Marriott solved the discovery problem. It traded one intermediary for another. - What the Google AI Mode partnership reveals about who sets the terms when discovery happens inside someone else's platform.

Jul 2, 2026 • Hospitality

Booking is booking more rooms than ever. Its stock is priced like the model is breaking. - The company booked a record 1.2 billion room nights in 2025 and its shares are down 15% this year — the market is pricing agentic disintermediation before a single AI agent has booked a hotel at scale.

Jul 2, 2026 • Hospitality

Marriott built a private pipe for corporate travel. Now it wants the buyers to use it. - Marriott's corporate booking tool routes straight into its own reservation system, signing accounts at four times the expected pace — and the company now says it's pushing managed-travel buyers to book direct.

Jul 2, 2026 • Hospitality

Cloudbeds is quietly building for the hotels it used to send elsewhere - The platform known for running independents just shipped group-sales tools, a 4,000-room calendar, and hotel-standard accounting — the toolkit of the enterprise systems it used to sit beneath.

Jul 2, 2026 • Hospitality

The AI detour ends where it started: on Google - Google reports 62% of travelers come back to it to book after going deep with AI — then previews the checkout meant to end the round trip.

Jul 2, 2026 • Marketing