Author: Admin

The hospitality industry is entering 2026 at a crossroads. Owners and operators are facing a landscape shaped by tightened capital markets, shifting guest expectations, wage escalations, and rapidly evolving technologies. These forces are rewriting the rules of how hotels are led, structured, and staffed. And, they’re redefining what it means to be an effective senior executive.

In the past few months, I’ve been writing and speaking about how trust fits into the customer experience. Trust is earned, and once earned, it results in a customer who has confidence to keep doing business with you. I created a metric, the Customer Confidence Score (CCS), to measure how much a customer trusts you. So, let’s say the customer gives you a 10 on a scale of 1-10. Why do they give you that perfect score? Here are ten reasons why:

Point A Hotel’s Shoreditch hotel has embarked on a full refurbishment, marking the next step in the evolution of the brand’s signature design and guest experience.

Google is preparing to introduce agentic AI tools that can actually book hotels and flights directly within its AI Mode search experience, moving beyond simple trip inspiration and information. Working closely with major hotel and OTA partners like Booking.com, Expedia, Marriott, IHG and Choice, Google aims to deliver more automated, confidence-building booking flows, although no launch date has been set. This push comes as tech giants and leading travel players race to deploy agentic AI, with analysts predicting mature, fully agentic booking experiences within the next two years. While Google already uses AI Mode to handle restaurant, ticketing and appointment bookings, the business model for monetising agentic AI in travel remains unsettled, even as new tools like Canvas offer increasingly powerful, conversational trip-planning capabilities.

Rocco Forte Hotels continues its expansion in Italy and announces the opening of its second hotel in Puglia, Masseria del Cardinale, scheduled to debut in 2028 in Fasano.

During my recent conversation with Emma Catterall, Senior Finance Director at The Belfry, I was reminded that the most powerful transformations in hospitality often occur when technology, people, and place work together in harmony.

Cloudbeds, the leading hospitality management platform powering lodging businesses worldwide, today announced a strategic partnership with IDScan.net, a leader in identity verification and ID scanning technology. The collaboration will deliver fully integrated ID scanning solutions that enhance the guest check-in experience, improve accuracy, and boost operational efficiency for hoteliers.

A new chapter of beauty unfolds for Starhotels Collezione, welcoming Collina d’Oro Resort & SPA into its portfolio. This refined five-star property nestled in a natural oasis just minutes from Lugano is a haven of charm where the slow rhythm of nature meets the art of exceptional hospitality.

In today’s hospitality environment (see our previous article), “do more with less” has become more than a mantra, it’s a structural necessity. Modern workflow automation has reached a mature stage; it’s a practical, proven lever for operational transformation. But for hotel executives, the real question is how to start effectively.

Looking to celebrate the holidays in a way that feels both joyful and environmentally responsible? A few thoughtful choices can make a meaningful difference: