Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, October 3, 2025, is below. Artificial intelligence again generated most of this past week’s headlines (many of which coming out of the recent Destination AI Forum in Washington, D.C.), but social media also made a strong showing.
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This Week in Online Travel: Sabre Bets on AI, Social Media Drives Inspiration and Skift Questions Market Power
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . With a full week of wind and rain in the forecast, fall has definitely arrived in the Pacific Northwest.
Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, September 26, 2025, is below. With Skift’s annual Skift Global Forum now behind us, things definitely slowed this past
Travel’s Balance of Power
Good Saturday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update (OTU) for the week ending Friday, September 19, 2025, is below. For those of you asking why the list of stories has grown so long the past few Updates (and what happened to the bespoke, curated short list of must reads that you’ve
The Future of Online Travel in an AI-Driven World
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, September 12, 2025, is below. This week’s Update features a heavy does of AI-related stories, including reports on the major OTAs’ ongoing AI efforts. Enjoy.
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- Major Platforms Endorse EU Online Ratings Code of Conduct. This past week, several
The Economics of Distribution: AI’s Impact and Google’s New Limits
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, September 5, 2025, is below. The federal court’s recent decision in the much-publicized Google anti-trust case captured most of the week’s headlines in an otherwise quiet week in online travel. Enjoy.
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- Artificial Intelligence Will Pose New Challenges to
Algorithms, Alliances and the Art of Booking: This Week’s Travel Tech Shifts
Good Monday afternoon from Seattle . . . For those of you enjoying a long holiday weekend, Happy Labor Day. Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 29, 2025, is below. With the summer doldrums coming to an end, activity across the online industry has picked up starting with Booking.com’s newly
This Week in Travel: Pricing Probes, Expedia’s Strong Quarter, Southwest’s Distribution Shift and New Loyalty Perks
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 8, 2025, is below. For several weeks now, we’ve all seen and read the many headlines regarding American Airlines planned use of AI for rate setting. This week’s Update features several stories on the controversy, including a
Q2 Results, AI Strategy and New Legal Trouble Keep Spotlight on Booking Holdings
Good Sunday evening from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 1, 2025, is below. It was another slow week in the online travel world with Booking Holdings again capturing most of the industry’s headlines. Enjoy.
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- Booking Holdings Reports Strong Second Quarter. This past week Booking Holdings issued
Slower Summer Week, Big Travel Tech Moves: OpenAI’s Booking Agent and DirectBooker’s AI Play
With summer in full swing, it is no surprise that this past week was another slow week in the online travel industry. Our recommendation? Enjoy this week’s Update with a drink in hand by your pool or other favorite body of water. Enjoy:
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- OpenAI Launches Agent Mode. On Thursday this past week, OpenAI officially released
Google's DMA Tightrope: Navigating Search Result Battles Between Intermediaries and Direct Sellers in Online Travel
Google captured most of the online travel industry’s headlines this past week as it seeks to “balance” the competing interests of regulators, on the one hand, and intermediaries and direct sellers, on the other hand. As long as traditional search maintains its outsized influence on online travel, the outcome of these discussions will have a