Innovation

🎁 87% of shoppers plan to spend the same or more during the 2025 holiday season, driven by higher prices rather than confidence. 66% have adopted generative AI recently; 46% will use AI tools for Black Friday. Heavy AI users report a 70% reduced need to contact customer service. In travel, 36% use airline AI, and nearly 60% are comfortable with AI-led planning. The survey, conducted in Aug-Sept 2025, polled 7,500 shoppers across ten countries.

📅 Younger professionals dominate corporate travel, with Gen Z and Millennials seeking wellness and sustainability. By 2030, Gen Z will add over one billion to the workforce, preferring hotels with gyms and co-working spaces. Research shows two-thirds of UK Gen Z value sustainability, compared to 34% of Baby Boomers. Adaptation is key, as BWH Hotels saw a 19% increase in events. Initiatives like Planners Advantage and wellness options at UK hotels support evolving needs.

📈 Lighthouse and HotelSpeaker's partnership boosts hotel profitability and loyalty. Lighthouse's AI platform increases user revenue by 19% and saves 10 hours monthly through smart pricing and operations automation. HotelSpeaker enhances booking rates by up to 24% with multilingual, personalized guest interactions, improving team efficiency by 2.5×. Independent hotels benefit from combined services at preferential rates, optimizing booking management and guest engagement. Lighthouse serves over 70,000 hotels in 185 countries, offering real-time data and market insights.

🤖 AI is reshaping hotel operations globally. Pertlink Limited, founded on October 23, 2000, in Hong Kong, offers a blueprint emphasizing five pillars for AI integration: strategy, empowerment, clean data, disciplined pilots, and guest impact measurement. The guide aims to merge high tech with hospitality's human touch, avoiding common pitfalls. Pertlink's expertise helps hotels enhance guest experiences through technology, serving as a global leader in hospitality IT consulting.

📊 In 2025, sales leadership is shifting dramatically. Traditional obedience to "proven" strategies no longer works due to changing customer demands and economic uncertainty. Innovative leaders break norms, focusing on authentic conversations, empowerment, and creativity. For example, a hotel reduced its sales cycle by 30% and improved conversion rates by 18% by adopting virtual meetings and community engagement. Key strategies include questioning defaults, prioritizing humanity, experimenting, empowering trust, and redefining success.

✈️ Tripism, a travel planning platform, is revolutionizing business travel with its AI-powered Smart Itinerary. This tool consolidates flights, hotels, and transport, incorporating company travel programs and personal preferences for tailored travel experiences. CEO Adam Kerr emphasizes that the platform focuses on seamless travel, allowing travelers to focus on their trip's purpose. This innovation aims to deliver effortless and personalized business travel experiences.

💳 Virtual payment company Conferma partners with Modulr, a Visa and Mastercard issuer, in December 2025. This integration allows travel management companies, online travel agencies, and corporate travel programs to issue and manage virtual cards instantly via API, enhancing travel payment efficiency. Modulr provides real-time, secure virtual payments, reducing operational costs and manual reconciliation. The collaboration addresses inefficiencies in B2B travel payments, offering faster onboarding, flexible funding, and modern infrastructure to streamline travel spending.

📱 Dec 12, 2025, at Phocuswright, Rob Ransom of Booking Holdings highlighted a shift from websites to mobile apps as the primary travel interface. He predicts AI and new device formats like wearables will transform discovery and booking. Websites are contracting but not disappearing, with apps handling most interactions. AI assistants will mediate searches, and brand visibility must adapt. Despite changing interfaces, end-to-end service remains crucial for trust and transactions.

🏨 Dec 12, 2025: AI-driven tools are transforming hotel discovery and booking by enhancing personalization and planning. Hotels must adapt by offering richer content and leveraging data. Generative AI reshapes the planning phase, requiring hotels to optimize their visibility and distribution strategies. Despite automation, trust, transparency, and human touch remain crucial for differentiating hotels. Accurate data is critical for AI-powered recommendations, emphasizing the importance of quality information in this evolving digital landscape.

💻 Dec 12, 2025: Major AI companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, collaborate on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), now governed by the Linux Foundation for neutrality. MCP aims to standardize AI communication with external services, enhancing speed, reliability, and accuracy. It could revolutionize hotel operations by allowing AI to manage rates and availability. This open standard supports industry cooperation, security, and could shift web usage towards AI-driven interactions.