Innovation

📈 Expenses are climbing 5-10% annually while the top line remains flat. In 2025, 30% of hotels managed to grow despite stagnation, as per STR's Isaac Collazo at the ALIS conference. Guest reviews, crucial to 75% of booking decisions, drive pricing power. Kalibri's CEO reports a -1.5% change in occupancy, +0.5% in ADR, and -1.0% in RevPAR, with expenses outpacing revenue. Operational excellence, visibility, and differentiation are key to capturing growth.

🏨 Parable Hospitality, founded in 2026, is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California. They manage over 30 hotels in California and Hawaii, promoting a partnership-oriented approach. Scott Roby, president, emphasizes performance and transparency. The platform offers seven core features, such as integrated commercial leadership and technology-based insights. They are expanding into the Western U.S., aiming to enhance owner and guest experiences through storytelling and strategic management. For details, visit parablehospitality.com.

🏨 Karen Stephens and Aradhana Khowala discuss the future of tourism on the Hotel Moment Podcast. Aradhana, with two decades of experience across 85 countries, emphasizes the shift from sustainability to regenerative tourism, advocating for industries to give back more than they take. She critiques current travel AI as "lipstick on legacy" and highlights the need for systemic change in tourism. Amid global instability, tourism faces challenges, with lost revenues and reduced bookings impacting local economies.

💰 OpenAI charges Shopify merchants 4% for ChatGPT sales. Global tourism receipts hit $1.8 trillion, a 20% increase from pre-COVID levels. St. Regis and Ritz-Carlton use butlers for higher ADRs. AI platforms challenge OTAs with superior models but lack trust for high-risk purchases. OTAs may evolve into backend providers, while AI could become the new metasearch. The hospitality industry grapples with tech-driven models, leadership, and the challenge of scaling like tech companies.

🛫 AI platforms are transforming online travel by enhancing search discovery and potentially impacting OTAs. With conversational search and transactional capabilities, AI offers a promising alternative. Yet, OTAs maintain advantages in inventory, trust, and transaction handling. Future scenarios include OTAs using AI bots, becoming back-end systems, or AI evolving into metasearch tools. Confidence in AI will be crucial for consumer trust in high-cost, low-frequency travel purchases.

🚀 S4BT has launched Trevium, an innovative solution for financial operations in business travel. Created for travel agencies, corporate clients, and hotels, it aims to streamline processes. This comes as business travel recovers selectively, with increasing cost control pressures. Trevium is central to S4BT’s strategy to enhance the business travel value chain.

💻 In 2023, Infor partners with Circa Hospitality Group to implement Infor Hospitality Management Solution across three iconic Las Vegas properties: Circa Resort & Casino, The D Las Vegas, and Golden Gate Hotel & Casino. Opened five years ago, Circa Resort symbolizes downtown revitalization. Golden Gate, the oldest hotel, celebrates 120 years. The shift to a cloud-based platform enhances operational efficiency, aligning with Las Vegas's evolution towards sports-centric experiences, supporting real-time data processing for improved guest services.

📝 GCSTIMES, a pioneer in sustainable development since 2011, operates five centers in China, US, UAE, France, and Australia, with 14 subsidiaries globally. Serving over 140 countries and supporting 100,000+ hospitality groups, they focus on sustainable solutions, including eco-friendly products like wheat straw–based pens. Their brand portfolio includes GCS, AUROkeys, Xenyra, and Glint Spot, which provide sustainable smart cards and cultural gifts, promoting a thoughtful guest experience bridging work and rest.

📰 Google introduced City Guide and Comic Postcards to its Arts & Culture app, tested in 11 cities: Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Istanbul, Osaka, Berlin, Madrid, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, and New York. City Guide offers personalized attraction suggestions, while Comic Postcards turns photos into comic strips using AI. Users can tailor experiences through categories like visual arts and history. These features enhance cultural exploration, enabling users to discover 'live moments' and lesser-known sites via Android and iOS.

🛫 S4BT launches Trevium, a unified financial infrastructure for business travel, enhancing payment, invoicing, VAT, and reporting processes. Trevium integrates seamlessly with existing systems through its modular API-first architecture, allowing S4BT clients immediate access without additional registration. CEO Ziad Minkara emphasizes the importance of mastering travel flows. The platform reduces manual data entry, improves data quality, enhances compliance, and integrates sustainability data for CO₂ reporting, aligning with CSR and European regulations.