Best Western Doubles Down on Boutique Hotels and 7 Other Hospitality Trends This Week

Best Western Doubles Down on Boutique Hotels: One could find Best Western’s boutique hotel strategy confusing on price comparisons, but it’s the customer’s choice if they want to pay for the experience.

Hyatt’s Two Roads Hospitality Acquisition Drives Larger Loyalty Play: Hyatt keeps packing on the partnerships to please reward members, which is probably the smart play for the time being. Creating alliances with hoteliers is a faster solution than building a slew of new properties in new markets from scratch.

Skift Tech Forum: Marriott’s Linnartz Sees Google as Effective Add-On to Direct Channels. Attribute-based reservations may go nowhere or they could transform the way people shop for hotel rooms in coming years. Marriott’s Stephanie Linnartz believes consumers like the increased control they get when booking rooms with specific features.

Affluence Is Fueling Demand for Advisors to Plan Milestone Group Travel: The trend for groups of family and friends to celebrate birthdays and other milestones with travel is growing in scope. It’s a likely niche for many travel advisors to pursue.

Surging Demand for Milestone Celebrations Means New Business for Advisors: Despite the opportunity, there are challenges involved in successfully putting together celebration travel. One of the biggest ones is to keep things under control with unwieldy groups, particularly if there is no designated group leader.

How Travel Brands Are Getting Wellness Right: Given the macro shift toward wellness in culture, it shouldn’t be surprising that travel brands, with their expansive reach, need to be innovating in this space as well. Some of the smartest brands here are trying thoughtful new strategies to improve guest comfort and boost well-being.

An Unconventional Approach to High-End Hospitality: Sometime those without any baggage are the clearest thinkers.

Even the Alcohol Industry Attempts a Wellness Makeover: It makes sense that the alcohol industry would want in on the wellness movement, considering it’s a sector that has everything to do with lifestyle. But it’s unclear if consumers will get on board with the repositioning or if they’ll just consider it a buzzkill.