This Week in Hospitality
Every Friday morning, This Week in Hospitality brings you the most important stories, insights, and innovations shaping the global hospitality industry — distilled and discussed by people who actually build within it. Hosted by Ben Wolff, Scott Eddy, Edwin Kramer, and Zach Busekrus, this weekly conversation is crafted for the founders, operators, and dreamers creating the next generation of hospitality brands. Each episode breaks down the week’s most compelling hospitality stories and explores what they really mean for independent hotel owners, boutique brands, and experiential travel entrepreneurs. From brand strategy and design trends to tech disruption and capital markets, the podcast keeps you informed, inspired, and ready for what’s next.
Episodes
Google Buys Spirit’s Data, Timeshares Are Cool Now, and Alice Sherman on the Future of Hiring in Hospitality
On this week's episode the guys are joined by Alice Sherman, CEO of HVS Executive Search! Alice Sherman has placed some of the most powerful executives in hospitality. As CEO of HVS Executive Search, she's seen thousands of resumes, sat across from hundreds of owners, and walked the halls of Congress to lobby for the industry. Her message to the business? You're still hiring wrong.
Years of expe
Airbnb & Trip Advisor Partner, IHG's Owner Gambit, and a Loyalty Program Worth More Than the Airline
Airbnb just partnered with TripAdvisor to bring 425,000 experiences onto its platform — a move that signals Brian Chesky isn't just dabbling in experiences anymore, he's building a second business inside the first. The crew breaks down what this means for the future of in-destination travel, why the real unfair advantage might already be sitting inside every host's guidebook, and whether this is A
Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit on The Great Hotel Owner Squeeze, Aman's YouTuber Fiasco, & Marriott's Owner Concession
This week we're joined by Sarah Kopit, Editor-in-Chief of Skift — the publication that fuels basically every episode of this show — and she came ready.
We open on the story all of hospitality shared this week: Aman's brand-new, $6,000-a-night Amanvari turning away independent reviewer Ryan Walker at the gate on night two, then calling the cops on his driver. Scott and Sarah are inclined to give A
Sonder is back, Fora hits a $1B valuation, The Odyssey drives travel & Google’s AI booking grab
Sonder is back — sort of. Eight months after going bankrupt and stranding guests mid-stay, the brand name has been bought by a Vancouver affiliate firm that paid for one thing: search equity. The buildings are gone. The trademarks and 70+ domains remain. And because large language models still route travelers to Sonder’s optimized pages, that name is now targeting $100M in gross booking value over
Hot Takes on Hilton, What Hotels Should Learn from the World Cup, and Shark Tank for Route 66's Last Surviving Motels
Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta went on record defending the brand's 28-property portfolio — and the panel has thoughts. Is the multi-brand arms race really about guests, or is it just an elaborate play for developers and distribution?
Edwin makes the case that independent hotels have a competitive advantage no loyalty algorithm can replicate. Scott drops the hottest take of the episode: loyalty points
How Norwegian Air Went Viral for Losing, Should Airbnb and Ennismore Hook Up? and the Slow Death of Organic Discovery on Vrbo
This week, the squad breaks down Norwegian Air's World Cup Instagram stunt that cost next to nothing and generated more brand equity than campaigns with budgets a hundred times the size. Eivind Hammer Myhre, who leads comms and marketing at Norwegian, joins us live to walk through exactly how it happened — the 25-minute brainstorm, the one phone call to get sign-off, and what came after when the w
Ideas, Stories, and Hot Takes with James McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of NIHI Hotels
James McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of NIHI Hotels, joins the core four for a wide-ranging conversation on what it actually takes to build a legendary independent hospitality brand — from the jungles of Sumba to the halls of the Ritz-Carlton.
James traces his career across some of the most storied names in luxury hospitality — Ritz-Carlton, Rosewood, the Carlisle, YTL — before partnering with Chri
Airbnb Founder's Secret AI Lab, Bass Pro's $300M Resort Bet & The Economy Hotel Franchise Revolt
Zach, Scott, and Edwin dig into three stories reshaping the industry this holiday week. First: Skift's The Big Squeeze Part 2, which spotlights a family in Iowa who let their Wyndham franchise expire, renovated their Super Eight, and beat their old revenue numbers — no flag required. With 1,200+ economy agreements hitting end-of-term by 2030, the off-ramp is more viable than ever. Then: Bass Pro S
Pali Society Goes Bonvoy, Hilton's Incubating 5 New Brands, and Hot Takes with Skift's Hospitality Editor, Sean O'Neil
Sean O'Neill of Skift joins the roundtable this week for a conversation that cuts straight to the fault lines running through the hotel industry right now — distribution versus identity, brand proliferation versus brand meaning, and the wellness promise versus wellness delivery.
The panel leads with Pali Society's decision to bring its 16-property California portfolio into Marriott's Design Hote
CoStar’s Forecast Reversal, Marriott Hits 10K Hotels, and Amsterdam’s Tourist Tax Revolt
This week opens in full TWIH chaos: Zach and Scott are somehow a mile apart in San Antonio and still not together, Ben is on the Connecticut shore debuting smarter-looking glasses, and Edwin is back in Barcelona sweating through a muted AC situation.
Then the guys get into the real stories moving hospitality. CoStar and Tourism Economics upgrade 2026 RevPAR forecasts, but the panel is skeptical. L
The Airbnb-Marriott Deal That Almost Happened, MGM Goes Private(?), Journey & Cloudbeds Partner, & What Premium Travelers Want
Two of the biggest casino operators in the world became takeover targets in the same week — and the squad has thoughts.
Barry Diller's People Inc. just offered $18 billion to take MGM Resorts private, days after Fertitta agreed to buy Caesars. MGM's own CFO didn't argue the company was fairly valued — he argued investors aren't doing the work. Ben, Scott, and Edwin debate whether public markets a
Sonder's Founder is Back, Hyatt's New Growth Strategy, The Human Concierge Book, and L.E/Miami Recap
This week opens at LE Miami — which Scott describes less like a travel conference and more like Coachella for hotel nerds — before the guys dive into the real industry tension underneath the party.
Hyatt tells investors to stop counting rooms and start counting fees, arguing that “empty calorie” growth is the wrong metric. But the panel digs into the contradiction: the premium story is Park Hyatt
The Uber-Hotel Hookup, Expedia Optimizes for AI Agents, and Why Americans Are Skipping Europe
Mews embeds Uber directly into its PMS, promising seamless guest transportation and a cut of ancillary revenue hotels have long been leaving on the table. The guys are skeptical — cool concept, questionable adoption, and the real winner might just be Uber’s data team.
Then Expedia announces B2A — a marketing function built not for humans, but for AI agents. Scott doesn’t mince words: AI is about
Airbnb’s Super-App, Expedia’s Acquisition, The Overtourism Reckoning & Why Small Markets Are Winning
This week, Zach, Ben, and Edwin dig into the race to own the entire trip.
Airbnb’s summer release becomes the main event: rental cars, boutique hotels, Instacart, airport pickups, luggage storage, landmark experiences, and aggressive travel credits. The crew debates whether this is finally Airbnb’s super-app moment — or whether the company still can’t decide if it wants to be a homes platform or
Airbnb Rethinks AI, Brands Move Into Safari, Spain’s Tourism Reckoning, Hospitality’s Human Premium
This week, the guys trace one tension running through travel right now: everyone wants scale, but nobody wants the experience to feel scaled.
Airbnb opens the conversation with Brian Chesky admitting what most travel CEOs won’t say out loud: AI still hasn’t figured out travel. The panel digs into why chatbots don’t solve discovery, why travel planning is visual, emotional, and often multiplayer
The World Cup Bust, Spirit's Collapse, Priceline is Back, and Aman's Move in the Texas Hill Country
The hospitality industry was supposed to print money during the 2026 World Cup. Instead, nearly 80% of hotels across the eleven US host cities are pacing significantly below forecasts, with Kansas City operators calling it a non-event and Boston, Philly, and San Francisco not far behind. On this week's episode, Zach is joined by Edwin Kramer, Scott Eddy, and Ben Wolff to unpack what went wrong —
Uber Becomes a Hotel Platform, TikTok Outperforms OTAs, and Hotels Still Don’t Own the Customer
This week’s conversation pulls apart a reality the industry has been circling for months—but is now impossible to ignore: travel demand is no longer being created, shaped, or captured by the companies that actually deliver the experience.
It’s happening upstream.
What starts as a discussion around TikTok and AI quickly evolves into something bigger—a structural shift in how travelers decide. Dis
Hospitality’s Muddy Middle Is Breaking — With Bashar Wali
Luxury hospitality has a credibility problem: the industry keeps charging more while delivering sameness, ceremony, and aesthetic shortcuts that increasingly feel hollow. Joining the quad this week is Bashar Wali—hotel operator, industry veteran, and one of hospitality’s most outspoken critics—known for pairing irreverence with sharp, experience-backed insight. He wastes no time arguing that the
The Hotel Owner Squeeze, Six Senses Founder's Comeback, Wyndham's Grandma Gambit, and Coachella's Dirty Secret
The hotel industry is telling two very different stories right now — and this week, the squad unpacks both.
First up: a Skift deep dive exposes the brutal math crushing America's hotel owners. Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt are posting record profits while the people who actually own the buildings are hemorrhaging cash — franchise fees, loyalty fees, F&B fees, spa fees, stack an OTA commission
Why Direct Booking Isn’t Working, Hyatt’s Miss, and the New Rules of Demand
This week, Scott, Ben, and Zach discuss the growing disconnect between industry strategy and traveler behavior.
New data from Cloudbeds shows OTA share continuing to rise for independent hotels, even as operators double down on direct booking initiatives. At the same time, Hyatt tied executive compensation to improving direct channel performance—and failed to meet the target, underscoring how dif
The Death of Hotel Discovery, The Rise of Food-Led Hotels, and Loyalty’s Identity Crisis
This week, the guys unpack a massive shift happening across hospitality — and what it means for who actually owns demand.
Hotel executives are finally admitting what’s been true for years: discovery is no longer happening on their platforms. It’s happening on social, in group chats, and increasingly through AI. If you’re not part of the inspiration phase, you don’t exist.
At the same time, food
Hilton’s New Power Play, Marriott’s Brand Explosion, and the Battle for Who Owns Demand
Hilton just rewrote the rules on growth—without buying brands. Marriott keeps flooding the market with more flags. And underneath it all, a bigger question is emerging: who actually owns demand in hospitality?
This week, we break down Hilton’s Yotel deal and what it signals about the future of “platformized” hotel brands, Marriott’s relentless expansion strategy (and whether guests even care anym
The Hotel Restaurant Comeback, Hyatt’s Big Pivot, Rosewood Rumors, and a Brutal Outdoor Hospitality Reality Check
This week in hospitality, three big shifts are colliding — and none of them are getting enough attention.
Hotel restaurants are no longer an afterthought. What was once a margin-draining “amenity” is now becoming one of the most powerful demand drivers a hotel can have. So what changed… and why are lenders suddenly bullish on F&B?
At the same time, Hyatt is making a major move into secondary
OpenAI Pulls Back, Airbnb Stalls, and Travel’s New Power Grab
Travel’s power centers are shifting, but not always where the market expected. OpenAI stepping back from native checkout doesn’t save OTAs so much as reframe the fight: the real leverage may sit upstream, with whoever owns trip discovery and shapes intent before a booking ever happens. Scott argues the industry is still obsessing over the transaction layer while AI is quietly positioning itself to
War, The Claude Effect, Too Many Hotel Brands & Kimpton’s Big Test
This week’s episode of This Week in Hospitality starts on a deeply human note, with the crew reflecting on the escalating conflict in Iran and the ripple effects being felt across the Middle East and global travel. Edwin, Scott, Ben, and Zach share firsthand accounts from friends and colleagues across Dubai, Kuwait, Doha, Beirut, and beyond — a sobering reminder that hospitality often becomes both
Airbnb’s Next Big Bet, the AI OTA Showdown, and Lessons from Jamaica
The episode opens with a “ground truth” dispatch from Jason Henzell of Jake’s Hotel in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, laying out how community tourism, agritourism, and repeat-guest loyalty can anchor a destination—then how two major hurricanes force an operator to turn resilience into strategy.
From there, the hosts dissect Airbnb’s widening blast radius: airport transfers, grocery delivery tests, revi
Ultra-Luxury Ambitions, Franchise Friction & AI as the New Front Desk
Accor isn’t just polishing the Orient Express legend — it’s trying to industrialize it. With LVMH in the mix, the play shifts from “luxury assets” to a full ecosystem built on narrative: trains, hotels, yachts, and a throughline of romance and mythology. Scott sees the upside in that long-game brand equity, but the panel keeps circling the same risk: storytelling can sell the dream, yet only flawl
Africa’s Hotel Surge, Economy’s Comeback Bet, and the Rise of Longevity Luxury
In this week’s episode, the guys jump from Sub-Saharan Africa to budget roadside America to biohacking on a Caribbean beach—and somehow tie it all together. The throughline? Hotel groups are searching for growth in a market that feels mature at home and increasingly demanding everywhere else.
They start with Choice’s plan to open 100 hotels in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2035. Edwin argues that the re
Schrager’s Hotel Reset, Accor launches in ChatGPT, Disney’s Broader Hotel Play?
This week, the guys zero in on where real leadership in hospitality is showing up — and where it isn’t. Accor’s ChatGPT partnership leads the conversation, not as a booking play, but as a signal that intent is shifting away from websites and toward questions. The takeaway is clear: brands willing to test behavior, learn how guests search, and show up early in the decision journey are already ahead
Mews’ Mega-Raise, NYC’s Crack Down on Hotel Fees, More Airbnb Rumors, and Controversy over Hilton's New Hotel Brand
This week opens in a literal snow-and-ice meltdown — and somehow ends in Bangkok’s Hangover Hotel with 3,000 people a day lining up for a movie photo op. In between, the guys hit the real storylines moving the industry.
Mews just raised $300M at a $2.5B valuation, and the panel asks the uncomfortable question: is this finally the moment hotels stop “talking about modernization” and actually do it
Is Airbnb the Next Marriott? ChatGPT Ads Debut, Kasa Acquires Mint House, and Delano’s Return
The guys break down the biggest stories sharing hospitality this week:
Airbnb’s next move isn’t about adding inventory—it’s about repairing a model that never fully scaled. The hosts open by interrogating Airbnb’s rumored hotel strategy and whether pushing into professionally managed stays is a logical evolution or an admission that the peer-to-peer “magic” is gone. Ben argues that hotels on Airbn
White Lotus in Saint-Tropez, Soho House in Trouble, Aman’s Next Move… and Marriott’s Rosewood Rumor
The guys break down the biggest stories sharing hospitality this week:
White Lotus goes to Saint-Tropez: Reports say Season 4 will film at Hôtel de Paris Saint-Tropez. The guys talk about why the show turns hotels into cultural characters — and what a smart property should do right now to build demand before the season even airs.
Soho House deal drama: Skift reports MCR can’t fund its $200M commit
Culture Wars Hit Hospitality, Expedia’s Boom, and Loyalty Abandons the Basic Economy Class
A softening demand backdrop is forcing travel to pick sides: who gets welcomed, who gets rewarded, and who gets priced out. This episode tracks how that sorting is happening across destinations, hotels, OTAs, and airlines—and why “exclusivity” without a better experience is just another way to irritate customers.
First, Bali’s floated idea to require bank statements for visas is framed as a blunt
The Biggest Winners, Losers, and Plot Twists of 2025 — and Predictions for What Comes Next in 2026
2025 was a year where the hospitality world stopped playing offense and started getting sorted — by who could scale, who could actually operate, and who was still living in the low-rate, high-growth fantasy of the last cycle.
In this special year-end episode of This Week in Hospitality, Zach is joined by Ben Wolff, Edwin Kramer, and Scott Eddy to break down the biggest winners, biggest losses, an
Frontier’s Reckoning, Rate Cuts Reignite Hotel Capital, and Why Europeans Are Over NYC & LA
This week, Zach, Scott, Ben, and Edwin are back — and the crew opens with Frontier’s CEO stepping down, treating it as a category autopsy. Scott argues ULCC isn’t failing because people don’t want cheap flights — it’s failing because the experience feels adversarial. Ben backs it with real consumer behavior: once basic economy closes the price gap, travelers avoid Spirit and Frontier unless it’s t
The Netflix Deal, Uber’s Power Play, and Why Hotels Are Losing the Culture War
This week, Zach, Scott, and Ben drop one of the spiciest takes on the future of hospitality yet — starting with the bombshell Netflix–Warner–Paramount showdown and why it matters more to hotels than Hollywood. Scott argues the real war isn’t over streaming… it’s over cultural control, and hotels are dangerously unprepared. Ben hits back with receipts from DTC brands and politics: the media revolut
Corporate America Discovers Wellness, Travelers Reject Algorithms, Park Fees Trigger Travel Rethink
This week, the crew kicks things off with the $100 fee hike for international visitors to U.S. national parks and what it means for gateway towns, hotel owners, and the broader appeal of “America’s best idea.” Will higher fees thin crowds, crush small operators, or just change how and where travelers spend?
From there, we zoom out to the rebirth of human-led travel planning as luxury travelers get
Capital One’s Hopper Play, LuxUrban’s Collapse, Google’s AI Booking Push
A big week of structural shifts in travel and hospitality.
Capital One moves to acquire Hopper’s installed software and hire key hotel and engineering teams — signaling a deeper push into owning the traveler journey.
The team explores the LuxUrban collapse which predates the Sondor fall out but has an eerily similar story.
And Google announces that hotel and flight bookings are coming directly int
Virgin’s Identity Crisis, Chase’s 2026 Travel Predictions, and Why Hilton’s Rethinking its Honors Program
In this episode of This Week in Hospitality, Zach Busekrus sits down with Scott Eddy, Ben Wolff, and Edwin Kramer to break down three major stories reshaping the travel and hospitality world. From Chase’s surprising 2026 travel and dining predictions, to Virgin Hotels’ sudden CEO transition, to Hilton’s sweeping overhaul of its Honors loyalty program — this week offers big questions, bold moves, a
The Sonder Collapse, Hilton’s New Bet, and Airbnb’s Hotel Ambitions
In this episode of This Week in Hospitality, Zach Busekrus sits down with Scott Eddy, Ben Wolff, and Edwin Kramer to unpack three major stories dominating the travel and hospitality world. From Sonder’s dramatic collapse following Marriott’s termination, to Hilton’s launch of the Outset Collection, to Airbnb’s bold embrace of hotels — this was one of the most consequential weeks the industry has s
Introducing "This Week in Hospitality"
Every Friday morning, This Week in Hospitality brings you the most important stories, insights, and innovations shaping the global hospitality industry — distilled and discussed by people who actually build within it.
Hosted by Ben Wolff, Scott Eddy, Edwin Kramer, and Zach Busekrus, this weekly conversation is crafted for the founders, operators, and dreamers creating the next generation of hospit
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