Good Monday morning from Seattle . . . And for those of you in the U.S. enjoying the long holiday weekend (and unofficial end of summer), happy Labor Day. We are back from a short August break and include below our Update for the week ending Friday, September 4, 2026. This week’s Update includes stories from the past several weeks, including the much publicized Google launch of “agentic” hotel booking. The most important story, however, relates to the EU’s soon to be effective (September 27, 2026) Green Transition Directive, which affects nearly any hotel (or travel platform) involved in environment (green) marketing. Enjoy.

EU’s Green Transition Directive to Take Effect This Month. By now, many of you have likely received notice of the soon to be effective Green Transition Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/825), which bans misleading environmental claims. Our initial summary of the Directive is below. We’ve also included links to the Directive below together with the EU Commission’s Q&A.

• Hotels’ environmental or sustainability claims must now be backed by demonstrated (objective) performance or a legitimate third-party certification. Hotels are not required to obtain a green certification.
• If a hotel makes no “green” claim, nothing changes with the Directive.
• Penalties for non-compliance can be severe – up to 4% of annual EU turnover (revenue).
• Non-EU hotels (including U.S. hotels) are implicated because the Directive purports to apply to any claim that an EU traveler can view or book regardless of the hotels’ location.
• Hotels have a few options: (1) Replace broad environmental or sustainability claims with specific, factual statements (no more use of “eco-friendly”), (2) Obtain a recognized third-party certification (broader claims are permitted if backed with a recognized certification) and/or (3) Say nothing about environmental or sustainability efforts, features, etc.

Airbnb Names New Chief Business Officer. Airbnb’s seeming push to become a more traditional OTA took a major step last week with the announced hiring of former TripAdvisor and Booking.com executive, Pepijn Rijvers, as the platform’s new Chief Business Officer effective September 1. Rijvers’ addition makes official the Booking.com reunion occurring at the platform as Rijvers is the third Booking.com hotel alum to join the platform in the past 6 months. Does Rijvers’ arrival mean that the platform is now planning to add large branded or managed hotel portfolios, only time will tell.

Expedia vs. Booking Holdings. Let the B2B business bragging rights battle begin. As suppliers to the well-known Expedia B2B program tire of the program’s many shortcomings (e.g., lack of transparency, high cost of entrance and cannibalistic channel practices), Booking Holdings’ (or any alternative B2B program seeking to solve these shortcomings) market position may only become stronger.

Google’s AI Mode Travel Solution Is Here. By now, most everyone has read the many announcements detailing Google’s latest foray into online travel – its agentic travel booking solution. So what is this solution and what does it mean to the online travel industry? A series of questions and author’s opinions for your consideration. (1) True agentic travel as first envisioned a year or two ago? Definitely not yet. (2) Industry game changer? Not likely. Until contribution levels from these AI tools begin to exceed the (very) low single digits, my opinion will remain the same. (3) Critical component of participants’ messaging to constituents to demonstrate AI savviness? Most likely. Shareholders and owners likely benefit most from these efforts (and are most likely to query a party’s absence from the accompanying press releases). (4) Another example of how the DMA and Google’s ongoing compliance efforts could ultimately hinder those they are intended to protect (EU hoteliers and guests). Most definitely.

Have a great week. 

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Fake 10 Downing Street Listing Exposes ‘Unfit’ Booking.com, Says Consumer Group
September 2, 2026 via BBC
Consumer group Which? says it was able to create a fake listing for 10 Downing Street on travel giant Booking.com.

Airbnb Names Tripadvisor Exec Pepijn Rijvers Chief Business Officer
September 1, 2026 via PhocusWire
Airbnb has named Pepijn Rijvers chief business officer, effective Sept. 1. Rijvers was most recently CBO of Tripadvisor Group, having initially joined the company in April 2025 as president of Viator.

EU Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition
New EU requirements taking effect September 27, 2026, will impact how hotels, travel companies and online travel platforms present environmental and sustainability claims to consumers. The Commission has also recently published a Q&A addressing common questions about the new requirements.

Airbnb is Making Us Rethink What a ‘Direct Booking’ Really Means
August 30, 2026 via PhocusWire
Airbnb is testing a new “direct booking link” with selected hosts, and it immediately made me question what we even mean by “direct” anymore.

Booking Holdings vs. Expedia in B2B: Bombshell Estimate Says Booking Leads in Room Nights
August 28, 2026 via Skift
No matter how you parse the numbers, Booking Holdings’ B2B business appears to be a lot larger than the travel industry previously understood. Its in-process reorganization could have significant implications for OTA competition.

Book a Hotel with Expedia and Hotels.com through AI Mode in Google Search
August 28, 2026 via Expedia
Starting today, travelers in the U.S. can book a hotel with Expedia and Hotels.com through AI Mode in Google Search, making it easier to go from trip planning to a confirmed stay in one easy conversation.

What Hotelbeds’ Shrinking Margins Mean for Hotel Distribution
August 28, 2026 via Skift
Hotelbeds became the dominant independent bed bank through scale. Its results now show that scale alone no longer protects the economics.

Hotel Booking Goes Live in Google’s AI Mode, Flights Still Waiting
August 27, 2026 via PhocusWire
When Google previewed agentic travel booking last November, it said the booking flow, payments and other specifics were still being worked out and offered no launch timeline. Most of those answers arrived today.

Booking.com Targeted by Proposed UK Mass Action Over Commission Rates
August 21, 2026 via MLex
Online travel booking portal Booking.com is being targeted by a proposed UK mass action over alleged anticompetitive commission rates charged to hotel operators, according to a summary of the claim.

Hi there — welcome back to the Regulatory Check-In!

This week: California moves to curb website tracking lawsuits and expand data privacy protections, the UK’s hidden-fee crackdown turns its attention to travel, the FTC invites public comment on personalized pricing enforcement, and a rollback of airline fare transparency rules could change how travelers see ticket prices.

Calif. Passes Bills To Limit Tracking Suits, Boost Privacy: California lawmakers have sent the governor two packages: one blocking private litigants from bringing website tracking lawsuits under the state’s wiretap law (CIPA), and a separate pair expanding protections under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The tracking bill matters for hospitality. CIPA’s private right of action allows plaintiffs to recover $5,000 per violation without showing actual harm, and they’ve been using it to characterize ordinary website technologies (e.g., analytics scripts, retargeting pixels, chat tools, session-replay software) as illegal wiretaps. If signed, this bill would shut down that class-action pipeline for any company with a consumer-facing website. But it would not make website tracking unregulated. The California AG has already treated ad and analytics trackers as CCPA compliance issues (including citing hospitality loyalty programs specifically) and the CCPA expansion bills push those obligations further. Less exposure from private CIPA lawsuits, more regulatory attention on tracking, loyalty data, and vendor contracts under the CCPA.

The UK’s Hidden-Fee Crackdown Is Coming for Travel: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has new direct enforcement powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, and it’s worth comparing to the FTC’s junk fee rule. The FTC’s rule targets lodging and live-event ticketing specifically and is enforced through courts. The CMA’s framework is broader — all consumer-facing industries, administrative enforcement without court proceedings, and fines up to 10% of global turnover. The CMA’s powers apply to practices directed at UK consumers regardless of where the business is based, so non-UK hotels with UK properties, booking partners, or a significant UK customer base are within reach. If your pricing relies on drip-disclosed fees, pressure-test it against both frameworks.

FTC Seeks Comment on Personalized Pricing Enforcement: The FTC has announced it is seeking public comment on an enforcement policy statement regarding personalized pricing — the practice of using personal data to set prices tailored to individual consumers. This continues the surveillance-pricing wave we’ve been tracking across New York’s One Fair Price Act, New Jersey’s grocery pricing ban, and the broader state-level push against data-driven pricing. A formal FTC enforcement posture would add a federal layer on top of the patchwork of state laws already emerging. Companies using dynamic or personalized pricing models should be paying close attention to the comment period and any resulting enforcement guidance.

Harder to See the Full Price of a Plane Ticket: Airline fare transparency just took a step backward. In 2024, DOT issued a rule requiring airlines to display specific baggage, change, and cancellation fees upfront in search results. Airlines sued, the Fifth Circuit vacated the rule on APA grounds in February 2026, and DOT has now reverted to the weaker 2011 standards. The core full-fare rule (requiring the advertised ticket price to include all mandatory taxes and fees) remains intact, but ancillary fees that can significantly inflate the total cost are no longer required to appear when travelers first compare flights. This runs counter to the all-in pricing trend everywhere else. Airlines moving backward on fee disclosure while hotels are being pushed forward creates a real tension for OTAs displaying both products on the same page. Worth watching.

Until next time.

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Calif. Passes Bills To Limit Tracking Suits, Boost Privacy
August 31, 2026 via Law360
California lawmakers have sent to the governor’s desk legislation that would block private litigants from bringing website tracking lawsuits under a key provision of the state’s wiretap law, as well as a separate pair of bills to expand protections under the state’s data privacy law.

The UK’s Hidden-Fee Crackdown Is Coming for Travel
August 20, 2026 via Skift
An investigation isn’t a verdict, but the UK regulator no longer needs a court to reach one, and it can fine a company up to 10% of global turnover once it does. The travel industry will be watching very closely.

FTC Seeks Comment on Enforcement Policy Statement Regarding Personalized Pricing
August 19, 2026 via U.S. Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission today announced it is seeking public comment on an enforcement policy statement regarding personalized pricing, which is the use of personal data to set prices according to the amount that …

It Soon Could be Harder to See the Full Price of a Plane Ticket. Here’s Why
August 14, 2026 via Los Angeles Times
Travelers are accustomed to seeing an all-inclusive price for airfare when browsing flights online, but they may soon need to read the fine print before purchasing as Washington is trying to change disclosure requirements.

Hi there — welcome back to the Regulatory Check-In!

This week: LA’s expanded Transient Occupancy Tax, a securities fraud suit over Microsoft’s AI strategy, a Colorado junk fee case with implications beyond residential landlords, the Ninth Circuit blocking Hawaii’s gun law on private property, pushback on New York’s One Fair Price Act, and merchants turning the junk fee fight on their own payment processors.

Los Angeles TOT Changes Take Effect: LA voters approved Proposition TC in June, expanding the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) beyond traditional room rates to cover service fees, resort fees and other ancillary charges. It also updates collection and reporting obligations for hotels and OTAs. If you have LA properties or OTA partners booking LA inventory, review your TOT practices now because previously exempt charges may now be taxable, and the new reporting rules likely mean changes to billing systems and remittance processes.

Microsoft Heads Accused of Lying to Investors on AI Strategy: A new securities fraud suit alleges Microsoft executives overstated the company’s AI capabilities and the value of its OpenAI partnership while the company was allegedly infringing copyrights to train its models and losing ground to competitors. This is a vendor risk story. For hoteliers licensing AI-powered tools, this is a good time to ask whether your vendor contracts contemplate AI-specific risks at all. As the legal landscape around these products keeps shifting, that’s a gap worth closing in your contracts sooner rather than later.

Tenant Says Colorado Law Forbids Apartment Management “Junk Fees”: A Colorado tenant is suing a national property management company, arguing that its fees violate Colorado law even though they were disclosed — because they were disclosed through a “drip” method, showing up incrementally rather than up front. Colorado’s consumer protection framework applies broadly across industries, not just to residential landlords, so hospitality operators using similar drip-pricing for resort fees or amenity fees are exposed to the same argument. The takeaway: disclosure alone isn’t enough. How and when fees appear matters just as much.

9th Circuit Blocks Hawaii Gun Rule Following High Court Ruling: The Ninth Circuit blocked Hawaii from enforcing a state law that banned firearms on private property without the property owner’s consent. The law was government-imposed, not a private policy — meaning it was the state telling property owners that guns were prohibited on their land, rather than letting owners make that call themselves. That distinction matters for hotels. If you already have your own firearms policy (and many hotels do), this ruling doesn’t directly override it — private property owners generally retain the right to set their own rules for guests on their premises. What the Ninth Circuit struck down was the state stepping in to make that decision for property owners by default. For now, hotel-initiated firearms policies remain on different legal footing than state-imposed bans, but this is an area where the line between government regulation and private property rights is actively being drawn. Worth tracking closely.

Travel Tech Joins Coalition Urging Changes to New York’s One Fair Price Act: A coalition including the Travel Technology Association is urging Governor Hochul to refine the One Fair Price Act (S.8623B/A.9349B) — a New York State law — before signing it. We’ve covered this one before. The coalition is worried about a few things: (i) the all-in pricing mandate doesn’t square easily with how OTAs actually display rates, taxes, and fees when they’re pulling from multiple jurisdictions; (ii) it could accidentally catch legitimate practices like loyalty discounts, AAA rates, and corporate negotiated rates; and (iii) nobody’s quite sure how platforms that aggregate listings across state lines are supposed to comply. If you market to New York consumers, the final version of the Act will directly shape how you display rates and pricing.

Merchants Take the “Junk Fee” Fight to Their Payment Processors: Until now, junk fee litigation has been about what businesses charge consumers. Suddenly, merchants are going after the fees their own payment processors charge them. The same transparency expectations regulators have pushed on the consumer side are starting to creep into B2B relationships. A pending class action in North Carolina, brought by dentists against their payment processors over undisclosed fees, is one to watch — the theory translates easily to any high-volume processing relationship, including hospitality.

Until next time.

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Los Angeles TOT Changes Take Effect
August 13, 2026 via California Hotel & Lodging Association
Los Angeles voters approved Proposition TC in June, expanding the types of charges subject to the City’s Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) and updating collection and reporting requirements for hotels and OTAs.

Microsoft Heads Accused Of Lying To Investors On AI Strategy
August 12, 2026 via Law360
Microsoft leadership routinely touted the success of the company’s artificial intelligence products and its multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI even as the tech giant violated copyright laws to train its large language models and fell behind other AI developers, according to …

Tenant Says Colo. Law Forbids Apt. Management ‘Junk Fees’
August 12, 2026 via Law360
A Colorado woman pursuing claims against a national property management company told a federal judge that even though the company disclosed “junk fees” to tenants, the fees still violate Colorado law because they were disclosed recklessly through a “drip” method.

9th Circ. Blocks Hawaii Gun Rule Following High Court Ruling
August 11, 2026 via Law360
The Ninth Circuit has stopped Hawaii from enforcing portions of a gun law that banned firearms on private property without the property owner’s consent, after the U.S. Supreme Court held a gun rights group and three state residents were likely to succeed in their lawsuit challenging that component of the law.

Travel Tech Joins Coalition Urging Changes to New York’s One Fair Price Act
August 7, 2026 via Travel Tech Association
Travel Tech Association, the unified voice for the travel technology ecosystem, joined a coalition of businesses, trade associations, and industry organizations in urging New York Governor Kathy Hochul to refine the One Fair Price Act (S.8623B/A.9349B) before signing it into law.

Merchants Take the “Junk Fee” Fight to Their Payment Processors
August 5, 2026 via All About Advertising Law
Junk fee litigation has, until recently, been largely a consumer-facing story: diners, online shoppers, and eventgoers challenging the “service,” “processing,” and “convenience” fees that appear at checkout.

Good Sunday afternoon from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 14, 2026, is below. Google again garnered much of the industry’s attention this past week with its agentic AI announcement. Enjoy.

Additional Details Emerge Regarding Hilton’s Business Travel Re-Organization. In an interview with Skift at last week’s GBTA Conference in Chicago, Hilton’s senior vice president and global head of sales, Frank Passanante, offered additional details on Hilton’s ongoing B2B organizational changes, including its much publicized direct connection with Navan. A couple of takeaways . . .

• Hilton’s reorganizational efforts are focused on three distinct categories of customers – (1) unmanaged accounts served entirely through self-serve digital portals, (2) customers that use digital portals, but still want voice assistance with questions or other issues and (3) large accounts that still rely predominantly on person to person transactions.
• Enrollment in Hilton’s SME platform, Hilton for Business, has surpassed 400,000 businesses. Updates to the platform are ongoing.
• According to Passanante, Hilton’s much-publicized direct connection with Navan was designed to better offer/present corporate negotiated rates, which sometimes get lost on other (unnamed) platforms. Importantly (at least for purposes of minimizing potential liability with Hilton’s existing partners and their outdated and overly restrictive parity and non-discrimination provisions), Hilton has no plans to abandon its many other distribution channels as a result of the newly accounted direction connection.
• The reorganization has reduced headcount within Hilton’s sales organization. According to Passanante, the effort has actually increased the sales organization’s number of employees.

Google Confirms Testing of Agentic Hotel Bookings. Google announced earlier this month that it was conducting limited tests of a new agentic hotel booking tool for select users in the U.S. As noted in last week’s Update, Booking Holdings’ Glenn Fogel spoke of these tests in Booking Holdings’ latest earnings release call. What this new tool ultimately looks like (particularly with regard to completing a booking) remains to be seen. Google’s announced collaborators on the new tool include the two major OTAs and Marriott, Wyndham and IHG. Amadeus and Sabre have advised on infrastructure development. Google’s new tool raises a number of interesting questions . . . What does the introduction of a new booking tool mean for Google’s OTA intentions (which intentions it denied earlier this year)? Will these new bookable listings on Google’s AI Mode actually translate into conversions? How will the DMA and its self-preferencing limitations affect these new AI Mode bookable listings? More to come.

Have a great week everyone.

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Airbnb Partners with Tripadvisor to Scale Experiences
August 11, 2026 via Travel Weekly
Tripadvisor Group and Airbnb have partnered to bring a selection of Tripadvisor experiences to the Airbnb platform. Tours, activities and attractions will be available to book on Airbnb later this year.

Google Brings Agentic AI to Ask Maps Hotel Search
August 7, 2026 via Skift
Google Maps is bringing spatial context to AI hotel search. Add personal itinerary data, and this becomes more than another AI search update for hotels — even before booking arrives.

Google Confirms Agentic Hotel Booking Is Now in Testing
August 7, 2026 via Skift
Google has moved agentic hotel booking from promise to product test. But how much of the transaction — and customer relationship — it intends to control remains to be seen.

How Hilton Overhauled B2B Sales and Taught Reps to ‘Scrimmage’
August 7, 2026 via Skift
Hilton spent years reorganizing its B2B sales machine. The reason? Many corporate buyers no longer want to buy the way hotel sellers often want to sell.

Good Sunday evening from Seattle . . . Our longer than usual weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 7, 2026, is below. This week’s Update includes recent earnings releases from Airbnb, Expedia and Booking.com (including copies of the Expedia and Booking.com earnings call transcripts). We begin this week’s Update with news of the City of San Francisco’s action against certain well known (allegedly abusive) online travel sites. Enjoy.

San Francisco City Attorney Pursues Online Travel Platforms. While news that San Francisco City Attorney, David Chiu, was the public authority to finally bring claims against deceptive online travel platforms came as quite a surprise, neither the nature of the alleged acts nor the primary culprits (GuestReservations.com and BookOnline.com) were much of a surprise. So why now? David Chiu said it best in the City’s press release announcing the lawsuit:

“These companies mislead consumers into thinking they’re booking directly with a hotel, charge exorbitant rates, and impose inflexible cancellation policies. With inflation straining household budgets, these excessive markups only add to the burden. These scams hurt travelers as well as our local hotels, workers and businesses. We are asking the Court to shut these scams down and help us get people their money back.”

The alleged actions at issue include (i) deceptive URLs that include hotel names as part of the address, (ii) call center agents that fail to identify themselves as associated with a third party (and not the applicable hotel) and (iii) non-cancelable advance pay rates that are considerably higher (and less flexible) than rates available through hotels’ direct channels, which, according to the complaint, violate California’s Unfair Competition Law. The lawsuit also names Booking.com as a defendant, which was also somewhat of a surprise. According to the complaint, Booking.com supplies the co-defendant retailers with hotel inventory, is well aware of the retailers’ deceptive practices and continues to willingly profit from the ongoing deceptive bookings. The lawsuit seeks to end the deceptive and unlawful practices, obtain restitution for impacted California residents and recover civil penalties. Let’s hope this lawsuit is a sign of needed attention being paid to this long-standing issue by public authorities. If the City of San Francisco (or any other authority for that matter) needs a list of other potential defendants, I’m sure that just about any supplier in the industry can provide a detailed list. A complete copy of the City Attorney’s complaint is linked below.

Washington State Settles Claims Against Online Travel Platforms. The Washington State Attorney General announced this past week that it had settled with online retailers Bookonline.com (yes, here it is again) and Lexyl Technologies over claims that the retailers’ platforms (Bookonline.com, Hotelrates.com, Room77.com and HotelGuides.com) had deceptively added a “refund protection fee” to bookings made on the platforms. A pre-checked grey box at the end of the booking path indicated a traveler’s decision to purchase the “optional” service. According to the Attorney General, the platforms’ inclusion of the fee (and the ability to remove the fee) was not clear and conspicuous and as a result violated Washington’s Consumer Protection Act and the federal Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act. The majority of the $1.1 million settlement will be paid to Washington residents who paid the fee when booking on the platforms.

Highlights from Booking Holdings’ Quarterly Earnings Release. I’ll again leave the financial details of Booking Holdings’ latest earnings release to the analysts. Here are my key takeaways from the release, most of which are AI related (like most of questions during the Q&A portion of the earnings call):

• Google’s AI overview is putting pressure on organic search and Booking Holdings’ SEO efforts.
• Booking is being “discovered” on popular AI platforms but those discoveries are not leading to referrals (less than 1% of room nights are coming from LLMs – whether on a paid or unpaid basis – which is roughly the same percentage as the past several months).
• Booking Holdings’ organizational AI rollout is producing real cost savings, particularly in customer service where costs per booking have been reduced by a double digit percentage.
• Loyalty continues to play an increasingly important role at Booking.com as more than 30% of Booking.com’s active users are Level 2 or 3 Genius members and such members account for over 50% of room nights booked (both a YOY increase).
• Booking.com is one of Google’s initial partners in its launch of agentic booking (more on this next week).

Highlights from Expedia’s Quarterly Earnings Release. Here are my key takeaways from the second quarter’s release:

• As with prior earnings releases, much of the conversation around this year’s release was focused on B2B. B2B revenue grew 23% YOY (which is the 20th consecutive quarter of double digit growth and outpaced Expedia’s consumer business (8% growth YOY)).
• Today, Expedia’s B2B business predominantly provides hotels to its 75,000+ partners, but Expedia hopes to soon change that via Expedia’s planned “one stop B2B travel shop.” Expedia’s acquisitions of Tiqets and CarTrawler are part of that B2B expansion effort.
• With regard to search and specifically organic search/SEO, organic search traffic is “stable to slightly up.” AEO (answer engine optimization) is Expedia’s fastest growing channel.

Airbnb Experiencing Significant Growth in Hotels. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky’s second quarter shareholder letter highlighted the travel platform’s recent successes in growing its hotel business. According to the letter, Airbnb has added thousands of boutique hotels to the platform (in cities such as New York, Paris, London, etc.) and hotel night bookings are currently growing three times faster than Airbnb’s home business (though still only represent a single digit percentage of all nights booked).

Thirty Percent of Spotnana Revenue Comes from Leisure Travel. Did you think that Steve Singh’s Spotnana was for corporate and managed travel only? Think again.

Have a great week everyone.

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Airbnb Is Growing Faster Than Rivals as AI Speeds Up Product Releases
August 6, 2026 via Skift
As Brian Chesky tells it, AI seems to be really kicking in at Airbnb. Excluding the LLMs and hyper-scalers, he argues that Airbnb went from being a middle-of-the-pack AI company to “a leader in AI.”

How Gemini Plans Such Detailed Vacation Itineraries for You
August 6, 2026 via Google
Planning a trip? Gemini handles the details — juggling existing plans, personal preferences and more to craft custom travel itineraries.

Ask Maps Gets More Helpful with Food Ordering and More
August 6, 2026 via Google
From agentic food ordering to real time transit information, the latest Ask Maps improvements make it easier than ever to get more done.

Expedia B2B Is Mostly Hotels, But It Wants a One-Stop Shop
August 5, 2026 via Skift
Expedia Group’s B2B offering has been predominantly hotels. The online travel agency, which was founded more than 25 years ago, only recently began offering flights to B2B partners. Its strategy is to expand B2B into many more verticals.

Expedia Group Inc. Q2 2026 Earnings Call
August 5, 2026 via Expedia Group
We had a solid second quarter, delivering strong financial results while making tangible progress on our strategic priorities. We exceeded the high end of both our top and bottom-line expectations for the fifth quarter in a row, growing bookings 12%, revenue 14%, and adjusted EBITDA 23%.

Booking Holdings Inc. Q2 2026 Earnings Call
August 4, 2026 via Booking Holdings
I am pleased to report that our teams delivered another quarter of strong execution. We exceeded the high end of our guidance across all of our key financial metrics, while continuing to invest in the strategic priorities that we believe will drive long term value.

Steve Singh’s Business Travel Startup Spotnana Is Now 30% Consumer
August 4, 2026 via Skift
Spotnana is Steve Singh’s second act after building and flipping Concur. He’s expanding the business travel startup to cover leisure travel, too, after having raised additional funding.

Booking Holdings CEO: AI Overviews Are Squeezing SEO
August 4, 2026 via Skift
No travel business has found the silver bullet yet in how to show up prominently on a consistent basis within the major LLMs. As these platforms evolve, such an achievement becomes a moving target.

EU Requires Labels for All AI Formats
August 3, 2026 via Media Post
The European Commission’s new transparency rules for AI systems took effect on August 2, 2026, mandating clear disclosure when users interact with artificial intelligence (AI) or view artificially generated synthetic content for images, audio and video.

Expedia Acquired AI Trip-Planner Layla
July 31, 2026 via Skift
Is Layla substantially more advanced that the ever-increasing number of other AI trip-planners out in the wild?

Hotel Booking Cos. Ink $1.1M Deal to End Wash. AG’s Suit
July 31, 2026 via Law360
Hotel booking companies Lexyl Technologies LLC and Bookonline.com LLC agreed to pay nearly $1.1 million to resolve claims from Washington’s attorney general that the platforms deceptively added a “refund protection fee” to users’ reservations, according to a settlement announced Friday.

City Attorney Lawsuit Cracks Down on Hotel Booking Scam
July 29, 2026 via SF Gov
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit today against two hotel booking sites, GuestReservations.com and BookOnline.com, for imitating authentic hotels and scamming travelers into paying significantly higher rates. To view the complaint, click here.

Hi there — welcome back to the Regulatory Check-In!

This week’s roundup covers developments across consumer protection enforcement, credit card surcharges in Australia, surveillance pricing, more on DEI contracting, and key government contracting policies to watch in the second half of 2026.

Hotel Booking Platforms Pay $1.1M Over Deceptive “Refund Protection” Fees: Two hotel booking companies, Lexyl Technologies LLC and Bookonline.com LLC, agreed to pay nearly $1.1 million to resolve claims from Washington State’s attorney general that they deceptively added a “refund protection fee” to users’ reservations. If you operate or partner with online booking platforms, this is a reminder that state AGs are actively policing add-on fees, especially those pre-selected/pre-check marked or bundled into checkout flows without clear, affirmative consumer consent. Review your platform partnerships and any ancillary fee structures now.

Australia’s Card Payment Reform: Australia is banning credit card surcharges effective October 1, 2026. Many banks are responding by gutting the credit card perks that credit card surcharge revenue funded, including free travel insurance. An estimated 39% of Australian travelers rely on their credit card for travel insurance and don’t take out separate policies. For travel companies operating in the Australian market, the takeaways are: (i) expect more guests arriving without coverage, and (ii) if you currently surcharge guests paying by credit card, that must stop by October 1.

New Jersey Bans Surveillance Pricing for Groceries: New Jersey’s governor signed legislation on July 23 making it illegal to use pricing strategies that determine the cost of groceries and food products based on consumers’ personal habits including biometric, genetic, and protected class information. The concern here is that retailers could use data like facial recognition (to infer demographics, mood, or shopping frequency), fingerprint-linked loyalty profiles, or genetic data (potentially gleaned from third-party health or DNA services) to dynamically adjust what individual consumers are charged. New Jersey’s law draws a hard line: none of these data points can be used to set individualized grocery prices. This is part of the same surveillance-pricing wave we’ve been tracking (New York’s One Fair Price Act, AHLA’s carve-out wins for hotel discount programs). While the New Jersey law is food-focused, the broader trend of banning data-driven individualized pricing continues to build momentum state by state. Hospitality operators should continue to watch for similar restrictions expanding into lodging and travel.

States Challenge DEI Executive Order’s Contractor Requirements: Nineteen states and the District of Columbia are urging a Maryland federal judge to vacate federal agencies’ implementation of President Trump’s executive order requiring government contractors to certify they won’t engage in “racially discriminatory” DEI activities. This is the latest escalation in the sequence we’ve been tracking since EO 14173 revoked the longstanding affirmative action framework in January 2025 — with subsequent orders adding contract-specific language, and the EEOC rescinding its decades-old affirmative action guidance. The compliance landscape remains actively contested and confusing. Hospitality companies should be reviewing their DEI certification language as well as monitoring their DEI training or program for compliance.

Government Contracting Policies to Watch in 2026: On May 7, Department of Defense issued a proposed rule that would, for the first time, extend foreign ownership, control, or influence (FOCI) disclosure and mitigation requirements to unclassified defense contracts and subcontracts exceeding $5 million — at any tier. Until now, FOCI obligations have been limited to contractors holding facility security clearances for classified work. The proposed rule would require covered contractors and subcontractors to disclose beneficial ownership and foreign interest information to maintain “eligible” status before contract award and throughout performance. For hotel companies with foreign parent entities, significant foreign investment, or foreign beneficial owners that hold or bid on DOD lodging contracts at that $5M threshold, this means new pre-award vetting, ongoing reporting obligations, and potential mitigation measures that could delay awards or require structural changes.

Until next time.

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Hotel Booking Cos. Ink $1.1M Deal To End Wash. AG’s Suit
August 1, 2026 via Law360
Hotel booking companies Lexyl Technologies LLC and Bookonline.com LLC agreed to pay nearly $1.1 million to resolve claims from Washington’s attorney general that the platforms deceptively added a “refund protection fee” to users’ reservations, according to a settlement announced Friday.

Card Payment Reform Puts Travel Insurance Distribution Under Pressure
July 27, 2026 via Insurance Business Magazine
A structural shift in Australia’s card payments system is set to disrupt one of the travel insurance sector’s most significant distribution channels, with regulatory changes taking effect October 1, 2026, creating conditions that could …

Sherrill Signs NJ Surveillance Pricing Ban
July 23, 2026 via New Jersey Biz Daily
As part of a law signed July 23 by Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the state made it illegal to use any pricing strategy that determines the cost of groceries and other food products based on consumers’ personal habits, including biometric, genetic and protected class information.

States Seek Win Over Trump Admin In DEI Contracts Dispute
July 22, 2026 via Law360
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia are urging a Maryland federal judge to vacate federal agencies’ implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring government contractors to agree that they won’t engage in “racially discriminatory” diversity, equity and inclusion activities.

Gov’t Contracting Policies To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2026
July 22, 2026 via Law360
The Trump administration’s final rule expanding foreign ownership requirements to more than 37,000 defense contractors and subcontractors and the Pentagon’s review of the second phase of cybersecurity requirements headline policy initiatives that …

Good Sunday afternoon from Seattle . . . Our weekly Update for the week ending Friday, July 31, 2026, is below. Anti-trust rulings in both China and the U.S. garnered much of the attention last week together with continued reactions from the recently announced EU decision against Google. Finally, Google’s latest earnings release clearly demonstrates the importance of travel in its AI-enabled future. For all my Jerry Maguire fans, “Show me the bookings.” Enjoy.

Third Circuit Revives Algorithmic Pricing Claims. In a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals (which, according to my anti-trust colleagues, has a long history of being the friendliest federal appeals court for plaintiffs pursuing price fixing claims) last week revived anti-trust claims against Atlantic City casino-hotels and Cendyn Group over alleged price fixing occurring through the group’s use of Cendyn’s pricing tool, Rainmaker. A copy of the Court’s decision is linked below. According to plaintiffs, competing casino-hotels provided Cendyn non-public pricing and occupancy data, which was then used by Cendyn’s AI-powered pricing system to generate pricing recommendations. In its decision, the Court concluded that collusion among competitors no longer requires handshakes (or their traditional equivalents) and can instead be established through competitors’ use of AI. The Court’s detailed discussion of anti-trust law and its application in a modern AI world echoes comments made recently by Justice Department officials. Interestingly, the case against Atlantic City casino-hotels mirrors litigation brought against Las Vegas casino-hotels over their use of the same Cendyn product, but in that case, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the case. Whether this split between Circuits leads the casino-hotel operators to seek Supreme Court review (and definitive direction for anyone relying on these AI-enabled tools) remains to be seen.

Google Fall Out Continues. It seems that I may not be the only person who believes that the EU’s recently announced decision against Google (and Google’s ultimate reaction to the decision) may actually be harmful to hoteliers (and a boon for competing OTAs).

China’s Trip.com Hit with Anti-Trust Penalty. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announced this past week its much anticipated penalty against China-based travel platform Trip.com. The $765 million penalty includes confiscation of illegal gains as well as a fine. An additional $18 million in hotel deposits withheld from hoteliers were also ordered returned. According to SAMR, Trip.com had abused its dominant market position in domestic hotel bookings through its use of traffic allocation tools, platform rules and technical measures to strike exclusive deals with hoteliers that required, among other things, their lowest prices. SAMR also found that Trip.com used online tools and manual intervention to unilaterally lower hoteliers’ prices whenever lower prices were found elsewhere. The penalty is the culmination of a 6-month investigation into the platform’s practices, the results of which Trip.com seems prepared to accept. How this penalty ultimately affects Trip.com and its practices on a global basis, if at all, remains to be seen.

Have a great week everyone.

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US Third Circuit Charts Antitrust Path for AI Pricing Algorithms
July 31, 2026 via MLex
A US appellate court’s revival of an algorithmic price-fixing lawsuit against Atlantic City casino-hotels and Cendyn Group offers one of the most detailed judicial discussions yet of how existing federal antitrust law may apply in the era of artificial intelligence.

Booking Faces Expanded Class Action in Netherlands (Update*)
July 30, 2026 via MLex
Reservation platform Booking has seen a lawsuit over contested pricing clauses expand, with almost 7,700 hotels joining an existing lawsuit in The Netherlands. Hoteliers are suing Booking for damages due to contracts they believe restrict their pricing freedom.

Google Names IHG As Hotel Partner for Paid Offers in AI-Powered Trip Planning
July 29, 2026 via Hotel News Resource
The hotel group is set to surface special rates through Google’s Direct Offers program as the search giant expands advertising within AI-generated answers.

Atlantic City Hotel Operators Must Face US Antitrust Case, Appeals Court Rules
July 29, 2026 via MLex
Atlantic City hotel operators MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and others must face a US antitrust case accusing them of using algorithms provided by Cendyn to raise and fix prices for rooms, according to a federal appeals court.

Google Is Leaning on Travel to Sell Its AI Ad Story
July 28, 2026 via Skift
Retail and finance drove Google’s search ad revenue this quarter. But Google chose travel — IHG for its newest ad format, Booking Holdings for cloud and AI-powered transactions — to show investors where its AI business lines are converging.

Amazon’s Alexa+ Is Trying to Sell Trips Inside a Chat. Priceline Is an Early Test
July 27, 2026 via Skift
Amazon is betting that stored payment credentials, new MCP support and 180 million Prime members can solve the problem that stopped OpenAI cold: getting travelers to complete a purchase inside an AI conversation.

China’s $770 Million Crackdown on Trip.com Is Really About Platform Power
July 27, 2026 via Skift
China’s latest antitrust ruling puts new scrutiny on how online travel platforms use exclusivity, pricing, and traffic allocation to maintain their edge.

Everyone in Travel Wants a Fair Ranking…Until They Own One
July 26, 2026 via Skift
Travel search is auctions stacked on auctions: everyone demands fairness from the layer above while selling position to the layer below.

China Hits Trip.com with US$765 Million Antitrust Penalty After 6-Month Investigation
July 25, 2026 via South China Morning Post
China’s market regulator has imposed a 5.2 billion yuan (US$765 million) penalty on Trip.com Group, the country’s largest online travel services provider, for “monopolistic conduct”.

Europe Fined Google for Favoring Its Hotel Search. Hotels May Not Be the Winners
July 24, 2026 via Hotel News Resource
The EU’s effort to help Google’s search rivals could leave independent hotels more dependent on the booking platforms between them and their guests.

Good Sunday afternoon from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, July 24, 2026, is below. Everything Google dominated the industry’s headlines this past week and hoteliers (particularly those with a significant presence in the EU, UK, Australia and perhaps beyond) need to take notice. I explain why below. Enjoy.

EU Commission Fines Alphabet (Google). For some time now, we’ve waited to hear Google’s fate regarding its alleged self-preferencing in traditional search, which according to the EU Commission, violated the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). For months, Google and some of the largest travel industry members have engaged in discussions regarding proposed changes to Google’s search results, discussions that failed to satisfy anyone, including most notably the EU Commission. Perhaps growing impatient, the EU Commission on Thursday fined Alphabet (Google’s parent) approximately $525 million for alleged self-preferencing of its own services (including travel industry services) in search results (together with another approximately $500 million for app store practices). A copy of the EU Commission’s press release explaining the decision and fine is linked below. Those most heralding the decision include members of EU Travel Tech – Kayak (Booking Holdings), Trivago (Expedia) and TripAdvisor. Google now has 60 days to comply (Google is apparently engaged in further tests now) or face periodic penalties of 5% of its worldwide revenue. Google can also appeal the decision and fine in court.

So why does this matter?

• EU Regulators Won’t Be Bullied by U.S. Administration. Recall the many stories we’ve featured over the past year detailing threats made by members of the Trump administration and/or U.S. congressman against the EU regarding its allegedly overbearing regulation of U.S. technology companies. Clearly, those threats proved ineffective and in a week where many Europeans saw the unexplained reinstatement of trade tariffs, what do EU regulators really have to lose?
• Effects of the Decision Will Be Felt Beyond the EU. There is every reason to believe that the EU’s view and handling of this issue will be shared by regulators outside the EU, including in the UK, Australia and New Zealand and perhaps beyond. Practically, this means that whatever solution is ultimately reached between Google and the EU Commission is likely to affect hoteliers (and other travel industry suppliers) and aggregators beyond just the EU.
• The EU Commission’s Views Extend Beyond Traditional Search. In its press release, the EU Commission noted that in evaluating Google’s latest proposals, it intends to monitor how Google’s proposals will be applied to Google’s AI products – AI Overviews and AI Mode.
• Aggregators, Not Hoteliers, Stand to Benefit Most from This Decision. Yes, that’s right. To date, discussions with, and now the decision by, the EU Commission suggests that its efforts against Google’s self-preferencing of its hotel products (i.e., aggregated hotel listings) will favor competing aggregators (Expedia, Booking.com, etc.), not suppliers themselves. If the EU Commission is most concerned with ensuring equal treatment among Google competitors, at least those most similar to Google, it is aggregators and not suppliers that will receive the most benefit from mandated changes to search. Applying this approach to popular AI platforms (AI Overviews and AI Mode) only accentuates the possible risk to hoteliers resulting from the EU Commission’s ongoing efforts. Hoteliers, pay attention.

A Brief History of Hotel Taxes. Ever curious about the origination of hotel taxes and how those taxes are used (which has increasingly become a point of contention at state and local levels)? Rafat’s piece from Skift provides a really helpful overview. Thank you

Have a great week everyone.

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EU Claims Google Buries Travel Rivals in Search as Part of $525 Million Fine
July 23, 2026 via Skift
Brussels has spent a decade litigating who sits atop the results page. This fine won’t settle it. Expect the fight to drag on.

Google Fined €890M by European Regulator in DMA Breaches
July 23, 2026 via PhocusWire
The European Commission has fined Google €460 million for not complying with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by preferencing its own services in search.

EU Travel Companies Urge More Google Concessions on Self-Preferencing
July 23, 2026 via MLex
A trade group of online travel companies has demanded Google come forward swiftly with more proposals to end self-preferencing in how it displays search results. Welcoming an EU fine imposed on Google under the Digital Markets Act, EU Travel Tech said …

Commission Fines Google €890 Million for Breaches of the Digital Markets Act
July 22, 2026 via European Commission
Today, the European Commission took two decisions finding non-compliance by Google with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for self-preferencing its own services on Google Search, and for putting in place restrictions on businesses to direct consumers to alternative, often cheaper, purchase channels on Google Play (steering).

Google Is Ending Third-Party Hotel Rates. Here’s What It Means for Your Hotel
July 22, 2026 via Hotel News Resource
Google will stop showing third-party hotel rates in its search results, requiring hotels and online travel agencies to adjust their digital distribution and metasearch advertising approaches to maintain visibility and direct bookings.

The Quiet Reinvention of the Hotel Tax
July 21, 2026 via Skift
The modern American hotel tax was built on one Las Vegas idea from 1955. The argument now is over who controls the money.

EU Digital ID Initiatives Gather Momentum, User Familiarity Lags
July 20, 2026 via PhocusWIre
The European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet has been gaining traction as members states across Europe implement the eIDAS 2.0 regulation. By the end of 2026, countries must provide an EUDI Wallet to citizens, enabling them to store and share credentials such as drivers’ licenses.

Hi there — welcome back to the Regulatory Check-In!

This week’s roundup covers a broad sweep of consumer-protection and disclosure developments hitting the hospitality and lodging space: New York City’s crackdown on junk fees and difficult-to-cancel subscriptions, a landmark anti-trafficking training mandate in Hawaii, wins for hotel discount programs against surveillance-pricing bans, Seattle’s push against hidden rental fees, a Washington law targeting single-use toiletries in lodging, and New York’s first-of-its-kind law regulating AI-generated advertising.

NYC Cracks Down on Junk Fees and Subscription Traps: Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced sweeping new consumer protection rules aimed at junk fees and “subscription traps,” designed to make it easier for New Yorkers to see the real price of what they’re buying and to cancel services they no longer want. This builds on NYC’s earlier hotel fee rulemaking, so hospitality operators marketing to New York consumers should expect continued, layered scrutiny of pricing disclosures and cancellation mechanics — not just at check-in, but across any recurring or subscription-style offerings (loyalty programs, membership perks, etc.).

Hawaii Mandates Anti-Human Trafficking Training for Hotels: Following months of advocacy by AHLA and its partners, Governor Josh Green signed legislation establishing a statewide anti-human trafficking awareness and prevention program for Hawaii’s hotel and lodging industry. If you operate properties in Hawaii, now is the time to review staff training programs and ensure they will satisfy the new statewide framework once implementing details are released.

Hotel Discount Programs Get a Reprieve from Surveillance-Pricing Bans: AHLA reports that over the past six months, more than 24 states have considered legislation barring businesses from using individual consumer data to set prices. In some of these states, AHLA secured key carve-outs protecting legitimate hotel discount programs (AAA, AARP, loyalty, corporate rates, etc.) from being swept into these bans. If your brand relies on data-informed discount tiers, this is a meaningful win, but the underlying surveillance-pricing trend (as flagged in past editions with New York’s One Fair Price Act) is still worth tracking state by state.

Seattle Targets Hidden Fees for Renters: Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has proposed legislation to eliminate junk and hidden fees for renters, aimed at greater price transparency. While framed around residential rentals, this is part of the same municipal fee-transparency wave we’ve been tracking in the hotel and short-term lodging context. I anticipate Seattle to look next at hospitality-adjacent fee practices next.

Washington Restricts Mini Toiletries in Lodging: A new Washington law targets single-use plastics in lodging establishments, restricting small-format toiletries to cut down on unnecessary packaging waste. This makes Washington the fourth state (including California, New York, and Illinois) to enact such restrictions. Properties in Washington should review amenity sourcing and packaging now, particularly if your brand standards currently require individually packaged, single-use toiletries.

New York Regulates AI-Generated Commercials: New York has enacted a first-of-its-kind law regulating advertisements that feature an AI-generated image or video of a person. If your marketing team uses AI-generated talent, spokespeople, or likenesses in ads targeting New York consumers, this law should now be part of your creative and legal review checklist (and it’s a part of the state-by-state AI patchwork we flagged in the last edition).

Until next time.

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Mayor Mamdani Announces Landmark “Click-to-Cancel” Consumer Protection Rules
July 10, 2026 via NYC
Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine announced sweeping new consumer protections that will crack down on junk fees and subscription traps, making it easier for New Yorkers to know the real price of what they are buying and to stop paying for the services they no longer want.

Hawaii Enacts Statewide Anti-Human Trafficking Training Law
July 9, 2026 via AHLA
Following months of advocacy led by AHLA and our partners in Hawaii, Governor Josh Green signed landmark anti-human trafficking legislation into law, establishing a statewide awareness and prevention program for Hawaii’s hotel and lodging industry.

AHLA Secures Key Wins Protecting Hotel Discount Programs 
July 9, 2026 via AHLA
Over the last 6 months, over 24 states have considered legislation that would prohibit businesses from using individual consumer data to set prices.

Seattle Looking to Eliminate Hidden and Junk Fees for Renters
July 8, 2026 via KIRO 7
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has proposed legislation aimed at eliminating junk and hidden fees for renters in the city. The initiative seeks to provide greater transparency and financial relief to the city’s renters.

Mini Toiletries in Lodgings Law
July 8, 2026 via State of Washington
A law that focuses on single-use plastics in lodging establishments will reduce unnecessary packaging in Washington.

New York Makes History with First-of-its-Kind Law Regulating AI-Powered Commercials
July 2, 2026 via 930 WFMD
A new, first-of-its-kind law has taken effect in New York, effectively targeting advertisements that feature an image or video of a person generated using artificial intelligence.

Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, July 17, 2026, is below. It was another relatively quiet week in the online travel world with the only major news coming out of Booking Holdings over its anticipated consolidation of B2B programs. Enjoy.

Conversions (Not Followers) Matter Most. Hoteliers are getting smarter, at least when it comes to getting the most out of their influencers on social media. An examination of hoteliers’ current expenditures in influencer marketing reveals that quality (conversion), not quantity (followers), matters most. Influencers with less than 20,000 followers now receive over half of hoteliers’ total spend (as compared to less than 20% of such investments in 2021). So why the shift? New “affiliate” marketing programs allow hoteliers to better measure their ROI by counting the clicks and bookings that actually result from a specific post. Armed with these new tools, hoteliers are now able to identify the influencers who actually produce bookings. Frequently, these high-conversion influencers are those with a smaller, but more active, follower base.

Don’t Overact over Recent Fee Disclosure Enforcement Efforts. This past week we featured a story detailing the FTC’s recent enforcement efforts against Hopper. Much continues to be written about the FTC’s efforts, including a story in this week’s Update contrasting the FTC’s approach against Hopper versus the Department of Transportation’s recent curtailing of airline disclosure requirements. From my perspective, the two actions are easily reconcilable. Hopper’s questionable practices around service fees and charges are well documented (anyone remember a certain much-publicized split between Hopper and a certain large Seattle-based OTA over the OTA’s concerns regarding such practices?). From my view, the FTC’s action against Hopper was an easy decision for the FTC and should not be seen as an early indicator of increased enforcement activity against travel platforms generally (this is particularly true given the Trump administration’s general view of regulations as evidenced by the DOT’s recently announced decision).

Booking Holdings Consolidates B2B Efforts. We’ve known for a while that Booking Holdings planned to consolidate its B2B efforts among its travel platforms – Agoda, Priceline and Booking.com. We now know a little more about the new consolidated effort, which will be led by Agoda CEO, Omri Morgenshtern. Given the success of Expedia’s B2B program (as frequently heralded in Expedia’s recent earnings release calls), it is no surprise that Booking Holdings is now seeking to formalize its efforts across its portfolio. If Booking Holdings is able to provide the reach of its closest competitor while at the same time providing the transparency that its competitor won’t (all at competitive pricing, of course), Booking Holdings should have a real opportunity.

Have a great week everyone.

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AI Risk to OTAs is Margin Squeeze, Not Disintermediation
July 17, 2026 via PhocusWire
Much of the recent debate around artificial intelligence (AI) in travel has been about how far online travel players might be disintermediated. Consumer research, alongside an audit of the AI platforms and initiatives from the online travel agencies, reveals the greater impact could be on their margins.

Travel’s Creator Economy Doesn’t Need a Million Followers. It Needs Proof It Converts
July 16, 2026 via Skift
Brands spent years building creator partnerships around follower counts. Now, they’re increasingly after deals they know drive real sales.

The U.S. Government’s Split Signals on Fee Disclosure for Travel Sellers
July 15, 2026 via PhocusWire
Travel checkout is a regulated surface. But regulations are not static, and they aren’t necessarily consistent across regulating bodies.

Booking Holdings Is Forming a New B2B Unit, Agoda CEO Is Overseeing it
July 10, 2026 via Skift
Booking Holdings has an uphill climb to rival Expedia’s scale in B2B, but the formation of a consolidated business unit could help Booking become a more formidable competitor.