Cultural Relevance in Marketing
A Conrad New York Downtown executive outlines how hotels can use destination storytelling, co-created itineraries, multilingual content, and local partnerships to build cultural relevance into their marketing.
Opinion Articles
Azuma Brand Launch Signals Larger Hotel Category Trends
Adrian Zecha's Azuma Farm Koiwai launch is used as a lens to examine the 50-year structural rise of agriluxury, driven by guest demand for calm and simplicity in an overstimulated world.
By Adam Mogelonsky and Larry Mogelonsky
Hospitality's real question isn't legal. It's cultural.
A CDR World Panel opinion piece argues hospitality leaders must deliberately build cultures that elevate human potential as AI absorbs transactional tasks, citing IKEA's reskilling model as a benchmark.
By Colin Kingsmill and Christina Reti
Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo: How Heritage Hotels Transform Place into Luxury Value
Using Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo as a case study, the piece argues that heritage hotels compete not on amenities alone but on their ability to turn history, location, and culture into a distinctive, irreplicable guest identity.
We need to talk about fake infographics
AI-generated hotel tech market maps look convincing but contain serious errors, and as presentation quality improves, distinguishing confidence from correctness becomes harder.
By Martin Soler, Partner, Soler & Associates
What I Saw at HITEC 2026 That Nobody Else Is Talking About
The author argues that HITEC 2026 overlooked a key market gap: back-office AI that reduces overhead and drives margins, while vendors focused almost entirely on guest-facing tools.
The Readiness Gap: Why Hospitality Graduates are Falling at The Final Hurdle
New Regent's University London research finds 80% of hospitality recruiters pass over graduates for lacking work readiness, with soft skills and practical experience cited as the critical gaps.
By Adam Frost, Director of Programme Luxury Hospitality Management, Regent's University London
Four Ways Technology Can Improve the Guest Wellness Experience
The article outlines four design principles for integrating fitness technology in hotel wellness spaces, positioning equipment as a service, revenue, and sustainability asset.
By Gary Young, Regional Director of Hospitality Sales, EMEA, Matrix
How AI is transforming the hotel commercial engine: Group sales, revenue management, and unified strategy
AI-powered group quoting agents and commercial strategy tools can unify hotel sales, revenue, and marketing teams on a single data view, cutting RFP response times from days to minutes.
By Alan Young, VP, Strategy | Hospitality, Infor
Why Governance Is Now Mission-Critical for Hotels
Rising legal exposure, health inspection failures, and leadership scandals illustrate why formal governance frameworks are now a strategic necessity for hotel operators of all sizes.
By Oren Roelofsen, Founder, Guvrix
Is AI Enhancing Customer Support, or is Customer Support Enhancing AI?
Research shows 53% of U.S. consumers have received incorrect information from AI bots, highlighting the risk of over-automating customer service at the expense of human judgment and empathy.
By Shep Hyken, Customer Service and Experience Expert, Keynote Speaker and Bestselling Author, Shepard Presentations, LLC.
From Geopolitical Shock to Strategic Sovereignty—The Middle East Tourism Industry's "Hard Landing" and Resilience Reconstruction
The 2026 Iran conflict scenario is used to assess systemic vulnerabilities in Middle East tourism, with $600M in daily losses and a 2-4 year setback to Saudi Vision 2030, alongside three strategic recommendations for investors.
By Dr. Tong Yin, Founder and doctoral researcher, InsightBridge Global LLC
Marriott solved the discovery problem. It traded one intermediary for another
Marriott's Google AI Mode partnership lets guests book directly inside Google's interface, bypassing OTA commissions, but cedes discovery data and risks paid "priority" placement fees as the product matures.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
The open vs closed ecosystem debate facing every hotelier
Mews CEO Matt Welle weighs the trade-offs between open, best-of-breed tech stacks and consolidated operating systems, arguing the right choice depends on property size, data ambitions, and tolerance for integration complexity.
The Temporary City
The author argues that major events compress rather than create demand, and that destinations need "Destination Intelligence" to orchestrate disconnected systems into a unified visitor experience.
The Illusion of Labor Cost Control in Hospitality
Hotel operators who hit labor budgets may still suffer hidden inefficiencies; the article argues that labor precision and real-time demand alignment matter more than payroll control alone.
By Anna Ransom, Vice President of Marketing, Unifocus
The Guest Has a Companion Now
UBTech's consumer humanoid robot launch signals a shift in guest expectations that hospitality must address, as home companion AI sets a new relational benchmark hotels are unprepared to meet.
By Terence Ronson, Founder & Managing Director, Pertlink Limited
What HSMAI 2026 Kept Saying (Whether It Meant To or Not)
A conference recap from HSMAI 2026 in San Antonio covering four recurring themes: resilient consumer spending, commercial team alignment, AI-driven hotel discovery, and the return to hospitality fundamentals.
By Sonya Taylor, Director of Operations and Marketing, Cogwheel Marketing & Analytics
Hoteliers beware: AI versus search is a false narrative
AI is not replacing search but expanding it, and hoteliers must adapt by optimizing for conversational queries, structured data, and AI-driven recommendation engines alongside traditional SEO.
By Shearly Reyes, Media Director, Cendyn™
Hotel chains built AI for the traveler who comes to them first. That traveler is leaving
Major chains have built AI tools to defend direct booking conversions, but the discovery journey now starts on ChatGPT and Google AI, platforms brands cannot see, measure, or control.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
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