Travel & Data Trends

The annual NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, now in its 46th year, offers a deep dive into the current and future state of the hospitality industry. This year, I had the privilege of leading a CEO panel discussion on "Innovative hospitality concepts, new spaces for expansion."

Transaction volumes in the UK hotel real estate market have significantly increased in the first half of 2024, reaching levels unseen since H1 2015. According to new data from Cushman & Wakefield, this revival saw around £3.9 billion transacted by hotel investors in the first half of the year. Fuelled by several major private equity portfolio deals, half-yearly investment saw a 210% upswing in activity versus the same period in 2023.

With Pittsburgh recently announced as the host city for the 2026 NFL Draft, we take a look at the impact of previous drafts on both the host cities and area hotels.

The global event industry was valued at approximately $890 billion (USD) in 2020 and is projected to reach more than $2 trillion (USD) by 2028.

We’ve witnessed success from hoteliers and hospitality professionals alike who prioritize a data-driven culture. Our Hotel Moment podcast dives into those success stories, and it’s from those conversations that we bring you four tips from industry leaders who have grown their business by prioritizing the data they collect.

Where did all of these robots come from? While hospitality may seem like the last place you might expect to find Artificial Intelligence, this technology has significantly impacted how hoteliers do business. While most generative AI today reacts to text prompts, it will soon rewrite the rules for hotel operations. Properties of all sizes, branded and independent alike, will benefit from automation taking over repetitive, mundane tasks — but our industry often struggles to explain how this will play out in practice.

Despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary policy aimed at controlling persistent inflation, during the first half of 2024, the U.S. economy continued to demonstrate resilience. While strong growth in many subcategories of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) including consumer and government spending, investment, exports, and employment has many optimistic, the economic outlook is tempered by global geopolitical risks including ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East.

Marriott’s new comprehensive travel management system for small and medium businesses has the potential to transform corporate travel management. Read on to know more.

The Shiji Guest Experience Benchmark Report for Q2 2024 offers a comprehensive look into guest satisfaction trends and review dynamics. This report is crucial for hotel operators and technology vendors aiming to enhance their service quality and customer engagement.

Call it bleisure or hybrid travel; then look at emerging segments like the work-from-anywhere digital nomads or workcations. Overall, the hotel industry for the rest of the 2020s will see a demise of the days of wholly separated meeting and events (M&E) and leisure travel segments, giving away to a mixture of the two as travel becomes more experiential and purposeful. It behooves hotels to adjust their commercial strategy and property improvement plan (PIP) to meet this trend, with some guidance from what the Marriott team has observed to help you navigate this great shift.