Innovation

💻 CEOs are leveraging AI to boost productivity, as noted in CIO magazine. Gartner predicts 75% of IT tasks will be AI-assisted within five years, urging companies to find new IT value through market expansion and product innovation. Challenges include process change, complexity, and governance, emphasizing the need for careful role analysis and control mechanisms. With agentic AI's rise, enterprise architecture must adapt to ensure technology investments yield expected returns.

📰 IHG acquired Ruby Hotels for €110.5 million in February 2025, involving €109.9 million upfront and a €600,000 deferred payment. Ruby operates 20 hotels (3,483 rooms) across Europe with 10 more (2,235 rooms) planned. IHG targets over 120 hotels in 10 years and faces potential payments up to €181 million by 2035 depending on room growth. By year-end 2025, Ruby aims for US development readiness, with full integration into IHG by March 2026.

💻 High staff turnover is a costly issue in hospitality, often seen as an HR problem. Pertlink's AI Playbook Series, focusing on Workforce Stability, offers assistive AI tools to reduce turnover and maintain service consistency. The plan includes over a dozen AI prompt cards for managers and a phased adoption roadmap, emphasizing ethical use and human judgment. Pertlink, operating since October 23, 2000, from Hong Kong, aids the hospitality sector in leveraging technology effectively.

💻 In a VentureBeat podcast, Booking.com's AI product development lead, Pranav Pathak, discussed how Booking.com utilizes a hybrid AI approach to enhance their services. Their strategy, combining small travel-specific models with larger LLMs, has doubled accuracy in key tasks. They report a 2X improvement in topic detection and a 1.5 to 1.7X increase in agent bandwidth. Focused on personalization, they balance specialized and general agents, aiming for efficient, non-invasive recommendations.

💻 LodgIQ launched AI Wizard, the first fully operational Generative AI platform for hotel revenue management, on December 2025, in Silicon Valley, CA. This platform leverages a multi-model AI architecture to provide natural language insights into revenue opportunities, replacing static dashboards. Key features include "Ask the Wizard," "Daily Glimpse," and "Opportunity Radar," which identifies revenue upsides like a $6,823 opportunity on specific dates. AI Wizard is available immediately, with an additional module, "Get Your Life Back," in development.

💻 LodgIQ launched AI Wizard, the first Generative AI for hotel revenue management. This platform, powered by a multi-model AI architecture, provides context-aware answers to complex hotel data queries. Key modules include "Ask the Wizard" for natural language queries, "Daily Glimpse" for daily performance briefings, and "Opportunity Radar" for future demand analysis, identifying exact revenue upsides, like $6,823 on a specific date. A fourth module, "Get Your Life Back," is in development to further automate tasks.

🍴 Global foodservice enters 2026 with innovation, sustainability, and digital/AI integration challenges. The 2025 Global Foodservice Outlook reveals 20% of businesses avoid sustainability, while digital tools are prevalent, AI lags. Surveying 1,207 businesses from April to July 2025, the report, led by Dr. Carlos Martin-Rios and Julneth Rogenhofer, covers diverse sectors globally. Sustainability scores average 3.3-3.5/5; AI below 3.15/5. Most firms lack AI integration plans, creating a two-speed landscape. Download the report for insights.

📈 In 2025, global hospitality saw significant shifts. Wealthy travelers made up nearly half of U.S. consumer spending, while AI-driven platforms transformed trip planning, with 18% of travelers using chatbots. The U.S. hotel market faced a 7% price drop in July, whereas Asia's market rebounded with a 21% surge in Japan's tourism spend. AI's rise reshaped booking dynamics, and automation tackled labor shortages, underscoring the need for strategic tech adoption.

📒 Since 2011, GCSTIMES, headquartered in five countries including China, US, and France, has provided sustainable solutions in over 140 countries. Their "Hello World" initiative introduces wooden fridge magnets as key cards, crafted from FSC-certified wood. This innovation aligns with ISO 14068 standards, enhancing guest experience while promoting sustainability. Supporting over 100,000 hospitality groups, GCSTIMES integrates technology with cultural preservation through products like GCS and AUROkeys.

🗺️ Multi-day online tours recorded £12.1 billion in revenue in 2024, with expected continued growth in 2025. Adalte, a B2B hub, highlights the closing of the digital breach as a key development, enabling the global distribution of over 5,000 tours online via standardised APIs. Adalte has partnered with 70 Destination Management Companies and 200 Tour Operators in the last 12 months. Despite technology readiness, many players have yet to embrace digital distribution, offering growth opportunities.