What Hospitality Leaders Need to Know in 2026

By Ben Golson

A recent hotel industry webinar put on by Destination AI invited the following top executives in AI and made one thing clear:

AI bookings can be divided into three levels:

1. AI-assisted booking. The traveler uses ChatGPT/Gemini to research and shortlist, but usually books outside the chat.
2. AI-mediated booking. The interaction happens inside a hotel or OTA chatbot on their own site.
3. AI-executed booking. The most advanced state, where agents transact more autonomously, potentially with little human intervention.

Below are the five takeaways that matter most.

Discovery and Booking Are Now Two Separate Problems

Historically, visibility and conversion were connected. Not anymore.

AI determines which hotels get seen

Booking happens somewhere else (for now)

As Tyrone Millard noted, the focus today is still on discovery and relevance—not seamless transactions.

If you are not visible in AI responses, your distribution strategy is irrelevant.

Structured Data Beats Hotel Marketing Copy

Multiple speakers reinforced the same point:

AI does not understand brand voice—it understands structured truth.

Jason Cincotta emphasized that visibility is a technical problem, not a content problem. Fluffy copy, generic blogs, and vague positioning will lose.

Winning hotels will:

• Clearly define room attributes
• Standardize amenities
• Maintain consistent, factual data across platforms

The Hotel Consideration Set Is Shrinking

AI is compressing the funnel. 

From research 40 hotels and various websites → AI narrows it down to 4

From researching multiple websites → AI narrows it down to one interface

As Sanjay Vakil put it: AI helps travelers narrow overwhelming choices into a short, decisive list. If you are not in that shortlist, you are not competing.

You Don’t Need Perfect Tech to Start

There was a healthy tension here. Harriet Brown pushed MCP/app connectivity for direct booking access while Brad Brewer pointed out hotels are already driving revenue via:

• Listings
• Citations
• Structured visibility

Meanwhile, Michael Mahar emphasized running multiple small experiments instead of waiting for a perfect strategy. You can (and should) start now, even without full integration.

Waiting Is the Biggest Risk

Every panelist aligned on this: “Sit and wait” is not an AI strategy.

The real risk is not doing the wrong thing. The wrong thing is doing nothing while:

• AI reshapes hotel discovery
• Intermediaries gain control
• Your visibility declines without you realizing it

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