Skift Take

This week in hospitality, Oyo CEO Ritesh Agarwal is focusing on improving problems brought up by hotel owners. Meanwhile, Accor has entered a new partnership with Alibaba Group to help the company develop tech to appeal to the Chinese outbound market.

Hotel News Weekly Roundup

Throughout the week we post dozens of original stories, connecting the dots across the travel industry, and every weekend we sum it all up. This weekend roundup examines hotels.

For all of our weekend roundups, go here.

Oyo Founder Describes U.S. Owner Concerns as ‘Teething Issues’: A deeper engagement with owners is definitely one of the key things Oyo needs to achieve to address some of its problems. CEO Ritesh Agarwal, who recently took a larger stake in the company, seems to be on the case.

Boutique Hotels Say They Face Unique Challenges Going Plastics-Free: For boutique hotels to cut back on plastics, customers have to demand it — and then cooperate.

Marriott CEO Sorenson Offers Update on Cancer Treatment: Marriott keeps growing despite a drop in earnings this quarter. CEO Arne Sorenson is optimistic, even as he prepares for surgery to treat his pancreatic cancer. Sorenson isn’t missing his morning workouts, and said he would be healthy for the next earnings call in 2020.

Accor and Alibaba Form Partnership to Attract Chinese Travelers: Accor has formed a partnership with online marketplace Alibaba to make it easier for Chinese travelers to book rooms and other services. It’s a smart move to appeal to Alibaba’s 700 million high-spending consumers who are eager to travel around the world.

MakeMyTrip and Oyo Downplay India Regulatory Probe: MakeMyTrip definitely faces some near-term challenges, but it doesn’t consider a recently announced regulatory probe in India to be one of them.

SiteMinder Diversifies Away From Helping Hotels Solely on Room Sales: Tech provider SiteMinder is the latest firm to make it easier for smaller hotels to adopt new tools from other third-party vendors to manage their properties. The trend could give the little guys more weaponry in online sales — and help SiteMinder become more valuable for hotels.

Airbnb Finally Embraces Verified Listings After Halloween Deaths: Airbnb has avoided these policies under the guise of being just a platform, much like the rest of the tech platform companies. We just hope at some point that tragedies are not the only way to propel change that lots of stakeholders have been asking for all along.

Amadeus Loses Premier Inn Tech Deal But Sees Growth Elsewhere: A few months ago, activist investor Elliott Management took Amadeus rival Travelport private. Elliott also happens to be the largest shareholder of Whitbread, the parent company of Premier Inn. That hotel chain has now dropped its contract with Amadeus for software services. Coincidence?

China’s Huazhu Group Is Spending $802 Million on a German Hotel Group: Deutsche Hospitality isn’t a massive player on the European hospitality scene, but it has some pretty ambitious plans, ones you would assume that Huazhu would now be able to help execute.

Trivago Names New CEO in Surprise Executive Shuffle: The so-called relevancy assessment, which had Trivago punishing big advertisers for landing pages that didn’t perform well, and other factors, proved to be a multiyear disaster for the metasearch company. The company has ditched the policy — and now its CEO.

What Luxe Hospitality Can Learn About Engaging the Senses From a Live-Fire Chef: The state of luxury is evolving and morphing. And the commonality of those who are forging resonant experiences is that they are looking outside of some of the tried-and-true formulas, mining heightened sensory territories that evoke something deeper in guests.

Luxury Travel Has to Make Sense of All 5 Senses: In the multisensory world of travel, it’s surprising that it’s taken so long for luxury operators to realize that appealing to all five senses is quite sensible.

Trainline Experiments With Hotels to Boost Revenue: Understandably, CEO Clare Gilmartin didn’t want to play up moves into other travel areas too much at such an early stage, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on how the company evolves over the next few years as it looks to diversify away from rail tickets and make more money in other areas.

New Concepts Tackle Luxury Travel’s Abuse of Nature in Asia: Enough of abusing nature for luxury. Tourism players in Asia-Pacific share how conscious design and excursion-based wellness can change how we think about luxury resorts.

Greenwashing Goes On in Asia’s Massive Hotel Development: Asia leads the global hotel pipeline and many more luxury hotels and wellness resorts will be opening in its fragile environments. Low-impact advocates are trying to lead by example, but they’re too small and too few to effect a sea change.

Corporate Group Booking Faces a Difficult Future Starting Mid-2020: Cvent Research: The decline in group bookings is already being felt by some hotels, something that may stretch throughout next year.

insights

Get Skift Research

Skift Research products provide deep analysis, data, and expert research on the companies and trends that are shaping the future of travel.

See What You're Missing

Have a confidential tip for Skift? Get in touch

Tags: hospitality, Travel Trends, trends roundups

Photo credit: The goal of Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of Oyo Hotels & Homes, is to fix the company's relationship with hotel owners. Oyo Hotels & Homes

Up Next

Loading next stories