Travala launched AI hotel reservation protocol with USDC base
Singapore-based crypto travel platform Travala has launched a protocol that will allow artificial intelligence agents to search, book and pay for hotels with USDC on a Layer-2 blockchain base, and the agency's AI will add stablecoin payments to travel bookings.
Travala's Travala Travala MCP is live through Claude Desktop, which external developers can integrate with their own travel agents, Travala said in a statement sent to Cointelegraph.
The company says it will connect Travala's hotel inventory with AI agents through the Model Context Protocol, an open standard for connecting AI applications to external devices. Payments are based on Coinbase's x402 protocol, which Travala says allows for gasless USDC transactions, near-term settlement and transaction costs as low as $0.01 per booking.
AI travel still needs human approval
However, final payment approval still requires manual approval from the traveler, which means it's not fully autonomous but more advanced than a chatbot that only recommends trips.
The launch comes as crypto companies try to make stablecoins useful for machine-to-machine transactions and follows a wave of crypto payment infrastructure aimed at AI agents. Cointelegraph recently reported that x402-connected wallets on Base have surpassed 100 million transactions, while Firefox, Moonpay, Exodus and Oobit have launched AI-driven stable coin payments products.
Cumulative agent transfer volumes on base. Source: Chain analysis
Although travelers still have final say on payments, Travala frames the launch as a first step, and says it's offering developers a 10% Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC) discount on completed stays booked through its agents.
“The launch of the world's first agent AI travel protocol marks the death of the checkout button,” said Travala CEO Juan Otero, calling it the start of a “truly autonomous travel economy.”
Travala said the setup uses ERC-7715 session keys, allowing the AI agent to request payments while waiting for the final signing authority in the traveler's wallet. The company says the protocol can maintain context across searches, subscriptions and deletions within a single conversation thread.
Related: Coinbase-Backed x402 Adds Batch Payments for AI Agent Payments
Travala plans a wider travel release
The Travala protocol covers more than 2.2 million hotels, including properties from Marriott, Hilton and IHG through its collection partners.
The company said it plans to expand the protocol beyond hotels to other travel products, including flights, and says the Travala (AVA) loyalty token will support future travel MCP use cases.
Travala was founded in 2017 and competes with crypto-friendly travel platforms such as Sleap.io and Alternative Airlines, although its latest protocol shifts the comparison from crypto checkout to AI-agent booking infrastructure. The company claims to accept more than 100 cryptocurrencies alongside fiat currencies.
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Additional reporting by Christina Comben
