Hotel CEOs Reveal Where They Think Travel Is Headed—But AI Could Make Them Lower Room Prices

GHA Discovery asked hotel CEOs what will shape their business over the next few years, and 87% expect AI assistants to be among the most important booking channels by 2030. They expect hotel websites and loyalty programs to matter more than online travel agencies. Hotels would love to stop paying commissions to Expedia and Booking.com. But I think they’re overlooking how much harder a sufficiently capable AI will make it to charge customers more than they need to pay. Hotels may get more direct bookings while earning less from each guest booking direct. The short GHA Hotel Brand CEO Outlook 2027 is worth reading. GHA Discovery connects about 60 brands and 1,000 hotels, including Kempinski, Anantara, Capella, Pan Pacific, NH and smaller groups like Lore. I think the program gets far less attention than it deserves and I’ve had some fantastic stays. What Hotel CEOs Expect This was an August survey of 30 CEOs from GHA brands: They’re worried, but still expect growth. 90% named geopolitical instability among their biggest challenges over the next five years. Nearly half expect like-for-like hotel revenue to grow at least 5% in 2027. (Notably, GHA itself is based in Dubai.) International leisure travel is the growth engine. 73% expect international demand to outperform domestic, and 90% expect international leisure travel to increase. India is almost as widely cited as the United States. 53% named the U.S. as a source of international growth, versus 50% for India and 40% each for China and the U.K. AI is expected to dominate hotel discovery. For influence on bookings in 2030, AI assistants scored 87%, hotel websites and apps 50%, loyalty platforms 47%, and online travel agencies 30%. Loyalty matters, and recognition leads their list of differentiators. 83% consider loyalty critical or very important to revenue growth. Recognition was selected by 70% as a factor distinguishing successful programs, versus 57% for personalization and 47% for rewards. India is significant, a small share of a very large population crossing the income threshold for international travel produces a lot of customers. India had 32.83 million departures by Indian nationals in 2025, up 6.3%. And the number of people there worth more than $30 million grew 63% between 2021 and 2026. The opportunity comes from the number of people who can afford to travel, rather than population numbers themselves. The finding in the report I’m skeptical of is only 13% selecting price as a leading influence on hotel decisions in 2030. Unless money just no longer matters in a post-AGI world (!) this seems implausible. Hotel brand also scored just 13%, compared with 43% for loyalty benefits. An AI recommendation can be based on price. Putting “AI recommendations” and “price” in separate buckets doesn’t establish that price stops mattering to the AI. Hotels Can Lose Pricing Power Even As More Guests Book Direct Online travel agencies do two things that hotels value. They bring customers. Someone may not know the hotel exists, may not have a preferred chain, or may want to compare properties across chains. Expedia, Booking.com and others supply an audience the hotel doesn’t reach on its own. They help hotels charge different customers different prices. A hotel wants to sell rooms that would otherwise sit empty without cutting the price for everyone who would’ve paid more. Packages, restricted membership rates and opaque offers can let them discount without putting the same lower rate on their own site. I’ve written about how hotels distribute discounted inventory outside their public rates, and why a card travel portal can sometimes beat the hotel’s own member price. Booking direct isn’t automatically the cheapest option. The hotel has room to be more generous when it isn’t spending on the OTA commission. It can give some of that money to the guest as a lower price, rewards or benefits. The agency has its own operating costs and profit to cover. It seems like a chain could undercut the third party. But today’s room rate isn’t fixed while AI just redistributes the savings. If AI can find the right small hotel even though I’ve never heard of it, that’s less reason to start with Expedia and more reason to book direct. But it’s also less reason to pay a premium for the familiar hotel I would’ve booked without doing much research. And where there are opaque offers the AI may find those too. It could ask several suitable hotels for their best offer, comparing cash discounts with credits and benefits, and without my needing to spend time negotiating. This already matters in my own choices. In Venice, I wanted a location that worked for my family, rather than staying on Murano just to use Hyatt. At NH Collection Palazzo dei Dogi, GHA status helped me with early check-in and 4 p.m. late checkout. An assistant that knows my family’s needs can compare that entire package against the alternatives. It can consider a different neighborhood, a different destination, or different dates, rather than just finding another website selling the same room. It can also work through offers that are currently tedious to find. Opaque hotels become less opaque if the assistant can identify them from their amenities, location and photos. Still, knowing about a corporate rate doesn’t make you eligible for it. I’d expect pressure on direct booking margins because consumers have the intelligence in their pockets that just solved math. They may avoid OTA commissions but get rates competed down, and while lower commissions apply only to a limited piece of their business, the lower rates would affect the entire hotel. An unknown hotel may gain enough customers to come out well ahead. A unique property on a sold out night has pricing power. But more direct bookings may or may not mean greater profits. Recognition Doesn’t Replace Rewards The report’s loyalty finding interests me because I’ve been writing about recognition and reward as the twin pillars of loyalty for more than a decade. They’re different things, and a good program does both. Recognition can be the thing a traveler values most. But if getting it means giving up the rebate they’d earn elsewhere, they’re actually having to pay for that recognition. A guest may care more about their treatment but that’s holding rewards constant. GHA addressed this when it relaunched Discovery in December 2021. Previously, it offered status benefits and Local Experience awards. Those awards could be great, but a business traveler working all day often had no use for the experience on offer. Discovery Dollars gave members a flexible rebate they could put toward a hotel bill. The CEO survey asks what will differentiate successful programs. That’s compatible with rewards being something customers already expect. It doesn’t mean you can take the rewards away. And in GHA’s separate research among more than 9,000 members this year, generosity was the leading program attribute. Ease of earning and spending Discovery Dollars and hotel benefits both rated highly. Why I Value GHA Discovery I’ve called GHA my second favorite hotel loyalty program, after Hyatt. Hyatt still has the advantages of confirmed suites at booking, guaranteed late checkout at most properties and a more consistent breakfast benefit. GHA gives me interesting hotels where I still receive real benefits. At Riggs in Washington, D.C., I wound up in the suite that used to be the bank’s boardroom, with a dining table for 12. I’d booked through Chase’s The Edit and stacked its benefits with GHA status. At Kempinski Cancun, I combined American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts with GHA and received an oceanfront suite and club access. Members earn 4% to 7% back in Discovery Dollars on eligible spending, depending on status. One Discovery Dollar is worth one U.S. dollar toward eligible spending at participating hotels. Titanium earns 7%, with those regularly earned dollars valid for 24 months. Promotional dollars can expire sooner. Titanium includes a two-category upgrade, 11 a.m. early check-in and 4 p.m. late checkout, subject to availability. Breakfast for two is included at participating brands on direct bookings. You can earn Titanium with 30 eligible nights, $15,000 in eligible spending, or stays at three qualifying brands in a calendar year. The last route can mean just three one-night stays (NH Hotels, NH Collection and nhow count together as one brand). At the Lyle in D.C., the staff arranged fresh coffee for me at 5 a.m., two hours before room service opened. It arrived at exactly 5 a.m. That’s the sort of thing I remember and go back for. I’ve also covered their unusually accessible status matches. The current offer runs through November 30, 2026, with approved status lasting through December 31, 2027: Platinum: $100 application fee, with D$50 back. Titanium: $150 application fee, with D$75 back. There’s no stay challenge. Hilton Diamond, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Platinum and above, and IHG Platinum and above are among the statuses that match to Titanium. Eligible airline and cruise status, and some credit cards, qualify too. The gift dollars expire after 12 months, and the terms allow only one GHA status match. For someone with an upcoming stay at one of these hotels, $150 with $75 back in hotel spending can be a very good way to get treated better. I’d like my future travel assistant to notice that before it tells me I’ve saved $20 booking the same hotel without benefits through Expedia. Topics on this page