Another Star, same ambition to redefine hospitality
Another Star CEO discusses the company's $685M refinancing and strategic plans following citizenM's integration into Marriott Bonvoy.
HN Originals
OTA guest conversion strategy for hotels: The ultimate guide
Comprehensive guide on converting OTA guests to direct bookers through staff training, automated email sequences, and incentives to reclaim up to 30% commission fees.
Expedia Guess The Guest: A Conversation on Hospitality, Dead Internet Theory, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Stupidity
Expedia executive Elisa Ragno discusses AI's impact on hospitality and the balance between technology and human connection in guest services.
Sales equals Speed in 2026 for hotel lead nurturing
The author argues hotels must respond to inquiries within five minutes to capture 100% lead quality, with response effectiveness declining exponentially after that.
Culture First, Not Campaign First: Inside Arlo’s Social Strategy
I had the opportunity to sit down with Dino Jevric, Arlo’s Social Media Manager, to discuss how the brand is taking a different path on Instagram at a time when many hotels still use social mainly to push rates and packages. Arlo is treating the platform less like a sales channel and more like an extension of the guest experience, curating its feed as a living diary of hotel life and neighbourhood energy. The aim is simple but ambitious: make people feel like they are already there, before they have even booked.
Top 10 DOs and DON’Ts for your hotel lead nurturing strategy
What if the secret to better lead nurturing isn't picking between technology and people, but knowing exactly when to use each?
LodgIQ's CEO Vincent Ramelli on Reinventing Hospitality: Data, People and the Future of AI-Driven Hotels
Vincent Ramelli, CEO of LodgIQ, has been at the forefront of hotel technology for decades. In his recent interview for Hospitality Net, he reflects on a career that spans the early days of the internet, the rise of online distribution, and now the integration of generative AI into hotel operations.
Hilton Grand Vacations COO Gordon Gurnik on Innovating Timeshare Experiences and Expanding Global Horizons
Hospitality Net recently had the opportunity to speak with Gordon Gurnik, COO of Hilton Grand Vacations, about the company's evolution, innovations, and future plans. Gurnik explained that Hilton Grand Vacations is a standalone public company closely affiliated with Hilton Worldwide, managing over 720,000 members across more than 200 properties worldwide. The company prioritizes team member investment to reduce turnover and maintain high service standards, supporting seamless guest experiences. Hilton Grand Vacations is positioned as the world's largest timeshare company, committed to evolving with market trends and delivering value through technology and memorable vacations.
How Club Mahindra Quietly Solved Hospitality’s Biggest Plastic Problem
India’s hospitality industry is waking up to a silent pollutant: "Plastic". While many hotel chains are still searching for alternatives, Club Mahindra has already turned sustainability into action. Partnering with WAE, the brand has installed in-house Glass Bottling Plants (GBPs) across its resorts systems that purify, bottle, and reuse glass containers, completely eliminating the need for single-use plastic bottles.
Lead nurturing for hotels: From inquiry to confirmation
You have revenue hiding in plain sight…and it’s slipping away.
Beyond Price: The Future of Hotel Upselling and Cross-Selling
In this insightful interview, Scott Dahl and Mercedes Blanco discuss the evolving landscape of upselling and cross-selling in the hotel industry heading into 2026. They highlight how traveler preferences have shifted away from just prices and views toward meaningful, personalized experiences, emphasizing the emotional story behind offers. Mercedes shares her extensive expertise in digital marketing and hospitality technology, underscoring the fast-paced integration of AI in enhancing guest experiences, marketing strategies, and direct booking channels.
AI will turn upselling from “send offers” into “solve needs”
The next wave of upselling will be smarter, quieter, more contextual, and more effective. Instead of static menus or one-off emails, AI-powered upselling will coordinate offers across channels and moments to meet the guest’s true goal: reducing friction, enhancing comfort, and creating delightful moments.
Why your upsell strategy is failing: When digital & voice live in different worlds
Upselling should be a seamless part of the guest journey, elevating the experience for guests, while strengthening the bottom line. Yet many properties invest heavily in offers, scripts, and campaigns — only to see limited return. The root cause is rarely the quality of the upgrade itself, but the disconnect between digital browsing behavior and voice-channel conversations.
Tech-Enabled Hospitality: Humanity, Innovation, and the Future Guest Experience
Jessica Gillingham, founder and CEO of Abode Worldwide, joins Simone Puorto for an engaging discussion about her recent book, "Tech-Enabled Hospitality." As a seasoned communicator with nearly a decade of experience in the hospitality and short-term rental technology space, Jessica explores the profound transformation underway in the industry, where technology is reshaping both operational delivery and the very nature of guest experiences. Her work brings together insights from over thirty-eight leaders in technology and hospitality, giving the book a rich, multifaceted perspective.
How to Survive AI in 2026: Ten Coordinates for the Future of Hospitality
To write about the future is, inevitably, to be wrong about the future. I have repeated this for years, and yet, it remains the truest sentence I know. The mistake, however, is not a failure of prediction but a form of knowledge. We now inhabit a “post-postmodern”, almost “post-futurist” condition, a time in which tomorrow no longer stretches ahead as a horizon but hovers above us like a permanent update, endlessly refreshing itself. And although the Singularity that Kurzweil foresaw two decades ago has not yet fully arrived, his law of accelerating returns already permeates the present, altering our perception of time and possibility. Within this landscape, those of us who attempt to understand technology are no longer prophets, but rather cartographers of the impermanent, tracing transient patterns across the shifting topography of innovation. What follows, therefore, are not laws but coordinates, ten mutable constellations, ten subtle tremors that delineate the tectonic rewriting of business, technology, and meaning itself. Because the future, in the end, is no longer what it used to be.
Health Is the New Wealth: How Equinox Hotels Is Redefining Luxury Through High-Performance Living
This interview with the visionary Chris Norton, CEO of Equinox Hotels, explores how the brand is redefining modern luxury hospitality through a foundation of health, wellness and high-performance living. His team's leadership is helping make Equinox Hotels a platform for a new generation of travelers who prioritize longevity and vitality by looking for those brands that can meet this lifestyle. Health really is the new wealth. With the utmost attention to detail with the development and launch of the brand's first hotel in New York, Equinox Hotels is creating experiences that elevate guests' physical and mental well-being across every single in-room and onsite amenity.
Redefining Loyalty: Accor's Kerry Healy on Personalisation, Technology and Human Connection
As Chief Commercial Officer for Accor’s Premium, Midscale & Economy Division across the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, Kerry Healy oversees some of the most diverse and fast-evolving hospitality markets in the world. In this exclusive interview, she discusses how Accor is harnessing data and AI to deliver hyper-personalised experiences at scale—without losing the human touch. From redefining loyalty beyond points and perks to embedding emotional connection and cultural relevance into every stay, Healy shares how Accor’s vision for hospitality blends innovation with authenticity to create meaningful, lasting relationships with guests.
Interview: What Ocean Wisdom Can Teach Hospitality Leaders - A Conversation with Professor Ioannis S. Pantelidis
In a world where hotels, restaurants, and tourism organisations face unprecedented complexity - from digital disruption to climate challenges - Professor Ioannis S. Pantelidis of Ulster University invites us to look beneath the surface. His latest work, REEF: Transformational Leadership, draws on lessons from the ocean’s most adaptive ecosystems to inspire a new form of leadership - one that is rhythmic, empathetic, and resilient.
The AI-powered hotel upsell: Turning every channel into a revenue generator
A guest is about to check in. They’ve booked a city-view room for two nights, and your data knows they stayed six months ago and splurged on a spa treatment. Before they even arrive, your front desk gets a quiet nudge: “Offer the spa package again. Add a glass of champagne on arrival.”
Predicting the Present: When AI is the new UI
Two years ago, when my book "We Are The Glitch" came out, I wrote something that felt more like a provocation than a prediction. At the time, the idea that platforms like Expedia Group or Booking.com could live inside a conversational interface sounded speculative, even poetic. And yet, this week, with OpenAI announcing native apps within ChatGPT and naming those very brands among the first integrations, that line between vision and reality has vanished.