Innovation

Author: Hrishikesh Bapat, Senior Product Manager @LodgIQ From pricing specialists to profit leaders, here’s what the next generation of revenue managers must master. The Changing Face of Leadership Have you…

🏆 Springboard Awards for Excellence 2026 🎉 When? 30 April 2026. Where? Park Plaza London Riverbank. Who? Hosted by Park Plaza, sponsored by industry leaders like Nestlé, HIT Training, and Sybron. What? Celebrates excellence in hospitality with categories like the new Hospitality Careers Champion Award. How? Free and easy nominations via the Springboard website by 9 January 2026. Why? To recognize and inspire talent, supporting Springboard’s mission to bolster hospitality careers. Goals: Close skills gaps and create one million new skills by 2030.

🛩 Emirates and OpenAI have formed a strategic partnership to integrate AI across the airline. They will deploy ChatGPT Enterprise and develop an AI centre of excellence. The collaboration focuses on enhancing AI capabilities, exploring use cases, and creating an AI champion network. Leadership sessions and technology team collaborations aim to optimize AI integration. Ali Serdar Yakut of Emirates and Rod Solaimani of OpenAI emphasize the transformative potential of AI in aviation and customer experience.

🛅 Nov 24, 2025, ChatGPT partners with Booking.com and Expedia, sidelining direct hotel integration due to AI query loads and fragmented room data. OTAs gain leverage as hotels lose visibility and control, facing rising acquisition costs (up over 30%). AI-driven distribution may introduce new fees, increasing expenses for hotels. To compete, hotels must modernize data and booking strategies. AI simplifies travel planning but complicates supplier economics, posing challenges for hotels unless they adapt quickly.

💸 Nov 24, 2025, hotels worldwide are shifting focus from merely filling rooms to maximizing total guest value and ancillary spending. Revenue managers now use diverse data sources, such as airline searches and spa bookings, to inform pricing strategies. This change elevates revenue managers to strategic roles collaborating across marketing, sales, and operations. Integrated data systems support this evolution, replacing manual forecasts with advanced analytics and machine learning for holistic revenue management. Read more on this transformation at Skift.

📺 Hotel TV is evolving into a digital touchpoint impacting guest satisfaction and revenue. Key stakeholders—owners, operators, and brands—align infrastructure with guest experience, focusing on personalization. Technological partners like Samsung and SONIFI enhance seamless user interfaces while leveraging AI and cloud services to improve content delivery and reduce latency. Balancing revenue generation and cost, TV systems enable transactions and targeted promotions. Priorities include cost reduction, content variety, and support, aiming for a home-like experience in hotels.

📈 14:00 – 15:00 GMT, online and free to attend. Learn how GEO marketing differs from SEO, its impact on hotel visibility, and AI optimization for bookings. Ideal for hotel owners, developers, and C-suite executives. Join over 7,000 professionals for interactive sessions with real-time Q&A. Hosted by BHN editor Eloise Hanson. Speaker details to be confirmed.

💸 Verified My Booking Rewards agents will access MyAgentRates.com in early 2026, an exclusive B2B platform for FAM trips at discounted rates. Targeting UK and Ireland agents, it extends MyBookingRewards.com, connecting 150,000 agents with suppliers. Preferred partners include Royalton Hotels & Resorts and Temptation Resorts. The platform offers API connectivity for real-time bookings. In the past year, MBR generated $1.3 billion in supplier revenue and awarded $4 million in agent rewards.