What Does Content Marketing Mean for Hotels?
The guide covers seven strategic pillars from personalization to AI optimization, showing how content builds guest trust and reduces OTA dependence.
By Nasir Zahir
Opinion Articles
Uber Just Entered Your Hotel. The Question Is Not Whether That Is a Threat. The Question Is What Signal You Are About to Lose.
Uber's hotel booking launch captures valuable traveler behavioral data, giving the platform deeper guest relationships while hotels only receive reservations.
By Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach for Hotels, Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach
Stop Saying “Trust Me”: Why Hospitality Vendors Lose Deals
Author argues hospitality vendors must shift from traditional selling to building trusted partnerships through expertise and transparent communication.
By Cory Falter, Partner, Lure Agency
The Cost of Misalignment Between Marketing and Revenue Strategy
Misaligned marketing and revenue teams cost hotels conversions and profitability through outdated messaging, mistimed campaigns, and missed demand opportunities.
By Debbie Miller, Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and member of Cayuga Hospitality Consultants, Cayuga Hospitality Consultants
You Are Asking the Wrong Question When You Hire a Hotel Marketing Agency
Hotels should diagnose which layer of the demand stack their problem exists in before selecting a marketing agency, as most agencies solve downstream problems while hotels often need upstream demand origin solutions.
By Andrew Paul, Managing Director, Americas Great Resorts
Unlocking the Style Secrets of Luxury Hospitality: How Fashion Designer Mia Liu Helps Teams Dress for Success
Fashion designer Mia Liu's Drape Stitch creates custom uniforms for luxury hotels, arguing that staff appearance directly impacts guest perception and service quality.
By Ivana Johnston, Co-Founder and CEO, Puzzle Partner
Reclaiming Revenue: How Hotels Can Win the Direct Booking Renaissance with a Unified PMS
SiteMinder data shows direct bookings generate 60% higher revenue per reservation than OTA bookings, while BookBetterDirect research found direct rates beat OTAs in 59% of cases.
By Lisa Jane Wheaton, Senior Project Strategist, Maestro
The Hotel Industry Has a Demand Origin Problem. It Has Been Misdiagnosing It for Twenty Years.
The author argues hotels have misunderstood their core challenge: controlling guest introductions, not just optimizing marketing channels or technology solutions.
By Andrew Paul, Managing Director, Americas Great Resorts
The Vanishing Passport: Strategies to Revive or Replace International Travel
The article outlines alternative revenue strategies for hotels to offset declining international travel through youth sports, construction crews, workations, wellness experiences, and corporate segments.
By Theresa Hajko, Regional Director of Revenue Management, Spire
The Mystification of Hotel Sales
The author argues hotel GMs lack proper sales oversight, focusing on superficial metrics rather than lead conversion tracking and systematic follow-up processes.
By Doug Kennedy, President of the Kennedy Training Network, Kennedy Training Network (KTN)
The Agentic AI Guest: Why Your Hotel Sales Team Is Now Competing With Chatbots
Corporate travel buyers now use AI agents to research hotels, benchmark rates, and analyze reviews before contacting sales teams, fundamentally changing the negotiation dynamic.
By Muhammad Tanveer, Author - The Sales Leadership Brief (Linkedin Newsletter), The Sales Leadership Brief
TikTok Has Entered the Chat: Metasearch
TikTok is beta-testing hotel metasearch cards that appear in user feeds, redirecting to OTAs like Expedia and Booking.com for reservations.
By Sienna Crawford, Senior Marketing Manager, Cogwheel Marketing & Analytics
No, Luxury is not Dying
Argues that luxury demand remains strong despite conference narratives claiming otherwise, with social media simply changing how status symbols are displayed rather than eliminating them.
By Martin Soler, Partner, Soler & Associates
Tethered to the Truth: When Internet Tall Tales Check Into Hospitality
The article argues hospitality brands must maintain verified property data to prevent misleading claims across digital channels and influencer partnerships.
Hotel Customer Journey: The Guest Experience Guide
The guide examines how AI and social media have transformed guest expectations, with direct bookings gaining ground over OTAs as hotels focus on seamless tech-enabled personalization.
By Emma Näpänkangas, M.Sc. Student in Hospitality Management, EHL
The real reason you suck at revenue management
Author argues hotels fail at revenue management by reactively adjusting prices without understanding underlying demand patterns and guest behavior.
By Fabian Bartnick, Founder, Infinito
Five ways hotel marketers are turning summer traffic into direct bookings
Hotels are using AI-driven personalization and behavioral targeting to convert summer website traffic into direct bookings rather than relying on generic seasonal offers.
By Paige Lopez, Content marketer, Lighthouse
Loyalty — Gone in 60 Seconds
Argues that guest loyalty is determined in the first 60 seconds of arrival through human connection, not technology or loyalty programs.
By Terence Ronson, Founder & Managing Director, Pertlink Limited
Instagram is Driving Demand. Now it's Time to Drive Direct Bookings
The article provides five strategies to convert Instagram interest into direct bookings, emphasizing the need to treat Instagram as part of the booking system rather than standalone marketing.
By Alexandra Duque, Junior Digital Marketing Account Executive, GuestCentric Systems
Hotel Brands are Aggregators
Analysis reveals top 6 hotel groups control 84% of organic traffic, with Marriott generating 76 million monthly visits versus median group's under 1 million.
By Martin Soler, Partner, Soler & Associates