Booking courts independents as AI agents and Airbnb close in

Booking Holdings used its earnings call to highlight how dependent Booking.com is on independent hotels—and why it wants to protect that relationship.

CEO Glenn Fogel said independents account for “the vast majority” of Booking.com room nights, while the 10 largest global hotel chains make up only a “low double-digit” share. Booking’s point was clear: if someone wins independent hotels, they win a major part of online hotel distribution.

Why Booking says it still has an edge

Independent hotels often lack the scale of large chains—big loyalty programs, global marketing budgets, and large tech teams. Booking is telling the market that it fills those gaps with practical services that help smaller properties sell globally, such as customer support, payment processing, and currency conversion.

Fogel also stressed that distribution is not “just software”: Booking claims its local partner teams and operational support help hotels perform better, not simply list rooms online. That is the defense against new middlemen trying to sit between travelers and OTAs.

Where agentic AI and Airbnb could change the game

The new competitive risk is that AI travel agents could become the starting point for trip planning and even bookings. Gemini Agent is marketed for multi-step tasks, including handling online reservations, which raises the question of whether travelers will shop inside OTA apps or ask an AI to decide for them.

At the same time, Airbnb is pushing harder into hotels—especially boutique and independent properties—calling the opportunity “massive” and signaling it wants hotel stays to be a bigger part of its business.

Most recent update to watch

The headline corporate update from the same results cycle is Booking’s 25-for-1 stock split, set to take effect April 2, 2026. Stock splits don’t change the underlying value of the company, but they can make a high-priced share easier to buy for smaller investors and often increase trading activity. Booking also reported strong performance and issued forward-looking growth expectations, reinforcing why it is investing in AI while defending the independent-hotel supply it relies on.

Photo by Jas Rolyn on Unsplash