Stay ConnectedThe hospitality industry is constantly growing, changing, and innovating! This podcast will bring you the top news and topics from industry experts in different hospitality fields. Good Morning Hospitality publishes two thirty-minute weekly episodes, starting Monday and Wednesday at 7 a.m. PST / 10 a.m. EST. Presented by StayFi.
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On Monday’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down major shifts in travel distribution, pricing, and short-term rental strategy.
The crew starts with Airbnb testing lower host fees for bookings generated through hosts’ own links, with some reportedly seeing rates of 6% to 10% versus the standard 15.5%. The booking still happens on Airbnb, raising a bigger question around direct booking economics and channel mix.
They also dig into an analyst estimate that Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) B2B room nights are way higher than Expedia Group’s, Google completing hotel bookings inside AI Mode, and Delta Air Lines using AI-driven pricing to cut some fares by 20 to 40%.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down how demand is shifting across every segment of hospitality heading into Labor Day weekend.
The conversation opens with the latest Labor Day travel data: cruise ports and national park gateways are topping the destination list, the K-shaped spending gap is narrowing, and 77% of Americans planned to travel this summer.
From there Sarah and Steve get into how Harry Styles' Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. residency is moving NYC hotel demand in ways that look more like a major sporting event than a concert, what Generator's new CEO means when he says premium at £40 a bunk, and why Bernstein analysts are calling Airbnb's growth structural rather than transitory with shares up more than 25% since Q2 earnings.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On this bonus episode of Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Wil Slickers sits down with Dan Gaertner, CEO of VayKLife, to break the news that VayKLife has acquired Xplorie, bringing gear and amenities together with local activities and experiences under one platform for vacation rental managers.
Dan walks through why the deal happened now, what the combined platform means for VRMs on day one, and why he believes pairing physical gear with curated experiences is one of the most powerful ways for property managers to differentiate in a market where AI is making every listing look the same. Backed by Fort Point Capital, VayKLife is betting that the guest experience layer, the bikes staged at the door, the $250 spending spree on local attractions, the dinner shows and golf tees, is where the next generation of five-star reviews and repeat guests actually comes from.
Learn more at vayklife.com.
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, and Michael Goldin are joined by Amy Kothari, the new CEO of StayTerra, to talk PE-backed STR consolidation, what the rollup model looks like when it actually works, and what it all means for independent operators.
From there, the crew gets into Airbnb abandoning its decade-long build-it-yourself experience strategy and partnering with Tripadvisor instead, and closes with Expedia Group cutting eight senior executives in a single week as it reorganizes around AI and what that means for Vrbo hosts.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into how the hotel industry measures success, where capital is flowing, and who controls the information guests use to make decisions.
The conversation opens with a new Skift analysis arguing that net unit growth, the metric every hotel brand has been racing to win for a decade, may have been the wrong measure all along.
From there, Sarah and Steve get into Minor International's plan for a $1 billion hotel REIT spanning its NH Hotels & Resorts, Anantara Hotels & Resorts, and Minor Hotels assets, and what a major Asian-originated hotel capital raise signals about where global hospitality investment is heading. They also unpack Google's acquisition of Spirit Airlines' reservation data from bankruptcy to train its AI hospitality recommendations, and close with what the rise of creator travel content and Substack travel newsletters tells hotel marketers about where traveler trust actually lives now.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane each share the stat from Skift's State of Travel 2026 report that hit hardest for them, with Seth Borko, Skift's Head of Skift Research, joining to close with the bigger picture on where travel is actually heading.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into four stories about how hotels earn and protect their position right now.
The conversation opens with IHG Hotels & Resorts taking a deliberately different approach to the owner economics conversation that Marriott International and Hilton started last week. While rivals cut fees and launched rebate programs, IHG is arguing that its eight-year technology overhaul is the real answer.
From there, Sarah and Steve get into Google's new agentic AI inside Maps and hotel search and what hotel operators need to do right now to make sure their properties show up correctly.
They also dig into Aman's decision to threaten a paying creator guest with police involvement, a video that reached 15 million views and became a case study in what happens when brand protection tips into brand hostility. And they close with how Spain built a full tourism strategy around a solar eclipse and what that model teaches hotels about manufacturing demand in slow periods.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down three stories about who is winning the race to control how travel gets discovered and booked.
The conversation opens with Airbnb's Q2 earnings: nights and experiences booked up 9%, revenue up 11%, and 100 new features shipped in a single quarter using AI. Brian Chesky is calling it a compounding advantage that rivals cannot close easily.
From there, the crew digs into why Expedia Group is doubling down on B2B, where gross bookings are growing at more than twice the rate of its consumer business, and what the Layla AI Travel Agent acquisition means for how vacation rentals get discovered inside bank and airline platforms.
They close with Booking Holdings flagging Google AI Overviews on an earnings call for the first time and what it means when the biggest OTA in the world admits the search landscape is shifting underneath it.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into what the major brands are actually doing to keep hotel owners from walking.
The conversation opens with Marriott International launching a rebate program for owners ahead of a $125 million credit card fee increase, and Hilton cutting fees across seven brands in the same week. Two of the biggest brands in hospitality both responding to owner pressure simultaneously is not a coincidence.
They also dig into what Club Med's 12% revenue growth and 18% rate increase teaches any hotel thinking seriously about a premium pivot, and close with Hyatt's pipeline delays and what they mean for anyone underwriting mid-tier development right now.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down three stories about how the STR discovery and booking funnel is being rebuilt from scratch.
The conversation opens with Airbnb's next big move: tickets and a native wallet that would let guests store credits and spend across the entire Airbnb ecosystem. The crew digs into what a more financially sticky Airbnb means for hosts who built their businesses on the platform.
From there, they get into Expedia Group's acquisition of AI trip planner Layla AI Travel Agent, which had already helped plan more than 135 million trips, and what it means for STR operators when the platform that distributes your listings now owns the AI layer that recommends where guests go. They close with Google's Q2 earnings and what AI Overviews appearing in more than 50% of travel queries means for how vacation rentals get discovered before anyone opens a booking platform.
This episode is presented by StayFi.
If you're leaving direct bookings on the table, StayFi turns your wifi into a guest relationship engine. Visit https://stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality/ to learn more about their special offer of 50% off for GMH listeners!
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