Travel Digital Digest
Marketing Intelligence Weekly
Weekly updates on the digital marketing news you need to know for the travel industry, including the latest news in travel, ai in the travel industry, data privacy, platform updates, travel marketing trends and more.
AI in travel
The future of travel sits with AI and data
- AI is set to become the backbone of travel by 2046, with intelligent agents handling planning, booking, and decision-making—potentially replacing traditional discovery channels as early as 2029.
- Trust will be the new currency, built through micro-interactions and user signals, but increasingly fragmented—creating both opportunity and risk for brands navigating AI-driven ecosystems.
- Personalisation powered by deep data will define competitive advantage, but could erode brand visibility as AI agents prioritise the “source of truth” over traditional intermediaries.
- Access to travel may become more unequal, shaped by pricing, regulation, and geopolitics, with destinations actively restricting entry to manage overtourism.
- The industry faces a tension between democratisation and monopolisation—AI could empower niche players, but control of data may concentrate power among a few dominant platforms.
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AI in travel
Data privacy in travel
Platforms in travel
Travel by numbers
There’s a trust gap in AI according to Expedia Group survey
- AI is gaining traction in early-stage travel planning, with 53% of travellers open to AI suggestions and nearly half saying it saves time and improves discovery—but it’s still far from mainstream usage.
- There’s a clear “trust gap” when it comes to bookings: 68% prefer established travel brands, and only 8% are comfortable completing transactions via AI platforms.
- Key barriers are control and privacy—over half of respondents worry about losing control (57%), data security (57%), and misuse of personal information (56%).
- Traditional channels still dominate planning, with search engines (59%) and online travel agencies (49%) far outweighing AI tools (just 8%).
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Travel by numbers
Amadeus report reveals 69% of travellers rely solely on AI when trip planning
- The standout stat from Amadeus’ Travel Dreams 2026 report is that 69% of travellers now rely solely on AI-generated search summaries when planning trips. For marketers, this shifts the focus from traditional SEO to optimising for generative search visibility.
- AI investment across hospitality is accelerating to support this shift, with most hotels allocating significant budgets toward tools like revenue management, forecasting and chatbots that can feed into these AI-driven discovery moments.
- Despite the rise of AI-led planning, travellers still expect a human touch during their stay. The winning model is AI working behind the scenes to personalise and streamline experiences, not replace frontline service.
- The report also highlights growing demand for wellbeing, sustainability and tailored experiences. AI will play a key role in delivering on these expectations at scale, but only when paired with thoughtful operational changes.
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
SiteMinder goes all-in on AI for hotel distribution
- SiteMinder is pushing hotel distribution into the AI era, rolling out new capabilities that connect its 53,000 hotels to AI-driven booking pathways and platforms like ChatGPT and Claude.
- Its Demand Plus product now extends into conversational AI, allowing travellers to discover hotels via curated recommendations, see live rates and book directly on hotel websites.
- A second expansion, Channels Plus, opens hotel inventory to AI-powered OTAs and intermediaries, enabling end-to-end booking experiences directly on partner platforms.
- The move taps into strong consumer demand, with 80% of travellers now wanting AI assistance when booking, signalling a major shift in how travel discovery happens.
- Backed by real-time data via Model Context Protocol (MCP), SiteMinder is positioning itself as critical infrastructure for hotels to stay visible and competitive in AI-led travel journeys.
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Travel by numbers
Southeast Asia cruise market ripe for travel marketers
- Southeast Asia’s cruise market is small in volume (just 2% of global passengers) but delivers outsized value, generating US$10B in 2024 and 2.4x higher spend per traveller than the global average—making cruise tourists a premium audience for marketers.
- Cruise travellers act as a powerful acquisition funnel: 85% rate their experience positively and 47% plan to return for land-based trips, positioning cruises as a gateway to longer-term tourism and brand engagement.
- Spending is diverse and high-impact, with US$5.6B in direct cruise-linked spend across wages, logistics, marketing and passenger purchases—highlighting multiple touchpoints for brand partnerships.
- The market is geographically concentrated, with Singapore and Malaysia accounting for 70% of passenger visits, signalling key hubs for targeted campaigns and regional activations.
- Seasonality (peaking Nov–Apr) and growing regional demand present clear windows for campaign timing, while emerging destinations still offer white space for brands to capture future growth.
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Travel by numbers
Travel and Tourism fastest-growing sector globally
- Travel & tourism was the fastest-growing global sector in 2025, expanding 4.1%—almost 50% faster than the overall economy (2.8%) and reinforcing its role as a key growth engine.
- The sector hit a record US$11.6 trillion contribution to global GDP (9.8%), marking its strongest year ever and signalling full recovery plus accelerated growth beyond pre-pandemic levels.
- Employment impact is massive: 366 million jobs globally (10.9% of total), with travel responsible for 1 in 3 new jobs created—a major lever for economic and workforce expansion.
- Asia-Pacific is leading the charge (8.1% growth), fuelled by reopening and demand, while North America lags at just 1%, highlighting how policy and connectivity shape regional performance.
- Consumer behaviour is shifting, with travellers prioritising meaningful, intentional experiences, signalling opportunities for brands to differentiate through experience-led marketing and personalisation.
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Platforms in travel
Google tests new swipeable location carousel in Search ads
- Google is testing a new swipeable location carousel in Search ads, letting users browse multiple business locations directly inside the ad unit rather than seeing separate stacked listings.
- The format surfaces key local info like ratings and distance/proximity, which could make location-based ads more interactive and help users compare nearby options faster without leaving the results page.
- For multi-location brands, this could mean more visibility within a single ad and a stronger shot at capturing high-intent local demand.
- For now, the big thing for marketers to watch is whether Google rolls it out more broadly and what it does to CTR and local ad performance.
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Almosafer and Thomas Cook launch apps in ChatGPT
- Almosafer has launched a ChatGPT app, giving users conversational access to over 1.5 million hotels, with itinerary building and personalised recommendations in both Arabic and English.
- The move reflects a broader shift: major travel brands (Expedia, Booking.com, Skyscanner, etc.) are embedding directly into ChatGPT to meet users where discovery is increasingly happening.
- Thomas Cook’s new AI-powered search goes further, turning ChatGPT into a booking interface with real-time pricing, rich visuals, and direct purchase links—cutting out traditional website browsing.
- The experience is moving from static listings to dynamic, intent-based conversations, which could reshape how travel brands approach SEO, UX and conversion funnels.
- Almosafer has been steadily embedding AI across pricing, personalisation and operations—signalling that this launch is part of a deeper, long-term AI strategy rather than a one-off feature.
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AI in travel
Travel by numbers
New study shows majority of travellers open to agentic AI bookings
- 71% of travellers are open to agentic AI handling end-to-end trip bookings, with highest interest in hotels (66%), flights (65%), and personalised packages (61%).
- The biggest perceived wins are finding better deals, saving time, and real-time disruption management—clear efficiency drivers for adoption.
- Concerns around fixing AI mistakes, unclear accountability, lack of human support, and data privacy are the main friction points holding users back.
- Millennials, business travellers, international travellers, and existing AI users show the strongest interest—suggesting complex travel needs accelerate uptake.
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Grab launches 4 new travel AI experiences in its app
- In Marketing We Trust client, Grab, has rolled out 13 new AI experiences at GrabX, with four aimed squarely at travel as it pushes the app to become a more end-to-end “everyday guide” for users.
- The headline travel feature is Personalised Travel Experience, which positions Grab as an in-trip companion by combining travel info, reminders and navigation support when users arrive.
- GrabStays marks Grab’s move into hotel booking through a partnership with Nuitée, offering same-day room rates and GrabCoin rewards to help drive bookings and loyalty.
- On the discovery and payments side, Discovered by Grab uses user-generated food content to help travellers find places to eat, while GrabPay for Travel lets users pay overseas via QR code using cards already saved in the app.
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Platforms in travel
Apple to introduce ads in Apple Maps
- Apple is set to introduce ads into Apple Maps as early as June 2026, marking a major shift from its traditionally ad-free experience.
- Ads will appear in search results, with businesses able to bid on keywords (e.g. “tacos” or “pasta”) to boost visibility—mirroring Google Maps and Apple’s own App Store ads model.
- The move is part of Apple’s broader push to grow its high-margin Services division, which now generates over $100 billion annually and continues to expand beyond hardware.
- For marketers, this opens up a new intent-driven, local advertising channel within Apple’s ecosystem—particularly valuable for retail, hospitality and location-based discovery.
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AI in travel
Helpful quotes from the experts at Phocuswright’s Travel Marketing AI Summit
- Across panels at Phocuswright’s Travel Marketing AI Summit, travel executives touched on approaches to optimising for visibility in the age of AI.
- Mike Coletta, senior manager of research and innovation for Phocuswright: “Just as it took years for people to figure out the discipline of SEO, the same will be true [for GEO].”
- Rahul Todkar, vice president and head of data and AI for Tripadvisor: “Your trusted content, authenticity and trust really [are] at the forefront no matter what. That doesn't change.”
- “Your structured content and data takes even more front-and-center stage, in my opinion, in this AI-first paradigm,”
- C.A. Clark, vice president of AI for Miles Partnership: “You have to understand what the expectation is. First you have to deliver on it, and then you have to tell that story broadly and consistently.”
- “When we talk about AEO or GEO … that thing everybody wants, it’s like, just tell me what to do, right? Tell me what to put on the page that will make this work And unfortunately or fortunately—depending on how you look at it—you have to go up a level and say, this is really about how people perceive what your travel brand is. The more consistent a brand’s information and messaging is, the more likely they are to surface in AI results. That’s a really difficult thing to do. It's always [been] the job of any travel brand to do that. It's just now becoming a lot more important to roll it up to that higher level, instead of trying to figure out how to game the system.”
- Mario Gavira, CMO of Travelier: “Expertise, experience, authority and trust. Now, the expertise, I would argue, is overrated. Why? Because that has been common, advised by the LLMs in most of the cases. What still counts is experience. Experience is your first-party data.”
- “Very concrete, unique data is what will make your brand unique and will make your brand. You have to find what is your first-party gold mine data that you can basically leverage and that will make you—in the eyes of the LLMs—unreplaceable.”
- Janette Roush, senior vice president of innovation and chief AI officer for Brand USA: “If I'm booking a Marriott Hotel … I don't want to just ask ChatGPT, ‘Which Marriott Hotel should I book?’ I want that data feed, whether it's an API or an MCP connection. I want my Claude Code set up to talk to Marriott directly. I don't want to leave—I don't want to go to the Bonvoy app. I want that to come to me with real information, trusted information, so I can make my booking right there without leaving the platform.”
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Trip.com’s AI assistant significantly boosts sales, with 60% of TripGenie interactions tied to bookings
- Trip.com’s AI assistant TripGenie has shifted from a basic helper to a full end-to-end travel companion, with nearly 60% of interactions now directly tied to bookings.
- Usage varies heavily by region: Asian markets (e.g. Singapore, Hong Kong) lean on AI for real-time, in-trip decisions, while Western markets tend to use it more for upfront planning.
- AI-assisted bookings have surged (up to 400% YoY), alongside sharp growth in tools like live translation and on-the-go recommendations, signalling stronger reliance during the travel experience itself.
- The role of AI is becoming more behavioural than functional — acting as a decision-making partner throughout the journey, not just a search or booking tool.
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Tripadvisor tests AI trip planning tool to turn influencer videos into bookings
- Tripadvisor is testing an AI-powered trip planning tool that turns influencer videos into ready-to-book itineraries, bridging inspiration → planning → booking in one seamless flow.
- The tool uses partnerships with Nvidia, Nebius and Nexla to analyse video content, match it to Tripadvisor’s data and generate highly personalised travel recommendations.
- This move reflects a broader trend (also seen with Expedia) where social content becomes a direct conversion channel, not just top-of-funnel inspiration.
- Tripadvisor is still in testing mode, but success will depend on how well it differentiates via proprietary data and faster user actions.
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AI in travel
Travel by numbers
Only 13% from a survey of 1000 travellers said they’d use AI for booking
- Travel demand looks solid for 2026, with IMG’s survey of 1,000+ customers showing strong appetite for both international and domestic trips.
- AI is moving into the mainstream for travel planning, with 33% of respondents saying they’re likely to use tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Claude to help organise trips.
- The biggest AI use cases are still at the inspiration and planning stage: recommendations (75%), itinerary building (70%), new ideas (69%) and comparisons (55%). Only 13% say they’d use AI for booking.
- Human support still matters, with 41% of travellers using a travel advisor or agent for at least some of their trips. That suggests travellers want a mix of digital convenience and expert reassurance.
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AI in travel
Travel by numbers
AI is now mainstream with the majority of US travellers using it for planning
- AI has moved into the mainstream for U.S. travel: 56% of active travellers used AI for planning, booking or in-trip help over the past 12 months, up sharply from 43% in late 2025 and 33% in early 2025.
- This isn’t just niche early-adopter behaviour anymore: every generation recorded double-digit growth, showing AI adoption is broadening fast across the market.
- Half of travellers using AI in search engines are still clicking through to source websites after seeing AI-generated answers.
- AI’s role is expected to shift from trip planning into in-destination assistance, with more travellers expecting to increase their usage again over the next year.
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Platforms in travel
Google upgrades AI shopping with cart and loyalty features
- Google added cart and loyalty capabilities to its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), making AI-driven shopping more complete and closer to a real checkout experience.
- The update lets AI agents build multi-item carts, access real-time product data, and retain user loyalty benefits across platforms, removing key friction in agent-led purchases.
- This moves AI shopping from discovery to transaction, while simplifying onboarding via Merchant Centre to accelerate retailer adoption.
- The implication is a shift toward “agentic commerce,” where structured product data and integrations, not ads or UX, determine visibility and sales.
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Platforms in travel
Capital One brings travel in-house as standalone app deepens ecosystem control
- Capital One launched a standalone travel app to centralise booking, rewards, and trip management, separating travel from its core banking experience.
- The move includes bringing technology, talent, and supplier relationships in-house after years of working with Hopper, enabling tighter control over the full travel journey.
- The app adds real-time features like flight updates and lounge capacity tracking, aiming to create a seamless, end-to-end travel experience tied to its credit card ecosystem.
- This signals a broader shift: financial services players are evolving into travel platforms, using ownership of the customer relationship and rewards to compete directly with traditional OTAs.
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Platforms in travel
Travel industry faces “polycrisis” shift as resilience replaces growth mindset
- The travel industry is being forced to rethink its role as overlapping global crises, from conflict to climate change, reshape consumer expectations and industry responsibility.
- At ITB Berlin 2026, leaders highlighted that while demand remains strong, travellers now prioritise safety, ease, and ethical engagement, pushing the industry beyond pure escape toward accountability.
- This creates new pressure on operators and policymakers to address geopolitical and environmental risks, while maintaining seamless travel experiences in an increasingly unstable world.
- The shift signals a structural change: travel is no longer just a growth market, but a system that must actively respond to global instability, redefining how destinations, brands, and governments operate.
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Travel
Travel by numbers
Flight routes shift to Asia as Middle East conflict disrupts global aviation
- Escalating conflict in the Middle East is forcing airlines to reroute flights away from the region, shifting global air traffic toward Asia as a safer alternative corridor.
- With key airspace and major transit hubs disrupted, airlines are avoiding traditional Europe–Asia routes via the Gulf, instead taking longer, more complex paths or relying on Asian hubs.
- This is increasing flight times, operational costs, and airfares, while creating uneven impacts, hurting Middle East hubs, but benefiting Asian airports, destinations, and gaining traffic share.
- The shift signals a structural rebalancing of global aviation, where geopolitical risk is actively reshaping flight networks and redistributing demand across regions.
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Travel
Travel by numbers
Hotels shift to real-time pricing as static rates lose bookings
- Hotels are adopting dynamic pricing to adjust room rates in real time, as static pricing increasingly leads to lost bookings to competitors and OTAs.
- The approach uses signals such as search demand, booking pace, and local events to proactively adjust prices rather than react too late to market changes.
- This directly improves conversion rates on direct channels, aligns pricing with marketing, and reduces reliance on third-party platforms.
- The shift reframes pricing as a core growth lever, where competitive advantage comes from integrating revenue, marketing, and real-time data, not just visibility.
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Travel by numbers
Online travel stocks surge after OpenAI scales back booking inside ChatGPT
- Online travel stocks surged after reports that OpenAI is scaling back plans to enable direct bookings inside ChatGPT, easing fears that AI would cut out travel intermediaries. Expedia jumped ~12%, while Booking Holdings and Tripadvisor rose about 8% and 5%.
- OpenAI reportedly found that users research travel in ChatGPT but rarely complete purchases there, prompting the shift away from built-in checkout.
- Instead of handling transactions itself, OpenAI will send users to third-party travel apps that integrate with ChatGPT, keeping the booking process within established platforms.
- Analysts say the move reduces the risk of “disintermediation” for online travel agencies, meaning platforms like Booking and Expedia can still capture demand even if discovery happens via AI.
- The shift highlights a key behaviour trend: AI is strong for discovery and planning, but consumers still prefer trusted platforms when it comes to payments and bookings.
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AI in digital
AI in travel
Platforms
Platforms in travel
Google launches Ask Maps, a Gemini conversational feature for itinerary planning
- Google Maps has launched “Ask Maps,” a Gemini-powered conversational feature that lets users ask complex, real-world questions directly in the app (e.g. finding a phone charging spot without long café queues). It replaces traditional keyword search with natural language queries.
- The tool delivers personalised recommendations by analysing data from Google Maps’ massive database of places, reviews and community contributions, tailoring results to user preferences and past behaviour.
- Ask Maps helps users move from discovery to action, suggesting locations, building custom itineraries, and even enabling actions like restaurant bookings directly within the conversation.
- The feature launches first on mobile (Android and iOS) in the US and India, with plans to expand to desktop and other regions over time.
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AI in travel
Consumers trust AI more for trip planning than any other task
- Consumers trust generative AI for travel planning more than for any other common use case in Matador Network’s survey of 1,000+ people, with 36% saying they have high or near-complete trust in AI for planning trips.
- Trust in AI for travel now edges out other practical categories like shopping tips (33.6%) and explaining unfamiliar topics (33.2%), which suggests travel is becoming one of the clearest real-world wins for consumer AI.
- By comparison, trust drops sharply for higher-stakes or more personal tasks: only 18.8% reported high trust for work-related writing, 16.9% for health advice, and 15.9% for personal problem-solving.
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Travel by numbers
Organic traffic drops 60% for major US travel sites
- Organic search traffic to major US consumer travel sites has dropped ~60% since Jan 2024, largely coinciding with Google’s rollout of AI Overviews that increasingly answer travel queries directly in search results.
- Some brands were hit especially hard: Travel + Leisure’s estimated organic traffic fell 80% (4.3M → 869K monthly), AFAR dropped 79%, Condé Nast Traveler 56%, and The Points Guy lost nearly half its search traffic.
- Despite the search collapse, total traffic isn’t catastrophic—these brands still attract millions of visits monthly (e.g. Travel + Leisure still sees ~16M visits), suggesting other channels like direct, newsletters, and Discover are cushioning the blow.
- The bigger shift is structural: Google increasingly controls the discovery layer, meaning being featured or ranking in travel media no longer guarantees consumer discovery the way it once did.
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AI in travel
APAC travel markets adopting AI more seamlessly than the West
- AI-powered personalisation and trip planning are accelerating the shift to online travel booking in APAC, with predictive search and automated planning tools becoming embedded in travel platforms.
- APAC markets are adopting AI more naturally than the West because superapps and algorithm-driven platforms have been common in the region for years, making AI an evolution rather than a sudden disruption.
- Agentic AI in travel is still early-stage, but China’s Trip.com is emerging as a frontrunner with its AI assistant TripGenie, moving closer to “agentic commerce” where AI can plan and transact on behalf of users.
- Chinese travel platforms are using AI to turn OTAs into massive discovery engines, combining inventory with social content, reviews, videos and travel advice to power richer search and recommendations.
- Despite rapid experimentation, the travel sector hasn’t yet produced a ‘killer AI app’, and many companies remain cautious as they wait for the next wave of AI capabilities before scaling aggressively.
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Platforms in travel
Travel by numbers
Gen Z moves away from OTAs preferring to book direct
- Direct digital channels are winning. Gen Z is moving away from OTAs and increasingly booking straight through airline and hotel websites or apps, which means brands have a bigger chance to own the customer relationship end-to-end.
- TikTok and Google Maps are doing the heavy lifting in discovery. TikTok is becoming a key source of travel inspiration and deal-hunting, while Google Maps is a core decision tool for checking hotel location, cleanliness and views before booking.
- The path to purchase is becoming more self-serve. As Gen Z gets older, more trips shift from parent-booked to self-booked, signalling growing importance for intuitive mobile UX, clear pricing and frictionless checkout across travel brands’ own platforms.
- Digital convenience matters as much as price. Gen Z will pay for time-saving tools and services, such as booking rideshares straight from the airport, showing that digital touchpoints that reduce stress can be a real conversion driver.
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Travel by numbers
Travel experiences projected to outpace every other travel segment by 2029
- Travel experiences are now a major growth engine — Tours, activities and attractions are projected to hit US $342 billion by 2029, outpacing every other travel segment and surpassing pre-pandemic levels with an ~8% annual growth rate.
- A structural shift is underway — Experiences have moved from an afterthought to a primary driver of trip choice, with travellers increasingly planning and booking experiences before arrival.
- Digital adoption is accelerating but still behind — Online bookings are rising fast (from ~17% in 2019 to ~42% projected by 2029), yet the sector lags overall travel in digital penetration — signalling big opportunity for digital platforms.
- Investor interest is surging — Major OTAs and platforms are expanding into experiences, with IPO plans and acquisitions underway, while many smaller operators remain fragmented — suggesting ripe conditions for consolidation and innovation.
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AI in travel
Platforms in travel
Skyscanner launches its flight app in ChatGPT
- Skyscanner (an In Marketing We Trust client) has launched a dedicated flights app inside ChatGPT, letting travellers use natural language prompts to search, compare and adjust flight options and prices without leaving the chat interface.
- The integration brings “the Skyscanner logic and prices people trust, wrapped into a more intuitive, conversational flow,” according to Skyscanner.
- The ChatGPT app is currently available in the UK and US for global flight searches, and redirects users back to Skyscanner’s site to complete bookings.
- Skyscanner joins a growing list of travel brands launching ChatGPT apps (e.g. [Booking.com](http://booking.com/), Expedia, Accor), reflecting wider industry momentum toward AI-powered, conversational search.
- Skyscanner’s chief AI officer says the firm will keep evolving travel search beyond traditional form-fills toward “dynamic, answer-led experiences”, with AI also powering its hotel and car hire tools.
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Platforms in travel
Travel by numbers
OTAs spent >$20B on sales and marketing in 2025 with paid acquisition still key
- The major online travel agencies — Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group and [Trip.com](http://trip.com/) Group — spent a combined more than US$20 billion on sales and marketing in 2025, continuing an upward trend from ~US$17.8 billion in 2024 and US$16.8 billion in 2023.
- Big players dominate spend: Booking Holdings led with ~$8.2 billion and Expedia Group followed with nearly $7.4 billion invested, together making up over three-quarters of total spend.
- Spend still heavy on paid channels: Despite industry talk about direct channels, AI-driven efficiencies and loyalty programmes, OTAs are not meaningfully cutting reliance on paid marketing (performance, social and brand).
- Mixed strategic signals: Booking saw direct business hold steady, but invested more in social and brand in Q4; Expedia is focusing on disciplined, data-driven marketing with some AI experiments; Airbnb’s spend grew as it considers future loyalty offerings; [Trip.com](http://trip.com/) pushed spend 25% higher on promos and expansion.
- Marketing intensity remains key battle: The figures highlight ongoing competition for visibility and bookings, signalling that paid acquisition is still central to OTA growth strategies in 2025.
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