Simone Puorto Joins Takyon as Board Advisor, Accelerating the Shift to the Zero Click Web and AI Native Direct Distribution
On the occasion of his presence at the Global Revenue Forum in London, where he will speak about how travel is evolving for new generations, Simone Puorto has been officially appointed as Board Advisor to Takyon, strengthening the company’s strategic direction at the intersection of hospitality distribution, generative AI, and the rapid transition from search based discovery to what Puorto has long defined as a ‘post search, post choice’ web, where travelers increasingly rely on AI assistants rather than browsing links.”
Puorto is a widely recognized hospitality strategist, a five-time published author, Head of Emerging Trends and Strategic Innovation at Hospitality Net, and a senior industry advisor with over 25 years of international experience. In 2026, he was named among the Top 100 Digital Thought Leaders in Global Hospitality by the International Hospitality Institute. In his advisory role, he will support Takyon on positioning, partnerships, and go-to-market strategy as the company expands its AI-facing products and capabilities, including dAirect Connect, the solution designed to make hotel direct channels visible, readable, and recommendable by AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Market signals indicate that traveler behavior is already shifting rapidly. Data widely cited across the travel sector suggests that around 40% of global travelers have used AI-based tools for trip planning, marking a sharp year-over-year increase.
This shift has direct consequences for hotel distribution. When the user does not click, the hotel website must still be understood, trusted, and surfaced by AI systems. If it is not, the recommendation layer increasingly defaults to intermediaries.
AI mentions are the new clicks: with the rise of generative search, direct distribution is no longer just a website issue or a traditional SEO problem. It becomes an AI readiness problem.
I have argued for years that we are moving toward a zero-click, post-search, almost post-choice web, where answers replace links and the interface becomes conversational. dAirect Connect reflects this reality by focusing on making the official hotel channel legible (and, tomorrow, bookable) to machines, allowing hotels to remain present at the moment recommendations are formed, not after the click.Simone Puorto, hospitality strategist
Simone brings a rare combination of strategic clarity, deep hospitality expertise, and firsthand understanding of how AI is reshaping the economics of visibility.
Takyon was created to rethink travel distribution through new primitives. As AI increasingly shapes how people discover and choose where to stay, the challenge is ensuring that direct channels remain visible, trusted, and competitive within these new journeys. With dAirect Connect, we are building the AI infrastructure that connects hotels to emerging recommendation and discovery engines, starting with products like dAirect Connect and expanding into a broader direct booking stack. Simone’s perspective will help us move faster and execute with greater focus as we build the connective layer between hotels and AI-driven recommendation ecosystems.Antonio Picozzi, Founder and CEO of Takyon
About dAirect Connect by Takyon
dAirect Connect helps hotels make their official websites AI-ready, enabling key information, services, policies, and unique selling points to be accurately interpreted and recommended by AI assistants. The solution is compatible with any website, CMS, or booking engine, with no structural changes to the website required.
