LOS ANGELES — As global operations, hotel brands and networks can glean insightful information about both wide-ranging and market-specific trends and how to adapt to them.
During the "Boardroom outlook: Global advantage" general session at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, hotel executives spoke about the latest developments they're seeing in the travel industry.
Something Global Hotel Alliance CEO Christopher Hartley said he learned early in his career was that he should focus on markets where people are the most likely to travel from. In the early 1990s, Germany was the No. 1 outbound international market in the world because 75% of Germans had a passport. At the same time, only about 5% of Americans had one.
“You’ve got to focus on the market that’s most likely get outbound travel, and so Europe was very much a focus in those days,” he said.
At the beginning of 2025, however, 51% of Americans now have passports, moving the country significantly up in the ranks, Hartley said. China’s population is at about 10% and India is around 6% or 7%.
“The U.S. is by far the No. 1 international outbound market,” he said. “We’ve got $300 million in outbound travel last year from this market. What you’re seeing is a completely different type of customer coming out of this market traveling, and actually people are traveling to leisure destinations.”
Europe is popular, particularly Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy, he said. Japan is popular as well, with Asia in general growing as a destination.
Hartley said he expects to see this outbound leisure trend continue to rise, he said. Airlines are adding more direct international leisure destinations in turn.
Outbound travel is tremendously important, but BWH Hotels is also seeing regional, or territorial, travel in which governments incentivize travelers to stay and explore their own countries as well, President and CEO Larry Cuculic said.
“We will, of course, try to remember international travel as much as possible — we're a global brand, it is what we're asked to do. That's what our hotels expect,” he said. “But I think we also have to market very strongly to take advantage of the opportunities within those regions themselves.”
China and India are great examples of countries that do this, Cuculic said. India’s prime minister is building infrastructure in the country to encourage people to explore and stay in India to see what it has to offer regionally. Germans love to travel to Spain and Portugal. Scandinavians love to go to Mallorca.
It the job of hoteliers to determine where these next hot markets will be to develop, he said. It can seem counterintuitive at times, though. In recent years, BWH Hotels has signed several deals in Vietnam when 10 to 15 years ago the focus was elsewhere.
The king of Saudi Arabia is committed to building up the country’s hotel base with a government loan program of $800 billion to help its bid to host the World Cup in 2034, Cuculic said.
“You have to stay nimble with regard to development,” he said.
That said, certain markets, such as Paris and London, will remain hotspots and always attract travelers, he said.
Use of technology
There is a natural evolution in how hoteliers communicate with new audiences in new markets, Hartley said. That changes further as hoteliers enter emerging markets.
“Each of these markets is going to have a new generation of travelers that we’re going to need to communicate with different,” he said.
In the U.S., the traditional way to communicate might be a commercial during the Super Bowl, but in Vietnam or India, it would have to be something completely different, he said. Younger generations are not responding to the same types of communications as older generations in the same market.
The demographic that drives travel demand in mature markets, such as the U.S. and Europe, are those in the baby boomer generation, he said. That means typical advertising, email and travel advisers. The next generation of travelers emerging in these markets are younger than 30.
“Our generation of management has to adapt,” he said.
It is amazing what social media has become, as it’s no longer just a way to share ideas, Cuculic said. It’s a marketing tool now, and hoteliers can’t ignore it. It’s an acquisition channel, and everyone has to use it as such.
“You have to be everything to everyone and recognize and try to be as efficient, as effective as you are, so that you're getting that return on ad spend wherever you're going to have a presence and communicate with guests,” he said.
Artificial intelligence has already been revolutionary for the business, Kerzner International CEO Philippe Zuber said. Recently, the company was working with a new owner on a hotel design. The way it worked before was presenting about 10 sketches of the hotel.
“Now, it’s endless,” he said. “You can see any angles, any kind of presentation."
Changes can be made instantly, Zuber said. It can show the vision of the architect and include comments made by the owner or operator.
On the marketing side, given how easily and quickly companies can create and push out content, hoteliers must be careful with the powerful creative tool they have, he said.
“It’s really about understanding your brand, what message you want to portray and to control your brand narrative because you can put out any content to any of your core markets at any time,” he said.
AI allows hoteliers to talk to different customers who they might not have considered before, said Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO of Oravel Stays, parent company of Oyo Rooms. For example, through advertising on YouTube, his company can make 50 different kinds of advertising campaigns targeting different consumers where the videos can automatically change based on where the viewer is.
In real time, they can see what each segment of user thinks of the videos, he said.
Hoteliers need to be prepared for this because there isn’t a choice, Agarwal said. Consumers are making decisions, and they’re looking at ways to escape the traditional stay.
People can choose to say that Big Tech is a problem, or they can see how it’s helpful and try to get ahead of the game, he said.