OTA lastminute.com Debuts MCP Flight Server, Eyes Hotels Next

European online travel agency lastminute.com has officially launched its first Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server focused on flight content.

Built by the company’s in-house teams, the server offers structured and secure API-level access to lastminute.com’s flight inventory for large language models, including systems like Anthropic’s Claude.

MCP servers as a core pillar of the OTA’s survival

Over the coming years, lastminute.com plans to roll out additional MCP servers covering hotel inventory and dynamic travel packaging.

According to lastminute.com, the MCP initiative forms a foundational layer of its three-year strategic roadmap. The goal is to support the development of AI-native travel experiences while ensuring the company remains competitive and relevant as AI becomes more deeply embedded across the digital travel ecosystem.

Alessandro Petazzi, CEO of lastminute.com, addressed ongoing industry discussion around AI and OTAs: "There’s significant debate and noise about how AI will impact OTAs [...] Ultimately, we believe long-term OTA relevance in an AI-native landscape depends on building platforms that are inherently AI-friendly.”

Reducing integration complexity in a fragmented travel landscape

The travel industry is known for highly fragmented data sources, with information and services distributed across numerous systems, vendors, and technical formats. As a result, building new integrations is often time-consuming, expensive, and difficult to scale.

MCP servers aim to address this challenge by introducing a standardized connection layer that exposes existing data and functionality in a way that AI agents can consume, making it easier for AI-driven apps to operate across the fragmented travel ecosystem.

Read our dedicated article to learn more about MCP servers in travel and the specific problems they solve.

Photo by Stephen Mease on Unsplash