HITEC day three recap covers E20X startup pitches, candid booth conversations with Oracle, HotelKey, Revinate and Shiji, and a closed-door round table with hotel CIOs and senior supplier executives.
Behavioral shift toward AI-driven question-and-answer is already complete among consumers, leaving businesses across hospitality, accounting, and healthcare racing to replace dashboards with conversational tools.
A first-person recap of HITEC 2026's opening days finds consensus that AI will transform hospitality distribution and operations, but deep disagreement on costs, brand survival, and the role of human staff.
Ahead of HITEC, this opinion piece warns hoteliers not to repeat big tech's costly "tokenmaxxing" mistakes, urging outcome-based AI evaluation over vendor-driven consumption metrics.
HSMAI's AI Advisory Board outlines a three-pillar commercial framework covering AI-driven distribution, direct channel personalization, and unified data architecture for hospitality operators.
A practical guide for hoteliers on using a structured RFP and implementation checklist to compare RMS vendors objectively and avoid post-contract surprises.
Mews Senior PM Madeline Bushbeck argues that widespread AI adoption statistics mask a deeper problem: most hotels run generic, off-the-shelf AI tools that don't understand their specific operations.
The author argues AI won't replace core hotel systems but will transform the analytics layer, eliminate spreadsheet workarounds, and let hotels use AI agents to build custom workflows without waiting on vendors.
The author proposes Token Cost Per Guest (TCPG) as a standard metric for hospitality AI spend, drawing parallels with healthcare to argue that metered, per-unit AI cost tracking is essential across all industries.
The piece argues hotels deploy visible AI features without redesigning underlying operations, creating "AI Theatre" that impresses owners but fails to improve business metrics.
Two hospitality tech experts break down why PMS selection is now driven by API openness and integration ecosystems, with practical guidance for independents and multi-property operators.
The author introduces TCPG (Token Cost Per Guest) as a discipline for hotel operators to meter AI spending, arguing most deployments fail because costs are invisible inside bundled platform contracts.
TRAVHOTECH's HumAIn Framework proposes a four-layer AI architecture for hospitality, separating data infrastructure, software automation, physical robotics, and human strategic oversight.
Maestro PMS argues that connecting PMS and POS systems is now a strategic requirement for hotels shifting from room-centric metrics to Total Revenue Management and full guest value visibility.
Kiosk.eu makes the case for self-service check-in kiosks, outlining ROI drivers including labour cost reduction, ancillary upsell revenue, and a payback period of months to under one year.
Booking Holdings and Airbnb are each funding separate AI travel ventures as hedges, raising the risk that hotels will soon rent visibility from the same parent that runs both the OTA and the assistant.
Infor Hospitality previews five HITEC 2026 vendors addressing hotel tech fragmentation, covering loyalty, owner relations, back-office automation, ancillary revenue, and AI-powered distribution.
Hoteza argues that fragmented point solutions limit hotel performance, and that a unified guest journey platform connecting check-in, in-room entertainment, AI messaging, and upselling can lift RevPAR by 12% and ancillary revenue by 30%.
SiteMinder's launch as the embedded distribution engine inside Mews positions it as infrastructure rather than an application, a structural bet aimed at re-rating the stock beyond its current A$2B valuation.
The article argues that deploying networks of specialized AI agents across scheduling, pricing, maintenance, and guest services could lift hotel GOP margins by 19–25%, offering a structural edge for early movers.