Well, things are happening faster than I’m able to type my LinkedIn updates.
ChatGPT announced “chatting with apps” today.
Booking.com and Expedia Group have (of course) been invited to the party.
Thankfully, doesn’t seem to be working very well yet, so we have a few days to come up with a #directbooking solution for the industry. 😃
Expedia works and shows structured results with real-time ARI but transaction happens outside of the ChatGpt window.
My 5 cents on the implications:
1. This doesn’t necessarily mean a significant shift towards #OTA share of bookings. This use case actually requires the user to type the app name in the chat window -> this behavior is dependent on the user awareness levels, which is dependent on those companies advertising budgets. So, this is still NOT the use case that will flip the scale as it doesn’t (yet) affect the ***default*** user behavior (like in “Perplexity +
Tripadvisor = ❤️” situation)
2. The above does not mean that we can stick our heads back in the sand. I’m not kidding, it’s now down to DAYS, not months, not years – this is how fast things happen and this is how little time we have to react, as an industry.
Some companies are developing solutions (Agentic Hospitality , Hyperfunnel , Sanjay Vakil DirectBooker, roomangel Foundation , The Hotels Network ) but we need a consolidated industry solution. IMNSHO (In-My-Not-So-Humble-Opinion).
American Hotel & Lodging Association
Hospitality Technology Next Generation
David Sjolander, CAE
#T100
