TOP NEWS

📈 Between 2022 and 2025, Adobe reported a 35% increase in the cost of acquiring new customers in travel and hospitality, while customer lifetime value grew by 4.5%. Marriott hosted its first "Member’s Day," focusing on direct customer engagement. Guests tested new products, previewed rooms, and provided feedback. Chief Customer Officer Peggy Roe and nearly all of Marriott's C-suite participated. CEO Anthony Capuano aims to transform Bonvoy from a transactional system to an emotional one, emphasizing customer loyalty.

💻 Sébastien Félix, CEO of Influence Society, discusses AI's role in hospitality. Faster design concept development shrinks timelines from ten weeks to two. AI helps hotels personalize at scale by unifying guest data. Marketing teams leverage AI for strategy, letting it handle repetitive tasks. Emotion drives bookings; hotels should build an "emotion stack" of stories and images. The main barrier to AI adoption is cultural, not technical. AI supports staff and enhances service, without replacing the human element.

📈 In 2023, 25–40% of travelers use AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and others for hotel recommendations, leading to a major shift in booking channels. These platforms recommend 2–8 hotels per query, based on web data, reviews, and integrations, although they can't process payments yet. By 2025, AI's role in decision-making is expected to grow, with direct bookings via AI chats predicted by 2027, emphasizing the need for hotels to adapt to AI-readable content and the new MCP standard.

📈 Hospitality leaders in 2025 are tackling technology integration while enhancing service quality. A report titled “The State of Hospitality Tech in 2025” from SkiftX, Sojern, Duetto, and Hospitality Solutions gathers insights from executives at companies like Minor Hotels and Hilton Grand Vacations. The emphasis is on technology as an enabler for modernized systems and improved guest experiences, illustrating the shift from tech as a differentiator to a fundamental part of operations.

🛫 Corporate travel in 2025 sees nuanced growth: 74% of managers plan to expand budgets, down from 80% of smaller companies, while large firms face selective pullbacks. Travel incidence drops to 31% from 36% in 2024. Cost constraints affect 54% of managers, and sustainability is prioritized by 43%. Live events and training drive travel, with corporate compliance remaining strong at 49%. Deloitte emphasizes agility and partnerships to navigate rising costs and shifting priorities.

🤖 Sep 22, 2025, AI impacts hospitality by transforming operations and guest experiences. Success depends on perceptions of empathy, responsibility, and trust. Guests and staff value AI’s human-like qualities. Mistakes require transparency and accountability. Offering choices maintains trust, while personal data sharing is sensitive. AI should support, not replace, staff, enhancing relational service. Effective integration rather than expansion is crucial for trust and human-centered hospitality, as explored in EHL Insights.

📈 Sep 22, 2025, Deloitte's report reveals mixed trends in U.S. business travel spending. Nearly 75% of companies increased budgets by an average of 22% from 2024. Large firms cut spending by 35%, while only 6% of small firms reduced budgets. Rising costs concern 54% of managers, increasing by 6 points. Sustainability limits travel for nearly half of companies, with fewer employees traveling frequently. Strategic oversight of travel is rising at the C-suite level.

💻 Two weeks: Kayak launches natural language search allowing users to input requests like "dog-friendly hotel near a brewery with free parking." This strategic move aims to keep users in the search box, bypassing traditional filters. As AI starts driving bookings, hotels must adapt to this language-first, AI-driven model to remain competitive. Key actions include rewriting direct content, training on AI literacy, implementing AI voice agents, and adopting an AI-native mindset to win in this evolving landscape.

📈 Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky plans to rejuvenate the company. By September 2025, Airbnb's growth slowed to 8-10% in Q3, missing the target of double-digit expansion. Chesky aims to expand by relaunching Experiences, adding boutique hotels with competitive 15.5% commission rates, and targeting growth in underpenetrated international markets. With 70% of business in just five markets, Airbnb seeks to diversify into a multi-business platform with 10-15 distinct offerings by 2026 and beyond.