As AI-generated content floods the internet, hospitality and travel brands face a trust crisis where authentic human experience and perspective are becoming the primary drivers of consumer confidence and purchasing decisions.
Revinate webinar featuring Suncadia Resort's Director of Reservations on how reservation teams can improve call handling to capture guest data, build rapport, and convert phone inquiries into direct bookings.
The inaugural HoSS, held in London on 3-4 September, brought 200+ hospitality marketing leaders from 14 countries to address the gap between social media's commercial expectations and current strategy and capability.
Google has stripped live pricing, date filters, and budget tags from its EU hotel search unit to comply with the DMA, leaving hotels with only a name, link, and address in the box built for them.
With 94% of hotels failing to appear in AI search results, venues must adopt structured, detail-rich content strategies to stay discoverable to event planners using tools like ChatGPT and Claude.
A study of 148 luxury hotels finds Forbes Travel Guide ratings and Michelin Keys explain 55% of AI recommendation frequency, while website schema and llms.txt files show near-zero correlation.
The author argues hotels must reframe corporate sales around outcomes like productivity, flexibility, and frictionless travel, not just room rates and availability.
Cendyn joins Google's closed beta for Search Campaigns for Travel, combining live ARI feeds and first-party guest data with Google's AI to improve hotel search ad performance ahead of general availability.
A hospitality sales strategist argues that digital reputation now functions as a pre-sales tool, with buyers forming opinions via LinkedIn, podcasts, and AI long before any direct outreach occurs.
Mirai argues hotel distribution is splitting into two ecosystems: the traditional web and an emerging AI agent ecosystem requiring structured knowledge, MCP endpoints, and new optimization strategies beyond SEO.
HSMAI MEA's 9th annual Commercial Strategy Conference returns to Conrad Dubai on 17-18 November 2026, covering AI, data analytics, commercial leadership, and a new Women Voices segment.
The piece argues that sales teams should use meeting intelligence platforms to prioritize re-engagement with lost group accounts based on actual booking activity, not generic outreach schedules.
A framework for evaluating corporate accounts as investments across four dimensions: return, growth potential, risk, and strategic value, rather than room nights or revenue alone.
Cogwheel argues hotels should reframe marketing as digital revenue infrastructure spanning the full funnel, reducing OTA reliance and compounding direct booking growth over time.
A mystery shopper study of 308 calls across 135 luxury hotels found 92% captured no guest contact details, exposing major direct booking losses through poor phone handling.
The author argues luxury hotel marketing is structurally incomplete, focusing too heavily on conversion while neglecting upstream demand origin, leaving properties dependent on OTAs and AI intermediaries they don't control.
Exely's internal data shows tiered loyalty rewards tied to direct bookings can reduce OTA dependency and protect margins when reward costs are benchmarked against re-acquisition costs.
PATA and GBTA signed an MOU to co-develop the corporate travel component of PATA Travel Mart 2027 in Macao, combining buyer networks, knowledge forums, and joint marketing.
Hotel marketers are falling behind OTAs in AI search fluency, risking direct bookings as AI assistants increasingly surface inaccurate or OTA-sourced property information.
Leonardo Hotels survey of 2,000 UK adults finds 63% argue during holiday planning, with sleep disruption and budget disputes among top stressors affecting couples on city breaks.