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Diving overview:
- The hotel industry has reached a tipping point, with owners and developers increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence while increasingly needing more detailed guidance on how to turn early adoption into long-term benefits, according to Wyndham Hotels & Resorts’ second annual Owner Trends Report.
- Nearly all hotel owners surveyed (98%) said they have begun to incorporate AI into their business. However, the survey results show that implementation remains uneven, with only 32% saying they have AI integrated into most aspects of their work, and 73% saying they want to do more but feel overwhelmed and unsure where to start. The report was conducted last quarter among 325 hotel owners and developers across multiple brands and companies in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, excluding Wyndham.
- According to the report, approximately 89% of hoteliers believe it would be beneficial to collaborate with hotel brands when incorporating AI into their business, and more than a third (34%) believe AI is essential.
Dive Insight:
As hoteliers face barriers to AI implementation, hotel brands can serve as strategic partners to “curate, integrate and support best-in-class technology solutions,” the report said.
Concerns about data privacy and security and the cost of investing in AI tools are the biggest factors limiting AI adoption by hoteliers. Hoteliers also reported difficulty integrating AI with traditional systems and technologies.
“Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping hospitality, adding new complexities while opening up new opportunities,” Scott Strickland, Wyndham’s chief commercial officer, said in the report. He added that brands like Wyndham can “offer a proven, scalable platform that makes it easy to apply AI where it matters most, turning innovation into real revenue, driving efficiencies and delivering stronger profits.”
According to the report, most owners and developers who have already implemented some form of AI (64%) say they are using it to improve operational efficiency. Other common uses of AI, according to hoteliers, are energy efficiency and revenue optimization. Meanwhile, the majority of hoteliers (61%) want AI to play a bigger role in construction planning, including assisting with permitting and zoning, the report detailed.
Most major hotel companies are now working on agent development across their organizations. Marriott International, in particular, has begun rolling out a technology transformation across its property management system, loyalty platform and reservations system that “will be dramatically improved for all parties,” CFO Reenie Oberg told Hotel Dive this week.
Beyond AI, hoteliers remain overwhelmingly confident about the short- and long-term trajectory of the industry, with 90% saying they are optimistic about 2026 and 95% saying the same about the next five years. However, the biggest obstacles to growth include rising operating costs, labor shortages, and increased market competition.
