Deanna Ting

As in a lot of these cases where personal financial data may or may not have been compromised, we have to wonder why it takes organizations so long to notify their customers.

It's about time hotels gave guests the opportunity to choose a specific room at the time of booking. Now, comes the hard part: marketing this new feature to customers and making it work.

Unfortunately missing from these lists, however, are smaller firms that may, arguably, treat their employees just as well as these bigger ones do. Still, a lot of companies, regardless of industry, could learn from the ways in which they treat and value their workforces.

These ideas may seem a bit far-fetched for now, but they point to a future where hospitality can take you to places you never expected to be able to stay.

From direct booking wars and political instability (hello, Brexit) to figuring out what customers really want and handling issues of labor, these hotel executives have a lot on their minds these days.

Last year marked a pivotal moment in terms of keyless room technology, as Starwood, Hilton, Marriott, and other brands announced investments in the mobile tech. And while there is consumer uptake, this still feels like a transitional technology that has us asking: What's next?

It’s worth taking this report with a grain of salt considering who commissioned it, but regardless, it’s hard to deny that Airbnb is having some impact on pricing people out in some of New York City’s most desirable neighborhoods.

Starwood shareholders probably want Marriott's stock price to rebound following the Brexit vote if they want to get a better deal from the merger.

Suffice it to say, everyone surprised by the outcome of the Brexit vote probably wishes they’d paid more attention to it than they did. Nevertheless, we probably won’t feel the immediate impacts of the UK’s exit until at least two years from now.

In any industry, C-level perspectives deliver some pretty sharp, sometimes surprising insights on what's really going on. Best Western CEO David Kong's observations are just that.