Why Every OTA Is Suddenly Obsessed with B2B – And What Google Just Broke

Something quietly significant is happening in online travel distribution, and most of the industry commentary is missing it. While the headlines fixate on consumer booking trends, the real story is a structural shift in where the money is actually being made. Expedia Group’s B2B unit grew revenue 23% year-on-year to $1.49 billion in Q2 2026, dwarfing the 8% gross-bookings growth posted by its consumer-facing business – and Booking Holdings has responded by consolidating Booking.com, Agoda and Priceline into a single B2B platform, reported as “Booking Partner Services,” arguably the most significant development in B2B competition in years.

The prize both are chasing is the “one-stop shop”: Expedia has moved beyond hotels into experiences through its Tiqets acquisition, and into ground transport, car rental and travel insurance via the ~$350 million CarTrawler deal, while wholesalers such as HBX Group, WebBeds and TBO, the GDSs (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) and Trip.com are all racing to widen their content and, increasingly, to make themselves legible to AI agents. And this isn’t happening in isolation.

Google AI Overviews and the new generation of LLM and agentic tools – ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini – are compressing the traditional B2C search funnel, pushing up customer-acquisition costs and putting real pressure on OTA take rates. B2B distribution, by contrast, is largely insulated from this disruption, because those bookings originate from commercial API partnerships with banks, airlines, loyalty programmes and super-apps, not from a Google search box.

So the question worth asking is this: is B2B distribution’s sudden momentum a coincidence, or is it the industry’s most rational hedge against the AI-driven collapse of the consumer search funnel? The evidence increasingly points to the latter.

1. Expedia is the B2B pace-setter and is deliberately diversifying beyond hotels. In Q2 2026 (quarter ended June 30, 2026), Expedia’s B2B gross bookings grew 21% to $10.7 billion and B2B revenue grew 23% to $1.49 billion – the segment’s 20th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. B2B now serves more than 70,000–75,000 partners and represents more than one-third of Expedia’s revenue.
2. Booking Holdings’ consolidation is the biggest structural response. Booking is merging the B2B arms of Booking.com, Agoda and Priceline into a formal unit – reported as “Booking Partner Services” – led by Agoda CEO Omri Morgenshtern, breaking with its historic brand-independence philosophy. Migration is underway and expected to complete by end of 2026 or into 2027.
3. Wholesalers/bedbanks are consolidating and diversifying. HBX Group (formerly Hotelbeds) IPO’d in February 2025; WebBeds (now Web Travel Group) posted strong FY26 growth; India’s TBO acquired Classic Vacations (up to $125M) and others; dnata Travel Group reported a record 2025 and double-digit B2B growth.
4. GDSs are repositioning around NDC and AI agents. Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport are competing to become the real-time inventory layer for AI agents (SabreMosaic uses the Model Context Protocol), while deepening hotel and non-air content.
5. AI is both the threat and the accelerant. Bernstein and others argue AI could disrupt OTA take rates and marketing efficiency; Expedia’s heavy B2B pivot is cited as a partial insulation because partners (not Google) drive the demand.
6. Airbnb is the wildcard. It is building tickets/experiences and a “Wallet,” and has an “Airbnb for Business” B2B sales motion – feeding speculation (e.g., Felix Shpilman’s LinkedIn thesis) that its unique supply could one day be distributed B2B.

Expedia Group (Expedia Partner Solutions / B2B). Expedia’s B2B business – which supplies technology, inventory and servicing to airlines, offline and online travel agents, corporate travel platforms, banks and loyalty programs – has become the company’s growth engine. For Q2 2026 (quarter ended June 30, 2026), Expedia reported total gross bookings of $33.9 billion (up 12%), revenue of $4.315 billion (up 14%), and adjusted EBITDA of $1.119 billion (up 23%), with margin expanding 196 basis points to 25.9%. Within that, B2B gross bookings grew 21% to $10.7 billion and B2B revenue grew 23% year-over-year to $1.49 billion, versus 8% B2C gross-bookings growth – the 20th consecutive quarter of double-digit B2B growth. In Q1 2026, B2B bookings grew 22% and revenue 25%, versus 8% for consumer. CEO Ariane Gorin – who previously ran the B2B unit – said, “We had a solid second quarter, delivering strong financial results while making tangible progress on our strategic priorities,” and has made turning B2B into a “one-stop shop” a central priority; the segment now serves more than 70,000–75,000 partners.

The diversification is concrete:

• Tiqets (experiences). Announced December 10, 2025; Amsterdam-based platform for museums, attractions and experiences; expected to close Q1 2026. B2B President Alfonso Paredes called it “a key step toward our vision to build the most comprehensive, global travel solution powered by our expanded APIs, across activities, air, car and insurance.” Notably, Airbnb – a former Tiqets investor – passed on acquiring it.
• CarTrawler (ground transport / car rental / insurtech). Announced May 20, 2026; Ireland-based B2B platform connecting 550+ car rental suppliers and 500+ mobility suppliers to 300+ travel brands (including 70+ airlines); reported deal value ~$350 million (≈€300 million); expected to close in the second half of 2026. It adds car rental, ground transport and travel insurance.
• Expedia has also expanded its Rapid API to include flights and other non-hotel products, and partnered with Perplexity so flight searches/bookings on the Comet browser default to Expedia.

Expedia operates B2B as a standalone P&L with dedicated investment – a structural advantage cited repeatedly versus Booking’s historically fragmented approach. Management (outgoing CFO commentary) has flagged that B2B investment, including the two 2026 acquisitions, could pressure margins near term.

Booking Holdings. Booking is consolidating the separate B2B operations of Booking.com, Agoda and Priceline into a single unit – the most significant recent development in B2B competition. Agoda’s Chief Commercial Officer Damien Pfirsch described the move at a Bangkok media roundtable (announced late March 2026): “Booking Holdings has made the decision to bring together the strategic partnership arms of Booking.com, Priceline and Agoda.” The new unit – reported as Booking Partner Services (BPS) – is overseen by Agoda CEO Omri Morgenshtern; migration of Priceline’s B2B partners is already underway, with completion expected by end of 2026 or into 2027. Existing partners powered by Booking’s B2B include Citi Travel, American Airlines, Southwest and Emirates. The move breaks with Booking’s long-standing brand-independence philosophy and follows its unification of advertising under “BKNG Ads.” The strategic logic mirrors Expedia’s: B2B lets travel companies expand into markets where their brand is weak without paying Google’s performance-marketing tax, because partners (banks, airlines) do the marketing. Booking remains a distant second to Expedia in B2B.

HEDNA’s latest research puts OTAs at around a third of hotel reservations – see what the State of Distribution 2026 tells us.

Trip.com Group. Trip.com is scaling B2B through Trip.Biz (corporate travel/TMC), TripLink (fintech / virtual cards, expanded with a Visa partnership), and a supplier/vendor B2B platform. It expanded its Amadeus partnership beyond air into hospitality (Amadeus Value Hotels, 500,000+ properties) and Trip.Biz targets a 25% increase in international clients by end-2026. At its Envision 2026 partner conference (Shanghai, May 28, 2026) it announced a Visa collaboration and Trip.Biz AI auto-approval of low-risk corporate travel requests (98%+ approval rate).

Airbnb (the wildcard). Airbnb is expanding beyond core rentals: a standalone tickets business (attractions, tours, live events), a guest “Wallet” financial hub, and a perks-based loyalty program. It runs an “Airbnb for Business” (A4B) B2B sales motion targeting corporate clients. CEO Brian Chesky has emphasised AI-driven personalisation and characterised rivals’ co-mingled hotel/home search as “pre-AI.” Chesky is also (separately) reported to be starting an AI lab. Felix Shpilman (CEO of Emerging Travel Group / RateHawk) published a LinkedIn opinion piece, “Airbnb’s Next Act May Be Where Everyone Is Looking,”  speculating that Airbnb could leverage its unique supply into B2B distribution. The thesis is consistent with Shpilman’s known B2B/aggregation worldview – his ETG integrates “wholesalers, suppliers, and DMCs” to offer partners inventory “even in the most remote and exotic destinations” – and with Airbnb’s supply-expansion moves.

• HBX Group (formerly Hotelbeds Group). The world’s largest bedbank, reaching 60,000+ travel distributors across 135 markets through a single connection. It rebranded from Hotelbeds Group, completed a cloud-native replatform in 2023, and IPO’d on the BME (Madrid) exchange in February 2025 (trading from Feb 13) at €11.50 per share, a valuation of up to €2.84 billion, raising €725 million that it said would be used to reduce debt. It acquired hospitality-tech firm Civitfun (May 2025) to build a “Hoteltech” vertical, positioning as a diversified TravelTech ecosystem rather than a pure bedbank. Shares have fallen roughly 35% since IPO.
• WebBeds (Web Travel Group). Now a standalone ASX-listed company after demerger. FY26: Americas bookings +41% / TTV +30%; Europe (largest region) bookings +19% / TTV +13%. Grew acquisitively (JacTravel/GTA, DOTW). It is the main bedbank competitor to HBX and Expedia’s B2B. It is also subject to a Spanish (Balearic Islands) tax audit.
• TBO (TBO Tek, India). Global distribution platform connecting 159,000+ buyers with 1M+ suppliers across 100+ countries; product range spans air, hotels, rail, packages, car rentals, transfers, sightseeing, cruise and cargo. Acquired Classic Vacations (US luxury wholesaler) for up to $125M (announced Sept 2025; Classic did $111M revenue / $11.2M EBITDA in FY2024), fully acquired Ireland’s BookaBed, launched a Platinum Collection for luxury hotels, and opened a Poland subsidiary.
• dnata Travel Group. Reported a record 2025 and “aggressive global expansion” with a pivot to high-yield premium/luxury; its Yalago bedbank grew 25% YoY (Maldives +54%), and it expanded representation/wholesale (Gold Medal UK, Pure Luxury, Cruise Plus +35%). dnata has no immediate IPO plans.
• Juniper (Juniper Travel Technology). Connectivity/booking-engine provider to 1,000+ travel companies; made three acquisitions (IST, Vervotech, Lleego) to deepen travel-tech specialisation.
• Almosafer (Seera Group, Saudi Arabia). Consolidating verticals (consumer, corporate/government “Almosafer Business,” activities) under one umbrella; 1.5M+ properties and 450 airlines; eyeing IPO.

The three GDSs (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) are repositioning around NDC and AI. NDC bookings reached roughly 24% of indirect airline ticket sales globally in early 2026 (up from 11% in 2023). Key moves:

• Amadeus: broadest NDC airline network; expanded its Trip.com partnership beyond air into hotels (Amadeus Value Hotels, 500,000+ properties); B2B payments via Outpayce.
• Sabre: SabreMosaic Travel Marketplace aggregates multi-source content with an AI agentic layer built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for automated rebooking/servicing; owns Conferma Pay.
• Travelport: Travelport+ retailing platform with AI-powered search and Deem corporate integration; exited B2B payments in 2020.

The GDSs are increasingly judged on one question: can they answer an AI agent in real time? – a convergence point that blurs GDS, OTA and wholesaler lines. IDC projects up to 30% of travel bookings could be executed by AI agents by 2030.

Margin compression in B2C, rising customer-acquisition costs, search/metasearch disintermediation, and the appeal of diversified, high-margin, technology-leveraged revenue. A single multi-product API distributing hotels, flights, cars, experiences and insurance to a network of resellers/affiliates/OTAs/corporates/airlines/banks/loyalty programs creates a “flywheel”: more demand attracts more supply, which attracts more demand (Expedia’s Paredes: “More demand makes hotels happier. More hotels bring more supply, and so on.”). Bernstein notes Expedia “pivoted heavily toward its B2B segment, which now accounts for more than one-third of its revenue, as its consumer-facing business struggled to gain room-night volume.”

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are compressing the B2C funnel. Per SparkToro’s June 11, 2026 study of Similarweb clickstream data, 68.01% of US Google searches ended without a click during the first four months of 2026, up from 60.45% in 2024 – only about 276 of every 1,000 searches now reach the open web. Gartner projected a 25% decline in traditional search volume by 2026 as generative AI absorbs intent. For travel specifically, AI Overviews answer mid-funnel queries (“best places to stay in…”) on the results page, softening organic discovery. Indian OTAs report having to spend 20–30% more year-over-year just to hold revenue flat; NP Digital’s Rubeena Singh: “AI Overviews have squeezed organic visibility. To make up for that, paid marketing has increased which naturally pushes up digital marketing costs.” SiteMinder’s Changing Traveller Report 2026 (surveying 12,000 travellers across 14 countries) found that, for the first time, OTAs overtook search engines as the primary starting point for hotel discovery: “Twenty-six percent of travellers surveyed will now begin their hotel research on an OTA, up from 18% last year, while those who will start with a search engine have fallen to 21% from 36%.”

Google’s own agentic ambitions. In November 2025 Google said users will “soon be able to book flights and hotels directly in AI Mode” through partners including Booking.com, Expedia, Marriott International and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (developed also with Choice Hotels and IHG) – though Google VP of engineering Julie Farago stressed the company has “no intention of becoming an OTA” and will not act as merchant of record. Booking Holdings and Expedia shares fell 4 to 7% after the news; BTIG’s Jake Fuller called the risk “overstated.” Google is consolidating ads, booking tools and paid placements inside its conversational interface.

LLM/agentic tools inserting themselves mid-journey. ChatGPT (Agent Mode/Instant Checkout), Perplexity (hotel checkout powered by Selfbook; Comet browser), and Gemini are moving from inspiration to booking. Booking.com and Expedia were among the first travel apps in ChatGPT; Accor and Wyndham launched on ChatGPT; Expedia defaults Perplexity flight bookings. The core question is whether OTAs “risk becoming mere fulfillment arms of ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude.” Magpie’s Christian Watts argued in PhocusWire that OTA moats (loyalty, unique inventory, bundling) “may be shallower than they appear.”

The causal bridge to B2B. Bernstein’s 2026 report (“AI isn’t just a disruptive force, it’s a paradigm shift”) warns OTAs face “meaningful disruption” to take rates and marketing efficiency, and explicitly notes Expedia’s B2B pivot as a differentiator as AI reshapes booking channels – while flagging Booking as most exposed due to reliance on sponsored listings. The logic: B2B revenue is structurally insulated from consumer search disintermediation because those bookings originate from direct commercial/API partnerships (a bank’s travel portal, an airline’s ancillary shop, a TMC, a super-app, a loyalty program) rather than a Google query or an LLM prompt. This is precisely why OTAs and wholesalers are accelerating the B2B pivot as a hedge. Expedia’s Gorin is simultaneously preparing for AI-native demand (agentic traffic is a “fast-growing though still small” high-intent source; natural-language experiences yield “over 60% more” traveler-intent data) and expanding a B2B MCP server so partners’ AI agents can connect directly to Expedia inventory. Hospitality Net notes both Booking Holdings and Airbnb are separately funding AI travel ventures as hedges – meaning the same parents that run the OTA may soon run the agent above it.

1. Now (0–6 months): Map and measure your indirect exposure. Audit how much of your OTA-channel volume actually flows through B2B/wholesale sub-channels (bedbanks, TMCs, bank/loyalty portals) versus consumer OTA storefronts. As Booking and Expedia consolidate and expand B2B, your rates increasingly leak into opaque wholesale channels – reassert rate-parity controls and contract terms. Benchmark: know your channel mix at the sub-channel level; most operators cannot.
2. Now: Get “AI-agent-ready.” Only ~11% of hotel organisations could complete a booking through an AI agent in real time as of June 2026. Ensure structured, machine-readable property data (amenities, room-level content, policies) and low-latency connectivity so AI agents and MCP-based systems can read, trust and transact against your inventory. This is the new SEO.
3. 6–18 months: Diversify deliberately, aiming to reduce pure consumer-OTA dependence toward the 35–45% range through direct channels, metasearch, and selective B2B partnerships (loyalty, corporate, regional distributors) that are less exposed to Google/LLM disintermediation.
4. Reallocate marketing spend from generic non-branded search (where CPCs/CPAs are inflating 20–30%) toward branded search, first-party data, loyalty, and “GEO” (generative engine optimisation) visibility in ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini answers.
5. Watch these thresholds that would change the strategy: (a) if agentic traffic exceeds ~10% of your booking volume, conversion-rate becomes a vanity metric – shift to agent-readiness metrics (inventory-access latency, room-mapping confidence, booking-success rate); (b) if Google/LLM agents begin taking merchant-of-record or exclusive-partner positions, revisit whether direct or B2B-partner channels offer better net economics; (c) if Booking’s BPS migration completes (end-2026/2027) and rate leakage widens, tighten wholesale contract controls.

Company / Official Sources

• Expedia Group Investor Relations – ir.expediagroup.com (Tiqets acquisition announcement, Q1/Q2 2026 earnings releases)
• Expedia Group Q2 2025/2026 Earnings Release (PDF) – s202.q4cdn.com
• CarTrawler acquisition announcement – Yahoo Finance / Expedia Group press release
• HBX Group – hbxgroup.com (bedbank/TravelTech ecosystem resources)
• Juniper Travel Technology – juniper-group.com
• Seera Group / Almosafer – seera.sa

Trade & Industry Press

• Open Jaw / Air Canada Vacations Newsroom – openjaw.com
• TTG Asia – ttgasia.com (Booking Holdings B2B consolidation)
• TTN Worldwide – ttnworldwide.com (dnata Travel Group B2B updates)
• PhocusWire (referenced for AI-agent and OTA disintermediation commentary)
• exchange4media – exchange4media.com (Google AI Overviews impact on travel search)
• Hospitality Net (referenced for Booking/Airbnb AI hedging commentary)

Financial & Market Analysis

• Investing.com – investing.com (Bernstein research note on AI margin pressure)
• GuruFocus – gurufocus.com (Expedia Q2 earnings analysis)
• Kalkine – kalkine.com.au (Web Travel Group/WebBeds financials)
• Mr Market Miscalculates (Substack) – mrmarketmiscalculates.substack.com (HBX Group analysis)
• AGBI (Gulf Business Intelligence) – agbi.com (Almosafer profile)

Industry Reference & Technical

• AltexSoft – altexsoft.com (GDS comparison: Amadeus vs Sabre vs Travelport)
• PNRGenius – pnrgenius.com (GDS 2026 comparison)
• AtlasPerk – atlasperk.com (travel distribution channel strategy)
• MatrixBCG – matrixbcg.com (Trip.com Group growth strategy)
• Built In – builtin.com (Airbnb for Business role listing, used as corroborating detail)