Mapping out the consolidation, innovation, and strategic priorities reshaping hotel tech: from upselling and social commerce to AI, API-first design, and advances in hotel distribution technology.
The hotel technology landscape is evolving faster than ever. Driven by industry consolidation, brand evolution, AI integration, and the rise of social commerce, the landscape in 2025 and 2026 looks different from just a few years ago. The latest edition of the Hotel Distribution Chart reflects not just where the industry stands today, but where it is heading next.
This year’s chart introduces new categories, elevates emerging players, and brings into focus the broader forces redefining how hotels distribute inventory, engage guests, and maximize revenue. The future is about creating intelligent, integrated, and API-ready distribution ecosystems.
Brand Evolution: From Legacy to Relevance
Brand evolution has become a strategic necessity. In an increasingly crowded and complex market, companies need a clear, consistent, and memorable brand to stay top of mind with customers, partners, and investors. We at Shiji and Cendyn have taken meaningful steps in this direction, modernizing brand presence to reflect expanded product portfolios and global ambitions.
The industry is moving toward brand architectures that simplify product offerings. As hotel tech companies broaden their solutions, brand cohesion will serve as a bridge between internal alignment and external market perception within the competitive hotel distribution technology landscape.
- Companies that invest in brand clarity and consistency will be better positioned to grow, partner, and scale in a fast-moving landscape.
New Categories Reflect Shifting Priorities
Marketplace
The chart now features a dedicated Marketplace category, indicating a shift in how hotels approach their channel mix. Marketplaces offer more dynamic, flexible alternatives to traditional OTAs by allowing hotels to distribute inventory to specialized audiences or directly to consumers through curated digital platforms. These marketplaces can include everything from niche travel platforms to broader commerce ecosystems.
What is significant is that these marketplaces are evolving rapidly, often built with AI at their core. Emerging players are enabling bookings via generative AI interfaces, and the early appearance of hotel bookings via platforms like ChatGPT or Perplexity is just the beginning.
- Expect the rise of AI-native marketplaces and shopping agents, such as Google’s Hotel Shopping Assistant, to redefine how guests search, compare, and book stays.
Social media has expanded its role from influencer discovery to transactional conversion. Platforms like Douyin, WeChat, and Xiaohongshu now support seamless, in-app bookings, especially in China, where this model is more mature. These solutions often bypass the traditional hotel website and rely on custom-built or platform-integrated booking engines.
This marks the beginning of a new hybrid model that challenges traditional hotel distribution technology: technically a direct booking, but occurring in a third-party environment. As this trend continues to grow globally, social booking will require flexible tech stacks and deep integration capabilities.
- Hotels should expect the line between marketing and distribution to blur further and plan for social-first, conversion-ready booking paths.
Upselling
The introduction of a distinct Upselling category reflects a shift toward revenue maximization throughout the guest journey. From room upgrades to service enhancements, upselling platforms are becoming more personalized, automated, and integrated across hotel systems.
These tools not only increase booking value but also enhance the guest experience by providing timely, relevant options based on real-time data.
- Hotels should view upselling not as a standalone tactic but as a core pillar of both revenue management and guest engagement strategies.
Traditionally, a top-of-funnel channel, social media has become a full-funnel distribution path. Travelers now use platforms like TikTok and Instagram not just for inspiration, but also to compare options, read reviews, and complete bookings.
User-generated video content is especially influential, often outperforming traditional advertising. Hotels must now rethink how they distribute not just inventory, but content, optimizing for visibility, trust, and conversion.
- Hoteliers need to adapt their hotel distribution strategy to include content that supports real booking behavior, not just brand awareness, across social channels.
AI in Hotel Technology: Ubiquitous and Expanding
AI is now embedded across nearly every category of hotel technology. In distribution, AI is powering dynamic pricing, personalized guest offers, demand forecasting, and even the first wave of autonomous booking agents.
While the applications are still evolving, one thing is certain: AI will continue to shift how data is exchanged, interpreted, and acted upon across the hotel tech stack. But its success depends on a reliable foundation of data structure and access.
- API readiness and data standardization will determine whether or not hotels are discoverable, bookable, and competitive in AI-led ecosystems.
End-to-End Platforms: From Fragmentation to Integration
More hotel tech providers are moving toward all-in-one or end-to-end offerings. Rather than managing a patchwork of integrations across multiple vendors, hotels are increasingly opting for solutions that provide a comprehensive suite of tools, including PMS, CRS, CRM, payments, and more, within a single ecosystem.
This trend reflects both the complexity of operations and the need for reliability, support, and scalability. While best-of-breed still exists, the pendulum is swinging toward simplicity and consolidated partnerships.
- Hotels will increasingly prioritize solution providers that offer breadth, interoperability, and deep integrations, without sacrificing flexibility.
Direct Booking: A Renewed Strategic Focus
In 2025, direct booking is not a trend. It is a necessity. Hotels are investing in metasearch bid management, pricing optimization, conversion tools, and loyalty systems to win bookings through owned channels. This not only improves margins but also enhances the guest relationship.
However, the definition of “direct” is evolving within the broader hotel distribution ecosystem. With more bookings beginning on third-party platforms, hotels need to think beyond the traditional website and toward a broader digital footprint.
- Invest in tools that support a multichannel direct strategy, including social, voice, and AI-led booking environments.
API-First Design: The Backbone of Future Distribution
Whether powering AI discovery, enabling real-time booking, or integrating with new marketplaces, APIs are the infrastructure upon which all modern distribution is built.
Strong APIs allow for accurate and consistent exchange of both static content and dynamic content. Without this, hotels risk becoming invisible or misrepresented in emerging channels, including AI-powered platforms.
- API-first is not a feature; it is a requirement. Hotels should prioritize partners with open, well-documented, and reliable APIs as a core part of their tech evaluation.
Consolidation: The Landscape Continues to Shift
Mergers and acquisitions are accelerating as providers look to expand capabilities, enter new markets, and offer broader solutions. In just the past year:
- Lighthouse acquired The Hotels Network
- Duetto acquired HotStats
- D-EDGE acquired LoungeUp
- Amadeus acquired Vision-Box, Voxel, and ForwardKeys
- Sabre exited the space by selling its Hospitality Solutions division to TPG
These movements signal a market where scale, integration, and data ownership are becoming central to competitive advantage in the future of hotel technology distribution.
- Hotels should align with vendors that have strong roadmaps, proven scale, and the ability to grow with them over time.
Final Thought: From Channel Management to Intelligent Distribution
The hotel distribution ecosystem is shifting from transactional channel management to intelligent, integrated engagement, a key part of a hotel’s commercial strategy. In the coming years, distribution will be driven not only by where guests book but also by how systems talk, how platforms learn, and how hotels position themselves in an AI-informed world.
To succeed, hotels need more than a tech stack. They need a commercial strategy for visibility, adaptability, and interoperability, and the right partners to deliver on it.
To help you visualize your distribution strategy, we have created a downloadable version that allows you to bring in your technology vendors and identify areas for improvement.
