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On Wednesday, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts announced a new brand, Registry Collection Hotels, bringing the company's total brand count to 21, reports HNN's Robert McCune. The new brand will sit in the upper end of the company's portfolio, offering a luxury product.

"The launch of Registry Collection Hotels comes at a time when a growing number of independent luxury hotel owners are seeking out proven and established partners to help them recover from the challenges of the global pandemic," according to a news release. "Registry Collection hotels allow these owners to maintain their independent spirit and brand individuality while tapping into the global scale of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts loyalty program, helping them to drive more direct bookings at a lower cost of distribution."

Wyndham President and CEO Geoff Ballotti said in the release that as the hospitality industry continues to rebound, independent hotel owners across the globe have engaged with the company's development teams, seeking sales, marketing and reservations support.

Texas-based third-party hotel operator Aimbridge Hospitality is entering Mexico with the acquisition of third-party operator Grupo Hotelero Prisma, according to a news release.

With the acquisition, Aimbridge will gain management of 42 properties with over 7,500 rooms throughout the country, including hotels such as Westin Monterrey, JW Marriott Monterrey, JW Marriott Guadalajara and Tribute Tulum.

"Grupo Hotelero Prisma has consistently increased its portfolio through alliances with large hotel groups such as IHG Hotels & Resorts, Wyndham Hotel Group, Marriott International and Hilton. It also maintains a collection of properties operated by national Mexican brands such as Casa Grande and Ex Hacienda San Xavier," the release states.

In navigating the return of group business, hoteliers must anticipate and manage unpredictable variables for each conference and event as they come up, HNN contributor Harvey Chipkin reports.

"Among those possible surprises are an earlier-than-expected return of in-person gatherings; a higher-than-normal number of pre-nights and post-nights booked; a mix of virtual, hybrid and live gatherings that is difficult to forecast; and a wide divergence in how customers might respond to hotel policies on deposits, refunds, cancellations and attrition," Chipkin writes.

As demand surges for air travel and gasoline, "all signs from this past Memorial Day weekend reaffirm the oil market's bet that Americans will be out traveling in force this summer," Bloomberg reports.

The boom in travel is good news for Saudi Arabia and its OPEC+ allies.

“The cautious optimism has turned to fully optimistic,” Michael Tran, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, told Bloomberg. “We were in the stage where we all thought this was going to be a barn-burner of a summer for mobility, and now that we’ve crossed past Memorial Day and into the summer [some of the confirmation] is coming through the real-time data."

While demand for hotels is returning across the U.S., the employees for those properties are not, Forbes reports.

"Talent acquisition experts labeled 2021 as the beginning of 'the great rehire' era for the U.S. economy. For hotels and restaurants, however, the past five months have resembled a far different outlook," the article states.

Leveraging artificial intelligence can be one solution for creating operating efficiencies.

"For enterprises forced to weather low staff volumes, technology can be used to forecast small increments of demand and then automate staffing to those increments to ensure operational efficiency. If a restaurant’s forecast projects 200 covers for a Thursday lunch shift, the technology will indicate that 22% of those covers will occur between 11:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. and make automated scheduling adjustments to meet labor demands," Forbes reports.