Finance, Op Planning & Forecasting

There’s an explosion of talk about AI in hotels, but very little actual application. Or is there? AI has been coming to hotels for a while, but not in the flashy, headline-grabbing way many expect. There won’t be a moment when a chatbot takes over the front desk or a robot manages your F&B logistics overnight. Instead, AI is creeping into every corner of hotel operations in small, incremental ways. Quietly. Invisibly. Often without anyone calling it AI at all.

Investors have read the situation correctly. In a turbulent real estate market, hotel assets still stand tall — in fact, they outperform. Week after week, I see it clearly on the ground. Ambition on one side, caution on the other, yet a shared conclusion: hospitality outshines other asset classes.

Despite global economic pressures, both business and leisure travel continue to grow, with global tourism rising five percent in the first six months of 2025. Amidst that growth, the sector is becoming increasingly competitive as more destinations seek to boost their economies and create jobs through tourism.

Undoubtedly one of the oldest commercial activities in the world, hospitality has constantly reinvented itself, sometimes simply by returning to its roots. During its expansion phase, it initially relied on new standardised concepts, seeking to respond in scale to the ever-increasing growth in travel accompanying the urbanisation of the Baby Boomers. Then it remembered the days when the inn was the centre of the village, the expression of local life and a meeting place for different generations and cultures.

The final U.S. hotel performance forecast of 2025 is in – and it’s not the news many hoped for. According to the latest from CoStar and Tourism Economics, both 2025 and 2026 projections have again been downgraded across occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR, signaling a tougher environment ahead.

Over the past several years, H&LA has seen increased interest from hotel owners, operators, and developers seeking ways to maximize the value of underutilized areas within their properties. As competition intensifies and guest expectations evolve, hotels recognize that unused or inefficient spaces represent an opportunity to enhance the guest experience, improve operational flow, and generate incremental revenue.

HITEC is the largest hospitality technology show in the world. I began attending the show when I was an undergraduate student majoring in hospitality. The size and scope of the HITEC show, with more than 6,000 annual attendees, was impressive. Perhaps my favorite piece of the show was Guestroom 20x.

As we move toward 2026, the conversation around property-management systems (PMS) has evolved from functionality to philosophy. No longer is it enough for a PMS to handle check-ins, manage housekeeping, or reconcile payments. Today, the system at the heart of a hotel must serve as the operational nucleus connecting every touchpoint of the guest journey and every department behind it. The hotels leading the charge are those that have embraced the all-in-one PMS model, a unified platform built to empower efficiency, enhance revenue, and future-proof operations.

Earlier this month, ChatGPT launched Apps, a new way for brands to show up in AI conversations. And I mean show up everywhere. When the iPhone App Store launched in 2008, it reached 6 million users. ChatGPT Apps launched to 800 million users. That’s 133 times larger, on day one.

India’s hospitality industry is waking up to a silent pollutant: "Plastic". While many hotel chains are still searching for alternatives, Club Mahindra has already turned sustainability into action. Partnering with WAE, the brand has installed in-house Glass Bottling Plants (GBPs) across its resorts systems that purify, bottle, and reuse glass containers, completely eliminating the need for single-use plastic bottles.