Why 2026 could be the last year of OTA dominance – Hospitable Founder’s view
- Apr 30
- 7 min read
Pierre-Camille Hamana made a startling prediction on the latest Host Planet Podcast. The Founder and CEO of Hospitable – the property management software now used by more than 20,000 short-term rental operators worldwide – laid out a thesis that’s hard to ignore:
“2026, 2027 might be the last years where booking platforms take such a predominant role in the industry.”
His reasoning isn’t a hot take. It’s a chain of arguments about AI, software economics, and where the leverage in short-term rentals is quietly moving. In the same month as this conversation, Hospitable launched a “less than free” PMS tier and shipped an MCP server – both designed to accelerate exactly the shifts Hamana is predicting.
This is what he sees coming, why he thinks the rest of the industry won’t get there first, and what hosts should be doing about it now.
The argument that should worry Airbnb and Booking.com
Hamana’s case starts with a simple question: when AI agents become the way travellers discover accommodation, what is an OTA actually for?
“If everyone is sharing the same supply, you go for the agents, the AI systems, you book direct – because it should be the place that is cheaper and where you have a direct connection with the host.”
Booking platforms have spent more than a decade and “tens of billions” building two moats: brand recognition and proprietary discovery algorithms. Both are weaker if the discovery layer is no longer Booking.com’s homepage but ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
Hamana acknowledges the counterargument – OTAs will pay to advertise inside the LLMs themselves, and direct booking sites won’t be able to outspend them. He doesn’t dismiss it. He just thinks the agent layer is more likely to bias towards direct supply over time. “I would like a future where that might happen more often than not – rather than having existing OTAs that are competitive on the same supply without any edge over the guest.”
This isn’t a forecast he’s making for fun. It’s the basis on which Hospitable is now restructuring its product, pricing, and entire go-to-market.
The 35% problem nobody talks about
There’s a number Hamana keeps coming back to: only 35% of US short-term rental listings are connected to property management software.
For comparison: CRM penetration sits around 80%. HR systems, 80%. Accounting and ERP software, 80%. PMS is the outlier.
“Property management software is this odd thing where there hasn’t been wide adoption for very high-value software.”
He thinks that low penetration has hidden consequences. As long as fewer than half of hosts are software-connected, OTAs can keep playing what he calls a game of “exclusive supply” – favouring listings that don’t show up on competing platforms, and dictating fees, ranking, and exposure as a result. Software-connected hosts, by contrast, can list across multiple channels and force OTAs to actually compete on performance.
The implication is uncomfortable for the rest of the PMS industry: if penetration matters more than feature differentiation, the right strategy isn’t to build a slightly better dashboard. It’s to remove every reason a host wouldn’t sign up.
“Less than free” – and why traditional PMS pricing is broken
Which brings us to Hospitable Essentials. Officially it’s a free tier. Hamana refuses to call it that.
“I don’t think ‘free’ characterises this new plan. It’s actually less than free. We don’t want to charge your credit card – we actually will pay you as you grow your business.”
The mechanics: hosts get the full PMS – channel management, messaging automation, multi-channel distribution, operations – at no subscription cost. Hospitable earns from the ancillary revenue the platform helps generate (early check-in upsells, travel insurance, and so on), and the host takes a share. Incentives are aligned by design.
Hamana’s wider claim is that the per-property, per-seat subscription model that has defined STR software for 15 years is finished.
“The software industry at large needs to reinvent itself on delivering value to its customers. It can no longer be based on pricing per seat operating properties – it needs to be tied to outcomes.”
In his telling, subscription pricing has been actively holding the industry back. Hosts treat PMS as a fixed cost that “eats their margin,” and are apprehensive about implementation, complexity, and onboarding. The result is the 35% penetration ceiling. Remove cost as the objection – and replace human-led onboarding with 10-minute self-serve setup – and that ceiling moves.
Why hasn’t a competitor done this already? Hamana’s answer is unusually direct: incumbents are defending market share, not redefining the category. “It’s not about winning the market, it’s about defending and defining their own market share, and not following the most aggressive path.”
The MCP launch – and what 2026 looks like inside Hospitable
In the same week the free tier went live, Hospitable also released an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, allowing AI agents – including ChatGPT, Claude, and any custom LLM workflow – to read and write directly to a host’s PMS data.
“All users are going to be interacting with our data, probably in the next decade [via agents]. So let’s be the first ones.”
The internal numbers Hamana shares are striking: roughly 90% of Hospitable’s own code is now AI-generated, and 70% of customer support queries are resolved by AI. Work that used to take quarters now compresses into weeks; what used to take weeks compresses into days. He’s contemptuous of competitors “rolling out more AI features at the last limit,” arguing that 2026 is too late to be excited about an AI inbox. The bar has moved to agentic workflows, and most of the industry hasn’t noticed.
His prediction for hosts is what he calls a K-curve: those who adopt AI properly will pull away; those who treat it as a marketing buzzword will fall behind.
What hosts should actually do about this
Buried in the conversation is a remarkably practical list of moves Hamana recommends for hosts navigating the transition.
1. Get on software, finally
“Now that you can actually go on a table – you don’t have to go through a sales call, you don’t have to go through onboarding – you can use a property management software within 10 minutes.” Cost is no longer the objection.
2. Find your “special sauce” and obsess over it
Hamana cites a host he spoke to who specialises in renting to families travelling to a major hospital for treatment. The hospitality is unusually emotional, the package unusually specific. “It’s not about just passing the bar. It’s packaging five-star, six-star, seven-star, and far along.”
3. Get a direct booking site live – but don’t waste money on it
This is the part of the conversation that should save hosts thousands. Hamana’s view is blunt: a booking site is “a tiny part” of building a direct channel. Use the free site that comes with your PMS, or pay $10–$20 a month for a basic builder. Spend your energy on sales and marketing, not design.
4. Treat direct as a returning-guest channel
“You’re not going to compete with the marketing dollars of Booking or Airbnb.” Use direct bookings for repeat guests, stay extensions, and clearly defined personas – not for cold customer acquisition.
5. Watch the discovery layer move
“I believe the need for a website might go down, simply because the discoverability is going to be done by LLMs, not via a Google search. The agent will extract all the information in any way it has.” His advice: make sure your booking flow is structured cleanly enough that an AI agent could complete it on a guest’s behalf.
The bigger pattern
Across the conversation, Hamana keeps returning to one word: alignment. PMS providers should make money when hosts make money. Hosts should distribute on every booking channel that earns its place. AI should automate the boring work and free hosts to lean into what’s unique about them. OTAs that earn their position with quality discovery should win; the ones that depend on exclusive supply shouldn’t.
Whether 2026 turns out to be the inflection point he’s predicting is genuinely an open question. Hamana himself hedges: “I don’t want to sound like an oracle.” But the moves Hospitable is making – free tier, MCP server, AI-native engineering, 10-minute onboarding – are clearly being made on the assumption that he’s right.
For hosts, the practical takeaway is the same either way. Get on software. Find your edge. Don’t overspend on a website. And start treating AI agents as part of your distribution, not a marketing buzzword.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Pierre-Camille Hamana? Pierre-Camille Hamana is the Founder and CEO of Hospitable, a property management software company used by more than 20,000 short-term rental operators worldwide. He started in the industry as a host himself in Brussels, where he ran a beer-tasting experience alongside his rental.
What is Hospitable Essentials? Hospitable Essentials is Hospitable’s new “less than free” PMS plan. Hosts use the full software at no subscription cost, and Hospitable earns revenue by sharing in the ancillary income the platform helps generate (such as early check-in upsells and travel insurance), aligning incentives between the software and the host.
What share of US short-term rental listings use property management software? According to Pierre-Camille Hamana, only around 35% of US short-term rental listings are connected to a property management software, compared to roughly 80% penetration for CRM, HR, and accounting software in other industries.
Will AI agents replace Airbnb and Booking.com? Hamana suggests 2026 and 2027 may be the last years OTAs hold their current dominant role, as AI agents like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini take over the discovery layer. He acknowledges OTAs will fight back by advertising inside LLMs, but argues the agent layer is likely to favour direct supply over time.
Should I build a custom direct booking website? Hamana’s advice is no, at least not initially. Use the free direct booking site that comes with your PMS, or a low-cost website builder for $10–$20 per month. Spend the budget on sales and marketing, not design.
What is an MCP server, and why does it matter for short-term rentals? MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a standard that allows AI agents to read and write to software platforms directly. Hospitable’s MCP server lets hosts run AI workflows – from ChatGPT or Claude – against their PMS data, automating tasks far beyond traditional inbox AI.
Is the subscription PMS pricing model dead? Hamana argues it should be. He believes outcome-aligned pricing – where the PMS earns when the host earns – will replace per-property, per-seat subscriptions over the next few years, and Hospitable Essentials is positioned as the proof point.
How is Hospitable using AI internally? Hamana reports that approximately 90% of Hospitable’s code is AI-generated and 70% of customer support queries are resolved by AI. Work that used to take quarters now compresses into weeks. He frames this AI-native operating model as a structural advantage over PMS competitors that have only recently started shipping AI features.
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