Rapid growth in American Express’s luxury booking platform suggests high-value travelers are consolidating around credit card ecosystems, challenging traditional brand loyalty and forcing a re-evaluation of premium distribution strategies.
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Half Doors, Half Showers, Full Regret
The industry trend toward open-concept bathrooms and partial shower enclosures highlights a growing disconnect between cost-saving design and guest comfort, raising questions about the long-term impact on brand loyalty and satisfaction.
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Asset-Light Is Great… If You’re Not the One Holding the Asset
The widening performance gap between asset-light brands and property owners highlights a growing structural tension in hospitality, as rising capital costs and squeezed margins challenge the long-term viability of the traditional ownership model.
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up (Tourism Edition)
The appointment of a controversial “tourism envoy” adds to growing concerns about U.S. travel perception, as policy, politics, and messaging increasingly shape international demand ahead of major global events.
Code Share for Hotels?
Hilton’s new “Select” platform lets entire hotel brands plug into its distribution and loyalty system, creating a code-share-like model that expands reach while raising questions around brand control and dilution.
Another day, another brand
IHG’s new Noted Collection pushes major hotel brand counts even higher, raising a broader question: are expanding brand portfolios about traveler choice, or a strategy to capture more hotels, fees, and market share?
The Regulators are Sniffing Around Our Comp Sets
Hotel benchmarking tools like STR are facing antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. and UK, raising questions about whether analyzing historical competitor data, or future AI pricing tools, could be viewed as reducing market competition.
Deep Dish, Wrigley Field, and Highest Hotel Taxes
Chicago hotels are backing a tax increase to fund tourism marketing, a move that echoes Hawaiʻi’s TAT history and raises a broader question about why destinations must tax visitors heavily and still fight to fund demand generation.
Payroll as a Percent of Revenue? That’s Cute.
A new industry white paper underscores a structural shift in hotel labor, with permanently elevated wages, persistent turnover, and operating models moving from payroll ratios to cost per occupied room.
Mexico Headlines. What History Says About Recovery.
Recent violence and travel advisories in Mexico highlight how quickly perception can disrupt tourism demand, with recovery hinging on duration, creating competitive implications for Hawaiʻi and other leisure markets.
