Greg Oates

The event technology scene is going mainstream, but there needs to be more research on the business case for event tech from non-biased sources to help meeting planners make smarter business decisions.

Marriott's internal story about how it's repositioning around technology, innovation, and an appreciation of both the individual guest and staff member resonates with Marriott's target Gen Y/Z audiences.

Food tourism is nothing new, but its exponential growth is remaking how destinations position themselves in the global tourism marketplace.

Commune Hotels' CEO Niki Leondakis could be just the person to shift the lifestyle hospitality discussion beyond the tired "independent spirit" narrative to a more modern focus on personalized, mobile-first, on-demand experiences.

This is the first time we've been able to make a direct causal link between smart city infrastructure and a cohesive consumer-facing tourism application leveraging the Internet of Things. This is the future of travel.

This mashup of leaders in travel, media, commerce, and IT represents the cross-industry synergies fueling the rise of the digital platform economy. It also represents the growing link between smart city development and tourism, which is going to explode in 2016.

Smarter, more advanced technology is entering mainstream discussion in 2016, so event planners and everyone else in the meetings industry should embrace that 100% and stop talking gibberish about how "meetings are about people." We know that, but people today use technology.

The FreemanXP TrendLab research provides a good example of experiential event marketing, as well as how companies can leverage their industry knowledge to develop a sellable product.

Hilton's latest new brand is bringing all of the next generation hospitality trends to one cost-effective platform, which could potentially scale very well based on price alone.

Tonight's big reveal of Tourism Australia's new video marketing drive suggests that the bureau is losing focus of what makes the country special, devolving instead into a Bloomingdale's summer catalog.