Here’s a quick thought experiment: Put five Revenue Managers in a room. All have similar titles. All know their way around Excel, RMS, and pickup reports. But are they actually the same?
The hospitality industry stands on the precipice of its most profound disruption since the internet. It's an existential shift, driven by Agentic AI, and it threatens to dismantle the decades-old power structure of hotel distribution. For years, hoteliers have operated in a distribution landscape where third parties—Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and Global Distribution Systems (GDSs)—control the customer journey. They have provided a crucial aggregation service, gathering disparate hotel inventory into a single, searchable platform.
When Q4 hits, hotel marketers and sales teams everywhere brace themselves for what can only be described as the “Game of Thrones” of the hospitality world: Budget Season.
Tempted by big audiences and the lure of impressive returns, hotels often want to keep the number of email addresses in their databases high. But this is actually the downfall of many email marketing strategies.
Knowing your customers is the foundation of successfully expanding your hotel business and, there are plenty of hotel customer groups requiring identification and quantification, including:
Picture this: Caroline is a business traveler who has stayed at your hotel before and has left glowing reviews. On her previous trips, she has always stopped at your gift store after checkout to buy her young kids gifts. Imagine utilizing hotel guest segmentation to send Caroline an offer to bring her young kids with her to celebrate the holiday season. You list the right room options, include information about the kids’ club, and offer a spa voucher for the afternoon when kids are enjoying themselves at the club. Booking is easy.
Recently, a client reached out to me, concerned that their customer service was slipping. Due to supply issues, they weren’t fulfilling orders on time, and customers were complaining. Some had even started to source their products from other vendors.
The holiday season is a pivotal time for the hospitality industry, and in 2025, the digital landscape is more complex than ever. When we look at Google Insights for holiday travel over the past several years, the most compelling trend is the surge we’re seeing in 2025, with interest spiking particularly in July and August. These months alone show a lift of roughly 137% compared to last year, representing the highest level of interest in the past four years.
What’s the biggest challenge you face running a hotel today? Rising guest expectations, fewer staff, or the constant race against time? Well, for most hotel leaders I speak with, it’s all three. And despite all the innovation, too much hotel tech still seems to get in the way or slow teams down with undue complexities instead of smoothing out operations.
Artificial intelligence is already transforming the way our industry operates, and its impact is only going to accelerate. The way travelers discover, evaluate, and book hotels is being rewritten in real time, and operators like us need to adapt quickly to stay relevant.
Anna is planning a business trip to Tokyo. Eager to get the best recs for the city, she whips out her smartphone and finds a hotel touting everything she wants. She books her stay within minutes. Her dream stay wishlist was made possible by AI — and behind that magic is guest segmentation. Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AI tools can now segment data (like intent, behaviors, or loyalty preferences) and instantly spin up personalized recommendations that feel one-to-one, not one-to-many.
The hallmarks of hospitality are great service, comfortable lodgings, delectable cuisine, fancy spas and a sense of place. But look a little deeper and you’ll see that what distinguishes the very best hotels in the world is the irreplaceable role that they’ve played in stewarding the community and often in facilitating key moments in history.
The hype cycle on AI agents keeps going. The Financial Times tells us that the “rise of AI shopping agents” is set to transform e-commerce. OpenAI even renamed its Operator system simply “Agent,” making the pitch clear: AI will browse and buy on our behalf. Sounds great, but not totally sure it will pan out (most of Amazon’s profit comes from ads not from product sales).
Let’s talk about revenue management.
One of the reasons customers are concerned about or even scared of AI is that it has been known to provide incorrect answers. The result is frustration and concern over whether to believe any AI-fueled technology. In my annual customer service and customer experience research, I asked more than 1,000 U.S. consumers if they ever received wrong or incorrect information from an AI self-service technology. Fifty-one percent said yes.
Luxury has long been synonymous with seamless indulgence — anticipating every need before it’s voiced, removing every friction, perfecting every detail. But what if the very thing we’ve been perfecting is starting to lose its power?
Revenue management has always been central to hotel performance, but it’s no longer just about ADR and RevPAR. The most innovative hoteliers are shifting their focus toward metrics that capture the whole guest experience – and the revenue it generates.
At Booking.com, we welcome the launch of the Code of Conduct for Online Ratings and Reviews for Tourism Accommodation, presented by Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas.
Revenue management, at its core, has always been about balance—the delicate calibration of price, timing, and demand. For decades, this equilibrium was achieved by revenue managers hunched over spreadsheets, fueled by experience, instinct, and often, last-minute adjustments. But in an industry increasingly defined by data and disruption, those days are fading fast.
I have a love-hate relationship with loyalty programs. Actually, scratch that. Mostly hate. Having sat on the franchisee side of the table, I know first-hand that these programs don’t benefit the hotel. They don’t benefit the traveler either. They benefit the brand. Full stop.