Glenn Fogel wants AI to reroute travelers mid-trip without them ever seeing your property listing. If you're an independent operator who depends on Booking.com for discovery, the question isn't whether this technology works... it's what happens to your bookings when it does.
Two analyst firms just adjusted their Booking Holdings price targets and cited AI as the growth engine. What that AI is actually doing is making Booking better at extracting margin from your property while cutting their own costs.
Glenn Fogel's routine share sale grabbed a headline, but the $700 million Booking is pouring into AI and its "Connected Trip" strategy in 2026 is what should keep every hotel operator up tonight thinking about who owns their guest relationship.
Booking Holdings just posted a year where room nights grew 8%, free cash flow hit $9.1 billion, and they're plowing $700 million into AI and loyalty to make sure your guests keep booking through them. The question every operator should be asking isn't whether Booking had a good year... it's how much of that year came out of your margin.
