Here are some of the stories that caught our attention over the week with some of our takeaways.
Tui domestic move aims to drive app use: Travel Weekly reports on TUI’s launch of “Experiences for Locals”, an interesting strategic pivot from its traditional tour operator model to a digital-first approach aimed at increasing customer engagement frequency.
By offering 350 domestic experiences (soon expanding to 3,000) through both their app and retail channels, TUI wants to go beyond being an annual holiday provider into an everyday leisure partner.
The stated reasons make a lot of sense and supports a bunch of commercial objectives: drive app adoption, create more frequent touchpoints with their 12 million UK and German customers, reduce dependency on third-party sourcing, and position TUI to compete with digital experience platforms.
Online travel giants invest record $17.8B in marketing amidst raging competition: Phocuswire writes in Hotel News Resource that in 2024, online travel giants Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, and Trip.com Group reportedly invested a record-breaking $17.8 billion in sales and marketing, highlighting the fierce competition in the market.
We’re talking about a $1 billion increase compared to 2023, which speaks volumes about the commercial battleground that’s emerging.
And it’s interesting to see how differently these players are approaching their technology and distribution investments. Trip.com Group has ramped up marketing by a significant 29%, while Airbnb’s 22% increase shows a deliberate focus on brand marketing across both established and emerging markets.
What’s particularly fascinating is how Booking Holdings and Expedia Group executives are publicly acknowledging AI’s transformative potential. The potential evolution from cost-per-click to cost-per-agentic search represents a complete transformation of the commercial model that has underpinned our industry’s digital distribution for over two decades.
Amadeus Cytric reveals business travel trends with Globetrender: Travolution reports on 2025 Business Travel Trends with global business travel spending projected to reach US$1.64 trillion in 2025, up from US$1.48 trillion last year, according to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA).
The trend calls out a few interesting shifts – one that caught my eye has to do with the airline industry amid evolving traveller preferences. American Airlines’ move to transition away from basic economy baggage fees signals a recognition that transparent pricing and customer experience are becoming competitive differentiators. Coming after similar moves by United and Delta, this appears to represent an industry-wide recalibration of the low-cost carrier approach to unbundled services.
And the timing is particularly significant as it coincides with growing regulatory pressure, suggesting airlines are proactively adapting their revenue models rather than waiting for potential enforcement. The inclusion of loyalty programme benefits reflects the industry’s increased focus on customer retention through enhanced value propositions rather than competing solely on base fares.
Alexa+ could earn “top-of-the-funnel” spot in travel research: Phocuswright reports on Amazon’s launch of Alexa+, an artificial intelligence assistant aimed at integrating into users’ lives with the capability to entertain, organise, converse, place orders, book tickets, provide travel inspiration and more.
The launch highlights the increasing role of AI assistants in the travel industry and the challenges travel companies face in distribution. Amazon’s broader ambitions in travel of course remain a topic of speculation, considering its vast user data and marketplace model.
Is Open Pricing costing you revenue?: A white paper by Revenue Analytics remarks that ” For years, Open Pricing has been the go-to strategy for many hoteliers, offering flexibility but often overlooking a fundamental revenue management principle: saving your inventory for your most valuable customers.” and provides a few thought provoking perspectives.
Here are a few takeaways:
- Open Pricing is a strategy that allows for flexible pricing and ensures inventory remains available, even during peak periods. However, it may not always be the best approach.
- Optimised Inventory Controls can be a superior strategy to Open Pricing because they capture revenue from shoulder dates, allow hotels to grow profit by yielding out less profitable rate plans and LOS patterns, and offer a better customer experience than exponentially increasing rates on peak nights.
- Length-of-Stay (LOS) patterns are critical to maximising revenue. Forecasting demand and optimising inventory controls by LOS was the original RM opportunity for hotels and remains relevant today.
- Saving products for the most valuable customers is a core concept of revenue management. Longer LOS customers are generally more profitable due to lower room turnover costs and increased opportunities for ancillary revenue.
- “Insult pricing,” or charging ultra-high rates on high demand nights, can create long-term risk to demand and damage the customer experience. Fair pricing is essential for customer loyalty.