Welcome to RemoteHotelier!
The first edition of the year is coming packed with fresh news.
Also, new year, new look. I made a few design tweaks. Nothing huge, but hopefully cleaner and easier to scan. As always, your feedback is very welcome. There’s a new section too… but more on that below.
I hope you like it. Let’s get started!
In today’s newsletter:
🌲 Marriott launches a new outdoor digital platform
🏕️ And a hotel collection to match it
🧭 A clearer job market for hotel tech
🧳 Airbnb wants to own the full trip
⚖️ Governments still fight over the stay
🗞️ + 4 extra news
💼 + 3 new jobs in hotel tech
MAIN NEWS
#1 Marriott launches a new outdoor digital platform…
Marriott Bonvoy is rolling out a new outdoor focused platform, mixing nature stays, activities, and loyalty in one place.
This new platform is called Marriott Bonvoy Outdoors.
It lets people discover trips by activity, not only by destination.
It connects more than 450 hotels and 50,000 Homes and Villas.
Search is built around passions like hiking, diving, surfing, and skiing.
Hotels normally wait passively for guests to book rooms. Marriott wants to offer you not only accommodations, but also good reasons to travel. It’s also refreshing to see tech and nature in the same sentence in such a positive way.
#2 … and a hotel collection to match it
Marriott is also launching a new collection to match its new digital platform. It’s called Outdoor Collection, and the first brands will be Postcard Cabins and Trailborn Hotels.
This new collection is a portfolio of small scale properties set in natural locations, with easy access to outdoor activities. And everything will stay connected under the Marriott loyalty umbrella.
When a giant like them jumps in with both feet like this, it can only mean one thing: demand is real. Week after week we’re seeing how activities and experiences are merging with hotel tech into a single entity.
#3 A clearer job market for hotel tech
Great initiative led by Edouard Clark, who’s benchmarking the salaries in hotel tech after launching a new dedicated hospitality tech jobs platform.
The survey is anonymous and takes about 3 minutes. And I can confirm because I also completed it.
It focuses only on people working in hotel tech.
It covers roles, seniority, countries, and company types.
If you work in hotel tech, and you want to contribute, filling the anonymous form actually helps the whole industry. Role names and salaries are over the place, it’s about time we do something to fix it.
#4 Airbnb wants to own the full trip…
Airbnb’s chief business officer reflects on its recent push beyond STR, with new features like services, experiences and hotel rooms. You can also watch the video of the interview here.
Almost half of experience bookings didn’t include an accommodation.
Airbnb had to rebuild its tech stack to sell services.
The company is testing new services like grocery delivery, massages and private chefs.
10% of the people who booked services were brand new users on the platform.
Seems like their new angle is to sell the full trip, not just the accommodation. Honestly, this feels very familiar. Hotels already offer many of these things, they just bundle it. Splitting services could be a success for younger generations, but to me, it sounds like extra mental burden I don’t like to have when traveling.
#5 … but governments still fight over the stay
And speaking of STR, we’re seeing two opposite moves this week regarding new regulations: Lisbon will ease restrictions and issue new licenses after a few years of iron fist regulations against it. Funnily enough, Poland is planning to regulate (even more) short-term rentals.
The first article is very interesting because the decision comes after realizing that these measures aren’t helping to improve house affordability, which was the original intent. Some food for thought.
RESOURCES
📍 Next Event: Fitur Madrid (21–25 January 2026).
📅 2025/2026 hotel tech event calendar.
💼 Hotel tech companies offering remote jobs.
💻 Cloud PMS comparison list.
HOTEL TECH EXTRAS
🛒 GoldSpring, a travel management and consulting firm, acquires Travel Tech Consulting to strengthen its AI advisory muscle as clients struggle to keep up with the latest technology changes.
💰 Spanish VC 4Founders Capital launches a €60M hotel fund, betting on digital upgrades can unlock better returns than traditional hotel investing. I’m curious to see the outcome of this.
🌍 VBooking secures $5M to expand its AI travel platform, bringing new automation tools and digital currency to help make business trips easier and more efficient.
🧖♀️ TRYBE partners with TablePath to merge dining, spa, and leisure bookings into one platform, giving hotel guests a unified reservation experience.
JOB BOARD
Business Development Representative EMEA | Remote (based in the UK or Spain) | Duetto.
Onboarding Project Manager | Remote (based in Spain) | Cloudbeds.
Regional Sales Manager - Business Intelligence EMEA | Remote (based in Spain) | Lighthouse.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT - NEW SECTION!
In this section I’ll bring the most important tech news of the week, even if they don’t come directly from hospitality. Because what happens in the broader tech world usually ends up on our door sooner or later.
🚨 Bittersweet week for Elon Musk as Grok faces a global backlash for generating sexualized images of minors, and also announces that xAI raised $20 billion in fresh funding.
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See you next week!
Jose