EDITION #71
Welcome to RemoteHotelier!
First edition after my holiday break. This week is pretty loaded 💪
In today’s newsletter:
🤖 IHG joins Hilton and Marriott in the AI search race…
🏨 … and Radisson also brings its hotels into ChatGPT
⚖️ China fines Trip.com with $770 million, and the EU hits Google in the same week
🔓 Essendi's sale closes the loop Accor started with AccorInvest
🆕 + 3 new product updates
🤝 + 2 new deals and partnerships
🔌 + 2 new integrations
🛒 + 2 new acquisitions
💼 + 3 new jobs in hotel tech
🤖 IHG joins Hilton and Marriott in the AI search race…
Source: IHG
IHG follows other giants like Hilton and Marriott and launches a beta version of AI conversational search on its website.
The beta starts in the United States before expanding to other markets based on user feedback.
Guests can describe destination, trip purpose, and amenities in natural language and get tailored hotel recommendations with maps, real-time availability, and pricing.
Guests can shop in cash, points, or a mix of both.
This follows IHG's recent ChatGPT app, with plans for deeper personalization and agentic booking down the road.
The race towards AI hotel search continues. AI won’t be the norm, but it certainly raises the expectations of some segments of clients. And that might not be the best news for independent and small groups of hotels with fewer resources.
This announcement will be followed up by a new platform containing floor plans, videos, and updated imagery.
🏨 … and Radisson also brings its hotels into ChatGPT
AI search is a hot topic this week because Radisson also launched an AI hotel discovery app inside ChatGPT, letting guests search rates and availability across more than 1,000 properties through plain conversation before getting redirected to book.
Accenture's research backs the urgency, with most people already open to using an AI agent for at least part of their trip planning.
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⚖️ China fines Trip.com with $770 million, and the EU hits Google in the same week
Regulators on both sides of the world went after companies accused of squeezing hotels this week: China fined Trip.com Group $770 million for monopoly abuse, while the EU fined Google €460 million for favoring its own hotel search.
According to the article, Trip.com used traffic allocation, platform rules, and exclusive deals to lock in the lowest prices from hotels, and it was ordered to refund millions in booking deposits it had withheld from operators.
Separately, the European Commission fined Google for giving some hotels preferential placement in search.
Trip.com is basically the Expedia of Asia, so reading $770 million for squeezing hotels is pretty shocking, to say the least. Even for China's aggressive antitrust standards. It shows how far a dominant OTA can push exclusivity deals and traffic manipulation before someone steps in.
On the other hand, the EU's parallel case against Google shows regulation doesn't always land where you'd expect. Fining Google for favoring its own hotel search sounds like a win for hotels, except the traffic it displaces mostly flows to comparison sites and OTAs, the same kind of intermediary China just punished for doing exactly that. Sadly, removing a gatekeeper doesn't necessarily help hotels if it crowns a new one.
Both news coming up one week before August. Someone wants to go on holiday with the homework done 🤓
RESOURCES
📍 Next Event: Hotel Data Conference (5–7 August).
📅 See the full hotel tech event calendar.
💼 Check which hotel tech companies offer remote jobs.
💻 Get your PMS comparison spreadsheet.
💸 Get your RMS comparison spreadsheet.
🔓 Essendi's sale closes the loop Accor started with AccorInvest
Credit: Piotr Swat / Shutterstock.com
Accor signs a binding deal to sell its 30.7% stake in Essendi, formerly AccorInvest, for up to €975 million.
Essendi's hotel portfolio will gradually convert to franchise contracts averaging 20 years, and every property stays under Accor brands.
The sale is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval.
Accor plans to return most of the proceeds to shareholders through an additional €500 million share buyback.
Essendi used to be AccorInvest, the entity Accor spun off years ago specifically to separate real estate ownership from hotel services. Selling this remaining stake isn't just another sale, it's Accor closing the loop on that separation and walking away from hotel real estate almost entirely.
What's left is a company that owns brands and franchise agreements, not buildings. The asset-light model every major chain has chased for a decade, and Accor just took one of the last big steps to get there.
Regardless of the numbers, this is a big deal (no pun intended).
PRODUCT UPDATES
🆕 Stayntouch rolls out new PMS features this month: child rate brackets that price kids by age instead of a flat rate, booking windows that control when a rate is available, and new language support including Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Turkish.
🆕 Cloudbeds launches Insights, a reporting and data intelligence product for multi-property hotel groups: it runs on the same data as daily operations, so teams can spot a problem and jump straight into the relevant workflow without switching systems.
🆕 roommaster launches Linq, an AI guest management platform: it handles guest conversations across web chat, WhatsApp, and email from the first inquiry through post-stay follow-up.
PARTNERSHIPS
🤝 Airbnb partners with CarTrawler to offer car rental: first-time bookings earn up to 20 percent back in Airbnb credit, on top of the 10 to 15 percent it already pays on hotel and HotelTonight bookings.
None of it carries a loyalty program label, but the credit only spends on more Airbnb bookings, same as Expedia's One Key or Booking's Genius.
🤝 Visiting Media and HotelPORT partner to clean up hotel content across digital channels: they audit OTA listings, brand sites, and immersive content for properties. The goal is making sure hotels show up correctly as AI search becomes a bigger part of discovery.
INTEGRATIONS
🔌 RMS integrates with TrustYou's Customer Data Platform: guest data from RMS now syncs in real time to build a single profile per guest, pulling in booking history, preferences, and feedback from other systems.
🔌 TRYBE integrates with Friendbuy to turn guest referrals into growth for spas: referral programs, loyalty rewards, and analytics now sit inside TRYBE instead of a separate tool.
ACQUISITIONS
💰 TravelAI acquires the Sonder brand and relaunches Sonder.com: the deal covers the name and domain only, not Sonder's former properties or leases.
Sonder's parent wound down operations after Marriott ended their partnership in late 2025, and TravelAI plans to run the site as a curated guide to boutique hotels and short-term stays.
💰 Tambourine acquires MyHotel, adding guest feedback and reputation management to its stack: the deal brings roughly 1,600 hotel relationships across Latin America, where MyHotel already serves more than 2,000 hotels in 24 countries. It extends Tambourine's reach from hotel websites and marketing into guest sentiment after the booking is made.
JOB BOARD
💼 Senior Customer Success Manager | Remote (based in Spain) | Canary Technologies.
💼 Senior Project Manager, Technical Services | Remote (based in the UK) | Duetto.
💼 Sales Director | Remote (based in the UK) | Mews.
That’s all for today, thank you for reading. If this was helpful, share it with someone who'd find it useful too:
See you next week!
Jose