Hotel News

In a turning point for Booking.com and the hospitality industry, the largest lodging site in the world now has so many vacation rental listings, dispersed across 193 destinations, that it is changing the nature of the online travel business.

Beyond the ping pong and well-designed interiors is a clear-eyed hotelier who knows both his clientele and where the hotel industry is heading.

Biggest lesson to be learned: Give travelers the experience they are looking for: value, service, a great user interface, personal global connections, and social sharing. Mix these together, and you have a success story called Airbnb.

If their rooms were full and occupied, then hotels wouldn't be participating in these Cyber Week deals. Where there is need, there is a deal.

This complaining from hotels is like the movie "Groundhog Day." How many times are we going to hear the same refrain? The OTAs are going to be a vital distribution channel for hotels for years to come, although smart hotels will make adjustments and seek to reduce their dependence on Expedia and Booking.com.

Bill Gates' Cascade Investment already plays a role in managing a hotel, and now it will go full circle and own it, too. Seller Host Hotels, meanwhile, wants to reduce its ample presence in Atlanta.

The winning hotel designs at the 2013 European Hotel Design Awards focus as much on user experience and social interaction as they do aesthetic whimsy -- throughout the rate scale.

Hotels are in the business of sleep, except very few of them help travelers understand the personal and economic costs of sleep deprivation and poor sleeping habits.

Jeffery Boyd doesn't want to meddle in Priceline's business on a day to day basis, which may provide angst to some investors. Still, incoming CEO Darren Huston has capably led Priceline's prized asset, Booking.com, over the last two years, so he's got the pedigree in what promises to be a fascinating new era in online travel.

From the front lines of online and mobile travel, Orbitz Worldwide still thinks it can be a winner as an insurgent, although there hasn't been any major evidence of a surge.