🥊 AWS Outage Hits Hotels

Manual payments are costing hotels up to 6% of monthly revenue—new research from Sertifi by Flywire reveals what’s holding operators back and how to fix it.

Flywire’s new hotel payment report uncovers how outdated workflows and fragmented systems are eroding profitability—and what operators can do to turn things around with automation, security, and smart integration.

👉 Read the full report to learn how top hotels are protecting revenue and empowering staff

A major outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) on October 20th disrupted multiple travel and hospitality platforms, including hotel chains (like Hilton and Hyatt) which rely on AWS infrastructure, highlighting the industry’s vulnerability to cloud-provider failures. The disruption originated within AWS’s US-EAST-1 region and affected booking systems, apps, and consumer interfaces globally.

🎯 Why it matters: Hotels have become highly dependent on centralized cloud services for operations—from bookings and PMS to guest apps and revenue systems. When a major provider like AWS falters, the ripple effects can hit reservations, check-in, messaging systems and beyond. This outage underscores that tech infrastructure risk is now a strategic hospitality issue, not just an IT concern.

🔑 Key takeaway: Hotel executives must treat cloud resilience and vendor diversification as part of operational continuity. Evaluate whether your tech stack has single-point-failures in one cloud region or provider. Invest in redundancy, fail-over pathways, and alternative providers, and ensure that essential guest-facing systems can operate even when cloud services degrade. Read More →

At the 2025 Lodging Conference, hotel execs from Highgate, Aimbridge, and others emphasized a shared concern: despite rising tech budgets, hospitality still lags other industries by around a decade. The consensus? The race isn’t just to add new tools—it’s to standardize systems, integrate data, and finally bring operations onto a unified tech platform. (“Technology in hospitality today, for lack of better words, sucks … The race here is not who adopts what first; the race here is going to be who standardizes this and adopts it first.”)

🎯 Why it matters: As margins compress and labor remains scarce, hotels can no longer afford fragmented, siloed tech stacks. Standardization promises scale, efficiency, and the ability to deploy AI and analytics across the enterprise, while still freeing up teams to focus on guest experience. Without it, “shiny-penny” innovations risk under-delivering.

🔑 Key takeaway: For hotel leaders, the message is clear: prioritize tech architecture before you chase the next widget. Choose vendors and platforms that support standardization across properties, integrate clean data, and embed analytics. Only then can your business unlock real insights, automation, and strategic agility—not just incremental improvements. Read More →

Jardine Matheson has announced it will buy the remaining 11.96% stake in Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, valuing the company at approximately US$4.2 billion, and delist the luxury hotel group from the Singapore Exchange. The transaction includes a cash offer of US$3.35 per share, is backed by cash reserves, and follows the sale of the top 13 floors of Mandarin Oriental’s Hong Kong property for US$925 million.

🎯 Why it matters: This takeover highlights how capital structures and ownership models in hospitality are evolving, especially for luxury brands. By moving from public-listing to privately held, Mandarin Oriental will likely gain more agility around asset-light strategies, brand expansion in Asia, and portfolio realignment, signaling a shift in how hotel groups think about growth and governance.

🔑 Key takeaway: Hotel executives should monitor how ownership transitions like this can unlock both strategic flexibility and investment in brand-building. Whether you oversee a boutique chain or a luxury flag, consider how changes in parent structure or capital backing could alter competitive dynamics, especially around expansion, asset-light models, and brand positioning in key regions. Read More →

✅ Sertifi: Streamline hotel check-ins and payments with secure digital solutions.

✅ ClickMaint: Simplify maintenance tasks with user-friendly software for hotel operations.

✅ IVvy: Elevate venue bookings, manage events, and track revenue easily.

✅ Actabl: Turn powerful BI data into actionable insights that maximize profits.

✅ Tripleseat: Manage hotel group bookings, catering and event sales with AI.

✅ ROH: Automate sales and finance to save time and capture more revenue.

✅ Canary Technologies: Powerful but simple AI powered digital guest journey platform.

✅ Hireology: Find and hire reliable staff faster to fill key hotel roles.

🤖 DoorDash and Waymo team up to deliver orders by self-driving car, signaling a new era for autonomous last-mile logistics.

🏨 The Lodging Conference 2025 spotlighted hotel leaders’ top bets for 2026—from labor fixes to luxury soft brands.

🔮 Hilton’s 2026 trends report points to “purposeful escapism,” longer stays, and tech-driven personalization shaping travel.

🗺️ Google is grounding Gemini in Maps data, blending AI and geospatial insight to reshape how travelers plan.

💼 Canary Technologies debuts an AI-powered sales and payments hub, unifying catering and group workflows.

💵 Americans say tipping has gone too far, with 77% calling current expectations “ridiculous,” according to Popmenu’s latest survey.

🧠 Expedia and IHG reveal their next AI moves—from dynamic trip design to predictive personalization.

✂️ United Airlines cuts 4% of management roles, citing efficiency gains from AI automation.

💬 Sabre says chat is the new influencer, as conversational interfaces reshape how travelers get inspired and book.

⚖️ U.S. lawmakers push toward federal AI regulation, setting the stage for nationwide standards on data and transparency.

✨ The final moment of a customer journey may matter most, shaping loyalty, memory, and repeat business.

🏁 Booking windows shrank ahead of Austin’s F1 Grand Prix, revealing travelers’ growing appetite for spontaneity.

🌐 Wyndham launches Rewards Insider, expanding loyalty perks across hotels, flights, and cruises.

💬 Airbnb’s new direct messaging feature blurs the line between booking platform and social app.

🗺️ OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Atlas: a new way to explore data and research through interactive AI mapping.

How can luxury hotels redefine the guest experience by transforming check-in and check-out into a more personalized journey? In this episode, Kris Leszczynski, Group GM at London based Edwardian Hotels, reveals innovative strategies that blend technology with exceptional service.

Key Takeaways:

👉🏼 Check out the interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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