GMH Hotels: Banks Now Lead Travel Loyalty. Small Hotels Beat Big Brands.

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into two stories that have real implications for hotel operators heading into the fall.The conversation opens with what hotel CEOs are actually deploying with AI right now, from voice agents handling a meaningful share of front desk queries to digital twins being used for executive decision-making. Then Sarah and Steve get into Royal Caribbean Group's reported talks for a 50% stake in Sandals Resorts International and what a cruise line buying into a Caribbean resort brand would mean for the broader leisure travel landscape. Join us for their final episode on GMH!

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane recap sessions from Skift Global Forum that every STR operator should be paying attention to. First up is Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, who confirmed that Uber plans to add vacation rental content through its Expedia Group integration and that 80% of its hotel bookings already come from UberOne members — demand that bypasses Google entirely. Then the crew gets into Brian Chesky's commitment on stage to launching an Airbnb AI agent in 2027, which he called the most important product the company has ever built, and what that means for how STR listings get discovered and recommended going forward.

On this episode of Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Sarah Dandashy, Katie Cline, and Brandreth Canaley are on the ground at Skift Global Forum to unpack Airbnb’s increasingly serious push into hotels and what it could mean for the balance of power in hotel distribution. Airbnb now has nearly 4,000 hotels using its new listing format, is reportedly charging some operators a 13% commission, and is funding a 15% guest credit as it tries to prove it can bring hotels incremental demand instead of simply shifting bookings away from Booking.com, Expedia, or direct channels. The bigger question: If Airbnb’s endgame is eventually “hotels everywhere,” how different does it remain from the OTAs it once positioned itself against? Then the conversation expands beyond Airbnb into what Sarah and Brandy heard across day one of Skift Global Forum week, including conversations from the Creator Summit, Live Tourism Summit, and the broader themes shaping where hospitality and travel are headed.

On Monday's episode of Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley and Michael Goldin, recording from GuestyVal in Madrid, open with breaking news: StayTerra has acquired Gather Vacations, adding Hawaii, California, and Washington to its portfolio and surpassing 2,000 properties under management. Then they share their live session with Amiad Soto, CEO and co-founder of Guesty, recorded on stage at GuestyVal. Amiad announces Guesty's acquisition of Smily, its eighth acquisition to date, and makes the case that consolidation in the PMS space is only accelerating. He talks about Guesty's 65-plus AI agents live today, why what used to take a year to build now takes a week, and his belief that the best property managers of the future are not necessarily the biggest ones. He also shares why AI slop is really just human slop in disguise and what it actually takes to get great output from the models everyone is using

AI adoption in hospitality isn’t just a technology problem — it’s a management problem. In this bonus episode of Good Morning Hospitality, Wil Slickers sits down with Vered Raviv Schwarz, COO of Guesty, to unpack her “Hybrid 2.0” vision for teams built around humans and AI working together. They debate whether today’s AI models are actually good enough, where operators should automate versus keep humans in the loop, how AI changes hospitality jobs, and why trust may determine how quickly the industry can adopt it. Plus, Vered shares how Guesty is already restructuring its own teams and workflows around AI.

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into where hotel differentiation actually comes from. The conversation covers why creator content drives awareness but rarely converts to bookings and what hotels can actually do about it, how Marriott is wiring Bonvoy directly into corporate booking tools in a way rivals will have to match, what Starlink's cost structure means for how guests now think about hotel connectivity, and Dorchester Collection CEO Jennifer Fox's case that cookie-cutter luxury is the real threat to the category.

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane get into three stories shaping where the STR industry is heading. Meta's AI is now completing travel bookings and the platforms it chose to integrate with tell a story of their own. Jamie Lane shares what is happening at AirDNA with their new dynamic pricing launch. And the crew looks at how short-term rentals are playing a surprising role in communities that traditional hospitality has largely left behind.

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into where competitive advantage actually lives in hospitality right now.The conversation covers what great luxury GM leadership actually looks like, why banks are quietly becoming the most powerful loyalty players in travel, and whether a small collection of iconic independent hotels can genuinely out-earn the global brands.

Vrbo just rolled out its largest-ever product launch, with 12 new products and features spanning advertising, pricing, promotions, payments, guest operations, and property management. On this episode of Good Morning Hospitality, Michael Goldin, Brandy Canaley, and Jamie Lane sit down with Tim Rosolio, VP of Vacation Rental Partnerships at Expedia Group, to unpack what the expansion says about Vrbo’s strategy for the vacation rental market. They dig into Sponsored Listings and the economics of paying for premium search placement, new pricing and promotional tools, One Key member deals, Expedia package distribution, and whether AI-powered search is already changing how travelers discover vacation rentals. Tim also addresses concerns around hosts effectively buying their way up search results, Vrbo’s new Host with Confidence program, and why Expedia continues investing in Escapia as the property management technology landscape becomes increasingly competitive. It’s a look beyond the product announcements at how Expedia Group is building a broader demand, merchandising, and technology ecosystem around professional vacation rentals.

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk are joined by Jason Gamel, President and CEO of ARDA, to talk vacation ownership, where the industry is headed, and what the data actually shows about owner satisfaction and sector health. From there, Sarah and Steve get into AI-generated video giving small hotel operators a marketing edge they never had before, why boutique hotel founders almost always sell and the ones who plan for it win, and Airbnb's appointment of a former Booking.com hotel executive and ex-president of Viator as its new Chief Business Officer. This episode is presented by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠StayFi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bilt⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months. And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠joinbilt.com/gmh⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more for GMH listeners!