The Bell Stays on Top
Pertlink turns 26
Pertlink marks its 26th anniversary by repositioning as a hospitality technology and AI advisory, flagging AI discoverability as the defining challenge for hotels in 2027.
Photo by Pertlink Limited
On 23 October 2000, Pertlink opened in Hong Kong with a simple promise: to help hotels work through the maze of new technologies. Twenty-six years later, the maze has changed shape more times than we can count. The promise hasn't.
Look closely at the cake. On the left are circuit traces: the networks, cabling, and property systems we spent two decades bringing into hotel pre-openings across Asia. On the right, they become a web. That web is the AI layer that now sits between a guest and almost every decision they make. At the top, beside the hotel, sits a front-desk bell. It's the oldest piece of guest technology in the building, and it's still the point.
In 2026, AI left the chatbot. Answer engines began shortlisting hotels before guests ever reached a website. Booking agents moved into the assistants people carry in their pockets. Hotels started paying for tokens, and boards started asking what they were buying. So we now describe ourselves as what we've become: a hospitality technology and AI advisory.
How we work hasn't changed. Our Viewpoint papers, playbooks, and briefings are still open and free, with no paywall or sales pressure. We use AI to help make them, and yes, that includes this cake. We'd be poor advocates if we didn't. AI doesn't provide judgment, and a human still reviews everything before it leaves the building.
The question for 2027 isn't whether your hotel uses AI. It's whether AI can find your hotel, understand it, and trust what it says.
Thank you to every client, partner, reader, and friend who has walked this road with us. If you look, you will see.
The intelligence may be artificial. But the experience is human.
About Pertlink Limited
Pertlink Limited is a boutique hospitality technology and AI advisory consultancy. It was founded in Hong Kong on 23 October 2000 and now operates across the Philippines and the wider Asia-Pacific. Founder and Managing Director Terence Ronson leads the firm and is an inductee of both the HFTP International Hospitality Technology Hall of Fame and the CHTA Hall of Fame.
Pertlink helps hotel owners, operators, developers and tourism bodies make sound decisions about technology and AI, from pre-opening systems design to AI strategy, governance and adoption. Its work is built on its own frameworks, including TCPG (Token Cost Per Guest), HXO (Human Experience Orchestrator) and the Hybrid Hospitality Framework. Through its Pertlink Viewpoint series, the firm turns global AI and technology developments into practical guidance for boards, C-suites and operators.
The goal hasn't changed since 2000: technology that genuinely improves the guest experience, now with AI in the mix.
Media Contact
Terence Ronson
Founder and Managing Director [email protected]