At the 2026 Americas Lodging Investment Summit, the panel “Data, Trends & Solutions—Innovative Products & Services That Help Drive ROI” gathered industry leaders to dive into the shifts reshaping hospitality today, offering tactical advice and the latest tech to help drive growth and protect margins.
Moderated by Mary Scoviak of Hotel Investment Today, the session moved beyond tech buzz to explore how structured data, generative AI, and immersive event technology are directly combating labor pressures and shifting distribution models.
The New Search Frontier: Visibility in the Age of GenAI
Pete Comeau, managing director at Phocuswright, opened the session by highlighting the robust 6 percent growth in the travel industry despite geopolitical headwinds. However, he warned that the mechanics of how guests find hotels are undergoing a seismic shift. While OTAs currently dominate fragmented markets like India and Latin America, hotels in North America and Europe are successfully recapturing direct demand.
The primary challenge moving forward is generative search. Comeau noted that 39 percent of travelers now use AI for trip research, often without realizing it. For hoteliers, visibility now goes well beyond SEO to a veritable presence within LLMs.
“If you don’t have a strategy that helps you with visibility in these large language models, you’re going to start to lose that direct demand to your website,” Comeau noted.
Operational Efficiency: Turning Data into Profit
Steven Moore, chief executive officer of Actabl, shifted the focus from acquisition to the “new operating reality” of margin pressure. With hotel REITs underperforming compared to other asset classes, Moore posited that the industry must leverage AI to drive absolute profitability.
He identified three pillars for AI in operations: prioritization of daily tasks, coaching (using AI agents to replicate the skills of veteran associates across a portfolio), and implementation of new tech. Moore’s data revealed that while luxury hotels maintain high cash flow, upper-midscale and upscale properties are outperforming on a margin percentage basis due to tighter operational controls.
He emphasized that speed of information is the ultimate competitive advantage, and to achieve this, hoteliers must move away from fragmented data silos.
“You have to have really well-structured data… Consistency across the whole portfolio will help you move with speed so you don’t just have the right data, but you can generate the right insights because it’s structured correctly,” Moore said.
The Evolution of Events: Creating Immersive ROI
Mike Stengel, senior vice president at Encore, addressed the lucrative meetings and events sector. Budgets are rising, and planners are increasingly seeking immersive experiences that justify the return to in-person gatherings.
However, a significant risk has emerged: 48 percent of planners are now considering venues outside of traditional hotels to find “unique” spaces. Stengel challenged hoteliers to look beyond the ballroom and activate pre-function areas, rooftops, and outdoor spaces with robust digital infrastructure, such as digital billboards and enhanced network hardware.
By treating every corner of the property as a potential revenue-generating event space, hotels can capture the 70 percent of planners who intend to increase their meeting frequency in 2026.
“We’ve seen a 36 percent increase in events that take place over that spend over $100,000 [since 2022],” Stengel said. “We need to look at… areas that are not typically thought of as meeting or event areas [that] can be utilized to have [an] event and… transform that meeting into an immersive experience.”
While the basics of hospitality—cleanliness, value, and service—remain the foundation of loyalty, ROI in 2026 will be defined by technological agility. Whether it’s appearing in a generative search result, using AI to coach a housekeeper, or transforming a lobby into a high-tech event hub, the integration of data and innovation is the engine of profitability.
