eTourism Trends and News

Google is developing agentic tools that can plan and book travel across flights and hotels, while expanding its broader suite of AI travel features. The company aims to make AI Mode a unified hub for trip discovery, planning, and eventually booking — though travel’s complexity and consumer hesitation will slow full autonomy.

Key takeaways

Google’s agentic booking ambitions: The company is building a conversational tool that can compare and refine travel options — and ultimately complete bookings with partners.
Early-stage partnerships: Google is working with Booking.com, Expedia, Marriott, IHG, Choice, and Wyndham, but stresses the project is in its early phases.
Competitive pressure: OpenAI, Perplexity, Expedia, and Booking.com are all developing agentic travel tools, pushing Google to signal its direction early.

Revolut has launched a global payments partnership with Booking.com, allowing travelers to pay for accommodation — and soon flights and cars — using Revolut Pay. The collaboration deepens Revolut’s push into travel and offers travelers faster checkout, biometric security, and boosted loyalty rewards.

Key takeaways

One-click payments: Booking.com customers can now pay via Revolut Pay, enabling a fast, secure checkout directly through the Revolut app.
Large overlapping user base: Around 9 million Revolut customers already use Booking.com, making the partnership a strategic fit for both brands.

A new scam is targeting travelers who book hotels through platforms like Booking.com and Expedia, using compromised hotel accounts to send guests fake payment-verification requests. The campaign relies on a multi-step ClickFix attack that first infects hotel systems, then uses that access to phish customers.

Key takeaways

“I paid twice” phishing tactic: Scammers impersonate Booking.com or Expedia, urging guests to “verify payment” to avoid cancellation.
Fake landing pages: Links lead to highly convincing spoofed sites designed to capture credit card information.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says ads will likely appear in ChatGPT eventually—but not in the way Google does them. Rather than relying on search results that fail users, Altman envisions a model where ChatGPT earns commissions only when it delivers genuinely helpful recommendations that users act on.

Key takeaways

Not like Google Ads: Altman criticized Google’s model, saying it profits when search results don’t deliver—forcing advertisers to pay for visibility.
Trust over placement: OpenAI will avoid “pay-to-play” answers. If ChatGPT ranked a worse hotel above a better one because of money, Altman said, that would “catastrophically” damage user trust.
Commerce through conversation: Altman imagines users asking for recommendations, seeing the best option, and completing purchases (like booking a hotel) in one click—where OpenAI earns a small, transparent commission.

Apple is embedding its digital wallet into multiple stages of the travel experience — from unlocking cars and passing security to paying for hotels, rides, and in-flight purchases — as it seeks to capture a larger share of global travel spending traditionally dominated by credit card issuers.

"OTAs pushed into back-end fulfillment roles - Booking.com and Expedia risk becoming invisible fulfillment layers as ChatGPT and Gemini take over planning and booking AI assistants are increasingly planning and booking trips on behalf of travelers, bypassing traditional OTA interfaces. As a result, Expedia, Booking.com, and Trip.com risk losing visibility, engagement, and loyalty as the “control point” in travel shifts to AI intermediaries.

Key takeaways

AI intermediates the booking journey: Users interact with ChatGPT or Gemini to plan and book, while OTAs may only appear as back-end fulfillment layers.
Loss of engagement weakens search performance: Reduced browsing, fewer clicks, and shorter dwell times can signal lower relevance to search algorithms, threatening OTA rankings and traffic.
Loyalty shifts from brand to assistant: Travelers may form loyalty to the AI that “knows them” rather than to OTA reward programs, unless those programs are integrated directly into AI ecosystems."

Google is rolling out a global expansion of its AI travel features, including the Flight Deals tool, new trip-planning capabilities in AI Mode’s Canvas, and broader access to agentic booking assistance. The updates move Google closer to offering an end-to-end travel discovery and booking experience directly inside Search.

Key takeaways

Global rollout of Flight Deals: Google’s AI-powered bargain finder now covers 200+ countries and supports 60+ languages.
Describe-your-trip search: Users simply outline where, when, and how they want to travel, and AI surfaces the best available fares.
Canvas becomes a trip-planning workspace: AI Mode users can now generate full itineraries using real-time data from Flights, Hotels, Maps, and the broader web.

By 2026, agentic AI will transform travel from a process of searching and booking into a fluid, predictive system that anticipates traveler intent, resolves disruptions proactively, and powers new loyalty models built on data and personalization.

Key takeaways

From efficiency to imagination: AI is moving beyond automating tasks toward understanding mood, intent, and context to inspire and assemble personalized itineraries.
Agentic assistants take action: Next-generation systems will monitor flights, weather, and events, and rebook proactively—often before travelers notice a disruption.
Data becomes the competitive moat: The combination of first-, zero-, and third-party data enables predictive personalization that raises loyalty and creates higher switching costs.

Les géants américains de la technologie multiplient les investissements massifs sur le continent. Ils ne cessent de mettre en avant leur apport à la souveraineté numérique. Mais il n’en est rien

AI is moving beyond guest personalization to reshape the fundamentals of hotel profitability — optimizing rates, staffing, and operations while reducing waste and labor costs. From predictive maintenance to dynamic pricing, artificial intelligence is becoming a quiet but powerful force behind the bottom line.

Key takeaways

Smarter pricing: AI-driven revenue management systems use real-time data such as booking pace, competitor rates, and local events to optimize room pricing and forecast demand more accurately.
Labor efficiency: AI-powered occupancy forecasting helps align staffing with demand, preventing overstaffing in low periods and shortages in busy ones.
Automation at the front desk: Chatbots, digital concierges, and self-check-in kiosks are reducing front desk workloads and improving operational efficiency, especially in mid-scale and budget hotels.

"Booking Holdings reported strong quarterly results, but the most notable insight came from early data on AI-assisted bookings: travelers who plan and book through conversational AI tools show higher engagement, convert more often, cancel less, and report greater satisfaction. While it’s still too early to know how disruptively AI will reshape the travel market, these behavioral signals suggest a meaningful shift in how travelers make decisions.

Key takeaways

Stronger conversion rates: Bookings initiated through AI-enabled planning tools are converting at a higher rate than traditional search-based flows.
Fewer last-minute cancellations: AI-guided bookings tend to result in more confident decisions, reducing post-booking churn.
Higher customer satisfaction: Travelers report feeling the trip recommendations are more tailored, which improves satisfaction with the overall planning experience.
Discovery still uncertain, fulfillment still essential: Booking.com acknowledges that travelers may start trip planning elsewhere (e.g., AI assistants), but expects OTAs to remain central to fulfillment and servicing."