🎲 Hilton, Wyndham, and Accor's 2026 Bets

Fray Group modernized its tech stack and unlocked a 15% ADR increase without sacrificing service or adding complexity. In a highly price-sensitive market, smarter operations made all the difference.

From back office to bookings, Cloudbeds gave Fray Group the tools to outperform the market and outpace the competition.

👉 See how Cloudbeds helps hotel teams win in competitive markets.

Hotel revenue leaders are preparing for another year of modest growth and unpredictability in 2026, emphasizing micro-market pricing, early group bookings, and flexible strategy execution instead of relying on broad annual plans. With corporate and inbound demand still uneven, many teams are focusing on data-driven rate tactics and nimble rate testing week-to-week, rather than hoping for broad, organic ADR growth. Meanwhile, at least one major operator (First Hospitality) is rolling out a generative engine optimization playbook to help properties boost visibility in AI-driven search and discovery.

🎯 Why it matters: As hotel performance stabilizes, revenue growth will increasingly be the result of precision execution, not broad demand tailwinds. Tech (especially AI, generative search optimization, and real-time analytics) is essential for understanding rapidly changing booking patterns, optimizing rate decisions, and making sure your property shows up in emerging discovery pathways where travelers begin their journeys.

🔑 Key takeaway: Hotel owners must pressure-test their 2026 budgets against soft rate conditions and focus sales teams on locking in early group bookings. At the same time, investing in AI-driven digital visibility and empowering revenue teams to make rapid, localized decisions will be key to capturing share in a flat-demand environment. Read More →

Booking.com has shifted its review scoring model to prioritize recent guest feedback rather than long-term historical averages. Under the old system, scores often stayed flat for long stretches, even after improvements in service, because they were anchored to a three-year average. The updated algorithm now gives much more weight to recently submitted reviews, making scores more dynamic and reflective of current performance.

🎯 Why it matters: Online reputation has always been a top driver of demand, but Booking.com’s evolution means it’s now a near-real-time performance metric. Instead of hoping a high average score will carry you over months or years, guests and revenue systems alike will see more immediate impact from service improvements—and more immediate penalties from lapses. This aligns with broader trends in AI-enabled guest sentiment tracking that reward agility and responsiveness.

🔑 Key takeaway: Hoteliers need to treat review management as a strategic, tech-enabled discipline in 2026. Invest in systems that capture guest feedback quickly, analyze sentiment with AI tools, and trigger operational improvements in near-real time. A modern reputation strategy, integrated with the rest of your tech stack, will help you capture the upside of recent improvements faster and compete more effectively in Booking.com’s algorithm. Read More →

Hotels are seeing a growing trend where families are choosing “family camp”-style programming (activities designed for parents and children to enjoy together) over traditional drop-off kids’ clubs. Properties from luxury resorts to boutique destinations are offering shared experiences like cultural scavenger hunts, guided bike tours, art workshops, and family-oriented excursions that span all ages. Parents increasingly involve their children in trip planning itself, with up to 86% including kids in choosing destinations and activities according to recent trend forecasts.

🎯 Why it matters: Family travel is becoming a collective experience, not an “adult getaway with babysitting on the side.” That shifts how hotels compete: it’s not enough to offer a drop-off playroom. Guests want immersive, age-inclusive programming that creates memories, and they’re willing to spend on experiences that make travel meaningful for everyone. Hotels that lean hard into these trends stand to capture more direct bookings, longer stays, and higher ancillary spend.

🔑 Key takeaway: Hotel leaders should rethink family offerings through both program design and technology. Integrate experience booking into your digital channels—allow families to reserve camps, workshops, excursions, and shared activities directly via your app or booking engine and personalize recommendations using guest profiles. And use data from past stays and AI-driven insights to suggest tailored family experiences at key moments (pre-arrival, pre-stay upsell, on-property discovery) to make your hotel into family tradition. Read More →

✅ Cloudbeds: All-in-one hotel management software at the speed of AI.

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

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

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

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

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

✅ VoucherCart: Turn gift vouchers into prepaid revenue across rooms, dining, and spa.

✅ Plusgrade: Unlock new revenue by automating targeted guest upgrade offers.

✅ EntryReady: Guests unlock rooms with phones—no cards, lines, or front desk delays.

✅ MeetingPackage: Simplify MICE bookings and boost event revenue.

1️⃣ See How Linchris Hotels Transformed Hospitality Operations with Canary

Learn how ChatGPT and similar tools are fundamentally changing the way guests plan their trips and discover hotels and how you can secure visibility and bookings today.

2️⃣ Enabling next-generation hotel guest and employee experiences

Read the ebook to see how hotels are leveraging advanced communications tools & AI to enable next-generation guest and employee experiences.

3️⃣ Bluesun Hotels Doubles Revenue with HubSpot

Since implementing HubSpot Marketing, Sales and Service Hub, Bluesun doubled direct revenue, enhanced customer support and satisfaction while improving operational productivity and efficiencies.

🤖 Hotels are experimenting with AI-powered agents to streamline operations and reduce staff workload.

⚽ World Cup 2026 demand is already lifting booking volumes and ADR in host markets.

🍷 Napa Valley hotels are blending hospitality and tech through AI-driven wine pairing experiences.

📊 Heading into 2026, owners are laser-focused on protecting hotel operating margins.

💵 A new year brings higher labor costs as minimum wages rise across multiple U.S. states.

🚕 Uber has unveiled its next-generation robotaxi built with Lucid and Nuro.

🌱 Wyndham is advancing sustainable tourism with greener hotel initiatives in Saudi Arabia.

🌀 Skift coins the “travel slop” era to describe how AI-generated sameness is creeping into discovery.

📱 Instagram will begin labeling real versus AI-generated content to restore creator trust.

🏨 Hilton has cut ties with a property following a controversy involving ICE agents.

✨ Luxury hospitality is shifting toward design-driven and emotionally resonant themes in 2026.

📈 OYO’s parent company Prism has filed for an IPO seeking a $7B valuation.

🗣️ Amazon and Expedia are testing agentic AI travel booking through Alexa+ integrations.

♿ AI is helping remove barriers by enabling more accessible travel experiences.

🇬🇧 A new UK labor package could cost firms £1B annually under expanded workers’ rights.

🧭 Expedia is rolling out ChatGPT-like AI agents to guide travelers through booking decisions.

🌍 Accor is betting on long-term growth through a regionally tailored Middle East strategy.

Guest reviews aren’t just social proof anymore—they’re quietly becoming the backbone of pricing power, AI-driven discovery, and automated guest communication. In this episode of Hotel Tech Insider, Ben Jost, Founder and CEO of TrustYou, shares how nearly two decades of working with the world’s largest hotel brands has shaped his view on where reputation management is headed next—and why many hoteliers are still underestimating its impact.

Ben walks through TrustYou’s evolution from an early consumer review startup to the world’s leading guest feedback and reputation intelligence platform, including its acquisition by Recruit Holdings (Indeed, Glassdoor) and subsequent management buyout. That journey set the foundation for what TrustYou is building today: a unified platform that combines guest feedback, transactional data, and AI agents into a continuous, two-way conversation with guests across every channel.

For experienced hoteliers, the insights are practical and sharp. Ben explains why even small improvements in review scores can directly unlock higher ADR, how reputation management has become the long-term counterpart to revenue management, and why up to 50% of a hotel’s total reviews can now come from its own first-party surveys. He also breaks down a major shift already underway: guests are no longer asking simple yes-or-no questions like “Does the hotel have a pool?”—they’re asking AI long-tail questions that reward hotels with rich, structured review content and strong brand voice.

The conversation goes further into what’s surprising many industry veterans: CDPs, guest messaging, and chatbots are collapsing into a single AI-driven conversation layer that can answer questions, personalize responses using PMS data, and soon execute tasks like upgrades and add-ons in real time. Ben makes the case that the hotel tech stack is about to shrink—not grow—and that the hotels who adapt early will have a structural advantage in both direct bookings and guest satisfaction.

If you want to understand how guest feedback, AI agents, and hotel data are converging—and what that means for pricing, distribution, and operations—this episode is essential listening. Subscribe to Hotel Tech Insider for more conversations with the leaders shaping the future of hospitality, and share this episode with anyone who still thinks reviews are just about responding on OTAs.

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

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