🏨 Ransomware Gang Says It Has IHG's GUEST Data

A direct booking costs a hotel 4 to 7% of the rate. The same room sold through an OTA costs 15 to 30%. And paid search can cost three times as much in peak months as in slow ones.

Cendyn's free guide, The strategy behind your 2027 hotel marketing plan, shows how to build a one-page strategy calendar that decides which weeks get an offer, which hold rate, and how much each period gets to spend.

👉 Download the guide and map your 2027 plan

ChatGPT now has a business listing of its own. On November 10 OpenAI opened Businesses in ChatGPT in beta: a business finds its listing, verifies it by phone, text or DNS, then sees its mentions, profile views and clicks to its website. OpenAI's own fine print says clicks "don't confirm website visits or conversions." ChatGPT ads passed a $1 billion run rate by September... first it counts your mentions, then it sells you more. Read More →

A ransomware crew that surfaced in September says it got inside IHG. BYOD listed IHG on its leak site in early November and claims guest names, stay dates, room charges, loyalty data, reservation ledgers, AWS keys and employee records, across brands from Holiday Inn to Six Senses. It has posted no proof, and Cyber Daily reported no response from IHG... a reservation ledger is a phishing kit with the dates filled in. Read More →

Your team closed the group. Now someone has to send the contract, chase the deposit, nudge the planner and match the payment back to the booking, usually by email and spreadsheet. ROH keeps the contract, e-signature, invoices, payment reminders and deposits on the booking itself, and ROH says every payment is mapped to its source, so nobody reconciles by hand. Hoteliers rate it in 89 reviews on Hotel Tech Report. 👉 See how ROH collects group deposits →

Hard Rock's best new channel belongs to a competitor. Its New York hotel went on Accor's site and app: 84 room nights in month one, more than 1,500 a month by July, beating Hard Rock's own site there. COO Jeff Hook says over 90% were new guests, at "substantially less" cost than Expedia or Booking.com. About 25 Hard Rock hotels will join ALL Accor with no equity changing hands... the rival's app costs less than the OTA. Read More →

OpenAI shelved hotel checkout in ChatGPT in March. On November 10 it bought Odessia, the AI travel agent from Sonder co-founder Francis Davidson. Sequoia led Odessia's $6 million round, announced in June, and backs OpenAI, which filed to go public the same month. Davidson opened to the public October 14 and sold 27 days after. Expedia fell as much as 5%, Booking 3% and Airbnb 3.5%. Our read: the selloff has it backwards. Booking says outside AI agents are still under 1% of its room nights, and this looks like IPO positioning... a megafund investor like Sequoia doesn't cash out 27 days into disrupting a $100 billion market cap incumbent. Read More →

The first U.S. airline has told AI agents they can't buy. On November 11 United said it is restricting third-party personal AI agents on its own digital platforms and through online travel agencies and aggregators, citing exposed credentials, unintended purchases and FAA and DOT rules. CEO Scott Kirby, a day earlier in Chicago: "I don't want to create another middleman"... hotel chains get to watch whether it works before making the same call. Read More →

Visiting Media's AI Staging turns the 360° captures a hotel already has into wedding, gala and cocktail setups of its empty event spaces, lawns and terraces, and a person on the hotel's team approves each one before a planner sees it. Its AI Search Optimization publishes room facts, capacities and tours so ChatGPT, Gemini and Google describe the property accurately.

👉 See an empty meeting space staged by AI

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

✅ Click Maint: Resolve maintenance requests faster and keep critical equipment running.

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

✅ 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.

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

✅ SiteMinder: Capture direct bookings, sync rates and reduce OTA commissions.

✅ HiJiffy: Answer guest questions instantly and turn more inquiries into direct bookings.

✅ Sertifi: Collect signed contracts, deposits and card authorizations without the paperwork.

📣 Expedia is testing OpenAI's new ads while agent traffic stays tiny

🕐 Hilton now sells late check-out for $40 to $60

🏠 Airbnb will launch its own AI agent in 2027

🌍 International visitors will spend $11B less in the U.S. this year

🏗️ Europe's hotel pipeline hits 260,385 rooms, luxury at a record

🎰 Encore Boston's 63-day strike ends with a new contract

1️⃣ See How AI Is Transforming Hospitality in 2026

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 Loyalty Reimagined: How Hotels Turn Guest Relationships Into Revenue

What makes a guest return – and when does that loyalty actually pay off? This white paper explores how hotels can connect stronger guest relationships with profitability and sustainability.

3️⃣ The Perfect Offer: How to create offers that get booked

Does your hotel still send offers in PDF format? Do you lose a lot of time responding to inquiries? Discover how to increase your booking rate and revenue by up to 47.5%.

Running a hotel comes down to five jobs: answering guests, selling space, fixing things, getting paid and winning groups. One tool for each.

1️⃣ Answer guests before they reach the desk. Canary handles guest messages, calls and check-in so the front desk works the line, not the phone.

2️⃣ Sell the space and the catering together. iVvy books group rooms, function space and catering in one system.

3️⃣ Fix it before the guest notices. Click Maint tracks maintenance requests and preventive work so critical equipment keeps running.

4️⃣ Get paid before the guest arrives. Sertifi collects signed contracts, deposits and card authorizations without the paperwork.

5️⃣ Stop losing groups to slow proposals. Tripleseat sends proposals and tracks event bookings without spreadsheets and email chains.

👉 See every hotel operations tool

An 11,000-room resort that hasn't opened yet already runs about a dozen custom AI apps. Bill Legrand, VAI Resort's Executive Director of Commercial Applications, built them himself with AI coding tools: connectors that pull marketing data into one place for reporting, and an app that turns SOPs into versioned steps staff can search. He builds in an isolated environment, and VAI is setting up internal models so confidential data stays off public AI... his rule: "AI on broken data is dangerous."

👉🏼 Listen to Bill's episode, or find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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