Innovation

📲 [London, 11 December 2025] Mews introduces a winter product update enhancing hotel operations. Efficiency boosts include a 24% improvement in front desk operations and a 31% reduction in manual errors. New tools automate billing, streamline financial processes, and improve revenue protection. Mews’ system, serving over 12,500 customers in 85+ countries, supports hotels with smarter tech integration and funding options, including €2 million accessed via YouLend. The update aims to help hotels manage tighter margins and staffing shortages more effectively.

🏨 Partnering with local DMOs, technology providers, hotel suppliers, distribution channels, and hospitality associations boosts hotel visibility, streamlines operations, and enhances guest experience. Strategic alliances with nearby businesses, event venues, and planners further strengthen brand identity. Lighthouse, trusted by over 70,000 hotels in 185 countries, offers actionable insights and tools to optimize pricing and performance, emphasizing the value of partnerships in maximizing revenue and sustaining growth in the hospitality industry.

💸 SAN FRANCISCO, 17 December 2025 – Short-term rental hosts using Hospitable saved $6.9 million in booking fees and increased direct channel revenue by 91% to $53.7 million in 2025. Ancillary revenue from upsells launched in June 2025 generated $177,343. Overall, operators earned $5.2 billion in booking revenue and paid $141.5 million in taxes. 70% of self-managers prioritize increasing direct bookings for 2026, highlighting a shift towards maximizing direct revenue.

🏨 Walk into any hospitality event today and hear terms like MCP, GEO, Agentic AI, and LLMs. AI is transforming how guests discover hotels, starting with AI questions rather than search results. Generative AI creates new content, and GEO ensures AI finds and accurately describes hotels. Agentic AI takes action by booking hotels directly. MCP standardizes AI connections to tools. LLMs power AI conversations. Understanding these terms is vital for hoteliers navigating AI's impact on marketing and guest experiences.

🏨 [Berlin, 16 December 2025] Schloss & Gut Liebenberg, owned by Deutsche Kreditbank, chooses Mews to digitalize operations in its 63-room estate in Brandenburg. The historic venue, known for nonprofit projects and employing people with disabilities, transitions under General Manager Christian Rex. The move enhances PMS, POS, RMS, and housekeeping, utilizing Mews University for training. Mews, serving 12,500 customers in 85 countries, was named Best PMS in 2024 and 2025.

🛫 Sam Altman and Tyler Cowen discussed AI's role in travel, highlighting its impact on hotel bookings. AI agents, driven by Large Language Models, automate booking, reducing friction. Hotels must adopt modern, API-ready systems for visibility. Trust, not ads, will guide AI recommendations. SEO shifts to structured data for AI interpretation. A McKinsey study notes the average traveler visits 38 sites before booking. AI can merge planning and booking into a single step, emphasizing the need for accurate, structured hotel data.

🏠 Chambéry, France – 17 December 2025: Nomad Stays launched StayDirect, empowering property owners by sending high-intent nomad traffic directly to their booking systems. This feature maintains owners' control over bookings and compliance while expanding options for digital nomads. StayDirect works with various accommodations, enhancing visibility and flexibility without imposing new systems. Nomad Stays currently offers properties in over 80 countries, catering to the remote work travel market.

💻 Stayntouch, a leader in cloud hotel PMS, announced enhancements to its Gen-2 platform, boosting performance by 30-35% and reducing update resolution times by 50%. New AI-driven tools improve system stability and reporting speed on AWS EKS clusters. Security remains strong with PCI Level 1 certification. With a 97% client retention rate, these upgrades enhance operational efficiency and guest service, ensuring hotel management stays ahead with reliable and quick service.

💻 Over 68% of travelers prefer OTAs, but AI is changing this. One in three travelers now use AI travel assistants like ChatGPT for bookings. Despite OTAs' dominance, 21% of hotel databases have masked emails, hindering direct marketing. Automated post-stay campaigns boast a 53.2% open rate, generating $18K in direct revenue for TPG properties. Triumph Hotels cut OTA reliance by 20% via pre-arrival engagement. Mobile bookings now account for one-third of global reservations.