Skift Travel News Blog

A major hotel technology trade show in North America appeared to get sudden competition on Thursday thanks to a new conference backed by a major U.S. hotel lobby.

For five decades, hotel tech professionals have run HITEC, the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference. But on Thursday, American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) and Questex, an events operator and publisher, said they had partnered to create The Hospitality Show at The Venetian Las Vegas.

The new event will take place from June 27 to 29. The dates overlap with HITEC’s dates of June 26 to 29.

The announcement came after news in May that AHLA had made an unsolicited merger offer to the trade group Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) — which produces HITEC. The tech professionals group rejected the offer, as Skift noted.

Since then, AHLA has partnered with Questex to create a new event.

“This new technology and operations conference and trade show will be U.S.-based and bring together our industry’s top executives and thought leaders,” an AHLA spokesperson said.

Next year’s HITEC will take place in Toronto, as it did in 2017, but all other past North American HITECs have been held in the U.S.

Frank Wolfe, CEO of HFTP and leader of the trade show since 1994, said he had no comment at this time.

UPDATE: August 1. Wolfe has released a statement:

“HFTP wishes AHLA and their for-profit partner the best of luck in the new endeavor,” said Frank Wolfe, CAE, CEO of HFTP. “Competition always makes everyone in the comp set raise the bar a bit and HITEC has had plenty of competition over the years.”

“The unfortunate issue for the industry is that the impact on the suppliers and HITEC allies such as AAHOA, CHTA, HSMAI and IHITA was not taken into consideration before duplicating the HITEC dates, published well in advance,” Wolfe said. “Decisions like this really create a hardship for the industry, especially the suppliers without whom we would not survive.”

“The real losers will end up being the exhibitors,” said Jason Freed in a post on LinkedIn. “Now tech suppliers can’t be at both shows, and each show will have less traffic because attendees were forced to choose…. There’s definitely room for another hotel tech show, but holding it on the exact same days as HITEC is not going to get you off on the right foot.”

The creators of the new Hospitality Show had a different view.

“The date overlap was not meant in any sense as a competitive maneuver,” said Alexi Khajavi, president, hospitality and travel at Questex.

Questex’s market research had identified mid-year as an effective time on the calendar to hold an event of this kind before hotels do third-quarter budgeting. But venue availability during the midpoint of the calendar was a challenge, Khajavi said.

The Hospitality Show isn’t intended to be a HITEC clone.

“There is a big enough difference between what we’re doing and what they’re doing that we see the opportunity for both events, frankly, to coexist,” Khajavi said.

“Tech is only one part of this,” Khajavi said. “It’s going to cover food and beverage, revenue management, housekeeping, legal, and labor, just to name a few. HITEC typically draws your CTOs, CIOs, and revenue managers, but not owner-operators. You rarely see anyone as senior a level as a VP of operations.”

In other words, The Hospitality Show aims to have a broader scope.

“Hotels operations are becoming more and more complex, and owners need to take a cross-disciplinary approach to identify the issues and solutions that drive optimization, and ultimately profitability back to those owners,” Khajavi said. “When we looked out at the landscape of all of the industry events, there really wasn’t one event that brought together teams across disciplines, along with senior leadership, to address those issues.”

For some, the overall discussion about HITEC and the new Hospitality Show seemed like a tempest in a teapot.

“True, this was a bad week for the U.S. hospitality industry,” said Guilain Denisselle, who runs the French trade news site Tendance Hotellerie and has been a long-time attendee of HITEC. “But in the rest of the world, it means nothing to most of the hotel community.”

CORRECTION: HITEC has been held for 50 years, not 30. Post has been updated.

Saudi Arabia’s tourism development fund said it would help invest in the building of lifestyle hotels in the kingdom through a new hotel investment fund worth $400 million (1.5 billion Saudi riyals) that Al Rajhi Capital will manage.

Ennismore, a lifestyle hospitality joint venture with Accor, will pinpoint locations, provide financing options, and lead the development and operation of these projects, which will create about 2,000 hotel rooms.

Ennismore didn’t specify which of its 14 brands — which includes 25hours, The Hoxton, Delano, Gleneagles, Mama Shelter, Mondrian, Morgans Originals, and 21c Museum Hotel — will appear in the kingdom.

Saudi’s tourism development fund (TDF), created in 2020, has $4 billion to drive tourism growth in the kingdom.

Ennismore was founded by co-CEO Sharan Pasricha, who will be speaking at Skift Global Forum in New York.

Alternative asset manager Blackstone released its earnings on Thursday and revealed that its $5.7 billion sale of the Cosmopolitan hotel and casino in Las Vegas had produced about $4.1 billion in profit, the Wall Street Journal estimated

The financial firm said in filings that the Cosmopolitan sale was its most profitable single real estate asset sale ever. But it didn’t precisely disclose the profit. The WSJ deduced the amount by analyzing the company’s profit-and-loss sheets for the second quarter. Blackstone as a whole reported a net loss for the quarter.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has some context on the Cosmopolitan deal and the long-term Blackstone’s effects on workers, the resort, and Las Vegas.

American tourists to Europe have more buying power than usual, which means that the dollar can buy 15 percent more than a year ago. Visitors are spending on everything from wine to handbags. Here are some interesting statistics from The Wall Street Journal on Monday:

“Overall, travelers from the U.S. spent 56% more money in Europe in June than they did during the same period in 2019, according to VAT refund provider Planet. Richemont, which owns Cartier and watchmaker Vacheron Constantin, reported 42% higher sales in Europe in the quarter that ended June 30.”

—WSJ

The U.S. dollar’s value relative to the euro is the strongest it has been since 2002, the WSJ reported. The move by the U.S. central bank to boost interest rates has attracted some international investors, distorting currency markets.

The flip side is, of course, that the U.S. has become more expensive to most international visitors, holding back the recovery of tourism spending. The New York Times has a helpful infographic on which currencies are held back the most.

One of the most talked about trends in travel has been how many people are merging business with leisure in “workcations” or “bleisure.” The Toggle Hotel in Tokyo caught our eyes for how it brings the concept of blended hospitality to life.

The Toggle Hotel has painted most of its interiors in only two colors, accentuating how guests can toggle between leisure and business. Located by the Suidōbashi train station in Chiyoda City, the property has painted each floor in a different pair of colors.

Continuing with its theme of blurring boundaries, the hotel has placed its lobby on the top floor. People start their stay with skyline views and can enjoy a break in a cafe — also painted in only two colors.

Klein Dytham Architecture is the firm behind the project.

Flyr Labs, which sells software to airlines to help them set their fares in revenue-boosting ways, has bought Newshore, a Barcelona-based software business that helps airlines with selling.

The companies didn’t share the deal terms or price. They said the acquisition would help Flyr’s clients in a few ways, such as by helping carriers more accurately predict buying patterns and respond to disruptions.

“Newshore’s disruption management solution automatically manages and communicates remediations to customers – streamlining many previously inefficient manual processes,” said a spokesperson. The software tools sync with the most commonly used airline technology systems.

Newshore’s Internet booking engine, its tools for improving upselling, and other services, will also appeal to airline customers, the companies said.

Flyr is a San Francisco-based startup backed by JetBlue Airways’ corporate venture arm JetBlue Technology Ventures. It has disclosed raising more than $150 million in funding from multiple investors to date.

A new survey has found that only one in four Americans planning to travel in the next three months trust airlines “a lot.” The survey was published on Thursday by Morning Consult.

For both “all U.S. adults” and for “frequent flyers,” trust is down by 4 percentage points since a survey at the start of the year.

The lack of trust is even more pronounced among frequent leisure travelers, with merely one in five saying they fully trust airlines. This result may reflect how frequent flyers have greater exposure to airline performance. Or else it may reflect how many frequent flyers think it’s hip to be jaded.

Sadly, airline executives think it’s hip to be jaded, too. Expect them to complacently ignore consumer complaints and trust that the flyers will keep coming back — with minimal brand damage.

Flyers are justified in their anger, though. Airlines have had a miserable performance this summer, and Skift’s Edward Russell recently explained why.

Here’s another fun result:

“Net trust in the primary U.S. carriers — American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines — among users of each brand is lower now than it was in the wake of the winter holidays.”

—Morning Consult

A lot of hotel guests are dissatisfied with customer service and costs, according to study released on Wednesday by JD Power, a market research firm.

A survey of 34,407 hotel guests for stays between May 2021 and May 2022 found a higher level of complaints than the previous comparable period.

Many consumers appear to be irritated about costs and fees, room cleanliness, and staffing. The results come against a backdrop of a hotel sector struggling to handle the post-pandemic surge in demand during a labor crisis.

Key takeaways involve the interplay of cost and quality in consumers’ minds:

• “The single biggest factor driving this year’s 8-point decline in overall satisfaction is hotel cost and fees.”
• Guest satisfaction with budget and “upper-midscale” properties fell 11 points, the largest decline in years.
• “Another factor driving the decline is satisfaction with guest rooms, which suggests that hotel guests are feeling like they are paying more, but not getting more in return.”
• “While hotels still get relatively high satisfaction scores for guest room cleanliness, scores for décor and furnishings, in-room amenities and quality of bathrooms decline from a year ago.”

Caravelo, a startup specializing in travel subscription services, said on Monday that it had received approximately $3 million (€3 million) in funding from Banco Sabadell via Sabadell Venture Capital and Inveready Venture Finance.

Caravelo, based in Barcelona, said it had seen revenue from its travel subscription solutions double in the first half of the year.

In the past year, it began helping Alaska Airlines on the back-end with that carrier’s recently launched subscription program.

Since 2018 the startup has run a subscription offering on behalf of Volaris, the Mexican low-cost carrier. The Volaris VPass lets more than 30,000 consumers fly within Mexico once a month, paying only taxes when you book in return. Plans vary, but the monthly subscription for round-trip tickets is about $35 (699 Mexican pesos) a month. Volaris’ VPass recently reported a 95 percent increase in users, year-over-year, as well as revenue that is already 105 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

“In the past year, the industry has finally woken up to the power of subscriptions,” said CEO Iñaki Uriz. “We have seen a marked increase in the number of airlines that are working with us to build subscription programs. We are expecting to make new announcements before the end of the year, including the launch of a new type of subscription product by a large carrier in Latin America.”

The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) published an eye-catching report on Thursday that found that Ireland was among the top five costliest European destinations when it comes to accommodation, food, beverages, and getting from place to place domestically. That’s not good news if Ireland wants to win back its full share of tourism in the post-pandemic recovery.

Ireland is the priciest European nation for alcohol, more than twice the European average. It’s the second most expensive for transport; the third-most expensive for food and non-alcoholic beverages; and the fourth most expensive for restaurants and hotels.

For example, the average cost of Irish hotels has risen by 21.4 percent from €136.71 in May 2019 to €165.97 in May 2022, according to global hospitality analytics company STR.

Costs are partly being driven up by a reduced supply post-pandemic and from the housing of Ukrainian refugees, reduced staffing because of a labor crunch which means not all occupancy can be served, and soaring costs for energy that are being passed along to consumers.

“”With the reduced tourism VAT rate of 9% scheduled to revert to 13.5% in February 2023, Ireland will be amongst the top rate for visitors on accommodation and food across Europe.” — ITIC report