Market Trends

🏨 Marriott International announced 291 deals representing over 34,000 rooms in EMEA in 2024, leading to a 7% net rooms growth. The company added 180+ properties and entered Luxembourg, Angola, and Senegal. EMEA pipeline grew to 596 properties with 104,731 rooms, up 10% from the previous year. Denmark, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and the UK had the highest signed deals. Marriott's luxury brands in EMEA will expand to 80+ hotels; Four Points Flex saw 34 signings, and the premium and select service segments also experienced growth. The branded residential segment recorded 11 signings, totaling 72 EMEA locations. Notable openings include Nujuma, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, W Prague, and The St. Regis Al Mouj Muscat Resort.

🏡 In 2024, a&o Hostels reported its best year with 6.2 million overnight stays, 2.8 million guests, and £192.7 million revenue, an increase from the previous year. They expanded with new hostels in Brighton, Antwerp, Brussels, and Florence's a&o Firenze Campo di Marte. The average occupancy rate was 76.6%, and they plan to open a five-story hostel in Heidelberg in late 2026. Group travelers accounted for 38% of guests, 40% of bookings were direct, and 70% of online bookings were through smartphones. The company reduced carbon emissions per overnight stay by 78% over the past decade.

🏦 Hilton will open Sax Paris, the first LXR Hotels & Resorts in Paris, owned by Compagnie de Phalsbourg, in 2023. This luxury hotel in a Belle Époque building offers 118 rooms with Eiffel Tower views, a library bar, Japanese restaurant, and rooftop. Hilton plans 10 new French hotels by 2025, expanding its over 30 French properties and 275 European developments. Sax Paris targets American guests, with prices from €500 to €2,000 per night, ahead of the 2024 Olympics. Hilton competes with Accor in Europe's luxury market.

🏢 Abdul Baaghil, co-founder of Harvest Cotton Tail, discussed culture on March 5, 2025, on the Hospitality Daily Podcast. The episode, supported by Sojern, highlights Sojern's marketing platform for hotels, which aids in re-engaging past guests and boosting direct bookings through a pay-for-performance model. Additional resources and music by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound were mentioned.

🏦 Austria's tourism in 2023/24 sees Vienna and Salzburg as prime spots, with Salzburg at 8,039,706 tourist arrivals and Vienna at 8,033,621. Growth is bolstered by robust hospitality, increased air traffic, and diverse lodgings, with industry events impacting hotel metrics like RevPAR, occupancy, and ADR.

📈 Group business is crucial for hotel revenue, but forecasting for this segment is complex due to larger room blocks, longer booking windows, and unique demand patterns. Traditional models often miss group demand nuances, only incorporating data after confirmation, which can delay true demand insights. Group bookings are prone to fluctuations, with the "wash" factor - rooms not picked up - significantly affecting occupancy and revenue. BlockBuster's machine learning models aim to enhance forecast accuracy by predicting group wash, pipeline conversion, and future business, aiding in demand anticipation and pricing optimization.

😍 Marcel Proust, a novelist known for exploring "involuntary memory," believed simple cues like food or smell can trigger complex memories. Scent marketing, aligning a brand with a signature fragrance, is used by companies to strengthen consumer relationships. For example, Langham Hotels & Resorts' Ginger Flower fragrance embodies its luxury motif. Integra Fragrances CEO Lorenzo Cotti emphasizes staying current with perfumery trends for relevancy. HD Fragrances, partnering with luxury French hotels, created four unique scents for Anantara Plaza Nice over six months. Maison 21G, collaborating with hotels, believes in scent variety for different spaces and local ingredient use. Integra's seasonal scents at Rome Cavalieri and a Christmas fragrance enhance guest experiences. Scent marketing can increase on-site spending and create additional revenue through retail offerings of branded products like candles or perfumes. Integra also designs diffusion systems with air quality sensors, offering guests take-home fragrance collections to extend their experience. Scent marketing allows hotels to establish memorable connections with guests.

;🎵 Abdul Baaghil, co-founder of Harvest Cotton Tail, discusses hiring strategies in a podcast episode supported by Sojern, a marketing platform for hotels. Listeners can engage with Hospitality Daily via YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, or subscribe for daily episode insights. Music for the show is by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound.

🧀 Whipped feta, a creamy variation of feta cheese blended with Greek yogurt and olive oil, has seen a 106% increase in restaurant menu appearances over the past four years. With its Greek origins, this cheese is suitable for Mediterranean cuisines. Though not specified, whipped feta's popularity is most significant among millennials, with 47% of the population aware of it and 20% having tried it. It can be topped with honey, roasted vegetables, and spicy oils, often shared on social media.