For more than two decades, the online travel agency has been one of the most powerful forces in hospitality.
A traveller wants a hotel, so they go to Booking.com, Expedia or another OTA. They enter a destination, dates and number of guests, scroll through hundreds of options, compare prices and reviews, and eventually make a booking.
It is a model that has transformed hotel distribution.
But what happens when the traveller stops searching?
That may sound like a strange question, but the rise of generative and “agentic” AI could fundamentally change the way people buy travel.
Instead of typing “hotels in Cape Town” into a search box, a traveller could simply tell an AI assistant: “Find me a boutique hotel in Cape Town for four nights, close to good restaurants, with a pool and a room under R4,000 a night. I want somewhere quiet but within easy reach of the city.”
The AI doesn’t necessarily need to show the traveller 200 hotels.
It can simply recommend three.
And increasingly, it may be able to complete the booking as well.
This is where the traditional OTA model faces an interesting challenge. The OTA has historically controlled the search, comparison and transaction. But AI could potentially sit one step earlier in the customer journey — becoming the interface through which the traveller discovers what to buy.
The major OTAs are certainly not ignoring this threat. Booking Holdings is investing heavily in AI and says it is already generating benefits from the technology, particularly in customer service. At the same time, the company has acknowledged the potential for AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to disrupt online travel.
Expedia is taking a similar approach, developing AI-powered planning and booking tools and integrating travel discovery into other digital platforms. Its own research also reveals an important caveat: travellers may embrace AI for planning, but almost 70% still prefer trusted travel brands when it comes to actually booking.
So perhaps the OTA isn’t dying. Perhaps it is evolving.
The bigger question for hotels is what happens to visibility.
For years, hotels have invested in SEO, rankings, reviews, photography and distribution in the hope of appearing in front of the customer. In an AI-driven travel world, the battle may increasingly become: Will the AI recommend me?
That is a very different marketing challenge.
And it makes accurate information, strong reviews, a credible website and a consistent digital presence more important than ever.
The irony is that AI could actually make hospitality more human.
If technology takes care of searching, comparing, planning and booking, then the real competitive advantage may increasingly be what happens after the booking.
The welcome at reception.
The waiter who remembers your name.
The chef who cares about the plate.
The manager who fixes a problem before the guest has to complain.
The moments that cannot be reduced to an algorithm.
The travel search box may not disappear tomorrow. But its role is changing.
And for hospitality, the lesson is simple:
Don’t just ask whether guests can find you online. Start asking whether the machines that increasingly help guests make decisions will recommend you.
Stephen is a hospitality professional from Johannesburg South Africa. His career started with THF hotels in the UK and subsequently with the Southern Sun Hotel group in Johannesburg. Stephen’s first steps into entrepreneurship was Hickmore Recruitment / CareerMap, a leading supplier of Senior and Exec recruitment services. Stephen was a founder of Pple Hospitality (formerly HSC) the largest Hospitality Industry full-service outsourced staffing company in South Africa. In March 2020 Stephen became a director and owner of the Swiss Hotel School South Africa, which is now his full time passion.
SHS – Institute of Hospitality Management
SHS – Institute of Culinary Arts
Stephen writes for a number of publications on food and hospitality industry matters, trends and opinions. He also hosts a Podcast on Spotify “Hospitality Insight with The SilverFox”
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