Designed to tackle the hospitality industry’s challenges head-on and illuminate the path towards innovative solutions and a better guest experience.

140+

Cities

58,000+

Properties

270+

Brands

The State of Distribution is Entering a New Phase

What’s new this year?

2024 zeroed in on geography, revealing how commercial trends diverged by region.
2025 showed how priorities, pain points, and technology adoption differed across Marketing, Sales, Distribution, and Revenue Management.
2026 introduces an operating-model lens, revealing the gap between commercial alignment, connected data, workflow automation, and accountable action.

By Hotel Size

By Function

Independent Hotels

Mid-size Hotel Chains

Large Hotel Chains

Large International Hotel Chain:

100+ properties, with presence in multiple countries
Regional or Mid-size Hotel Chain:

Less than 100 properties, with presence in a speciﬁc region or few countries
Independent Hotel:

Less than 7 properties concentrated within one country

Marketing

Sales

Distribution

Revenue Management

Where Commercial Operations Still Break Down

Reporting &
Workflow

Reporting & Workflow

The stack grew. The work did not disappear.

50% Distribution specialists still rely on fully manual reporting workflows.

62% Hotels report rising technology budgets

22% Use attribution or data-warehouse capabilities

The Implication: Hotels have systems to capture transactions, but not yet a connected workflow to reconcile data, explain performance, and coordinate action.

AI &
Governance

AI & Governance

AI Is Assistive, Not Autonomous.

53.54% Hotels are currently using or will soon be procuring generative AI tools

7.77% Hotels report that AI has reduced manual work by more than 30%

The Hold Back Accuracy · Privacy · Compliance · Explainability · Human oversight

The Gap: AI is entering content creation, reporting, guest communication, and decision support. But it is rarely embedded in connected workflows with trusted data, clear ownership, and governance.

Demand &
Discovery

Demand & Discovery

Traveler Discovery is changing faster than Strategy.

4% reservations are already influenced by AI search

55% hotels have not adapted distribution strategy.

79% say OTAs reliance is necessary, but over-indexed

The Implication: The next direct-booking advantage will come from measuring influence across the journey, identifying high-intent travelers, and converting acquired guests into direct, repeat customers.

Hear from the Experts

"AI-enabled workflows are replacing revenue management dashboards and are becoming a great enabler of efficiency and productivity. Still, the time from getting data to decisions that should take minutes, often takes hours."

“Distribution is the least automated function in reporting; half of these teams still work manually, even as it manages the most fragmented set of partners and the fastest-moving APIs. More tooling won't close that gap on its own; it usually just buys more things to stitch together. The unlock isn't spend; it's a data layer built to reconcile in the first place.”

“Consolidating and reconciling data across sources has always been a challenge. It's frustrating to see teams collaborating better than ever, yet unable to measure their results against a single source of truth. With 1 in 3 hotels still on fully manual reporting, the opportunity for automation is enormous.”

Technology Adoption

Hotels prioritize tech that helps optimize revenue and distribution.
Generative AI and analytics tools are low on the adoption scale for hotels across the board.

Globally

Large Global Hotel Chains

Mid-sized Regional Hotel Chains

Independent Hotels

TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION

The Hotel Stack Is Built.
The Intelligence Layer Is Not.

Core operational systems are nearly universal. Tools that connect customer data,
measure influence, and activate commercial decisions remain far less common.

Transaction & conversion
foundation

Core systems are widely adopted across the industry.

Property Management System (PMS)

96.97%

Website Booking Engine

90.91%

Channel Manager

78.79%

Revenue Management System (RMS)

70.71%

Central Reservation System (CRS)

67.68%

Rate Shopping / Intelligence System

60.61%

Paid Media Tools

60.61%

Intelligence &
activation layer

Advanced tools remain the industry's capability gap.

Website Analytics like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, etc.

71.72%

Customer data platform or data warehouse

27.27%

Analytics tools like Looker, Tableau

26.26%

AI-Driven Pricing Tools

23.23%

Media Attribution and Measurement Solution

22.22%

Factors for Hotel Tech Decisions

Data residency & governance is now one of the top factors for all sizes of hotels. Recent acquisitions and partnerships make integration of technology with existing tech stacks as the most important factor for large hotel chains. ROI is among the top 4 factors only for large chains now.

Large Global Hotel Chains

Mid-sized Regional Hotel Chains

Independent Hotels

Clear ROI #1

Integrations with existing tech-stack #1

Ease of implementation #1

Scalability, security, and stability #2

Clear ROI #2

Integrations with existing tech-stack #3

Data governance and residency #3

Ease of use on desktop and mobile #3

Improving team productivity #4

Cloud Technology (vs. on-premises) #4

Integrations with existing tech-stack #4

2026

2025

2024

Improving team productivity #1

Data governance and residency #1

Scalability, security, and stability #1

Cloud Technology (vs. on-premises) #2

Clear ROI #2

Ease of use on desktop and mobile #2

Scalability, security, and stability #3

Data governance and residency #3

Level of support, training, and consulting services #3

Data governance and residency #4

Ease of use on desktop and mobile #4

Integrations with existing tech-stack #4

2026

2025

2024

Improving team productivity #1

Level of support, training, and consulting services #1

Clear ROI #1

Clear ROI #2

Cloud Technology (vs. on-premises) #2

Integrations with existing tech-stack #2

Ease of use on desktop and mobile #3

Improving team productivity #3

Ease of use on desktop and mobile #3

Level of support, training, and consulting services #4

Data governance and residency #4

Automation of operations #4

2026

2025

2024

From Collecting Data to Acting on It

The objective is to bridge commercial signals and tactical response through trusted data, shared interpretation, and accountable action.

Standardization

Clean, consistent data across all sources.

Integration

Unified systems and connected workflows.

Automation

Fewer manual tasks, more time saved.

Interpretation

AI and analytics turn data into clear insights.

Action

Confident decisions that drive performance.

Get Answers to Address Key
Questions in Hospitality

Is AI changing hotel operations, or simply assisting them?

Can hotels measure what influences demand across new traveler journey?

Why does reporting remain manual despite the rising tech investment?

What does accountable data and AI governance look like in practice?

140+

58,000+

270+

The State of Distribution is Entering a New Phase