The year-in-review of hotel media, what was top of mind and who stole the headlines. The annual review is back, in a year of come-back things have shifted a lot. It is clear that what hoteliers have been reading was back to the usual concerns, trends, OTAs and more. A big thank you to hospitality.today and hospitalitynet.com for providing data on the most read articles on their websites.

Note: This article was not produced by AI. The image is of the W Studio City in Macau, photo by Virgile Simon Bertrand. Building by Zaha Hadid Architects. The text was typed by hand (soon that will be a USP) except for the section on the bottom that is marked AI Analysis. That also means that the text might not be perfect.

Key takeaways:

• OTAs came back with a vengeance, between security issues and AI they managed to be in the headlines more than in many years. Interestingly it was less about how to move avay from OTAs than just news of products and technology related to them.

• Business travel should have had its own category, with almost 9% of all articles talking about the return (or lack of) business and corporate travel.

• AI stole the show, between ChatGPT and other AI solutions most companies, OTAs and metasearch channels attempted to capitalize on the latest trend.

• Guest experience, Ancillary revenue, Design is having a come-back moment.

• Covid was avoided like the plague, with no headlines talking about it anymore.

• Security is a growing topic, hacks are making it important unfortunately.

The Hot Topics

Trend spotting remains the main interest

As with the last year, and the years before, looking out for trends remains the main interest for hoteliers. And a good media channel is one that informs about trends which ours seem to do.

THE RETURN OF THE OTA NEWS

OTAs were on top of the news cycle more than in any previous year. Between capializing on new AI trends, to getting hacked and other information they had more than double the mentions of 2018 not to mention last year when direct revenue was getting more attention than OTAs.

This seems to have been an active push by the communications teams of the OTAs, during the pandemic they were very glaringly missing from the scene.

Experience matters

We’re an industry that provides experiences (hopefully good ones) and last year this seemed to have come back to top of mind for hotels. I have said this too many times to count, but an industry that is as good as ours in delivering physical experiences, should be a lot better at delivering digital ones too. Booking travel is notoriously one of the worst online experiences there is. And yet, no industry is as digitally transformed as ours when it comes to distribution. We must get better there and it’s great to see hotels increasing interest in the topic.

corporate travel, AI & Security

Lots of wondering when corporate / business travel will be coming back. I believe it will take a while and it will probably be different to how it was in 2019. First, with the uncertainty on the economic fronts around the world, I believe most companies are going to stay cautious, if they can save for a rainy day it’s probably a smart idea. Second, how many in-person meetings were we doing that could have been a call (and many calls could have been an e-mail but that’s another topic). So for business travel to come back to previous levels will take a while.

The magic of current AI technology is so incredible that we all want to try and fit it in to something in our industry. It definitely has a huge position to play, answering guest questions, AI pins that could help concierges and front desk personnel answer in the guest's language. Changing the way we search for hotels. Recommending things to do. The list goes on. But it’s going to be a lot of little things that will eventually change everything. My recommendation for hotels is to thoroughly look at their existing technology infrastructure, will it be able to support that level of integration? Are they working with legacy vendors who would rather not bring new integrations in or next-gen vendors who are all about the future? If there’s one thing every hotel should do now, is get ready for what is to come. (Incredibly this was written by hand –but I did include an AI analysis on the bottom and it was surprisingly good).

Security is like plumbing in a hotel, nobody get’s good reviews and praise when it is done right, but when it goes wrong it goes very wrong. It is now important for hotels to consider real IT security solutions. Hotels have been trusted with their guest’s data for centuries, guests have never been worried about their privacy in hotels because they trusted the hotels to keep it secure. But digital transformation does bring with it additional challenges.

The Top Brands

Brands always attract lots of views in headlines, big names and brands get attention for good and for bad. Last year Airbnb stole the show, while OTAs were being more quiet than usual Airbnb took advantage of that. It seems Hotels are no longer top of mind for Airbnb and Airbnb is no longer top of mind for hotels. Instead Booking and Expedia are. They’ve never been more present on the hotel news cycle than during 2023. During the pandemic they lost market share to direct bookings, that was temporary - they made sure of that.

Surprisingly, Tiktok was not in the hotel industry news cycle at all this year.

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 200 articles were gathered from Hospitality.Today and HospitalityNet, two very different sources but which command a strong 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.

The AI Analysis

In addition to the manual analysis that I do, I ran the list of articles through AI to categorise and explain. The analysis was pretty good. It did take a while to get the analysis correct, with plenty of fails in the process. It seems a lot of articles got missed - but the main points were correct. Below is the analysis, directly from the AI only re-formated for this post and reordered from largest to smallest. In the future we’ll just query “what are the hottest topics in the hotel industry” and the AI will give us an analysis. Articles like this will have little value except for opinions.

1. Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and Booking Platforms:

Articles related to operations, strategies, and challenges of OTAs and booking platforms like Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, and Airbnb. Number of articles: 23

2. Technology and Innovation in Travel and Hospitality:

Articles focusing on the use of AI, digital transformation, and other technological innovations in the travel and hospitality sector. Number of articles: 22

3. Hotel Industry Trends and Challenges:

Discussions about hotel rate and occupancy forecasts, sustainability, marketing trends, management challenges, and evolving guest experiences. Number of articles: 21

4. Financial Aspects and Revenue Management:

Discussions on hotel revenue strategies, OTA commissions, financial insights, and budgeting in the hospitality sector. Number of articles: 10

5. Consumer Behavior and Market Trends:

Understanding shifts in consumer preferences, luxury travel insights, and evolving guest expectations. Number of articles: 7

6. Business Travel and Corporate Travel Trends:

Insights into the state, challenges, and future of business and corporate travel. Number of articles: 6

7. Sustainability and Environmental Impact:

Discussions on sustainable practices and environmental concerns in the travel industry. Number of articles: 4

8. Hospitality Education and Training:

Trends in hospitality education and training, including the use of technology. Number of articles: 5

9. Data Security and Privacy in Hospitality:

Issues related to data breaches, phishing attacks, and privacy concerns in the hospitality industry. Number of articles: 3

10. Hospitality Design and Architecture:

Articles discussing hotel design and architecture. Number of articles: 3

11. Regulatory and Legal Issues:

Coverage of legal challenges and regulatory issues facing the hospitality industry. Number of articles: 2

12. Cultural and Social Aspects of Travel:

Topics related to the social impact and cultural implications of travel trends. Number of articles: 2