🏨 McKinsey: Only 1% Use AI Correctly

Struggling to turn website visitors into direct bookings? The Direct Booking Conversion Assessment helps you quickly identify hidden friction points in your booking journey—so you can prioritize the changes that drive more revenue.

Built as a fast, structured diagnostic, the Direct Booking Conversion Assessment gives hotel marketers a clear snapshot of their booking funnel's health—helping teams focus on the improvements that have the greatest impact on conversion and direct revenue.

👉 Find the leaks in your direct booking funnel

McKinsey studied 15 AI-native companies and found they all landed on the same operating habits. The biggest advantage wasn't choosing a better AI model. It was giving AI clear roles, capturing knowledge that only employees knew, and automating work gradually instead of all at once. For hotels, buying AI tools isn't what creates an advantage. The hotels pulling ahead are redesigning how work gets done, while everyone else is just adding another piece of software.

🎯 Why it matters: Your AI is only as good as the knowledge it can access. The biggest opportunity isn't upgrading to a newer model - it's documenting what's currently trapped in your team's heads: pricing logic, local recommendations, VIP procedures, and operating playbooks. That's what separates an AI concierge that delivers great service from one that confidently gives the wrong answer.

🔑 Key takeaway: AI isn't a plug-and-play purchase. Start with one repetitive workflow—guest FAQs, upsell offers, or night audit reporting. Learn the process, automate one step at a time, and keep a human in the loop until the system consistently gets it right. That's how AI becomes a competitive advantage instead of another unused tool. Read More →

U.S. hotel demand is surging in recent weeks, with RevPAR up 9.7% year-over-year and gains finally broadening beyond luxury into mid-market and economy for the first time this cycle. That momentum sits on top of a soft full-year baseline, since 2025 occupancy fell to 62.3%, the first decline since 2020, so operators are seeing a strong stretch, not a fully healed market. Capture the midweek corporate demand while it's hot, but building your budget around these peak weeks is a trap when international arrivals are still lagging and costs are climbing.

🎯 Why it matters: The strength is midweek and business-driven, so the opportunity is in corporate and group rate discipline, not weekend discounting. With demand concentrated Monday through Thursday and broadening down into mid-market and economy tiers, operators below the luxury segment finally have room to hold rate rather than chase occupancy, and this is the first cycle where that lever is available to them.

🔑 Key takeaway: Recent RevPAR looks great, but the annual baseline is soft and the risks (international arrivals, tariffs, fuel, and re-inflation) are real, so don't confuse a hot stretch for structural recovery. Pressure-test your 2026 forecast against the flat full-year numbers, not the peak weeks, and model a scenario where international demand stays weak so your rate strategy captures midweek corporate strength without over-relying on it. Read More →

Consumers are handing trip planning to AI agents in large numbers (71% want one to assemble a full trip), yet travel remains the category they're least willing to fully automate, and choosing the actual hotel room is where most insist on staying in control. For hoteliers, this splits the funnel in two: the discovery and booking layer is becoming a machine-to-machine contest where unstructured data makes you invisible, while the stay itself becomes the human moment that determines loyalty. Get your inventory and content agent-readable or risk never making the shortlist—but win the on-property experience or watch conditional loyalty walk to whatever brand the next agent recommends.

🎯 Why it matters: Your rates, room content, policies, and amenities need to be structured and machine-readable now, because agents evaluate hotels on parseable data, not brand affection. A property an agent can't cleanly read gets left off the shortlist before a guest ever sees it—the same way Oreo vanished from 90% of AI recommendations despite universal recognition.

🔑 Key takeaway: The booking decision is moving upstream into agents while the room decision stays firmly human, so hoteliers have to win in both places at once. Audit how your property appears to an AI agent today—search for your hotel in a few AI assistants and check whether your rates, room types, and key details surface accurately - then fix the gaps before your comp set does. Read More →

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

✅ FLYR Hospitality: Better data analysis for more profitable decision-making.

✅ IDeaS: Forecast demand accurately to increase occupancy and room profitability.

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

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

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

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

✅ Eleanor: Manage your resort’s daily guest service related tasks.

1️⃣ How to Unlock Better Reviews with AI

A practical framework for evaluating AI-powered review management software and finding the right fit. Explore the tools, trends, and buying criteria shaping the next generation of hotel review management.

2️⃣ How to Bring AI Into Your Hotel Organization

To keep up with changing guest needs and rising expectations, hotels are adopting AI at scale. Dive into Canary’s research to see how AI is driving revenue growth, operational efficiency, improved guest experiences, and much more.

3️⃣ How Your Property Can Win on Google Hotel Ads

Learn how to turn Google Hotel Ads into a high-performing direct booking channel. This ebook breaks down how hotel metasearch works, the metrics that matter most, and the strategies hotels use to reduce OTA dependence and grow profitable direct revenue.

☁️ Cloudbeds and Vacatia spotlight open API-powered platform

🥊 Hotel owners are tired of big brands, here’s how they’re fighting back

💼 AI’s impact on jobs proves more complex than predicted

🇨🇳 China’s regulatory crackdown begins weighing on Trip.com growth

🤖 AI lowers distribution barriers, shifting focus back to guests

🦾 Fully robot-staffed hotel slated for 2027 opening

⚙️ Choice doubles down on practical AI and automation

⚖️ Marriott faces lawsuit over resort fees on award stays

👷 Ford rehires 350 engineers after AI failed quality standards

🧠 AI uncertainty remains the biggest hurdle to travel adoption

Use AI-powered revenue management to automate dynamic pricing, track competitor rates, forecast demand, and optimize room rates with detailed performance analytics.

👉 Increase profits with roommaster

The best operators don’t just keep up they stay curious. They demo new tools, test ideas in real workflows, and talk to peers to see what’s actually working. That’s how you find the small changes that compound into meaningful results. Pick your department below and commit to trying at least one new tool this week. Even a single demo can spark an idea that improves performance, saves time, or unlocks new revenue.

What happens when the biggest threat to hotel owners isn't brands, OTAs, or labor costs - but AI?

In this episode, Sloan Dean, former CEO of one of the largest hotel management companies in the United States, shares why he believes the hospitality industry's incentives are fundamentally broken, which hotel technologies actually move the needle, and why many operators may be underestimating the disruptive force of AI.

During his tenure as CEO of Remington Hospitality, Sloan Dean helped grow the company from roughly 80 hotels to more than 150 properties generating over $1.6 billion in annual hotel revenue. With a background in engineering, asset management, and hotel operations, Sloan brings a rare perspective that spans ownership, management, technology, and investment.

👉🏼 Check out our interview with Sloan Dean on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Want to advertise with us?

💌 Sponsor this newsletter (here) or a dedicated eblast (here) to our 65k subscribers

⭐️ Become a premium member, join the best companies in the industry (here)

🎯 Set up a PPC campaign to drive high-intent traffic from our homepage and category pages straight to your website in under 3-minutes (learn how)