Multi-component trip bookings rise as connected trip push gains traction
Booking Holdings reported a 20% increase in travellers booking multiple trip components, as its “connected trip” strategy continues to gain traction. In 2025, multi-vertical transactions grew in the high-20% range and represented a low double-digit share of total transactions on Booking.com. Flights were a key driver, with the vertical growing 37% year over year to $16.8 billion in gross bookings, helping both acquire new customers and encourage existing users to plan more of their trips on the platform. The company is also investing in core capabilities such as payments, customer service and AI to support these bundled bookings, alongside its ongoing partnership with Etraveli, whose planned acquisition by Booking Holdings was blocked by the European Commission in 2023 and remained under appeal as of July 2025.
Geographically, Asia and the U.S. each recorded low double-digit growth in 2025, while Europe and the rest of the world grew in the high single digits, supported by targeted investments, B2B momentum and longer booking windows. Q4 2025 revenue rose 16% year over year to $6.3 billion. For full-year 2025, revenue increased 13% to $26.9 billion, gross bookings rose 12% to $186.1 billion and room nights climbed 8% to 1.2 billion. The company also highlighted early gains from generative AI integration, including improved conversion, lower cancellation rates and reduced customer service costs, and plans to expand collaborations with partners such as OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
MakeMyTrip and Ixigo expand AI capabilities through OpenAI collaborations
India-based OTAs MakeMyTrip and Ixigo have announced new collaborations with OpenAI to strengthen AI integration across their platforms. Ixigo is expanding its partnership by leveraging OpenAI’s enterprise APIs, AI tools and coding models to deploy agentic AI, AI-assisted workflows, contextual assistants and ongoing research across its core platform and subsidiaries ConfirmTkt and AbhiBus, targeting over half a billion travel consumers. Meanwhile, MakeMyTrip is using OpenAI’s APIs to power new trip-planning features in its app, particularly within its generative AI assistant Myra, aiming to help users move from inspiration to booking through conversational planning anchored in proprietary travel data; the company also noted that early feedback on Myra has been “very encouraging,” while OpenAI said the collaboration is intended to make trip planning more conversational and improve consumer engagement.
Hotel groups miss out 20% of guests due to data silos
Ireckonu reports that hotel groups may be missing up to 20% of guest engagement opportunities due to siloed data across operational areas such as restaurants, spas, golf facilities and other outlets. Its analysis found that 1 in 5 guest profiles does not include a room reservation, making those guests invisible in hotel PMS systems and limiting re-engagement, loyalty and revenue potential. Only about half of profiles contain both a room stay and outlet interaction, while 28% reflect room-only activity and up to 22% belong to venue-only guests who never appear in the PMS. As a result, hotels relying mainly on room-stay data risk assigning incomplete loyalty and RFM scores, misclassifying frequent venue users as first-time guests and struggling to measure marketing performance tied to non-room revenue.
The findings are based on hotel groups using Ireckonu’s Venues feature, which integrates auxiliary outlet data into a centralized middleware and CDP to create a unified “Golden Guest Profile” with a full 360-degree view of guest behavior. The company argues that unifying venue and booking data also allows hotels to better balance OTA-driven bookings with direct relationships, strengthen loyalty beyond traditional points programs and unlock additional revenue streams through more tailored engagement across the guest journey.
Branding gaps risk weaker direct bookings for tour operators
As OTAs continue to gain share of online bookings and AI reshapes how travellers search, branding is becoming more critical rather than less for tour and activity operators, according to Brian Nicholson of Blend Travel Marketing. He argues that branding goes beyond logos and visuals to encompass a company’s identity, differentiation and the impression it creates across customer touchpoints, including word of mouth and digital channels. In an AI-driven discovery environment where both travellers and AI agents interpret messaging, clear and specific brand positioning helps operators stand out in search, OTA listings and conversational trip planning, while generic messaging risks being filtered out or overlooked.
Nicholson highlights three common marketing mistakes: trying to appeal to everyone, failing to monitor competitors and misallocating marketing spend. Broad, generic targeting leads to commoditization and weak resonance with both customers and AI-powered recommendation systems, while a clearly defined audience improves conversion and relevance. He also notes many operators lack awareness of competitors’ messaging and pricing, despite AI tools making competitive tracking easier. Finally, overreliance on paid ads at the expense of brand investment—such as websites, social media and email—can drive short-term bookings but builds little long-term equity, whereas a balanced spend that includes brand development strengthens differentiation, loyalty and sustained direct bookings.
Agoda launches Artotel flagship store to capture intra-Asia travel demand
Agoda has launched a dedicated flagship store for Artotel Group to boost brand visibility and global marketing reach while helping travellers discover the group’s Indonesia-based properties in a single curated hub. The initiative, part of Agoda’s Flagship Store program, aligns with rising intra-Asia travel momentum as Asia remains the fastest-growing engine of global travel and Indonesia sees strong domestic and international demand. Agoda’s 2026 Travel Outlook shows Malaysia, Singapore and Australia as top inbound markets for Indonesia, while 57% of Indonesians plan to travel more domestically; search data also highlights Bali, Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Malang and Surabaya as top destinations, with fastest year-on-year growth in Puncak (+156%), Yogyakarta (+117%) and Semarang (+110%). The partnership aims to leverage Agoda’s global reach, data insights and localization tools, from payments to regional marketing, to help Artotel engage diverse Asian travellers, strengthen merchandising across the customer journey and capture expanding demand in both primary and secondary destinations.
