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Opinion Articles

Opinion Article

Email Is About to Become Your Most Important Customer Interface

The hospitality industry has overlooked email and the inbox for too long. While hotels invest resources in websites and social media, email remains one of the most valuable yet underinvested in customer touchpoints. Not only the hotel’s own email marketing program, but also emails from trusted, third-party media brands that lend credibility and discovery en masse in the upper funnel, before your potential guests have started searching or making purchase decisions.

Nick Slavin
By Nick Slavin, CEO and Co-Founder, Curacity
Opinion Article

Hotels must rethink their marketing mix: Leading industry consultants interrogate Cendyn Performance Index

Operating in a crowded, consent-addled marketplace where AI is starting to bring real value, hotels can no longer ‘set and forget’ their marketing tools if they want a Find, Book and Grow strategy that works. Here, leading industry consultants from around the world share their perspectives on the Cendyn Hotel Digital Marketing Performance Index 2025.

Christina Leme
By Christina Leme, Senior Director, Global Media, Cendyn™
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HN Original
Opinion Article

Why fewer options means more bookings

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.

By Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer, Revinate, Inc.
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Opinion Article

10 Ways Automation Can Transform Your Hotel

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.

Linda Girrbach
By Linda Girrbach, Co-Founder & Head of Hospitality Consulting, RobosizeME
HN Original
Opinion Article

Guest segmentation in 2025: Moving beyond broad-brush marketing with AI

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.

By Karen Stephens and Henri Roelings
Opinion Article

No, Booking Won’t Be the Plumbing for OpenAI’s Agents

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).

Martin Soler
By Martin Soler, Partner, Soler & Associates