eTourism Trends and News

Google emphasizes maintaining an open ecosystem, minimizing commercial barriers for partners, and ensuring users are connected to the right options at the right time. While the technical experience can be refined quickly, Google expects to spend 2026 learning how travelers actually want to use agentic booking. The company is already building out the experience with major hotel and OTA partners as it prepares for a broader rollout.

Key takeaways

Continuity in commercial model: Google expects agentic booking in AI Mode to follow a model similar to today’s, avoiding major structural changes for partners.
Focus on an open ecosystem: The company aims to minimize commercial friction, ensuring all partners can participate in agentic booking.
Broad industry collaboration: Google is developing the feature with major players including Booking.com, Expedia and several global hotel groups.

OTAs gain leverage: With Booking.com and Expedia as ChatGPT’s launch partners, hotel visibility flows almost entirely through intermediaries.
Hotels can’t connect directly (yet): AI-driven query loads and fragmented room data make direct integrations unrealistic for most hotel systems.
Distribution economics shift: Rising acquisition costs and future AI platform monetisation could add new layers of expense for hotels.
AI discovery accelerates faster than booking: Hotels have a short window to modernise data and strategy before conversational platforms solidify as gatekeepers.

Hotels are experiencing rising customer acquisition costs as new privacy, consent and price transparency rules weaken the visibility and effectiveness of digital marketing. A recent Cendyn report highlights that declining tracking signals, higher media prices and heavier compliance obligations are limiting how accurately hotels can measure and optimise their campaigns. As third-party cookies fade and regulations demand clearer disclosures, hotels struggle to assess true performance and allocate budgets efficiently. The result is a more regulated digital landscape in which demand remains strong but is increasingly difficult to track and convert profitably.

Google clarifies that its new agentic AI tool for flights and hotels is designed to assist users while preserving OTA and hotel partnerships. The company stresses that it has no intention of becoming an online travel agency and will not act as merchant of record. Despite this reassurance, investor reactions and industry concerns highlight the disruptive potential of AI-driven booking workflows. The coming year will test how travelers and partners adapt as agentic systems begin handling more complex booking tasks.

Key takeaways

No OTA ambitions: Google states clearly that it does not plan to become an online travel agency and will not manage transactions or customer relationships.
Partnership-driven development: The agentic tool is being built alongside major OTAs and hotel groups, with plans to include smaller players through tech-provider integrations.
Dynamic pricing challenge: Constantly shifting airfares and hotel rates require deeper system integrations to ensure accurate, real-time pricing.
Agnostic offer presentation: Google says results will be user-first, without preferential treatment for direct suppliers or aggregated listings.

Key takeaways

AI systems increasingly act as the first “guest” evaluating your hotel online — long before any human arrives.
When your positioning is unclear or inconsistent, AI fills the gaps confidently — and that assumption becomes your identity.
An Authority Page functions as a structured “source-of-truth” enabling AI systems to understand exactly who you are and who you serve.
Once AI misclassifies your property (budget, family-friendly, business‐oriented etc.), correcting that perception is far harder than updating a website.
Clarity is no longer a marketing preference — it has become a revenue strategy in the AI‐driven travel landscape.

Google holds the intent advantage: It sees what travellers want before anyone else — through Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Android — giving it a uniquely deep travel-intent graph.
Agentic booking is now real inside Gemini: With yesterday’s updates, Google can move from planning to booking flights and hotels directly in the chat interface.
OpenAI can imagine trips, but cannot transact them: ChatGPT lacks native travel data, inventory access, pricing infrastructure, and booking rails.
Distribution is Google’s silent power: Agentic travel is being woven into tools billions already use daily, while OpenAI depends on users coming to ChatGPT.

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.

Agentic AI is the buzziest new tech tool on the scene, and it offers thrilling capabilities. While gen AI mostly functions as an adviser by providing well-informed counsel, agentic AI can function more as a direct report by accomplishing tasks. It has the agency to make decisions and then autonomously act on them. It can identify problems, find fixes, and apply solutions all on its own. It’s smart and tireless, a self-starter and go-getter, requiring only limited human oversight. Perhaps most important: Agentic AI can serve as an interface that could help companies harness the full power of AI.

Given the tremendous potential of agentic AI, travel and hospitality companies are beginning to experiment with it. But to realize the technology’s full impact, organizations will need to create new AI strategies, governance, and infrastructure—altering core business processes and ways of working. Companies will have to shift from scattered pilots to enterprise-scale transformations architected by cross-functional teams and championed by deeply engaged C-suite leaders.

"Artificial intelligence is accelerating a fundamental shift in hotel distribution, moving the battleground from channels to the data and systems that control guest discovery and decisions. Hotel leaders at the HICAP conference in Singapore argued that conversational AI will soon guide travellers more than search engines or OTAs, raising urgent questions about who influences recommendations. Brands, loyalty platforms, and independent hotels alike must prepare for an era in which customer data density, algorithmic training, and seamless engagement determine visibility. The next phase of competition will hinge not on inventory placement, but on how effectively hotels feed, shape, and interact with AI-driven discovery."

The latest findings from SiteMinder’s Changing Traveler Report 2026 show a clear shift in how travellers begin researching accommodation. Travellers are now more likely to start their search on an online travel agency than on a traditional search engine, marking a significant change from previous years. At the same time, more travellers who begin on OTAs ultimately book direct, demonstrating a more complex and multi-channel decision path. Growing interest in AI tools and increasing acceptance of dynamic pricing further indicate that digital capabilities will play an even stronger role in future booking behaviour.

Key takeaways

Rise of OTAs as a starting point: OTAs now lead as the first place travellers look for hotels, increasing to 26% globally and overtaking search engines.
Decline of search engines: Search-engine usage as the initial touchpoint has dropped sharply from 36% to 21% year-on-year.

Google’s latest AI trip-planning tool doesn’t just help travelers organise their vacations; it quietly reorganises how travelers discover, compare, and select hotels. By generating full itineraries from a single prompt — and surfacing hotels inside that flow — Google is inserting itself deeper into the decision-making stage where hotels traditionally fight for visibility.

Key takeaways

AI-assembled itineraries shift hotel discovery upstream: When a traveler describes their ideal trip, Google’s AI produces a complete plan — including hotel suggestions — long before the user searches for specific properties.
Google’s Canvas becomes a new planning surface: The visual planning mode places hotels, maps, reviews, and activity ideas side by side. Properties that surface here become the “default choice” without guests ever visiting an OTA or hotel site.
Global rollouts expand Google’s influence: As tools like Flight Deals and agentic booking expand worldwide, more travelers will rely on Google to generate and refine their plans — compressing the traditional booking funnel.

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.