The Prompt

Aven, the former Sabre hospitality business, is taking direct aim at a core hotel tech problem: how much legacy infrastructure can still support modern direct booking. Its new booking engine shows what a cleaner rebuild could look like.

MakeMyTrip is trying to answer three questions at once: can it stay relevant as AI reshapes travel discovery, can a string of small acquisitions build real value rather than just organizational sprawl, and does a domestic listing finally make sense after 16 years on Nasdaq?

Hotel teams already have too many dashboards. Ernest has to prove it can simplify commercial work, not become one more place to check.

Apple's rebuilt Siri is not booking trips. But it is getting better at understanding the messy context around them.

Given Skyscanner's leading global footprint in flights, it isn't hard to envision an LLM extracting it from Trip.com Group to accelerate building a travel vertical.

Travel is the only major industry getting hit from both directions at once: AI search volumes are exploding without converting while total AI token bills internally are rising.

Is Brian Chesky development of a new AI Lab outside of Airbnb an acknowledgement that building AI capabilities within Airbnb hasn't been up to par? Or are some tech developments like AI too large to sit out without having more skin in the game?

AI can't sell what hotel systems can't see. Until room-level data, guest behavior, and service pricing live in one connected system, the industry's AI gains will stay stuck on the cost efficiency side of the ledger.

The hospitality companies scaling AI fast aren't running better pilots. They've stopped thinking in pilots at all.

Acquiring a shiny company to boost your AI ambitions may seem appealing, but buying can sometimes set a company back.