The law that just fined Google has been running on Booking.com since December 2024. - Booking lost the rate parity clause in December 2024, and the money moved to paid placement. Google's ruling is heading the same way..

Jul 27, 2026 • Hospitality

Sabre made your rooms readable by AI agents, not recommended by them - Two million hotels are readable inside Sabre's platform, and an agent chooses between them on the room descriptions, photos and rates loaded the day you connected.

Jul 27, 2026 • Hospitality

China just made Trip.com pay hotels back. - China's market regulator fined Trip.com 5.2 billion yuan, made it refund the deposits it withheld from hotels, and barred it from forcing them into exclusive deals — something no Booking or Expedia fine in the West has ever done.

Jul 27, 2026 • Hospitality

Google's now selling placement inside the AI answer — starting with IHG, by invitation only - Google confirmed on its Q2 earnings call that the AI answer now carries paid slots — and IHG got the first hotel seat by invitation, not the open auction anyone could bid into.

Jul 27, 2026 • Hospitality

The independent wholesaler didn't die. It became a giant. - You keep a few wholesalers in the mix so you're not all-in on Booking. It's the right instinct — but look hard at what those wholesalers have turned into..

Jul 24, 2026 • Hospitality

The franchise agreement decides what the AI knows about your hotel - 579 reviews and a 4.4 rating, built over 18 years, stayed with the brand when the hotel walked away from it. The brand owns the Google page — and the Google page is what the AI reads..

Jul 24, 2026 • Hospitality

The EU fined Google for burying its rivals in hotel search. The hotel was never one of them. - Brussels fined Google €460 million on Thursday for putting its own Hotels, Flights and Shopping above competing services — and on Google's own published record, its fix for that has been to hand more of the page to comparison sites..

Jul 24, 2026 • Hospitality

US hotels have the brands, the apps and the points. The OTAs still take the booking. - Phocuswright's new US market data puts hotels at nearly two-thirds of all OTA gross bookings — in the one country that built its entire lodging industry around brand.com.

Jul 24, 2026 • Hospitality