By Jordan Hollander, Co-founder of HotelTechReport - 2.16.2026
Across the global hotel industry, a select group of operators are quietly rewriting the rules of performance and the operating model for hotels leveraging technology and AI. We spoke with leaders scaling boutique portfolios into billion-dollar platforms, automating millions of daily pricing decisions, eliminating six figures’ worth of staff hours annually, and building front-desk-free operating models that materially outperform traditional cost structures.
In recent conversations with CEOs, chief commercial officers, and operations leaders across the globe, a consistent theme emerged: technology is not only going to alleviate the labor challenges the hotel industry has faced for half a decade but these innovations are about the unlock an entirely new era for hotels with increased profitability like we’ve never seen before.
For much of the past two decades, hotel technology strategy centered on selecting a hotel management system and building around it. Investment cycles were long, integrations were incremental, and core systems were rarely reconsidered once implemented. That posture is shifting with the pace of change in AI.
Across ownership groups, management companies, and brands, technology is increasingly treated as operating infrastructure, directly linked to revenue capture, labor economics, data control, and portfolio scalability. Recent conversations with senior executives across the sector on the popular Hotel Tech Insider podcast point to a structural change in how hotel leaders are thinking about their tech stacks.
AI Moves Into Core Workflows
Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to pilot programs or innovation labs. It is being embedded into daily workflows.
At Canary Technologies, CEO Harman Singh Narula describes AI voice as part of an integrated guest layer rather than a standalone solution. In his view, “AI voice is a guest-facing solution, and it needs to unify, it needs to integrate, it needs to work with all the other digital guest-facing touch points that you have as well… Our perspective is that you wanna have a unified digital guest experience.” The emphasis is on orchestration across channels, not incremental automation.
The commercial implications are measurable. Narula notes that “30 to 40% of all calls actually at hotels are being missed… almost a third of those calls… are booking related calls. And so this is money that’s being left on the table.” In that context, AI voice is positioned as a revenue recovery mechanism.
AI is also being applied to compress internal decision cycles. At Hospitality America, CEO Ben Campbell is equipping general managers and directors of sales with AI tools that analyze operational data and surface trends in near real time. As he explains, AI can “look at that data and tell us the trends that would have taken us two, three days… to make the same assumption.” At the same time, Campbell underscores that “any tech is only as good as you utilize it… it’s not gonna supplant boots on the ground.” The objective is to empower local leaders with better information, not remove them from the equation.
The direction is consistent across operators. AI is being integrated where it meaningfully reduces friction in communication, reporting, and pricing.
Automation Is Reshaping Labor Economics
Beyond analytics, automation is increasingly influencing staffing models and cost structures.
At Numa, which operates a front desk free model across Europe, Head of Operations Julius Anders describes a deliberately API first architecture that uses data in every operational decision. The impact is structural. Due to its technology stack, Numa can “save around 60% of our operational payroll costs compared to a traditional three star hotel.” Automation, in this case, is directly tied to margin advantage.
For Michael Bohler, founder of SUM Hospitality, automation has enabled a different kind of flexibility. Operating in seasonal ski markets, he notes that prior to modernizing the stack, properties would close during shoulder months to avoid losses. With automation in place, SUM achieved approximately 50% occupancy in the off season “without having all the work,” allowing hotels to remain open and team members to be employed year round. In Bohler’s framing, technology makes operational continuity feasible in traditionally volatile environments.
Even incremental changes are producing meaningful gains. At Penta Hotels, a comprehensive systems overhaul resulted in more than 175,000 staff hours saved annually. Notably, the majority of that time savings came from automating card payments. At the same time, 25% of guests began purchasing upsells through newly automated workflows. Efficiency improvements and revenue lift are increasingly linked.
The PMS Remains Central but Stack Strategy Is Evolving
Despite experimentation across the ecosystem, the property management system remains the operational core.
Diego Fernández of Port Hotels describes the PMS as “like the heart of the company right now… probably 80% of all the things that happen in a hotel, you use the PMS.” The centrality of the system is not in question. What is changing is how portfolios are structured around it.
At L+R Hotels, Chief Commercial Officer Joe Pettigrew is leading a consolidation of core systems into a unified stack built around Oracle OPERA Cloud. The objective extends beyond standardization. By hosting properties under a single chain configuration, the group can build a rate code once and deploy it portfolio wide, while also unlocking enterprise level reporting. During the transition, L+R standardized data structures and revisited long standing segmentation models, effectively using the migration as a reset moment.
Similarly, at Lark Hotels, SVP of Operations Scot Hopps characterizes a recent PMS change as “one of the scarier decisions” the company has made, driven by the need for more nimble integration capabilities. At the same time, he identifies accounting as the foundational source of truth, describing it as “precious” and not to be disrupted. The pattern across portfolios is consistent. Foundational systems are protected, while surrounding layers are modernized for flexibility and speed as Lark did when switching to Mews.
Build Versus Buy Becomes a Strategic Choice
As hotel technology ecosystems mature, the build versus buy question is becoming more strategic.
At Numa, Anders is direct: “If we think we can build it better or cheaper in house, we’ll do it ourselves.” For operators with scale and technical expertise, selective in house development is becoming a lever for differentiation.
At Capital Hotels, Group IT Director Jose Suarez describes a hybrid approach, integrating custom built features into an off the shelf PMS to orchestrate data across booking, stay, and post stay touchpoints. The focus is less on replacing core systems and more on enhancing them through layered integration.
At TFE Hotels, CEO Asli Kutlucan formalized experimentation by launching a “lab hotel” in Berlin, a live beta environment for testing new operating models. Built with open APIs and middleware from Like Magic, the property is used to trial concepts such as mobile enabled “upgrade boxes,” allowing guests to rent items like hair curlers or Nespresso machines on demand. Rather than theorizing about innovation, TFE is operationalizing it in a controlled setting.
The common denominator is modularity. Leaders are designing stacks that allow for iteration without destabilizing the core.
Revenue Management at Industrial Scale
In commercial strategy, automation is reaching enterprise levels.
Fernando Vives, Chief Commercial Officer at Minor Hotels, oversees systems that automate approximately two million daily rate changes across more than 400 properties. Through proprietary forecasting tools and dynamic pricing models implemented with Duetto, the portfolio operates with open pricing logic that continuously adjusts to demand signals. Pricing, once manually managed and periodically updated, is now a dynamic, data driven engine.
At Schulte Hospitality, digital tipping platforms have distributed more than $120,000 in tips in seven months, while business intelligence tools such as ProfitSword and Hotel Effectiveness support labor planning across a diverse portfolio. Revenue management and workforce management are increasingly managed through integrated data systems rather than siloed reports.
A Shift in Executive Framing
Across these examples, the most notable change is not the individual technologies themselves, but how leadership teams are framing them.
Technology is being evaluated as capital allocation, not discretionary IT spend. As Fernández summarizes, “This is going to cost 10,000, but we are going to earn 1,000,000… we need to start thinking of technology as an investment.” The return profile, not novelty, is driving prioritization.
Hospitality remains a human centered industry. Yet the underlying operating model is becoming more data oriented, more automated, and more interconnected. Decisions about AI, PMS consolidation, middleware, and automation now influence staffing structures, margin profiles, and enterprise scalability.
For executive teams, the central question is no longer which tool to implement next. It is how to design an operating model in which technology, data, and human service reinforce one another in a disciplined and financially accountable way.
Jordan Hollander is the co-founder of HotelTechReport, the hotel industry’s app store where millions of professionals discover tech tools to transform their businesses. He was previously on the Global Partnerships team at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Prior to his work with SPG, Jordan was Director of Business Development at MWT Hospitality and an equity analyst at Wells Capital Management. Jordan received his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management where he was a Zell Global Entrepreneurship Scholar and a Pritzker Group Venture Fellow.
Are you an industry thought leader with a point of view on hotel technology that you would like to share with our readers? If so, we invite you to review our editorial guidelines and submit your article for publishing consideration.