Good Monday afternoon from Seattle . . . For those of you celebrating and/or who have served, happy Memorial Day. Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, May 22, 2026, is below. Expedia Group and Google garnered much of the attention this past week as Expedia held its annual Explore event and Google held its annual I/O Developer Conference where advancements in online travel took center stage. Enjoy.
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- Expedia Explore 26 Highlights. Expedia’s annual partner event this past week was the source of several announcements by the OTA behemoth.
- Intelligent Experience Platform. Among its many announcements, Expedia announced the launch of an AI toolkit, which among other things, includes a soon to be available MCP server to improve Expedia’s B2B partners’ access and use of Expedia’s content. With the MCP server offering, Expedia can power partners’ own AI travel experiences.
- New Meta Partnership. Not to be outdone by TikTok’s recently announced travel partnerships for its TikTok GO platform, Meta (and Expedia) announced a new partnership this past week through which users of Meta’s social media platforms can begin planning a travel itinerary or ask travel specific questions while using the popular platforms.
- Booking Holdings to Soon to Consolidate Ad Sales Across Its Three OTA Platforms. For years now, Booking.com, Agoda and Priceline have rejected clients’ efforts to consolidate commercial terms, arguing that the three platforms are entirely separate and distinct. That may no longer be true as Booking Holdings announced last week the launch of BKNG Ads, a platform for customers to work with a single ad team to purchase and place advertising across all three platforms. Suppliers, it may soon be time to reconsider your advertising commitments to any one of the three platforms and explore how this latest announcement might affect your annual marketing commitment.
- Hotels Are Next Industry Vertical for Google UCP. In a series of announcements (including blog posts) this past week, Google officially acknowledged that its agentic commercial infrastructure (UCP) would soon be available to those seeking (via agents) to book travel. Hints at the move were made public weeks ago, but this past week the move became official. Agent Payments Protocol, Google’s payment layer, is expected to be part of the same rollout. Timing for the expansion wasn’t announced. Partners featured in the announcements include Expedia Group, Booking.com, Wyndham, Marriott, Choice and IHG.
- Expedia Explore 26 Highlights. Expedia’s annual partner event this past week was the source of several announcements by the OTA behemoth.
Have a great week everyone.