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Hotel Yearbook Articles

Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Sustainability Edition

Regenerative Hospitality leading the way: From possibility to practice

Nicola Gryczka Kirsch argues that regenerative hospitality is no longer an abstract ideal but a lived reality in places like Ibiti Projeto in Brazil, where tourism is designed as infrastructure for land restoration, community vitality, and long-term stewardship. Using the Lausanne Manifesto for Regenerative Hospitality as a compass, it shows how shifting mindsets, systems thinking and co-creation can turn hotels from extractive businesses into catalysts for thriving territories.

Nicola Gryczka Kirsch
By Nicola Gryczka Kirsch, EHL Entrepreneur in Residence and Founder of The Regen Studio, EHL
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Sustainability Edition

The Regenerative Question: What Hospitality Must Become

Dr Anne-Kathrin Zschiegner argues that the real shift hospitality needs is not from “sustainability” to “regeneration” as buzzwords, but from short-term optimisation to long-term contribution to ecosystems, communities, culture, and commerce. Regenerative hospitality is framed as a collective, long-horizon practice that embraces complexity, openly navigates trade-offs, uses standards and technology as tools, and puts responsibility and long-term outcomes at the centre of leadership.

Dr. Anne-Kathrin Zschiegner
By Dr. Anne-Kathrin Zschiegner, Executive Director, The Long Run
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Sustainability Edition

Regenerative Tourism: Needs Protection

Harold Goodwin warns that “regenerative tourism” is rapidly becoming the next vague sustainability label, used in marketing without standards and ripe for greenwashing. He argues that true regenerative tourism is simply the pinnacle of Responsible Tourism: delivering demonstrable, positive economic, social and environmental impact for residents first, not just better experiences for visitors. 

Harold Goodwin
By Harold Goodwin, Founder, ICRT Global; Professor Emeritus, Manchester Metropolitan University & Senior Fellow, Institute of Place Management, ICRT Global
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Sustainability Edition

On the peril of wasting a metacrisis

This article warns that tourism has already “wasted” one historic crisis (Covid-19) and is in danger of wasting a much bigger one: the current metacrisis of ecological collapse, geopolitical instability, and social rupture. Anna Pollock argues that mainstream tourism is still clinging to volume-driven, extractive growth and cosmetic “net positive” claims, while true regeneration requires a 100% shift in purpose – from mass industrial tourism to hospitality that helps hospice the dying system and midwife new, life-aligned ways of travelling, hosting and relating to place.

Anna Polock
By Anna Polock, Founder, Conscious.Travel
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Sustainability Edition

The Regenerative Question - Who We Choose to Become

At its root, hospitality means something simple: to receive a stranger with generosity, to share what you have—food, shelter, warmth, knowledge—and in doing so, strengthen bonds of trust and reciprocity. It creates mutually rewarding relationships between humans and towards the place; ultimately it fosters conditions for life to flourish, deepens human connection, and leaves all parties enriched.

Willy LegrandCarlos Martin-RiosAlessandro Inversini
By Willy Legrand, Carlos Martin-Rios, and Alessandro Inversini
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Hospitality Leading the Immersive Experience Economy

EHL Research team argues that hospitality is entering a new phase of the experience economy, where guests no longer seek just “nice stays” but fully immersive, multi-sensory, and often co-created experiences that transform how they feel and remember a place. Drawing on frameworks like Pine & Gilmore’s four realms, it shows how hotels can blend human connection, storytelling, gamification, live events, and technology (VR/AR, projection, sensory design) to create deeply engaging moments that go far beyond functional service.

EHL Research
By EHL Research, EHL Research Team, EHL
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Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

The Future of Food: From Sustainability in Foodservice to Tech Innovations in Food Production

The EHL Research Team explores how food has evolved into a powerful lever for health, identity, and planetary well-being, with hospitality uniquely positioned to drive this shift through sourcing, menu design, and guest experience. Drawing on new research, they show how foodservice businesses can move from incremental sustainability toward system-level change, reconnecting people with how food is produced while using technology (from advanced cooking to blockchain) to boost transparency, efficiency, and trust.

EHL Research
By EHL Research, EHL Research Team, EHL
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Regenerative Hospitality: Embedding People, Place, and Planet

The EHL Research Team argues that hospitality must move beyond “doing less harm” toward regenerative hospitality, where hotels actively restore ecosystems, strengthen communities, and create net-positive impact. Using their Regenerative Hospitality Canva playbook, they show how place intelligence (local nature and community) and people intelligence (transformative guest–host interactions) can turn regeneration into a viable business model, not just a philosophy.

EHL Research
By EHL Research, EHL Research Team, EHL
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Fixing Hotels’ Biggest Sustainability Blind Spot: Waste

Greg Poirier, Global Director, Hospitality Certification Programs at Audubon International, highlights that, unlike energy and water, hotel waste is still poorly measured and managed, making it a major sustainability blind spot. He argues that real progress depends on circular procurement (designing out waste from the start) and standardized tracking using tools like HWMM and tech platforms to automate data, improve diversion, cut methane and PFAS risks, and reduce hauling costs.

Greg Poirier
By Greg Poirier, MBA, Global Director, Hospitality Certification Programs, Audubon International
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

AI Agents in Hospitality: Driving Innovation, Well-Being, and Personalization

The EHL Research Team outlines how AI is shifting from hype to practical tool in hospitality, with most professionals expecting a major impact on guest communications, personalization, and operations by 2026. Current adoption is still limited and focused on easier, guest-facing use cases, but early results show clear gains in time savings, efficiency, decision speed, and revenue – provided AI is integrated into a broader digital strategy and used to empower, not replace, staff. 

EHL Research
By EHL Research, EHL Research Team, EHL
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Agentic AI: An Inflection Point for Hospitality in 2026

Wouter Geerts of Mews argues 2026 is when agentic AI moves from hype to quietly running hotel operations—handling routine tasks, predicting demand, and coordinating systems so staff can focus on meaningful guest interactions. The key enabler: a "semantic layer" unifying real-time data across PMS, CRS, and other hotel systems. Without it, AI can't act effectively.

Wouter Geerts
By Wouter Geerts, Director of Market Research, Mews
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Sitting at the crossroads of tradition and AI: What lies ahead for hotel stars?

Dr. Dimitris Koutoulas, tourism consultant and Assistant Professor of Tourism and Hotel Management, explores what lies ahead for traditional hotel star ratings in an AI-driven world. He explains why official classifications still matter alongside guest reviews, how rigid or outdated criteria can distort hotel development, and how cross-border initiatives like Hotelstars Union point to a more harmonised future. 

Dr. Dimitris Koutoulas
By Dr. Dimitris Koutoulas, Principal, Koutoulas Consulting, and Assistant Professor of Tourism and Hotel Management, University of Patras, Greece, Koutoulas Consulting
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

AI Advantage: Reimagining Hospitality’s Commercial Future

Brian Hicks, President and CEO at Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI), outlines how AI is rapidly moving from experimentation to real impact across hospitality’s commercial functions, driving measurable gains in revenue, conversion, and efficiency in revenue management, marketing, sales, and distribution. Drawing on HSMAI research and case studies, he argues that AI fluency has become a core leadership skill and urges hotel executives to adopt AI-first frameworks, upskill their teams, and update KPIs so AI becomes a sustained engine for growth.

Brian Hicks
By Brian Hicks, President and CEO, HSMAI (USA)
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

10 Agentic AI Trends That Will Redefine Hotel Operations in 2026

Florian Montag, VP of Business Development at Apaleo, argues that 2026 will be the year agentic AI quietly becomes the backbone of hotel operations, moving from experiments to embedded agents that coordinate housekeeping, distribution, guest requests and transactions in the background. He outlines ten trends showing how hotels that modernise their tech stack can reduce labour pressure, improve margins and win in an AI-driven distribution landscape.

Florian Montag
By Florian Montag, SVP Revenue, Apaleo GmbH
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Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

If I were Minister of Food & Beverage

Nico Dingemans, Founder and Managing Director, Hospitality in Health (HIH), lays out a fictional but very concrete National Sustainable Gastronomy Strategy 2026 built around ten “Ps,” linking health, environment, innovation, and social impact across the entire food value chain. Framed as a policy letter, it argues that countries must hard-wire sustainable gastronomy into education, procurement, tourism, and measurement systems to turn food into both a wellbeing driver and a national competitive advantage.

Nico Dingemans
By Nico Dingemans, Founder and Managing Director, Hospitality in Health (HIH)
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

The hidden cost of job shadowing: why hospitality must rethink training

Guido Helmerhorst, Founder & Partner at ScenarioBox, argues that traditional job shadowing is a hidden tax on hospitality operations – expensive, inconsistent, and completely unmeasured – at exactly the moment the industry can least afford it. He makes the case for digitized, immersive “golden copy” training that takes over repetitive basics, so human trainers can focus on culture, nuance, and guest experience, turning training from operational friction into a true strategic advantage.

Guido Helmerhorst
By Guido Helmerhorst, Founder & Partner, ScenarioBox
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Top 10 Branding Trends for 2026

Sean Danson, Founder and CEO of New Pantheon, maps out ten branding shifts that will define hospitality in 2026, from regenerative hospitality and AI-as-infrastructure to immersive storyworlds and quiet, conscious luxury. He argues that the strongest brands will be “hybrid by design,” built from the tension between opposites with employee culture and emotional texture as visible parts of the brand itself.

Sean Danson
By Sean Danson, Founder, CBO, Brand Architect, New Pantheon
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Not another one

Andrew Sangster, editorial director and owner of Hotel Analyst, takes a sceptical-but-curious look at AI, setting its impact somewhere between “nothing burger” and “end of humanity,” and ultimately framing it as the next big platform shift rather than a doomsday machine. He explores how AI will reshape hotel systems and roles and argues that the real long-term story is a cultural and workplace reordering where empathy and craft in hospitality gain ground on traditional “exam-tested” professions.

Andrew Sangster
By Andrew Sangster, Owner and editorial director, Hotel Analyst
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Best business strategy? Jimmy the barkeeper, Francis the breakfast waitress.

Dr. Andreas Krobath, Founder & CEO at Absolute Future IT & Marketing, points out the obvious truth: we will have more tourists, fewer employees, and it makes absolutely no sense to waste precious human time on repetitive screen work. His message is simple: use every bit of automation you can, so your rare, emotionally intelligent team members can focus on the human moments that create great reviews, leading directly to higher ADR. In business models focused on upscale and luxury, this will be your main differentiator. And for all others, this waste will no longer be sustainable anyway.

Dr. Andreas Krobath
By Dr. Andreas Krobath, Founder & CEO, Absolute Future IT & Marketing GmbH