Online Travel News

Kayak’s AI Mode goes from soft launch to debut, so customers can search for travel using natural language. Plus: The company dishes up data on holiday travel trends.

What happens when the fundamental assumptions underlying the travel industry's business models stop being true? Who has agency: who makes decisions, who controls discovery, who influences choice, and critically, who gets left behind when those power dynamics shift in an AI age.

Booking Holdings and the other online travel agencies have survived through several platform shifts in the past. However, the gen AI revolution finds them in slower growth mode than in past era, upping the pressure.

Media stories about "Airbnb squatters" in France make for viral headlines. But the real data and legal nuance reveal a very rare, if still unnerving, risk for hosts.

Ixigo is betting big on AI, believing travel apps will soon act like personal assistants. Whether the travel company will be the one to lead that change is still an open question, but it now has the financial muscle to try.

This isn't a new loyalty program for Hotels.com, but a double-edged feature that may be attractive. The former book 10 nights and get one night free was very popular, but likely too expensive for the company.

Airbnb's bid to vastly expand its hotel business will be labor intensive and a years-long effort. The job openings it is advertising are just the start.

For OpenAI, the move is the culmination of a broader attempt to appeal to developers. For travel companies, it means no extra download necessary.

The creation of business profiles for property managers on Airbnb would be a step forward in the name of transparency. Guests would be better served if they have a preference for individual versus professional hosts.

Airbnb will launch some type of membership program to give guests a reason to book a hotel on Airbnb rather than earn points elsewhere. It certainly won't be a clone of hotel group loyalty programs — that's not Airbnb's style.