| Want to unsubscribe? Just click here! Trends, Tips and NewsThe summary of trends, articles and news of the Hotel Industry17 January 2026 ➚ TOPICS OF THE DAY: 🔬 Innovation🎯 Marketing & Revenue📈 Market Trends🛎️ Hotel Management Did you get this email from one of our 37,000+ readers? » Subscribe, stay in the loop. « News Flash :Our selection of the most important news of the newsletter 🌐 European hoteliers in 2026 focus on hyperpersonalization, unified tech stacks, and real-time decision-making. Regional challenges include data privacy in DACH and high personalization in Northern Europe. Tech stacks simplify operations, while real-time data adapts to guest behavior. Privacy and trust are crucial for brand integrity and guest loyalty.🏨 Africa’s hospitality sector is projected to grow, with 2023 revenue reaching $25.29 billion. A 7.31% growth rate is expected by 2030. The focus is on profit, people, and planet, with AI enhancing operations. Local engagement and responsible investments are key for sustainable returns.📖 Travel Trends Report Guide 2026 analyzes 50 major travel outlook reports. Key contributors include Hilton and McKinsey. Trends highlight AI impact, emerging travel behaviors, and tech-driven guest experiences. Notable reports include Expedia’s “Unpack ’26” and Skift’s “Megatrends 2026”.📈 Avoid the “Seven Deadly Sins” of hotel marketing in 2026 by focusing on strategy, learning from past mistakes, and embracing social media. Prioritize quality guest service and enhance digital presence over OTAs. Reward your team and maintain justifiable pricing.🗺 China’s travel market in 2026 sees a shift towards premium demand, with affluent consumers leading outbound travel. Independent and high-end customized travel gain popularity, focusing on emotional satisfaction. Ultra-high-income travelers favor premium experiences.🌐 Investment accountability in AI adoption is crucial for travel companies in 2026. Brands focus on ROI, using metrics like revenue uplift and cost reduction. Success depends on disciplined measurement and alignment with business goals, with quality data and ecosystem readiness being essential.🌍 ALL Accor and Globetrender predict that by 2026, 25% of travelers will start online searches by ‘mood’, indicating a shift in travel preferences. Eight trends, including the ‘Endorphin Economy’ and ‘Portable Lifestyles’, highlight the importance of emotional travel experiences. The study, based on a 2025 survey of 4,300 travelers, emphasizes Accor’s strategic use of AI to redefine experiential travel.📖 The Modern Hotel General Manager AI Playbook & Toolkit by Pertlink is essential for GMs managing guest experience and profitability with leaner teams. It enhances decision-making by using AI as a management co-pilot, offering low-risk, high-impact strategies to improve leadership dynamics without disrupting hospitality’s core.💰 Revenue Analytics and Jonas Chorum have launched a two-way integration in Atlanta, Georgia, using JonasARC’s open API. This allows hotels to automate pricing with real-time data flow between Jonas Chorum PMS and Revenue Analytics’ N2Pricing system, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing manual tasks. MARK FANCOURT’S COLUMN Layers of Simplicity I’ve been wrestling with the idea of simplicity, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that creating it is a lot more complicated than it looks. Behold this elegant vision of an AI-driven future where the chaos of a thousand different interfaces just… disappears. A world where our systems simply talk to an AI, and all the messy specifics are handled. Sounds great on the surface, doesn’t it? But what’s really happening is we’re just adding another layer to the digital cake. The conversation that’s been rattling recently is about this new layer, this Model Context Protocol, or MCP. We’ve gone from a world where your software has its data, its logic, and its application, all exposed through a series of specific APIs, to one where we’re going to tack on this new, intelligent intermediary. A new building block in our architecture. It’s a classic case of building a more complex solution to achieve a simpler result for the user. We’re not making things simpler; we’re just shoving all the complexity into a new, single-point-of-contact layer. Why? The primary benefit, we’re told, is for AI. Instead of an AI having to learn how to speak a thousand different languages to get the weather, find a hotel room, or book a flight, it’ll just have to talk to a handful of expert MCPs. It’s a step forward, sure. The scale advantage is undeniable—going from a thousand one-to-one connections to a single, intelligent one-to-many connection. It promises greater efficiency, a smaller data footprint, and easier integration for new players. All good things, on paper. But the reality, the irony that would make even Sisyphus sigh, is that this creates a new, incredibly profitable business model. Likely every single software provider will probably end up needing one of these in their stack. Why would they give up that control? So, in the short term, the elegant vision of one industry-wide MCP collapses into a messy reality of hundreds, maybe thousands, of provider-specific MCPs. Each one is a new revenue stream, a new layer to charge for, a new way to lock in a customer. Nothing is free, least of all simplicity. The money will flow from a new master API to the new MCP layer, likely through a transaction-based fee model, or a subscription, much like a payment processor. It’s a beautiful, intricate plan, built on the premise that our desire for a streamlined front-end will allow for a far more complex and costly back-end. The brave new world of simplicity, it turns out, is just our old, complex world with another expensive layer on top. Life is so tech. How many layers would you like on your cake before you eat it? Cheers, Mark Fancourt Read the rest 👇 🔬 INNOVATION Technological Innovations and Strategic Partnerships in 2026💰 Room Attendant Gratuities: In 2017, only 30% of hotel guests tipped housekeeping. Challenges include tip sharing and conflicts with fees. Digital payments and QR codes could enable cashless tipping, linked to room numbers and stay dates, potentially increasing gratuity levels. Payments would be reported through employee paychecks.🍳 Hotel Kitchen of Tomorrow: Jimi Yui highlights the shift to all-electric kitchens in hotels, driven by sustainability concerns, especially in California and New York. Rising food and labor costs necessitate digital integrations like POS and inventory systems. Hotel dining now emphasizes brand identity, aligning with demographic changes and tech-savvy travelers.💻 Platforms and Partnerships: In 2026, the hospitality industry sees a shift towards integrated technology platforms, with Shiji and Amadeus exemplifying this trend. Strategic partnerships now focus on coherence rather than mere system connectivity, enhancing operational efficiency. Direct bookings are driven by clarity, not discounts, as hotels leverage digital merchandising.📈 Independent Hotels Boost Direct Bookings: Independent hotels could struggle, with only 10%-15% of guests being repeat customers. Acquiring new guests is 15-20 times more costly than retaining past ones. Implementing CRM technology and Guest Appreciation Programs can increase repeat business by automating engagement, satisfaction surveys, and loyalty marketing.💻 Maestro’s 2026 Software & Innovation Roadmap: Maestro PMS, on January 14, 2026, in Markham, Ontario, unveils its 2026 Software & Innovation Roadmap. The plan emphasizes AI-driven capabilities for operational efficiency, elevated guest experiences, and new revenue through intelligent yielding. Mobile functionality improvements include mobile check-in and integrated upselling.💻 IHG Hotels & Resorts Appoints Wei Manfredi: IHG Hotels & Resorts appointed Wei Manfredi to manage AI challenges in distribution, marketing, and operations. Manfredi’s role aims to provide tangible benefits for the group’s owners, guests, and teams.💻 AI-driven Direct Distribution Ecosystem: January 2026, Mirai discusses AI’s role in hotel distribution. AI’s not just a standalone tool but part of a strategic ecosystem, enhancing direct sales through six components. These include websites, contact centers, mobile apps, AI agents, the MCP server, and canonical databases.📡 Two Futures for Siri in Travel: Jan 14, 2026, Apple partners with Google to integrate Gemini models into Siri, enhancing its capabilities in travel. Siri processes 1.5 billion daily requests across 2 billion devices, impacting travel discovery by possibly bypassing traditional browsers and apps.💻 Mews New System: [Amsterdam, 8 January 2026] Mews accelerated onboarding for hotels with new technology, reducing PMS implementation time to one week. In 2025, they improved support, enabling human response under three minutes. Mews’ AI assistant ADA resolved 90% of queries.🛌 Pacifica Hotels Partnership With Heat Healer: Pacifica Hotels, January 2026, California—collaborates with Heat Healer to offer in-room wellness at Hotel Emblem San Francisco, Marina del Rey Hotel, and The Wayfarer San Diego. Guests gain access to Energy Mat and Body Belt using infrared heat, red LED light, and PEMF.🚄 eDreams ODIGEO Scales Rail for Prime: eDreams ODIGEO expands its Prime subscription to the rail sector in Spain and Italy, targeting the €40 billion European rail market. With 7.7 million members, they introduced flexible monthly and quarterly payment options to boost accessibility. 🎯 MARKETING & REVENUE Balancing Forecasts and Record-High Room Rates📈 Hotel revenue management blends data-driven tools like RMS and market intelligence with manual forecasting. Weekly revenue meetings ensure budget alignment across teams. Systems centralize data, analyzing past trends, while human insight addresses unpredictable factors such as buyouts, major group bookings, and local events. This approach adapts to hotel types, influenced by music events, weather, and economic changes, emphasizing a balance of automation and human input for optimal accuracy and flexibility. Balancing System and Manual Forecasts for Ideal Hotel Budgeting📈 Duetto and HotStats revealed that global RevPAR increased by 19% since 2019, but Booking Costs PAR rose by 25%, impacting profitability. In 2025, the Americas’ flow-through averaged 18%, while Europe reached 29%. Hoteliers need integrated tech strategies to manage revenues and costs effectively, with Duetto’s RP-OS highlighted as a solution. Alex Zoghlin and Michael Grove emphasize the necessity of aligning revenue strategies with cost control to secure financial stability. Duetto and HotStats Report Shows Gap Between Growth and Profit Conversion📅 Sydney’s hotel industry, December 2025: Occupancy at 81.3% (+3.2%), ADR at AUD349.06 (+11.1%), RevPAR AUD283.68 (+14.7%). New Year’s Eve saw occupancy peak at 95.4%, with ADR reaching AUD1,009.10 and RevPAR at AUD962.95—record highs. December 10, during a Jimmy Barnes concert, occupancy was 93.3%. Lady Gaga’s concerts on December 12-13 pushed occupancy to 89.4%, with peak ADR at AUD379.65. Across December, occupancy exceeded 70% on most days. New Year’s Eve pushed Sydney room rates to record-high🗺 Social media is reshaping travel in 2026. Visual, conversational, social-first, and AI-enabled searches are key trends. Authenticity is now a commercial advantage. The report, using insights from millions of data points and top travel creators, highlights that social platforms are crucial for decision-making in travel. Creator content is effective with the right strategy and distribution. These insights aim to help travel marketers capitalize on current opportunities.🏨 Hotels express frustration with OTAs over high commissions and pricing control, yet often neglect direct booking channels. Common issues include outdated websites, confusing booking processes, minimal content, and lack of investment in direct booking incentives. While OTAs are crucial, relying on them without improving direct channels leads to dependency. If OTAs represent 90% of a hotel’s business, the issue lies in strategy, not the OTAs themselves. Balancing OTA presence with direct bookings is key.📱 Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) at the NRF conference in New York City. UCP, a collaboration with partners like Shopify, aims to streamline commerce in AI platforms like Gemini and Google AI Mode by integrating with Google Merchant Center and Google Pay. Competing with OpenAI’s ACP, UCP is more decentralized and ecosystem-oriented, allowing merchants to sell directly through AI interfaces. Google leverages existing infrastructure, with plans for features like loyalty programs and cross-sell capabilities. 📈 MARKET TRENDS Emerging Trends in Hospitality: AI, Wellness, and Predictable Pricing🏨 Hilton’s South East Asia Playbook: Hilton plans 13 new hotels in secondary cities like Bintaro Jaya, Indonesia, focusing on design-led stays and wellness. Government incentives boost demand for authentic experiences. The 2026 Trends Report shows 56% of travelers prioritize rest and rejuvenation, indicating a shift towards wellness tourism.💻 How AI Now Takes 80% of Our Front Desk Calls, Tony Roumph, Argonaut Hotel: AI and workflow automation reduce front desk call volume by 80%, allowing staff to focus on direct customer interactions, balancing timeless hospitality with modern operations.🏨 JLL arranges $167M refinancing for pack of WoodSpring Suites: JLL secures $167.7 million refinancing for a 15-property WoodSpring Suites portfolio across Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida. The five-year loan includes $117.7 million initially, plus $50 million for expansion, benefiting from the extended-stay model.🏖️ Predictable pricing is becoming a conversion lever, Jan 14, 2026: Travelers prefer all-inclusive resorts due to economic uncertainty. Transparent pricing boosts booking confidence, with modern offerings including quality dining and wellness experiences. Major brands expand all-inclusive portfolios, indicating long-term confidence and increased competition.🏨 The hotel bedroom as the true measure of luxury, Jan 13, 2026: Design challenges include tighter budgets and supply chain issues. Sleep quality, wellness, and atmosphere are core, with lighting crucial. Mock-ups and early involvement of lighting specialists are essential. Hotel bedrooms now define guest experiences more than public spaces.🏨 Paris hotel performance reached December high: Paris hotels achieved record success in December 2025, with occupancy at 76.7% and ADR at EUR371.87. New Year’s Eve saw 93.3% occupancy, marking the highest performance since the 2024 Summer Olympics.🏨 Whitbread Q3 sales surge as Premier Inn UK and Germany outperform: Whitbread’s Q3 sales rose 2% to £781m, driven by Premier Inn UK and Germany. UK accommodation sales and RevPAR increased by 4%. Premier Inn Germany saw a 12% rise in local currency sales. Nine hotels sold for £89m, with a £250m share buy-back by April 2026. Klairhaus, Premium desk and office accessoriesCork stacking blocks, a unique office decoration that is also a way to promote mindfulness at the office. Made by hand in Portugal to level up your office decoration.Shop on Amazon 🛎️ HOTEL MANAGEMENT Exciting Developments in Global Hospitality🏖 Emerson Hospitality plans to redevelop Black Creek Barns in Esopus, New York, into a 70-room luxury resort with a $38 million financing structure. Located 90 miles north of NYC, the resort is set to open in late 2027, featuring a 7,000 sq ft event hall, dining venues, and wellness amenities. Financing includes a $19 million loan from The LCP Group and a $19 million C-PACE facility. The project focuses on sustainability and adaptive reuse.🏨 Marriott will open a dual-brand hotel in Sand City, California, featuring 215 rooms. Managed by Aqua-Aston Hospitality, the hotel includes a 246-square-foot hot tub, a Piazza for cultural events, and 8,000 square feet of meeting space. Sustainability efforts include LED lighting, smart elevators, and 14 EV charging stations. The Bistro offers locally sourced breakfast and wellness-inspired dining.🏨 Ennismore will surpass 200 hotels in 2026, achieving over 50% growth in four years. Key 2026 openings include Hyde and Mama Shelter in Mexico City, Delano London, and Mama Shelter in Lake Como and Cape Town. First entries in Greece (Paros) and India (Mumbai) under Morgans Originals and Roswyn. Asia-Pacific expansions feature Hyde hotels in Perth and Bali, and a 1,700-room Rixos resort in Vietnam.🏨 Hotel Park Ave in New York, designed by Jacu Strauss for Lore Group, features a striking 12-foot-tall wooden sculpture by Jan Hendzel. The hotel includes 180 rooms, nine suites with skyline views, a lobby, cocktail bar, and gym. Located at Park Avenue South and East 30th Street, its design emphasizes calm away from Midtown’s hustle. The suites have balconies and feature bold artworks, while the cocktail bar, Seed Library New York, offers a warm, nostalgic escape.🏨 Mandarin Oriental Punta Negra, Mallorca, located in Calvià, will open in spring 2026. The resort features 131 rooms and suites, including 26 suites, 9 casitas, and 19 with plunge pools. Dining highlights include Matsuhisa and Leña by Dani García. Wellness offerings include nine treatment cabins and various pools. The resort blends contemporary design with local craftsmanship, offering exclusive Mediterranean luxury with captivating views and access to two secluded coves.🏨 Bob W has secured a long-term lease with Urban Partners to open a 143-room aparthotel in Copenhagen’s Ørestad district. The six-storey development will also feature 210 residential apartments, spanning 13,100 sq m, near the Bella Center. Construction starts spring and finishes by summer 2028. With shared amenities like meeting rooms and a roof terrace, the project caters to the growing demand for flexible living. Ørestad’s location offers easy access to the metro, airport, and city center.🏨 Crescent Hotels & Resorts, through a collaboration with Whitestone Companies, has added the Renaissance Columbus Downtown Hotel to its portfolio. Located in downtown Columbus, the 408-room hotel boasts a rooftop pool with skyline views and 22,500 square feet of event space. The partnership aims to enhance Crescent’s presence in Columbus, blending global brand structure with local energy. This move is part of Crescent’s expansion in the branded lifestyle segment. ABOUT 10 MINUTES NEWS A newsletter designed for busy hoteliers, fact based summaries of the most important news in the industry. Not the sensational stuff. But the information that will help you stay ahead of the game. Read by over 37,000 hoteliers every week around the world. Designed to fit in the busy day of hotel people, browse and find the subjects that interest you the most. Want to sponsor the newsletter? If you want to reach tens of thousands of hotels in Europe and the world. Contact us at: office@10minutes.news Tony Loeb & MAD+D, 15, rue des Halles, 75001, ParisThis email was sent toYou received it because 1) we’re already in contact 2) your email is the official business email of the hotel according to legimitate interest of GDPR. |
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