IHG just launched a ChatGPT app that lets travelers search 7,000 hotels through conversational AI, and the demo probably looks incredible. What nobody's asking is who picks up the pieces when the system serves wrong rates, phantom availability, or a recommendation that contradicts your revenue strategy.
Booking just posted $5.53 billion in Q1 revenue, up 16% year-over-year, and immediately spent $3.6 billion buying back its own stock. If you're an independent hotelier wondering where your commission dollars go, now you know.
Bernstein says AI agents are squeezing Booking and Expedia's margins, and Wall Street's treating that like a travel-sector story. It's a hotel distribution story, and the pressure rolls downhill to the property writing the commission check.
Wall Street is raising price targets on BKNG again. The earnings math is real. But the question nobody's asking is what happens to the take rate when the hotels fight back.
