New Podcast: Can AI bring hotels more direct bookings? Antonio Picozzi on what actually counts

Getting recommended is one thing. Getting the booking is another.

In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast, I speak with Antonio Picozzi, co-founder and CEO of dAirect, about helping hotels get found through AI assistants without handing the customer straight back to an OTA.

Antonio came into hospitality through a luggage-delivery business after working at Accenture and Amazon. Hotel managers kept asking him about a different problem: how to get more direct bookings. His first answer was a resellable room rate. Now he’s working on what happens when AI becomes another layer between the traveller and the hotel.

The problem is simple: having a hotel website doesn’t mean AI will recommend it. And asking ChatGPT once whether it knows your property isn’t much of a measurement strategy.

A romantic hotel with a private beach needs to appear in different conversations from a city-centre business hotel. The sources AI uses can differ too. Antonio’s approach is to test those specific situations, work on the hotel’s digital presence and keep measuring as the answers change.

We dig into:

🧳 Why a luggage-delivery startup became Antonio’s introduction to hotel distribution

🔄 What resellable room rates taught him about direct bookings, and why building a secondary market proved difficult

🏨 Why fragmentation, trust and loyalty matter as much as giving guests a better rate

🤖 How dAirect tests the answers AI assistants give for a property’s particular positioning

📊 Why Antonio says they run 5,000-10,000 prompts per property each month across different markets and assistants

🔍 Why a pre-work baseline and a peer group are more useful than checking whether your visibility went up

🔌 How the work spans the hotel’s website, managed digital channels and earned presence

⚙️ Why he wants a product that does the work, rather than another report for a small hotel team to action

💰 The subscription model Antonio describes: around €200-€300 per month, with no booking commission

🛎️ Why tracking the journey through to the booking engine matters more than simply appearing in an AI answer

One of the most interesting ideas from the conversation is Antonio’s admission that there isn’t a fixed secret sauce.

His bet is on building a system that keeps testing and learning, rather than selling hotels a formula that assumes AI answers will stand still.

For hotels, the commercial question is still the same: who gets the customer, who gets the booking, and what does it cost to acquire them?

If AI becomes the place travellers make their shortlist, direct distribution could start well before anyone reaches your website. But visibility alone isn’t the win. The booking still matters.

More about dAirect: https://dairect.io/

Stuck on an AI problem in your own business? Find the AI you need: tell me what’s frustrating you and I’ll personally introduce you to someone who can help. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVYizRw_UgfX9CpvkeUmkpOeRGFj_iiF0W2KmX_EECIqSUsA/viewform

#TravelAI #EverythingAIinTravel #DirectBookings

Hear the episode here.

Related reading: How will AI solutions allow hotels to shift bookings away from the OTAs?

Also: Do you see what AI sees? Hotel visibility and direct bookings.

In 2026 the podcast is now found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and now also YouTube (and if you hit subscribe there, you get it before everyone else). You can also catch up on the whole of Series 1 now also fully available in these channels.

This could be your brand’s podcast (and newsletter).

We are currently seeking submissions from leading AI companies in travel who believe that all businesses should be media businesses.

Following the example of dojo.live and Encora we offer the opportunities to communicate your brand’s USP’s to a B2B travel audience from the leading Travel + AI resource on a bi-weekly, done-for-you basis for all of 2027 (and beyond).

Contact Tony if interested to learn more and see if we are a good fit for one another.