Just when you finally figured out what an API was, or let’s be honest, you just nodded along, it’s time for a new acronym.
If you haven’t heard of MCP yet, you probably will in 2026.
MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. The easiest way to think about it is this: APIs were built so systems could talk to each other. MCP is built so systems can talk to AI. In hotel distribution terms, it’s the plumbing that lets an AI agent see real data, live rates, availability, and rules, and eventually handle things like booking and customer service.
This isn’t a travel-only thing. MCP is popping up across finance, retail, and healthcare. Travel just happens to be a great use case because it’s data-heavy, highly transactional, and built on real-time pricing and availability, exactly the kind of environment AI agents thrive in.
I keep reading articles about how hotels need to start learning and building MCPs, but let’s be real. Most hotels don’t build technology. They rent it. That means MCP connections won’t be created by hotels; they’ll be created by vendors like PMSs, CRSs, and other platforms.
Meanwhile, OTAs already have clean data, massive scale, and direct connections (MCPs) into the major AI models. AI companies want the easy button. Travel is just one vertical, and OTAs make it far easier to plug in once than to wire up thousands of individual hotels.
MCP gets pitched as a way for hotels to bypass intermediaries. Maybe someday. In the near term, it’s more likely to make the biggest pipes even bigger.
Glossary for our non-hotel tech geeks
- LLM – Large Language Model. The AI brains behind tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
- PMS – Property Management System. The system that runs your hotel day to day: rooms, guests, rates, folios, the works.
- CRS – Central Reservation System. Where inventory and rates are managed and pushed to distribution channels.
- CRM – Customer Relationship Management system. Guest profiles, history, preferences, and marketing data.
- API – Application Programming Interface. The thing that lets one piece of software talk to another without humans getting involved.
If you are interested in Hotel terminology, we have a glossary on our website.
