Your Gen Z guest finds hotels through influencers - A mid-tier creator won't post for less than $5,000. She still gives away one trip a quarter to a hotel she actually wants to see..

Aug 17, 2026 • Hospitality

Booking's CEO says handling your guest just needs "a little more compute" - Booking Holdings has cut what it costs to answer a guest's problem by double digits twice in six months. There is no place to rate the machine that answers, so the only review in the transaction is the one with your name on it..

Aug 17, 2026 • Hospitality

Booking Holdings is merging the pipes that resell your rooms - The arms of Booking.com, Agoda and Priceline that sell your rooms to banks and airlines are being folded onto Agoda's engine — one that mixes your contracted rate with wholesale and can put it behind a login.

Aug 17, 2026 • Hospitality

Mews got a licence to hold your money - Mews says $19.7 billion ran through its platform last year. From late 2026 the guest's card can settle into a company Mews owns, on the way to your bank..

Aug 17, 2026 • Hospitality

You priced the room for thirty years; the guest is the new unit - From Orbitz steering Mac users in 2012 to a Senate hearing on "real-time desperation" this month, the price has been migrating from the room to the person - and agentic booking is what finally cuts the hotel out of pricing its own guest.

Aug 14, 2026 • Hospitality

The hotel side of the corporate RFP just started automating too - Accor will hand its hotels AI-generated prices for their corporate bids from next year — leaving the hotel that still sets its number by hand bidding against one that doesn't.

Aug 14, 2026 • Hospitality

Agoda's new bot picks which of your rooms the guest books - The chat assistant it launched this week reads your rate plans, asks the traveler what she wants, and names a Best pick by criteria nobody has published.

Aug 14, 2026 • Hospitality

Your luxury guest's shortlist is curated by her card company - American Express added 351 hotels to its Fine Hotels + Resorts and Hotel Collection programs this week, picked by a curation team reading what premium cardmembers spend, against criteria it has never published.

Aug 14, 2026 • Hospitality