Travel & Data Trends

The hospitality industry, particularly in the United States, is at an inflection point. Economic indicators are flashing caution, sentiment is softening, and the easy growth of the past few years is giving way to a more sobering reality. At Horwath HTL, we believe this environment is not one to fear – but one to understand and strategically engage with.

The Baton Rouge lodging market is stabilizing after several years of mixed performance. Record-high ADR and demand tied to industrial projects are helping to balance ongoing occupancy challenges and longstanding supply pressures. Future demand growth will depend on correcting the hotel and event supply issues.

Hotels operating in the MICE market have traditionally been obsessed with processes and churning out proposals. But for hoteliers to Find and Grow the MICE segment, first you need to understand data and market trends to define your identity in this sector. Ultimately, knowing the market demand and your clients translates into a stronger kind of success.

Wellness is no longer just a trend—it’s a movement reshaping industries, and the hospitality sector is no exception. In an era where sustainable self-care and mental health take center stage, global hospitality leader Accor is at the forefront, revolutionizing what it means to truly care for guests. This is not about spa retreats; it’s a paradigm shift that integrates well-being into every element of the guest experience.

It’s inevitable that modern advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation will impact the hotel industry. While much has been rightfully said about use cases like machine learning (ML) impacting personalized guest offers or microsegmentation and generative AI (genAI) helping with contextual marketing or summarization for staff, for this focused article let’s shift gears from the rooms division into the spa and wellness facilities.

As a candidate for the position of Secretary General of UN Tourism, I am honored to support the important work of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre in Jamaica and other parts of the world and contribute to this critical effort with learnings from my own experience. I had the hard job of guiding the tourism industry of Greece through the COVID-19 pandemic as Minister of Tourism and we did that by leveraging the power of data and that excites me to share my vision of a UN Tourism Resilience data centre.

In the lead up to the Future Hospitality Summit Saudi Arabia 2025 next month, we asked several industry partners about the opportunities they see for the hospitaliy industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2025 and beyond.

If there’s one word that defines the current U.S. hotel landscape, it’s uncertainty. As we move into 2025, hoteliers across the country are facing a slew of critical questions: How resilient is demand? Are rising costs here to stay? And most importantly—how can we maintain profitability in a market that feels, well, unpredictable?

Group business represents a significant revenue stream for many hotels, but accurately forecasting this segment can be a formidable challenge. Unlike transient bookings, which are often driven by individual travelers and shorter lead times, group business involves larger blocks of rooms, longer booking windows, and unique demand patterns. These complexities make it difficult to predict group occupancy and optimize pricing strategies.

In the world of hospitality, everyone talks about data – how much you can collect, how fast you can access it, and how many dashboards you can create. But after two decades of working with the most sophisticated data models, I’ve learned something critical: just having the data isn’t enough.