How Technology is Transforming Travel Management

Google Just Killed the Blue Links. What Hotel Teams Must Do to Stay Visible and Booked KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM GOOGLE I/O 2025 FOR TRAVEL: ➡️ Search is being reinvented. AI Mode now delivers single, synthesized responses instead of traditional link lists. This transforms how travelers get information. ➡️ Context is everything. Deep Search brings personalization by integrating data from Gmail, Docs, and more. It creates hyper-relevant travel recommendations. ➡️ Agentic AI is coming. Google’s AI will soon complete bookings on behalf of users without ever leaving search. ➡️ Content doesn’t get clicked. It gets chosen. Visibility now hinges on content being authoritative and structured enough for AI to use. ➡️ The booking journey is compressed. Travelers will go from inspiration to transaction in a single interface, often skipping websites entirely. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR HOTEL COMMERCIAL TEAMS: It’s not just search that’s changing. It’s the traveler’s behavior, expectations, and booking path. The direct channel is under pressure, not from OTAs this time, but from AI interfaces that are becoming the new gatekeepers. Google’s AI Mode is the clearest signal yet. Your property needs to be seen by AI to be chosen by travelers. This shift doesn’t just demand better marketing. It demands a new commercial mindset that understands AI, leverages its strengths, and trains teams to operate differently. AI ISN’T THE THREAT. AI ILLITERACY IS. Your visibility, your bookings, and your competitive edge will depend on how fast your team adapts to an AI-first world. The question isn't whether you should adopt AI. It's whether your team is equipped to think with it. FIVE ACTION STEPS FOR HOTEL TEAMS: 1️⃣ Audit your content for AI-readiness. Ensure your direct booking site and listings are structured, factual, and authoritative. AI doesn’t quote fluff. It pulls from clarity. 2️⃣ Upskill your commercial team in AI literacy. Teams must understand how AI systems surface content, evaluate trust, and make decisions. Train now or be filtered out. 3️⃣ Make your direct channel AI-friendly. Use schema markup, FAQs, and clear CTAs to help AI engines digest your offers and booking pathways directly. 4️⃣ Deploy AI tools in your operation. From AI voice agents to vibe marketing systems, use automation to deliver faster, smarter, and more personalized guest journeys across all touchpoints. Build for the whole journey, not just the click. 5️⃣ From inspiration to checkout, ensure your brand story and booking engine are aligned and optimized for seamless conversion. This applies whether users stay on your site or interact with your content through AI Mode. FINAL WORD: The blue links are fading. The AI window is opening. Only the brands that train, adapt, and innovate will earn visibility in the next phase of travel.

Recently, Hospitality Net asked their Digital Marketing in Hospitality panel how hotels could use AI to shift bookings from OTAs to their direct channels. You might find this answer interesting: In the near term, the biggest opportunities AI provides for driving direct revenue revolve around creating richer, more personalized experiences at each stage of the guest journey. Hotel marketers can use AI to better segment potential guests based on behaviors and deliver content and offers — at scale — that match those segments’ intent. Increasingly, you can let the AI select and orchestrate campaign messages, images, and offers that align with the needs of potential guests, and drive conversion. Similarly, these tools can provide intelligent rate displays and offer attractive upsell opportunities to guests to improve the revenue you achieve during each stay. Real-time guest service during the booking process, including chat, can help improve that experience and increase conversion rate.  Of course, the guest journey doesn’t end at time of booking. Again, savvy hotel commercial teams are beginning to put AI to work to upsell and cross-sell on-property experiences during the pre-arrival and on-property stages of the guest journey to drive greater share of wallet. And, of course, intelligent, automated post-stay campaigns are beginning to produce results in driving repeat bookings from past guests.  In the longer term, we’ve not yet seen how universal access to AI assistants will shape guest behavior. These tools are likely to shift the way guests interact with information and experiences every bit as much as the internet, mobile, and social media have. We should expect to see new marketing and distribution channels that make it easy for us to reach guests directly — and new gatekeepers who seek to insert themselves into that process. Every silver lining comes wrapped in its own cloud.  Regardless, these benefits come with a cost. Hoteliers must take a serious look at their existing tech stack and team skills to ensure they’re ready to put these tools to work. Take a look at the partners you work with. Do they make it easy to connect with new sales and marketing partners? Do they have a well-articulated vision for how they’ll incorporate AI into their products? Have they begun to deliver on that vision? If so, you’re in great shape. If not, it may be time to start looking at alternatives.  And, finally, don’t ignore your people. Does your team have the skills, the resources, and the vision needed to adapt to a changing customer and technology landscape? You will want to give them the support they need to quickly adjust as guest behaviors — and those of your competitors — evolve. The hoteliers who are able to learn the fastest, and put those learnings to use, are the ones most likely to succeed at driving more direct business as AI becomes more common. And there’s nothing artificial about that. #AI #hospitalitymarketing

Algorithms in travel: harnessing AI to elevate experience. Managing Director of Los Cabos Tourism, Rodrigo Esponda Cascajares talks with Mexico Business News. 'AI is rapidly redefining the travel industry, reshaping how travelers discover, plan, and experience destinations. For Los Cabos, a pioneering approach to a digitally empowered ecosystem demonstrates how AI can both enhance efficiency and preserve the emotional connection that defines hospitality.' Los Cabos Tourism has launched an award-winning digital platform that integrates tools, immersive technologies, and accessibility features across Web, mobile, and VR experiences. Highlights include: + AI-driven itinerary suggestions based on preferences, travel history, and real-time data. + Interactive maps and immersive 360° tours, accessible via browser or Oculus VR. + Incorporation of AudioEye to adapt font size, contrast, and navigation for visually impaired users. + A metaverse platform (“Los Cabosverse”) that features virtual pavilions on gastronomy, art, culture, ecology, and golf. Listen or read the article below for more info on how these innovations put Los Cabos at the forefront of a digital-first travel experience, benefiting both travel advisers with specific tools and resources as well as travelers. #loscabos #visitloscabos #fiproturloscabos #DMO https://lnkd.in/gADdGDUH

💡 Real-time pricing is coming to AI-powered travel search, which will change everything. AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini only show estimated #hotelprices. But that's about to shift! 🚀 The next big leap in #hospitalitytech is integrating real-time availability, rates, and inventory (ARI) into AI and GenAI platforms. Thanks to frameworks like Model Context Protocol (MCP), hotel tech systems—PMSs, RMSs, channel managers—can connect directly with LLMs, opening the door to live pricing, availability, and even end-to-end bookings within AI interfaces. 🏨 For #hotels, this is a huge opportunity—but only if they prepare. That means: ▫️ Getting listed on key metasearch platforms ▪️ Ensuring real-time pricing APIs are in place ▫️ Indexing their sites with AI search tools ▪️ Tracking attribution data to stay in control The race has already started—and the winners will be those who act before it becomes the norm. #AI #GenAI #TravelTech #Hospitality #DigitalTransformation #HotelTech #TravelIndustry https://lnkd.in/e5h_5GGj

In today's daily dose of Payments... #AI take aways from #KAE white paper around Travel ✈️#AI is Boarding: The Travel Industry’s Next Destination Is Autonomy For years, travel and payments have operated in parallel tracks—one obsessed with personalization, the other with trust and security. But the AI era? It’s collapsing that distance. ➡️ From Trip.com’s TripGenie to Booking.com’s ChatGPT integration, AI is reshaping how we book, navigate, and resolve travel. Dynamic itineraries. Real-time rebooking. Predictive maintenance for airlines. Hotels auto-adjusting rates mid-stay. ✅Now add this: Visa’s Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard’s Agent Pay have entered the chat — and the rails they’re building will define the next chapter of the travel value chain. 💡Let’s be clear: AI is no longer a tool. It’s becoming a travel companion, a negotiator, and soon — a payment initiator. 👀 3 ways this will impact travel & hospitality: 1️⃣ New Customer Journeys AI-powered copilots will collapse the time between “I want to go” and “It’s booked and paid.” The traveler won’t just browse — they’ll delegate. And once agents book flights, hotels, and add-ons autonomously, the rail that clears that payment wins. 2️⃣ Invisible Checkout Is Coming With Mastercard enabling “pay on behalf” tokens, and Visa securing credentials with AI-native endpoints, manual checkout becomes a UX liability. In the near future, a photo of a sunset could trigger an itinerary + payment behind the scenes. 3️⃣ Business Models Must Evolve Hotels, OTAs, airlines, GDSs — they’ll need to rethink loyalty, billing, and reconciliation in a world where agents transact, optimize, and route funds autonomously. From B2C booking to B2B vendor payments, AI will reshape margin layers. 🔜 A Call to Action for Travel & Payment Leaders: Don’t wait to see if this trend sticks — agentic commerce is already in pilot Map where invisible payments could reduce drop-off and boost LTV Connect your tech stack to support real-time decisions and embedded finance Partner intentionally: networks, processors, and orchestration platforms are all evolving fast. Just like the smartphone reshaped airline boarding, AI will reshape the entire journey — and the transaction behind it. 🎯 The winners? Those who embed AI boldly, design payments invisibly, and engineer trust at the rail level. Because in this new era, travel won’t just be booked — it’ll be orchestrated. #AITravel #Visa #Mastercard #AgentPay #IntelligentCommerce #Fintech #OpenBanking #PaymentsInnovation #TravelTech #ProductLeadership #DigitalCommerce #AIagents #HospitalityInnovation #ZeroClickPayments Mastercard Visa

What if your mobile app became the ultimate key to your entire hotel experience—everything at your fingertips, from check-in to checkout, powered by AI? Imagine walking into your hotel room, and instead of fumbling with wall panels or remote controls, you open your app and seamlessly control everything—from adjusting the blinds and lights to setting the perfect room temperature. No more waiting for room service or calling the front desk for a reservation; it’s all done with a few taps on your phone. Now, imagine adding AI into the mix. The app doesn’t just remember your preferences—it anticipates them. Powered by AI, it learns from past stays, picking up on subtle details about what makes you comfortable. It knows your preferred room temperature, the meals you enjoy, or the time you prefer to check out. The app customizes the entire experience, offering tailored suggestions before you even ask. This vision of a mobile-first, AI-powered hospitality experience would create a seamless, personalized guest journey. It’s not just about offering convenience; it’s about connecting with guests intuitively and naturally. This approach would complement the essential human component of hospitality, which is core to the industry’s success, while also opening new opportunities for collaboration. Think about it: Companies in other industries—like AC providers or curtain vendors—could develop products that integrate seamlessly into this mobile-driven environment. Much like how Nest and Alexa have revolutionized the smart home, suppliers could create products that enhance the guest experience and work in harmony with these intelligent systems. Beyond that, this shift to mobile-first, AI-driven systems could also transform the hospitality workforce. Evolving existing roles and creating new hospitality career tracks focused on technology and data-driven guest experiences would not only upskill employees but also elevate the industry's overall service level. While this is a reimagined future of hospitality, it raises important questions for tech developers and hospitality leaders about how AI and mobile tech can elevate the guest experience. If you’re working on similar solutions or want to explore how such innovations could be implemented, let’s connect—I’d love to offer insights and help shape the future of hospitality tech.

In my article, "Key Insights from SAP Concur’s Global Business Travel Survey: Navigating the Future of Corporate Travel," I explore the key trends shaping the future of business travel. One of the most exciting insights from the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey is the growing role of AI in transforming travel management. AI helps businesses optimize travel by automating processes, predicting traveler needs, and offering personalized options. 🌍 Safety and sustainability are two key priorities highlighted in the article. According to the survey, many business travelers and managers express concerns about safety, and AI is stepping in to provide real-time updates and predictive risk analysis, helping ensure a safer travel experience. 🚙 At the same time, sustainability has become a business imperative, with more travelers prioritizing eco-friendly practices and companies aligning their travel policies with broader environmental goals. 🌱 #SAPConcur

Great story around how Lotte Hotels and Resorts has boosted their efficiency and customer service by adopting Microsoft #PowerPlatform. With tools like Power Apps and Power Automate, they’ve automated tasks, reduced errors, and gained valuable insights from data. This means staff can focus more on guests and less on repetitive work. In fact, the integration of AI-driven chatbots and automated workflows has enabled Lotte to reduce 10,000 work hours per year across 17 hotels through their reservation automation system. This story shows that any business can foster a culture of citizen developers, sparking a positive loop of problem-solving and and innovation to transform the organization. https://lnkd.in/gZNSdbS4 #Automation #DigitalTransformation #Innovation #AI

What happens when you merge the top two players in hotel tablet tech? According to Kevin Bidner, CEO of #HCN, it’s a hospitality tech revolution. In this #NoVacancyNews, Glenn Haussman catches up with Kevin to discuss a game-changing shift for four-star hotels and beyond. Here’s what you’ll discover: • Why HCN’s acquisition of Crave marks a major turning point in the in-room technology landscape • How guestroom tablets are finally becoming cost-effective—even profitable—for four-star hotels • The innovative model turning tablets into revenue generators via advertising, ticketing, and stakeholder partnerships • A first look at the concierge AI platform that provides personalized city itineraries, restaurant bookings, and more—right from the guestroom and into your pocket • How HCN is bringing back a sense of personal service once reserved for five-star stays, now powered by scalable technology • Why Bidner believes this is “the biggest thing in the travel industry ever”—and what it means for hotel operators and profitability

Today I’m speaking to 400+ travel and hospitality professionals in Curaçao about how social media and AI are transforming tourism. In a digital-first world, destinations aren’t just booked — they’re experienced through content before a plane ever leaves the ground. If you work in tourism or hospitality, here’s what to start doing now: ↳ Use short-form video to show off the real experience — not just the highlight reel ↳ Lean into storytelling over sales — people buy emotions, not brochures ↳ Experiment with AI to streamline guest communication, content planning, and trip personalization ↳ Treat social as your first impression, not your last step Tourism is about connection. Social media is the new concierge. AI is the accelerator. Thank you to Curaçao Hospitality and Tourism Association (CHATA) and Diederik Kemmerling for the opportunity to speak to a room full of innovators. Let’s build what’s next.