Rebuilding hotel tech stacks for the Agentic AI era Philip Barton
A new kind of traveller is emerging, one who may never visit your website, click an ad, or speak to a human. Instead, they rely on their personal AI agent to plan, compare, negotiate, and book every aspect of their trip. This shift marks a seismic change in how travel is discovered and transacted, demanding a fundamental rethink of hotel technology stacks.
Are hoteliers ready for this new class of guests and their digital representatives? Consider how AI-driven website traffic is already having a dramatic impact:
According to Ahrefs, 63% of websites receive AI traffic , with smaller sites experiencing the highest proportion.
, with smaller sites experiencing the highest proportion. A survey by Adobe reveals that traffic from generative AI sources (chatbots or AI-powered search assistants) on U.S. travel websites rose 1,700% from Jul 2024 to Feb 2025.The same survey shows that visitors arriving via generative AI tools show 8% higher engagement, view 12% more pages, and have a 23% lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic sources.
reveals that traffic from generative AI sources (chatbots or AI-powered search assistants) on U.S. travel websites rose 1,700% from Jul 2024 to Feb 2025.The same survey shows that visitors arriving via generative AI tools show 8% higher engagement, view 12% more pages, and have a 23% lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic sources. Cloudflare found that monthly traffic to generative AI services grew by 251%between February 2024 and March 2025.
So, what does this all mean for the hospitality industry?
Most hospitality tech stacks weren't built for AI; they were designed for humans, not machines. Legacy systems are slow, fragmented, and incapable of speaking the language of autonomous AI. To stay visible and bookable in an AI-agent-first ecosystem, hotels must rethink their infrastructure from the data layer up, embracing real-time interoperability, AI-native protocols, and machine-readable data formats.
Is your data AI-ready?
The rise of AI agents demands a fundamental shift in how hotels manage and present their data. Traditional website designs optimised for visual appeal and manual navigation are insufficient for engaging with AI-driven tools. Hotels must evaluate their systems against the following criteria:
Structured data formats: Implement schema.org markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers.
Implement schema.org markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers. Real-time accessibility: Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds.
Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds. Interoperability: Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms.
Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms. Dynamic content updates: Automate inventory and pricing updates to reflect real-time changes, ensuring AI agents always access the latest information.
Hotels that fail to meet these standards risk becoming invisible to AI agents, which prioritise systems capable of delivering clean, actionable data. By preparing their data for this new user class, hoteliers can ensure they remain competitive in an increasingly automated travel ecosystem.
Building the foundation: A focused, AI-ready architecture
Modern hospitality stacks begin with unified data ecosystems that aggregate guest profiles, operational metrics, and market signals into cloud-based repositories. This eliminates silos between PMS, CRM, and revenue management systems, creating a single source of truth. Unifying data overlaid with semantic meaning is the prerequisite for AI innovation, enabling real-time analysis of guest preferences, occupancy trends, and competitive pricing.
With clean data pipelines, hotels can deploy AI co-pilots that:
Adjust room rates dynamically using market demand signals
Predict guest preferences (room, meal selection, room settings, etc)
Handle customer inquiries through conversational AI
Optimise housekeeping routes and inventory orders.
These systems learn continuously, improving efficiency and personalisation over time.
Agentic integration: MCP and the rise of the A2A Economy
The emergence of AI agents opens a new paradigm for hotels: active participation in the agentic economy. Hotels can no longer passively rely on traditional distribution channels. To thrive, they must embrace strategies that enable seamless interaction with AI agents, creating new avenues for booking, personalisation, and revenue generation. This starts with understanding and implementing key protocols such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which paves the way for the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) economy.
MCP is a new and evolving protocol that transforms hotels into active participants in the A2A economy. It standardises how AI agents interface with hotel systems, expanding the capabilities of individual agents by enabling them to connect and interact with other specialised agents, leading to richer and more versatile functionalities. This benefits hotels as it allows their systems to:
Offer more comprehensive travel solutions : By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly.
: By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly. Reach a wider audience : Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments.
: Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments. Improve efficiency and reduce costs: Automating interactions with AI agents minimises the need for human intervention in routine tasks, freeing up staff to focus on higher-value activities.
MCP is a rapidly evolving landscape that can potentially eliminate fragile API integrations, allowing properties to connect with numerous services through a single MCP gateway. Imagine a guest's travel agent AI seamlessly booking rooms, spa services, and dinner reservations by interfacing directly with your hotel's agent.
Optimising the agent experience
8Traditionally, websites have focused on the user experience (UX). However, the rise of AI demands a focus on the agent experience (AX) that must consider a different set of technical priorities:
AI-accessible inventory: Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction.
Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction. Machine-readable content: Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with schema.org annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling.
Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with schema.org annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling. Agent Experience (AX) design: Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key.
Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key. Dynamic commission structures: Create lower AI-specific affiliate tiers and offer bulk booking discounts for high-intent agent queries.
Transitioning from legacy systems to seize the AI opportunity
The transition to an agent-mediated hospitality landscape is not a distant possibility but an accelerating reality. Hotels that delay implementing MCP capabilities and an agent-friendly infrastructure risk significant market share erosion within 12-18 months as AI travel planning becomes mainstream.
Forward-thinking properties are already capturing early-adopter advantages through strategic partnerships with emerging AI travel platforms. The challenge now is how quickly hoteliers can transform their digital infrastructure to become preferred partners in the A2A economy, where AI agents will increasingly mediate guest relationships.
The journey to an AI-first architecture means hotels must adopt a modern technology stack by:
Phasing out on-premise systems with cloud-native platforms offering open API access.
Adopting composable data and platform architecture using microservices for easy MCP integration.
Considering website SEO and agentic presentation pathways.
Retraining staff on AI-assisted workflows, reducing manual data entry.
Revamped stacks for the Agentic AI era will drive operational efficiency and real-time channel optimisation by automatically redistributing inventory across the most profitable channels and guest profiles. First-mover hoteliers will help shape the new distribution paradigm and have greater control over their digital destiny in the age of AI.
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Legacy systems are slow, fragmented, and incapable of speaking the language of autonomous AI. To stay visible and bookable in an AI-agent-first ecosystem, hotels must rethink their infrastructure from the data layer up, embracing real-time interoperability, AI-native protocols, and machine-readable data formats. Is your data AI-ready? The rise of AI agents demands a fundamental shift in how hotels manage and present their data. Traditional website designs optimised for visual appeal and manual navigation are insufficient for engaging with AI-driven tools. Hotels must evaluate their systems against the following criteria: Structured data formats: Implement markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers. Implement markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers. Real-time accessibility: Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds. Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds. Interoperability: Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms. Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms. Dynamic content updates: Automate inventory and pricing updates to reflect real-time changes, ensuring AI agents always access the latest information. Hotels that fail to meet these standards risk becoming invisible to AI agents, which prioritise systems capable of delivering clean, actionable data. By preparing their data for this new user class, hoteliers can ensure they remain competitive in an increasingly automated travel ecosystem. Building the foundation: A focused, AI-ready architecture Modern hospitality stacks begin with unified data ecosystems that aggregate guest profiles, operational metrics, and market signals into cloud-based repositories. This eliminates silos between PMS, CRM, and revenue management systems, creating a single source of truth. Unifying data overlaid with semantic meaning is the prerequisite for AI innovation, enabling real-time analysis of guest preferences, occupancy trends, and competitive pricing. With clean data pipelines, hotels can deploy AI co-pilots that: Adjust room rates dynamically using market demand signals Predict guest preferences (room, meal selection, room settings, etc) Handle customer inquiries through conversational AI Optimise housekeeping routes and inventory orders. These systems learn continuously, improving efficiency and personalisation over time. Agentic integration: MCP and the rise of the A2A Economy The emergence of AI agents opens a new paradigm for hotels: active participation in the agentic economy. Hotels can no longer passively rely on traditional distribution channels. To thrive, they must embrace strategies that enable seamless interaction with AI agents, creating new avenues for booking, personalisation, and revenue generation. This starts with understanding and implementing key protocols such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which paves the way for the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) economy. MCP is a new and evolving protocol that transforms hotels into active participants in the A2A economy. It standardises how AI agents interface with hotel systems, expanding the capabilities of individual agents by enabling them to connect and interact with other specialised agents, leading to richer and more versatile functionalities. This benefits hotels as it allows their systems to: Offer more comprehensive travel solutions : By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly. : By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly. Reach a wider audience : Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments. : Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments. Improve efficiency and reduce costs: Automating interactions with AI agents minimises the need for human intervention in routine tasks, freeing up staff to focus on higher-value activities. MCP is a rapidly evolving landscape that can potentially eliminate fragile API integrations, allowing properties to connect with numerous services through a single MCP gateway. Imagine a guest's travel agent AI seamlessly booking rooms, spa services, and dinner reservations by interfacing directly with your hotel's agent. Optimising the agent experience 8Traditionally, websites have focused on the user experience (UX). However, the rise of AI demands a focus on the agent experience (AX) that must consider a different set of technical priorities: AI-accessible inventory: Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction. Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction. Machine-readable content: Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling. Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling. Agent Experience (AX) design: Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key. Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key. Dynamic commission structures: Create lower AI-specific affiliate tiers and offer bulk booking discounts for high-intent agent queries. Transitioning from legacy systems to seize the AI opportunity The transition to an agent-mediated hospitality landscape is not a distant possibility but an accelerating reality. Hotels that delay implementing MCP capabilities and an agent-friendly infrastructure risk significant market share erosion within 12-18 months as AI travel planning becomes mainstream. Forward-thinking properties are already capturing early-adopter advantages through strategic partnerships with emerging AI travel platforms. The challenge now is how quickly hoteliers can transform their digital infrastructure to become preferred partners in the A2A economy, where AI agents will increasingly mediate guest relationships. The journey to an AI-first architecture means hotels must adopt a modern technology stack by: Phasing out on-premise systems with cloud-native platforms offering open API access. Adopting composable data and platform architecture using microservices for easy MCP integration. Considering website SEO and agentic presentation pathways. Retraining staff on AI-assisted workflows, reducing manual data entry. Revamped stacks for the Agentic AI era will drive operational efficiency and real-time channel optimisation by automatically redistributing inventory across the most profitable channels and guest profiles. First-mover hoteliers will help shape the new distribution paradigm and have greater control over their digital destiny in the age of AI.
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