// moat building

Source: PSFK

Hotels are racing to own customer relationships before AI agents route bookings directly to suppliers, bypassing OTAs entirely. The threat has shifted from Airbnb and Expedia to AI systems that recommend a property and execute the booking autonomously. Marriott and Hyatt are building proprietary booking layers, loyalty programs with friction, and direct-to-consumer technology moats. Whoever controls the final transaction controls pricing power and guest data. Distribution advantage—having listings everywhere—has become a commodity. Defensibility now sits upstream, at the moment of discovery and decision-making.