Technology that bends to you: Scaling with the Cloudbeds API

Every hospitality business is different. Some operate traditional hotels, while others manage mixed portfolios, vacation ownership properties, hostels, serviced apartments, or rapidly expanding multi-property groups — each with their own unique workflows, specialized operational requirements, and distinct competitive advantages. Yet many hospitality platforms force operators into a difficult choice: adapt their business to fit the software or maintain disconnected systems that create complexity, inefficiency, and technical debt. Cloudbeds is built on a different philosophy. Through its Open API and ecosystem of more than 450 marketplace partners, Cloudbeds enables operators to connect external systems, develop custom applications, automate workflows, and build technology ecosystems tailored to their business, without sacrificing the benefits of a unified hospitality platform. Across the globe, hospitality leaders are using the Cloudbeds API to reduce fragmentation, create operational efficiencies, deliver differentiated guest experiences, and prepare for an increasingly AI-driven future. Extending hospitality technology around unique business models Few hospitality companies illustrate the power of an open platform better than Vacatia. Operating nearly 60 independent resorts across the United States and Caribbean, Vacatia manages a uniquely complex business that combines vacation ownership, nightly rentals, owner services, resort operations, OTA distribution, and corporate reporting. As the company expanded to more than 11,000 units and nearly 500,000 owners, legacy technology systems struggled to support the scale, connectivity, and operational discipline required to manage such a sophisticated portfolio. More than a property management system, Vacatia needed a platform capable of supporting hotel operations while preserving the proprietary timeshare functionality central to its business. Using the Cloudbeds Open API , Vacatia connected its proprietary vacation ownership technology directly with Cloudbeds, creating a unified architecture that supports owner inventory protection, OTA distribution of unused inventory, custom reporting, and large-scale property onboarding. Vacatia’s business does not fit neatly into traditional hotel technology categories. We needed a platform that could support hotel operations at scale while giving us the freedom to build around the realities of vacation ownership. – Kris Wallsmith, Vice President of Engineering at Vacatia The result is a connected technology foundation that brings together proprietary workflows, hotel operations, distribution, and reporting while reducing fragmentation across the organization. The partnership also established a repeatable model for growth. During major property migrations spanning more than 4,800 rooms across Orlando and Las Vegas, Cloudbeds worked closely alongside Vacatia’s teams to support implementation, training, and future property launches. Building without limits For Grupo Catedral, one of Mexico’s leading hotel operators with more than 500 rooms, flexibility was a critical requirement when evaluating technology partners. “We wanted flexibility and a system where if we wanted more channels in the future, it would be possible,” explains Rodrigo Valle, Commercial Director at Grupo Catedral. The group needed a platform that could support future expansion, integrate with revenue management tools , and provide the accurate operational data required to make confident business decisions. Cloudbeds delivered the connectivity they were looking for, and the API became a key part of their strategy — helping them create custom operational tools tailored to their

The week starts with governance and economics pulling in the same direction. A new industry body wants to bring order to how hotels adopt AI, while two opinion pieces argue the real advantage now lies in how well a hotel runs its data and its costs rather than how much it spends. On the commercial side, the case for adding value gets a concrete number, and the property pipeline stays busy across Italy, Egypt, Spain and Poland. A new body wants to govern how hotels adopt AI The AI Hospitality Alliance has launched as an independent, neutral body to guide responsible AI adoption across the industry. It sets out five workstreams covering direct booking, technical standards, governance, education and industry events. The timing fits a market where suppliers and brands keep making competing claims about what AI can do. A shared reference point on standards and governance gives hoteliers something to measure those claims against. Falling AI costs shift the advantage to judgement Terence Ronson argues that as the price of AI software keeps dropping, the edge in hospitality moves away from buying technology and towards organisational judgement. When everyone can afford the tools, the difference is how well a team uses them. He makes the case in Every Hotel Could Now Be a Software Company . Ronson also introduces a metric he calls TCPG for tracking the cost of AI consumption per guest, so operators can manage spend as usage grows, before the bills surprise them. Free breakfast beats price cuts for BWH BWH Hotels GB ran a Year of the Free Breakfast campaign that produced £13.1 million in revenue and 124,000 room nights. The result, set out in why hotels are focusing on perceived value rather than price cuts , supports a familiar argument with fresh figures. Adding something guests value can drive occupancy and loyalty more effectively than discounting the rate. Signals The revenue manager's job is changing. As automated pricing engines take over rate-setting, the core skill is shifting from making pricing calls to interpreting, tracing and defending rates across channels that no single system sees whole. More in revenue managers used to set the price, now they read it . Hotel work gets an honest audit. A data-backed look at industry culture covers upward mobility, low wages, injury rates, high turnover and exposure to trafficking, alongside the labour shift since the pandemic. Read the truth about hotel industry culture . AI may favour independents. One argument holds that AI rewards operational clarity and clean data over big budgets, which could move competition away from OTA bidding wars and towards the hotels that run themselves well. See the question that is quietly holding hotels back from AI . Luxury endures through principles. Gilda Perez-Alvarado, chief executive of Orient Express and group chief strategy officer at Accor, says luxury brands last by anchoring to core principles instead of surface identity. Her interview sits alongside the week's deal flow. Asian luxury deals keep climbing. JLL data puts Asia

Bohopo , the boutique hotel investment platform, has opened two new properties in Milan and Porto, marking the latest step in the group’s European expansion and reinforcing its strategy to aggregate, reposition and operate small city-centre hotels as a scalable institutional platform. The openings of Casa Laveni in Milan and Mila Porto take Bohopo’s operational portfolio to eight hotels. They sit within the group’s wider 11-asset portfolio, which spans five European markets: Athens, Brussels, Milan, Porto and Paris, with three further assets under development. Bohopo’s expansion comes at a time when wider European hotel market trends support its aggregation strategy. Brookfield’s 2026 Investment Outlook highlights Europe’s highly fragmented hotel market, where low brand penetration and roughly 80% of assets in private hands are creating opportunities for consolidation-led value creation. Savills’ European Hotel Investment Outlook 2026 reinforces this view, identifying continued investor appetite for value-add strategies and operational excellence as an increasingly important driver of returns. The first of the two latest openings, Casa Laveni, is a 30-room luxury boutique hotel in central Milan and represents Bohopo’s first property in this key European market. Located on Via dei Bossi, minutes from the Duomo, Teatro alla Scala and the Brera district, the hotel has been created through the redevelopment of an underperforming heritage building into a design-led boutique property, reflecting Bohopo’s ability to transform distinctive urban assets into high-quality hospitality destinations while preserving their architectural and cultural character. Casa Laveni follows a more than three-year search for the right asset, reflecting Bohopo’s strong conviction in Milan’s long-term hospitality fundamentals. Bohopo also continues to assess further opportunities in Milan as it looks to build a deeper presence in one of Europe’s leading centres of design, fashion, business and culture. The second, Mila Porto, is a 29-room hotel in Porto’s historic Baixa district and marks Bohopo’s entry into Portugal. The property is the second asset in Bohopo’s Mila brand, following Mila Brussels, and the first of three Bohopo assets in Porto. Bohopo identified Porto as a high-conviction opportunity early, establishing its position in the market in 2022 after recognising attractive fundamentals across real estate pricing, limited quality room supply, rising visitor demand and strengthening RevPAR levels. Porto was also named Europe’s Leading City Destination at the World Travel Awards in 2025. Bohopo has two further city-centre assets under development in Porto, with completion expected in 2027. These openings are not simply individual hotel launches; they are evidence of Bohopo’s platform strategy in action. Across Europe, the boutique hotel market remains highly fragmented, with many well-located assets lacking the capital, operational infrastructure or brand strategy needed to realise their full potential. Bohopo is building the institutional platform for this segment. By acquiring and repositioning small-format city-centre hotels, and by clustering assets in markets where we have strong conviction, we are creating a diversified portfolio designed to deliver long-term growth, operational resilience and attractive risk-adjusted returns Patrick Saada, Co-Founder and Non-Executive Chairman of the Board, Bohopo, and Chairman of the Patrick Saada Family Office Milan and

Industry awards and nominations have become increasingly prominent in the craft beer sector, as breweries seek to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive and fragmented landscape. With hundreds of breweries competing for attention, recognition offers a visible way to stand out, but its real value is often misunderstood. In industries such as craft beer, wine and gastronomy, product quality is difficult to evaluate before consumption. Taste is experiential, subjective, and uncertain. As a result, consumers rely on external signals, such as awards, ratings, and expert endorsements to guide their choices. This is particularly relevant in fast-growing markets like Swiss craft beer, where proliferation creates both diversity and confusion. Industry awards therefore play a critical signaling role: they communicate quality and provide reassurance that a product has been validated by experts. The article discusses the role of such awards in elevating the status of an industry such as beer to an experiential and high-end product used in fine-dining. From Everyday Beverage to Gastronomic Product However, the role of awards in the Swiss beer industry goes beyond guiding individual consumer choices. It contributes to a broader transformation: the repositioning of beer itself. Historically, beer has often been perceived as a “blue-collar” or everyday beverage. Yet the rapid growth of Swiss craft breweries, now numbering in the thousands, has introduced a new generation of producers focused on innovation, terroir and high-end recipes. These breweries increasingly develop: complex flavor profiles, limited editions (“grand cru”-like beers), experimental brewing techniques. In this context, the Swiss Beer Award plays a critical role not only in recognizing individual excellence, but in elevating the status of the entire category. By applying rigorous evaluation standards and highlighting craftsmanship, it helps frame beer as a product that belongs alongside wine in gastronomic settings. This creates value for both the winning breweries and for the Swiss beer industry as a whole. Industry Awards as Bridges to High-End Gastronomy This repositioning has direct implications for food & beverage stakeholders, particularly in gastronomy. Switzerland has one of the highest concentrations of fine dining establishments in the world, with over 130 Michelin-starred restaurants, reflecting a strong culture of culinary excellence. It also has the world’s highest number of breweries per capita among which 500 are reviewed for every edition of the Swiss Beer Award. The result of this fascinating ecosystem is that the Swiss dining landscape is progressively incorporating more diverse beverage pairings, including curated beer selections. Some gourmet restaurants such as Zurich’s Fork & Bottle now explicitly offer beer in fine dining tasting menus, reflecting a growing recognition of beer and food pairing as a sophisticated dining concept. Within this evolving ecosystem, awards such as the Swiss Beer Award serve as: Legitimacy markers for chefs and restaurants selecting beers, Quality guarantees for diners exploring alternative pairings, Gateways for inclusion in premium dining environments. In this sense, the industry award signals quality and also enables category upgrading, allowing beer to enter spaces traditionally dominated by wine. The Role of Awards in Validating Craft Beer Quality

British consumers are becoming increasingly focused on value when booking hotel stays. For independent hoteliers, understanding what that value actually means to today’s guest is becoming more and more important. That does not necessarily mean they are just looking for the cheapest room available. What we’re seeing is that guests are looking at the overall stay experience and what is included within the price. Breakfast has become a key part of that booking decision. For many travellers this type of added-value offer provides a clear and tangible benefit without compromising on quality or experience. This shift became very clear across our portfolio of independent hotels during our ‘Year of the Free Breakfast’ campaign last year. The initiative generated more than £13.1million in revenue for participating hotels and delivered over 124k room nights through BWH Hotels GB channels including bestwestern.co.uk . More than 220k free breakfasts were enjoyed during the campaign period, while hotels also saw growth in repeat stays, loyalty engagement and new customer acquisition, including 39,000 new Best Western Rewards members. Performance was particularly strong across key regional leisure destinations including South West , North West and South East England , where hotels benefited from increased booking conversion and stronger direct channel contribution. More importantly, it reinforced how consumer expectations are changing. Guests are becoming far more conscious of overall trip value and increasingly responsive to offers that improve the experience itself, rather than simply lowering the room rate. For independent hotels, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. Operating costs across labour, food and utilities continue to rise, while consumers remain cautious with discretionary spending. As a result, hotels are having to think more carefully about how they drive profitable occupancy without eroding long-term rate positioning. Added-value strategies can also be commercially effective for hotels when executed in the right way. Alongside increased booking conversion, many participating properties also saw growth in repeat stays and direct channel contribution during the campaign period. In a market where acquisition costs continue to rise, strengthening direct customer relationships is becoming increasingly important. It also highlights the growing importance of commercial support structures for independent hotels. Many operators are looking more closely at how brand partnerships, loyalty platforms and centralised marketing activity can help them compete more effectively while protecting profitability and individuality. That is one of the reasons we are bringing the campaign back throughout May, June and July this year. believe we will continue to see hotels place greater emphasis on offers and experiences that create stronger perceived value for guests, strengthen loyalty and support direct booking growth. In the current market, perceived value is increasingly becoming just as important as price itself.

Gilda Perez-Alvarado reflects on her experience as CEO of Orient Express and Group Chief Strategy Officer at Accor, exploring what makes luxury hospitality brands endure, from clear strategic principles to the emotional power of travel experiences. In this episode, Youri Sawerschel speaks with Gilda Perez-Alvarado, CEO of Orient Express and Group Chief Strategy Officer at Accor, about the challenge of building luxury hospitality brands that stay relevant over time. Rather than treating a brand as a logo, a font, or a set of standards, Gilda brings the conversation back to something deeper: the principles a brand refuses to compromise on. Drawing from her experience in hospitality real estate, global strategy, and the evolution of Orient Express, she reflects on why the strongest brands are the ones that know what they stand for, while still being able to evolve with the world around them.