HN World Panel

Democratizing AI: Proprietary vs. Open Standards

Lots of brands are rolling out their own proprietary AI tools, but there’s a growing case for keeping things more open and collaborative. With standards like Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) starting to emerge, a growing question is should t...

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Information Technology

Democratizing AI: Proprietary vs. Open Standards

The Defining Skill of Today’s Luxury Hotel GM

The role of the luxury hotel General Manager has never been more complex. Balancing operational excellence with brand storytelling, financial discipline with guest-centric innovation, and technology adoption with human connection, today’s GM must na...

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Luxury Hotel General Managers (GMs)

The Defining Skill of Today’s Luxury Hotel GM

Agents, Not Interfaces: Is This the Beginning of the End for UX?

This morning, a hotel was booked under my name. But to be clear: I didn’t book it. The reservation was completed autonomously by the newly launched ChatGPT Agent, an intelligent assistant capable of interpreting natural language, learning from previ...

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Digital Marketing in Hospitality

Agents, Not Interfaces: Is This the Beginning of the End for UX?

What Connections are Required to Build Clean Datasets for Useful AI Actions?

Artificial intelligence is the buzz of buzz words, but like practically everything else in the hotel technology world, it’s hardly simple.

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Information Technology

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Chatbots, Robotics & AI

What Connections are Required to Build Clean Datasets for Useful AI Actions?

Data ownership in hotel franchising: something we don’t talk about (but really should)

Did you know that in most franchise agreements, the guest data (the lifeblood of modern hospitality, the gold, the main asset) isn’t owned by the hotel owner. It’s controlled by the franchisor. That includes customer lists, preferences, booking hist...

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Information Technology

Data ownership in hotel franchising: something we don’t talk about (but really should)

How is the current climate of uncertainty and compressed booking windows impacting successful hotel operations?

Even the most seasoned revenue managers are reporting that forecasting today, despite big advances in technology, is more difficult than it is ever been. Volatility, late-arriving demand, and distribution algorithms that re-rank you in seconds make ...

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Revenue Optimization

How is the current climate of uncertainty and compressed booking windows impacting successful hotel operations?

How much should hoteliers be spending on marketing?

With the 2026 budgeting season in hospitality rapidly approaching, it’s not too late to compare marketing spend in hospitality to the retail industry and the broader economy. As per the authoritative Gartner CMO 2025 Spend Survey, the average 2025 m...

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Digital Marketing in Hospitality

How much should hoteliers be spending on marketing?

Regulatory Pause, Sustainability Pause?: The CSRD Delay and Hospitality’s Commitment Test

The European Commission just gave the hospitality industry a reprieve—and perhaps a test.

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Sustainability in Hospitality

Regulatory Pause, Sustainability Pause?: The CSRD Delay and Hospitality’s Commitment Test

Is AI going to make hotel websites obsolete?

There are two major developments in AI that are directly affecting hospitality and particularly hotel websites:

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Information Technology

Is AI going to make hotel websites obsolete?

What experiences can you build with a centralized, real-time guest profile?

From the Thematics interview with Shiji Group’s Ryan King during HITEC, one key message about envisioning hotel technology improvements was this:

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Information Technology

With regular search being replaced by AI summaries and conversational search, how should hotels manage their content?

The old paradigm of search is being turned on its head, first slowly and then all at once. Anyone who has grown used to the fluid and contextual answers of large language models now struggles to return to the rigid three or four word keyword searche...

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Digital Marketing in Hospitality

With regular search being replaced by AI summaries and conversational search, how should hotels manage their content?

Personalize or paralyze? Where do we draw the line between (hyper-) personalization and discovery in travel?

70% of what we watch on Netflix is algorithmically suggested. 60% of what we buy on Amazon is driven by predictive logic. For Gen Alpha, raised on TikTok’s "For You" feed, this is already the norm, but the trend now spans all generations. That same ...

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Information Technology

Personalize or paralyze? Where do we draw the line between (hyper-) personalization and discovery in travel?

To KPI or Not to KPI?: Revisiting Sustainability Metrics in Hospitality

The hospitality industry loves a good Key Performance Indicator (KPI). A quick search reveals the sector’s holy grail of metrics: ADR, Occ%, RevPAR, GOPPAR, TRevPAR—numbers that obsess over revenue but say nothing about the health of our planet, the...

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Sustainability in Hospitality

To KPI or Not to KPI?: Revisiting Sustainability Metrics in Hospitality

The Great Debate — All-in-One vs Best-of-Breed: What Should Hotel Tech Vendors Focus On?

In today’s hotel technology landscape that evolves faster than a guest’s mood, everyone seems to be asking the same question: should vendors try to be everything, everywhere, all at once… or just be really, really good at one thing? The rise of all-...

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Information Technology

The Great Debate — All-in-One vs Best-of-Breed: What Should Hotel Tech Vendors Focus On?

Should the government be regulating commissions hotels pay to the OTAs?

Recently, the Switzerland’s price watchdog (Der Preisüberwacher / Le surveillant des prix) ruled that Booking.com’s hotel commissions were "abusively high" and ordered the OTA to lower them by 25% for Swiss hotels.

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Revenue Optimization

Should the government be regulating commissions hotels pay to the OTAs?

HN World Panel

The HN World Panel is a thought-leadership platform where hospitality-industry leaders share insights, views, ideas and reactions on important issues and events currently affecting the hospitality business. Each panel is made up of a select group of experts, and industry leaders who, by invitation, contribute succinct commentary on viewpoints which are suggested by panel-champs.