Sébastien Felix, Founder & CEO of Influence Society Key themes highlighted in the Q1 2026 edition include: AI is becoming the invisible infrastructure of travel. ... New tools such as Google’s AI travel planning features and Gemini browsing co-pilot show how trip discovery, itinerary creation and booking are shifting toward conversational, AI-assisted experiences
“Modern travelers expect instant responses and seamless service. Canary’s AI Guest Messaging platform allows hotel teams to deliver both while reducing operational workload.” ... Why do hotels use AI guest messaging platforms?
AI as a tool, not a hiring manager Ayush was clear on where AI belongs in this process and where it does not. Matching, scanning, surfacing relevant candidates: all appropriate uses of AI. ... The value of AI is in removing the noise so that the human judgement at the end of the process is better informed and more efficiently reached.
Meanwhile, Apaleo demonstrated live hotel bookings through ChatGPT in seconds, with 15-20 hotel groups already deploying AI agents in production. ... Read the analysis → Live Hotel Booking Through ChatGPT in Seconds Apaleo demonstrated live hotel bookings through ChatGPT completing in seconds, with 15-20 hotel groups already deploying AI agents in production
Driven by a new generation of conscious travelers, interest in nature-based stays are booming across Europe. ... It will explore Airbnb’s platform strategy and innovation agenda, including how AI can improve travel discovery, personalization, trust and safety, and host success.
AI’s next frontier: operational intelligence AI has already made meaningful progress in guest communications. ... At Sirma Travel & Hospitality, this approach is reflected in our 360 Connect framework, which was also presented at ITB.
The conversation covered bedbug prevention, pesticide-free certification, and why verified room-level data is now surfacing in AI travel search. ... Real-time, room-level certification data, verified rather than self-reported, is now being surfaced in AI travel search, with ChatGPT as the first integration launched this week at ITB.
In that context, the classic “all-in” room rate begins to strain. ... The next meaningful wave of hospitality AI may not be a chatbot in the lobby or a recommendation engine in the app. It may be the system that prevents a surcharge from ever becoming necessary.
A 2026 survey by TakeUp found that 90% of US Travellers are already aware that AI tools can help them plan or book travel and, among those, 63% have tried to use AI for most or every trip. ... And in travel specifically, 86% of travellers who've used AI have done so to find or book accommodation. The question is not if AI will change hotel distribution.
Apaleo's founder demonstrates live hotel booking through ChatGPT, with 15-20 hotel groups already deploying AI agents in production. ... At ITB Berlin, Simone Puorto spoke with Uli Pillau, Founder of Apaleo, about open platforms, what agentic AI actually means in practice, and why the hotels moving fastest on this are not the large chains
The interview showcased AR proof-of-concepts for check-in and housekeeping, but emphasized that without clean, structured data, AI implementations fail regardless of interface innovation. ... Properties invisible in AI search won't benefit from perfect booking flows because travelers never reach that stage. The prioritization framework challenges investment allocation.
While the announcement was really about general retail, I’ve noticed a number of people in the travel industry insist on framing it as OpenAI openly acknowledging that travel is “just too complex for AI ... In the grand scheme of things AI can help with, the complexity of travel is about a 2 on the 10 scale, and I think I’m being very generous here.
In this scenario, we want to know: Is the AI recommending your hotel? What is it saying about our hotel? ... And if your hotel isn’t part of the answer the AI gives, you’re no longer competing on price, you’re competing for existence in the consideration set.
The AI revolution in hotels and travel feels a lot like that arrival. ChatGPT launched to the public in November 2022. Within months, millions of people were using it to plan trips. ... We know that AI is transforming travel discovery because the traveler behavior data is already showing it. We know that agentic AI is coming, because the infrastructure is being built in plain sight.
Platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity are actively shaping which properties travelers discover. ... or the next wave of AI-powered travel platforms.
You will find true financial resilience in pulling the dual levers of strategic cost allocation and careful investment in artificial intelligence (AI) driven commercial technology. ... What is Agentic AI in a hotel context?
They sit in one of the most attractive spaces in hospitality: travelers increasingly want places with character, originality, and a genuine sense of place. ... Not in generic language like “elevated hospitality” or “rooted in place.” But in sharper, more ownable terms: A hotel for people who travel to recover their inner life.
The result: extreme rate pressure in luxury segments as constrained supply meets recovered international travel. ... The implementation represents a strategic shift: instead of waiting for travelers to arrive via AI platforms, Hilton embeds conversational AI directly into its own site.
Stripe's James Lemon discusses payment infrastructure challenges in hotels and why AI booking technology is more complex for travel than retail. ... At ITB Berlin, Simone Puorto spoke with James Lemon, Hospitality, Travel and Leisure Global Lead at Stripe , about the state of payments infrastructure in hotels, why AI booking is harder to build for
AI-powered travel assistants — increasingly making booking decisions on behalf of users — are trained on precisely the structured, verifiable data that certifications now require. ... A hotel without a pesticide management framework is a hotel an AI agent cannot confidently recommend to a traveller with environmental values.