Welcome to RemoteHotelier!
In today’s newsletter:
❓ What's Canary really buying?
⌛ Ten years of progress in one deal
⚽ BWH and Tripadvisor team up for the FIFA World Cup
🤔 Coincidence or very good timing?
💡 Real feedback beats sales pitches every time
🤖 Accor brings its hotels into ChatGPT
⚖️ The incentives are different
🗞️ + 5 extra news
💼 + 5 new jobs in hotel tech
MAIN NEWS
#1 What's Canary really buying?
Canary Technologies acquires OpenKey to expand its mobile key support to more lock brands and models worldwide.
OpenKey was founded in 2014 and focused on mobile key access for hotels, resorts, and casinos.
According to the company, this move responds to rising guest expectations around smart room access.
Why would Canary do this? You might think that this is purely strategic, and they just want to have more options. But my guess is that they’re cooking something bigger.
#2 Ten years of progress in one deal
You don’t buy a 10 year old niche company just to add a few more models to your compatibility list… Considering the current position of Canary in the market, that’d be ineffective (and very expensive!).
What they’re really buying is years of relationship building and technical knowledge. Instead of begging lock companies for API access, they now own a full system. That's not something you can replicate in six months, no matter how much money you throw at it.
Very curious to see what comes out of this.
#3 BWH and Tripadvisor team up for the FIFA World Cup
BWH and Tripadvisor launch an AI trip planner to help soccer fans plan multi-city trips for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The platform uses AI to analyze traveler preferences and combines them with Tripadvisor data.
It includes over 200 BWH Hotels properties near host stadiums across North America.
This tool offers route suggestions between matches, hotel recommendations, and curated local experiences like dining and cultural highlights.
This partnership makes sense because neither company could build this alone. BWH Hotels brings the rooms, and Tripadvisor brings the data.
#4 Coincidence or very good timing?
By the way, Tripadvisor also released its 2026 Trendcast report showing that travelers are planning trips around experiences, not just destinations.
Coincidence? Probably not. But the timing makes sense though. Live events keep pulling massive crowds, and everyone wants a piece.
They analyzed over 1 billion (with a B) of data points like reviews, searches, bookings and user contributions. I’m leaving a few insights below, but something that stands out, at least for me, is that pet-friendly travel bookings grew a 260% in just one year (🤯):
#5 Real feedback beats sales pitches every time
Hospitality Tech360, an event in London for hospitality operators, will host the trial phase launch of the UK's new Hospitality Innovation Lab.
Selected technology providers will be announced live on stage.
After the announcement, visitors can meet the participating tech providers in a dedicated area on the show floor.
The program brings together operators, startups, and innovators to pilot practical solutions to real operational challenges.
This is a great initiative because it brings operators and providers together to test solutions in real environments. That feedback loop is what separates tools that work from tools that sound good on paper.
#6 Accor brings its hotels into ChatGPT
Accor launches an app in ChatGPT that lets travelers search and compare hotel rates directly in the AI chatbot.
Users can search for Accor hotels in ChatGPT by specifying dates and guest details.
The app shows both public rates and loyalty member pricing, plus property details like room types, amenities, and location.
Users get redirected to Accor's booking platform to complete reservations.
Accor joins Booking.com and Expedia, who launched ChatGPT apps back in October.
ChatGPT is becoming a distribution channel. Millions of people already use it daily, and now some of them can book hotels without leaving the conversation.
#7 The incentives are different
I posted my initial thoughts about Accor launching a ChatGPT app here, but to expand on this, it could be a win-win between AI chatbots and hotels.
OTAs optimize for their own profit whereas ChatGPT optimizes for user experience. Their business depends on people trusting the answers they get. If they start recommending hotels just because they paid more, users will stop asking.
On top of that, hotels are just one more product inside ChatGPT. Unlike OTAs, they don’t depend on these fees to exist. So that should release some pressure from hotels.
RESOURCES
📍 Next Event: NoVacancy London (25–26 February).
📅 See the full hotel tech event calendar.
💼 Check which hotel tech companies offer remote jobs.
💻 Get your cloud PMS comparison list.
HOTEL TECH EXTRAS
🏩 IHG follows Accor, and adds Opera Cloud to their list of approved PMS for its properties in the Americas and EMEA region.
🤝 Historic Hotels of America selects Cloudbeds as their preferred technology partner for their portfolio of more than 300 hotels.
🍸 Omniboost launches a new feature to allow Toast POS and Mews PMS users automate F&B transactions and streamline reporting.
💬 Maestro adds AI capabilities to its Guest Experience Management solution, called GuestXMS, to improve issue resolution speed and give hotels stronger guest communication efficiency.
💰 BIZTRIP raises $1.5 million in pre-seed funding to expand its corporate travel management software.
JOB BOARD
Technical Support Specialist | Remote (based in the UK) | Duetto.
Business Development Manager - Portugal | Remote (based in Barcelona) | Lighthouse.
Technical SEO Specialist | Remote (based in Spain) | Mews.
Consultant Partner Manager DACH | Remote (based in Germany) | Mews.
Content Writer – French + Spanish | Remote (based in Portugal) | HiJiffy.
That’s all for today, thank you for reading. If this was useful, the best way to help is share it with someone in hotel tech who'd find it valuable.
See you next week!
Jose