🏨 UK Investigates Hilton, Marriott, and IHG Data Practices

Tired of hotel loyalty programs that just hand out points and discounts? So were the 1,496 distinctive properties that joined Journey in just seven months including Castle Hill Inn, NIHI Sumba, and Dunton Hot Springs.

Journey takes a different approach. Instead of training guests to wait for deals, it helps independent hotels build real loyalty with personalized, meaningful rewards that reflect each property’s unique brand.

Journey is a global alliance of independent hotels united by character, experience, and a shared loyalty engine that grows revenue without discounting.

👉 Discover how Journey helps you build loyalty on your terms

A new report from Boston Consulting Group finds AI is rapidly transforming hotel discovery, distribution, and operations. Travelers are increasingly relying on AI-powered search and conversational interfaces instead of traditional keyword queries, shifting visibility dynamics away from classic SEO and OTA listings. On the operations side, AI is driving gains in revenue management, staffing optimization, and predictive maintenance, moving from experimentation to scaled deployment across leading brands.

🎯 Why it matters: The report makes clear that AI is not just a side project. Hotels risk losing share in AI-driven discovery layers while also falling behind on operational efficiency if they delay adoption. Visibility, margin protection, and guest experience are now directly tied to tech maturity.

🔑 Key takeaway: For hotel executives, this is about infrastructure. Ensure rate, availability, and content data are machine-readable and accessible to AI discovery platforms. At the same time, prioritize operational AI use cases with measurable ROI: labor optimization, pricing intelligence, and service automation. The winners in 2026 and beyond will treat AI as a core operating system layer, not a marketing add-on. Read More →

Investors worry AI assistants could make traditional software obsolete by replacing dashboards and menus. But hotel software sits at the financial core of the business—managing room inventory, pricing, taxes, payments, and reconciliations—making it difficult for AI to replace the underlying systems. Instead, AI will likely sit on top of these platforms, helping hotels operate them more efficiently rather than eliminating them.

🎯 Why it matters: Much of the current “AI reset” debate assumes software is mainly an interface for organizing tasks or displaying information. Hotel platforms are different because they directly control revenue flow—inventory, payments, and accounting—which makes them structurally harder to replace.

🔑 Key takeaway: For hotel operators, if you’re still working with the 17th best player in your space because ‘that’s always how you’ve done it’ the opportunity cost is higher than ever. Invest and upgrade today so that you can be the disruptor in this next innovation revolution. For hotel technology companies, surviving the AI shift will require more than simply adding AI features. The companies that remain standing will be the ones that keep investing in meaningful product innovation, stay deeply connected to their customers’ operational realities, and build brands that operators trust to run the financial core of their business. Read More →

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation into whether Hilton, Marriott, and IHG shared competitively sensitive data through the hotel analytics platform STR, owned by CoStar. Regulators are examining whether the tool allowed rival hotel chains to reduce uncertainty about each other’s pricing and strategy. No wrongdoing has been determined yet.

🎯 Why it matters: The investigation targets a core technology used widely across the hotel industry: shared benchmarking data and analytics platforms. Regulators are increasingly concerned that algorithms and shared datasets could unintentionally enable coordination between competitors.

🔑 Key takeaway: Hoteliers should treat data strategy as both a competitive and compliance imperative. That means auditing how guest, pricing, and loyalty data flows across systems, ensuring strong governance frameworks, and designing tech architectures that support both innovation and regulatory transparency. By proactively aligning data policies with fair competition principles, hotels can avoid enforcement risk while maintaining flexibility for AI-driven personalization and distribution. Read More →

✅ Journey Rewards: Rewards program helping independent hotels drive more direct bookings.

✅ Triptease: Increase direct bookings using targeted marketing and smarter ads.

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

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

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

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

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

✅ MeetingPackage: Simplify MICE bookings and boost event revenue.

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

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

1️⃣ See How Linchris Hotels Transformed Hospitality Operations with Canary

Dive into how a new loyalty ecosystem is helping boutique properties reclaim guest relationships and boost direct revenue — and see if your brand is a fit to join the Journey Alliance.

2️⃣ The Future of Hotel Loyalty: What Top Independents Are Betting On

Dive into how a new loyalty ecosystem is helping boutique properties reclaim guest relationships and boost direct revenue — and see if your brand is a fit to join the Journey Alliance.

3️⃣ Agentic AI in Hospitality: Evolution, Risks, and Strategic Reality

Discover how Agentic AI is reshaping the hotel industry and hospitality. This whitepaper explores opportunities, risks, security challenges, legal implications, and practical applications for modern hotels.

✈️ GBTA urges U.S. to restore Global Entry interview processing, warning suspension is disrupting business travel.

🤖 Hotels deploy service robots to boost labor efficiency and staffing support amid persistent workforce shortages.

🏨 Some hotel executives argue owning properties beats asset-light models for long-term brand control and profits.

🌿 Starwood pursues selective growth across 1 Hotels, Baccarat, and Treehouse brands.

📈 U.S. hotels posted a January RevPAR uptick, signaling steady demand entering 2026.

🍟 Penn State research finds AI ordering nudges customers toward indulgent foods like fries.

💰 Expedia, Booking, and Airbnb fueled a major OTA marketing spend surge in 2025.

🧠 Former Sabre hotel unit launches AI-powered distribution platform aimed at reshaping hotel bookings.

⚡ Anthropic’s Claude may reshape travel discovery as the “Claude effect” spreads to trip planning.

🧑‍💻 Travel companies are racing to build AI booking agents despite unclear consumer demand.

🧳 Middle East flight disruptions left travelers stranded in airport chaos with canceled flights and long waits.

⚠️ Experts warn AI-powered travel scams are becoming harder to detect.

📊 Amadeus credits AI-driven product investments for strengthening travel tech revenue growth.

🏙️ Barcelona approved doubling its tourism tax to help fund housing initiatives.

📊 JLL forecasts global hotel investment volumes rising in 2026 as capital returns.

What if 70% of your guests are willing to upgrade—but your pricing strategy is leaving that revenue on the table? In this episode, Erik Tengen, President of Hospitality at Plusgrade and former co-founder of Oaky, explains why the future of hotel profitability isn’t RevPAR—it’s total revenue, frictionless upselling, and becoming “agent-ready."

Experienced hotel operators, GMs, commercial leaders, and ownership groups focused on driving profit—not just topline revenue—in an increasingly AI-driven distribution landscape.

👉🏼 Check out the interview 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)