Deanna Ting

Leave it to AccorHotels to be a pioneer. Whether it's buying an alternative accommodations provider like onefinestay or adding independent hotels to its online booking channels, the company isn't afraid to pilot new concepts and ways of doing things.

The hotel business will always be a challenging one, regardless of whether your founder happens to be the 45th President of the United States or not. Whether the Trump Hotels company can continue its focus on domestic growth, while avoiding the many conflicts of interest and challenges that arise in this unprecedented situation, we'll have to wait and see.

As technology continues to evolve, hotels need to find more creative and effective ways to use it to improve the guest experience, without sacrificing the humanity of genuine hospitality.

Taj isn't afraid to do things differently, whether teaming up with a competitor on an innovative loyalty program strategy, or deciding to whittle down its number of brands to just one. It's certainly a hotel company worth keeping an eye on going forward thanks to its contrarian approaches.

Regarding IHG's data breach and others in the past at many high-profile companies, why does it always take so long for the general public to find out about these data breaches?

We're calling 2017 as the year when loyalty becomes an even bigger focus for hotels, if it isn't already. Why? Because there's no better time than now to try to capture a consumer's loyalty, or to engage with them, even if the landscape is becoming a lot more competitive, and consumers, overall, aren't quite as "loyal" as they used to be.

AccorHotels' investments in the sharing economy continue to expand, and as the only major global hotel company investing so directly into the alternative accommodations sector, the company seems well positioned to adapt and grow with this "new normal" in the lodging space.

Schrager has a lot of strong opinions on the current state of the hotel industry and, given his track record of success, it's probably not a bad idea to listen to them.

We're surprised no other hotel loyalty programs have yet attempted to do what Hilton is doing here. These updates, for the most part, reflect an acknowledgement on Hilton's part that no two hotel guests are the same, and that loyalty programs designed solely for road warriors aren't enough to compete in today's increasingly competitive loyalty landscape. Side note: We're so happy they decided to drop that extra (and very unnecessary) "h" in Hilton Honors, too. Oh, and it's just Hilton now, not Hilton Worldwide.

Even though every day with the new Trump administration seems unpredictable, early signs have convinced many in the hotel industry that this might just be the year that corporate travel rebounds from its 2016 slump. However, given the new executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, some executives throughout the travel industry may be rethinking their outlook on corporate travel.