Booking Holdings

The travel industry has spent two decades assuming frictionless is the goal, and the AI era is about to show which friction was load-bearing.

The merchant model is the most important thing happening at Booking Holdings. It is also the thing that lets it avoid proving whether Connected Trip actually works.

The Iran war didn't just raise fuel costs — it upended many travel company's business plans for 2026.

In addition to other Booking Holdings' brands, Seat Geek is listed as a partner. Users would presumably be able to use conversational AI to get "insider access" and discounted rates from Booking brands and partners.

Online travel agencies still dominate how people book travel. But that dominance is starting to face pressure from multiple directions at once.

You can be sure that Agoda is far ahead of 95% of the travel industry in reimagining its business using multiple AI agents from the ground up. But will it be enough if some of the LLMs crack travel booking?

The online travel agency's latest earnings call shows full stateside acceleration.

Progress in the U.S. has been a very long slog for Booking, but it's finally starting to show some positive results.

Traveler behavior is shifting, but the data suggests it's redistribution, not retreat, with heat and crowds pushing demand into shoulder seasons.

Hotels that cut fossil fuels can lower operating costs and risk and even improve guest comfort, but the industry still treats decarbonization as optional, too expensive, confusing, and hard to compare or find.