Marriott Finally Commits to All-Inclusives and 7 Other Hospitality Trends This Week

Marriott Plays Catch-Up on All-Inclusives as Rivals Push Into Resorts: After years of standing on the sidelines, the world’s largest hotel chain has committed to growing its all-inclusive portfolio organically. Keep an eye on Latin America and the Caribbean, which will be huge test markets for whether Marriott goes global.

Tourism Is Up: So Why Is New York City’s Hotel Room Revenue Slumping? With so many hotel rooms in the pipeline, a turnaround of slower revenue-per-room growth in New York City is not expected until after 2020. It’s a classic supply-and-demand problem, making it a delicate balance to get pricing power back in a city where tourism remains hot.

Mews Raises $33 Million to Challenge Oracle Hospitality in Hotel Tech: Game on, Oracle. But like everything in the hotel sector, the battle between next-generation hotel tech players and established titans will take years to play out.

Corporate Housing Is Getting (a Little) Less Boring: Startup Zeus Living is shaking things up, providing corporate travelers with a more Airbnb-like experience. Hopefully it catches on.

Dubai Tourism Launches Ads as Hotels Show Softness Ahead of Expo 2020: As Dubai deals with the disruptions for planning for Expo 2020, the tourism authority is leaving no stone unturned to market the destination on a global level. But while tourism volumes are increasing steadily, the hospitality sector needs to work towards bumping its rates back up.

Best Western’s Newest Acquisition Points to Long-Term Reservations Strategy: Property management systems are not the most exciting topic to discuss when assessing a hotel’s tech prowess, but they are core to any company’s ability to sell as many rooms as possible.

Luxury Boutique Hotels Push Further Into Former Warehouse Districts: All over the world, once-derelict areas in cities are still drawing hotels because the price is right. How long will that last?

Does a Hotel-Backed Meetings Booking Platform Stand a Chance? Hotels need to be willing to make more investments — and to give up some of their control — if Groups360 is going to work.