TODAY: A look at the future and 2018 expected to bring rate increases.

A look at the future of lodging.

With the growth of home-sharing platform Airbnb, traditional hotel chains have had to take a step back and rediscover what makes them unique, this was the topic of conversation at GBTA Convention 2017’s Lodging Panel, moderated by CNN’s Richard Quest.

Representing hoteliers was AccorHotels’ Senior VP of Global Sales, Markus Keller, and NH Hotel Groups CCO, Fernando Vives. David Holyoke, Head of Business Travel for Airbnb spoke for the rapidly expanding home-sharing industry. The panel began with all parties saying that there is room for everyone in the hospitality industry.

Higher travel pricing expected in 2018 for air, hotel and ground transportation.

Travel prices are expected to rise sharply in the coming year, reaching nearly 4 percent increases in some sectors. Air, hotel and ground transportation all see upticks on back of rising inflation, higher oil prices and emerging markets.

Business travel was responsible for about 3% ($547B) of US GDP in 2016.

The economic impact study found that in 2016, the nation’s businesses spent $424 billion to send travelers out on the road for 514.4 million domestic business trips. The business travel industry supports 7.4 million jobs and generated $135 billion in taxes. Much of business travel’s contribution to the economy accrues directly to industries that serve business travelers, but their supply chain beneficiaries received an additional indirect contribution of $132 billion.

IHG moves to 24-hour cancellation policy.

InterContinental Hotel Group will cut back the time required to cancel a reservation without penalty to a standard 24 hours across most of its brands, taking a step to be more customer-friendly than its peers.

Featured Articles....

Counting on Technology to Overcome Breakdown in Personalization.
The blend of Bluetooth beacon technology, hyper local marketing, and GPS geo-fencing can help hotels to convey what they have to offer and in turn, improve the overall stay experience.

A traveler’s experience of booking and staying with a hotel can go awry on several counts. Many of the existing pain points arise due to mismatch between expectations guests have and what eventually they experience during the course of their stay.
When Are the Highest Value Leads Generated omn Google Hotel Ads?
When it comes to metasearch traffic, the data for determining weekly trends for your account is readily available, we wanted to take it a step further to get a better understanding of these patterns on an hourly level.

So over a two-week span, we tracked hourly spend, clicks, and bookings for a sample of US focused clients on Google Hotel Ads in order to identify which hour of the day receives the highest value leads.

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