The Death of Blue Links: Hospitality Marketing After Search
Antonio Picozzi argues that the thirty-year paradigm of search-driven hospitality marketing is collapsing and that generative AI is replacing the logic of discoverability with an entirely different logic: one where being understood matters more than being ranked, and where a hotel's digital identity is only as strong as its least consistent data source.
For almost thirty years, the architecture of the web remained philosophically stable. We searched, clicked, compared, evaluated, and eventually acted. The internet functioned as a gigantic system of aggregation, where search engines organized fragmented information through keywords, hyperlinks, and rankings. Visibility was fundamentally tied to discoverability within a list of blue links.
That paradigm is collapsing.
The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition
The 2026 HOTEL Yearbook Technology Edition - AI Everywhere is fully geared towards AI and explores how hospitality technology is preparing for a decade of profound change. With a clear focus on practical impact rather than hype, this edition examines how intelligence is becoming embedded across the hotel technology stack and day-to-day workflows, reshaping operations, revenue, distribution, guest experience, and the back office.
The publication will feature 40 editorial articles by domain experts, combined with a catalog of AI Solution Snapshots, offering readers both strategic insight and a curated overview of AI products currently available to the market, as well as an AI Glossary - a glossary of the most commonly used AI-related terms in hospitality. It brings together a wide spectrum of contributors, including academics, startups, hotel brands, established solution providers, and industry insiders, offering evidence-led perspectives, real-world lessons, and actionable guidance on what hoteliers should prioritize now to stay competitive in an AI-driven future. The publication will launch at HITEC 2026, San Antonio.