Sanjay Vakil ist Raketenwissenschaftler, war in leitender Funktion bei Google, Tripadvisor und der Time Out Group und ist heute CEO von DirectBooker, einer Plattform, die Hotelier:innen durch KI dabei unterstützt, mehr Direktbuchungen zu erzielen. In diesem exklusiven Beitrag für die ÖHV zeigt er, warum klassische OTAs unter Druck geraten, welche Rolle AI-native Aggregatoren spielen werden und wie Hotels sich auf die neue Buchungsrealität einstellen können.
Today, most guests plan hotel stays by searching online, using Google. Online Travel Agencies, like Expedia and Booking, dominate these searches because they can aggregate many hotels and have huge marketing budgets. They use these budgets to show up everywhere travelers start their search. And these budgets are built on the back of huge commissions. While hotels want to promote direct bookings they lose out because they cannot compete for guest attention at this scale.
Enter AI: A new starting point
Recently, AI has entered the picture and is rewriting these rules and has become the new entry point for travelers. AI can be transformative at several stages of the travel journey, with some notable limitations.
AI is more exciting during the early “dreaming” stage of travel planning, when guests are exploring where to go. Here, AI can suggest destinations, and even write itineraries. At this stage, it doesn’t need highly accurate data – general destination knowledge is sufficient.
When guests get more serious, AI can mine “evergreen” content to recommend what to do and where to go. However, the nature of the technology means that it struggles with the granular details travelers need, whether a hotel is near ski slopes or has its own sauna.
Where AI is weakest is in the “Planning” stage when guests are selecting where to stay, because accuracy at this stage is non-negotiable. Travelers need real-time data: inventory, prices, and availability for specific dates. Again, the problem is with the AI technology; this data cannot be encoded in foundational AI models.
OTAs still fill the gap – for now
To cover this weakness, AI systems have started to rely on OTAs who already feed availability and pricing data to Google at scale. This enable AI system to provide usable answers. But, crucially, OTAs often have only a portion of hotels, only some availability, and may not include the best deals that hotels reserve for direct booking. That puts them at a disadvantage.
Time for hotels to step in
To take advantage of this weakness, hotels need to plug directly into AI systems and make their inventory, offers and deals available to guests. This will bypass some of the economic power held by OTAs.
To do this, an AI-native aggregator (like DirectBooker) collects full data from all hotels, organizes it, and feeds it directly into the AI systems. Such an aggregator could present every hotel option, full availability, and direct deals to travelers. It also shifts the control back to hotels.
Meet the AI-native aggregator
There are a few key differences between this AI-native aggregator and OTAs:
- It can charge a far lower commission than OTAs. Instead of acting like a booking agent, it is just a pipe and so can be 10x cheaper.
- It doesn’t take the booking. Instead, it sends the customer directly to the hotels website.
- It can show member rates, loyalty perks, and direct-only offers because it sends the guest directly to the hotel.
- It allows the hotel to have full access to the guest: email, phone number, etc.
Direct Wins – for Everyone
For hotels, this is a huge opportunity. Instead of relying heavily on OTAs and paying giant commissions, they could build direct relationships with guests, offer loyalty perks, unique combinations, and special rate codes. Travelers who prefer booking directly often for reasons of trust or loyalty get more of what they want: more choice paired with better deals.
AI becomes the front door, the new discovery channel, but the hotel is the host.
A rare opportunity for change
For travelers and for the ecosystem, the shift matters. Booking and Expedia will likely continue to hold an edge until hotels and aggregators build the infrastructure to compete. But once that alternative is built out, the balance of power will change.
Hotels, both chains and independent, that embrace the model early can capture more of the direct bookings, lower their cost of customer acquisition, and strengthen their relationships with guests. To supply their full inventory and direct offers to an AIs, hotels need to contact their integration partners to make sure they’re pursuing this effort: PMS, CRS, or Channel Manager.
AI has created a critical opportunity for a moment of change in the travel industry. If hotels and new tech-led aggregators work together, they can reshape distribution so hotels, not OTAs, sit at the center.
