It’s Time to Rewrite Hospitality’s Story for the Next Generation
Christina Reti, Founder and CEO of CDR Global, reflects on why hospitality keeps losing young talent to misconception rather than reality. She argues that hotels remain one of the rare industries where starting at the bottom can lead to global leadership, but only if the sector updates its message and its internal practices, with clearer growth routes, stronger coaching, and workplaces that feel modern, purposeful, and human.
I’ve spent my whole career in hospitality and travel, and I’ve never accepted the idea that young people “don’t want to work in hotels.” What I have seen, though, is that many don’t want to work in industries that feel old-fashioned, hierarchical, or purpose-light. Unfortunately, that is still how hospitality is often described to them.
But the story they’re hearing is not the one I’ve lived. And it’s not the one the industry offers.
The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Annual Edition
The hotel industry in 2026 finds itself at the meeting point of powerful, converging forces: rapid technological progress, climate urgency, shifting guest expectations, labour market disruption and economic realignment. This edition of The HOTEL Yearbook looks at how hotel organisations respond, not by choosing one direction over another, but by designing integrated strategies that combine digital and human, global and local, automation and empathy. A large share of this year’s contributions focuses in particular on artificial intelligence and its growing influence across almost every segment of hospitality, confirming AI as one of the defining themes of this moment. Bringing together expert voices from around the world, the publication explores strategy, technology, sustainability, finance, asset management, food and beverage, human resources, design and more, all through the lens of intentional hybridity in an age of convergence. The message is clear: in 2026, hybridity is no longer optional; it is strategic, and it will be the leaders who approach it with real intention who shape the future of our industry.