How to use AI to make more from late hotel check-outs
Conduit CEO Cole Rubin explains how AI agents can fully automate late check-out requests, from confirming housekeeping availability to processing payment, with no human intervention required.
Opinion Articles
Google's now selling placement inside the AI answer — starting with IHG, by invitation only
Google's new Direct Offers format places sponsored promotions inside AI-generated travel recommendations, with IHG named as the first hotel partner in an invitation-only program.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
Agentic Governance is the Big Trend from HITEC 2026
At HITEC 2026 in San Antonio, the dominant theme shifted from AI deployment to AI governance, with Agent Management Platforms emerging as a critical new software category for hotel operations.
By Adam Mogelonsky and Larry Mogelonsky
One Seamless Journey… or Many Meaningful Ones?
The author argues that hospitality's push for seamless integration risks eroding the distinct identities of venues, proposing a principle: integrate what removes friction, preserve what creates meaning.
By Dr. Andreea Antonescu, Associate Professor, Les Roches
Booking Holdings' 'connected trip' vision never materialized, and AI is the latest threat
Seven years after launching its "connected trip" vision, Booking Holdings still lacks true itinerary integration, and agentic AI now threatens to execute that vision on behalf of competing platforms.
By Mario Gavira, CMO, travelier.com
The Invisible Operating System
The author argues that hotel competitiveness in the AI era depends on invisible operational infrastructure, as AI amplifies data inconsistencies rather than hiding them.
Decision Lag Is the Hidden Cost of Hotel Revenue Reporting
The article argues that manual reporting workflows create costly decision lag for hotel revenue teams, and proposes auditing time-to-action across signal, decision, and execution timestamps.
By Samuel Johnson, Head of Operations, LodgIQ™
Most Hotels Do Not Need a 2030 AI Strategy. They Need Confidence About 2026
The author argues hoteliers should focus on near-term AI confidence for 2026 rather than abstract long-range strategies, drawing on a year of deep AI research.
By Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach for Hotels, Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach
The law that just fined Google has been running on Booking.com since December 2024
The EU's Digital Markets Act already forced Booking.com to drop rate parity clauses in December 2024, giving hoteliers the right to undercut OTA rates, but paid placement still dominates visibility.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
Your Hotel's Website Is No Longer Where the Decision Gets Made
As Google evolves into an agentic booking platform and AI tools reshape travel discovery, independent hotels risk being bypassed before a guest ever visits their site, making structured data and brand definition more critical than web design.
By Sébastien Felix, Founder, Influence Society
I photographed the future standing behind the past
A hospitality executive argues that hotels must build AI-ready operations now, ahead of AGI, using a four-dimension framework called PHAL that unifies Performance, Profit, Preference, and People.
By Saurabh Prakash, CEO and Founder, PHAL
Investing in a comeback hotel
Harpreet Singh shares lessons from one year of turning around Kings Court Hotel in Alcester, prioritizing infrastructure, culture, and long-term vision over cosmetic upgrades.
By Ryan Haynes, Director/Lead Consultant, Hoteliers' Voice Podcast/ Haynes MarComs Ltd
Key money in Hotel Management Agreements: market practice, legal aspects and accounting issues
A legal and financial breakdown of key money in hotel management agreements, covering market practice, repayment terms, guarantees, and accounting treatment for both owners and operators in France.
By Christopher Boinet and Anne Epinat
From a Boutique hostel in Bishan, China to an Eco-Luxury Farm in Andalusia: What Two Very Different Places Reveal About the Future of Tourism
Two case studies, a preserved village hostel in Bishan, China and a biodynamic farm estate in Andalusia, Spain, illustrate a shift from consumption-led tourism toward place-based, regenerative hospitality models.
By Imane Bouterfas, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Les Roches
The Work Chat That Multi-Location Businesses Have Been Waiting For
Zenzap is a mobile-first work chat app targeting multi-location hospitality and restaurant businesses, offering location-based group organization, admin controls, and one-click offboarding.
By Rebecca Lazar, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Zenzap
The EU fined Google for burying its rivals in hotel search. The hotel was never one of them
The EU's €460M fine against Google for favoring its own hotel search results will reshape the results page toward comparison sites, leaving hotel direct links increasingly sidelined or monetized.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
Your wholesale contract still works. That's the problem
Wholesale contracts written for a simpler distribution era can't enforce opaque/package-only clauses across tens of thousands of downstream resellers, making renegotiation the only real protection.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
What I Learned Judging a Global Commercial Awards Program Most Sales Leaders Never Get Near
A judge for HSMAI Commercial Awards Asia Pacific 2026 shares what separates winning submissions: evidence of durable systems over individual heroics, honest friction, and outcome-linked metrics.
By Muhammad Tanveer, Author , The Sales Leadership Brief
The Hotel Guest Journey No Longer Starts with Google
Travelers now discover hotels via TikTok, Instagram, and AI tools like ChatGPT before ever reaching a hotel website, forcing marketers to build presence across multiple platforms.
By Debbie Miller, Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and member of Cayuga Hospitality Consultants, Cayuga Hospitality Consultants
Google, Take the Wheel (And the Budget): Navigating Ads’ Hands-Off Future for Hotels
The article warns individually branded hotels against adopting Google's AI Max, citing risks of irrelevant keyword matching and misdirected traffic to competitor properties under shared brand URL structures.
By Kylie Chen, Director of Paid Strategy, Cogwheel Marketing & Analytics