Marriott solved the discovery problem. It traded one intermediary for another. - What the Google AI Mode partnership reveals about who sets the terms when discovery happens inside someone else's platform.

Jul 2, 2026 • Hospitality

Booking is booking more rooms than ever. Its stock is priced like the model is breaking. - The company booked a record 1.2 billion room nights in 2025 and its shares are down 15% this year — the market is pricing agentic disintermediation before a single AI agent has booked a hotel at scale.

Jul 2, 2026 • Hospitality

Marriott built a private pipe for corporate travel. Now it wants the buyers to use it. - Marriott's corporate booking tool routes straight into its own reservation system, signing accounts at four times the expected pace — and the company now says it's pushing managed-travel buyers to book direct.

Jul 2, 2026 • Hospitality

Hotel chains built AI for the traveler who comes to them first. That traveler is leaving. - Every major chain shipped an AI tool this year, and every one of them waits at a door fewer travelers walk through first.

Jul 1, 2026 • Hospitality

The one hotel booking no OTA or AI can take a cut of - Marriott's own site needs a promo code and a faked checkout date to sell a day room. Booking.com won't list it and ChatGPT can't book it — which is why the hotel keeps every cent..

Jul 1, 2026 • Hospitality

A demand shock showed where booking trust still lives - Safety outranked price and convenience for travelers across the US, UK, and Germany. The first real crisis of the agentic era sent them looking for a human..

Jul 1, 2026 • Hospitality

The RFP playbook everyone's sharing assumes you got invited - Amadeus's 2026 RFP playbook says 63% of hotels struggle to find qualified leads, then spends the rest fixing the game for the hotels already invited to bid.

Jul 1, 2026 • Hospitality

The booking-completion layer already shipped — for everyone but hotels - Stripe's agent-payment rail is live and taking real money today — for Etsy, Coach, and Urban Outfitters. No hotel is on it. Lodging is the vertical Stripe is still courting.

Jul 1, 2026 • Hospitality