Travel Tech Essentialist #169: Shift
Travel is changing in small but important ways: how bookings happen, where users land, and how companies sell. Former Airbnb employees are launching new startups, corporate roles are evolving, and AI agents are adapting how they communicate. This edition looks at the shifts shaping the industry right now.
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1. AI’s impact on online travel
Simone Lini, formerly at Google Travel, examines how GenAI is reshaping online travel. AI-driven agents can now aggregate inventory, compare prices, and generate booking interfaces on demand, potentially reducing the need for traditional OTAs. While this shift lowers barriers between suppliers and travelers, OTAs still hold key advantages. Their bidding expertise, brand trust, and deep data insights may help them maintain a competitive edge as AI-driven booking evolves. Some predict that performance marketing will transform into AI-powered bidding wars, where OTAs and suppliers compete for visibility within AI-generated travel recommendations.
Lini also shares two prototypes he’s building: an AI-powered metasearch agent and a tool that simplifies supplier integration. His article breaks down these trends and their implications for the future of travel tech. Read +.
2. AI chatbot traffic converts better
People have speculated that AI chatbot traffic converts better than search traffic because users on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot go through evaluation cycles faster and arrive at outbound links with higher purchase intent. Now, thanks to 7 million+ referral sessions, Kevin Indig has the data to back it up. Some of his key findings:
AI users stay 2.3 minutes longer on sites (10.4 vs. 8.1 minutes) and view more pages (12.4 vs. 11.8 per session) than Google search users
Copilot and Perplexity traffic is growing fastest (15% and 22% page view growth vs. Google’s 5%)
AI chatbots send more users to homepages (22% of referrals vs. Google’s 10%)
Engagement on AI referrals is higher even on homepages, suggesting better pre-qualification
Even though AI chatbot referral traffic is still small (under 1% of organic traffic), Kevin argues that its engagement levels suggest big opportunities for brands that invest early in optimizing for these platforms.
Brennen Bliss (founder & CEO of Propellic) concludes that if you are a travel company, your homepage just became more important, and those “best places to visit” blog posts might not matter as much. His advice:
✅ Audit your homepage experience
✅ Make booking/conversion paths crystal clear
✅ Test different homepage variations
✅ Track AI referral sources separately
3. Why airlines struggle with direct sales (and what to do about it)
According to a recent Accenture report (The retail-led future of airlines), 71% of travelers prefer to book through OTAs because they’re just more convenient. This puts airlines at a disadvantage, making it harder to build direct relationships and drive higher-margin sales. Accenture sees a clear opportunity for airlines to think like retailers by modernizing how they sell. By taking control of distribution, creating personalized offers, and improving the booking experience, they can compete more effectively and capture more direct bookings. The report, based on surveys with 300+ airline execs and 3,000 travelers, breaks down the biggest opportunities for airlines to compete more effectively.
4. Airbnb startup factory
This post by Ollie Forsyth analyzes how former Airbnb employees have launched over 140 startups that raised at least $500,000 each, securing over $11 billion in funding. 35% of the top-funded startups are building PropTech marketplaces (following Airbnb's footsteps), but the rest are diversifying across FinTech, Software, EdTech, Commerce, and other sectors. Most founders previously held Engineering roles, with Operations, Product, and Data Science backgrounds also common. 80% established their companies in the US. Stanford University produced the most Airbnb-founder alumni, while Y Combinator backed nearly 20% of these ventures, followed by Andreessen Horowitz. Successful companies don't just create value in their markets; they create a generation of entrepreneurs who understand how to build category-defining businesses across multiple sectors.
5. Travel hopes vs. expectations
Back in December, I shared the results of my 21 Ridiculously Specific Travel Tech Predictions for 2025 survey. The results showed a clear divide between what the industry expects to happen and what it hopes will happen.
The Hotels Network ran that same survey internally, and their findings highlight the same tension. The two predictions that THN employees most want to come true were:
Inverse bidding in corporate travel, where employees pocket 50% of savings below budget, with total payouts reaching $100 million.
Memorable insurance, where a travel company guarantees great experiences or your money back, covering $100 million in bookings.
These were also voted the least likely to happen. This tension between what the industry wants and what it believes is possible isn’t new, but it’s insightful. The market expects structural and tech-driven shifts (AI, acquisitions, funding trends), while the most desired changes focus on human-centric innovation (better pricing models, experience guarantees, and traveler empowerment).
6. The art of the pitch: don’t get eliminated
Guy Kawasaki says the purpose of a pitch is to stay in the game and not get eliminated.
7. Corporate evolution
Traditional companies: 'We need to hire a Chief Digital Officer to survive!'
Digital-native companies: 'We need to hire a Chief Physical Experience Officer to survive!'
8. Clarity over complexity
Most of the time, the simplest terms are the most honest.
9. Switching languages
Mike Colletta shared this video of two AI agents on a phone call discussing a hotel booking. When they realize they're both AI, they switch to "gibberlink" mode, a communication protocol that enables AI agents to recognize when they're interacting with each other. This is the winning project from the ElevenLabs 2025 Hackathon.
Machines have been talking to machines since the early 20th century, but what makes this interesting is the adaptive intelligence at work. These agents use human communication channels and language, then seamlessly shift to an optimized protocol when they identify each other. The early stages of how AI is transforming routine and human-centric travel interactions.
10. Fifty travel tips
I came across a fantastic article, 50 Years of Travel Tips, packed with wisdom from someone who has spent decades exploring the world. Here are two of my favorites:
“If you hire a driver or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local's home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails.”
"When asking someone for a restaurant recommendation, don’t ask them where is a good place you should eat; ask them where they eat. Where did they eat the last time they ate out?"
(This restaurant tip reminds me of effective customer discovery. There's often a massive gap between what people say they would want and what they actually do. Asking "Would you like xxx?" gets you aspirational or polite answers. But "How did you solve this problem last week?" reveals real behavior.)
As always, this newsletter had 10 stories. I’d love to know which one you found most interesting or insightful. I’ll share the results in the next newsletter. (There are two polls since Substack limits each poll to five options, but please vote in only one.)
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Mauricio Prieto
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