Happy Sunday afternoon from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, March 7, 2025, is below. The past week was relatively quiet one, with only minor announcements by a few of the largest industry players – Booking.com and Expedia (and Chase Travel?). I hope you enjoy.
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- Travel Technology Association Launches Podcast. Our readers know that I often feature stories from the Travel Technology Association’s weekly newsletter – Passport Newsletter. Last week, the Association announced that it was launching a weekly Podcast featuring Association President, Laura Chadwick, interviewing industry leaders on various policy issues. The first episode is out and available to download now.
- Booking.com Updates State of AI Adoption. Speaking at ITB Berlin last week, Booking.com’s, SVP of Accommodations, Matthias Schmid, provided an update on the platform’s growing use of artificial intelligence. Uses identified by Schmid include identifying and sourcing third-party content (including user reviews) to improve property descriptions, powering Booking.com’s generative trip planner and ongoing experimentation with OpenAI and its agentic AI platform (Operator).
- Banks and Credit Card Companies Continue Their Steady March into Travel. It’s been a few weeks since we last featured a story on a major bank’s and/or credit card company’s latest travel industry success. Don’t let our silence fool you. As evidenced by Skift’s latest research report, the banks and credit card companies are continuing their meteoric rise. For example, Skift predicts that in 2024, Chase Travel became the third largest B2C online travel booking platform (based on gross booking volumes), behind only Expedia and Booking.com.
Have a great week everyone.