Airbnb hired Pepijn Rijvers, the former head of Booking.com hotels, as its new chief business officer, succeeding Dave Stephenson. The move comes as Airbnb treats expanding its hotels business as a strategic priority. Rijvers also has marketing and tours and activities experience.

6–18 Months

Do Booking.com and Expedia strategists reprice their 2027 competitive assumptions now, or wait for confirming data on Airbnb's hotel push?

Booking.com/Expedia strategists: rival gains insider knowledge · Hotel REIT investors: faster Airbnb listing growth to model · Airbnb board members: second exec exit in nine months

Airbnb keeps pulling talent from the company it's chasing into hotels. Rijvers ran Booking.com's hotels and short-term rental business for over a decade before Airbnb hired him to build the same expertise inside its own platform.

Distribution — Vrbo Brings Sponsored Listings to Vacation Rental Search — Adriana Lee. Vrbo now sells placement in vacation rental search results.

Operations — AirDNA Enters Revenue Management Market With Host Dynamic Pricing Tool: Exclusive — Dennis Schaal. AirDNA is building dynamic pricing directly into the tools hosts already use.

Capital — What Happens to a Travel Company Owned by Private Equity for Too Long? — Rafat Ali. A top tour operator went to market and found no buyer.

Rijvers' first 90 days: whether Airbnb accelerates hotel-listing growth past the 20 cities already announced

Tripadvisor's vacant chief business officer seat: who fills it mid-pivot to experiences

Airbnb's next earnings call: whether Chesky addresses the second C-suite exit in nine months

Global hotel revenue is on pace to hit $1.15 trillion by 2027, according to Skift Research. Growth has settled into mid-single digits after the pandemic-recovery spike faded, and operators building 2027 budgets should plan around that pace.

The repricing that Airbnb's hotel push forces on every OTA plays out at one forum this September.

Brian Chesky of Airbnb, Glenn Fogel of Booking Holdings, and Ariane Gorin of Expedia are among the leaders on the agenda at North Javits Center, alongside the CEOs of Hilton, Accor, and Uber and OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor, where 940 leaders, 76% director level or above, gather to pressure-test what comes next. Pricing increases tomorrow night.

ACCOR GROUP + SKIFT

Paris Society shows how Ennismore is turning hotel restaurants into destinations that attract locals, build identity, and drive revenue.

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Expedia just laid off eight senior leaders and reorganized its entire product and technology structure around smaller AI-focused squads.

In this clip from Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Michael Goldin and Brandreth Canaley break down what the restructuring actually signals, why Expedia is hiring AI talent in Silicon Valley at the same time it is cutting executives, and what it means when a company with 8,000 people in tech says the old coordination model no longer makes sense.

How are public travel companies performing around the world? The Skift Travel 200 pulls the data you need to understand global market movements. Paid subscribers get full access here.

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