Hospitality Net

📧 Google began rolling out Gmail’s paid AI Inbox on October 12, continuing into November, for US users in English. It reads only Primary-tab emails, including hotel confirmations, excluding Promotions and Social. Free email-thread summaries launched January 8. Hotels can place brief offers after booking details, subject to CAN-SPAM rules, but sales-heavy messages risk Promotions filtering. Apple Mail replaces preview text with AI summaries; Outlook summarizes on request. Google has published no AI Inbox usage figures.

🎩 Customer experience expert Shep Hyken shares 10 business lessons inspired by Harry Houdini ahead of the 100th anniversary of his death on October 31, 2026. Drawing on a dozen-plus Houdini biographies, Hyken urges businesses to understand customers, make marketing experiential, build anticipation, train for effortless service, continually improve, resolve complaints memorably, and protect their reputation. The goal: distinctive experiences that keep customers coming back.

🏨 Shiji’s Chelsia Goh highlighted faster feedback-to-action workflows at the 2026 Quest Guest Experience Leadership Workshop in Brisbane, Australia. Hotels should review feedback daily, assess trends weekly, assign owners and deadlines, and verify fixes through guest responses. Ten-minute morning reviews can help catch problems early, while in-stay feedback enables recovery before checkout. Shiji’s technology portfolio serves over 91,000 hotels worldwide.