Travel Stocks Fall on Worries Meta's Muse May Eat Their Lunch -- Barrons.com
Dow Jones2026/09/22 17:39By Anita Hamilton
The buzzy release of Meta's artificial intelligence personal assistant Muse earlier this month has been good for Meta stock, which has surged more than 20% since its announcement. But other stocks are feeling the pain, namely travel companies whose bread and butter is booking flights and places to stay on vacation-something Muse can now do too.
Shares of Expedia, Booking Holdings, TripAdvisor and AirBnb were all falling Tuesday, with Expedia seeing the biggest drop of 5.5% to $265.60 by midday.
The stock drops coincide with the Muse app topping the list of free apps in Apple's App store on Tuesday.
A new report from Bloomberg Intelligence lays out the problem for travel companies. Analysts Mandeep Singh and William Tong argue that if agents such as Muse siphon off just 5% to 10% of their business, along with that of ride-sharing and delivery firms, their combined revenue loss could exceed $5 billion. "Marketplaces could face lower direct traffic, new distribution costs and weaker customer ownership, while agent providers and mobile operating system owners gain leverage over discovery and transactions," the analysts added.
Muse isn't the only AI personal agent that could eat into travel sites lunch either. Instinct, a text-based rival from privately-held Spear Street, launched this summer. Paypal and Stripe are also developing agentic payment systems, while Mastercard and Visa have partnered with Alchemy to do so much the same.
Write to Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 22, 2026 13:39 ET (17:39 GMT)
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
You may also like
Omeros Shares Rise After Cantor Fitzgerald Upgrade
Federal Reserve "third-in-command": Centralized clearing of US Treasuries is ahead of expectations, ample reserves framework is effective
New York Federal Reserve President Williams stated that the industry has already begun proactively expanding infrastructure for cleared repos and cash transactions. Trading activity is shifting from uncleared to cleared markets, and overall progress is ahead of the regulatory deadline. In this speech, he did not comment on the monetary policy stance.
Citigroup: Inflation Surpasses Tariffs as the Top Concern for Family Offices, Wealthy Individuals Flocking to Gold and U.S. Stocks
A survey by Citigroup shows that among 350 family offices across more than 40 countries, inflation has replaced trade wars and tariffs as their biggest concern, followed by interest rates and the stability of the global financial system. More than 90% of family offices surveyed reported positive returns this year, and nearly half said they increased their holdings of publicly listed stocks in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, Citigroup’s head of wealth management noted that gold now features in almost every client conversation he has.
Crypto prices
More
