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1 week ago | 
hospitalitynet.org | Max Starkov
Hospitality is on the edge of its next great transformation, and this time it is not mobile driving the change. It is AI. Just look at the numbers. In April 2025, ChatGPT recorded over five billion visits, while traffic to Google declined. This shift marks more than a trend. It signals a complete rethinking of how travel is researched, planned, and booked. And at the center of it all is Agentic AI, the technology that may soon redefine the entire guest journey, from inspiration to reservation.
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1 week ago | 
4hoteliers.com | Max Starkov
Some industry executives and revenue managers applauded this ruling and called it “a bold move that was overdue.” Their arguments were that hotels had been “squeezed for years” and that “commissions had not evolved with the market,” etc.
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1 week ago | 
hospitalitynet.org | Max Starkov
This article is published as part of a viewpoint in the World Panel:The Great Debate — All-in-One vs Best-of-Breed: What Should Hotel Tech Vendors Focus On? Information Technology — Viewpoint by Ira VoukHospitality Tech Vendors: one-stop-shop or best-of-breed plug-in? From a technology perspective, the hospitality industry will continue to have a PMS-centric hotel tech stack approach.
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2 weeks ago | 
hospitalitynet.org | Max Starkov |Timothy R. Wiersma |Vassilis Syropoulos |Alessandro Crotti
Recently, the Switzerland's price watchdog (Der Preisüberwacher / Le surveillant des prix) ruled that Booking.com's hotel commissions were "abusively high" and ordered the OTA to lower them by 25% for Swiss hotels. Some industry executives and revenue managers applauded this ruling and called it "a bold move that was overdue." Their arguments are that hotels have been squeezed for years, commissions haven't evolved with the market, etc.
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3 weeks ago | 
hospitalitynet.org | Max Starkov
A recent polling “Would you drop your price or run a last minute OTA promo?” and related discussion on LinkedIn prompted my comments on this age-old dilemma in hospitality. The question is: Is it a good revenue management practice to offer last-minute discounts in your publicly available distribution channels like hotel website, OTAs, GDS, social media, digital marketing, etc.? Last-minute discounting in hospitality are not a new phenomenon.
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3 weeks ago | 
4hoteliers.com | Max Starkov
This is in tune with an avalanche of recent headlines arguing that traditional search is dead due to the rise of AI Search via the generative AI platforms ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc.
Some experts herald the end of Google's monopoly on search and claim that traditional search marketing is becoming obsolete.
Let’s not get carried away. The rumors about the inevitable end of the “traditional” search engines like Google at the hands of AI Search are highly exaggerated.
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3 weeks ago | 
hospitalitynet.org | Max Starkov
A recent post on LinkedIn declared the end of the search engines as we know them. the list even declared “R.I.P. Search.” This is in tune with an avalanche of recent headlines arguing that traditional search is dead due to the rise of AI Search via the generative AI platforms ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc. Some experts herald the end of Google's monopoly on search and claim that traditional search marketing is becoming obsolete. Let’s not get carried away.
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1 month ago | 
hospitalitynet.org | Max Starkov
Last year, Booking.com delivered 400.4 million nights booked at short-term rentals (STRs), which was 80% of Airbnb’s total nights. At the same time, Booking.com generates almost twice as many nights per listing on its platform as Airbnb. Growth rates for a number of STR listings on the Booking.com platform were 17% vs only 4% for Airbnb. Is Booking.com overtaking the leadership of Airbnb in the STR sector?
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2 months ago | 
hospitalitynet.org | Max Starkov |Ira Vouk |Mark Fancourt |Alessandro Crotti
A recent heated discussion on LinkedIn was a clash between two schools of thought regarding direct online distribution in hospitality. One school of thought representatives claim that they "really don't understand the whole thing about direct booking and loyalty… " They further claim that travelers are loyal to and trust OTA platforms like Booking..com, Expedia, Airbnb, etc.
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2 months ago | 
4hoteliers.com | Max Starkov
There have been a lot of headlines that traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is dead due to the rise of AI Search via the generative AI platforms ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc.
Some experts herald the end of Google's monopoly on search and claim that traditional SEO practices are obsolete.
