Travala launches AI travel protocol to book 2.2M hotels

Travala on June 5 unveiled the Travala Travel MCP, an agentic AI travel protocol on the Base blockchain that allows autonomous software agents to search, reserve and process payments for more than 2.2 million hotels until users approve the final payment.

The protocol connects to inventory from major hotel chains including Marriott, Hilton and IHG. It removes the traditional checkout flow so agents can complete reservation steps while the user keeps final authorization over payment.

Built on Base, the system uses the x402 payment protocol to enable instant, gasless USDC transactions. Settlement costs are about one cent per booking, according to Travala.

Security features include ERC-7715 session keys, which let agents request payments while signing authority remains in the user’s wallet. The protocol also uses ERC-8004 to record an agent’s reputation against verified booking outcomes, creating a machine-verifiable reputational layer for developers and platforms.

Travala demonstrated an AI concierge operating inside Anthropic’s Claude that can plan and book multi-step trips in a single conversational thread, preserving context across searches, reservations and cancellations.

The company will offer a 10% rebate in cbBTC for bookings executed through integrated AI agents, distributed automatically on-chain to developers. Travala plans to expand the protocol to support airline bookings and expects its AVA loyalty token to gain additional utility as more services integrate.

Industry forecasts referenced by the company estimate autonomous transactions could reach $8 billion by 2026 and $3.5 trillion by 2031. Morgan Stanley Research projects agentic shoppers could account for as much as 20% of online retail spending by 2030.

Juan Otero, Travala’s chief executive, described the launch as “the death of the checkout button and the beginning of a truly autonomous travel economy.” Sam Frankel, head of partnerships at Base, called the protocol a demonstration of how on-chain infrastructure can support machine-to-machine commerce and labeled Travala “the default travel rail for the agentic web.”