Welcome to RemoteHotelier!
First things first, I wish you a Merry Christmas and I hope you can celebrate this day with your loved ones.
Today’s edition is coming out earlier than usual and I’m still catching up with what happened while I was on holiday. Apologies if any of the info we’re covering today is older than a week.
Also, the next edition will be next Tuesday (December 30) because of the New Year’s break and might be an express one depending on the news. After that, I’ll keep sending the newsletter each Thursday.
In today’s newsletter:
🏃 Trips get shorter (and louder)
💰 Money flows into guest experience technology
🎁 A Christmas present for hotels
🏨 + 5 deals & updates
💼 + 3 new jobs in hotel tech
🗞️ + 4 hotel tech extra news
#1 Trips get shorter (and louder).
Airbnb releases its predictions for 2026 and says that trips will be shorter, more natural, with live events leading the way.
Gen Z drives growth in 1 to 2 day international city getaways, faster than longer vacations.
Nature and outdoor activities rank as the top booked activity category.
65% of the top searched 2026 dates and cities match major global events, like the Winter Olympics, Coachella, and the FIFA World Cup.
Solo trips grow fast, with some rising destinations seeing triple digit growth.
If you run a hotel, this is an early warning. Short trips punish slow check-ins, slow upsells, and clunky systems, because guests have zero patience on a 36 hour sprint.
Event weeks raise the stakes for pricing, staffing, and inventory rules, because one bad decision can burn a lot of cash.
On the other hand, this is why live event platforms keep raising interest right now among hotel tech companies. Hotels want things like event discovery, ticket plus room packaging, group flows, and real time demand.
#2 Money flows into guest experience technology.
Duve raises $60 million in Series B funding as investors double down on one platform to run the full guest journey.
The platform covers pre-arrival, check-in, messaging, upsells, services, and post stay contact.
Duve runs over one million guest journeys per month across 1,000 plus brands in 70 countries.
The company plans global expansion and more AI support for housekeeping, maintenance, and service teams.
That’s a lot of money, and it’s not random. Investors clearly see value in what Duve does, acting as the layer that connects all guest touchpoints without breaking existing systems.
Series B funding usually means the product works, customers use it, and now it’s time to scale. For hotels, this signals where the market goes, fewer tools, more connected workflows, and faster replies with less pressure on staff.
For hotel tech companies, it’s another sign that guest experience platforms are becoming core infrastructure.
#3 A Christmas present for hotels.
Stayntouch upgrades its PMS to a new version with AI under the hood.
Hotels see up to 35% performance lift.
AI helps them ship more updates with better system stability.
Reporting also got faster and more accurate without slowing live operations.
They estimate that bug fixes and updates land about 50% faster thanks to the new tech.
This is a smart move, and very well timed because it feels like a gift. Faster systems and better data during busy periods.
Also, a good reminder that sometimes the best move is to wait. While the competition rush flashy features, Stayntouch ships something new that just works.
THE RESOURCE HUB
📍 Next Event: FITUR Madrid (21–25 January 2026).
📅 2025/2026 hotel tech event calendar.
💼 Hotel tech companies offering remote jobs.
🏨 DEALS & UPDATES
Duetto announces its first global summit in April 2026, named PERFORM, inviting all hospitality professionals to discuss hotel profitability, total revenue, and new strategies for improved hotel revenue performance.
Cloudbeds partners with Traversing.ai to add AI guest messaging and review management tools, helping hotels centralize communication and automate responses.
Lighthouse and HotelSpeaker team up to offer independent hotels combined AI pricing, review response, and guest communication.
OpenAI and Anthropic announce new systems to detect underage users, focusing on teen safety and increasing safeguards as lawmakers scrutinize AI's impact on youth mental health.
ADAM Robot Bartender shows how AI and robotics can help hospitality to automate drink service in real-world scenarios.
💼 HOTEL TECH JOB BOARD
🗞️ HOTEL TECH EXTRAS
DerbySoft’s latest report highlights fragmented business travel systems, payment reliability issues, and opaque economics but notes emerging efforts in better efficiency, transparency, and integration.
ChatGPT now lets users adjust its personality traits, such as warmth or enthusiasm, and tweak how often it uses emojis, headers, or lists.
Also, OpenAI will launch an adult mode in early 2026, allowing mature content for verified adults, backed by advanced age-prediction and compliant with growing online content regulations.
Google launches Gemini 3 Flash, a faster, smarter, and more cost-effective AI model, improving speed and accuracy, and simplifying the model selection for users.
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Jose