Technology doesn't kill middlemen in travel, it replaces them

The promise was simple: technology would arrive and middlemen would vanish. In travel, what's actually happening is something else. Each new layer doesn't kill the one before, it swaps it for another sitting in the same spot. The Travel Tech Essentialist makes this case in issue 210 and it's one of the most honest takes in the sector right now.

The classic example is the hub. A smaller plane can skip the connection and fly point to point, sure. But someone still runs that flight, sells the seat and carries the risk. Same with the AI agent that promises to bypass the OTA: the moment it actually books, someone has to answer when the flight is cancelled at 3am. My read is that the middleman doesn't disappear, he relocates. And in that relocation there's business for whoever understands his real function: cutting friction or absorbing risk.

For a hotel, the operational question isn't how to kill the OTA. It's how much of your inventory and guest attention ends up in the new layer and how much you keep. I see a clear opening here for anyone with owned data and fast response capacity. The layer changes, the commission stays, and the revenue manager's job is deciding who charges it and why.