Hotel guest satisfaction increased across every segment in J.D. Power's 2026 North America study. Andrea Stokes, Practice Lead, Hospitality Intelligence, explains what guests are noticing in rooms and shared spaces, why responsive human service still matters alongside mobile check-in, and what operators can learn from food and beverage. We also discuss how J.D. Power benchmarks large third-party hotel management companies.

Learn more:

• 2026 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study
• 2026 North America Third-Party Hotel Management Guest Satisfaction Benchmark
• 2023 conversation: How J.D. Power studies hotel guest satisfaction
• 2024 conversation: Changing guest expectations and hotel management

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
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If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Today in Washington, DC, I shared findings from the State of Hotel AI research I ran with Nazpari Aydin for Destination AI. We surveyed hotel company leaders about how they feel about AI, where it's paying off today, and what's holding them back. 

The research

• State of Hotel AI: Fall 2026 findings
• Take the survey to get the full benchmarking data set

Related episodes

• Destination AI: How I Built the #1 Hospitality AI Event From Scratch (Nazpari Aydin)
• Stop Guessing About AI. See What Hotel Leaders Are Actually Doing (Nazpari Aydin)
• AI is the Tool. Mindset is the Operating System. Hospitality is the Outcome. (Danica Smith)
• How Loews Hotels Puts AI to Work for Guests and Teams (Dan Kornick, Loews Hotels)

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

AI is the tool, mindset is the operating system, and hospitality is the outcome. In this episode, Danica Smith, Guest Experience Correspondent at Hospitality Daily and founder of MorningStar GX, shares what this framework means for hospitality leaders: giving people the time and support to use AI, keeping experimentation focused on useful outcomes, and considering operational efficiency alongside team well-being and guest experience.

Read Danica’s article: You Cannot Automate Your Way Out Of Overwhelm

Listen to our previous conversation: Is AI Actually Improving Our Lives?

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Danica Smith, Guest Experience Correspondent at Hospitality Daily and founder of MorningStar GX, joins Josiah Mackenzie to share her read on AI in travel and hospitality, fresh from the main stage at AI Summit Barcelona, where not one person in the room said they would let an AI agent book their trip without approval. Danica and Josiah compare that hesitation with Josiah’s recent experience using AI to research and book a trip. They also discuss inequality in experimenting with AI, what productivity measures can miss about hospitality work, consent when technology records guests, and whether a new tool is actually making life better.

Mentioned in this episode:

• AI Summit Barcelona
• Women in Travel Thrive
• ChatGPT Codex
• Claude
• Meta Muse
• OpenClaw
• Wispr Flow
• Granola
• Lovable
• Canva

More with Danica:

• Should Hoteliers be "Vibe Coding" with AI?
• Guest Experience Tech: What I Learned Building, Selling, and Using It
• Beyond Buzzwords: The Truth about Guest Experience

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Steven Moore, CEO of Actabl, and Joseph Benjamin, Actabl's Chief Technology Officer, share a practical approach to using AI in hotel operations as leaders prepare for budget season. They explain why reliable operational AI depends on trusted data, how it can give hotel teams more time with guests, and how leaders can move from scattered experiments to a coherent architecture without creating new security and cost problems.

Watch the webinar:

• Access the original on-demand Actabl webinar and see the presentation slides

Explore Actabl AI:

• Actabl AI: Hotel AI That Works
• AI Insights: From Labor Data to Labor Action
• Altitude: Answers About Hotel Performance From AI You Can Trust
• Actabl Data Services: The Data Foundation for Hotel AI

Actabl AI announcements:

• Actabl's AI Insights Cut Overtime Share of Hours by 13% Across 100-Plus Hotels
• Actabl Introduces Altitude
• Actabl Launches Forward-Deployed Engineering for the Hotel Industry
• Actabl Granted a U.S. Patent for Hotel Data Normalization
• Actabl Launches AI Asset Setup
• Actabl Hires a Global Hotel Engineering Leader as SVP of AI Asset Management

Related companies and episode:

• Steven and Joseph's earlier episode, How Hotel Companies Turn AI Into Competitive Advantage, on forward-deployed engineering

This episode is sponsored by Actabl

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Dan Kornick, Chief Information Officer at Loews Hotels, explains how they decide where AI can improve hotel work and guest service. Dan also discusses working with technology partners, measuring results, and testing whether the value justifies the cost.

Going to Destination AI? Hear Dan there: Destination AI Forum.

Read my related HotelOperations.com article: Most Hotel AI is Stuck in “Pilot Purgatory” But Loews Sees a Way Out.

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Alex Cabañas, founder and CEO of Astound Ventures and executive chairman of Pyramid Global Hospitality, shares how our industry can innovate to make hotels more profitable, working in hotels more rewarding, and stays in hotels more enjoyable.

Learn more:

• Astound Ventures: launch announcement, net unit margin approach & portfolio companies
• Operational examples: Base Power (home batteries) | Fox Fold (refillable paper) | Outmore (heated outdoor furniture) | Relivable (meeting and event workflows)
• Events: Destination AI Forum | Blueprint

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Sloan Dean introduces AI Hospitality Group and explains why he's building an AI-native hotel management company. He covers the pace, risks, and benefits of AI; the pressure on hotel owners; and how he's approaching recruiting, sales, and daily operations through hotel partnerships. Sloan also explains his profit-sharing management model and what he believes this approach could mean for hotel associates, owners, and guests.

Links:

• AI Hospitality Group
• Sloan’s newsletter: Services Are the New Software. Hotel Management To Be Heavily Disrupted.
• Sequoia Capital: Services: The New Software
• Emergence Capital: Why AI-Native Services, and Why Now
• Emergence Capital’s original 2024 essay: The Death of Deloitte
• Subscribe to Sloan’s NOT DONE newsletter
• Listen to NOT DONE with Sloan Dean
• Connect with Sloan on LinkedIn

Previous conversations with Sloan:

• AI for Hotels: MIT Lessons, Claude, Vibe Coding and Real Use Cases
• Not Done: Sloan Dean After Remington
• The Power Shift in Travel
• The Future of Hotel Management: Automation, AI, and Innovation

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Cornell professor Chris Anderson shares why hotels cannot afford to treat AI as a "wait-and-see" issue. Drawing on research he conducted about how different traveler segments use AI, he explains why hotel discovery is becoming more contextual and why reviews and trusted third-party information matter. We also discuss what hoteliers can test now, why integrated technology will matter more, and how more specific guest requests could eventually change what hotels offer.

Chris Anderson will be speaking at Destination AI 2026. Learn more about the event here.

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, hosted by our careers correspondent Emily Goldfischer, founder of hertelier, Charlotte Weatherall, General Manager of Corinthia London, shares what she has learned about building a career and leading as herself.

Charlotte explains how her sales and marketing background prepared her to become a GM, why trusting her team shapes the guest experience, and how she balances ambition with family life. She also shares what hospitality needs to change to support women’s progression and why kindness belongs in even the most difficult leadership conversations.

Read Emily’s original Hertelier article: Charlotte Weatherall, General Manager of Corinthia London, on Authentic Leadership and Why Kindness Wins.

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands