    Marriott CEO: AI Agents Threaten OTAs, Not Hotels

    Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano said in a Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute interview that autonomous AI booking agents pose a real threat to OTA market share, but less so to big hospitality brands. He argued OTAs spent billions marketing the 'myth' that consumers must use third-party platforms to find lowest rates, while AI agents can interact directly with hotel reservation systems, removing the intermediary. Capuano emphasized hotels control the stay, a 'wide and deep moat.' Marriott is undergoing a multi-billion-dollar tech transformation replacing three legacy platforms, enabling dynamic merchandising and potentially AI-agent bookings.

Aug 8Sat
  2. Skift Feed

    Google Confirms Hotel Agentic Booking Test in the US

    Google has begun a limited US test of agentic hotel booking within Search's AI Mode, with Booking Holdings CEO confirming it as one of the first partners. This builds on Google's November plans for an AI-driven flight and hotel booking experience. Google's new Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) could enable agents to transact directly within a chat session. Major travel players including Booking, Expedia, Marriott, Wyndham, IHG, and infrastructure providers Amadeus and Sabre are collaborating. While Google insists it has no ambition to become an OTA, the infrastructure it is assembling could enable end-to-end AI travel booking in its flagship search engine.

Aug 6Thu
  1. PhocusWire All News

    Expedia Group Invests in AI That Doesn't Convert Yet

    Expedia Group, in its Q2 2026 earnings call, said it is investing in two categories of AI: one for improving recommendations, ranking, and personalization, which is delivering immediate benefits; the other for conversational experiences like Vrbo's natural language search, which, while not yet driving conversion, provides over 60% more information about traveler intent, expected to yield compounding benefits over time. Q2 booked room nights grew 6% to 111.5 million, gross bookings up 12% to $33.9 billion.

Aug 5Wed
  1. PhocusWire All News

    Booking Holdings: AI Visibility Up, But Referrals Stay Under 1% of Room Nights

    Booking Holdings, in its Q2 earnings call, said referral traffic from LLMs (paid and unpaid) represents less than 1% of total room nights, with no material change recently. However, third-party data shows its brands appear frequently in LLMs. The company is working with third-party frontier players to ensure proper placement and launched initiatives like Priceline's Penny and Agoda's gallery view. Q2 gross bookings grew 9%, revenue up 8% to $7.4 billion.

Aug 4Tue
  1. Booking Holdings IR News

    Booking Holdings Reports Q2 2026 Results: Room Nights Up 5%

    Booking Holdings reported Q2 2026 results. Room nights grew 5% to 325 million, gross bookings up 9% to $51.0 billion, revenue up 8% to $7.4 billion. Net income surged 118% to $2.0 billion. The company increased expected annual run-rate savings from its Transformation Program to approximately $650 million, to be realized by end of 2027.

Jul 31Fri
  1. PhocusWire All News

    Expedia Acquires AI Travel Planning App Layla

    Expedia Group has acquired AI travel planning and booking app Layla for an undisclosed amount. The move accelerates its AI strategy by combining Layla's planning and personalization capabilities with Expedia's supply, scale, and technology. Layla was founded in 2023 and attracted €3 million in seed funding with backers including Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman. Expedia unveiled a ChatGPT app in November 2025.

  2. Expedia Group Newsroom

    Expedia Group acquires Layla to accelerate AI trip planning and booking

    Expedia Group has acquired Layla, an AI-native trip planning and booking platform, to accelerate its AI strategy. Layla, founded in 2023 and based in Berlin, helps travelers discover destinations, create personalized itineraries, and plan complete trips through a conversational travel agent. The acquisition combines Layla's advanced planning and personalization capabilities with Expedia Group's global supply, first-party traveler insights, marketplace scale, and booking technology, aiming to create richer, more personalized travel experiences and move travelers seamlessly from inspiration to booking.

Jul 29Wed
  1. Expedia Group Newsroom

    Quality Pays: New Vrbo Research Finds Travelers Will Spend More on Vacation Rentals They Trust

    Vrbo released the Built to Stay Report, surveying over 1,700 travelers across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, and Australia. The study found that 86% of travelers would pay more for a higher-quality listing, and 81% would pay more for a property with strong trust signals. Cleanliness, reliable amenities, and quick host response are key quality signals, while verified reviews and overall scores are important trust signals.

Jul 25Sat
  1. Trip.com Group News Releases

    Trip.com Group Accepts Administrative Penalty from China's SAMR

    Trip.com Group announced it has received an administrative penalty decision from the State Administration for Market Regulation of China and sincerely accepts it, pledging to adopt rectification measures in accordance with laws. The company will strengthen governance mechanisms and contribute to sustainable development of the travel industry. Management will hold a conference call on July 27 to discuss.

Jul 24Fri
  1. PhocusWire All News

    Agoda CPO Ittai Chorev on the push into real-time travel updates, AI search

    Agoda CPO Ittai Chorev discussed new features: real-time flight tracking, AI-powered hotel browsing, and AI tools. Flight updates average 2-3 notifications per booking, powered by established aviation data sources. On the hotel side, AI pairs images with relevant reviews and stays current with property changes. The multi-product booking engine allows booking hotels, flights, and activities in a single transaction, and language support has expanded by five languages.