The hotel industry's AI arms race is now a distribution war in disguise. Hilton launched a beta generative AI trip planning tool on its own website, while Marriott said it's piloting conversational search within months — both bets that keeping AI discovery in-house protects direct bookings. Accor, Hyatt, and Wyndham are hedging by planting flags on external platforms like ChatGPT and Google anyway.
Airbnb, meanwhile, is chasing a different kind of AI ambition. CEO Brian Chesky hired former Uber SVP Gus Fuldner to fuse what Chesky called "a single, AI-powered service platform so every time someone interacts with Airbnb, we instantly understand who they are and what they need" — the operational backbone for Airbnb's push to own the full trip. And quietly underpinning much of this industry infrastructure: Montreal, which Skift now calls the second most important travel tech hub in the world.
EDITOR’S PICKS
How Montreal Quietly Became the World’s Second Most Important Travel Tech Hub
by Rafat Ali
March 11, 2026
The travel industry’s most important ecosystem story may be Montreal, where aviation DNA, patient capital, and a single Expedia office accidentally created a $15 billion infrastructure layer that much of the industry now runs on.
Airbnb Appoints Former Uber Safety Exec as Global Head of Operations
by Dennis Schaal
March 10, 2026
Consider the complexity that Fuldner is walking into. Airbnb is tasking him with reshaping the company's teams and systems into a unified "intelligent platform." All this, while Airbnb is launching new verticals, and trying to become a native AI app.
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Market Performance
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