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During our customer service workshops, we do an exercise we call the Moment of Misery™ Grid. The short version is that participants are asked to write down all the complaints they hear and how often they hear them. We then list them in order, with the most common complaints at the top.

The complexity introduced by digital platforms, cloud, and digitised systems, isn’t a sign of failure or lack of planning. It comes down to how platforms have struggled to keep pace with the speed at which business operations are changing. The converging forces of AI disruption, the volatility of global economies, geopolitical shifts and increased pressures on the regulatory and environmental fronts are forcing companies into a state of continuous reinvention. Over the past two years, enterprise leaders aren’t asking whether cloud and AI matter, but rather what they can implement that will reduce friction across the business while still keeping it ahead.

You have approved every request for new sales automation systems, because salespeople report being overwhelmed with inbound leads. Now RFPs are responded to promptly, just like all those hotel technology salespeople said was the number one way to close more bookings. You’ve added AI-powered drip campaigns so that all buyers receive so-called “personalized” follow-ups.

Japan’s accommodation industry is thriving in 2025: strong business results, rising investments, and ambitious workforce plans underline optimism across the sector. From AI adoption to training initiatives, the industry is tackling challenges with innovation and energy – poised for continued growth nationwide.

The travel industry has spent years trading opinions about what AI will do to planning and booking. No more hypotheticals. New research by TakeUp, The Rise of AI Planned Travel in 2026, based on a survey of 300 US leisure travelers, shows the shift is already influencing real booking behavior: 78% of travelers who use AI say they’ve booked travel primarily based on an AI recommendation.

As a hotelier, you know that first impressions matter. And in 2026, your website is your virtual front desk. But is it doing enough to convert visitors into paying guests? If your website isn’t optimised for speed, ease of use, and direct bookings, you could be handing revenue straight to OTAs.

Luxury has always presented a paradox for ambitious businesses: the more popular something becomes, the less special (and therefore, luxurious) it feels.

Next week, hospitality industry leaders, including investors, owners, lenders, developers, management and brand executives and the like will travel to Los Angeles to attend ALIS, the world’s leading and most influential hotel investment conference. While there, discussions will not debate whether AI matters. That conversation is over. The new question is where capital should be deployed in relation to AI and what kind of return investors should realistically expect.

Every revenue manager knows the frustration: performance drops unexpectedly, pickup slows, or ADRs fluctuate without a clear reason. The system shows you what changed, but it doesn’t show why. And to find out, you’re bouncing between PMS reports, spreadsheets, and legacy dashboards, trying to make sense of disconnected data.

In hospitality, time is everything. And yet, too much of it is spent on the wrong things. Admin overload, repetitive reporting, fragmented systems… it all adds up. That’s where automation steps in, not to replace people, but to give them back time, so they can connect, think, serve. In this article, I want to share what we’re seeing in the field: the real impact of AI and Automation on hotel teams, and why the future of hospitality is more human than ever.