🌐 AI Rewrites Hotel Distribution Rules

Insider Highlights

• Booking.com forced to slash commissions in Switzerland

• Google Gemini shifts travel planning into AI chat

• Accor rolls out AI across digital loyalty strategy

• Marriott unveils new soft brand (yes, another one) for boutiques

• Cloudbeds drives 329% direct booking surge for Sunlight Group

• 🛠️ 6 Tech tools you should try

• 🎧 Podcast: Schani Hotels' Group Technology Manager on Creating a Fully Digital Guest Journey | Listen here

TOGETHER WITH CLOUDBEDS

How The Sunlight Group Grew Direct Bookings 329% in 90 Days

The Sunlight Group was losing out on direct revenue due to limited online visibility and manual pricing decisions across its growing property portfolio. Cloudbeds solved this by helping The Sunlight Group with integrated marketing, pricing, and POS tools.

• Activated the Cloudbeds Digital Marketing Suite to boost visibility next to OTAs on Google

• Used dynamic pricing tools to track competitors and automate rate adjustments

• Integrated POS and gift voucher tools to save time and create new revenue streams

The result? A 329% surge in direct bookings in just 90 days—driven by smarter marketing and pricing automation.

👉 Learn how they did it here

GOING DEEPER

1. Booking.com Commission Too High, Says Switzerland

Switzerland’s competition watchdog has ordered Booking Holdings to cut hotel commissions by 25%, citing “excessive pricing power” in the local market. This comes as the European Commission intensifies scrutiny on dominant online travel agencies (OTAs), echoing complaints long voiced by hoteliers across the continent. Meanwhile, industry advocates are calling for stricter oversight across the EU, with particular concern over Booking’s nearly 70% market share in some countries and its "most favored nation" clauses that limit rate flexibility for hotels.

🎯 Why it matters: Regulatory intervention like this in private markets rarely ends well. Think of Booking.com as a for profit augmentation of Switzerland’s core DMO. Now it has less incentive to promote Switzerland which will likely hurt demand for Swiss hotels and we’ll see those ad dollars promoting other markets. We might also expect to see layoffs in Booking’s Swiss support organization leading to worsening service levels (both B2B and B2C).

🔑 Key takeaway: Lower commissions might offer short-term relief for Swiss hoteliers, but could trigger long-term downsides: fewer bookings, declining support (for hotels and guests) and less innovation. If enough countries follow suit what we would likely see is a focus from Booking and other OTAs on new monetization models to skirt regulation. Read more

2. Google I/O 2025 Confirms the Future of Hotel Search

Google’s I/O 2025 keynote made one thing clear: AI is no longer an add-on to travel — it’s becoming the interface. With over 400 million monthly active users on the Gemini app and AI Overviews now reaching 1.5 billion users, Google is rapidly reshaping how people interact with online search. Key updates like AI Mode, Deep Search, and agentic booking will shift travelers from traditional search toward personalized, end-to-end journeys managed within a single AI interface. Booking a trip might soon involve no website visits, just a conversational flow within AI Mode.

🎯 Why it matters: AI Mode sidelines the “ten blue links” and elevates synthesized answers — meaning content, pricing, and product visibility will increasingly be filtered by AI. With Gemini integrating across Chrome, Search, Maps, and Calendar, Google's ecosystem will guide users from inspiration to booking with minimal friction — and minimal exposure for brands outside that loop.

🔑 Key takeaway: AI-first platforms will soon control discovery and booking pathways, which means your website must be AI-friendly. Structured content, real-time data feeds, and direct integration into Google’s tools will be critical to remaining visible and bookable. Start planning now for a world where your digital storefront may live inside a conversation and not on your homepage. Read More → 

3. Accor Taps AI to Turbocharge Loyalty

Accor’s latest move embeds generative AI across its ALL loyalty platform to churn out hyper-personalized offers, automate guest messaging and predict stay preferences in real time—setting a new bar for boosting retention, upsells and operational efficiency without extra headcount.

🎯 Why it matters: Integrating AI-driven personalization and enhanced loyalty programs can boost guest satisfaction, streamline operations, and increase repeat bookings for hotel operators. This move by Accor signals a broader industry shift toward tech-enabled, data-driven hospitality strategies that will soon become table stakes for competitive differentiation.

🔑 Key takeaway: Accor’s use of AI to orchestrate personalized, end-to-end guest journeys signals a shift from reactive service to predictive hospitality—an approach independents can emulate with lightweight AI tools tailored to their scale. Equally instructive is Accor’s reinvention of loyalty as a digital ecosystem, not a points program—offering a blueprint for how even single properties can cultivate deeper guest relationships through mobile-native touchpoints and exclusive micro-rewards. Read More →

TOOLS & TACTICS

⚒️ Hotel Tech Tools You’ve Gotta Try

✅ Cloudbeds: Hotel management software at the speed of AI.

✅ Canary Technologies: Powerful but simple AI powered digital guest journey platform.

✅ Otelier: Optimize hotel budgets and forecasts with precise, data-driven insights.

✅ RoomPulse: Automate rate shopping with actionable insights and intelligent alerts.

✅ Sertifi: Streamline hotel check-ins and payments with secure digital solutions.

AROUND THE HOTEL INDUSTRY

Other hospitality happenings this week ​

🤖 4 scenarios on the future of agentic AI in travel

🏨 Marriott launches its 37th brand, “Series by Marriott,” a soft brand aimed at regionally inspired boutique hotels.

🧠 Kayak’s new AI trip planner tackles travel complexity with real-time personalization and simplified itinerary building.

💣 Keeping terrorists off Airbnb shouldn’t undermine Americans’ privacy

💵 Hotels back U.S. bill making service tips tax-free to attract and retain frontline staff.

💼 LA’s proposed hospitality wage hike raises concerns about staffing and industry cost sustainability ahead of 2028 Olympics.

🌞 Boutique hotels across Europe prepare to capitalize on high-spending summer travelers despite labor constraints.

🎟️ New “junk fee” ban makes hotel pricing transparent, but hidden fees linger on rental car reservations, movie tickets, and more.

PODCAST OF THE WEEK
🎙Schani Hotels' Group Technology Manager on Inheriting a Tech Stack

How can embracing technology not only streamline operations but also enhance the personal touch in hospitality? In this episode, Christian Müller, Group Manager of Technology at Schani Hotels, reveals how innovative tech solutions are reshaping the guest experience.

Key Takeaways:

• Discover how Schani Hotels transitioned from a traditional app-based check-in system to a seamless digital guest journey, achieving a remarkable 70% adoption rate for mobile check-ins.

• Learn about the importance of a flexible tech stack that integrates various systems, allowing for automation of 85 operational tasks, ultimately freeing staff to focus on guest interactions.

• Understand the surprising shift in guest communication preferences, with over 60% opting for WhatsApp over email, and how this personalizes the guest experience.

👉🏼 Check out the interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Want to advertise with us?

💌 Sponsor this newsletter (here) or a dedicated eblast (here) to our 100k subscribers

👀  Run a site takeover campaign (here) to drive downloads of your lead magnet

⭐️ Become a premium member, join the best companies in the industry (here)

🎯 Set up a PPC campaign to drive high-intent traffic from our homepage and category pages straight to your website in under 3-minutes (here)