🏨 Langham LA's $536K Algorithm Mistake

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Langham will pay $320,000 in penalties and roughly $217,000 in refunds after LA County alleged its Pasadena hotel raised rates beyond California's 10% emergency cap during the 2025 wildfires. It matters because the settlement targets the revenue management system itself: Langham must modify its automated pricing algorithms to block unlawful increases during declared emergencies. Every operator running dynamic pricing now has a compliance question, because an RMS that responds to demand spikes doesn't know a wildfire from a concert unless someone programs it to.

🔑 Key takeaway: This isn’t Langham’s fault nor is it their RMS vendor’s. They unfortunately became an example we can learn from that prosecutors treated algorithm-driven rate increases exactly like manual price-gouging, and "the system did it automatically" was not a defense. Make sure to address this with your RMS vendors and create a gameplan for scenarios like this. Read More →

OpenTable's new data shows hotel restaurants driving room bookings, with 60% of summer travelers choosing a hotel specifically for its restaurant and traveler dining up 13% year over year. It matters because F&B has flipped from cost center to demand generator: 92% of hotel restaurant diners aren't even staying at the hotel, meaning a strong outlet pulls both room nights and local revenue. Hotels treating their restaurant as an amenity rather than a marketing asset are leaving bookings on the table, while competitors on lists like this one plan around it.

🔑 Key takeaway: Market your restaurant as a reason to book the room, not a perk after arrival. Make dining bookable alongside the room, and make sure the restaurant's reviews, menus, and photos are strong on the platforms travelers plan from. Note the source: OpenTable commissioned this research and sells the platform it recommends. Read More →

Data center construction spending is set to more than double to $118.4 billion by 2027, and extended stay brands are racing to position hotels near the projects. It matters because the biggest names in the segment can't agree on whether this demand lasts: Wyndham sees sustained suburban development, while My Place's CEO calls it an oil boom that ends overnight. Owners who build new construction against temporary construction-crew demand could be holding empty rooms in five years, while those who ignore genuine clustering markets leave money on the table.

🔑 Key takeaway: The smart money isn't chasing the data centers themselves. Choice is targeting supply chain markets where cooling, turbine, and electrical equipment manufacturing is expanding, because those factory jobs are permanent while construction crews leave. Before committing capital to a data center market, run My Place's test: can you correlate commerce growth, rooftop growth, and population growth over the past three to five years? If the only demand driver is the construction site itself, favor conversions over new builds. Read More →

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

✅ Sojern: Pay-for-performance hotel ads that drive direct bookings.

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

✅ Siteminder: Capture direct bookings, syncs rate and reduce OTA commissions.

✅ FPG: Upsell highly profitable ancillary upgrades and track performance.

✅ Operto: Automate guest messaging, check-in, upsells across the guest journey.

1️⃣ 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.

2️⃣ The Hotel Upsell Playbook

This free 10-page eBook covers the common pitfalls of manual upsell programs, effective modern strategies and examples that deliver results.

3️⃣ The Hotelier’s Guide to Turning Guest Data into Value

Discover how hotels can turn unused guest data into value through smarter cross-channel marketing, personalized retargeting, direct bookings, upselling & better Guest Experiences. No product demo. No sales pitch.

🤖 OpenAI confirms its models broke out of a sandbox and hacked Hugging Face

📊 BCG: AI pricing tools drive 15% RevPAR growth but few hotels are ready

🗽 NYC hotels still missing international visitors, comptroller warns

✊ Striking Seattle hotel workers collect unemployment benefits under new Washington law

🧳 Allianz: 37% of travelers now use AI to plan summer trips

Ernest connects your commercial data in one AI workspace, analyzes demand and competitive performance, recommends next steps, and takes approved actions across your hotel systems.

👉 Unify commercial decisions with Ernest

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.

In this episode, Peter Twachtman, CEO of Lark Hospitality, explains how one of the fastest-growing independent hotel management groups is building a scalable technology and operating model across more than 70 properties in 22 states, Mexico, and Canada. Lark specializes in independent and branded hotels with fewer than 150 rooms. After growing from roughly 20 hotels and merging with Life House, Peter and his team consolidated the portfolio around a core technology stack

👉🏼 Check out our interview with Peter Twachtman on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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