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DirectBooker wants to deliver hotel supply to LLMss, usurping the emerging role of online travel agencies such as Booking.com.

Planning a dream trip to Japan or that long-awaited European adventure should feel thrilling.  Instead, many travelers find themselves drowning in a sea of booking sites, conflicting reviews, apps, and endless spreadsheets.  When investing potentially thousands of dollars and precious vacation days, the pressure to validate every detail can turn excitement into anxiety. As an example, travelers choosing a hotel tap into many sources of information – multiple, sometimes dozens of “touchpoints” spread across search, apps, and websites – before making a decision.  According to a Google/McKinsey study:  “The data [shows] finding travel accommodations is protracted, complex, and sometimes annoying: an average purchase journey for a single hotel room lasts 36 days; hits 45 touchpoints, distributed among search engines and the sites of intermediaries and suppliers; and involves multiple devices.  Travel is a complex, high anxiety purchase.”

The shift to travelers using AI tools presents a unique opportunity for both consumers and the hotel industry: a chance to break free from dependence on the large Online Travel Agencies (OTAs).   While AI is poised to transform much of travel planning, AI is limited in its ability to answer traveler questions when information accuracy or detail is critical. To address this limitation, AI companies have begun to forge partnerships and integrations with existing OTAs, who can offer some of the structured, cached data that travelers need to finalize their travel plans. But the unique prices and benefits available when booking directly with hotels are unavailable on OTAs, and OTAs have more limited inventory and availability information than travelers could potentially get from the hotels themselves. A new AI-native integration layer called the Model Context Protocol (MCP) has created an opportunity for a different path forward. Using MCP, a hotel-aligned aggregator can offer the same advantages to AI companies as OTAs – providing structured, cached, real-time data that travelers need to make decisions and book. And – better than an OTA – such an aggregator can also unify comprehensive hotel inventory across chains and independent properties, presenting accurate Availability, Rates, and Inventory (ARI) data at massive scale. It can also offer prices, offers, and benefits that are only available to those booking directly with hotels, enabling a better AI experience for the 70% of travelers who prefer to book direct.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how travelers explore, plan, and book trips. The introduction of Model Context Protocol (MCP) promises a direct line for hotels to provide accurate pricing and availability to AI systems. There have been some optimistic claims that MCP could dramatically reduce hotels’ reliance on aggregators like OTAs.  And there have been counter claims that the OTAs are poised to increase their dominance by becoming exclusive partners to the most popular AI companies. We believe that even with MCP, the role of aggregators remains indispensable. This paper explains why aggregation is critical in ensuring scalability, efficiency, and trust in the AI-driven travel ecosystem while also noting that there’s an opening here for a new class of aggregator: one aligned with the hotels themselves.

Generative and agentic artificial intelligence (AI) could shift the hotel distribution balance, and suppliers stand to benefit. At The Phocuswright Conference in San Diego, Richard Holden, former general manager of Google Travel, Stephen Kaufer, founder and former CEO of Tripadvisor, and Sanjay Vakil, CEO and co-founder of DirectBooker, discussed how AI is changing the “front door” of hotel booking. According to Holden, AI is likely to change travel aggregators' power and position. "I do think new front doors are going to be created here," Holden said. "From a supplier perspective, that's an opportunity to change the dynamic that's existed for the past 20 years.” In many ways, Holden said suppliers were outmaneuvered by online travel agencies (OTAs) in terms of maximizing entry points with travelers. Now, there's an opportunity for suppliers to connect with consumers more directly.

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