Hospitality and travel

Making experience the new value driver

Accor

2019–2023

Redefining hospitality leadership with ALL – Accor Live Limitless
High Line Hotel

2013

A hidden treasure in the heart of Manhattan

The rebound in Hospitality and travel is real, but the model that captured it is showing its limits. Demand is concentrating in a small set of destinations and seasons, platforms still mediate how guests discover and book, and overtourism and climate constraints are tightening the room to expand. Adding keys and maximizing occupancy in flagship cities no longer sustains margin or market position.

The opportunity sits in the value pools that are growing fastest. Luxury and wellness travel, sports and music tourism, and experience-led stays are all expanding well ahead of traditional hotel volume. Younger, higher-spending travelers and rising domestic markets are ready to commit to brands that feel relevant, recognize them, and give them journeys worth planning around.

The organizations that will capture this shift are those that align brand, experience, and technology as one system.

Read our full Hospitality and travel market insights report here.

Most hospitality brands are still competing as interchangeable listings in platform catalogues, with undifferentiated offers and sustainability narratives they cannot measure or defend. The brands pulling ahead are concentrating into undersupplied, high-margin segments like luxury wellness, sports tourism, and beach and mountain stays, rebuilding direct economics through loyalty and membership, and turning credible sustainability commitments into reasons guests choose them.
Guests plan trips across search, social, Online Travel Agencies, and destination sites, expecting AI as a co-planner rather than an autopilot, and human reassurance at the moments that matter. Generic list-and-filter UX fails that expectation. The organizations closing the gap are designing journeys around distinct traveller archetypes, building curated AI-assisted discovery layers that connect stays to local experiences, and surfacing climate and density signals at decision moments so guests can choose better options without leaving the experience layer.
Hospitality players sit on rich data, but fragmented systems limit dynamic pricing, flow steering and cross-sell while OTAs invest in their own AI platforms to control discovery. The organizations building durable advantage are integrating lodging, activity and emissions data into shared platforms, modernizing core revenue systems for dynamic pricing and attribute-based selling, and defining governed AI layers with clear brand constraints and human handoff before external platforms set the terms.

“AREA 17 did an amazing job helping us to reinvent our digital experience. We are very proud to work with them.”

Soumia Hadjali
Accor SVP of Product, Accor

Hospitality and travel index

IATA

2023
Kensington Tours

2023
Accor

Redefining hospitality leadership with ALL – Accor Live Limitless

2019–2023
Aparium

2015
Charmant Hotel

2014
High Line Hotel

A hidden treasure in the heart of Manhattan

2013
Marchay

2013
Wythe Hotel

2012
Nove

2005–2007

Hospitality and travel

Making experience the new value driver

Accor

High Line Hotel

Reposition into high-margin segments before platforms define you

Design journeys around traveller archetypes, not generic search and filter

Build shared data platforms before intermediaries set the rules

Hospitality and travel index

IATA

Kensington Tours

Accor

Aparium

Charmant Hotel

High Line Hotel

Marchay

Wythe Hotel

Nove