IHG Hotels & Resorts officially launches its LINE MiniApp in Japan, offering more ways for guests to make hotel bookings and connect to IHG One Rewards via their preferred digital platforms.
The rumors about the inevitable end of the "traditional" search engines like Google at the hands of AI Search are highly exaggerated. According to latest data by SEMrush, based on the last 12 months, people interact with search engines 34 TIMES more often than with AI search.
This is ongoing learning, as LLMs continue to learn. But GEO is built on top of SEO. It has to get its knowledge from somewhere. It means UCG (ie reviews) is more important, specific content is more important and understanding your target market is more important.
I work with many hoteliers and when it comes to the topic of online discovery, the first question I ask is: have you tried to search for your property, or lodging in your area, on different AI tools lately? It's quite surprising how so few have done it.
The speed of change is extraordinary! This rapid shift to AI summaries and conversational search marks a critical turning point for hotel content. Simple keyword-stuffing is ending; AI thrives on deep context and relationships, not raw data.
Cvent, a global industry-leading meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider, successfully hosted the fourth edition of Cvent Accelerate Sydney at The Fullerton Hotel on Wednesday, 16 July 2025. The event attracted over 460 event planners, marketers, and hospitality professionals, setting a new attendance record and highlighting the growing momentum in the MICE industry.
Luxury consumption in China is undergoing a remarkable transformation, driven by younger, more dynamic consumers and evolving preferences that go beyond traditional notions of wealth display. This shift is particularly evident in the hospitality sector, where luxury hotels now cater to a deeper desire for sensory and emotional experiences. Despite this growing demand, however, research to date has shed little light on how sensory stimulation shapes luxury hotel experiences or how cultural factors influence consumers’ responses to luxury. Working with a co-author, Professor Kam Hung and Professor Cathy Hsu of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) explore the multi-sensory dimensions of luxury consumption. Their findings offer guidance for hoteliers seeking to craft meaningful and memorable experiences for their guests.
Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR) has unveiled a significant milestone in its international strategy, announcing major loyalty partnership with Lotte Hotels & Resorts of South Korea. Building on the momentum of its Maritim collaboration, the Lotte partnership marks the next step in MHR's phased global expansion. This dual alliance signals a transformative moment for MHR, setting the stage for broader global connectivity, enhanced loyalty offerings, and unprecedented benefits for travellers across key regions.
The growth and vital role of the Asia Pacific region in the future of global business travel was clearly demonstrated by the strong turnout, engagement and insights from the GBTA APAC Conference 2025 held at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore from May 27-28. Hosted by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the premier trade association and “voice” of the global business travel industry and co-located for the third year with the WERC® Regional Summit, the event brought together over 950 industry professionals including corporate travel managers (268), travel suppliers, and other industry partners along with nearly 50 exhibiting companies and sponsors.
Tourism can offer unforgettable experiences, but it comes with increasing environmental costs. As sustainability takes centre stage in the industry, an emerging focus is on how travellers themselves can make a difference through pro-environmental behaviour (PEB). To date, however, the interplay of personal and cultural values in shaping such behaviour remains underexplored. Seeking to fill this gap, Professor Dori Davari and Professor Seongseop (Sam) Kim of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), working with a co-author, targeted Chinese millennials, a major consumer group known for valuing luxury and self-expression while showing growing environmental concern. This demographic offered a unique lens through which to investigate the influence of values on tourists’ PEB, yielding guidance for fostering sustainable tourism practices amongst one of the world’s most influential populations.
Eight Continents Hotels & Resorts has officially launched its ultra-luxury brand, Legacy Hotels, at The Great India Travel Bazaar 2025. Showcased among global travel leaders, the new vertical is set to redefine aristocratic hospitality by transforming royal residences into immersive, world-class palace stays for the discerning traveler.
The Allianz Partners Travel Index, which surveyed over 500 Singaporean adults regarding travel plans and holiday aspirations, reveals that more than nine in 10 (90%) Singaporeans plan to travel in the year ahead. While travel is high on the agenda for most, cost-of-living is also having an impact on spending, with 73% of those not travelling citing cost as their main barrier.
At Japan’s Expo 2025, UN Tourism highlighted the key role of innovation and education for driving transformation and female empowerment in the sector.
Why are we always trying to oppose one against the other in terms of online search? Organic search and paid search should be seen as a single, unified digital marketing strategy. They complement and amplify each other. Why? they have a shared goal: visibility, traffic, credibility and conversion amplified by AI personalisation, the data analysis synergy: it allows to focus only on the 'converting' terms and inform the SEO content actions.
The answer is rather straightforward: if somebody is bidding on your brand terms (OTAs and affiliates, for example), you are leaving clicks and bookings on the table if you do not: that additional spot in the SERP affects your conversion rates significantly.
Who searches your hotel by its official name? These are your past guests, people referred by friends and family, people influenced by word-of-mouth, people who have read positive reviews on social media or PR about the property.
Thailand’s vibrant wellness industry will take centre-stage this May in Phuket with BEING Thailand 2025, a new B2B event designed to unite professionals across the wellness, hospitality, and tourism sectors. The inaugural gathering, expected to draw 400 industry leaders, aims to drive key conversations and innovation, bringing together a traditionally fragmented sector for an exchange of ideas and strategies.
The 2nd edition of APAC's leading MICE show, The Meetings Show Asia Pacific (TMS APAC), sees a record number of exhibitors and buyers. Returning to Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre on 16 and 17 April 2025 and co-located with the inaugural Business Travel Show APAC, TMS APAC is set to bring the biggest gathering of travel professionals in the region. With the support of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), this year’s event further solidifies Singapore’s standing as the "World's Best MICE City.”
Tourism is considered a key industry in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), which sets its sights on becoming a world-leading destination. The School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) today released its policy study findings on the strategies and potential for creating an integrated brand tourism cluster by leveraging the strengths of the cities within GBA. The study has been supported by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme of the HKSAR Government.
As IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) marks its 50th anniversary in Greater China and celebrates its milestone of 800 open hotels, the group officially launched its first major event of the year — “Let’s make travel easy” 2025 IHG Greater China Expo in Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai. It empowers business travel by focusing on collaboration, digital empowerment, and mutual growth.
IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG), one of the world’s leading hospitality companies, is proud to announce its sponsorship of World Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai and the UK Pavilion – a partnership that highlights its commitment to growth across Japan and Asia Pacific.
Traditional SEO is not dead, but traditional search is! Consumers simply do not search as they did 10 or 15 years ago. Social search is now a big component of the customer journey: from TikTok to YouTube to Instagram, the platforms are diverse and usage greatly vary depending on age and traveler habits.
In spite of all the buzz around genAI, the AI Search market share today is estimated around 6% of the total search market, and estimated to go up to 14% by 2028 (Search Engine Land). Google's own Gemini AI has already been made available to Google's 84 billion monthly users - compare this to ChatGPT's 121 million users!
I don't believe that SEO is dead. I am of the view that the role of SEO is going to develop in alignment with the evolution of search. After all, it doesn't resemble the way it began with the incumbent approach. The challenge remains how to be found.
We can hope regulators will someday "reimagine" policies to enable innovation, but let's face it: this is entirely beyond the industry's control. Expecting governments to grasp the complexities of hotel tech is like waiting for a no-show guest to miraculously fill your occupancy gap.
Technical fragmentation has long been a challenge in all aspects of hospitality. Some of this is a reality. Some of it is by choice and driven from vendor marketing propoganda about 'Best of Breed'. The reality is that to overcome this general challenge in industry, consolidation and unification is required.
Website analytics in isolation from the rest of the hotel tech stack has lost its importance. Combined with the property's CRM, RMS, a personalization engine and the rest of the tech stack, it is priceless and impacts many revenue-generation functions: Revenue Management: The website browsing behavior, booking engine denials, time spent on web pages of various packages, offers and hotel amenities are important data signals for the RMS and property pricing strategies.
Marriott Hotels, part of Marriott Bonvoy’s global portfolio of more than 30 extraordinary hotel brands, recently launched the "Wonderful Hospitality For Your Heartfelt Smile" brand campaign in Greater China. The campaign kicks off with five engaging videos starring popular Chinese comedians Yan Peilun, Zhang Youwei, Liu Yang, and Zhu Meiji, who shine a bright spotlight on Marriott’s signature hospitality through the delightful lens of comedy and laughter. The five campaign videos capture everyday moments at Marriott Hotels, from the front office associates who anticipate guest needs to exceptional, in-house dining experiences crafted with passion and care.