Between 21 and 27 September 2026, AI agents moved into every stage of the trip: the border in Bangkok, the booking screen at Agoda in Singapore, and the front desk of franchise hotels in the US.

Five stories from the week set the agenda for OTAs, hotels, airlines and tourism boards this quarter. Each comes with a number, and each comes with a decision attached.

1. Agoda AI assistant: 6 million stays in one chat

Agoda opened a limited beta of its AI Assistant to a select group of mobile app users, with the announcement made from Singapore on 25 September. Every app user gets it over the next few months. Trips are planned against live stock of more than 6 million places to stay, 130,000 flight routes and 300,000 activities. OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 powers the assistant, and Google Gemini’s Grounding with Google Maps handles the harder itineraries. Why it matters: the idea and the booking now sit in the same chat inside the OTA’s app, and whoever owns the inventory keeps the traveller.

2. Dextr AI: US$6.7 million for hotel agents

Hospitality start-up Dextr AI closed a US$6.7 million seed round, about Rs 64.2 crore, led by Elevation Capital alongside Foundation Capital. Sajid Shariff and Scott Arnold started the company in 2025, and it works across India and the US. Each agent has a named job. Daisy books rooms by voice in more than 90 languages, Alfred answers guest requests, Manny builds staff rosters and Cosmo drives direct bookings and marketing. A team of roughly 20 people handles more than 1 million interactions every month. Hundreds of properties in the US, Canada, UK and Europe use the product, among them Hilton, Wyndham, Best Western and IHG franchises. Why it matters: the new money pays for expansion into India and other markets, so Indian hoteliers will soon hear the pitch that US franchise owners have already bought.

3. Thailand: 580,000 users before launch day

Thailand’s Immigration Bureau launched the THIM app formally on 25 September, though travellers have been able to download it since 1 August. By launch day it had passed 600,000 downloads and 580,000 users, or 97.2% of downloads. For now the app holds the Thailand Digital Arrival Card. Queue booking, certificates of stay, visa extensions, 90-day reporting and visa on arrival are on the roadmap. Grab (Thailand), Minor International, True Corporation and Bangkok Dusit Medical Services signed on as launch partners. Why it matters: arrival data now lives in a state app that sits beside a hotel group, a ride-hailing firm and a hospital network, so the trip begins with the government before any OTA sees the traveller.

4. Japan: US$343.1 billion behind a new partnership

WTTC, the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) and Tourism Expo Japan have joined forces, Hotel News Resource reported. The numbers behind the deal are large. Travel and tourism added US$343.1 billion to Japan’s economy in 2025, or 8.1% of GDP, the fifth biggest total in the world. Foreign visitors spent US$63.3 billion, seventh globally, 8.8% more than a year earlier and 74.9% above 2019. Why it matters: inbound spend in Japan is running three-quarters ahead of its pre-pandemic level, and APAC distribution and marketing budgets tend to follow that kind of curve.

5. Skift Global Forum: “one continuous conversation”

Skift Global Forum 2026 took place at North Javits Center in New York from 22 to 24 September. On stage, Bret Taylor, founder of Sierra and chairman of OpenAI, argued that AI can carry the entire guest relationship as “one continuous conversation”, Skift reported. His warning to the room: “Shipping your org chart should never, ever, ever happen in the world of AI.” The same week, Skift reported a Washington WARN notice from Expedia covering 58 job cuts, 18 of them in data science and machine learning, taking effect between 21 November and 1 December. Why it matters: a traveller passed from a booking bot to a changes bot to a loyalty bot is walking through the company’s org chart, and Taylor told the industry to stop building it that way.

Key takeaway

AI agents in travel stopped being a chat widget this week and became the working layer of the trip, from Thai border entry to Agoda’s planner to the Dextr AI front desk. For every OTA, hotel, airline and tourism board, the question this quarter is who owns that single conversation with the traveller, and whose data feeds it. Our advice: map every point where a guest meets a separate system today, then fold those points into one.

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Alipay has struck a partnership deal with PAYSBUY, a leading online payment provider in Thailand with over 15,000 merchants and a worldwide trusted SSL security technology to allow mobile payment services for all the Chinese tourists visiting Thailand to conveniently pay in yuan via Alipay.

The number of Chinese tourists has significantly grown with about 8 million people hitting Thailand soil last year. The capacity with which an individual Chinese spend grosses up to Bt6000 on goods and services which sum up that they possess a strong spending power over other nationals. And since most of them use Alipay on a regular basis, this could be considered as a good opportunity for the online payment provider to scale its business across mainland China. Panthep Nilasinthop, senior vice President – Head of Financial Services & Innovation Division, Total Access Communication PLC or dtac feels that this way both the organisations would contribute towards a cashless society in Thailand.

PAYSBUY has partnered with Alipay to expand mobile payment services for Chinese tourists visiting or living in Thailand and launched PAYSBUY and Alipay Online-to-Online (O2O) service that integrates Alipay mobile online payment service into their system, which enables the merchants and businesses to conveniently accept online payments for goods and services in yuan from their Chinese customers.

“We are pleased to announce our partnership with Alipay. PAYSBUY is Thailand’s leading online payment service, with over 15,000 merchants and growing. PAYSBUY provides a variety of digital payment channels to allow both and international payments, including credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, JCB, AMEX, and Union Pay), Internet banking, cash, instalments, e-wallet, and mPOS. Additionally, PAYSBUY uses secure and trustworthy SSL technology that is widely accepted around the world for online payments and continues to develop new technology to protect customer data, making our system as secure as leading commercial banks’ Internet banking services,” said Panthep.

According to Panda Jia, senior director of Alipay International, Ant Financial Services Group says that Alipay has over 450 million active users. Over 10 million Chinese tourists are expected to travel to Thailand in 2016.

More than 70,000 overseas retailers use Alipay out of which 10,000 are in Thailand. This platform connects the merchants and the Chinese customers.

“We have a full confidence in PAYSBUY that we have integrated their merchant payment gateway into Alipay to allow Chinese tourists who have active Alipay accounts to pay for goods and services via Alipay mobile application – as conveniently here as in China,” said Jia.

The service is now available at 4 branches of King Power in order to provide a convenient payment option to Chinese customers who could pay in yuan. The partnership would enhance the experience of the visiting and living Chinese community in Thailand and would allow PAYSBUY to bring its payment services to retail merchants serving Chinese tourists.

Source: The Nation

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For how many of us have dreamt of having their working space in an abode where beaches and jungle would be at a walking distance. Well, this startup boasts a fully fledged dream of an entrepreneur. They left behind the cold harsh winters of Russian mainland and relocated themselves in a balmy summery Thailand island. So how has that worked out for them? Pretty good we guess. Meet Jetradar.

Konstantin Kalinov, The founder

The founder, Konstantin Kalinov, started with his travel blog in the summer of 2007 which focused on discounted items and deals in airlines and showed early signs of success since there were no big wigs from the international market in Russia back then. During his family outing in Thailand next year he became fascinated by the country’s culture and affirmed to escape the cold north to set up his office in Phuket. He moved the entire family and a close knit off 5 people to Phuket to open their office. The advantages were huge. Firstly, the market was pouring in with the best talent he could procure and secondly Thailand was an untapped market with no compelling travel service in far sight.

In 2011, Max Kraynov who spent more than a decade in senior management roles in mobile startups joined Konstantin as the CEO and partner of the company. In 2013, almost 2 million tickets were found through Avaisales which were subsequently bought resulting in the gross booking of $400 million. The current sales touch around 3.5 million tickets a year. The same year saw the Thai version of the website launch and in 2015, Jetradar hybrid meta-OTA product was launched in Thailand.

Max Kraynov, CEO

Jetradar sees to two set of groups: just about any traveller who wants to find a quick way to reasonably less expensive airfare or a hotel and the second group being anyone who wants to monetize their business and traffic through their website. They do this with a special affiliate program that gives an opportunity to anyone from travel bloggers to travel portals to monetize the traffic. They have a dedicated team that works with Travelpayouts.com as their partner solution. As a default, they share 60% of their profit per booking to affiliate. They have an open platform where one can use widgets, search forms, tracking links and such other stuff once the user registers. Over 70,000 users are on a roll over the affiliate program from 2011 and have received over $6 million in payouts.

The team

The startup works on a CPA model with their partners in airlines and travel agencies. It focuses their work on bringing high-quality to traffic to search results in order to get a better income in case if you compare it to CPC, where traffic quality can be sacrificed. Also, more importantly, their mobile marketing team comprises of 30 people making it one of the biggest in the East-European market which speaks volume that they understand the impact mobile is making especially in Southeast Asia. This special hybrid model for the Asian market where the OTA being  only half a year old, gave them a  great advantage in terms of conversion to paid bookings, especially on mobile, where the majority of Asian airlines and agencies struggling to bring proper UI / UX. Even international competitors admit that that Jetradar’s conversion is industry best in Asia.

They had launched their mobile app in 2012 which generated 10 million downloads till date with 1 million touching in the first 10 months. They rose $10 million from iTech Capital in 2014 for a minority stake in the company.

So, this International team of 130+ colleagues, friends and neighbours working from Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, Hong Kong, Australia, all focused on making travel easier and better have found their home in the paradise island. Winter sure isn’t coming.

To know more about their culture log on to Jetradar.com and download their apps at iTunes and Google Play Store here.

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Observing the currency fluctuations in the market, Wego.com, a prominent travel search site for Asia Pacific and Middle East regions, has recently unveiled its list of the coolest travel destinations for Singaporeans to explore abroad and achieve exclusive monetary benefits.

For Singaporeans, many tourist destinations located near their country have exchange rates that are currently at optimum level against the Singapore Dollar(SGD). In Malaysia, 1 SGD equals 3 Malaysian Ringgit (MYR). Earlier this year the Thai Baht had reached over 25 Thai Baht per Singapore Dollar.

According to the report, Joachim Holte, Chief Marketing Officer of Wego, stated:

“The movement in currency values against the US dollar means there’s never been a better time for Singaporeans to book flights and take a trip. There are so many destinations so close to Singapore where you can save a great deal of money, thanks to fantastically favourable exchange rates. We should all be jumping on a plane! We are lucky to be living in a city in such close proximity to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia which are all supported by a variety of low-cost airline connections”

Joachim Holte has also mentioned the fact that Thai Baht is already making Bangkok weekends or Andaman Coast holidays “extremely attractive”. He reveals that “Malaysia has never offered better value for the Singapore dollar”. Exciting trips to beautiful islands of Langkawi and Genting Highlands can be booked. The feasts in Penang can’t be missed either.

Australia is one such destination that is turning relatively popular than past years. It’s no news that Singaporeans are becoming adventurous by nature. Of late, they are showing avid inclination towards any country’s natural beauty i.e. coastal areas, rainforests and other landscapes.

Wego India, its Indian counterpart, is located in Bengaluru. This Singaporean company was founded by Ross Veitch and Craig Hewett. It has an exceptional online portal that searches hundreds of global travel websites including airlines, hotel chains and online travel agents. It assists the travellers by saving their time and money while booking the best services at cheaper rates.

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