Typically, the demand for tourism to a particular destination is a function of a myriad of factors, including general state of the economy in originating country and destination, levels of income of tourists, the cost of travel and time to travel from the tourists homes to the destination, trends in price levels - increasing or decreasing, competition from other destinations, currency exchange rates, etc.
Recently, Hopper, an OTA based in Canada, started to ask customers to pay a tip to Hopper as part of the booking. The tip is included automatically in the final price on the final payment page before completing the booking. The customer has to switch the toggle to the off position in order to not pay a tip.
Recently, there have been a lot of buzz and heated discussions about the impact and role of generative AI like ChatGPT in the hospitality industry and travel in general. From bold predictions that ChatGPT will revolutionize the industry and liberate the industry from the yoke of the OTAs to expert statements that it will lead to complete overhaul of the hotel tech stack and help solve labor shortages in hospitality.
English author Douglas Adams, famous for The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy (and contributing to a Monty Python s Flying Circus sketch), was a technology enthusiast. In a (very contemporary, even to this day) essay titled "How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet," published in The Sunday Times in 1999, Adams proposed rules for our relationship with technology. According to him, anything that exists when you re born is normal, anything invented between the ages of 15 and 35 is exciting and innovative, and anything invented after 35 is unnatural.
A recent Hospitality Net World Panel viewpoint discussed the feasibility of a pass for unlimited stays would work for hotels. The viewpoint discusses the idea of hotels offering a pass for unlimited stays, similar to the all you can fly promotion recently announced by Frontier Airlines. Experts in the hospitality industry were interviewed, and opinions are mixed. Some believe that the idea could work for large hotel chains with multiple locations, but with limitations such as no more than one or two nights stay at any property per quarter. Others believe that the idea is more of a publicity stunt and would ultimately lead to customer dissatisfaction due to the restrictions and availability challenges that would be required to make it work. Some suggest that a subscription model with a fixed number of nights for a monthly fee would offer more potential for innovation in pricing structure.