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Among the many trends shaping wellness tourism, "sleepcation" has attracted growing attention in recent years. The concept refers to travel experiences that place rest, recovery, and sleep quality at the center of the guest experience. While the term has gained wider visibility since 2024, the underlying idea is not entirely new. Wellness resorts, retreats, and some hotels have long incorporated sleep-focused amenities and programs as part of broader well-being offerings. A sleepcation differs from a traditional vacation in that quality rest is viewed as a primary objective rather than simply a by-product of travel. Depending on the property, this may involve sleep-friendly room design, relaxation programs, meditation sessions, reduced digital distractions, or wellness treatments intended to support better rest. Several factors appear to be contributing to the growing interest in sleep-focused travel. First, public awareness of sleep's role in physical and mental well-being has increased significantly. Travelers are increasingly exposed to information about sleep health through wellness media, wearable devices, and health-tracking applications. Second, many of them report feeling overwhelmed by demanding work schedules, constant connectivity, and information overload, leading some to seek vacations that emphasize recovery rather than activity. Finally, sleep tourism aligns with the broader growth of wellness travel, where travelers are interested in experiences that support health, balance, and personal well-being. For hospitality operators, the trend may offer useful insights into evolving guest preferences. Rather than viewing sleepcation as a standalone product category, many properties may find value in considering how sleep quality contributes to the overall guest experience. Practical measures can include improving room acoustics, optimizing lighting and temperature control, offering high-quality bedding, and providing flexible wellness activities that encourage relaxation. At the same time, industry practitioners should be cautious about overpromising outcomes. Sleep quality is influenced by many personal, environmental, and medical factors that extend beyond the hotel stay itself. As a result, properties may benefit from focusing on creating supportive environments for rest rather than positioning themselves as providers of guaranteed sleep improvement. Whether sleepcation develops into a long-term hospitality segment or remains a niche within wellness tourism, its popularity highlights a broader shift in traveler expectations. For a growing number of guests, a successful trip is not only measured by the places visited or activities completed, but also by how rested and refreshed they feel upon returning home.

Industry leaders from hotel brands, technology companies, academia, cloud infrastructure, payments, regulatory expertise, and hospitality organizations unite to guide responsible AI adoption, standards, education, and innovation across the global hospitality ecosystem. The AI Hospitality Alliance (AIHA), an independent platform advancing the understanding, responsible adoption, and collaborative development of artificial intelligence across hospitality, today announced the formation of its inaugural Advisory Board – a distinguished group of executives and thought leaders representing some of the most influential organizations in hospitality, travel, technology, academia, business law, and AI. The board brings together leaders across hotel brands, ownership and management groups, cloud infrastructure, enterprise technology, AI platforms, legal, payments, academia, hospitality consulting, and travel technology to help guide the Alliance’s mission of advancing responsible AI adoption and preparing the hospitality industry for one of the most significant technology shifts in decades. “ As AI rapidly reshapes how guests discover, compare, book, and experience travel, hospitality faces a rare opportunity to come together and proactively shape what comes next, ” said Ira Vouk, Founder of the AI Hospitality Alliance. “ The Advisory Board reflects exactly what this moment requires – cross-functional collaboration between hospitality leaders, technologists, academics, operators, and innovators to help ensure our industry evolves thoughtfully, responsibly, and competitively. ” The inaugural AI Hospitality Alliance Advisory Board includes: Carl Winston — Founding Director, Payne School of Hospitality at SDSU Michael Mahar — SVP, Head of Commercial Technology, Loyalty & Digital Products, Wyndham Hotels Matt Schwartz — Chief Technology Officer, Sage Hospitality Tyrone Millard — GTM – Travel & Hospitality, OpenAI Keryn McNamara — Chief Information Officer, Aimbridge Hospitality Greg Land — Global Industry Leader – Hospitality, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Greg Duff — Principal and Chair of Hospitality, Travel and Tourism Practice, Foster Garvey PC Brian Kirkland — CIO | CTO, Choice Hotels International Bill Ryan — SVP, Chief Technology Officer, BWH Hotels Richard Valtr — Founder, Mews Cihan Cobanoglu — Provost, Virscend University Ramki Srinivasan — Chief Digital & Information Officer, Great Wolf Lodge Adam Harris — Founder and CEO, Cloudbeds Sanjay Vakil — Co-Founder & CEO, DirectBooker.ai Shane O'Flaherty — Global Director, Travel, Transportation & Hospitality, Microsoft John Burns — President, Hospitality Technology Consulting Petar Popov — Global VP Partnerships – Travel, Enterprise & Fintech, Mastercard Frances Kiradjian — Founder & CEO, Boutique & Luxury Lodging Association (BLLA) Laura Calin — SVP, Oracle Consumer Industries Gustaaf Schrils — Chief Information Officer, Omni Hotels & Resorts Scott Lindeman — Vice President, Revenue Strategy & Data Analytics, Summit Hotel Philip von Ditfurth — Founder, apaleo Several Advisory Board members shared why they believe the industry needs a collaborative effort around AI: Hospitality is entering one of the most important technology shifts in decades. AI is already changing how guests choose and book travel, and the industry must respond together. The AI Hospitality Alliance gives us a chance to shape that future proactively – creating smarter guest experiences, modernizing operations, and ensuring hospitality remains competitive in an AI-first world Brian Kirkland, CIO | CTO,

Every year, HITEC arrives on a version of the same promise: that the next wave of hospitality technology is here and ready to move the industry into the upper echelons of digital transformation. But this year, the biggest question leading into the event is less about technology and more about integration. How do you build a hotel operation that doesn't just run efficiently — but responds intelligently? Not just to occupancy data and RevPAR targets, but to the inevitable complexities of a guest-facing experience that places real-time demands on your staff, and the operational gaps that tend to appear exactly when you can least afford them. The irony is that most hotels already have the technology to do this. They have the PMS, the revenue management tools, the CRM, the reporting layer. What they often don't have is a platform that makes those systems work together — that surfaces the right information to the right person at the right moment, without requiring someone to manually stitch it together first. That's the operational layer that tends to get glossed over in the booth conversations and the keynote decks: not the absence of technology, but the continued fragmentation of it. Infor Hospitality will be at HITEC this year with that question squarely in mind — and so will a number of vendors whose work speaks directly to it. Here are five worth putting on your agenda: 1. Laasie: Loyalty That Actually Earns It The math on traditional loyalty programs has never quite added up for guests. Points accumulate quietly, expiration dates arrive quietly, and the ultimate goal of a loyalty program – brand affinity – doesn’t exactly announce itself. Rather, it builds momentum slowly (and quietly) over time. The hospitality industry has long been inundated with providers offering largely similar iterations of the same offer. Laasie is approaching it from a different premise entirely by asking the question: what if loyalty isn't something you program into a guest, but is something you create in the moment? Using AI and behavioral data, Laasie dynamically generates personalized rewards in real time — calibrated to individual guests rather than broad membership tiers. It's the difference between a loyalty program that says "you've earned it" and one that says "we know what you actually want.” For operators already thinking about how to close the gap between their tech stack and their guest relationships, Laasie remains a promising leader in that conversation. 2. Owner Relations Technology: The Back Office That Keeps Stakeholders in the Loop Not every hospitality challenge lives on the guest-facing side of the operation. For property managers and hoteliers overseeing branded residences, condo hotels, fractional properties, or HOA communities, there's an entirely separate layer of complexity — and an entirely separate audience that needs to be kept informed and confident. Owner Relations Technology, founded in 1992, has spent over three decades building specialized accounting and communication software for exactly this space. Their platform addresses the reporting, transparency, and accountability demands that come with shared

In the lead up to the Future Hospitality Summit - FHS Saudi Arabia , taking place from 22-24 June 2026 at Mandarin Oriental Al Faisaliah, Riyadh, we asked several industry partners about what's next for hospitality investment in line with this year's event theme: " Where Opportunity Meets Capital." For much of the past decade, Saudi Arabia's hospitality story has been told through the lens of tourism. The numbers are impressive. Visitor arrivals continue to rise, major destinations are taking shape and billions of dollars are being invested into creating one of the world's most ambitious tourism economies. This momentum has transformed perceptions of the Kingdom and created extraordinary opportunities across the hospitality sector. Yet as Saudi Arabia continues its economic transformation, an important shift is taking place. The next phase of hospitality growth will not be shaped solely by tourism demand. It will increasingly be shaped by a broader set of forces that are redefining how people travel, work, invest and spend time within the Kingdom. Across Saudi Arabia, new industries are emerging, regional headquarters are being established, infrastructure projects are advancing at scale and investment is flowing into sectors ranging from technology and finance to healthcare, education, entertainment and manufacturing. As a result, Saudi Arabia is attracting more than tourists. It is attracting entrepreneurs, investors, consultants, project teams, corporate leaders, specialists and skilled professionals who are playing an active role in shaping the country's future. This distinction matters because it changes how we think about hospitality demand. For years, hospitality investment largely followed tourism growth. The equation was relatively straightforward: identify where visitors want to go and build the infrastructure to support them. Today, the equation is becoming more sophisticated. Increasingly, hospitality demand is being generated not only by tourism, but by economic transformation itself. Another factor that distinguishes Saudi Arabia from many regional hospitality markets is the scale of its domestic demand. With a population approaching 40 million, the Kingdom benefits from a depth of internal travel demand that few markets in the region can replicate. Leisure travel, business mobility, family travel and lifestyle-driven experiences are increasingly supported by a growing domestic audience, creating a powerful foundation for long-term hospitality growth. This is significant because it contributes to the resilience of the sector. While many markets remain heavily dependent on international arrivals, Saudi Arabia benefits from multiple demand engines operating simultaneously. International tourism continues to expand, but it is complemented by domestic travel, economic diversification, corporate activity and talent mobility. For investors, this creates a more balanced demand profile and reinforces the long-term sustainability of hospitality investment across the Kingdom. Riyadh provides perhaps the clearest example of how these forces are converging. The city's emergence as a global centre for government, business, finance and investment is creating demand patterns that extend well beyond traditional tourism. Hospitality demand is increasingly linked to corporate expansion, professional services, regional headquarters, major projects and long-term economic activity. Importantly, this demand is not dependent on a single attraction, season or event. It

The week that asked hard questions about technology and human connection closed with data pointing firmly upward. U.S. hotel RevPAR posted its strongest weekly gain in months, business travel hit a record, and the most interesting technology story was not a product launch but a strategic repositioning: SiteMinder embedding itself inside a hotel operating system and quietly changing what kind of company it is. Two EHL HumanX Interviews to Close the Week Explora Journeys President Anna Nash describes what her company is building in terms that resonate well beyond ocean travel: a floating luxury hotel whose address happens to be the sea. With 30% of guests being first-time sailors and a fleet growing to six ships by 2028, Explora is making the case that the guests who have never considered a cruise are its best opportunity. The interview is a useful read on how to reframe a category to attract guests who think it is not for them. EHL Next CEO Andrea Monti ends the week's HumanX series with the most pointed critique: hospitality over-relies on ADR and RevPAR while the metrics that would capture workforce value, community impact, and long-term brand equity barely exist. His challenge to operators is direct: if AI is freeing up staff time, where is the evidence? Five HumanX interviews across five days, all pointing the same direction. U.S. RevPAR Rose 6.5% in the Week Ending May 30 CoStar data puts RevPAR at $98.59 , up 6.5% year over year, the strongest weekly performance in several months. Las Vegas led all markets, driven by major concert demand including BTS and the Jonas Brothers. The pattern reinforces what has been consistent all year: event-driven demand is doing more to move the weekly numbers than any structural demand trend. U.S. Business Travel Hit a Record $538 Billion in 2024 GBTA's comprehensive economic impact study finds U.S. business travel spending reached $538.5 billion in 2024 , supporting 6.7 million jobs and contributing $623.8 billion in total GDP impact, equivalent to 2.1% of the entire U.S. economy. The figures land the day after GBTA warned about $50.7 billion in risk from CBP airport disruptions. The gap between what business travel contributes and what operational failures could cost is the context the Monday story needed. SiteMinder's Second Act: Infrastructure, Not Application hospitality.today's analysis of SiteMinder's embedding inside the Mews operating system is the most strategically interesting piece of the week. The argument is that by becoming the native distribution engine inside a PMS rather than a standalone channel manager, SiteMinder is repositioning from application to infrastructure. Infrastructure businesses re-rate differently: they are stickier, harder to displace, and valued on different multiples. If the bet works, SiteMinder's current A$2 billion valuation looks conservative. Signals HVS's NYU IHIF takeaways point to narrowing bid-ask spreads and rising branded residential. The conference summary flags luxury segment resilience, AI's evolving operational role, and the acceleration of branded residential developments as the three structural trends investors are most focused on heading into H2. Bid-ask spreads narrowing

The 2025 Bordeaux En Primeur campaign is now roughly half over. Many Bordeaux châteaux have already released their latest vintage, while several major names have yet to announce their prices. At this stage, no wine has sold out. At first glance, this might suggest a lackluster campaign driven by unattractive wines. That would be a premature conclusion. The reality is more nuanced and more interesting. After several difficult campaigns, 2025 may well be the first vintage in years to offer genuine opportunities. Should You Pay Attention to Bordeaux 2025? Yes, but not blindly. The fact that no wines have sold out does not mean the vintage lacks appeal. Rather, it reflects the extreme caution weighing on buyers. After several disappointing campaigns, the Place de Bordeaux is paying for past mistakes: too many wines purchased En Primeur can now be found on the secondary market at lower prices. In that environment, waiting is a rational strategy. However, buyer caution should not be mistaken for a lack of opportunity. Some wines already released are being offered at genuinely attractive levels, and others may follow. Why might this year be different? Because, for the first time in many years, two important conditions are in place. First, the vintage has the profile of a vintage worth buying En Primeur : quality is high and volumes are limited. Second, after several underwhelming campaigns, châteaux can ill afford another disappointing release season. Figure 1 places the 2025 vintage in the context of the previous 18 vintages. It presents several descriptive statistics for the ratings of the wines included in our analysis. To limit individual biases arising from critics’ preferences and scoring scales, and to maximize comparability across vintages, we use Wine Expert Rating (WxR) scores, which are based on the evaluations of 21 reference critics. The figure reports the median score, the first and third quartiles (25th and 75th percentiles), as well as the minimum and maximum scores observed for each vintage. The results indicate that 2025 ranks among the three best vintages of the period, just behind 2022 and slightly ahead of 2016. How the En Primeur System Lost Momentum A brief look at recent vintages helps explain the current situation. Over the past several years, the En Primeur system has become increasingly less effective. 2021 : a difficult vintage with weak demand. 2022 : another “vintage of the century,” yet a mixed commercial reception. 2023 : a very good vintage, but little real enthusiasm from buyers. 2024 : a more heterogeneous vintage that generated limited interest. Several factors may explain this trend: slower global demand, changing consumption habits, reduced wine investor participation and the broader correction in passion assets since 2022. Yet beyond these factors, pricing remains the central issue. For an En Primeur purchase to be attractive, it must offer sufficient expected value relative to comparable wines already available on the market. In recent years, however, many Bordeaux wines purchased En Primeur have subsequently become available on the secondary market at similar or

At the EHL HumanX Summit in Lausanne, Simone Puorto sat down with Anna Nash, President of Explora Journeys, the ultra-luxury ocean travel brand of the MSC Group. Nash spent more than two decades in luxury hospitality, in senior roles at Aman, Rosewood and Orient-Express, before taking charge of Explora in 2024. She came up through marketing and communications, and it shows in how she talks about the brand. Rather than a cruise line, she calls Explora a floating hotel whose address is the ocean. The full conversation is available to watch below. A floating hotel whose address is the ocean Nash is direct about the problem the category carries. For many people, the word cruise still signals something that is not for them. She does not think the industry failed at marketing. It marketed very successfully to a particular kind of customer, and built a fixed idea of what a cruise is. Explora is trying to step outside that idea. So the language changes. The brand talks about ocean travel rather than cruising, because the phrase carries the emotion and the feeling, and it makes the decision simpler for someone weighing it up. Being privately owned, Nash said, gives the brand permission to have a voice, to challenge the conventions of the category, and to bring back some of the romance and elegance the word cruise had lost. Explora is still young. Explora I launched in 2023, Explora II in 2024, and Explora III arrives this year, with a full fleet of six ships expected by 2028. Nash calls it a challenger brand, and the challenge is as much to the language as to the ships. The first-time sailor A striking share of Explora's guests are new to the water. Around thirty percent have never cruised before, which Nash described as a double opportunity, since they are new to the brand and new to sailing at once. That carries a responsibility to meet expectations the guest has never had tested. She talked about understanding each guest's need state, the reason they are travelling at all. Someone might be travelling alone, reconnecting with family, on honeymoon, or working through a bereavement. The brand's job is to know which, especially for first-time sailors, and that group is growing quickly as more ships enter the market. What these guests tell her afterwards is consistent. They point to the focus on ocean wellness, the spa and the indoor and outdoor gyms, and they say they cannot understand why they did not do this sooner. There was no Explora before, Nash noted, so there was nothing quite like it to try. Giving back time The pitch underneath all of this is time. When you board, Nash said, you are untethered from land, and even with the high-speed Wi-Fi the ship carries, you feel yourself disconnect. Everything is included and everything is handled. You are not stuck in traffic, heading back to the airport or chasing a dinner reservation across town. You unpack once, and you

Beyond Digital Touchpoints: Why Hotels Need a Unified Guest Journey Platform The hospitality industry has invested heavily in digital transformation over the last decade. Hotels have adopted mobile apps, online check-in solutions, in-room entertainment systems, guest messaging platforms, digital signage, AI-powered chatbots, and countless other technologies designed to improve the guest experience. Yet despite these investments, many guest journeys remain fragmented. Guests move between disconnected systems. Hotel teams manage multiple vendors, interfaces, and content repositories. Valuable guest data remains siloed. And perhaps most importantly, hotel technology stacks often struggle to demonstrate measurable business outcomes beyond feature adoption. The question is no longer whether hotels need digital guest-facing technology; it is whether they can afford it. The question is whether all these touchpoints work together as a single ecosystem. From Solutions to Platforms Historically, hospitality technology has evolved through point solutions. Hotels purchased an IPTV platform for in-room entertainment, a separate system for guest messaging, another for online check-in, and yet another for digital signage or mobile engagement. While each solution addressed a specific operational need, the guest experience became increasingly fragmented. A guest who upgrades their room before arrival often receives unrelated offers during their stay. A preference shared through a mobile app may never reach the in-room TV. Marketing campaigns, service requests, loyalty initiatives, and guest communications frequently operate in parallel rather than in sync. Modern hospitality requires a different approach: platform thinking. A unified guest journey platform connects every interaction from pre-arrival to post-stay through a single digital ecosystem, ensuring that guest data, communication, personalization, and revenue opportunities remain consistent across every channel. One Platform for Every Guest Touchpoint This philosophy sits at the core of Hoteza's Guest Journey Platform. Rather than offering standalone products, Hoteza brings guest-facing technologies together into a single, integrated environment that supports every stage of the hospitality experience. The platform connects online check-in, digital registration, guest applications, in-room entertainment, AI-powered communication, digital signage, casting solutions , guest internet access, and in-room tablets into a single centralized ecosystem. The result is a consistent guest experience regardless of where the interaction takes place. Whether a guest receives an upgrade offer before arrival, requests room service through a mobile device, interacts with an AI concierge, watches personalized content on the in-room TV, or books another stay after departure, every touchpoint becomes part of the same journey rather than an isolated transaction. For hotels, this creates something even more valuable: operational simplicity. Instead of managing multiple disconnected systems, teams can orchestrate content, communication, promotions, and guest engagement from a centralized platform. The Shift from Features to KPIs Perhaps the biggest transformation happening in hospitality technology today is the move away from feature-based purchasing decisions. Hotel executives are increasingly evaluating technology through the lens of business performance. Can a platform increase ancillary revenue? Can it improve RevPAR? Can it reduce operational workload? Can it contribute to higher guest satisfaction scores? Can it strengthen loyalty and repeat bookings? These are the metrics that matter. A modern guest journey platform

The upcoming pastoral visit of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to Spain is expected to generate a substantial economic and tourism impact across Madrid, Barcelona, and the Canary Islands, reinforcing the powerful role major religious events can play in supporting local communities, businesses, and destination visibility. According to ObservaTUR, a tracking and monitoring tool specialising in outbound tourism, the overall economic impact of the papal visit across Spain could reach between €90 million and €125 million, underscoring the scale of opportunity for the country’s tourism sector. At a city level, Data Appeal Mabrian estimates that the Pope’s visit to Madrid between 6–9 June could generate approximately €73.8 million (US$86 million) in incremental tourism spending, driven by the estimated 1.8 million attendees expected to participate in the various events. Food and beverage services are projected to account for the largest share of visitor spending, representing 78% of the total impact (€57.3 million), followed by transport (€12.0 million) and accommodation (€4.5 million), highlighting the broad distribution of economic benefits across the tourism ecosystem. Current booking trends also point to heightened tourism activity during Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming visit. According to Data Appeal Mabrian data collected from online travel agencies, average hotel prices in Madrid for the weekend of 5-7 June 2026 stand at €298 per night, representing a 4.5% increase compared to the same weekend last year. Separate data from STR indicates that hotel occupancy levels in Madrid for 6-8 June are currently running between two and four percentage points higher than comparable dates in 2025. Meanwhile, research from the Madrid Hotel Business Association (AEHM) projects average occupancy rates close to 82% during the Pope’s stay, peaking at more than 87% on Saturday 6 June. Barcelona is also experiencing increased demand during the Pope’s visit from 9-10 June, with hotel occupancy currently tracking four to seven percentage points above comparable 2025 levels, according to STR. Historical papal visits demonstrate lasting tourism impact Previous papal visits to Spain and other destinations have demonstrated similarly strong economic outcomes. The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Barcelona in 2010 generated an estimated €29.8 million in economic impact for the city, according to Barcelona City Council data cited by ObservaTUR. This included €25.2 million in direct visitor spending across accommodation, dining, transport, and shopping, alongside additional destination visibility and reputational value. Similarly, World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011, attended by Pope Benedict XVI, generated €207.2 million in direct attendee spending, while overnight stays in the Spanish capital increased by 29% during the event. Surveys conducted afterwards showed that 90% of international pilgrims intended to return to Spain in the future, highlighting the long-term tourism legacy such events can create. Globally, papal visits have also proven to be major economic drivers. During Pope Francis’ visit to Bogotá in 2017, authorities estimated that more than 600,000 visitors attended an open-air Mass, generating over US$61 million for the local economy. The findings and past examples highlight the lasting economic impact of papal visits and faith-based tourism, which not

Renewed momentum is taking shape across the U.S. hospitality investment landscape, driven by debt market liquidity, selective equity deployment, and shifting global capital dynamics. Active lending markets are compressing spreads and helping restore confidence. Despite the current geopolotical environment, activity is increasingly spilling into equity as legacy challenges are resolved and stalled transactions begin clearing. At the same time, investor conviction is becoming more targeted, favoring high-quality assets, resilient demand drivers, and markets perceived to be at or near cyclical inflection points or targeting significantly strained assets. Consumer spending remains bifurcated, with ultrahigh-net-worth travelers driving performance at the luxury and resort end of the market and middle-income travelers prioritizing value. Modular construction, brand expansion, and evolving development strategies are reshaping project economics. Meanwhile, cross-border capital is closely monitoring currency movements, geopolitical events, and pricing dislocations to determine the timing of reentry. Together, these forces lay the groundwork for a more active transaction environment as pricing discovery improves and capital gradually moves off the sidelines. A few key takeaways include: The 2026 FIFA World Cup is expected to drive higher hotel demand and revenue across host markets, creating a temporary boost in occupancy and rates. Domestic travel is increasingly driven by top earners seeking luxury experiences, while overall U.S. lodging demand grows modestly at 1.3%. Hotel rates are expected to remain largely flat as competition and price-sensitive travelers drive selective discounts, with modest growth of 1.35% signaling a gradual, disciplined recovery in pricing power. Occupancy is expected to remain flat at 64.1%, reflecting steady recovery from pandemic lows but still below pre-COVID peaks, with modest gains projected through 2029. AI adoption is accelerating in hospitality, improving operations, guest services and revenue management, with venture capital investment fueling innovation and broader implementation.