What are the top of mind items in an industry that just came out of the biggest disruption in history? What news are they clicking on and what news is available for them to read? Can we read some patterns in this or is it just the same mess as the entire pandemic was?

Here’s the analysis of 2022’s media headlines and what has been occupying the minds, or at least the clicks of the hotel industry.

Key takeaways:

• General trends of “what’s next in” is the most read topic, hoteliers are searching for easy answers to their problems, and the media platforms still love click-bait.

• Innovation and Technology type news ranked 3rd most interesting topic. It confirms the rumors and opinions that hotels really are searching for new tech in the post-pandemic world.

• Direct revenue was back as a hot topic after having been slipping for several years before the pandemic. Together with Revenue Management and Distribution these topics took 14% of reader attention.

• OTAs were absent from all lists, news about them, news from them, staying eerily silent after the pandemic. No big moves, or announcements grabbed hotelier interest.

• Airbnb took advantage of other OTA silence and was the most mentioned distribution platform in the news being the number one brand in 2022.

• Brand mentions went from 50% of the top articles of 2019, to a mere 15% in 2022

The Hot Topics

An optimistic look forward

That large industry trends were top of mind is not a surprise, it is easy to understand that “breaking news” had been the top of mind for the prior few years with the COVID pandemic that the trade media was not going to add to it. Besides there are enough 24h news channels on loop for those kind of news.

It does show the interest for more positive news from trade medias.

Some attention did go to World Affairs, because media still do need clicks and without the latest political commentary many media feel like their aren’t doing their jobs.

Interestingly Innovation and Technology was the third highest ranking topic showing that there really is interest from the industry in renewal and improvement. The rumors of the many hotels that used the pandemic to effect large system changes might be true after all.

More importantly it shows that there is serious intent to at least learn about improving technology.

Direct came back

Surprisingly Direct Revenue came back with a vengeance. Surprisingly because after a crisis hotels are usually not picky about reservation source, they’re mostly trying to ensure some reservations happen. But with the re-opening coming so quick and the pent-up demand filling hotels up at high ADRs hotels became picky and they when they can be picky, they want direct. After many years of becoming a non-subject, it is great to see it coming back.

But I’m not sure the old model of “book on website” is really going to add value in the long run, it might be time to really re-think how direct becomes more than just a booking engine link. Maybe, social bookings within new platforms, proper email, chat, phone based bookings that make life faster rather than slower (most chat booking solutions are useless).

This is an opportunity to really push the direct booking category forward.

Sustainability is gaining traction

Incredibly, sustainability never was top of mind in the hotel marketing and media space, it wasn’t for lack of people writing about it - there was always a lot of that - but those articles just never got a lot of readership. In 2022 this changed and 7% of topics most read were related to Sustainability. A topic we’re likely to see more of, especially with current energy, staffing and supply chain constraints.

Guest Experience and Design

Hotels are guest experience animals, or at least they should be. The really good hotels are known for putting their guests front and center for everything they do, be it interior design, F&B or just staff training. It is the raison d’etre for the hospitality industry. But as I’ve written in many places for a few years now. Since tech became the middle-man in almost all guest interactions, hotels got confused. And it seems some hotels are starting to see how to do better now. With topics like digital transformation starting to make their way to the top of mind.

OTA’s have been pretty low-key

As is more obvious in the “Top Brands” section below. OTAs have been keeping a pretty low-profile in 2022. Expedia is going through their own rebuild, but Booking could have grabbed more headlines, even the others. During the pandemic and notably the UEFA European Cup, Booking were quite active in brand advertising, and instead of helping the industry find ways to generate safe travel solutions during a difficult time, they focused on brand building which was a little off. But now that travel is back, they stayed out of the headlines.

Top Brands

One of the key takeaways in the top brands of hotel media is that brand news was much less prominent than previous years. In 2019 exactly 50% of the top articles mentioned one of the top brands in hotel and travel space. In 2022 only 15% of the headlines mentioned one of the brands. As mentioned above, Booking and Expedia - two of the big names - had almost no mentioned. Google had only a single mention and yes they’re one of the big brands in travel.

This left a lot of room for Airbnb to pick up headlines. Airbnb which is also one of the few brands that has managed to navigate the pandemic quite well. With a product that could adapt for the changes in travel behaviour and a CEO who wasn’t shy to speak up about how they found success.

They, Airbnb, also have another secret advantage on the rest of the industry, both hotel side and distribution side, they can control and implement technology in a much more agile way. Guests travel with the Airbnb app, wifi and casting are easier to set up. Payments and check-in are already all being done online, including guest communications. This latter “secret” advantage is something hotels and OTAs are having a hard time catching up with. I wouldn’t discount this advantage, the traditional hospitality industry is still considering how to integrate technology – Airbnb is working out how to scale solutions in totally new ways.

In Summary

The shift in hotel media stories and interests compared to 2019 is quite a change. The impact the pandemic had on hotels is undeniable, but what was it really? A shift to new priorities? Going directly to direct revenue optimizing (usual crises revert to more OTAs)? It is hard to put a finger on a single big shift. There seems to be more optimism and more interest in looking to the future. Maybe the biggest shift is that the shock to the system has made a lot of hotels realize that change is coming and it’s time to get ready for it. And if that’s true - then it is a very positive thing for everyone including the guests.

Methodology

This analysis is done by categorising all the most read articles according to some of the most read media in the hospitality industry. This year the top 150 articles were gathered from Skift and HospitalityNet, two very different sources but which command the highest readership in the industry. Only the titles are used for the analysis, not the content since the titles are (most likely) what initiated the click and for this analysis we’re only interested in measuring what captured the interest of the readers, not what they read or thought about it.