This insight summarises Travel operators can't just watch as AI reroutes the customer journey, by Jon van der Veen and Andrea Alori, partners at Bain & Company, published on Hospitality Net on 7 October 2026.
This disruption is different. Online's share of travel bookings rose from 43% in 2011 to an estimated 70% in 2025, yet the split between direct and indirect bookings stayed broadly stable because operators adapted. The authors argue AI calls for a proactive response rather than a reactive one.
The signals:
- AI referrals are climbing fast. Similarweb data shows the share of website traffic from AI platform referrals has quadrupled in a year for hotels and short-term rentals, and more than doubled in other travel categories.
- Reliance is sticky. Bain's Consumer Lab found that 49% of US consumers who have used AI to research and book travel now rely on it most or all of the time. The average across the UK, France and Germany is 41%.
- Booking is coming. Autonomous end-to-end booking by agents is still embryonic, but Google has added travel booking to its AI search mode.
The risks. Fewer direct bookings, more dependence on lower-margin indirect channels, and commoditisation as agents prioritise price over the features that set a brand apart.
Three responses:
- Optimise for AI discoverability. Restructure content for language models rather than traditional SEO, so pricing and brand information can be found across different AI platforms.
- Make direct as easy as AI. Use personalised marketing, stronger loyalty programmes and customer-facing AI tools that match the convenience of third-party agents.
- Use the data advantage. Draw on accumulated guest data to create experiences memorable enough that guests remember the brand the next time they plan with AI.
The authors close with questions for executives: how exposed is the business, where should it sit in the value chain, and which assets need to evolve to stay competitive in an AI-mediated market?
Why this matters for hotels. Hotels and short-term rentals are seeing the sharpest rise in AI referral traffic, so they have the least time to wait. Being discoverable to AI and making direct booking just as easy are now parts of the same distribution strategy.