Duff on Hospitality Law

Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 8, 2025, is below. For several weeks now, we’ve all seen and read the many headlines regarding American Airlines planned use of AI for rate setting. This week’s Update features several stories on the controversy, including a report into the art and science of rate setting. Enjoy.

• • Expedia Reports Strong Second Quarter.  Buoyed by its B2B, advertising and international lines of business, Expedia this past week reported strong second quarter performance and increased its guidance on gross bookings and revenue for the full 2025 calendar year.  Like other hospitality companies that reported this past week on weakening U.S. demand, Expedia experienced some of the same slow down but managed to offset the weakness through its other businesses.  Of the three primary Expedia Group companies (Expedia, Hotels.com and VRBO), Expedia faired the best as the remaining two continue to experience platform transition challenges.  Expedia continues to work with AI platforms – namely OpenAI and Google – to drive traffic to its websites, which according to Expedia CEO, Ariane Gorin, converts “well.”

• • Southwest Tickets Now Available on Booking Holdings’ Websites.  Southwest Airlines announced last week that its tickets are now available on Agoda, Booking.com and Priceline (among other BH websites).  This latest announcement further evidences Southwest’s complete transition from being an exclusively direct channel retailer to embracing a wide variety of third party intermediaries.

• • Booking.com Launches Co-Branded Credit Card in U.S.  After months of rumors and speculation, Booking.com finally revealed its first U.S. co-branded credit card, the Booking.com Genius Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card.  Cardholders will receive travel credits (each worth $1.00) in varying amounts for purchases – up to 6% for hotels and short term rentals booked on the Booking.com app.  Cardholders will also be immediately enrolled in the third (highest) tier of Booking.com’s Genius loyalty program.  Hoteliers must keep a close eye on the card and any future cardholder promotions to ensure the card doesn’t undermine pricing on the Booking.com platforms.

Our next Update will be for the week ending Friday, August 29. 

Good Sunday evening from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 1, 2025, is below. It was another slow week in the online travel world with Booking Holdings again capturing most of the industry’s headlines. Enjoy.

• • Booking Holdings Reports Strong Second Quarter. This past week Booking Holdings issued its second quarter earnings release (for those interested, a copy of the earnings call transcript is linked below). Booking Holdings’ strong market position in countries outside the United States (as compared to its primary competitors, Expedia and Airbnb) once again proved to be its saving grace as the U.S. leisure market continued to struggle. Highlights from the recent release for me include the following:
    • Booking.com’s loyalty program, Genuis, showed meaningful growth. Booking.com plans to soon add additional travel products (beyond accommodations) to its awards program.
    • In an effort to head off the effects of Google’s AI summaries on traditional search engine marketing, Booking Holdings is diversifying its marketing investments, including a 25% (YOY) increase is spending on social media platforms. According to Booking Holdings CEO, Glenn Fogel, these investments will allow Booking Holdings to engage with customers earlier at the inspiration stage of the travel funnel.
    • With regard to AI and its growing importance within Bookings Holdings, Fogel provided updates on efforts at Priceline, Agoda, Booking.com, Kayak and OpenTable to grow their use of AI organically. Fogel also confirmed previously reported collaborations with OpenAI (including OpenAI’s recently announced ChatGPT Agent), Microsoft and Amazon as a means of expanding Booking Holdings’ sources of future travelers.
  • Trust Remains a Concern for Most Users of AI. Booking Holdings released last week The Global AI Sentiment Report, which shares important insights gained by Bookings Holdings from over 37,000 consumers in 33 markets. While the Report details consumers’ overwhelming excitement about the new technology (and growing interest in using the technology in the future), concerns among consumers remain. I encourage everyone to take 30 minutes to review the Report.
  • Yet Another Class Action Targeting Booking.com. This past week saw news of yet another potential class action against Booking.com over its pricing (e.g., rate parity) practices. This latest claim is being brought by the UK’s Bed and Breakfast Association on behalf of thousands of UK accommodation providers. The same concerns I expressed earlier over similar previously announced class actions (particularly for those providers with negotiated portfolio-wide contracts with Booking.com) apply equally to this newly announced effort.

Have a great week everyone.