Articles | HSMAI Americas

Finding the Right Balance Between OTAs and Direct Demand

Hannah Grossman, Director of Hotel Marketing, Gourmet Marketing, HSMAI Rising Marketing Leader Council Member

Jonathan Kreifels, Senior Partner Manager, Sojern, HSMAI Rising Marketing Leader Council member

Finding the right mix between direct bookings and OTAs is a constant balancing act. Direct channels offer higher profit margins and ownership of the guest relationship, while OTAs provide global reach and help fill soft periods.

The recent Rising Marketing Leader Council discussion on distribution strategy focused on where each channel fits, when OTA use becomes dependence, and what hotels need to consider before trying to shift demand to direct booking.

Parity Comes First

Rate parity was a recurring concern that participants brought up. If an OTA is selling a room for significantly less than the hotel website, guests have little reason to book direct.

The group also discussed OTA promotions, membership discounts, and accelerators. These can provide a short-term solution, but layering additional discounts on top of commissions can make it difficult to understand what is driving bookings.

As one participant put it:

“There’s a time and place for all of it, but the minute you start going down the road of extra promotions and extra discounts, it’s hard to dig out of that well.”

Keeping the strategy clean also makes performance easier to measure.

OTAs Bring Reach

OTAs provide visibility, particularly for independent properties, converted hotels, certain markets, and international demand. OTA and direct business can also have different booking windows and lengths of stay. Removing a channel without replacing the visibility and demand it provides can create another problem.

The group discussed finding a balance rather than an arbitrary OTA percentage. Property size, brand affiliation, market, traveler mix, and available marketing resources all affect the appropriate channel mix.

Direct Demand Requires Investment

Moving business away from OTAs requires something on the other side of the equation. Participants discussed website content, paid media, retargeting, reputation management, reviews, and visibility within LLMs. Hotel information also needs to be consistent and clearly available online, including the experiences and amenities travelers may search for.

The guest experience matters after acquisition as well. Capturing direct guest information creates an opportunity to move an OTA guest into a direct relationship for a future stay.

Compare the Real Costs

OTA commission and direct marketing spend should be evaluated together.

Paid media, commission, ADR, ROI, cost per click, and the cost of generating the reservation all came into the discussion. How those expenses appear within the P&L can complicate the comparison further.

The group also discussed the need to understand whether promotions, paid media, pricing, or another strategy is responsible for demand. They found that when several tactics run simultaneously, attribution becomes much harder.

Where AI Belongs in the Hotel Marketing Triad

Jennifer Hill of Kalibri and Dan Rice of Expedia Group recently led HSMAI Washington, DC’s Building Smarter Hotels Masterclass, organized around the hotel marketing triad of owned, earned and paid media.

They ended the session by handing attendees 100 pieces of candy to allocate across the three categories for different demand scenarios. It made a hard point tangible: hotel marketers have limited money, time and attention, and every investment in one channel is a choice not to invest somewhere else.

Now generative AI is entering that conversation. It is tempting to add it to the diagram as a new marketing channel. It absolutely is not.

AI is not a fourth piece of the triad. It is a helpful tool that can strengthen the decisions and workflows inside all three.

That distinction matters. If we treat AI as one more place to publish, we will use it to produce more emails, more social posts, more ads and, quite possibly, more noise. We really do not need any more noise, right?

The better use is to help us run owned, earned and paid media more accurately and more profitably.

Owned: Control only matters if the information is good

A hotel’s website, booking engine, email database and guest communications are assets it controls. But the information behind them is usually scattered across systems, departmental files, old PDFs and the heads of experienced employees. Generative AI can pull that together so people can actually use it.

Imagine an employee being able to ask:

Which of our experiences would be most relevant to this guest?
What information is missing from this group inquiry?
Do our website, sales materials and confirmation emails describe this package consistently?
What one thing can we convey that will set our hotel apart?

During the masterclass, Jennifer and Dan noted the high open rates of transactional emails and how often hotels leave meaningful upsell opportunities out of them. The opportunity isn’t to have AI write more upsell copy. It’s to match the right offer to the right guest at the right point in the journey, using accurate information and the hotel’s real voice.

That is the difference between producing content and improving the guest journey. However you apply Gen AI, start with this question: how can we make the experience better for our guests?

Earned: Listen before responding

Review responses are the most obvious use of generative AI, and one of the easiest to do horribly!!! Paste in a review, get a polished reply in seconds. But if the result is another generic “Thank you for your valuable feedback,” we have only automated something guests were already ignoring.

I believe the more valuable work happens before the response is written. AI can analyze reviews over time to spot recurring themes, separate an isolated complaint from a developing operational issue, compare sentiment across departments and surface the words guests use to describe what they value most. Then it can help a manager write a specific response that acknowledges what that guest actually experienced. The hotel listens at a scale that would otherwise be hard, and the employee starts with something better than a blank page.

The same principle applies to social media and public relations. Generative AI can summarize coverage, identify patterns, repurpose approved stories and help connect activity to meaningful commercial outcomes. But the experience, expertise and credibility still have to come from the hotel.

AI can help express a genuine story. It can’t make an inauthentic story true. (Though sometimes it might try so watch out for that too!!)

Paid: Make a better decision before making another ad

Generative AI can produce headlines, ad variations, keyword ideas and audience-specific copy lightning fast. Useful? It can be. But the bigger opportunity is the decision that comes before the ad.

AI can help a commercial team bring together campaign results, booking patterns, market conditions, audience behavior and property priorities. It can summarize what happened, flag questions worth investigating and help the team compare uses for the next marketing dollar.

Should we protect branded search? Build a landing page for an upcoming demand generator? Retarget past guests? Increase metasearch visibility? Use an OTA campaign to fill a specific need period?

AI should not make those calls alone. It can help the team examine the evidence and see the tradeoffs more clearly. In other words, it can help us allocate the candy more wisely, and more profitably.

Where I draw the line between automation and augmentation

As I work with hotels on practical AI adoption, I find it useful to separate the two. AI is well suited to repetitive work such as:

Collecting and organizing information
Categorizing comments or inquiries
Summarizing meetings and research
Reformatting material for different channels
Preparing first drafts, updating trackers and routing information to the right person

Human judgment remains essential for:

Making brand promises
Handling sensitive guest communication
Resolving service failures
Setting budgets, priorities and strategic tradeoffs
Approving what ultimately reaches the guest

The goal is to remove enough administrative friction that people have more time and better information to practice hospitality. Never forget that.

I love gen AI and use it all the time, but I also have a big sign above my desk reminding me: people first.

What this 90-day project is teaching me

I am currently documenting a 90-day AI project with an independent hotel. We are examining how generative AI can support sales, marketing, the guest experience and hotel operations while carefully protecting the property’s identity, data and brand voice.

The process does not begin with, “What can ChatGPT or Claude do?” It begins with better questions:

Where are guests experiencing unnecessary friction?
Where is revenue being missed?
Where are employees losing time?
Where does information break down?
Which decisions could be improved with faster access to better information?

Only then do we decide whether the right answer is a prompt, an AI assistant, an automated workflow, or even no AI at all (always my last resort!!).

I will share something that has been a little eye-opening for me. I KNOW that people come first (remember I even have a sign!) but every time we embark on a new area, I still WANT to think, how can Claude fix this? Claude cannot fix this. A really good system can be helped along with Claude to save people some time, or deliver something that enhances the guest experience, but on its own, Claude is not the answer. Darn it.

Owned, earned and paid remain the foundation of hotel marketing. AI doesn’t replace that foundation, and it doesn’t belong beside it as a shiny fourth category. It belongs inside the work.

Holly Zoba is the cofounder of hotelBschool.com and coauthor of the CHDM study guide for HSMAI. Subscribe to her biweekly newsletter to follow her commercial experiments with AI – https://mailchi.mp/hotelbschool/commercial-lab

AI’s Best Use Case? Giving Time Back

Sydnee Berger, Senior Sales Manager, Sojern, HSMAI Rising Sales Leader Council Member

Gabrielle Kantarovich, Senior National Sales Manager, Placemakr, HSMAI Rising Sales Leader Council Member

A recent discussion of the HSMAI Rising Sales Leader Council explored AI disruption and transformation in hospitality. The conversation focused on how hospitality professionals can adopt AI while preserving the human connection that defines the industry.

One breakout group discussed the question: What’s one task in your role that AI could realistically make easier? A common theme was efficiency. Participants described the challenge of managing hotel information across multiple systems, tools, and documents. The group discussed the need for a centralized, “one-stop shop” resource that could make information easier to access for both clients and guests. CRM activities and email drafting were also cited as areas where AI can save time. Automating routine tasks allows teams to spend more time on client relationships, business development, and service.

Across the broader discussion, participants repeatedly returned to the importance of human interaction. AI can help create content and organize information, but participants emphasized the need for human review, personalization, and creativity. As one rising leader put it, “we all desire the human connection.”

The conversation also included concerns about privacy, security, and the use of personal information. Participants discussed the importance of guardrails around guest data and the responsibility that comes with using AI-enabled tools.

Another topic focused on how travelers search and discover hotels. Participants discussed the importance of digital visibility and maintaining detailed website content that helps AI systems understand a property’s features and match them to traveler needs.

The session closed with a shared perspective that hospitality professionals do not need to become AI experts overnight. Learning how to work alongside AI, understanding its capabilities, and adapting as the technology evolves were viewed as valuable skills for the future.

Recommended Readings

Questions for Teams

What skills do you think will become more important as AI becomes more common?
What’s one task in your role that AI could realistically make easier?
What do you think is the right balance between human interaction and automation in hospitality?

Hotels and the K‑Shaped Economy

Taso Sporidis, Senior Manager, Revenue Management, Host Hotels & Resorts, Revenue Optimization Advisory Board

This piece comes out of a revenue advisory board discussion on hotels and the K‑shaped economy. The mood in the room was pragmatic rather than alarmist. Everyone recognizes the pressure points: costs keep climbing, booking windows keep shrinking, and guests are hesitating longer before committing. At the same time, the top end keeps spending while a much larger group feels stretched, cautious, and far more selective.

None of this is entirely new, but the pace at which the two trajectories are separating is. The article frames the $300 hotel room as a warning for the aspirational middle: too expensive for the mass market, but not scarce or distinctive enough for price-insensitive guests. This is becoming more than a cyclical demand pattern; it is an operating and investment framework. For hotels, the strategic question is less about serving everyone and more about being unmistakably worth choosing.

The Disappearing Middle

That split shows up most clearly in the middle of the rate spectrum. When rooms cluster around the same price, the product starts to blur. Guests default to whatever feels safest or cheapest because the differences are harder to see and trust. The article’s concern is not simply that demand disappears; it is that the aspirational middle loses its economic logic. Occupancy may hold, but pricing power erodes when guests see no compelling reason to choose one comparable option over another.

One line from the discussion captured the tension cleanly: “I think the middle doesn’t have a place for much longer. You either go luxury, or you make it clean, efficient, so that you can still run both ways.”

Two Models, One Industry

The conversation kept returning to the operator’s choice. One model emphasizes efficiency, scale, and disciplined costs for necessity-driven demand. The other emphasizes scarcity, brand, and experience for guests who are not negotiating every dollar. The article argues that both ends can thrive while the aspirational middle is squeezed between them. One advisory board member shared that they had used points to make a seven-day luxury hotel stay attainable, while reserving out-of-pocket spend for food and beverage. Guests may still travel, but they are reallocating spend. The middle becomes vulnerable when service thins and the product cannot justify its rate.

The Cost of Identity

Identity was the hardest lever to pin down. Creating a sense of place, belonging, or exclusivity carries real cost, whether through space, staffing, programming, or design. The article reinforces that scarcity and brand work at the top only when they are deliberate and protected from dilution. Those investments must be visible and valuable; otherwise, they add cost without pricing power. The question is whether a hotel can fund enough differentiation to matter without pushing rates into an unsustainable segment. The danger is quietly sliding down while insisting nothing has changed.

This isn’t a theoretical curve. It’s already shaping pricing decisions, staffing models, loyalty behavior, and investment priorities across the industry.

Ultimately, the discussion amongst the advisory board members leaned toward clarity over compromise. The article presents the choice starkly: serve broad, value-driven demand or create genuine scarcity and distinction. Not every hotel needs to fit a literal binary, but the operating model, guest promise, and investment strategy must point in the same direction. Borrowing the costs of luxury without achieving its pricing power may be the most vulnerable path.

Discussion Questions

How many of our assets live in the $300 range, and where do we honestly think they’re headed?
Is picking a side truly binary for hotels, or is there a viable middle strategy?
Where do we see the K-shaped economy playing out in our own spending and travel behavior?
What levers can still make middle offerings financially viable?
Can distinctiveness and identity be created through programming, culture, and operations without luxury pricing, or does identity inevitably cost more than the middle can support?

Navigating Contact Center Terms: Acronyms & Terminology Explained

Stephanie Poirier, Senior Team Leader, Sales Support & Quality Performance, Accor, Contact Center SIG Steering Committee Members

Megan Becker, Manager of Hiring and Training, Reservations, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Company, Contact Center SIG Steering Committee Members

At the heart of guest interactions, Contact Centers often serve as the first point of contact. In the fast-paced and service-driven world of the hospitality industry, communication is key to delivering exceptional guest experiences. Internally, the same holds true — specialized acronyms and phrases have developed within the sector to streamline operations and drive greater efficiency.

These terms symbolize processes, technologies, and metrics that ensure smooth operation in hospitality contact centers. Understanding these definitions is essential for anyone working within the industry, from front-line colleagues to upper management, as they play a critical role in improving service quality, boosting performance, and ensuring guest satisfaction.

In this article, we will share the top 25 most used call center acronyms and phrases and their significance in driving success.

Term	Definition
Abandonment Rate	The percentage of callers who hang up before speaking with an agent
ACD	Automatic Call Distribution – telephony system that receives calls and distributes them to agents/representatives
ADR	Average Daily Rate – average income per occupied room a hotel earns in a set period of time; key indicator of hotel’s success
AHT	Average Handle Time – the average duration to handle a call; includes talk time and after-call work (ACW)
ASA	Average Speed of Answer – the average time it takes to answer a call
ATT	Average Talk Time – average time an agent spends talking with guests per call
BPO	Business Process Outsourcing – delegating specific tasks to 3rd party service provider to optimize internal operating costs related to HR, technologies, knowledge base, etc.
Conversion	The percentage of calls that result in a sale/reservation (some contact centers may measure the percentage of all calls, others may measure the percentage of lead calls that result in a sale)
C-SAT	Customer Satisfaction – a method of monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction levels, usually through surveys
CTI	Computer Telephony Integration – a technology that connects telephone systems to computers, enabling agents to access customer information during calls
Disposition	Status that describes the outcome of the call (booked, not booked, etc)
FCR	First Call Resolution – The percentage of calls resolved during the first contact
FTE	Full-Time Equivalent – a unit of measurement that represents the number of full-time employees an organization would have if all employees worked full-time; used to standardize headcount and assist with determining staffing levels
GDS	Global Distribution System – a computerized network that allows travel agencies to book travel services from multiple suppliers
IVR	Interactive Voice Response – plays a pre-recorded message and allows customer to respond with voice commands to select the type of service they need
KPI	Key Performance Indicators – Measures used to determine the quantity and quality of contact and support provided by individual contact center agents, and the center as a whole
Occupancy	The percentage of time agents spend actively handling calls and other work activities
PCA	Percentage of Calls Answered –
QA	Quality Assurance – an assessment process to ensure agents’ customer interactions meet hotel quality standards
Rev per Res	Revenue per Reservation –
Rev per TT	Revenue per Talk Time – measures the amount of revenue generated per unit of “talk time” during a sales call or customer interaction; measures the direct return on time spent talking to potential clients
SL	Service Level – Percentage of calls answered within a specific time frame.
Speed to Proficiency / Time to Proficiency	The amount of time it takes for a new employee to learn and develop to meet performance expectations for the role
Transfer Rate	The percentage of calls transferred by an agent
VOC	Voice of Customer – customer’s feedback about their experience, expectations, and desires for the business’s services, products, and offerings.

Now that you’ve had a chance to familiarize yourself with a number of contact center terms, it’s time to expand on the conversation and join us at our quarterly Contact Center SIG meetings, or monthly Fireside Chats! This is a unique opportunity for professionals within the hospitality contact center space to dive into the latest trends, share knowledge, and drive service excellence together. Attendees will gain invaluable insights to enhance their operations. For more information, visit HSMAI’s Contact Center Special Interest Group: A Community for Guest Engagement Leaders.

And be sure to join us at the Commercial Strategies Conference in Orlando next June 29-30, 2027 for an inspiring, informative event!

Session Recap: The Confidence Cocktail™: 3Cs to Command Any Room

Tess McGoldrick, Senior Director Product Enablement, Lighthouse, HSMAI Sales Advisory Board Member

This article is a summary of Karen Laos’s presentation at the recent HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference.

Why This Matters

Poor communication isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s a trust killer. Sixty percent of employees cite it as the primary reason they don’t trust leadership, and 64% say poor communication during change caused them to lose trust entirely. For hospitality commercial leaders navigating constant change, the ability to communicate with confidence isn’t a soft skill. It’s a competitive advantage.

Key Insights

Confidence is a cocktail, not a personality trait. Karen’s frameworkcenters on three ingredients: being Clear, Compelling, and Credible — with Courage as the base. The goal isn’t to become someone different; it’s to remove the habits that dilute your presence. Start by rating yourself 1–10 on each ingredient to identify your blind spots.
Delivery can undermine great content. Fifty-five percent of communication is body language, 38% is vocal quality, and only 7% is the actual words. If you rush, people tune out. If you shrink physically, people question your authority. Hands above the table, weight evenly distributed, elbows slightly away from your torso. Thesearen’t small details, they signal whether the room should listen to you.
Minimizing language quietly signals self-doubt. Phrases like “I might be wrong, but…” or “I’m no expert, but…”aren’t humility, they’re credibility leaks. Swap them for direct alternatives: “Here’s what I’m seeing,” “I recommend,” or “Here’s my vote.” The shift feels small and lands very differently.
Clarity is a gift to your audience. BLUF — Bottom Line Up Front — applies to everything: presentations, emails, conversations. Lead with your point, then support it. Avoid the data dump. Know what you want the other person to do or feel and architect your message around that outcome.

Next Steps & Resources

Build your Celebration Portfolio: list your wins from the last 6–12 months and read them aloud. It’s a practical tool for silencing self-doubt before high-stakes moments.
Craft your PPU Introduction (Personal, Professional, Unique) and get it to 30 seconds. Practice it until it’s automatic.
Pick up Karen’s book Trust Your Own Voice or find her podcast Ignite Your Confidence for continued practice.

Curate: Money & Magic Heads to Nashville

A small room, real conversation, and an experience that holds your attention. That’s what we are cooking up for you on August 5 when Curate moves to Bar Mar by José Andrés in Nashville. With a format built for people who want to work through ideas, not sit through them. We are bringing back, by popular demand, Curate’s Money & Magic workshop.

We are keeping this one intentionally tight. It will be the kind of group where people say what they actually think and stay engaged for the whole session. The setting will certainly help – Bar Mar brings a different energy to the table, literally, with food that keep the conversation moving.

The day will challenge attendees to rethink how they process information, test assumptions, and approach complex commercial decisions. Attendees left energized, equipped with fresh perspectives and practical ways to elevate their commercial strategy.

High-performing commercial leaders don’t just move faster, they think differently. They question what feels certain, stay curious, and create space for better insights to emerge.

Org members, join us for Curate in Nashville on August 5, 10am – 2pm.

For more details and to register: https://americas.hsmai.org/eventshome/hsmai-curate/

A Note from Brian Hicks, CEO

Attending the HSMAI APAC Commercial Strategy Conference recently in Singapore was both professionally enriching and personally meaningful. It provided an opportunity to reconnect with long-standing colleagues while building new relationships across the region, reminding me of the strength and resilience of our global commercial community.

Beyond the connections, it reinforced that hospitality is entering a defining period of commercial transformation. This was reflected in the depth of our discussions – tackling today’s challenges with honesty, regional perspective, and a global mindset. This encapsulates one of the core values of HSMAI, establishing a safe environment for healthy discussion and reinforcing the value of coming together as one global network.

The conversation continues next week, June 16–17, in San Antonio at the Americas Commercial Strategy Conference. There hospitality leaders from across the Americas will gather to explore the trends and strategies shaping the future of commercial success. CSC Americas’ co-location with HITEC, hospitality’s leading technology conference, creates an ideal opportunity to further strengthen the connection between commercial strategy and technology innovation.

I look forward to seeing many of you there.

Best,

Leading Through Chaos Without Losing Your Mind

Libbi Carlson, Director of Commercial Strategy, Apple Hospitality REIT, Revenue Optimization Advisory Board Member

The year is well underway, priorities keep shifting, and the pace never quite slows down. This article comes from a discussion of the HSMAI Revenue Optimization Advisory Board on how leaders maintain clarity and sanity when the pressure feels constant rather than seasonal. The takeaway was that sustained chaos requires different leadership habits than short bursts of intensity.

Burnout shows up as disengagement, slower followthrough, and quiet apathy when teams are juggling too many priorities at once. Participants noted that stress increases when everything feels equally important and no finish line is visible. The group suggested that focus could help improve stress. By narrowing scope, shortening timelines, and defining what needs to be prioritized now, teams responded better. When leaders gave fewer goals that felt achievable, momentum could build as things get done.

Another technique that participants leaned on was blocking time for deep work, meeting-free time, or even recharge days, both for their whole team as well as individually. This created breathing room without reducing accountability. One participant also pointed out that boundaries held up best when leaders modeled them consistently. Examples included, turning off notifications, delaying emails sent at night to the following working day, and clearly stepping away set expectations without policy changes. One participant offered a perspective that reduced unnecessary pressure: “we’re not saving lives.” The group acknowledged that the work is important, it isn’t necessary to be in constant emergency mode.

The conversation also encouraged reflection and celebration on progress already made during the year. Some board members noticed confidence returned when achievements were named and visible. Another tactic was to have honest capacity conversations to prevent burnout caused by overpromising.

Time-off surfaced as a leadership responsibility, rather than a personal perk. Participants emphasized taking vacation fully and disconnecting while away. Teams followed suit when absence was respected and modeled.

Leaders recognized that it needed to be tailored to individuals, because what recharges them might frustrate another, so flexibility was important. The best tip was to focus on the outcomes instead of being married to one specific method.

Recommended Reading

Recommended Team Questions

How can we spot burnout before it happens, and what are some signs to look for?
What works for you, your team, and your company to keep burnout at bay?
If burnout does happen, how can we get back on track?
How can we as leaders motivate our teams through stress?

Digital RFPs and the Speed Question

Megan O’Neil, Convention Sales Manager, MGM Grand and The Signature, Rising Sales Leader Council Member

This article comes from a recent discussion of a sales Rising Leader Council focused on digital RFPs, lead response time, and the growing pressure to reply faster than ever before. As AI tools and automated platforms become common, planners increasingly expect nearimmediate acknowledgment, sometimes within hours, sometimes sooner, and often without regard for internal complexity. Speed is clearly influencing outcomes, but the conversation challenged whether being first consistently matters more than being clear, accurate, and reliable.

Several leaders shared that fast responses can help when no relationship exists, particularly because early replies make planners look good internally and signal professionalism. That benefit, however, comes with a cost because rapid replies immediately establish an expectation for ongoing responsiveness across the entire sales cycle. Miss that cadence later, and the initial advantage can quickly disappear, sometimes taking trust with it.

A recurring theme was the value of acknowledgement over completion. A timely message confirming receipt and setting a delivery timeline often carries more weight than a rushed proposal lacking accuracy or internal alignment. Internal processes frequently slow responses, especially when revenue review, inventory validation, or brand standards are involved, and those delays are felt by planners even when the reasons remain invisible.

Personalization was repeatedly cited as the real differentiator. Smaller, simpler programs can usually support faster turnaround without sacrificing quality. Larger, more complex programs rarely can. Pushing incomplete or overly generic proposals in the name of speed risks missing the client’s actual needs and undermining confidence early.

One comment summarized the prevailing sentiment clearly: “If you tell me when you’re going to get back to me, sometimes that’s just as good as getting right back to me, because at least I know you’ve acknowledged receipt.”

The discussion ultimately reinforced that speed alone does not win business. Setting expectations, delivering what was asked for, and following up with intention continue to matter just as much, and sometimes more.

Recommended Readings

Questions for Teams

Are planners expecting a proposal or response in an unrealistic timetable?
How do you benchmark “good enough” response time, and how does speed factor into winning or losing business?
In the push to respond as fast as possible, are personalization and accuracy being compromised?