Innovation

For years, hotel reputation management meant two things. Watch your reviews and manage your search results. You kept your rating healthy on the major platforms; you tried to get the right pages onto the first screen of a search, and that was the job. That job just changed, and most hotels have not noticed yet. Increasingly, the first thing a traveler learns about your hotel does not come from your website, your reviews, or a search result they read for themselves. It comes from an AI assistant that has already read all those things and handed them a summary. The traveler asks, tell me about this hotel, or is this a good place to stay for a quiet weekend, and the AI answers in a few confident sentences that it wrote by synthesizing everything it could find about you. That summary is your new first impression. And you did not write it. I want to walk through what this means for a hotel specifically, because the generic advice about AI reputation misses the thing that matters most for you. A hotel is not a person. It has far more control over what AI says about it than an individual does, if it understands where that control lives. Reputation stopped being a list and became a verdict The old model was a list. Search returned ten blue links, and the traveler decided for themselves which to trust and what to conclude. Your reputation was distributed across those links, and the reader assembled it. The new model is a verdict. The AI reads the links, so the traveler does not have to, and it delivers a conclusion. Nice boutique property, though a few guests mention noise. Or a reliable business hotel near the airport. Or a charming independent with an excellent restaurant. One or two sentences, stated with confidence, standing in for everything a traveler used to piece together themselves. The difference matters enormously. A list invites the reader to judge. A verdict has already been judged. And most travelers accept the verdict, because that is the entire reason they asked an AI instead of scrolling themselves. So, the question for your hotel is no longer only whether you appear. It is what the verdict says, and whether it is the verdict you would have written. Where AI gets its verdict about your hotel Here is the part that should concern you and then, quickly, reassure you. The AI assembles its summary from whatever it can find about your property. Your own website, yes, but also your reviews across every platform, your listings in directories, your description on the tourism board site, travel blogs that mentioned you, the booking sites that carry you, and increasingly, other AI-generated descriptions of you that are already floating in the discovery layer. That is a lot of sources, and most of them were not written by you. Which means your AI-generated reputation is currently being assembled largely from other people's words about you, some of them

It does not happen often that the people who run hotel technology and the people who build it sit in one room and talk openly. They usually meet across a sales table. This session was made to take that away. It ran on the sidelines of HITEC in San Antonio, which is part of why it was possible at all. It brought together operators and suppliers who are based across different regions of the world and are rarely in the same place at the same time. For ninety minutes, CIOs and CTOs from some of the largest international hotel groups sat with the CEOs and founders of some of the most widely used PMS suppliers. No stage, no slides, no sales pitches, and no audience. Among the hotel groups taking part were Radisson, citizenM, Mandarin Oriental, Wyndham, Aimbridge and Choice. The PMS suppliers in the room included Apaleo, HotelKey, Shiji, Oracle, Infor and Mews. One participant joined in remotely. Everyone agreed to one condition: nothing said in the room would be tied to a name afterward. The session ran under the Chatham House Rule , which means we can report what was discussed, but not who said it. We did this on purpose, so that all participants could speak freely, knowing that nothing they said could be held against them afterward. That is why the views here belong to "a CTO" or "one supplier," never to a name, and everyone spoke more openly because of it. The session was hosted and moderated by Hospitality Net's Floor Bleeker . We used live polling during the discussion, so alongside the talk we also have a set of votes from the room. The polls are shown without names too. They are counts, not quotes. What AI actually changes Floor started by asking each participant for the one biggest way AI will change the industry. There was more agreement than you might expect, which is a good sign for a first session: labour and cost was mentioned multiple times. The idea was not only that the same work needs fewer people, but that it changes what one role is responsible for. Instead of a front desk person and a separate bell person, you get one employee who handles many tasks across the hotel. Another topic was the cost of distribution. Some expected it to fall a long way, maybe close to free. The reason is that the commissions hotels pay to online travel agents and other booking channels are seen as unsustainable at today's levels, and as AI changes the way guests search and book, those fees are expected to drop. Personalization came up as well. It gets much easier, and guests are willing to pay for it, from a room set up the way they like to being greeted by name. Luxury is well placed for it, because the service model to deliver it is already there. And other segments can use the same tools to move upmarket, since technology means you no

For decades, hotel distribution followed a fairly straight forward rule - the more places you showed up, the more bookings you captured. Visibility in front of your target audience was considered the win. OTA’s, GDS connections and third party partnerships were stacked higher and wider, and success was measured by how many channels offered your rates. That playbook worked until it didn’t. In our current market, that same approach often comes at a cost due to margin pressure, diluted loyalty and limited “ownership” of the guest relationship. These factors have essentially forced the industry to re-consider if being everywhere is actually helping the bottom line. It is no doubt that technology and data have reshaped how travelers find and book hotels, which has in turn complicated the question around who actually “owns” the guest relationship. Moving forward, I believe the brands that succeed will be the ones treating distribution as a strategic eco-system instead of a volume play. The future is not about where guests first stumble upon your brand; it’s about what happens once they do. Historically, distribution was about presence … being listed anywhere travelers could search meant awareness, and awareness would lead to bookings, right? Well, with personalization and data integration evolving so quickly, the focus has shifted from exposure to efficiency. Modern distribution strategy should answer three questions - who are we reaching, at what cost, and with what lifetime value? While OTA’s, GDS systems and search engines remain important, they are no longer the finish line. We should instead be looking at these resources like an introduction … then it matters most what we do next for these guests. Instead of adding channels for the sake of potentially increasing reach, our team focuses on which platforms have a higher likelihood of finding guests who align with our target audience and goals. Making this shift has allowed us to optimize acquisition costs while increasing retention. I believe this perspective is especially critical for independent and midsized operators. To be able to successfully compete against global brands, focus on insight by knowing your guest better and serving them with purpose. At Club Quarters, we have taken the time to connect data across multiple channels and platforms, including direct web activity, CRM engagement, and OTA performance. This approach has allowed us to make more informed decisions on how we allocate our marketing budget, structure rate plans, and even how we communicate with guests. Look at every booking as if it’s telling a story, and you want to ensure that each of those stories is probably heard. When guest data is disjointed, hotels end up losing out on what can become one of our most powerful tools. For hotel leaders, I say the goal should be about connecting data. Ask yourself … how can we use booking behavior to anticipate needs? What patterns reveal our most profitable customer journeys? And what elements are driving guests to third parties? The clearer your data narrative, the more control you have over

Lodging Interactive, an award-winning digital marketing agency exclusively serving the hospitality industry since 2001, today announced the launch of its new Celebrations Hub , a strategic lead generation solution designed to help hotels and resorts capture incremental revenue from life’s most meaningful moments. The Celebrations Hub is powered by Lodging Interactive’s Social Media Amplified service and is designed to help properties go beyond traditional social media posting by connecting social media content with custom landing pages, lead magnets, and direct sales opportunities. While many hotels focus their sales and marketing efforts primarily on sleeping rooms, group blocks, weddings, meetings, and large events, Lodging Interactive believes many properties are missing a meaningful revenue opportunity tied to smaller celebrations and milestone gatherings that may not always begin as room-night-driven inquiries. These opportunities include milestone birthdays, major wedding anniversaries, family reunions, military and class reunions, bar and bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, Sweet 16 celebrations, graduation parties, retirement galas, engagement parties, vow renewals, bridal showers, rehearsal dinners, baby showers, gender reveals, and youth sports banquets. “Hotels have long understood the value of weddings and large group business, but there is a much broader celebration market that many properties are not actively pursuing,” said DJ Vallauri, Founder and CEO of Lodging Interactive. “The Celebrations Hub is designed to help hotels promote these opportunities in a more intentional way and capture leads from guests and local community members who are planning meaningful events.” The new Celebrations Hub builds on Lodging Interactive’s existing Wedding Lead Generation social media program by expanding the focus to a wider range of milestone events and celebration-based revenue opportunities. Rather than relying on social media posts alone, the program connects campaign content to dedicated landing pages that support each property’s sales goals. Each Celebrations Hub can be customized for the hotel or resort and may include event-specific landing pages, downloadable planning guides, social media content, lead capture forms, promotional calls to action, and follow-up opportunities for the property sales team. “Social media by itself can create awareness, but awareness is not enough,” Vallauri added. “Our Social Media Amplified approach is about creating a connected path from the social post to the landing page to the sales inquiry. That is where the revenue opportunity begins.” The Celebrations Hub is especially valuable for hotels with restaurants, banquet rooms, private dining areas, ballrooms, outdoor event space, rooftops, patios, lounges, or flexible meeting space that can be positioned for social events. These spaces can often generate incremental revenue through food and beverage, event packages, private dining, catering, audiovisual services, décor partnerships, and, in some cases, related room blocks. “Not every profitable hotel event starts with a sleeping room block,” said Vallauri. “Some start with a family looking for the right place to celebrate a milestone. The hotels that make these opportunities easy to discover, easy to understand, and easy to inquire about are in a better position to win that business.” For more information please visit Lodging Interactive website or [email protected] .

Here’s a concise summary based on the provided article: 📍 James Hansen, Sarah Becherer, Craig, and Glenn discussed parking solutions. Sarah Becherer, SVP of Marketing at Ocra, explained how Ocra monetizes empty hotel parking lots.

📈 Grand Metropolitan Hotels is ending its joint venture with Berlin's dentists’ pension fund, VZB, due to deadlock over financial decisions. The Smura Family Holding owns 70% of the venture, while VZB owns 30%. Failed negotiations included a blocked capital increase and rejected buyout offers. Grand Metropolitan will focus on hotel management, franchising, and digital solutions, proceeding with independent development. Legal advisers are handling the separation, and the group will not comment further on legal matters.

📱 Digital mobile ordering boosts hotel F&B operations by enhancing service efficiency and increasing revenue. Guests spend an average of 30% more per order with digital menus, accessing QR codes for seamless ordering anywhere in the hotel. This integrated system minimizes order errors, ensures menu accuracy, and offers multi-lingual options, improving guest satisfaction and loyalty. By reducing friction, hotels can better compete with third-party apps and maintain brand consistency across multiple properties.

💻 At Bondi Beach, The Blue Hotel features 33 rooms and uses Cloudbeds to offer a fully digital guest journey. During COVID-19, owners and X Hospitality crafted a seamless mobile-first experience, eliminating traditional front desks. Guests engage via familiar messaging channels with a four-step pre-arrival process. Cloudbeds integrates with systems like Goki for keyless entry and Flexkeeping for housekeeping. X Hospitality, expanding from 8 to 40 employees, now employs this model across Australia, advising intuitive, scalable technology for hospitality growth.

📈 Hotels must optimize for AI search across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude. These AI tools rely on data from websites, review sites, and trusted sources. A consistent, clear, and accessible online presence helps hotels improve visibility. Using structured data, accurate Google Business Profiles, and relevant content is key. Hotels should focus on generative engine optimization (GEO) to enhance their AI search rankings and increase direct booking opportunities. Adapting now builds trust and visibility across multiple platforms.

📚 In Q2 2026, Shiji's benchmark report revealed improvements in global guest satisfaction and review response. Booking.com and Google contributed over 62% of global review volume. Hotels engaging in timely feedback responses exhibited higher satisfaction metrics. Shifts in review sources highlighted travelers' evolving feedback habits. The report covered regions such as Asia, Europe, and North America, offering a comparative analysis of guest experiences. It emphasized reputation management as crucial for competitive advantage in hospitality.