Expert Views (4)
View all Answers
World Cup Demand Lifts San Francisco RevPAR 80%, Dutch Guests Choose Lower Rates Over Amenities
Friday closes the week on demand and value. World Cup and conference traffic pushed US hotel RevPAR up 9.7% for the week to 20 June, with San Francisco surging 80.5%. A Dutch survey finds three in four guests would rather pay less than get amenities they do not use. And the week's AI thread turns to measurement, with research warning most hotels stay invisible to AI and a third of AI answers about them are wrong.
A hotel can be excellent, bookable, and completely invisible at the same time
As AI reshapes how travelers discover hotels, most properties are invisible to these systems, while measurement tools fail to prove what tech investments actually return at the property level.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
Latest
One Washington Circle Hotel Is Now Part of Tapestry Collection by Hilton
One of Washington’s most quietly iconic hospitality destinations is entering a new era. Formerly known as AKA Washington Circle, the luxury all-suite property will officially transition to One Washington Circle DC, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, introducing a refreshed identity alongside thoughtful design enhancements that honor the hotel’s longstanding reputation for understated sophistication and residential-style comfort.
HVS U.S. Market Pulse: June 2026
HVS reports U.S. RevPAR up 4.9% in the trailing 28 days through June 13, maintaining a 3.0% full-year 2026 forecast with upside potential if summer and fall travel trends hold.
By Rodney Clough, President - HVS Americas, Denver, HVS
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition
The Future of Distribution Isn’t Passive Connectivity. It’s Agentic Execution.
Sankar Narayan argues that connectivity alone is no longer enough to solve hospitality's revenue problem. The real gap, he says, is execution. With 45% of hoteliers identifying revenue opportunities every week they cannot act on in time, and nearly four in five spending over 11 hours on manual tasks that should be automated, he makes the case that the industry's next competitive frontier is not smarter insights, but faster action.
By Sankar Narayan, CEO and Managing Director, SiteMinder
Recent Appointments
View AllGlobal Luxury Hotel Brand Signs Letter of Intent with PHAL as Top 10 Group Advances to Proof of Concept
PHAL, an agentic-AI embedded operator advisory, signs an LOI with a major luxury hotel brand and advances its Top 10 group client into proof of concept for PHAL OS.
Aimbridge Launches Global Sales Office to Pursue Cross-Region Revenue Opportunities for Owners
Aimbridge unifies its U.S., LATAM, EMEA, and All-Inclusive sales teams under one global structure and Salesforce platform to improve cross-region account management and revenue reporting for hotel owners.
Rethinking How Hotel Performance Is Evaluated
A PolyU study of 53 GBA hotels finds none achieved efficiency between 2015-2019, and argues standard DEA models overstate performance by ignoring product diversification.
How AI is Changing the Recruitment Process – For Better and Worse
An executive search professional argues that over-reliance on AI and ATS tools is undermining senior hiring, and calls for more direct human engagement throughout the recruitment process.
By Terry Donovan, Manager, AETHOS Consulting Group
Is Your Hotel Measuring the Right AI Prompts?
Kollective argues hotels are tracking too many low-value AI prompts and should focus on destination-contextualised, commercially meaningful queries to influence actual booking behaviour.
By Lynn Patchett, Founder, Kollective
Supplier News
View allEmerging Travel Group Strengthens Supply Team in the Middle East
ETG appoints Samyra Krooswijk as Head of Business Development, Direct Supply Middle East, to grow its directly contracted hotel portfolio across the region and Turkey.
Cloudbeds and Vacatia Spotlight Open API-Powered Platform Extensibility at HITEC
Vacatia used Cloudbeds Open API to connect proprietary timeshare tech with a unified hotel platform across 60 resorts and 11,000+ units, reducing tech fragmentation and laying groundwork for AI adoption.
Maestro PMS Reports Strong Engagement and Valuable Industry Insights from HITEC 2026
Maestro PMS shares key takeaways from HITEC 2026, citing operator demand for integrated platforms, tech stack simplification, AI clarity, and modern UI as top hospitality technology priorities.
The Originals Human Hotels & Resorts selects Mews as preferred PMS for its 320+ strong network
Mews becomes a preferred PMS for The Originals Hotels' 320+ member network in France, offering preferential pricing, French-language support, and access to 1,000+ integrations.
Lighthouse and Bowerbird Technologies give hotels the first end-to-end solution to rate parity
Lighthouse and Bowerbird Technologies have combined AI-powered rate parity monitoring with copyright enforcement, with a Radisson Hotel Group pilot showing 25% parity loss reduction and 20% improvement in parity meet rates.
Set-Jetting and Hospitality: How Hotels Are Adapting to Screen-Inspired Travel
Hotels are capitalizing on screen-inspired travel through three strategies: leveraging filming-location status, curating set-related guest itineraries, and maintaining long-term cinematic identity.
Mews named preferred PMS supplier for Resorts of Ontario
Mews becomes the sole preferred PMS supplier for Resorts of Ontario, giving 100+ independent resorts and lodges across the province access to its cloud-native platform.
Profit beyond rooms: What the future of revenue management actually looks like
Industry leaders from Dragonfly Strategists and Duetto argue that hotels must move beyond RevPAR to profitability metrics like GOPAR, with smarter segmentation, ancillary strategy, and personalization at scale.
7 Hidden Costs of Constant Schedule Adjustments in Hotels
Constant schedule adjustments in hotels create compounding hidden costs including management distraction, overtime accumulation, staff disengagement, and declining service consistency.
By Anna Ransom, Vice President, Unifocus
Dual-Brand Hilton Hotel Coming to Eagle County Regional Airport
Gypsum Hotel Partners will break ground on a 140-room dual-brand Hampton Inn and Home2 Suites near Eagle County Regional Airport, with completion targeted for early 2028.
Research: three-quarters of Dutch people trade luxury hotel amenities for a lower room price
A survey of 1,000 Dutch hotel guests finds 75%+ prefer lower room rates over unused amenities, with clean rooms, comfortable beds, and pricing transparency ranking as top priorities.
ITC Hotels Signs Welcomhotel Karai Gandhinagar, Strengthens Presence in Gujarat
ITC Hotels signed a management agreement for a 101-key Welcomhotel in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, targeting business, leisure, and MICE segments with over 56,000 sq ft of event space.
Hilton Advances Travel with Purpose, Showcasing Impact for People, Hotels and Communities in 2025
Hilton's 2025 Travel with Purpose report shows a 50.9% cut in managed hotel carbon intensity and surpassed its 2030 waste goal early, while reaching 2.5M community members across 144 countries.
Is your Hotel Website lying to Future Guests?
With 33% of AI responses about hotels containing factual errors and only 16% of hotels appearing in AI recommendations, the article outlines six steps to make hotel websites AI-ready and drive direct bookings.
By Melissa Rodrigues, Lead Content Manager, GuestCentric Systems
U.S. hotel results for week ending 20 June
U.S. hotel RevPAR rose 9.7% for the week of June 14-20, with San Francisco leading Top 25 Markets on World Cup and Databricks conference demand, pushing RevPAR up 80.5%.
Hotel Tech needs to move past Mousetraps
A fractional CMO argues that hotel tech vendors over-invest in product features while underinvesting in marketing, citing data showing winning SaaS companies spend 44% on sales and marketing vs. 31% on product.
By Martin Soler, Partner, Soler & Associates
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition
The 30% Distribution Tax: Market Power in Agentic Commerce
Fredrik Sjoberg draws a sharp historical line from the 10% commission of the travel agent era to the 15–25% of OTAs, and asks whether the AI agent era will push that number to 30% — the rate Apple held in the App Store for over a decade simply because it controlled the front door. The industry, he argues, is making the same structural mistakes it made with OTAs, and has a narrow window to act before the terms are set for good.
By Fredrik Sjoberg, Adjunct Professor at New York University Tisch Center of Hospitality. Founder & CEO, Maison Labs
The Most Undervalued Leadership Skill in Hospitality is Operational Empathy
The author argues that leaders who understand frontline operational realities, not just guest metrics, drive stronger service consistency, employee retention, and long-term guest loyalty.
By Kyle Gartman and Priyanko Guchait