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Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Beyond the Room: What the Next Era of Hotel Growth Will Look Like

Emily Weiss, Senior Managing Director and Travel Industry Lead at Accenture, argues that the industry cannot rely on higher ADRs to grow as RevPAR growth slows and costs rise. She explains how hotel brands are already shifting toward revenue beyond the room and stay, using retail and e commerce, bundled experiences, and next generation loyalty to keep guests engaged before, during, and after a visit. The message is clear: winners in 2026 and beyond will build lifestyle ecosystems that fit into how guests live and shop, not just how they sleep.

Emily Weiss
By Emily Weiss, Global Travel Industry Sector Lead, Accenture
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Can we please not say Hybrid, please

Hybrid is hospitality's buzzword du jour—but what if it's a dead end? Matthias Huettebraeuker, Hospitality Strategist & Senior Executive Advisor, argues that "hybrid" represents terminal thinking, not transformation. Instead of reassembling old boxes, he proposes three conditions for discovery: convergence, fluidity, and versatility. The key metric? Engagement—and redefining hospitality around how much of someone's life we hold space for.

Matthias Huettebraeuker
By Matthias Huettebraeuker, Hospitality Strategist & Senior Executive Advisor, Matthias Huettebraeuker
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Context-Driven Hospitality: The Next Evolution

Rok Kokalj, Co-founder and CEO of Nevron, describes “context-driven hospitality” as the next step for an industry facing uncertainty and rising complexity. He argues that hotels should move from binary thinking to hybrid intelligence, building clear identity and purpose first so technology, especially AI agents, can support human connection and turn back-end complexity into front-end simplicity that feels seamless for guests.

Rok Kokalj
By Rok Kokalj, Co-founder & CEO, Nevron
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

How AI is Powering Efficiency and Imagination in Hospitality Design

Lisa A. Haude, Principal-Interior Designer at Studio RYS, shows how AI is becoming a practical creative partner in the studio. She describes using AI to speed up drafting, modeling, admin work, and BIM based visualisation, letting designers test more ideas, reduce errors, and give clients richer, real time ways to see and shape a project. Her main point is that AI should stay in the background as a tool for precision and sustainability insight, while the human side storytelling, taste, and emotional sense of place remains what makes hospitality design truly memorable.

Lisa A. Haude
By Lisa A. Haude, Principal-Interior Design, Studio RYS, Studio RYS (formerly RYS Architects)
Development Pipeline

Swiss-Belhotel International Strengthens Africa Portfolio with the Launch of The Gama by Swiss-Belhotel, Kilimani, Nairobi

Swiss-Belhotel International, has signed a management agreement for The Gama by Swiss-Belhotel, Kilimani, Nairobi, with Albushra Real Estate Limited, marking the global debut of its newest brand concept and underscoring the group's strategic expansion across Africa. The latest signing builds on the group's established presence in East Africa, where Swiss-Belhotel International operates multiple properties.

Swiss-Belhotel
Nairobi, Kenya
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Why Presence is the Next Amenity

Susie Arnett of Six Senses explains that as hotel service becomes more automated, the real value of hospitality moves back to the human relationship between guest and host. Drawing on lessons from retreat centres, she shows why future staff must act more like guides than service workers, and why training should focus on presence and emotional intelligence so guests feel truly seen, not just served.

Susie Arnett
By Susie Arnett, Director of Wellness Programming, Six Senses
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Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Bringing it All Together: How All-Inclusive Resorts Changed the Narrative

As all inclusive resorts shed their old value only reputation and reemerge as serious players in the upscale leisure space, Ricardo Orozco Arce of The Villa Group shows how the category’s revival is powered by “hybrid by design” thinking. He maps the unlikely pairings redefining the model luxury and explains how blending these forces can broaden appeal, deepen loyalty and keep the guest experience feeling effortless and worth it at every step.

Ricardo Orozco Arce
By Ricardo Orozco Arce, Vice President Operations, The Villa Group
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

The Growth Code: Why Human Investment is the Ultimate Advantage in an AI Era

As hotels race to automate, Tanja Stegmüller, co-founder of TRUSTmenti, makes the case that resilience will come from intentional hybridity: blending digital efficiency with human wisdom, global standards with local soul, and automation with empathy. She lays out a ten point playbook for building hybrid leaders, learning ecosystems, and people centred cultures, arguing that technology can handle tasks, but only humans can deliver judgment, emotion, and the moments that define great hospitality.

Tanja Stegmüller
By Tanja Stegmüller, Co-Founder, TRUSTmenti
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

Closing the personalization gap: Why hotels still struggle to connect online promises with offline reality

Hotels have perfected AI powered personalization online, yet the experience often falls flat on property because guest insights stay trapped in fragmented systems and are not translated into simple, actionable cues for front line teams. Floor explains how unified data layers, predictive and agentic AI, and open standards like MCP could finally bridge this digital physical gap, as long as hotels pair the tech with training and a culture that turns insights into meaningful moments.

Floor Bleeker
By Floor Bleeker, Board Member, Advisor, Investor and Consultant, IN2 Consulting
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition

AI Adoption in Hospitality: Meet People Where They Are

AI may be rewriting hospitality’s playbook, but the toughest part of adoption is not the software, it is the quiet anxieties it triggers on the front line. By tracing three common fears that surface whenever AI enters the workplace, Lynn Zwibak shows how leaders can turn resistance into readiness and make change something teams help build rather than brace against.

Lynn Zwibak
By Lynn Zwibak, Founder & CEO, Zwibak | Commercial Strategy
Development Pipeline

DoubleTree by Hilton Lomé Airport to Mark Hilton’s Debut in Togo

Hilton (NYSE: HLT) will enter Togo with the signing of DoubleTree by Hilton Lomé Airport, developed in partnership with SODEXH SA. Strategically located opposite Lomé International Airport, the hotel will become the country's first internationally branded airport property, delivering upscale services and conference facilities for business and transit travellers.

DoubleTree by Hilton
Lomé, Togo
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Scott Dahl
By Scott Dahl
Expert Views (7)
Muhammad Tanveer
Muhammad Tanveer, Author - The Sales Leadership Brief (Linkedin Newsletter), The Sales Leadership Brief

This is a pivotal shift. The issue is no longer which channels we use, but who controls the guest narrative and the data behind it. Hotels will not win by fighting OTAs on scale or ad spend. We win by aligning revenue, marketing, and sales around a single guest intelligence strategy using data to drive relevance, not just reach.

Ira Vouk
Ira Vouk, Hospitality Tech and AI Consultant, Hospitality 2.0 Consulting

OpenAI, Google and Perplexity will reshape this landscape again. Nobody knows how exactly but 2 years from now the picture will be very different.

Markus Mueller
Markus Mueller, Managing Director, GauVendi

Stop playing the OTA game—change the game with the product. Yes, third parties are taking control of search, booking flows, and traveler data—but copying their playbook won't reclaim the guest relationship. If you try to "out-CRM" Expedia or "out-loyalty" Airbnb, you're choosing a scale game you can't win.

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Development Opening

IHG Hotels & Resorts’ Vignette Collection Debuts in Africa with the Introduction of Fairview Hotel Nairobi

Fairview Hotel Nairobi - one of Africa's most cherished heritage hotels - is joining Vignette Collection, a growing family of one-of-a-kind hotels in destinations to remember. The 99-room boutique hotel, affectionally known as Upper Hill's living garden hotel, represents the brand's first in Africa and first on the continent to join IHG Hotels & Resorts' leading Luxury & Lifestyle portfolio, now the second largest in the world.

Vignette Collection
Nairobi, Kenya
Development Pipeline

Marriott International and V&A Waterfront Holdings Announce Agreement to Bring EDITION to Cape Town’s Iconic Waterfront

Marriott International, Inc. and V&A Waterfront Holdings today announced a signed agreement to open The Cape Town EDITION within the V&A Waterfront in 2026. This milestone agreement is anticipated to mark the debut of EDITION Hotels in Africa, bringing its signature taste-making design, innovation, and consistent, excellent service to Cape Town.

EDITION
Cape Town, South Africa
Development Pipeline

IHG Hotels & Resorts Expands Its Luxury Lifestyle Portfolio in Morocco with the Signing of the First Kimpton in Marrakech

IHG Hotels & Resorts, one of the world's leading hotel companies, has announced the signing of a franchise agreement with Sirayane Hospitality, a local high end hospitality investor and operator with over twenty years' experience in Marrakech, to develop Kimpton Marrakech, a 67-key luxury lifestyle hotel opening in Q4 2026. The signing marks the introduction of the Kimpton brand in Morocco, further expanding IHG's luxury and lifestyle footprint in the country.

Kimpton
Marrakesh, Morocco
Simone Puorto
By Simone Puorto
Expert Views (12)
Muhammad Tanveer
Muhammad Tanveer, Author - The Sales Leadership Brief (Linkedin Newsletter), The Sales Leadership Brief

The idea of AI-crafted reviews doesn't worry me as much as the possibility of losing the emotional color that real guests bring to the table. Yes, quick prompts will make feedback easier and remove a lot of noise but hospitality has always lived in the small details that guests describe in their own words.

Ira Vouk
Ira Vouk, Hospitality Tech and AI Consultant, Hospitality 2.0 Consulting

Can the future of hotel reviews be completely AI-generated? - Yes. Will it? Only if we think reviews will continue to be read by humans, which is highly unlikely, as already they're mostly digested by LLMs through semantic analysis to derive trends, sentiment, and suggested areas of improvement.

Erik Muñoz
Erik Muñoz, Business Development Director EMEA, TrustYou

In the next 3–7 years, expect: 95% of reviews to be AI-generated from structured input, platforms to become "reputation orchestrators", users to see personalized, not universal, review summaries, hotels to optimize for models, not guests, because models shape guest choice.

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