Webinar on Sep 10: Top Tips to Create AI Visibility for Your Hotel
Milestone's September 10 webinar covers how AI platforms select and recommend hotels, with tips on content quality, authority, and entity building to boost visibility.
Sales & Marketing
Your rate now competes with a points price inside Google's answer
Google's AI Mode now lets US travelers book hotels and compare cash rates against loyalty points in one conversation, removing the friction that previously delayed award redemption decisions.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
Booking.com Reveals Travelers Prioritize Trips Ahead of Other Day-to-Day Expenses
A Booking.com survey of 1,332 U.S. travelers finds 84% view travel as a quality-of-life investment, with 68% cutting daily expenses to fund trips and 69% using flexible payment options.
Recent Appointments
View AllDigital marketing decoded: Budgeting 101
A downloadable guide for hotel marketers on building a 2027 digital marketing budget using cost of acquisition, ROAS benchmarks, and direct vs. OTA net revenue comparisons.
U.S. Travel Honors Destination Marketers with 2026 ESTO Awards
U.S. Travel Association named 2026 ESTO Award winners across 10 categories at its 42nd annual conference in Philadelphia, honoring DMOs and state tourism offices for creative destination marketing.
IHG Hotels & Resorts Brings Hospitality on the Road With New IHG Racquet Cruiser at the 2026 US Open
IHG returns as official hotel partner of the 2026 US Open with a new complimentary motorcoach experience and Racquet Bar perks for fans and loyalty members.
Are AI-powered RFP Responses Really Good For Hotel Group Sales?
The author argues that fully automated AI proposal responses risk commoditizing hotel group sales, pushing buying decisions toward price alone, and urges hotels to keep human touchpoints at the center of the sales process.
By Doug Kennedy, President of the Kennedy Training Network, Kennedy Training Network (KTN)
InterContinental reinforces commitment to restorative travel through extended worldwide partnership with Timeshifter
InterContinental is extending its global deal with jet lag app Timeshifter, giving all guests at its 242 hotels across 70 countries free access to personalised circadian science-based travel plans.
The email you want is the one she gives you for a reason
Hotels receive OTA guest emails for operational use only, but an address given directly by a guest during their stay is unencumbered by platform restrictions and is the only record the hotel truly owns.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
It’s not about the booking – it's about everything that came before it.
Data from the Travel Dreams 2026 report, covering 500 hoteliers and 6,000 travelers, shows shortlists form before the booking page, making AI visibility and early-journey presence the top priority for 2026.
By Javier Campo, SVP, EMEA, Amadeus Hospitality
Guests Don’t Want Your Playlist (They Want the Feeling They Can Take Home)
Sonic identity is framed as a portable, shareable brand asset, with research showing distinct hotel music boosts guest favorability and F&B revenue when programmed intentionally across dayparts.
By Sébastien Felix and Clay Bassford
Everything the OTA sends you about your guest expires
OTA-provided guest emails, phone numbers, and virtual cards all expire within days or weeks, leaving hotels with no reachable guest list — and AI booking agents are set to repeat the same pattern.
By Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher, hospitality.today
If Guests Pay for Access, Shouldn't the Access Credential Show It?
The article argues that premium-tier hotel access credentials like key cards should reflect the value hierarchy guests pay for, using materials and design to reinforce exclusivity at every touchpoint.
How History, Childhood Impressions, and Emotional Memory Can Create a Future Guest
The author argues hotels should use history, architecture, and storytelling to create emotional memories for child guests, building future brand loyalty grounded in nostalgia research and evolving family travel trends.
Do We Need More Leonardo da Vinci in Hotel Marketing?
The piece questions whether hotel marketers benefit more from broad, cross-disciplinary thinking than from deep specialisation in a single area.
What Emerging Markets Taught Me About Hotel Sales That Luxury Markets Never Could
A hotel sales veteran argues that emerging markets build sharper commercial instincts than luxury ones, teaching demand creation, relationship-led selling, and agile pricing under real pressure.
By Muhammad Tanveer, Author , The Sales Leadership Brief
Travel Media Group Hotel Social Media Video Content Surpasses 30,000 Hours Watched and 500k Engagements
TMG's hotel social media solution has hit 30,000+ hours of video watch time and 500,000+ engagements, reflecting short-form video's growing role in traveler discovery.
Expert Views (13)
Linchi Kwok, Professor and Department Chair, Cal Poly Pomona
Thank you, Simone, for raising a critical question about marketers’ essential role as AI reshapes the workplace. I see broader applications of this question across job functions beyond marketing.Specialization remains important in hotel marketing.
Max Starkov, Hospitality & travel technologist and digital strategist, Hospitality Net
Are we over-specializing in hospitality digital marketing? The well-known idiomatic proverb “Jack of all trades, master of none" provides the answer to this question. Twenty years ago, a hospitality digital marketer could become a Jack of all trades.
Markus Mueller, Managing Director, GauVendi
LLMs are changing where value sits. In the past, deep knowledge of how to execute a specific task created an advantage. Today, I can use an LLM to understand the mechanics, explore options and complete work that once required a narrow specialist.This makes the big picture more important, not less.
Groove Ensures Hotel Partners Keep NFL Sunday Ticket Access with DIRECTV and EverPass Agreement
Groove Technology Solutions will continue distributing NFL Sunday Ticket to hotel partners via a new multi-year DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS and EverPass Media agreement, effective the 2026 NFL season.
Hotel Cross-Selling Strategy: Why Better Data Comes First
A podcast-based reflection on hotel cross-selling argues that data quality and guest qualification matter more than offer volume, with guest profiles and selective automation enabling more meaningful interactions.
Pablo Torres in conversation with Florencia Cueto Pedrotti