Google AI Mode adds direct hotel booking, flight price tracking
Google has fully launched agentic hotel booking in Search’s AI Mode in the U.S. (following a recent pilot), with inventory partners including Expedia, Booking.com, Hilton, Hotels.com, Choice Hotels, IHG, Priceline, Marriott, Wyndham and Trip.com; users can search in natural language, compare options with reviews, and book directly via Google Pay, though the hotel or OTA remains merchant of record and handles customer service, and results are organic with no ads or paid ranking (for now).
Alongside this, AI Mode now offers Google Flights-style price tracking with in-chat alerts across roughly 300 partner airlines and travel sites in 180 countries/territories (excluding the EU), letting users build itineraries before purchasing on a partner’s site, and a points/miles pricing feature (available globally) covering partners like Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines, American Airlines, Hilton, Choice Hotels and Wyndham, with Accor, Hyatt, LATAM, Lufthansa Group and Flying Blue coming soon. Actual flight booking within AI Mode is not yet available, with Google saying it’s still exploring that feature for the future.
Agoda named official travel partner for Eurovision Asia
Agoda has been named Official Travel Partner of the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest Asia, organized by Voxovation (which holds the exclusive EBU license to expand Eurovision into new markets), with local artists competing via National Finals or national selection before the Grand Final airs live in Bangkok, Thailand on 14 November 2026; Agoda’s involvement includes on-air host mentions, “presented by Agoda” editorial content, and promotional segments across participating markets’ broadcasts, plus fan-facing activations such as an influencer social media campaign and an immersive hospitality venue at the Grand Final, alongside Eurovision-themed travel deals to be announced.
CEO Omri Morgenshtern framed the partnership as connecting music and travel by making it easier for fans to attend the Bangkok event in person.
Extreme heat begins denting traveller perceptions of Mediterranean summers, France hit hardest
A new Perception of Climate Index (PCI) analysis from The Data Appeal Company/Almaviva Group, tracking Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece from 2023 to summer 2026, finds that while heat typically causes only short-term perception dips that rebound once temperatures normalize, repeated and unusually early 2026 heatwaves (with temperatures topping 40°C) are starting to erode broader climate appeal in some markets; France shows the clearest warning sign with a May–July 2026 PCI of just 77.2, far below Portugal (93.5), Italy (91.6), Spain (90.4) and Greece (89.9), while Italy also shows a cumulative effect, dropping 0.9 points from its 92.2 summer-2025 average back toward historical norms.
Spain (87.2 average since 2023) and Greece (89.2 average, though softer in 2026) remain resilient but highly reactive to heat spikes, whereas Portugal—averaging 91.1 and even recovering from a 33.5-point plunge during a September 2025 heatwave—demonstrates that traveller expectations can build resilience to warmer norms. Source-market sensitivity also varies: French and domestic Spanish/French travellers react most strongly to extreme heat, UK travellers dip briefly before recovering, and US travellers stay comparatively tolerant; per Data Appeal CMO Carlos Cendra, destinations should shift from reacting to anticipating climate conditions, since managing traveller expectations matters as much as the temperatures themselves.
Minor Hotels taps Checkout.com for global payments infrastructure
Minor Hotels, a global hospitality group operating over 640 hotels across 67 countries, has partnered with digital payments company Checkout.com to consolidate its payments infrastructure as it expands, with Checkout.com providing global acquiring and AI-powered payment optimization across Minor Hotels’ international resort properties; the deal combines domestic acquiring (improving authorization rates and cutting processing costs via local transaction routing, plus local-currency settlement to reduce FX conversions) with Checkout.com’s Intelligent Acceptance engine, which maximizes first-attempt payment approvals and reduces failures across cross-border, multi-currency flows, and Dynamic 3DS Authentication, which applies authentication based on issuer preferences and local regulations to minimize guest friction.
Anthony Green, Minor Hotels’ Global Head of Digital Marketing and Ecommerce, said the partnership offers infrastructure to support guest experiences and growth, while Checkout.com’s Yao Xiang, Head of Commercial for Greater China and Southeast Asia, noted the collaboration pairs local acquiring capabilities and optimization technology to improve performance and simplify complex, multi-market payment operations.
Acai Travel launches Acai Desk, first AI-native helpdesk for travel
Amadeus-backed Acai Travel has launched Acai Desk, billed as the first AI-native helpdesk built specifically for travel, giving support teams a unified workspace with full visibility into customer operations, built-in AI routing via an “AI Supervisor” that assigns cases by intent, complexity and sentiment, and an “AI Travel Agent” that assists advisors on complex cases and can resolve requests end-to-end within company-defined limits; the platform natively connects to Microsoft 365 (Google Workspace coming soon) plus GDS, Lleego and NDC content to centralize context and reduce tool-switching.
CEO and Co-Founder Riccardo Vittoria said travel support has become “a systems problem” that Acai Desk helps teams manage more efficiently, while CTO and Co-Founder Pavel Pratyush noted advisors spend an average of 20 minutes per case—mostly hunting for context rather than making changes—costing teams hundreds of hours of support time monthly.
