Innovation - 10 Minutes News for Hoteliers - Page 26

4 min

Guest Post: The future of travel is…

📅 In 2025, a GlobalData survey highlighted that nearly 33% of travelers consider personalisation crucial for travel purchases. AI-driven hyper-personalisation is transforming the industry, with features like eSIMs and real-time itinerary adjustments. Technologies such as deep learning models and conversational tools enhance customer experiences. Collaboration across the travel sector, including in payment methods like Alipay and GrabPay, is vital. The future of travel is predicted to be hyper-personalised, hyper-local, and AI-powered.

2 min

Boom and StayFi announces integration for…

📑 Shahar Goldboim and Arthur Colker announced Boom's integration with StayFi, launched in December 2025. Boom, the AI-powered property management system, partners with StayFi to convert guest WiFi logins into marketing insights. This integration automates guest data processing, enhancing property managers' marketing strategies. In October, Boom secured $12.7 million from Avenue Growth Partners for global growth. The collaboration enhances guest data usage without manual efforts, improving guest communication and boosting revenue.

2 min

Ubico and Acai Travel strategic partnership…

🌐 Ubico, part of World2Meet (W2M), is partnering with Acai Travel to integrate AI into its travel management services. Initially rolled out in Ubico's Microsoft Dynamics-based CRM, the AI-powered Agentic API aims to enhance support efficiency. This partnership, starting in 2026, supports Ubico's strategy of reducing traditional workflows and improving scalable, human-centric service delivery. The initiative is part of a broader group-wide strategy to incorporate AI across W2M's corporate, leisure, and wholesale operations.

Amex GBT Meetings and Events outlook for 2026

📈 Dec 16, 2025, the 2026 Global Meetings & Events Forecast by American Express Global Business Travel reveals the highest industry optimism in five years. Rising costs are the main challenge, despite stable demand and budgets. AI and digital tools enhance engagement, while sustainability and inclusion become vital. Emphasis on engaging experiences and strategic planning rise, with significant regional differences observed. Access the full report [here](https://explorer.amexglobalbusinesstravel.com/rs/346-POJ-129/images/ME-Forecast-2026.pdf?version=0).

Airbnb falls behind peers as revenue and gross booking growth lag

📈 Dec 16, 2025. Airbnb is trailing behind competitors like Booking Holdings, with its revenue and gross bookings growing more slowly. Growth in Airbnb's core accommodation business slowed to single digits, while competitors expanded in hotels and alternative accommodations. Airbnb's focus on experiences, social features, and AI brings execution risks and margin pressures, with increased spending outpacing revenue growth. As EBITDA and net income margins decline, the competitive intensity rises with Booking and Expedia gaining ground.

2 min

Agentic AI’s rise is making the enterprise architect role more fluid

💻 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.

9 min

BHN wrapped 2025: 12 stories that shaped the year

📰 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.

2 min

AI in Hospitality Is Not About Replacing People — It’s About Stabilising the Ones You Have

💻 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.

1 min

Booking.com built agentic AI before ’agents’ existed: Here’s how it scaled with small models for speed, big models for trust

💻 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.

3 min

LodgIQ Launches AI Wizard, Hospitality’s First Generative AI Platform for Revenue Intelligence

💻 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.

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