GMH Hotels: Are Hotels Losing the Booking Battle to AI?

On this week’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk are live from Seatrade Cruise Global, breaking down how AI is reshaping the way travelers discover and book hotels and whether brands are starting to lose control of the funnel.

Expedia Group data shows that only a small percentage of bookings are currently driven by AI, but the shift in discovery behavior could have much bigger long-term implications.

They also explore how Minor Hotels is building out its AI tech stack to drive deeper personalization, Lemon Tree Hotels’ record year powered by an asset-light strategy, and Delta Air Lines’s first major Delta One upgrade in nearly a decade as airlines continue investing heavily in premium experiences.

This episode is presented by ⁠⁠Cloudbeds⁠⁠, Bilt⁠⁠, and StayFi.

Watch This Episode

All right. So we are live from Seatrade today, which by the way, very fun. I was there yesterday, Steve is joining today.

Today we’re diving in how AI is starting to reshape the way people discover and book travel. There’s also new data from Expedia that shows that it’s still early, but the shift could be bigger than it looks.

We’ll also get into how hotels are actually using AI behind the scenes. And it’s been a record year from Lemon Tree and Delta’s first big premium upgrade in years. Let’s dive in.

Good morning!

Hey!

Sarah, you’re in person.

Exactly, it’s nice.

I like our fancy microphones.

We’re here at the Citizen M Hotel on South Beach as we’re attending the Seatrade Conference here today. And they’re treating us really nicely here at the Citizen M. Great conference room, overlooking their lobby full of activations.

So thank you to this hotel for doing that for us. And I gotta give a shout out to our sponsor.

Yes, you do.

For the episode this month, we’ve got Vrbo is the sponsor this month. We want to thank you very much for supporting the show. We love being able to do this with you.

And make sure to sign up at vrbo.com/goodmorning, and you can earn one key cash for your next trip. It’s a great, great benefit. Make sure to check out Vrbo, and that’s vrbo.com.

Ooh, wow, that was so professional.

That was smooth. Well delivered, sir.

Well, we had fun last night.

Okay, look, wait, we have coffee, real time coffee chat here.

I know. We got our coffee talk going here. We went to the, what was it, the Port Hole Party last night?

The Port Hole Cruise Party.

So this is one of, it’s the hottest ticket in town. Now, do you understand?

I didn’t believe the hype. I was like, oh, that wasn’t the Sarah. What party is this?

And we go to it. It’s in the M2 Nightclub here on South Beach, which was the former Mansion Nightclub. I was like, I know this place.

You’re like, I know.

You’re like, oh, I’m 22 again.

Yeah, well, 28, 29. I was still hanging around there. South Beach Steve was out there, but the party was great.

All the big people from the Cruise World were there. All the top executives were there. Bill did a fantastic job creating this event.

Yeah, Bill Panoff, shout out to you.

Actually, he’s going to be moderating the panel I’m on later today, so big shout out to him.

Yeah, so excellent, excellent party. Love seeing the vibe. And I gotta say, hotel people, we might need to step up our game because the cruise people, man, what a party they put together.

I’m excited to walk the floor today, right? See all the new things going on in the world for cruises. So if you’re watching this, I know some of you said you’re watching this live this morning.

Yes, we’re going to be coming by the booth and talking with you and learn all about what you’re doing. So I’m excited to get out there.

Yeah, no, I have to say, so this is now my third year in a row attending Seatrade. And I remember the first year, three years ago when I came and I’m like, oh, I’m the hotel girl. I’m like, how are they gonna be accepting of me?

This sounds really weird, but you know, it’s like, it’s a completely new sort of pond of individuals. And yes, everybody was so, they’ve always been, every year, so awesome, so inviting. And it’s a very cool crowd.

I’m like, okay, I’ve ever been to the cruise industry space.

That’s very cool. And we have somebody speaking on a panel now. So what are you gonna be speaking about?

We’re gonna be talking about AI and how it’s reshaping the guest experience in cruises.

So I’m kind of excited about that. We’ve got some big tech guys on the panel. And then I guess I’m gonna be bringing a little bit of the human side to the conversation.

I usually use it for guest services and to make guests feel good.

I don’t know what you’re gonna bring to them. I’m gonna be in the audience.

I know her. Oh my gosh. Did you see her dancing last night?

No, kidding. No, none of that.

Yep, you can tell. You can see her voice. She was partying hard last night.

Oh, no, oh no.

That was a great time.

Thanks again for having us there. We got a lot to cover today.

We do. So why don’t we go ahead and dive in here?

4:58

AI Travel Booking

So funny that I’ll be doing an AI panel today because we are talking a lot about it today. So are hotels losing control of booking to AI? This is, yeah, as you can see here, Expedia says only 8% trust AI to actually book travel.

This is interesting because obviously people are very comfortable with the discovery aspect. And by the way, I love that we’re talking about this because I’m going to be bringing this up later today. But discovery behavior is obviously shifting.

People are pretty comfortable when it comes to using AI.

Oh, I feel like I had to push her into the AI world. Now she’s the AI queen. I love it.

I mean, oh my gosh, you should see my mom in her ChatGPT stuff.

Anyway, so yeah, so obviously, discovery people are really using it for discovery. But only 8% of bookings are actually currently influenced by AI tools. So what’s that mean?

Okay, people use it for discovery, but actually being comfortable enough to be like, okay, you just go book it for me. A lot of people are like, yeah, hold off there. Yeah, exactly.

I think you’re going to start to see it change a little bit because on the platforms I’m starting to use now multiple.

Like I was doing research for a project.

You should be on this AI panel.

Gemini, Claude and ChatGBT to see what they were going to give me. And they all give you things differently. And I’m starting to like how ChatGBT is starting to offer things up.

Like they show you the reviews, here’s the link to actually check it out for yourself. So to push like some direct bookings that way was interesting to me. But I haven’t let it go all the way through to actually make the booking with an AI.

But I would feel comfortable if I can say, this is what I want to go to, here’s the restaurant I want to go to, and this is the flight I want to take at this time, go book it and just let me hit, okay, I think I would be good with.

But it’s kind of like the early days of buying online. Yeah, yeah. Remember, we were old enough to remember, like don’t put your credit card.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, Steve, I don’t know.

We were alive before cell phones and the internet.

Dial up.

Oh my God. But yeah, it definitely is sort of like the first, again, anytime you’re introducing any sort of new technology, there’s a trust factor.

And especially if you’re going to have having something AI buy for you, that means they’ve got your data. Like, is it just going to buy this one thing or is it going to go on a spending spree?

Can you imagine you start getting Amazon deliveries because you’re AI, so it’s just buying stuff that we thought you needed this. Yeah.

I mean, it’s going to start happening this way. I could see it, but I think travel, like again, I’m going on a trip next week into Moab, and my whole trip was planned using it.

Oh, really?

Yeah. This is the recommendation. Here’s the hotel.

Here’s the experience you should book. I double checked everything, but it served up everything.

Was it accurate?

Yeah. I booked everything it suggested, so I’ll be able to report back. Really?

Okay.

Well, no, but I’m also glad that you double checked everything because that’s, I think, that’s still a tricky thing that I’ll have because obviously I’ve got my private concierge clients all over the world, and I’ll use it for like, okay, what are

good Michelin rated restaurants that are going to be open on Wednesday night here, et cetera. And I do have to double check every so often.

Sometimes it’s wrong.

Yeah. No, it’s definitely wrong. But what I can’t wait for is when, because I get a lot of requests to book actual dinner reservations.

And I mean, I know booking dinner reservations, that’s Concierge 101, but it’s also like the bane of my existence. And then now you don’t even have people answering the phones half the time.

I can’t wait till my client can just ask me to book a dinner reservation. I can just type it in and I know that that’s working in the background.

I think you can do it already. Well, you can connect Open Table to your True, no. But how about you out there watching and listening?

I know Paul, you’re always up to date on what’s going on in AI. And a lot of you are always sending us messages about how you’re using it. Let us know if you’re going to trust it to book your travel coming up soon because look, we’re in that world.

It’s going to only speed up this year. You see new tools coming out all of the time.

Yeah, no, this is very true.

Luke, good to see you. Welcome.

Welcome. We’re almost to sink.

Hello from Charleston. I need to get back to Charleston.

It’s great there.

I love this.

The food, everything, the vibe. So anyway, yeah, so definitely interesting to see what’s going on.

9:17

Hotel AI Strategy

But speaking of AI, we’re just going to continue on that track today. So Minor Hotels is building its AI stack for personalization. What’s really interesting about this is Minor Hotels is investing heavily in AI-driven personalization.

They’re focusing on guest data preferences and tailored experiences, but they’re building it from scratch, which is…

Yeah, so they’ve said, look, we’re not going to piece this together with, you know, having this at the front desk, this for food and beverage, something running our pool deck, you know, one doing our revenue management.

They’re building something from scratch for all their hotels. And they’re not a small company. It’s not like a little standalone boutique.

What is it?

640 hotels, 12 brands.

And so when you can do this with all that data, that’s what I think the secret sauce is going to be.

You’re going to have to really break it down, build it back up, because as a hotelier, you have so much guest data coming in that if Sarah’s staying at Citizen M, and she said in the past that she likes a certain type of room or a certain type of

pillow or a certain type of amenity, it’s still hard for front desk to go through all the information and categorize all of that and deliver that for her. And so I think that’s what we’re really going to start seeing hotel companies do.

They can really embrace it, really personalize the experience for every single guest that comes through.

Yeah, well, and because of that siloed data that, I mean, it’s like only 3% of travel brands actually report having fully integrated customer data, which is crazy. That’s insane.

Yeah, just imagine like you make a pre-reservation right now. Like I was staying at a Marriott last week in Savannah. They sent me a pre-arrival, which is a great step, right before I checked in.

Here’s everything that we have going on.

But if they could see everything I’ve done at a previous place and then suggest, hey, you did this at the last hotel, just confirm that you like this and have it connect directly to my reservation, it would be great.

Yeah, it would definitely be great.

Versus now where they just offer up very generic things like, hey, here’s our bike ride, here’s this tour, here’s this versus personalization, which I think is going to have more and more and more.

Yeah, and even just simple, well, simple, but important things like allergies and whether it’s from bedding to what you can eat and like really make everything.

Yeah, there’s so much information that comes into a hotel, you don’t realize that when you’re in the restaurant with for the room for celebrations, for meetings, for events, it’s just so many things. So the more that we can do here, I like it.

So Minor Hotel, I’m excited to see what you create. We have to report back and see how they’re doing because starting something from scratch is really hard. I’ve done it with a small hotel.

Well, I don’t have this tool. I don’t have this tool. Where’s this tool?

That’s a new way of doing business. So let’s see.

Yeah, we’ll definitely be pretty interesting. All right. Why don’t we move on here to our next topic?

Oh, wait, hold on.

Someone wants to call their name. Is that Khalid? We can put you on there.

Do you say Khalid or do you say Khalid?

He probably says Khalid.

Khalid.

I know.

Well, we called your name. We got you here in the show. Thanks for watching the live.

Oh, my gosh.

No, definitely.

12:07

Asset-Light Growth

So Lemon Tree’s record year with asset light strategy.

So Lemon Tree reports record performance driven by asset light growth, expansion without heavy ownership of real estate, sort of reinforcing this trend towards scalable and capital efficient models. Yeah.

Yeah. Look, the hotel groups understand now that you don’t want to own the real estate. I think I saw an image today from Skift where, yes, you did.

It shows a graph, very clear, the asset light model shooting up directly up.

I think it was Hilton that broke out their just asset light model versus the properties they own and the properties they own have kind of stayed flat, only grown at 20% versus the other, which I think was at 400% growth over the last couple of years

that was on that graph. Yeah. There’s just so much that goes into owning a piece of land and the real estate and operating it.

And when you are the management company, you’re getting your fee, no matter what, at the top, you don’t pay for the labor, you don’t pay for anything, right? You pay for the distribution and you get people inside that hotel.

So it’s really interesting to see. I think this is going to be the way things go.

So yeah, I mean, they, so their record year, by the way, the hotel chain, they signed 56 new properties and opened 20 hotels for the year basically through March of 2026. So yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, that’s…

Yeah, look, that’s the model. As good as the model, you know, we’re doing something a little different. Like I’m building a hotel now.

It’s a small hotel. It’s 20 rooms, a boutique, a luxury hotel, but we’re kind of have both where we don’t own the land. We lease the land and we’re doing a revenue share and we’re collecting management fees for that project.

And we hope to be able to do that for other people as well. So it’s a model that works for sure. And you see it growing and they’re going to continue to push that.

So Lemon Tree has some great properties. I see what they’re starting to do and they’re expanding. I think it was through India, right?

So big, big, big brand in India and they’re trying to make a big push there.

So yeah, definitely, definitely. So yeah, that’s our big takeaway from this. Asset light is no longer optional.

It is the growth model.

Asset light is right.

Yeah. All right.

We got something on the screen here.

What is this? What is this?

What are we putting on it? Do you think the industry has its data clean and ready to implement AI fully? Yes, totally.

Or heck no. Lots of work to do. I’m going to say heck no.

Lots of work to do is my vote. But I think people really want to figure it out. They’re just tied down.

Some of these big companies don’t let you change those systems. You have to get approvals at the corporate level. So it’s going to start from the top.

Like we were just talking about minor. They’re going to take it from the top and really change it. But put your vote in.

I know a lot of you are watching this from your hotels now.

Heck no.

Make sure to put in your votes. I want to hear what you have to say because we have a lot of decision makers that watch this show.

Yes, we do.

We need them to start making these changes for all of us.

Yeah. So there you go. Let us know your thoughts.

15:10

Delta Premium

I’m ready for this next topic.

Oh, this is your topic.

You’re like, I’m just going to lean away here. Okay. So, oh my gosh, it’s so obvious everybody knows my preferences at this point.

So this is huge, huge news in the aviation space. Delta One gets their first major upgrade in a decade.

Delta is basically introducing upgraded premium cabins, which and if you’ve been paying attention to what we’ve been covering, certainly here but then also in the Skift Daily Briefing, premium is where it’s at, especially in aviation.

15:39

And so you’ve got a lot of these bigger brands, United, obviously with Polaris, Delta is upgrading their premium cabins because they’re spending and they’re continuing to spend. So apparently they’ve got longer beds, larger screens.

And I realize it’s already been a decade since they kind of redid their or just even I think they maybe even reintroduced Delta One.

It’s big. So I know that’s the only way you travel. So what are you most excited about seeing in this change?

I mean, look, it’s exciting to see that they’ve got new cabins.

I know that they have, I mean, this was definitely overdue because United has launched a lot of new products lately. And so it makes sense.

Yeah, I mean, in my mind, even with my status, I’m like, oh gosh, this is gonna make it harder for me to get those upgrades.

But oh, this by the way was interesting that in the article is that what they’ve been finding is that more and more people are actually still paying for these premium products where before a lot of people would just be like using their upgrades to

get it like me. Just saying, just saying. Okay, but it’s the people are paying for it and they’re continuing to pay for it and they find the value.

So that’s why for them, they were like, okay, well, this is a worthwhile investment because people are actually paying for that product as opposed to relying on.

Yeah, I mean, some of those flights are expensive. I was just looking, it’s crazy to see how much people are actually paying for some of these flights, especially if you take it overseas. You know, they get like 20,000 for a seat for some of these.

You can, you can.

I book a lot of first class tickets for my clients. I mean, generally, previously what it had been about, maybe it’s like 12,000 ish, give it 12 to 15,000 for round trip first class. Oh, gosh.

Well, it’s kind of more of a kind of like a business class. But and you might be lucky if you could have gotten something about 8,000. Really lucky if you got about 5, 6,000.

But then you’ve got, for example, Air France La Première. They only have four seats. So that is, what is that?

It’s about 22,000 round trips.

Amazing.

I know.

You know, it’s a crazy price to pay. But if you’ve got it and you’re going to be comfortable and you can rest and it helps you make that business deal when you land, I guess it works.

I mean, yeah. Isn’t that crazy?

It’s a crazy number. I just flew first class on points from Miami to Savannah on American and it got me an extra Coke Zero. So that was my benefit.

Your extra Coke Zero.

Well, how long was that flight?

An hour and a half.

Oh, see, this is where you have to use it. Okay, pro tip to everybody here, make sure that if you’re going to go and be in first class, at least make sure it’s three hours or longer. Because if it is, then you can get a meal.

I didn’t get a meal, but I did get an extra Coke Zero and a bag of nuts.

Gosh.

Wow.

Thank you, American. I appreciate you.

I’ll see you soon.

I’ll be on it next week again.

Oh my gosh. In fact, we’re going to have to talk about that at some point because speaking of all these airlines, United kind of floating the idea of a potential merger with American. Did you hear about that?

I did not hear about it.

Oh, yeah.

Look, we’re learning about the sea industry, the cruise industry today.

We are. We’re talking about the flight industry. I’m happy to go check that out too.

If there is a big conference for that, it’ll be fun.

Yeah. No, definitely. So yeah, big time.

Lots of interesting things that are happening in the world. Of all things, travel and hospitality.

I’m excited for this next part.

Are you?

Success last week. I’m excited to see how we do this week.

Yeah, it was not a success.

Well, we both lost. Our viewers and listeners loved this part. Yes.

Why don’t you go ahead and introduce our newest segment that we launched last week.

I feel like it should be like a little interim music. Whose brand is it anyway?

I’m saying Flying First Class 101. Listen, I had extra points. I was like, this seems like a good idea.

You’re right.

Go to a wedding.

No, the first class is a thing.

I saw someone come on that I knew.

I was like, hey.

Actually, quick thing with this before we go into our last segment. My thing is when I’ve been flying between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, I always try to sit first class.

Traditionally speaking, when you end up in first class, people don’t really talk to each other. Either you’re in a cabin and you can’t talk to each other or people are too cool.

But there’s something about if you get first class on a flight to or from Vegas, they want to chat. They’re in a friendly mood. I’ve met so many cool people on that flight.

So Vegas, baby.

Yeah.

They go network in first class. But when you’re going to Vegas, people are feeling fun. Okay.

Don’t make me do the song again.

20:35

Brand Challenge

Now, let’s go.

Whose brand is it anyway?

Whose brand? Oh, wow, guys, this is new graphics.

Whose brand is it anyway? And if you’re new to this, whose brand is it anyway? Brought to you by Vrbo, but our sponsor of the month.

And we are going to be putting up a brand, a hospitality or hotel brand on the screen. And we have to guess which parent company owns it.

Okay. Signia. Oh my gosh.

I know, I’ve heard of Signia.

I feel like I should know this.

Which brand?

Keep that up on the screen there, Paul.

Yeah, keep that up on the screen.

That’s what people can say.

Yeah, you guys think about it, but don’t look at their answers.

Give us your guess. I won’t cheat. I didn’t cheat last week.

I got it wrong last week. I’ve got my answer in my head. I have to write it down.

Listeners and viewers, put in your answer in the comments. Who do you think is the parent company to Signia by? What brand is that?

All right, you’re ready to put in your guess?

Man, I don’t know, but no.

I’m going to go with Hilton.

Oh, my God. Wow. I was going to say hi.

You didn’t even let me put in my thing, but I’m being honest and I told you I was going to say hi.

I got that one. Hilton, Signia by. We got to see which hotels they have.

I don’t have access to the computer today.

Lou said, just say Marriott for anything. That is correct. I’m pretty familiar with the Marriott brand.

So yeah, I got to check out Signia now.

I got to see which brands they have. But again, I love doing this because there are so many brands for all of these hotels, all the new soft brands coming out. So this is a fun game.

Yeah.

We keep this going.

It’s a fun game, except when you lose.

I know, but we could do this every week.

How many more weeks? We could do this for like three years and never run out. So whose brand is it anyway?

Woo.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Wow. We just like went through.

I think we’re so excited to go to the conference.

22:34

Travel Recaps

Yeah, we are.

We definitely are.

Why don’t we chat about a couple of things? Real-time recap.

Yeah.

So what have you seen out in the streets of hospitality?

Oh, you’re going to use that line? The streets of hospitality. That’s a good one.

Goodness.

I will start.

Yeah, you start.

I was just in Savannah, Georgia, as she thinks.

Okay.

And I got to check out a very cool. I’ve never been to the city and I was very surprised. They have a lot of great hotel properties there.

But one of them really stood out. I didn’t stay there, but it was just next door, was the JW Marriott in Savannah, Georgia. The owner, which is part of the Kessler Hotels, created a museum and they have a dinosaur sculptures in there.

They have these geodes that are priceless all throughout the lobby. They have artifacts everywhere. And so basically he’s created this world-class collection of art and artifacts and geodes and all these things.

He’s educating you throughout the entire lobby with like touchscreens.

Wait, I saw the photo.

You posted a photo, but I didn’t realize all.

It was JW Marriott and I was just so impressed that they took an area that was of not much a couple years ago on the riverside and created this whole district that people now are flooding to. So really cool place.

Shout out to the JW Marriott in Savannah. My hotel, on the other hand, could have been very good, but I got overrun by fraternity and sorority, formal. And it was a party on every single floor.

How was that?

I felt like an old man and my brother was there and we were, you know, I was president of my fraternity and he was in the fraternity and I was like the old man, like get back in your rooms at like four in the morning.

Oh my God.

I’m misimagining you guys in the middle of all of that chaos.

Yeah. Yeah. But good time in Savannah.

I have to go back again soon.

Yeah. Okay. Well that sounds cool.

So my real time recap actually was airline focused. So I branched out from Delta. I know.

I do do that on occasion. And I flew with JetBlue and I actually finally got to try their mint product, which is basically their first class. And it was really cool.

They did a very good job. And what I love, I am a big fan of JetBlue. And as well as Alaska Airlines, I think that they do a really great job without necessarily being part of the legacy airlines.

But they have fun with their menu. So even like the menu, first of all, they had non-alcoholic options, but like decent non-alcoholic options, not just juice and cool cocktails, not too sugary, by the way.

That’s a big pushback that a lot of people are saying about mocktails is that we’re like, these are sugar bombs. So that was really great.

And then when you order off the menu, so normally, you know, they would ask, oh, do you want this dish or this dish, whatever.

Basically, they have four items like a salad and whatever, a couple of other things, and then you can choose what dishes you want. So you can choose up to three of the four options on the menu.

So you can have as little as you want or as much in the sense. So but it was really well done. I was impressed.

And Jeff Blue, this is hard to impress Sarah.

He did a good job. She’s been a Delta fan forever. I guess we got to check that out.

Yeah, super comfortable.

We’ve got to go over to the conference, but I want to hear from listeners and viewers.

We got a lot of all the brands are going to be there today. Is there any brand you want to learn more about so we can report back next week? I have two that I’m excited to learn more about.

I want to hear what you think. So I want to learn more about the National Geographic Cruises that go on adventures and expeditions. So I’m going to go try to find out what they’ve got going on.

Sure.

And the other which is, I don’t think it has launched.

Maybe it’s going to is the Amman Cruises.

Yes, they have not launched yet.

Well, this is about to and they’re doing some big press conferences there today. I saw. So I’m excited to see those.

So let us know what you think. What about you, Sarah?

Yeah, I’m I just am always interested in the guest experiences on cruises just because I mean, that’s I think the the hotelier side. Yeah, exactly. The hotelier side.

And because there’s so much that goes into that on a cruise, you’ve got a captive audience, all the staff members, they don’t go home. They just, they’re there, they’re there, they live there.

And so they’re really trying to, I think cruises are in this time where they’re really trying to, the way that they stand out from the crowd is what they’re doing on board, you know, I know for a long time it was like about the destinations.

And now you can reach a lot of the same destinations. You just kind of like choose which five you like. Yeah, exactly.

And but they’re really trying to lean into that personalization and just make it feel very different. So I’m excited to hear more about that.

I’m excited. So all right, listeners, we shared a good amount very efficiently today, quickly.

Super.

But if you found anything of interest, as always, make sure to share this with a friend. They’re going to find value in it. If you have not subscribed yet, like I always say, what do I say, Sarah?

Like, subscribe, follow, share with your friends.

Doesn’t cost you anything.

It doesn’t cost you anything. It’s free to hit the subscribe button and it helps us out big time as well. And thank you out to Vrbo for sponsoring the show.

And if you’re at Seatrade today, make sure to check us out in the floor. Come say hi. Come say hi.

Sarah’s not as scary as she looks in person. She’ll be nice to you. Don’t worry.

Yeah, come to my panel at 1.30 today.

1.30 today panel.

I’m excited to be in the audience. It’s going to be awesome. I probably will be cheering her on, yelling and trying to embarrass her and throw her off for a game.

What does she know about AI?

A whole lot.

Well, until next week, stay hospitable.

We got it right.