Innovation

🏨 In 2025, the hospitality industry sees the integration of 5 major hotel technology trends aimed at enhancing guest satisfaction. These include Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. The article does not provide specific statistics, dates, or locations related to these trends.

🛌 In the hospitality industry, chatbots reduce front desk staff's cognitive load by handling simple guest inquiries, allowing staff to focus on complex questions. A 2024 report shows 70% of hotel guests find chatbots helpful for basic questions but prefer humans for nuanced interactions. Integration issues arise when hotels adopt AI tools without unified structures, risking guest and employee frustration. Successful AI implementation requires employee involvement, training, and feedback. AI can also mine guest data for personalized experiences and operations improvement. Hotels should prioritize ease of AI adoption, employee benefits, and continual re-evaluation to enhance both customer and employee experiences. Author Bob Vergidis is the founder of pointofsale.cloud.

🏨 Sonesta International Hotels Corporation, under CEO John Murray since April 2022, executed 30 franchise agreements in Q3 2024. The Newton, Massachusetts-based company, established in 1937, now boasts nearly 1,100 hotels across 13 brands. Sonesta began franchising in 2021 and plans long-term franchise agreements for 114 hotels post-2025. The company has seen franchise growth double in 2024 compared to 2023, with a pipeline including over 60 hotels. Sonesta recently launched Sonesta Essential Hotels in January 2023, growing to over 20 properties. The MOD Collection by Sonesta opened its first U.S. location in Houston with 120 rooms, while the loyalty program Sonesta TravelPass has nearly seven million members post-relaunch in 2024.

📈 Hanson Li, managing partner at Salt Partners, will share insights on back-of-house technology at MURTEC 2025. Salt Partners, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, develops and invests in the F&B industry and tech ventures. The company oversees various ventures, including Michelin-starred Saison and casual dining like Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream and Lazy Susan. Learn more about MURTEC 2025 at MURTEC.com.

🚀 Sabre Corporation has partnered with Garuda Indonesia, providing fare management solutions to enhance the airline's pricing capabilities and operations. Garuda aims to support its transformation strategy and tackle fare management challenges. Sabre's Fares Manager, Contract Manager, and Fares Optimizer will assist in revenue growth, pricing strategy optimization, and real-time fare adjustments. Garuda operates domestically and internationally and joins over 30 airlines using Sabre's technology.

🌍 European travellers spending €775 on average for weekend trips during winter, with daily expenses reaching €320. Data from Speakspots.com, analyzing over 5,000 travel plans from 15 November 2024 to 15 February 2025, indicates winter city breaks are €121 cheaper than summer. Accommodation costs average €150 per night, with €97 on food and €72 on activities per day. Over half of winter trips are weekends, while 55% are short stays. Northern European countries attract family trips, with 40% of travellers seeking nature experiences, especially in Croatia, Malta, and Greece.

✈ Air New Zealand passengers can now use Apple's ‘Find My’ feature to track lost luggage with an AirTag. Launched in the Air NZ app in September 2023, the service allows both airline and passengers to use a live location link to find delayed or mishandled bags. The airline's Chief Digital Officer, Nikhil Ravishankar, highlights the added security this provides. Users can generate a location link from the Find My app and share it with the Baggage Tracing team for updated location tracking with timestamps.

💥 On New Year's Day at Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded, resulting in one fatality and seven injuries. Authorities, including Sheriff Kevin McMahill, are investigating but have not confirmed the explosion's cause. Elon Musk suggested fireworks or a bomb in the vehicle, and The Washington Post reported Musk donated $277 million to Republicans in 2024. A related recall in December affected 700,000 Tesla vehicles, including Cybertrucks, due to a tire pressure issue.

🏖 Global travel gross bookings to rise from $1.6 trillion in 2024 to $1.72 trillion in 2025. Online gross bookings forecasted to hit $1.0 trillion in 2024 and $1.2 trillion by 2026, accounting for nearly 65% of total bookings. U.S. travelers in 2024 preferred domestic travel, while Europeans favored international trips. Phocuswright's report offers detailed insights into the global $1.61 trillion travel market, covering market sizing, trends, consumer behavior, technology, sustainability, payments, and funding.

💻 Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, proposed a future with enterprise software comprising AI-powered chatbots at Nvidia's GTC in March 2024. Nvidia overtook Apple as the most valuable company in October 2024. Klarna, a fintech firm, cut ties with Salesforce and Workday in August 2024 to focus on AI automation. SaaS/PaaS for travel jumped to over 12% of all travel-related funding in 2023. Phocuswright's June 2024 report "True Automated AI in Travel Is Coming" discussed the rise of autonomous agents. OpenAI launched a more advanced AI model series, o1, in September 2024.