The first time Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel coined the term “connected trip” as a formal corporate strategy in public was during the company's second-quarter earnings call in 2019.

Fogel laid out the vision as follows: “Our long-term vision is what we call the connected trip ... It is about building a seamless, holistic system that gives and does everything for the traveler, makes their lives easier and gives value to them.”

Seven years in, the “connected trip” has outlasted even generative artificial intelligence (AI) as a quarterly earnings buzzword. A beautiful corporate vision in investor decks and completely nonexistent in reality.

"Une nouvelle étude de SparkToro confirme l'accélération du zéro-clic sur Google. Pour les destinations et entreprises touristiques du Québec, l'enjeu n'est plus de faire cliquer… mais d'être la réponse!

Un visiteur tape « meilleur spa Charlevoix » dans Google. Il obtient sa réponse (emplacement, prix, avis) sans jamais quitter la page de résultats. Aucun clic vers le site du spa, aucune trace dans Google Analytics, aucune ligne dans le tableau de bord marketing. Et pourtant, quelque part, une décision de voyage vient peut-être de se prendre."

"Die DACH-Hotellerie ist in generativen KI-Suchsystemen nahezu unsichtbar. Das ist das zentrale Ergebnis dieser Studie, für die im Juli 2026 die KI-Sichtbarkeit von 515 Vier- und Fünf-Sterne-Hotels in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz gemessen wurde.

Gemessen wurde dabei nicht, ob KI-Systeme ein Hotel kennen — sondern ob sie es empfehlen, wenn ein Gast ohne Nennung eines Markennamens nach einer Unterkunft fragt. Genau in dieser Situation entstehen neue Gäste.

Die fünf zentralen Befunde
Die durchschnittliche KI-Sichtbarkeit liegt bei 11,2 von 100 Punkten. Der Median liegt bei 11,6 — die Verteilung wird also nicht durch Ausreißer verzerrt, sondern beschreibt den Normalzustand der Branche.
93 Prozent aller Häuser liegen unter 20 Punkten. Von 472 untersuchten Einzelhotels erreichen nur sechs überhaupt 30 Punkte. Ein einziges kommt über 40. 28 Häuser stehen bei null.
Kettenhotels werden dreimal häufiger empfohlen als Privathotels. Ketten- und Mehrhaus-Domains erreichen im Schnitt 36,2 Punkte gegenüber 11,2 bei Einzelhäusern. Der Grund ist messbar: Eine Ketten-Domain erscheint in durchschnittlich 72,8 Themen, ein Einzelhaus in 26,6.
Sterne bieten keinen Schutz. Fünf-Sterne-Häuser liegen bei 12,9 Punkten, Vier-Sterne-Häuser bei 10,7. Beide Gruppen bleiben weit unter der Schwelle, ab der KI-Systeme verlässlich empfehlen.
Das Problem ist strukturell, nicht national. Schweiz 14,3 · Deutschland 11,2 · Österreich 9,6. In allen drei Ländern liegen über 90 Prozent der Häuser unter 20 Punkten."

Was digitale Spuren über Landschaften verraten
Was haben ein Kommentar auf TripAdvisor nach einem Spaziergang durch die Weinberge des Lavaux und eine regionale Tourismusstrategie gemeinsam? Auf den ersten Blick nicht viel. Und doch stellen diese „digitalen Spuren“ heute eine wertvolle Ressource dar, um die Erfahrungen der Besucher tiefgreifend zu verstehen und die Entwicklung der Reiseziele zu steuern.
Emanuele Mele, Roland Schegg und Romano Wyss vom Institut für Tourismus (ITO) der HES-SO Valais-Wallis haben dieses Potenzial in einer Studie untersucht, die sich mit der Darstellung der Landschaften des Lavaux in Online-Bewertungen befasst. Das Ziel: aufzuzeigen, wie die von den Besuchern spontan generierten Daten zu einem strategischen Hebel für Regionen, darunter auch das Wallis, werden können.

AI assistants are becoming the new intermediary between brands and their customers.

"Die internationale DMO-Umfrage  zeigt: Daten werden strategisch wichtiger. Doch Ressourcen, Kompetenzen und gemeinsame Standards reichen vielerorts noch nicht aus. 

Destination Management-Organisationen sammeln längst nicht mehr nur Logiernächte, Gästekarten- und Websitezahlen. Daten sollen Kampagnen präziser machen, Besucherströme erklären, Angebote personalisieren und Entscheidungen gegenüber Politik und Leistungsträgern objektivieren. Der dritte Bericht der internationalen DMO-Studienreihe zeigt jedoch eine deutliche Umsetzungslücke: Das Bewusstsein ist vorhanden, eine belastbare Datenorganisation vielerorts noch nicht."

The paradigm shift brought about by AI and the recent emergence of ads on ChatGPT have forced digital marketing platforms to grit their teeth and evolve at breakneck speed. In reality, they have been pushing marketing teams to use algorithms for years, but now the transformation is much more significant. On the one hand, this is due to the need to reach users who are communicating in a different way. On the other hand, it is about simplifying and optimizing the hotelier’s day-to-day management.

Do we know what each platform offers in this new ecosystem? Are we ready to incorporate AI into our hotel marketing strategy?

In this article, we will try to break down what the major advertising platforms have to offer.

Agentic commerce is accelerating, and travel companies are actively assessing how to adapt their content and capabilities to facilitate conversion.

During a presentation at Phocuswright Europe in Barcelona last month, Pablo Laucirica Lopez Palacios, regional VP of Microsoft Advertising, pointed to projections that anticipate agentic web traffic will actually outpace human traffic by 2030. But with the human web and the large language model web still playing active roles, companies need to optimize across all three areas, Lopez Palacios said.

Phocuswright data also found that an increasing number of travelers in the U.S. and Europe are using artificial intelligence (AI) during the planning process, but fewer willing to allow the tech to book travel on their behalf.

"Travel apps inside AI chatbots are starting to look like real referral channels. The catch, Skift's testing found: A brand can be connected and still get skipped.

Travel apps inside AI chatbots can now return branded results, prices, and booking buttons. But Skift tests found a catch: The user needs to connect the app and the chatbot has to know it’s available and choose to use it.

That first step is a big hurdle for everyday users who aren’t familiar with the apps. The second step is where the referral path can break.

In Skift’s tests, Claude — which calls these integrations 'connectors' — handled them better than ChatGPT. It surfaced and used travel apps with little friction, while ChatGPT repeatedly bypassed or denied those that were already connected."

Just when you thought you had SEO figured out, here comes AI travel search and shuffles hotel discovery all over again. Traditional search rankings still matter, but AI-powered answer engines and generative platforms are changing how visibility works.

More and more people rely on the suggestions from this somewhat magical and scary creature to make travel decisions. Some studies even state that 40% of travellers already use AI tools to plan trips.

Le géant américain multiplie les annonces autour de l’IA : recherche connectée aux apps tierces, repositionnement de NotebookLM et création vidéo par avatar personnel.

Ce que les traces numériques révèlent des paysages
Quel est le point commun entre un commentaire laissé sur TripAdvisor après une balade dans les vignobles de Lavaux et une stratégie touristique régionale ? À première vue, pas grand-chose. Et pourtant, ces « traces numériques » constituent aujourd’hui une ressource précieuse pour comprendre en profondeur l’expérience des visiteurs et orienter le développement des destinations.
Emanuele Mele, Roland Schegg et Romano Wyss, de l’Institut Tourisme (ITO) de la HES-SO Valais-Wallis, ont exploré ce potentiel à travers une étude consacrée à la représentation des paysages du Lavaux dans les avis en ligne. L’objectif : montrer comment les données spontanément produites par les visiteurs peuvent devenir un levier stratégique pour les territoires.

Much of the recent debate around artificial intelligence (AI) in travel has been about how far online travel players might be disintermediated.

Consumer research, alongside an audit of the AI platforms and initiatives from the online travel agencies (OTAs), reveals the greater impact could be on their margins.

The study of leisure travelers in the U.S. from investment bank BTIG, conducted June 26, has found significant consumer willingness to use the available AI tools for inspiration, planning and even booking. 

More than 60% of travelers have dabbled with AI, with the majority comfortable using it across inspiration (76% very or somewhat willing), research (80% very/somewhat) and itinerary building (65% very/somewhat).

RÉSEAUX SOCIAUX : ÇA NE CONVERTIT PAS BEAUCOUP!
C’est un enseignement majeur de cette étude : si les DMO sont très présents sur les réseaux sociaux, cela ne se traduit pas en augmentation de la fréquentation du site web de destination : « Facebook et Instagram sont devenus des outils quasi universels pour les DMO dans les quatre pays. LinkedIn, YouTube et les avis Google sont également largement utilisés. En termes d’adoption des plateformes, le secteur a atteint un haut niveau de maturité et de standardisation, l’époque où les réseaux sociaux constituaient un projet parallèle expérimental est révolue depuis longtemps. Et pourtant, malgré cette présence quasi universelle, les réseaux sociaux ne génèrent en moyenne que 4% du trafic vers les sites web des DMO« 

Le rapport note que seul le Canada sort du lot avec une meilleure conversion; mais force est de constater que le score maximum de conversion est de 11% pour quelques destinations. Et encore, il s’agît d’une redirection vers le site web de destination, ce qui ne veut pas dire réservation…

"Pour les organisations touristiques, un bon référencement sur Google ne suffit plus. Avec l’essor des moteurs de recherche alimentés par l’intelligence artificielle, la visibilité dans leurs réponses devient un enjeu stratégique. Or beaucoup ne disposent ni des données, ni des ressources, ni de la stratégie numérique nécessaires pour s’adapter à cette évolution."

"Uber owns the transaction, and Google Maps owns the moment before it, and in the first half of 2026, both started using AI to cross into the other's territory. Travel distribution sits directly in the path.

The two credible super app contenders in the West have arrived at the same ambition from opposite directions: Uber is a commerce engine trying to learn discovery, and Google Maps is a discovery engine that avoids owning the transaction. One can sell you almost anything but cannot help you decide what to buy, the other knows nearly everything about the world around you, but hands you to someone else the moment money needs to move.

The scale on both sides can’t be argued. Uber closed 2025 with $52 billion in revenue, and in May, crossed 50 million Uber One members, who now drive half of gross bookings across mobility and delivery. Google Maps, which Alphabet does not break out separately, is by longstanding analyst estimates a low-double-digit-billions business across local ads and API licensing, with more than two billion monthly users and, since March, a Gemini-powered conversational layer called Ask Maps."

Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to boost the workforce for travel companies, but the importance of getting the basics right is not to be underestimated.

Fundamentals such as security, data and financial control need to be properly thought out as companies scale the technology, according to Trainline CTO Mike Hyde.

At the recent TravelTech Show, Hyde discussed the platform's AI journey alongside Harry Herbert, enterprise go-to-market lead for Anthropic.

Hyde suggested imagining a world where Trainline had 3,000 engineers versus the roughly 600 it currently has, with that workforce boost mostly agentic.

"The difference is we suddenly have 3,000 engineers, and all of our systems are designed to support 600 engineers, and the 3,000 engineers are less trustworthy than the 600," Hyde said. "You can't assume they're going to do the right thing all day, every day. Then, what kind of a security system would you need to run a 3,000+ company where you don't trust all the people?"

Lighthouse data shows AI referral traffic to hotel websites surged over 50% in weeks after ChatGPT expanded outbound links, with independent hotels best positioned to capture commission-free direct bookings.

The way people search for places to stay is changing

It’s not dramatic yet, but the data from the past few months points to something worth paying attention to early on.

AI tools like ChatGPT have become a normal part of the routine when people are searching for answers. Travel planning is no exception. Someone wondering where to stay in Seville or looking for a quiet countryside retreat for a long weekend is increasingly likely to ask an AI before they open a search engine. Until recently, those AI answers were mostly informational, just giving helpful context, but with no direct path to a booking. That’s starting to change.