Booking.com Bets Travelers Will Research With AI but Book With It
Booking.com exec Laura Houldsworth notes 64% of Asia-Pacific travelers use AI for trip planning, though LLM-referred traffic remains under 1%.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- 64% of surveyed Asia-Pacific travelers use AI for trip planning.
- LLM-referred traffic accounts for well under 1% of room nights.
- Booking.com integrates with superapps like WhatsApp in India.
- Intra-Asia travel corridor grows faster than global company average.
Artificial intelligence may dominate the initial phase of travel planning, but Booking.com believes that trust and secure payment systems ultimately determine where bookings land. Past experiences with superapps—where everyday usage failed to translate directly into high-ticket travel spending—suggest that generative chatbots will likely encounter a similar hurdle.
Booking.com remains comfortable with travelers kicking off their trip research using AI tools, provided the company captures the final booking transaction.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
A survey conducted earlier this year revealed that 64% of travelers across the Asia-Pacific region utilize AI to organize their trips. Nonetheless, parent company Booking Holdings reported that traffic referred straight from large language models represents a tiny fraction, staying well under 1% of total room nights.
"They might be searching on Claude one minute, ChatGPT another, Gemini, then rounding out with Google, and then coming to us directly."
Laura Houldsworth
Laura Houldsworth, Booking.com's managing director and vice president for Asia-Pacific, explained to Skift that this gap exists because consumers do not stick to a single chatbot. Travelers constantly hop between multiple assistants, meaning no individual tool secures exclusive credit for the final booking.
From an analytical perspective, this multi-assistant behavior indicates that generative AI currently functions primarily as a discovery engine rather than a closed-loop booking platform. For online travel agencies, the core challenge lies in bridging the gap between AI-driven inspiration and trusted payment gateways to capture the conversion.
Applying a similar philosophy to superapps, Booking.com chooses distribution over direct competition by integrating directly into platforms consumers already frequent. WhatsApp has already been rolled out as a booking channel in India, with Kakao, LINE, and WeChat eyed as potential candidates where market scale justifies expansion.
Houldsworth also highlighted that intra-Asia travel stands out as the fastest-growing corridor globally. Low double-digit domestic room night growth in Asia has helped cushion the slowdown along the Europe-Asia corridor stemming from Middle East conflicts. Meanwhile, alternative accommodations make up roughly 37% of global room nights, with regulatory hurdles remaining the primary risk factor.
Source: Skift
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