Why am I not surprised? A few months ago, I asked the question 'Who will be the winners and losers from this new generative Al technology like Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard or Anthropic’s Claude?'.

I argued that the tech-savvy OTAs would be the winners and would implement generative AI before the rest of the travel industry: hoteliers, airlines, car rental companies and cruise lines.

And indeed, the OTAs were the first among big travel players to implement plug-ins to ChatGPT (Expedia, Trip..com, Kayak), as well as Google’s Bard (Priceline) and integrated generative AI on their websites and mobile apps to power trip planning agents and itinerary building capabilities.

Now, as reported by PhoCusWire, Booking..com is the latest online travel agency to add conversational chat capabilities to its mobile app.

The new AI Trip Planner combines the online travel agency's existing machine learning systems with OpenAI’s ChatGPT application programming interface so users can receive travel recommendations based on preferences they describe in natural language.

Adding AI as a planning tool will help the OTAs to shortcut the digital customer journey and almost immediately transport travelers from the Planning to the Booking Phase of the customer journey.

The OTAs are well prepared to make bookable any AI-suggested itinerary with their 2.5 million multi room accommodation establishments, 6 million vacation rentals, 600 airlines, 250,000 local experiences, etc.

Max Starkov
Hospitality & Online Travel Tech Consultant & Strategist

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