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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Airbnb hosts and short-term rental operators are facing renewed questions around platform security after third-party research from Saily and NordStellar, cited in recent press coverage, claimed a sharp increase in Airbnb-related scam activity since 2023.
In this episode of Good Morning Hospitality, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane discuss what account takeovers, fake listings, and guest trust concerns could mean for hosts and operators — while also noting that the underlying methodology behind the third-party data was not fully available in the coverage they reviewed.
The hosts also discuss the broader travel distribution landscape, including why experiences-focused platforms like GetYourGuide continue to gain momentum while larger OTAs work to make experiences a more meaningful part of their businesses, and what Trip.com’s cash position may signal about capital strategy in global travel.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
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!
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a week where hotel brands are redefining what they actually are.
The conversation opens with Hyatt's lifestyle chief, Amar Lalvani, making the case that the smartest brand strategy is sorting guests by taste rather than price point — and showing what that discipline looks like in practice, including killing a high-profile Miami project because the developer wouldn't listen.
From there, Sarah and Steve dig into Marriott International's move into branded apartment rentals under the W Hotels flag, a genuinely new direction for a business that already commands 30% premiums over unbranded properties.
They also unpack what week one of FIFA World Cup 2026™ - Canada, Mexico and the United States data actually tells hotel operators, with RevPAR up 24% to 133% across host markets but occupancy down in six of nine cities.
And they close with Carnival Cruise Line's Q2 earnings, which posted record revenue while trimming its outlook, and with what the Middle East conflict tells operators about building geopolitical risk into forward-booking strategy.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
And 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.
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down three platform moves that sound host-friendly on the surface but deserve a much closer look.
The conversation opens with Airbnb's first fintech product — a cancel-for-any-reason feature that auto-enrolled hosts without requiring an opt-in. Hosts still get paid, but still have to scramble.
From there, the team unpacks what one week of FIFA World Cup 2026™ - Canada, Mexico and the United States data actually tells operators about pricing strategy for the knockout rounds, with RevPAR up across all host markets but occupancy down in six of nine.
They close with American Express's $700 million acquisition of TheFork and why dining reservations might be the next front in the battle for the guest relationship.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
And 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.
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Steve Turk and guest host Katie Cline break down a week where consolidation is happening at every layer of the hotel industry at once.
The conversation opens with NORWEGIAN AIR UK LIMITED's $843 million bet to acquire Nordic Leisure Travel Group AB Group and own the entire travel value chain from flights to hotels.
The number that explains the deal: NLTG's owned hotels are 25% of its holiday volume but 60% of its gross profit. From there, Steve and Katie dig into IHG Hotels & Resorts' CEO, making the case that eight years of tech investment is finally showing up in franchisee margins, and close with RealTime Reservation's acquisition of STAY and what unified ancillary revenue tech actually means for total RevPAR.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
And 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.
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down where STR demand is actually coming from right now and who controls the guest relationship as platforms make their next big bets.
The conversation opens with the FIFA World Cup 2026™ - Canada, Mexico and the United States booking story every operator in a host market needs to hear. Hotels priced up and set minimums and the surge has not arrived the way anyone expected. Short-term rental bookings tell a different story, with host market reservations more than doubling since April.
From there, the team digs into Vrbo's launch of sponsored listings and what a paid visibility layer means for independent hosts, and closes with Brian Chesky's bet that creators are Airbnb's next big Experiences opportunity and what that means for the operators already building businesses on the platform.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
And 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.
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down why hotel AI is stuck on the wrong side of the ledger and what it will take to flip it.
The conversation opens with Mews founder Richard Valtr making the case at Skift's Data and AI Summit that fragmented hotel data is the reason AI keeps cutting costs instead of driving revenue.
From there Sarah and Steve dig into what Apple's rebuilt Siri means for how guests will find and interact with travel, Alaska Airlines' bet that Starlink wifi is a better loyalty driver than points for basic economy travelers, and why Delta Air Lines is expanding American Express card benefits without raising fees while every competitor goes the other direction.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
And 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.
Independent hoteliers are under pressure from every direction, and now there's an AI mandate on top of it all.
Wil sits down with Adam Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of Cloudbeds, to cut through the noise. Adam's argument: most operators aren't failing because they lack effort or the right tools.
They're failing because they haven't defined the problem, and they're sitting on fragmented data that makes even the best AI useless. The takeaway: AI isn't the strategy. Better questions, better data, and better decisions are.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds. Connect with Cloudbeds at https://www.cloudbeds.com/gmh, and you can subscribe to Adam's newsletter here: https://www.cloudbeds.com/newsletter/
00:00 Meet Adam Harris
01:37 The Operator Squeeze
04:04 When Tech Becomes a Burden
07:25 AI Starts With Questions
08:37 Deterministic vs Probabilistic
12:24 Cleaning Up Hotel Data
13:49 Cloudbeds Signals In Action
16:35 Autonomous Coding And Caution
18:21 Future Of Hospitality Systems
21:55 Closing Takeaway
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down what AI is actually doing to travel economics and operations right now.
The conversation opens with a story that stops you in your tracks: one traveler used Claude to run 881,076 searches on Etihad Airways to find one flight. The infrastructure cost of that search exceeded the commission.
From there, the team digs into Brian Chesky's move to build an AI lab outside of Airbnb and what it signals about the platform's AI strategy, before closing with a look at what real AI adoption looks like at scale through Evolve's playbook of deflecting 60% of guest inquiries without human intervention.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
And 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.
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a week where ownership, distribution, brand strategy, and climate risk all moved at the same time.
The conversation opens with two billionaires making moves on the Las Vegas Strip in the same week. Tilman Fertitta agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment for $5.7 billion while assuming nearly $12 billion in debt, and Barry Diller is preparing an $18 billion bid to take full control of MGM Resorts International. From there Sarah and Steve dig into a ten-year look at whether the direct booking fight actually paid off for hotels, Hilton's new Undergraduate brand targeting smaller college towns, and how sargassum seaweed is now showing up directly in Caribbean hotel occupancy numbers.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down a week where the infrastructure of hospitality is being stress-tested from every direction.
The conversation opens with a sobering security story: scammers are using real guest reservation data to launch highly targeted phishing attacks, with at least 350 hotels and vacation rentals across 50 countries already caught up.
From there, the team digs into Mews and SiteMinder's new native integration, which is designed to break down the data silos holding hotels back from AI adoption, and closes with Expedia Group's partnership with IShowSpeed and what it signals about where Gen Z travel discovery is actually happening.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
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