Hotels hit, AI use in booking & more

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Good morning. Iranian strikes hit Dubai's Fairmont The Palm and Burj Al Arab over the weekend, stranding more than 20,000 travelers and grounding over 1,500 flights across the Middle East. A new report from NYU and BCG finds 37% of travelers are already using AI to plan and book trips, a threshold that should change how hotels think about distribution.

Congrats to Glade M. Knight on receiving the 2026 Hunter Conference Award for Excellence and Inspiration, recognizing the Apple Hospitality REIT founder's decades of leadership in hotel investment.

Today's Podcast Episode: Lead Like a Conductor

Sloan Dean, host of the Not Done podcast and former CEO of Remington Hospitality, shares a leadership lesson from an unlikely source: an orchestra conductor. After attending a YPO session led by a professional conductor, Dean began rethinking the leader's role as someone who makes no sound yet drives performance through clarity, intention, and trust. This is timely in light of recent earnings calls, where CEO after CEO talked about team execution in a choppy market. Listen here now

GUEST EXPERIENCE & DESIGN

Charlap Hyman & Herrero has converted an 1883 pocketbook factory in Hudson, New York, into a boutique hotel that leans into the building's industrial bones while layering in contemporary art commissions throughout. The studio, announced this week as the winner of Cooper Hewitt's National Design Award for Interior Design, transformed the vast three-story structure into the Pocketbook Hudson, preserving cavernous ceilings and exposed brick while adding custom furniture and site-specific installations by emerging artists. Every room carries a distinct layout shaped by the factory's original structure, and the approach treats the building's manufacturing history as a design asset rather than something to conceal. For independent hoteliers watching the adaptive reuse trend, this project shows how a strong architectural point of view can generate earned media that no marketing budget can buy. Read more on Dezeen

SOIL Nihonbashi, a 14-room hotel in Tokyo, wraps its nine-story facade in rust-red corrugated steel panels covered with plants donated by local residents, reflecting the neighborhood's Edo-era tradition of alleyway gardening. Designed by Kiyoaki Takeda Architects and Staple Studio, the building is the rare hotel project where the community literally contributes to the architecture. Read more on Dezeen

OKU Bodrum will open in May as a 58-room adults-only retreat on Turkey's northern Bodrum peninsula, flanked by mountains and the Aegean Sea. Every guestroom is oriented toward the water with private balconies or terraces, and many include private or shared pools. The property continues a broader Mediterranean trend of intimate, design-led retreats positioned between established luxury destinations. Read more on Hospitality Design

PEOPLE

Women lead just 19% of global luxury partner hotels, according to Forbes Travel Guide's inaugural "Leadership Reset" research, a finding that adds urgency to AHLA's FORWARD conference in Atlanta. The two-day event brings together women hospitality leaders for programming focused on career development, mentorship, and industry leadership. The stats should prompt serious questions about where the pipeline breaks down and whether the industry's talent strategies match its stated commitments. Read more via AHLA

COMMERCIAL

Thirty-seven percent of travelers already use AI large language models embedded in online travel sites to plan and book trips, according to a new analysis from NYU SPS's Tisch Center of Hospitality and Boston Consulting Group, marking a shift from "search and scroll" to what the researchers call "ask and book." The report, titled AI-First Hotels: Faster to Build, Leaner to Operate, and Richer in Customer Experience, finds hotels will compete for inclusion in AI-generated shortlists, where traditional OTA tradeoffs (commissions of 15-30%, limited guest data, reduced brand visibility) may compound as AI assistants surface only a fraction of available options. "Hotels will need to shift from optimizing for pages and ads to optimizing for algorithmic relevance," said BCG managing director Tom McCaleb. The operational case is just as pressing: with 65% of North American hotels reporting staffing shortages and labor costs up 11.2% year over year, early adopters are seeing AI-synchronized housekeeping accelerate room cleaning by 20% and AI kitchen analytics cut food waste roughly 50% within eight months. The workforce gap is stark, though: only 2.9% of hospitality employees have AI skills, compared to 21% in tech and media, even as AI-skilled hospitality roles grow nearly 5% annually. Read more via NYU SPS

MONEY MOVES

Iran's retaliatory strikes on the UAE over the weekend damaged two of Dubai's most iconic hotel properties, the Fairmont The Palm and the Burj Al Arab, and left more than 20,000 travelers stranded as airlines grounded flights across the Middle East. A drone strike set the Fairmont The Palm ablaze on Saturday, injuring four people, while debris from intercepted projectiles hit the Burj Al Arab. Emirates, Etihad, British Airways, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, and Delta all suspended or rerouted services through the region, with more than 1,560 flights cancelled on Monday alone, per aviation data firm Cirium. Travel stocks fell in premarket trading. Hotel groups with significant Middle East pipelines, including Accor, Marriott, Hilton, and IHG, now face a stress test for concentrated geographic risk that no quarterly forecast modeled. Owners can insure buildings against damage, as Skift's Sean O'Neill noted, but not traveler confidence. Read more on Skift

Banyan Group delivered strong FY2025 results, with revenue rising 25% year-over-year to S$477.4 million and core operating profit up 59% to S$109.8 million, driven by a residences segment that nearly doubled to S$197.6 million. The group reached its 100-resort milestone during the year and signed 24 new agreements, including its first European residential development in Madrid and a new standalone residential brand called Bellaguna, designed for year-round living rather than resort stays. Residences continue to prove themselves as the high-margin complement to hotel operations that luxury brands are increasingly chasing. Read more from Banyan Group

HREC Investment Advisors arranged the sale of the 12-hotel IGO Legacy portfolio, which includes Country Inn & Suites and AmericInn-branded properties across Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The select-service portfolio transaction is consistent with steady dealmaking in secondary and tertiary markets that has continued even as larger transactions slow. Read more on Hotel Management

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