Booking.com is in trouble. Agentic AI is coming for OTAs.
Glenn Fogel just admitted it on stage at Skift, calling this “the next dot-com boom.”
He’ll say Booking is ready: that their data, scale, and partnerships with OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft put them in the best position to be the agent.
But massive capital is being poured into tech that bypasses current middlemen.
Agents that don’t “search” Booking.com.
They’ll go straight to inventory, price, and rules.
And if it really delivers, Booking’s “connected trip” doesn’t need Booking.com either.
That’s an existential shift:
– No paid search arbitrage
– No display ads
– No 15% commission toll
Hotels could finally compete on what matters:
Product. Experience. Value.
Not bidding for their own guests.
But that future only happens if hotels act:
Machine-readable content. Clean rates. Guest-ready booking flows.
Ignore it, and the agent will default to whoever pays to be first.
Which means OTAs win again.
And the toll goes up, not down.
Agentic AI can be hotels’ great reset. Or our next captivity.
#AgenticAI #HotelTech #DirectBookings #TravelInnovation #HospitalityStrategy #OTADisruption #ConnectedTrip #HyperCommerce Guestcentric
