Google is now testing agentic hotel booking, writes Travel Technology and AI Reporter Adriana Lee. Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel referenced the tests on an earnings call last week. Google confirmed to Skift that it had begun the limited U.S. test, tying it to plans it made last November for an upcoming agentic booking tool for flights and hotels. Amadeus says it's working with Google as its first B2B foundational partner on UCP for lodging.

Google stated last year it has no ambition to become an OTA — but its ties to direct suppliers and infrastructure players, including its UCP effort, keep that option alive.

Google is testing who owns the booking layer. The operators running AI inside airlines, hotels, and OTAs are deciding how they answer.

Speakers include the CEO of KAYAK and the Chief AI Scientist of International Airlines Group, in a London room built for the 250 in-house teams building and deploying AI where the EU's rules are already live.

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The premium play with the highest return potential will likely come through customers brands already serve. Start with the one or two of these personas who already move through the business in volume, and build from there.

Here are three reasons you can't afford to miss the latest issue of Airline Weekly:

Turkish Airlines posted a rare springtime operating loss — we explain what sat behind the dip at the Istanbul-based giant. Cathay Pacific was hammered by the same climb in fuel costs but found more room to work with, which we unpack in our earnings analysis. And in this week's feature story, we look at what is going right and what is going wrong across the Lufthansa Group, from an all-star performance at Swiss to a lagging mainline operation.

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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