Greg Oates

Alex Calderwood grew Ace Hotel into a global phenomenon by first understanding the emerging Gen X market in Seattle during the 1990s.

The winning hotel designs at the 2013 European Hotel Design Awards focus as much on user experience and social interaction as they do aesthetic whimsy -- throughout the rate scale.

Hotels are in the business of sleep, except very few of them help travelers understand the personal and economic costs of sleep deprivation and poor sleeping habits.

Many people can't or don't want to pay $250 and up for a hotel room they'll only briefly use in a trendy urban neighborhood. The Freehand brand is designed for those people.

Hotels are personalizing the guest experience through innovative amenity programs, while the free versus paid WiFi debate shifts toward bandwidth strength.

Ex-hotelier Chip Conley is attempting to bring uniform standards of hospitality to the Wild West of online property sharing and half a million micro-entrepreneurs worldwide.

This innovative partnership allows AFAR Media to leverage its crowdsourced content, while Westin Hotels displays an accuity for the value of offering fresh local travel intel near its properties.

A localized hotel experience is the #1 marketing mantra in the American hospitality industry today, three decades after Bill Kimpton invented the idea.

It isn't just a "trend," it is about remaining relevant in order to attract the loyalty of the next generation traveler.

The intersection of local doesn't just effect the hospitality industry, but also has implications for the local entertainment and arts scene, as well as creates the need for deeper tourism experiences. This is about remaining relevant for and attracting the next generation traveler.