Why lifestyle hotels need rethinking: from wellness to technology
Eric Jafari, co-founder of Locke and edyn, argues lifestyle hotels have grown complacent and that wellness and AI-driven personalization are key to reviving the segment.
Opinion Articles
Concept Integrity: The Missing Link Behind Successful Restaurants
The author argues that restaurant success depends less on originality and more on consistently delivering the concept promised to guests across every operational touchpoint.
By Amin Beik
Menu Engineering Beyond the Basics: Optimizing Strategy, Not Just Items
EHL professors and industry experts explain how menu engineering should function as a system-level diagnostic tool, not just an item-by-item margin exercise, especially as guest spending behavior shifts.
By Paulina Schmidt and Cindy Heo
Human Trafficking: the Underground Market of Hospitality
Hotels' built-in features of privacy, anonymity, and rapid turnover make them vulnerable environments for trafficking, and the article argues that leadership and operational systems are the critical line of intervention.
By Nick Nguyen and Priyanko Guchait
Most Sales Teams Harvest Demand. They Can't Generate It.
As travel growth shifts to data-thin emerging markets, the author argues most hotel sales teams can only harvest existing demand, not create it, and outlines how to build teams that can.
By Muhammad Tanveer, Author - The Sales Leadership Brief (Linkedin Newsletter), The Sales Leadership Brief
Where USALI Ends: Why Vacation Rentals Need an Extension of Hotel Accounting Standards
The author argues that USALI should be extended, not abandoned, to cover the owner-operator cost split unique to vacation rental management, preserving comparability across the sector.
Behind the Smile: What Really Stresses CEOs and Managing Directors in Hospitality
An honest look at the hidden pressures facing hospitality CEOs and MDs: financial leakage, chronic staff turnover, real-time reputation risk, compliance shifts, and non-stop reinvestment demands.
By Francisca Fasua, Founder, Aurelia Hospitality Services
Why Off-Market Hotel Transactions in LATAM Need Buyer Qualification Before Disclosure
The article outlines a structured, staged approach to confidential hotel asset sales in Latin America and the Caribbean, emphasizing buyer vetting before disclosure to protect asset value and daily operations.
By Enrique L. González, Founder and General Manager, F2F Invest LATAM
Sustainable Innovations for Hospitality Properties
A practical guide to 10 sustainability innovations for hotels and restaurants, covering AI food waste tracking, renewable energy, IoT automation, greywater systems, and low-carbon menus.
By Stewart Kiely, Director of Projects, Asset Management & Estate Development, Cayuga Hospitality Consultants
The hotel AI readiness audit: a practical checklist for getting started
A structured five-phase framework helps hotels assess data infrastructure, run shadow-mode pilots, and scale AI without overwhelming staff or wasting budget on simultaneous deployments.
By Alan Young, VP, Strategy | Hospitality, Infor
Expressing Empathy Truly Resolves Guest Complaints
KTN trainer argues that expressing genuine empathy before apologizing is the most effective yet most commonly skipped step in guest complaint resolution, with coaching key to breaking ingrained staff habits.
By Doug Kennedy, President of the Kennedy Training Network, Kennedy Training Network (KTN)
We keep winning. Nothing changes.
A sharp editorial argues that regulatory wins against OTAs and platforms have delivered no meaningful revenue shift for hotels, and that direct guest relationships remain the only distribution asset that compounds.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
The Next Disruption Will Not Be a Cheaper OTA
AI travel agents could become the most powerful gatekeepers yet, deciding which hotels guests ever see, while hidden fees and labor reduction risks threaten luxury service quality.
By Anthony Paul Ruffino, Hotelier – Experienced Hotel Industry Professional, Hospitality Management Services, Inc
AI in Restaurant Kitchens: What to Automate, What to Keep Human
Explores how AI can address kitchen bottlenecks in restaurants without replacing human staff, balancing automation with the human element central to hospitality.
By Paulina Schmidt and Thomas Bissegger
Apple's New Lease on Life
Apple's shift to hardware leasing via Klarna mirrors the CapEx-to-OpEx transition hospitality tech has pushed for years, with direct implications for device fleets, FF&E reserves, and guest wallet share.
By Terence Ronson, Founder & Managing Director, Pertlink Limited
You Think the Management Contract Is About the Fee. It's About 133 Provisions, and the Fee Isn't the One That Hurts You
A 50-year hotel consultant breaks down the 133 provisions owners should negotiate in a management contract, arguing the base fee is the least impactful term while buyout rights, revenue definitions, and vendor rebates cause far greater financial damage.
By Stephen Rushmore, Hotel Valuation Expert and Founder of HVS, Hotel Valuation Software
The One Thing Most Companies Fail To Do After Receiving Customer Feedback
Research shows 65% of customers never hear back after completing a survey, but a hotel case study demonstrates how closing the feedback loop with action and personalized follow-up drives trust and loyalty.
By Shep Hyken, Customer Service and Experience Expert, Keynote Speaker and Bestselling Author, Shepard Presentations, LLC.
H1 2026 Hungarian Hospitality Market: Strong Fundamentals Continue to Support Growth
Budapest led CEE-6 capitals in occupancy in H1 2026 with RevPAR near €90 (up 15% YoY), but rate growth lags peers, GOP growth is uneven, and investment activity is picking up post-elections.
By Zoltan Szabo and Nicolas Horky
Stop Screenshotting Your AI Visibility. It Is One Deal of the Cards.
Research across 28,600 AI answers shows the top hotel result changed 40% of the time within one hour, making single-screenshot AI visibility checks unreliable for boutique hoteliers.
By Lynn Patchett, Founder & Head of Marketing, Kollective
‘Living Hospitality:’ When Compassion, Training, and Courage Changed a Life
Newport Hospitality Group shares how compassion, training, and courage combined to make a meaningful difference in an employee's life.
By Portsia Smith, General Manager, Newport Hospitality Group