The Columns

Not long ago, I clashed with a client. They wanted to rename their boutique hotel with a “catchy” name suggested by an agency still stuck in the era of glossy…

It’s truly remarkable, the collective pat on the back our industry often gives itself for “mastering” distribution. This quiet satisfaction that we’ve somehow reached the holy grail of digital capability,…

Have you ever watched a hotel receptionist scanning your passport and wondered: “Right, but where exactly does this stuff end up?” I have. Always. Then I usually get distracted by…

The big announcement from Homeland Security: the dreaded “shoes off” rule at U.S. airports is finally, mercifully, being put out to pasture. For the first time in nearly two decades,…

I wasn’t even thirty when I first read Death Note. I walked away with one clear conviction: we’re not built to carry the weight of omniscience. Let alone when it…

Ready for some joy? You land after a long-haul flight, muscles aching, brain fuzzy, all you want is to get rolling in your pre-booked, pre-checked in rental car. You picture…

Year of Our Lord 1999. Setting: a hotel run by Trappist monks. The website was an HTML liturgy: silence, hospitality and… keyword stuffing. Initiated into the sacred nonsense, I would…

A curious war is a foot, one fought not with bullets, but with lobbying dollars and legislative ink. It’s a conflict being waged against individuals who have made one of…

I must admire the optimism. These campaigns urging travelers to explore the ‘other 99%’ of a country, to get off the beaten path and discover some hidden gem. It’s a…

This morning I booked a hotel.Well—I didn’t book it. A bot did, while I was having breakfast. To be precise: the brand-new ChatGPT Agent, freshly launched in Europe. I told…