Hilton — Hospitality’s Battle for Influence in Luxury and Lifestyle Alan Watts at Skift Asia Forum 2026

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In luxury hospitality, every detail is deliberate. Lighting, scent, materials, service rituals—each element is carefully orchestrated to shape how a guest feels. Yet, one of the most visible and constant touchpoints is often treated as an afterthought: what the team wears. As humans, we instinctively make judgments based on appearance. What someone is wearing shapes how we perceive them—who they are, their role, and even their competence. In hospitality, where first impressions are everything, this instinctive evaluation extends to the staff. Uniforms are not just clothing; they are a signal of professionalism, attention to detail, and the brand itself. When I sat down with Drape & Stitch founder and creative director Mia Liu, it became immediately clear how much opportunity lies in this overlooked space. As she walked me through her sketches and lookbook—collections created for hospitality brands across hotels, restaurants, and resorts—I was struck by the precision and intention behind each piece. From custom-developed fabrics to embroidered shirts and finely detailed buttons, every element was designed to reflect not just the brand, but the property itself—its setting, its story, even its surroundings. This wasn’t uniform design in the traditional sense. It felt closer to fashion—intentional, expressive, and deeply tied to identity. And beyond aesthetics, Liu emphasized another critical dimension: how uniforms make staff feel. “When people feel confident and respected in what they’re wearing, it changes how they carry themselves,” Liu explains. “That confidence is reflected in the service they provide and the way they engage with guests.” Launched in 2022, Drape & Stitch entered the market at a time when luxury hospitality was outperforming other segments and investing heavily in guest experience. But Liu saw a disconnect: brands were investing in their environments but overlooking the people representing them. What she’s building is not simply a uniform company. It’s a new category—one that bridges the gap between traditional large-scale suppliers and high-end fashion ateliers, combining design, speed, and operational intelligence in a way the market has largely lacked. Uniforms as Brand Identity Liu’s career spans global fashion brands, performance apparel, and advanced product development—experience that gave her a deep understanding of both creativity and execution. “Uniforms are one of the most immediate signals of a brand, yet they’re often treated as a secondary decision,” Liu explains. “Luxury hospitality invests heavily in spaces, but the people representing the brand every day are sometimes overlooked. You’re not just designing clothing. You’re designing how the brand shows up in every guest interaction.” This philosophy underpins Drape & Stitch’s approach. Rather than starting with catalogs or product specs, the process begins with brand identity, how a property wants to be perceived and how that perception is reinforced through the team. “The custom hospitality uniform becomes a visual confirmation of identity. When a guest sees the team, they should instantly understand the brand,” Liu says. But it’s not just about how guests perceive the team—it’s also about how the team feels. “When staff feel proud of what they’re wearing, it elevates their confidence

Scaling a hotel portfolio used to be a straightforward equation: more properties meant more revenue, more staff, and more systems to manage it all. Today, that model is under pressure. Rising labor costs, fragmented technology, and shifting guest expectations are forcing operators to rethink what growth actually looks like – and how to achieve it efficiently. In this new environment, scaling is no longer about adding headcount or duplicating processes across properties. It’s about centralizing the right functions, empowering on-property teams with better data, and creating operational consistency without sacrificing flexibility. The most successful operators are finding ways to do more with less – leveraging automation, streamlined workflows, and real-time insights to stay agile as they grow. " More Hotels, More Problems? Scaling Smarter in Hospitality ” explores how leading hotel companies are redefining scale. The report examines the balance between centralization and autonomy, the role of self-service in modern hospitality, and how data can serve as the foundation for smarter, more profitable growth. [ DOWNLOAD REPORT ] What You’ll Learn How rising labor costs and staffing challenges are reshaping traditional models of scale Why centralization is becoming critical – and which functions to centralize first How to balance portfolio-level control with property-level autonomy Where self-service is replacing human interaction – and where it still matters most How leading operators are using data to align teams and standardize performance What the future of hotel operations could look like as portfolios continue to grow Sources Jason D’Agostino, Consultant Sloan Dean, Not Done Podcast Brian Fry – Box Set Advisory Brian Gilchrist – Good Hospitality Jody Jacobson – Integrated Hospitality Consulting Stephanie Trussell – Affixify [ DOWNLOAD REPORT ]

Wednesday's content reads as one connected argument: AI is moving from conversation layer to workflow layer, while hotel development holds steady at the top end and a new conscious-luxury brand emerges in Europe. AI Moves from Chat to Workflow as Digital Employees Enter Hotel Systems Two pieces published today push the agentic AI conversation past the chatbot stage. The first argues that digital employees, distinct from basic AI tools, integrate directly into hotel systems and execute full workflows from reservations through follow-ups without human intervention. The framing is precise: a chatbot answers, a digital employee acts. For hotel operators evaluating where AI should sit, the distinction matters because workflow-level AI requires data, integration, and governance work that conversational AI does not. The companion piece from Agentic Hospitality shows what the production version looks like. Their TravelOS MCP and ChatGPT app connects directly to hotel PMS systems, eliminating intermediaries and letting hotels own the AI booking conversation from start to finish. The architecture matters: by sitting between the AI assistant and the PMS rather than between the assistant and an OTA, the hotel keeps the guest relationship and the data. Read together, the two pieces sketch the operating model that follows from yesterday's agentic AI viewpoint. Read the analysis → Hilton Added More Than 400 Americas Hotels in 2025 Hilton announced its 2025 Americas Development Award winners, with 59 winners selected from more than 400 hotels added across the region last year. The award framing matters less than the underlying number: 400+ hotels in a single year across the Americas reflects a pace of brand-and-conversion activity that is well above the regional supply growth forecast, suggesting most of the additions are conversions and franchise signings rather than new builds. The data sits alongside the Q1 U.S. pipeline figures from earlier this week, which showed luxury hitting record highs and overall supply growth holding at 1.4%. Together the two data points describe a market where the major brands are growing faster than supply through conversions, and where mid-scale and upper midscale franchising remains the engine. Read the announcement → Atzaró Collection Debuts as Conscious-Luxury Brand Spanning Ibiza to Botswana The Spanish hospitality group unified its international properties under a single brand identity, with the existing portfolio spanning Ibiza to Botswana and new developments planned in Miami, Mexico, and Bali. The launch is a deliberate move to compete with Aman, Six Senses, and the soft-luxury collections on positioning rather than scale, with a stated focus on conscious travel and sustainability woven into the brand promise. The timing is notable. The major chains are pushing aggressively into luxury and lifestyle in Asia Pacific and the Americas, while smaller groups are betting that distinctive positioning will carry more weight than scale with the high-end traveler. Atzaró's Ibiza heritage gives it credibility in the wellness-luxury space that newer collections cannot match, and the Africa and Asia expansion targets are where the growth math actually works for boutique luxury. Read the announcement → Signals Singapore tourism grew

This article answers the question: What are the biggest customer friction points businesses must eliminate to create a better customer experience? Answer: Businesses must eliminate common friction points like complicated processes, long wait times, poor communication, and a lack of flexibility because these issues frustrate customers and drive them to competitors. Friction will drive customers away. Convenience will get them to return. I’ve been doing a deeper dive into the results of this year’s customer service and experience research. Several weeks ago, I wrote about the top 10 reasons customers don’t come back . There was a common thread in nine of the 10 reasons. When you take out the reasons of rudeness and apathy of an employee, there is one word to describe what customers hate: friction. Friction is the bane of the customer experience. The root of bad customer service and CX comes from friction. It can mean the customer has to exert extra effort, it can waste their time, and it can cause “brain pain” from anger, anxiety, and frustration. In my book, The Convenience Revolution , I share six convenience principles . They are: Reduce Friction: This is a general goal. Just make it easy for customers to do business with you. Self-Service: Find easy and intuitive ways for customers to save time and effort with self-service solutions. Yes, that can include AI. Technology: When technology – and that includes AI – can make the experience better, use it. Subscription: Similar to a newspaper showing up every day on your doorstep or in your inbox, find ways to automatically get customers what they buy on a regular basis. Delivery: Depending on the type of business you have, don’t make customers come to you when you can deliver to them. Access: In the customer service world, this typically means hours of operation. Be accessible when customers want and need you. While that’s an oversimplification of the six principles, the goal is to eliminate friction. So, with that in mind, here are seven specific friction points to eliminate: Stop making customers fill out long and redundant forms. Don’t make checking out online difficult or complicated. Stop putting your customers on hold for long periods of time. Stop making customers repeat information to multiple agents. Don’t make customers use self-service (including AI chatbots) if they want to talk to a live agent. Don’t have rigid policies unless you 100% understand how customers will react to them. Don’t put employees on the front line if they haven’t been trained or aren’t empowered to make customer-focused decisions. Of course, there are many others, but this is a start to get you thinking. Your assignment is to sit down with your team and discuss all the potential friction points your customers might encounter when doing business with you. Use the list of seven to get the conversation started, then look at your most common complaints. Every friction point you eliminate is a step toward making it easier to do business with you

For a long time, the conversation around technology in the hospitality industry was driven by a simple premise: respond faster. Faster to resolve requests. Faster to answer questions. Faster to meet expectations. But speed alone was never the real goal. At the end of the day, guest experience isn’t measured in seconds. It’s measured in perception. Today, we know that a large part of the relationship with the guest happens before they even arrive at the hotel - and often without any direct human interaction. Whether it’s questions about check-in, parking, services or opening hours, these interactions happen across multiple channels, every day, at any time. And the data confirms it: millions of messages exchanged between hotels and guests show that most of these interactions are repetitive, yet critical to decision-making. What guests are looking for in these moments is not necessarily a memorable experience. It’s clarity. It’s availability. It’s trust. And this is where many hotels still fall short: they treat speed as a differentiator, when in reality it is simply the baseline. Artificial Intelligence is not an additional layer in the experience. It is already part of it. Responding faster helps, of course, but it’s not enough. Because what truly stays with the guest is not the response itself, but the feeling it creates. This is where AI begins to have a real and measurable impact: not only by accelerating responses, but by ensuring constant presence - a presence that answers, guides, and reduces friction at key moments throughout the guest journey. It also enables something equally important: giving time back to teams. Time that translates into a better guest experience - more attention, more personalisation, and a stronger ability to respond when it matters most. In our survey, around 86% of hospitality professionals recognise that AI automation helps them save time - time that is not gained to do more, but to do better. Because there are moments when speed is no longer the most important factor. Unexpected situations, special requests, and emotionally charged interactions. In these moments, guests don’t just want efficiency; they need empathy. And that is - and it will always be - deeply human. There is, in fact, a simple truth the industry knows well: guests don’t just remember what happened. They remember how they felt. And this is precisely where technology must know when to step back. Artificial intelligence should not replace hospitality. It should create the space for it to happen in the best possible way. By removing the noise, it allows teams to be more present in the moments that truly matter. More available. More attentive. More human. The future of the guest experience will not be defined by response speed, but by the quality of the balance between efficiency and empathy. Because, in the end, the difference was never about responding faster. It has always been - and will continue to be - about making each guest feel truly understood. And technology doesn’t change that principle. It elevates it.

How did hotel distribution connectivity evolve from early real-time “pull” interactions to “push” models designed to handle high shopping volume, and why today’s most effective setups blend the two in hybrid, API-driven architectures. By outlining the trade-offs between speed, scalability, and accuracy, especially under modern look-to-book behavior, it shows why connectivity choices are strategic: they directly influence guest experience, operational performance, and revenue outcomes, with success ultimately measured by delivering the right room and rate at the moment of booking. Imagine a hotel guest browsing an OTA website, checking multiple dates, comparing rooms, and moving seamlessly from one property to another. Behind that effortless experience is a complex network of technology quietly making it all possible. This is connectivity in hospitality distribution. Understanding how hotels exchange information with distribution channels is essential not just for technology teams but for anyone involved in strategy, operations or revenue management. Watch the full episode Hospitality Distribution Chats by Shiji Horizon Distribution The Foundations of Connectivity Connectivity in hospitality refers to how hotel data including rates, availability, inventory and content is communicated to distribution channels, from GDSs to OTAs and brand websites. The method of communication significantly impacts efficiency, accuracy and guest experience. The three primary connectivity styles are pull, push and hybrid, each reflecting different historical and operational context. Pull Model The pull model emerged during the early days of electronic distribution when GDSs and CRS systems were the backbone of hotel booking. In this setup, the request comes from the consumer or distributor, such as a travel agent or online system, and the hotel system responds in real time with available rooms, rates, and inventory. There is no pre-stored data, ensuring information reflects the CRS at the moment. This system was simple for integration and kept data accurate. However, as the internet enabled consumers to shop multiple hotels simultaneously, a behavior called look-to-book, pull systems began to face scalability challenges as millions of real-time requests could overwhelm servers. Push Model The push model arose as a solution to handle high traffic and improve the guest experience. Its core principle is that hotel systems proactively send data to distribution channels, which store this information locally so consumers can browse without overloading hotel systems. This approach is ideal for brand.com websites and high-volume OTAs, allowing faster search and booking while protecting the CRS from excessive requests. Push reduces infrastructure strain but introduces a new challenge: ensuring data remains accurate, since inventory and rates can change after the information has been sent. Hybrid Model: Combining the Strengths of Push and Pull Modern distribution systems now operate on a hybrid model that blends push and pull across both sides of the connection. This approach allows either the supply side or the demand side to initiate interactions using push or pull, creating a flexible and scalable integration framework. In practice, one side may rely on real‑time pull requests while the other prefers push‑based updates. The hybrid integration layer bridges this gap by managing, holding, and transforming data.