Cape Town's tourism has grown 92% in overnight foreign visitors since 2015, driven by the CTAA air access programme, with U.S. visitors accounting for 40% of international card spend despite lower volumes.
A hotel finance consultant recounts a sophisticated recruitment scam impersonating a real recruiter, drawing parallels to financial verification discipline in hotel operations.
HITEC day three recap covers E20X startup pitches, candid booth conversations with Oracle, HotelKey, Revinate and Shiji, and a closed-door round table with hotel CIOs and senior supplier executives.
The article argues that direct booking programs fail because hotels optimize for conversion while ignoring upstream demand control, leaving discovery and customer access in the hands of OTAs and paid platforms.
Wednesday closed HITEC 2026 with Marriott launching Ask Bonvoy, a conversational AI search tool for 283 million Bonvoy members, and a first-person recap of the conference finding deep industry consensus on AI's transformative role alongside equally deep disagreement on what it will cost. A sharp argument that WhatsApp is a liability for hotel operations and Revinate's Ivy AI platform launch rounded out a dense final session.
Zenzap CEO Guy Weiss argues that hospitality's reliance on WhatsApp for operations creates data loss, privacy, and security risks, and that purpose-built work communication can cut turnover by up to 50%.
A guide for hotel marketers on adapting email strategy to AI-powered inboxes like Gmail Gemini and Apple Mail, covering deliverability, segmentation, and content optimization.
Behavioral shift toward AI-driven question-and-answer is already complete among consumers, leaving businesses across hospitality, accounting, and healthcare racing to replace dashboards with conversational tools.
Wilhelm Luxem, Head of Quality Commission at Swiss Deluxe Hotels, shares how luxury properties can adopt technology while preserving authentic human connection, drawing on a 50-year career.
HVS analysis of Cleveland's hotel market highlights how leisure growth, convention recovery, and healthcare demand from Cleveland Clinic create a resilient, balanced lodging ecosystem through 2026.
GBTA welcomes the EU's reformed air passenger rights rules, which extend compensation of €250–€600 for delays from three hours, and urges consistent implementation across all Member States.
A first-person recap of HITEC 2026's opening days finds consensus that AI will transform hospitality distribution and operations, but deep disagreement on costs, brand survival, and the role of human staff.
Davidson Hospitality Group's 2026 GM Council includes 11 general managers from across its portfolio, formed to give property-level leaders a voice in shaping corporate initiatives and tools.
Marriott's AI-powered conversational search tool launches in beta on Marriott.com and its mobile apps, with a full global rollout to 283 million Bonvoy members planned later in 2025.
Las Vegas Sands contributed $150,000 to The LGBTQ+ Center of Las Vegas to fund a mobile coffee truck employment program providing job training and housing pathways for 20 housing-insecure youth ages 18-24.
This explainer outlines the principles of MBWA for hotel managers, showing how regular, informal employee interaction builds trust, surfaces operational issues, and reduces turnover.
Shiji's Senior PM details how a 100+ hotel PMS rollout averaging seven properties per day was kept on track through structured governance, dedicated task forces, and onsite intervention when validation fell behind schedule.
The author argues mid-scale hotels need both lightweight AI for revenue optimization and a human-centered "Homestead Culture" to address 70-80% annual frontline staff turnover that technology alone cannot fix.
The author argues that hospitality executives are confusing process automation with genuine human care, and that technology should support backend operations only, never replace front-line human interaction.
U.S. hotels posted a 5.3% RevPAR gain for the week of 31 May–6 June 2026, with Chicago leading Top 25 Markets on a 23.9% RevPAR jump driven by a World Cup send-off match.