We’ve spent the past few weeks poring over the raw responses to our industry survey of hoteliers. One key point stood out: revenue leaders are navigating a market that’s both more opportunity-rich and more unforgiving than at any time in the past decade.
NB: This is an article from LodgIQ
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Demand is back – but it’s different. Pricing power exists – but it’s fragile. Technology is abundant – but impact depends on execution. In what follows, I’ll share what we learned, how we read the signal beneath the noise, and what we, as operators and partners, are doing to help you turn volatility into outperformance.
Who We Heard From And How We Read The Data
We heard directly from hotel professionals across property sizes, segments, and regions – urban independents and branded resorts, select-service corridors and luxury lifestyle flags. Respondents spanned revenue management, sales, distribution, digital, and general management. Instead of treating every checkbox as equal, we grouped responses into patterns, triangulating what people say they do with what they say actually moves the needle. When conflicting signals emerged (and they did!), we weighted answers by role, ownership type, and property context. The result is not an academic paper; it’s a usable field guide.
The Demand Picture: Compressed, Event-Driven, And Uneven
Across segments, leisure remains resilient, but the character of leisure has changed. Shorter booking windows persist, and high-demand spikes cluster around events, sports, concerts, and school calendars. Business transient is rebuilding with wide regional variance; where corporate contracts lag, project-driven and small-team travel are filling some gaps. Group is the quiet catalyst of base demand: when group pace is healthy, everything else prices with more confidence. When it isn’t, teams lean harder on promotions and public discounting than they’d like. What this means for your property: treat events as micro-seasons with their own rules; rebuild weekday compression by pairing small-group pace with transient fences; and protect peak nights aggressively while adding value to shoulders.
Pricing: Beyond BAR – From Courage To Calibration
Hoteliers report that price experimentation is paying off most when it’s fast, bounded, and paired with crisp fences. Length-of-stay controls, dynamic minimum stays tied to on-the-books pace, and micro-fences (loyalty-only offers, mobile-exclusive perks, channel-limited packages) outperform blunt discounting. The recurring tension we saw: teams know they should test more, but fear whiplash. Our view: courage comes from calibration. Set a price-testing cadence with guardrails by date band and segment, then let automation execute within those bands. You don’t need perfect answers; you need consistent, defensible movements that compound gains over time.
