Categorizing…

NEW YORK, NY — April 27, 2026 — Lake.com, the vacation rental marketplace dedicated exclusively to stays and experiences by the water, today announced it has surpassed 75,000 properties across more than 10,000 destinations throughout North America and Europe — a milestone that represents a doubling of its inventory in just 90 days. The platform, which charges no booking or service fees to guests, is on track to reach two million visitors in 2026 as demand for waterfront travel continues to grow. Why This Milestone Matters Now Waterfront travel is no longer a niche category. Families, remote workers, and outdoor travelers are increasingly choosing lake houses, cabins, and coastal cottages over hotels and resort packages — drawn by privacy, space, proximity to nature, and the ability to drive rather than fly. At the same time, the way people plan those trips has fundamentally changed. Travelers are turning to AI tools to answer specific, intent-driven questions long before they open a booking platform: where can I find a quiet lake house with a dock near Toronto, or which cabin destinations are good for families with dogs in the Smokies? Lake.com is built to meet travelers at that earlier moment — during inspiration, not just at checkout. The platform structures its listings, destination content, and search experience to directly answer the kinds of questions travelers are now asking AI systems, making it increasingly visible in AI-generated travel recommendations. What Lake.com Is Doing Differently Lake.com is not a general vacation rental aggregator. Every property on the platform is a stay by or near the water: a lake house in the Finger Lakes, a cabin at Broken Bow Lake, a cabin on Lake Tahoe , a cottage in Muskoka . That focus is deliberate. Rather than competing across every lodging category, the company has built deep, destination-specific coverage of the lakes, rivers, and coastal towns where families actually want to be. The platform also takes a distinct position on pricing. Guests see the nightly rate and any host-set fees — no platform surcharge added at checkout. For hosts, standard listings are free, and optional paid memberships offer Featured placement, direct booking tools, and reduced commission structures for those who want more control over their marketing and economics. "Travelers don't start with dates and filters anymore," said David Ciccarelli, Founder and CEO of Lake.com. "They start with curiosity — a feeling, a question, a wish for something quieter and closer to nature. Lake helps them move from 'Where should we go?' to 'Let's book by the water.' Building for that moment, and for the AI tools that now answer those questions, is what this growth is about." Stephanie Ciccarelli, Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer, added: "AI search is becoming the front door to vacation planning. When a family asks an AI assistant where they can find a lake house with a private dock, Lake.com is there with a clear, helpful answer. We've built the platform to work that way by design." Key Facts at a

For many independent luxury hotels, a meaningful share of bookings arrives through intermediary platforms that charge commission on the revenue they generate. The exact cost varies by market, contract, participation level, and channel mix. The strategic issue is not the exact percentage. It is the structural condition underneath it. The hotel controls the experience. The platform controls the introduction. That gap, between who controls the introduction and who controls the experience, is one of the most consequential strategic problems in independent luxury hospitality. It is not a marketing problem. It is not a channel problem. It is not a technology problem. It is a demand origin problem. And the industry has been misdiagnosing it for twenty years. What the Industry Got Wrong About OTA Dependence The standard diagnosis of OTA dependence goes something like this. Hotels became too reliant on third-party platforms for bookings. The solution is to invest in direct booking channels, improve website conversion, run better loyalty programs, optimize metasearch, and reduce OTA commission expense over time. That diagnosis is not wrong. It is incomplete in a way that makes it expensive. It treats OTA dependence as a distribution problem. Hotels are distributing too much inventory through expensive channels and not enough through cheap ones. The solution is channel rebalancing. Move more bookings to the direct channel. Reduce the commission line. Improve the margin. The channel rebalancing strategy produces measurable improvements. Direct booking share rises. Commission expense falls. Revenue management teams report progress. Ownership groups see the numbers move. And yet the structural condition persists. The hotel still does not know who its next guest is until that guest has already been introduced to the competitive landscape by someone else's system. The hotel still competes for attention after the comparison has begun. The hotel still funds the intermediary's growing intelligence about its own demand with every transaction it processes. The channel has changed. The structural condition has not. This is not a critique of the executives who implemented these strategies. The channel rebalancing logic is correct as far as it goes. The problem is that it does not go far enough upstream. It addresses where the booking is fulfilled. It does not address where the guest relationship is actually formed. A hotel that does not govern demand origin cannot answer three questions before a booking occurs: Who is considering us right now and why. Who introduced us into that consideration set. Which system learned from that consideration process and accumulated the intelligence from it. If those three questions have no answer inside the property, the hotel is operating downstream of the point where its structural position is actually determined. Rising direct booking share does not resolve this condition. A booking that arrives through the direct channel after originating in a metasearch comparison, a Google Hotel Ads click, or an AI-assisted recommendation is a direct transaction. It is not owned demand. The distinction between where a booking is completed and where the guest relationship originated is the distinction the

Lodging Econometrics reports the U.S. construction pipeline closed Q1 2026 at 6,020 projects and 705,825 rooms, with the luxury segment hitting record highs. Hilton will debut eight luxury and lifestyle brands in new Asia Pacific markets this year, with more than 15 additional entries planned through the rest of 2026. Monday's content traces a clear line through the day's most important developments. AI is now mediating discovery in ways that compress hotel visibility down to a handful of slots, while the U.S. construction pipeline holds steady at the high end and Hilton accelerates a luxury and lifestyle push across Asia Pacific. Beneath those headlines, a Duetto and Meliá partnership signals where revenue management for resorts is heading, and a podcast on cutting OTA reliance shows what the alternative path looks like in practice. AI Assistants Now Cap Hotel Recommendations at Fewer Than Five AI systems like ChatGPT now return fewer than five hotel options for most user queries, a hard ceiling that turns hotel visibility into a structured-data problem rather than a content one. Agent Engine Optimization, or AEO, is emerging as the discipline of making sure a property's information is parseable and consistent across every channel an AI agent might pull from. The piece argues that hotels not coded for AI consumption simply will not appear in the answer set, regardless of how strong their human-facing marketing is. The companion piece from Not Done Weekly extends the argument into an operational framework. It offers a five-step method for analyzing hotel roles to identify where AI agents can take work off the team, paired with a vendor guide spanning guest engagement, voice AI, and revenue management categories. Read together, the two pieces define the work hotels need to do this year: get the data layer right so AI assistants can find you, and figure out which internal roles AI agents should be embedded into. Read the analysis → U.S. Construction Pipeline Closes Q1 at 6,020 Projects, Luxury Hits Record High Lodging Econometrics reports the U.S. hotel construction pipeline closed the first quarter of 2026 at 6,020 projects and 705,825 rooms, with strong conversion activity and new development project totals across the quarter. The luxury segment reached record highs, an unusual position given how capital-intensive luxury construction is. Forecast supply growth for 2026 sits at 1.4%, a number that suggests the pipeline is holding rather than overheating. The composition matters as much as the totals. A pipeline weighted toward luxury and conversions points to operators choosing yield over volume, with brands and owners preferring upscale repositioning and high-end new builds over mid-scale expansion. For markets already running tight on luxury inventory, the implication is more competitive supply over the next three to four years rather than an immediate flood. Read the analysis → Hilton Adds Eight Luxury and Lifestyle Brand Entries Across Asia Pacific Hilton will debut eight of its luxury and lifestyle brands in new Asia Pacific markets this year, with more than 15 additional brand entries planned for the

Learn how independent hotels can increase direct bookings and reduce reliance on online travel agencies (OTAs) with Sleeping Bear Hotels and Formula. Discover actionable strategies that can help direct bookings thrive in a competitive market. In today’s competitive hotel landscape, many independent hotels struggle with high reliance on online travel agencies (OTAs) for bookings. This reliance cuts into profits significantly, often leading to frustration for hotel owners. With Tudor Hopkins, founder, Sleeping Bear Hotels and Adam Hamadache, CEO and Founder, Formula – digital growth agency for hotels we explore how Sleeping Bear Hotels successfully reduced their OTA dependency and increased direct bookings. Understanding the Impact of OTA Reliance. Sleeping Bear Hotels, highlights that when he took over, the hotel was generating 60% of its bookings through OTAs. This reliance not only affected profit margins but also reduced the ability to engage directly with guests. High OTA commissions severely impact profitability. By shifting focus to direct bookings, hotels can keep more revenue in-house and build stronger relationships with guests. Tudor’s journey started with a shift in business model, removing unprofitable services and focusing solely on room bookings. He streamlined operations, which allowed for better pricing strategies and increased occupancy rates. The Role of Partnerships in Driving Revenue. Sleeping Bear Hotels took an innovative approach by partnering with local restaurants and attractions.

Harman's throwaway stat — that 56% of a front desk agent's shift is administrative — is actually a framework in disguise. Every role in your hotel is some blend of three buckets, and until you've decomposed the roles, every AI conversation you have is premature. Here's a five-step exercise you can run this week on a single role. The Three Buckets (memorize these) Administrative / Transactional — data entry, system clicks, reconciliation, templated emails, report pulling, rate loading. Rules-based, repeatable. AI eats this. Interpersonal / Judgment — reading a guest, coaching a teammate, negotiating a group, making a comp call, defusing complaints, overriding the system. AI amplifies this. Physical — stripping rooms, plating food, walking a VIP, fixing a leak, setting a ballroom. AI doesn't touch this YET (key word being “yet”). Step 1 — Pick the Role (15 minutes) Don't start with front desk. Everyone's starting there. Pick a role where you genuinely don't know the admin percentage. Good candidates: reservations agent, revenue manager / analyst, group sales coordinator, night auditor, AP / AR clerk, recruiter or HR coordinator, catering sales manager. Step 2 — Capture a Full Shift (1 shift, 1 day) Pick one of three methods based on what's realistic: shadow them (sit next to the person for one full shift with a notebook, log what they're doing every 15 minutes), have them self-log (give them a one-page template with 15-minute blocks and ask them to jot one line per block — tell them why: this is about designing their role for the next 3 years, not evaluating them), or pull system logs (for digital-heavy roles like reservations, revenue, accounting, pull the clickstream or system activity for one representative day). Step 3 — Bucket Every 15-Minute Block Go through the shift log and tag each block: A = Administrative/Transactional, I = Interpersonal/Judgment, P = Physical, W = Waiting / idle / context switching (track this separately — it's often 10-15%). Add up the percentages. Write them down. Step 4 — Interrogate the Admin Bucket For every admin task in Bucket A, ask four questions: Is this task rules-based (same inputs → same outputs every time)? Is this task pattern-repetitive (happens multiple times per shift or week)? Does this task require data that already lives in a system (PMS, CRS, RMS, CRM, email)? Would removing this task reduce guest or owner experience? If the first three are yes and the fourth is no → that task is AI-addressable today. Circle it. That's your automation backlog for that role. Step 5 — Answer the Repositioning Question This is the step almost everyone skips, and it's the one that matters most. For the hours you'd free up, answer: If this role got 30% of its time back, what would I want them doing instead? Does that new activity drive revenue, loyalty, or retention? Can I measure whether they're actually doing it? Does the person in the role have the skills to do the higher-value work — and if not, what

Shot by Cameron Hammond at Aethos Mallorca, featuring Stella Maxwell, Bruna Lirio and Aleksa Gavrilovic, the cinematic campaign explores a more playful and less conventional approach to luxury hospitality The concept is brought to life through a pop-up in Milan (6–10 May), alongside a limited-edition coffee table book and programming across all Aethos destinations Aethos, the next generation of experience-led boutique hotels and private members’ clubs, unveils the second chapter of its brand campaign, “The Rules Are Different Here” . Shot by renowned photographer Cameron Hammond at Aethos Mallorca, the campaign continues to challenge the conventions of traditional hospitality through a fun-spirited and rebellious approach to luxury. The campaign mirrors the rhythm of a stay at Aethos. Featuring Stella Maxwell, Bruna Lirio and Aleksa Gavrilovic, it captures cinematic moments unfolding across the hotel and its surroundings — from room to pool, spa, boat and beach. The narrative follows the characters as they move through these spaces, discovering experiences along the way and offering an immersive perspective on the Aethos way of staying. In one scene, Stella and Bruna appear beneath the surface of the pool, dressed for the evening rather than the water. It’s a playful moment that blurs the lines between time, place and expectation. In another, the spa becomes less about relaxation and more about switching off and being on your own terms. This second chapter builds on our first campaign in Sardinia. It captures a feeling: moments when people are lighter, freer and less defined by routine. It’s not about literal scenes, but about the spirit of letting go and stepping outside the everyday Lily Wecker, CEO of Aethos The concept extends into a pop-up in Milan , located at Corso Garibaldi 83, from 6–10 May, offering a physical entry point into the Aethos world. Designed in collaboration with Burro Studio, the space invites guests to engage with the brand through a series of interactive moments and the chance to win stays and selected prizes. The programme continues at Aethos Milan throughout the week, with a series of events and gatherings open to the public that connect the campaign to the property’s rhythm and its private members’ club community. Participants can expect a series of rule-bending experiences, from wellbeing sessions such as Gua Sha yoga and mixology classes to a running club and cinema nights — all under the banner of “The Rules Are Different Here” — culminating in the biggest standout headline event on Saturday, 9 May. The activation is supported by Martini, Cafezal Milano, Manduka, NOAM, Resør, The Doping and Woods Copenhagen, each contributing to different aspects of the programme in line with Aethos’ focus on well-being, culture and connection. Aethos also introduces a limited-edition coffee table book featuring previously unreleased photography from shoots in Aethos Mallorca and Aethos Sardinia. Copies will be shared with select partners and collaborators, with a limited number available across Aethos destinations. The release is accompanied by a capsule T-shirt collection , available in hotel shops and online. Starting in

Property developer files revised proposals for 122-bedroom site to complete regeneration of historic city centre location

OK, we might subcategorize into whether the former are traveling with colleagues or alone., or whether the latter have brought their family or friends. And we might look at seasonality and local events, and their effect on whether they’re using your hotel as the focus of their activities or just a convenient base. But we miss out when we forget to consider – and therefore market to and cater for – guests that don’t fit into these convenient buckets but do have other things in common. We’re talking about the likes of s ocial, m ilitary, e ducational, r eligious and f raternal groups. Conveniently, there’s a handy acronym for this type of guest, which you’ve no doubt worked out: SMERF. Hold that word in your head, because the SMERF market isn’t insignificant, and this’ll help you with your strategy to capitalize on an often neglected demographic, one that epitomizes the opportunities of group business and maximizing occupancy. Key takeaways SMERF stands for Social, Military, Educational, Religious, and Fraternal groups that represent a significant but often overlooked hotel market segment beyond traditional business and leisure travelers. SMERF groups typically travel during off-peak seasons and offer high booking reliability due to strong emotional investment in their organizations and events, making them valuable for maximizing occupancy during slower periods. Hotels can attract SMERF business by offering group booking discounts, providing tailored amenities like themed meals and shuttle services, and marketing around special occasions and recurring events. These groups include diverse examples such as family clan gatherings, military units on shore leave, student bands and sports teams, religious pilgrimages, and fraternal organizations like college sororities and fraternities. Data-driven insights through business intelligence tools help hotels identify SMERF demand patterns, track local events, and develop targeted pricing and marketing strategies for these group bookings. SMERF groups often have strong bonds and recurring annual events, creating opportunities for hotels to establish long-term relationships and repeat business once they successfully serve these communities. Real-world examples of SMERFs While SMERFs shouldn’t be treated as one amorphous blob, and each group needs the personal touch , they do have much in common in terms of your broad marketing approach. So let’s take a moment to establish exactly who they are. Social groups Social groups can be defined by a common interest or affiliation, familial or otherwise, and very strong bonds, ones that often lead to yearly reunions. The examples we could give are virtually infinite but two that caught our eye while researching this article were: This Scottish family clan gathering in Texas , who met for the 61st year running in 2022 These go-kart racers who travel to Super Nationals in Vegas every year Organizations like these are less governed by the conventional cycles of the hotel industry, often traveling instead at times marketing an anniversary or But once they’ve set a date, they need accommodation and they often need it in bulk, ideally at the same property. Military groups Broadly speaking, the military can be broken

IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG), one of the world’s leading hotel companies, announces its partnership with PAYBACK , Germany’s leading consumer loyalty programme with more than 35 million customers. The collaboration introduces a new way for German guests to earn rewards when staying at any of IHG’s 7,000+ hotels worldwide. The partnership strengthens the value of IHG One Rewards by connecting hotel stays with PAYBACK’s everyday rewards ecosystem - one of the most widely used loyalty platforms in Germany. For IHG One Reward members based in Germany, the partnership offers greater flexibility and value beyond travel rewards. Members can choose how they earn rewards when staying at participating IHG hotels around the world, by selecting either IHG One Rewards points or PAYBACK points as their earning preference within the IHG One Rewards app or IHG.com . PAYBACK points earned through hotel stays can be redeemed across PAYBACK’s extensive network of retail, grocery and lifestyle partners. We’re delighted to announce our partnership with PAYBACK, one of Germany’s most trusted loyalty programmes. It strengthens the importance of the German market to IHG and enables us to engage German travellers in a more relevant and personalised way. Beyond traditional travel rewards, the collaboration delivers added value for guests, boosts visibility for our owners, and highlights the strength of IHG’s masterbrand in building high‑value, market‑centric partnerships that drive growth Mario Maxeiner, Managing Director, Northern Europe at IHG Hotels & Resorts With IHG Hotels & Resorts, we are gaining a strong global partner with many popular brands that perfectly complement our travel offerings. At the same time, we’re demonstrating just how powerful our platform is. With PAYBACK, we bring a total of 700 strong brands together under one roof and offer more than 35 million customers the right offer, at the right time, through the right channel – now also to guests at IHG’s hotel brands such as InterContinental, Kimpton, Holiday Inn and Garner. This enables efficient new customer acquisition, strong engagement of existing guests, and additional booking incentives through personalized campaigns Dominik Dommick, Managing Director at PAYBACK IHG currently operates 190* hotels in Germany and has an additional 52 hotels in development. *Numbers as of 31 December 2025 For more information, please see FAQ’s here