We all talk about personalization, but I worry that we lack a common and agreed definition of the term - a definition that is crucial if we are to deliver on the personalization promise.
The problem isn't that personalization fails on property. The problem starts much earlier: we still don't speak the right language of guest experience in the digital space. Take booking. A traveler may want a big bed, a walk-in shower, and a quiet location.
Online personalisation is easy, as it's mostly a pattern-matching algorithm between known guest preferences and available services. It isn't personalisation, rather just mass customisation. On property, a guest walking around is essentially anonymous, even after checking in.
This is a question at the heart of hospitality’s digital transformation. Hotels excel at digital personalisation (curated offers, smooth booking, and tailored communications) because online, data is structured, accessible, and actionable.
Antigua's premier resort, Carlisle Bay, has launched a multimillion-dollar renovation project, with all phases expected to be completed by November 2027. A five-star resort and proud member of The Leading Hotels of the World, Carlisle Bay will unveil the first phase of its transformation this year. The full evolution—encompassing guest suites, public areas, dining venues, and enhancements to its signature spa—will unfold over the next three years, aligned with the resort's annual seasonal closure periods.
Condado Vanderbilt Hotel, Puerto Rico's legendary oceanfront retreat originally built in 1919 by Frederick William Vanderbilt, proudly announces the completion of an extensive renovation to all guestrooms, suites, and corridors. Designed by HBA International, the project seamlessly blends the hotel's historic grandeur with contemporary sophistication. Marking a new chapter in its legacy, the hotel also introduces an exclusive In-Suite Wellness Package.
Millennials and Gen Z are inheriting a world where everything costs more. Housing, food, even free time come at a higher price. There's less money left for travel, so when they do travel, it has to matter. They're careful with budgets, but when they spend, they spend with purpose. They'll trade frequency for depth, choosing one meaningful trip over several forgettable ones.
Club Med Punta Cana - Club Med's flagship North America resort will unveil 5 major renovations that set a new standard for the all-inclusive experience, including: brand new social spaces, fresh culinary experiences and newly renovated accommodations, all designed to offer more elevated, immersive experience for all types of guests. Designed by GG&Grace International, the award-winning design firm known for creating distinctive hospitality experiences in the world's most sought-after destinations, highlights include:
The end of the hyperlink economy may very well also mean the end of Google domination. Owning 92% of online searches worldwide, Google has long been in a quasi-monopoly situation, but this is shifting quickly, as people are catching on the ease of using LLM for search purposes: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Mistral, Deepseek...
The Fundamentals Stay the Same Discovery may shift from hyperlinks to AI answers, but advertising still rests on the basics: segmentation, targeting, positioning, and brand building. These don"t vanish when the funnel compresses — they adapt.
The investment won't be any less; maybe more. The search landscape, whatever its form, will inevitably migrate back to Google, a shift that the introduction of Gemini inside the browser will only accelerate. If the OTA model is truly sidelined, Google may look to take a significant portion of that revenue stream for itself.
The NFL’s announcement of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show comes off the tail end of the performer’s 31-show residency in Puerto Rico, which has been estimated to have brought as much as $200 million dollars into the local economy with a carryover boost for local hotels.
IDeaS recently held its annual client conference Converge with the theme of "Bold Moves, Big Impact: A New Era in Hospitality"
The "right time, right place" mantra has always been complete nonsense to me. It treats humans like logical machines, as if only the left side of their brain exists, ignoring emotion and gut feeling, which is what ultimately drives decisions.
If the real question is about skills, mindset, and capabilities, then here's my take: Skills: a Revenue Manager today must think strategically, not just tactically. Revenue management is about defining where the business should go in terms of product and revenue in the next 3–5 years.
A broader skill set — especially in marketing — is becoming increasingly beneficial. Since specialized tasks can now be handled perfectly by AI, commercial roles are moving closer together. This shift makes broad, cross-functional skills more important than ever.
The Revenue Manager we need today looks very different from the one many hotels still have in place. The role can no longer be defined by Excel spreadsheets and static reports. The markets move too fast, the data is too complex, and the opportunities are too big to leave in the hands of manual processes.
Aimbridge Hospitality, the world's leading third-party hotel management company, today announced that it has assumed management of the Wyndham Alltra Punta Cana and Wyndham Alltra Samaná, two all-inclusive resorts in the Dominican Republic.
With its opening just weeks away, Four Seasons Resort and Residences Puerto Rico is now accepting reservations for arrivals beginning November 20, 2025 - just in time for sun-kissed getaways for the holiday season and beyond. A secluded tropical playground surrounded by a nature reserve, the resort will offer boundless recreational opportunities on land and sea along the shore of a palm-fringed stretch of golden beach.
The debate over proprietary vs. open AI is a symptom of a deeper issue: whether hospitality is willing to collaborate to truly move forward together. At Alliants, the path is open—not about building walled gardens. Distrust of tech vendors has pushed many large hotel brands to build in-house, often because people weren"t listening to one another openly. Innovation rarely happens in a closed room.
When it comes to where our Distribution landscape is headed - it's not even a question. Of course uniting our efforts is the only way to go. Otherwise we'll lose another OTA battle. But there's much more to the world of AI functionalities, it has its tenticles in every part of our tech ecosystem, not distribution alone.
I think we are in danger of running before we can walk here. MCP is Anthropic’s pitch for an open standard to let "agentic AI" bots built on next-word LLMs share data, for example, an OpenAI bot talking to a Gemini bot. Unless you are Marriott or Hilton with hundreds of in-house developers, or a big OTA like Expedia or Booking.com, this really isn’t something you need to worry about.
You could establish your own protocols instead of MCP, A2A, or other widely endorsed standards for agentic interactions. But that would be like creating your own version of HTTP. Not a great idea. The good news is I don't think companies feel the need to change that basic agent-friendly plumbing.
Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) announced today a Hyatt affiliate has entered into a management agreement with GSM Investissements Dominicana S.R.L., the existing owner of Dreams Macao Beach Punta Cana, for the adults-only all-inclusive Secrets Macao Beach Punta Cana. Expected to open in 2026, this new build resort will feature 406 rooms, including Junior Suites, Master Suites, and Presidential Suites, as well as 111 swim-out suites and 13 panoramic, high-level swim-out suites, offering an elevated, sophisticated retreat for adults on the picturesque Macao Beach.
The luxury hospitality environment is dynamic and often unpredictable, requiring leaders to navigate challenges, whether it's adjusting to changing guest expectations, managing a diverse team, or responding to unforeseen circumstances.
The decisive skill I feel separates a great GM is "managing the balanced scorecard" - enlivening employee engagement, amplifying the guest experience, and ensuring financial stability. Too often, the General Manager confuses what is truly important and relevant to the hospitality business.
For me, the role of a luxury hotel GM is first and foremost that of a balancing act. Depending on the context, whether corporate or private ownership, the GM must be able to adapt and understand stakeholders' expectations. They must be able to deal with ambiguity and create added value.
Strategic foresight distinguishes outstanding luxury hotel general managers from their peers. Empathy empowers a general manager (GM) to understand and anticipate the diverse needs of guests, staff, owners, and partners. In luxury hospitality, emotional connections are crucial; guests often remember how they felt during their stay far more than the details of their accommodations.
It was inevitable that we would move to conversational AI and on-demand UI. The writing was on the wall years ago. Hotels will be caught off guard as OTA AI agents beat them without mercy at the pricing game. It’s time to build a defensive tool.
We will still need beautifully designed websites and flows — but more as validation layers and brand showcases than as discovery engines. OTAs and suppliers will increasingly serve as structured data ecosystems rather than pure UX-driven platforms.
Are we moving to a future - interesting... Though, you remove glossy images and brand (the websites of today), don't we just return to the flat green text screens of travel agents past, but this time operated by AI? Where description and detail was the important asset to capture interest and convert the booking?
Overall, there is no difference between preparing a dataset for AI and preparing a dataset for the myriads of other tech tools and business uses. By AI here, we mean Generative (Gen) AI-next-best-word, probability & correlation-based tools. Traditional analytical tools need normalised data (third normal form etc.) using Structured Query Language (SQL) with potential ambiguities removed in the design. Gen AI is useful to analyse text documents which are, by definition, unstructured, but it still acts as a glorified "word cloud" linking items together by frequency and probability. The main hospitality systems - PMS, POS, Spa, RMS, CRS, CRM - were built on normalized databases precisely to prevent mismatches, duplication, and gaps. Even then, duplicate guest profiles remain common, eg when a frequent guest changes email or surname. The better PMSes use fuzzy matching to ease de-duplication, but this remains a governance issue.