Innovation

There is a lot of thinking going into predicting what AI will look like in our industry. I think that is mostly futile. Ten years ago, very few people would have accurately described today’s AI, and there is little reason to believe we’ll do better predicting 2036. But preparing for that future is actually much easier than predicting it. Whatever future AI looks like, it will need two things: inputs and outputs. It needs to understand what is happening, which means data. And if it is going to be genuinely useful rather than just an impressive advisor, it needs to be able to do things. For hotels, the input side (to AI) is relatively straightforward: accessible, structured, reliable, sufficiently real-time data. The output side (from AI) means APIs that allow another system to modify inventory, update a reservation, create a task, communicate with a guest, move a room, trigger a workflow, and eventually do things we haven’t thought of yet. We have been talking about accessible data and APIs for years. AI just makes the reason for having them much more obvious. [Some have said that signing up for my newsletter is obvious as well.] There is a third piece too: control. A hallucinating chatbot is annoying. An AI with permission to change reservations, rates or payments can be expensive. Once AI moves from “tell me what I should do” to “do it for me,” permissions, security, auditability, reversibility and guardrails become dramatically more important. This is why I think the PMS becomes more important in an AI world, but perhaps not for the reason PMS companies would like. The PMS doesn’t necessarily need to contain the intelligence. But it sits close to the operational heart of the hotel. Future intelligence needs a reliable way to understand that environment and safely act upon it. So, instead of asking, “Which PMS has the best AI?” perhaps hotels should ask, “Which PMS gives me the greatest freedom to use whatever turns out to be the best AI?” That means APIs and support may ultimately matter more than today’s collection of AI features. And support is going to matter more, not less. This is slightly counterintuitive. We tend to assume better technology means less human support. But experimentation means things will break. Integrations will fail. Vendors get acquired. APIs change. Hotels are strangely allergic to technology failure, yet great hoteliers are incredibly good at operational failure (probably the best). Something goes wrong in hotels every day. The skill is fixing impossible problems while making everything appear smooth to the guest. Perhaps we need to bring more of that mentality into technology. The objective shouldn’t be to build a stack where nothing fails. If you are seriously experimenting with rapidly developing technology, that probably means you aren’t experimenting enough. The objective is to build one where failures are contained, recoverable and informative. We cannot predict the winning AI. But we can build a hotel tech stack that is ready to use it when it

The first integrated deployment in the Americas shows how hotel self-service can improve convenience without sacrificing the human experience. Atlanta, Georgia, USA, August 25, 2026 — Shiji and Rivalry Tech…

WASHINGTON, DC – As summer comes to an end, many travelers are taking advantage of the last long holiday weekend of the season. AAA booking data shows Seattle, Orlando, Boston, Denver, and New York are the top domestic destinations, while Rome, Vancouver, London, Dublin, and Paris top the international list. This is also the time of year when savvy travelers begin planning vacations for next spring and summer. Travelers are seeking memorable experiences, and these top Labor Day destinations reflect that desire. AAA members are embarking on Alaska cruises and river cruises, touring National Parks, and sightseeing in Europe. Many of our members are also looking ahead to 2027 and booking cruises and tours now before they sell out. Stacey Barber, Vice President of AAA Travel AAA’s Top Labor Day Weekend Destinations The Great Outdoors Labor Day weekend travelers are looking to squeeze the most out of the unofficial end of summer. Mild temperatures and longer days mean many travelers opt to explore the great outdoors. AAA bookings show that Seattle, Anchorage, and Vancouver are all top destinations, and there’s a common thread: Alaska cruises. AAA travel agents say U.S. National Parks are popular this time of year, with many travelers renting cars in Denver and Las Vegas and driving to Rocky Mountain National Park, Arches, Zion, and Grand Canyon. AAA car rental partner Hertz says Friday, September 4 will be the busiest pick-up day. In addition to Denver and Las Vegas, Hertz says Orlando, Los Angeles, and Boston also have high car rental demand during Labor Day weekend. History and Culture Whether it’s learning about U.S. history in Boston and Chicago or visiting ancient ruins in Rome and Athens, many Labor Day weekend travelers are seeking an educational experience. AAA travel agents say many members choose to explore historical cities, especially in Europe, with a guided tour. The planned itineraries, meals, and transportation offer peace of mind for travelers who don’t want to spend time researching and booking trips on their own. Domestic vs. International Whether travelers choose domestic versus international trips depends on their budget, schedule, and interests. Labor Day weekend travelers who are staying in the U.S. are paying 2% more for roundtrip flights compared to last year, averaging $750 per ticket. The price is even higher for people who are traveling to the top domestic destinations. AAA booking data shows those flights are 20% higher than last year, averaging nearly $800 per ticket. International flights are 4% cheaper this Labor Day weekend, averaging $1,240 per ticket. Hitting the Road For travelers taking road trips, gas prices are higher this Labor Day weekend compared to last year. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.19 on Labor Day in 2025 when crude oil prices were lower. Before hitting the road, AAA recommends checking your tires, battery, and fluids to ensure your vehicle is in optimal condition. Packing an emergency kit with water, snacks, first-aid supplies, and essential tools like flashlights and jumper cables is

FCS Solutions , a global provider of hospitality technology, today announced the launch of FCS1 In-Room Guest Services (IRGS) , a browser-based guest-facing solution that gives hotel guests direct access to hotel information, services and in-room ordering from their mobile devices, without requiring them to download an app. Hotels are managing growing guest expectations for instant service while many properties continue to face staffing pressures, particularly across front-desk operations. AHLA reported that 65% of surveyed hotels experienced staffing shortages, high turnover, placing greater pressure on front-desk and operational teams. During peak periods, calls from guests may go unanswered, causing service requests to be delayed or missed. FCS1 IRGS addresses this gap by connecting the guest-facing experience with the hotel’s operational workflow. Guests scan a QR code to browse hotel facilities, order in-room dining, request amenities, arrange laundry services or report an issue. Each request is sent directly to FCS1 Jobs , where it can be routed to the appropriate department and tracked through fulfilment, reducing manual handovers and supporting hotel teams respond more efficiently. “ FCS has long focused on helping hotels optimise operational workflows and improve staff productivity ,” said Karen Bey, Vice President of Sales at FCS Solutions. “ FCS1 IRGS extends that capability by making it simple for guests to ask for what they need. By connecting each request directly to hotel operations, hotels can reduce missed requests and provide faster, more consistent service. ” FCS1 IRGS is cloud-based, API-first, customisable and supports multiple languages. Hotels can manage guest-facing information through a self-service content management portal, keeping details about facilities, services and in-room offerings up to date throughout the guest journey. FCS1 IRGS is available immediately as part of the FCS1 platform for hotels seeking to digitise in-room guest services while maintaining a clear operational workflow from request to fulfilment.

How AI can identify revenue opportunities and leakage — then recommend the actions a hotel should take

This post was originally published on this site. ​ Anastasia: Brett, let’s start with the belief that holds most small operators back. They think PR is for big brands with big…

LAS VEGAS - BirchStreet Systems , a global provider of the complete hospitality operations platform, has announced the launch of BirchStreet Smart AP ™ , a next-generation solution that automates the entire accounts payable process, from invoice capture to payment execution​. Powered by advanced AI that manages both header and line‑level exceptions, Smart AP allows for faster, more accurate invoice processing with stronger control, higher efficiency, and real-time visibility. As a result, customers will incur significantly reduced manual workloads, faster payment cycles, virtually eliminated processing errors, and robust fraud prevention. Key features of BirchStreet Smart AP ™ include: Touchless Invoicing: automated invoice ingestion through multiple digital formats, including AI-capture technology, electronic invoicing/EDI, or flexible third-party integrations, the solution is designed for high accuracy and unlimited capacity invoice extraction, while minimizing workflow inefficiencies and environmental waste. In international markets, touchless invoicing allows hotels to be fully compliant with government regulations. 3-Way Match Automation : embedded Agentic logic identifies discrepancies between Purchase Orders, Receiving and Invoices, and manages exceptions at both header and line-item level leveraging AI-powered workflows, resulting in accurate reconciliation and accelerated processing. BirchStreet SmartPay: embedded workflows trigger payment (ACH, enhanced ACH, virtual card or check) within the platform and automatically generates and sends payments to vendors, preventing fraud and reducing cost and improving visibility to suppliers and team members. The hospitality industry has long struggled with the inefficiencies of manual accounts payable processes, which drain valuable time and resources from operations teams. Our Smart AP solution transforms this entirely by automating invoice processing with touchless ingestion and line-level three-way matching—the only technology in hospitality that delivers this capability. This allows operational and finance teams to shift from transactional work to strategic value creation, while ensuring vendor relationships remain strong through timely, accurate payments. Valerie Layman, Chief Product Officer at BirchStreet With Smart AP, hospitality properties gain unprecedented control over their financial operations through a unified platform that eliminates bottlenecks across the entire procure-to-pay lifecycle. The solution's AI-driven exception management intelligently resolves discrepancies that previously required hours of manual investigation, while comprehensive dashboards provide finance leaders with complete visibility into invoice status, payment timing, and vendor performance metrics. By automating up to 95% of invoice processing tasks, Smart AP frees accounting teams to focus on more strategic initiatives. As labor costs continue to rise and operational complexity increases across multi-unit hospitality organizations, Smart AP delivers the scalable automation needed to maintain profitability, while strengthening vendor partnerships through consistent, accurate, and timely payments. For more information, please visit www.birchstreetsystems.com .

Monday moved the agentic booking question from argument to plumbing. Google's live test now has a confirmed GDS partner, which reshapes the problem for independent hotels rather than solving it. IHG signed one of the largest conversion portfolios Japan has seen in years, and Expedia Group's quarterly data showed European travellers booking later than they have all year while Asia Pacific plans further ahead than anyone. Google's Agentic Booking Test Now Runs on the Rails the Industry Already Uses Google has begun a limited United States test of agentic hotel booking, and the companies wired into it already control distribution: Booking, Expedia, Marriott, Wyndham and IHG. Booking's Glenn Fogel told investors his company sits inside the test. Marriott said in February it was building a priority search experience to push bookings through Google's AI. Every name on that list either resells rooms or flies its own flag. The more consequential detail arrived last week. Amadeus says it is the first infrastructure partner Google has wired into the protocol that lets an agent complete a hotel booking, and Sabre's Kurt Ekert said his company could hand Google the same capability at scale immediately. That ties the newest front end in travel to the oldest back end, and it gives independents a second gateway into the agent that skips the OTA. Shopping is the easy half. Holding the reservation, taking the money and fixing it when it breaks is the half Google cannot do alone, and whichever pipe carries the transaction decides who owns the guest afterwards. Read the analysis → IHG Takes 14 Kyoto Hotels in One Conversion Deal IHG has signed a 14-hotel, 1,063-room portfolio with GCP Hospitality, the hospitality arm of Gaw Capital. It covers 12 Garner hotels, one Holiday Inn Express and one currently unbranded property, all in Kyoto around the station, Shijo and Gojo districts, converting in phases over the next 12 months. GCP Hospitality will manage the portfolio. The deal makes IHG one of the largest international operators in the city and ranks among the biggest conversion agreements signed in Japan in recent years. The brand doing the work is the part worth watching. Garner launched in August 2023 and has already passed 100 open hotels, the fastest IHG has scaled anything. Japan's business hotel segment is large, standardised and dominated by domestic operators, which is precisely the profile a midscale conversion brand is built to attack. Abhijay Sandilya, who runs IHG's Japan business, said the company is ready to work on more portfolios of this kind. Read the announcement → European Booking Windows Compressed Sharply in the Second Quarter Expedia Group's quarterly traveller data shows confidence returning unevenly after a soft start. Asia Pacific grew fastest at 20% year on year, Latin America recovered in late June with international searches up as much as 15%, and EMEA managed 5%. North America still accounts for 75% of global search volume. The behavioural shift matters more than the growth: 20% of all searches fell into a zero

Atlanta, GA — HotelIQ , a provider of business intelligence and decision-intelligence solutions purpose-built for hoteliers, today announced a direct integration between HotelIQ Decision Cloud and Shiji’s Daylight PMS. The integration brings reservation data from Daylight PMS directly into HotelIQ, helping shared customers centralize, standardize, and manage data and analytics across their portfolios while reducing manual data handling and creating a more reliable foundation for commercial planning, forecasting, and performance reporting. Hotels increasingly rely on multiple systems across operations, revenue, sales, marketing, and reporting. Bringing that information together can require manual exports, spreadsheets, and reconciliation before commercial teams can establish a clear view of performance. By connecting directly with Daylight PMS, HotelIQ is helping remove that friction, giving hotel teams a more streamlined path from property-level reservation data to portfolio-wide analysis and decision-making. “Making confident business decisions starts with having the right data at your fingertips. By integrating with Shiji’s Daylight PMS, we’re enhancing the capabilities of our shared customers to integrate and manage their portfolio data in a central environment, creating a central decision intelligence hub that gives them the insights they need to run their business,” said Sameer Umar, COO, HotelIQ. Through the integration, hotels using Daylight PMS and HotelIQ Decision Cloud can bring reservation data into HotelIQ’s environment and use HotelIQ’s analytics, data management, and forecasting capabilities without relying on manual data transfers between the two platforms. This gives sales, marketing, and revenue teams a more consistent data foundation from which to understand performance and make decisions across their portfolio. “We’re always looking for ways to help hoteliers get more value from the data already flowing through Daylight PMS. This integration with HotelIQ gives our mutual customers a direct path from operational data to actionable business intelligence, without the manual handoffs,” said Simon Le Touze, Senior Director for Partnerships, Shiji. The integration reflects HotelIQ’s focus on giving hotel organizations a centralized environment in which to bring together the data they need to understand performance and make informed business decisions. Connecting directly with platforms such as Shiji Daylight PMS helps reduce data fragmentation while allowing hotel teams to spend less time moving and reconciling information and more time acting on it. The integration is now available to hotels using both Shiji Daylight PMS and HotelIQ Decision Cloud. About HotelIQ HotelIQ Decision Cloud, a leading hospitality decision intelligence platform for the global hotel industry, empowers hoteliers to make faster, data-driven decisions across departments. By providing insights into key performance metrics, AI-powered predictive models for forecasting and budgeting, and tools to identify revenue opportunities, the platform streamlines operations and eliminates time-consuming manual data analysis. With user-friendly dashboards and reports, Decision Cloud ensures sales, marketing, and revenue teams have consistent access to high-quality property data, fostering collaboration and unlocking new revenue streams within a unified digital workspace. Learn more at hoteliq.io About Shiji Shiji is a global technology company dedicated to providing innovative solutions for the hospitality industry, ensuring seamless operations for hoteliers day and night. Built on the Shiji Platform