Hilton introduces AI planner to its website
Hilton has introduced the Hilton AI Planner, a generative AI-powered digital concierge now available in beta testing on hilton.com. The tool is designed to help travelers explore Hilton’s global portfolio of hotels and plan stays through conversational responses.
The Hilton AI Planner uses conversational intelligence to deliver real-time responses throughout the travel planning process. Travelers can identify destinations compare properties and explore amenities while receiving curated recommendations that move beyond traditional search filters.
The beta launch will initially reach a small portion of site traffic on hilton.com. Hilton said access will expand to more users as the Hilton AI Planner evolves.
The introduction comes as artificial intelligence tools are increasingly used for travel research and planning. Hilton said the tool reflects its ongoing investment in technologies focused on the guest experience.
“For decades, Hilton has been at the forefront of hospitality innovation – from the award-winning Hilton Honors app to the most widely available Digital Key and the industry-first Confirmed Connecting Room,” said Michael Leidinger, SVP and chief information officer at Hilton. “The launch of the Hilton AI Planner marks another step forward in our journey to reimagine the travel experience for Hilton guests. This is just the beginning and a preview of where we’re going, as we continue to focus on providing thoughtful, purposeful innovation that empowers travelers.”
Hilton said the Hilton AI Planner builds on previous technology initiatives including Digital Key Connected Room and Confirmed Connecting Room
Social Media Smog
There's been much speculation of how the hotel deals market will shape up in 2026, with many vocal about hopes for more transactions through the course of the year.
Here's how executives of publicly traded companies felt about the potential for deals — along with recently agreed to or closed ones — during the most recent earnings season.
James Risoleo, president and CEO, Host Hotels & Resorts
“So, are there other opportunities to maximize value within the portfolio? I think there is, we'll be opportunistic. The buyer pool for these type of assets is, I think, a lot deeper than people realize. There are a lot of sovereigns out there who are very interested in luxury hotels. There are high-net worth individuals who are interested in luxury properties as well. And there are a couple of big private equity firms that have a lot of capital that have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the inflection point to jump back into the market. And we're hopeful that this is the inflection point that we can prove out that there is value here, value to be created, and we're certainly hopeful that we're going to get the read through and see some multiple expansion as a result of not only this decision, but all the capital allocation decisions that we've made over the last nine years."
Thomas Fisher, co-president and chief investment officer, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust
“What you've seen is the market is becoming certainly more constructive. You've been reading about more trades, especially the bid for luxury. I think a number of the trades that have been announced recently have also skewed to much larger transactions. So, I think that's a trend that you're going to continue to see, and part of that is the debt markets and the cost and availability of debt continues to improve.
“Brokers are certainly more optimistic. Buyer debt seems to be improving. There's a lot of equity capital out there looking for opportunities. But as we've talked about for the last 18 months, they're looking for conviction. And what does that mean? That basically means growth. And as we all know, capital follows performance.
“So, I think everybody is kind of waiting to see if the setup that we've set out for 2026 kind of comes to fruition, you'll continue to see momentum as it relates to the transaction and trades in the market. And I think you'll continue to see us be engaged and be heavy participants in the market as well.”
Jeffrey Donnelly, president and CEO, DiamondRock Hospitality Co.
“I think we're more inclined to be sellers at this time. And I just think the reason for the neutrality on acquisitions is that right now, our shares look to be a better investment than the options that we see out there. I think a lot of the deals that are coming to the market, and this is very early on and in the last, say, two to three weeks, they tend to skew toward very large luxury assets.
“So, from a ticket price and size and pricing. It's just — that doesn't necessarily align with what we chase. But I think it’s a type of asset that's going to end up setting some favorable comparisons in the marketplace, and I think begin to provide the market with some visibility on where asset prices are.”
Bryan Giglia, CEO, Sunstone Hotel Investors
"While the transaction market has been quiet the last couple of years, we are clearly seeing some incremental activity, and we are looking for ways to thoughtfully demonstrate the value of our portfolio. In the meantime, we are focused on delivering profitability growth from operations and realizing the benefits of our investment projects."
Jonathan Stanner, president and CEO, Summit Hotel Properties
"From a capital allocation perspective, we continue to execute on our disciplined capital recycling strategy during the fourth quarter, closing on the sale of two noncore hotels, the 107-room Courtyard Amarillo Downtown, which was owned in our joint venture with GIC and the wholly owned 123-room Courtyard Kansas City Country Club Plaza. These dispositions generated aggregate gross proceeds of $39 million, reflecting a blended yield of 4.3% based on trailing 12-month net operating income after consideration of approximately $10 million of foregone near-term capital expenditures.
"In addition, last week, we closed on the sale of the 122-room Hilton Garden Inn in Longview, Texas, another noncore asset owned in our GIC joint venture. The $12.3 million sale price represented a 6.7% capitalization rate based on the estimated trailing 12-month net operating income after consideration of approximately $2.6 million of foregone near-term capital expenditures. These 3 assets had a blended RevPAR of $89, a nearly 30% discount to the current pro forma portfolio.
"Since 2023, we have sold 13 noncore hotels, generating approximately $200 million of gross proceeds and eliminating nearly $60 million of anticipated capital expenditures at an approximate 4.6% net operating income capitalization rate. These sales reflect our disciplined approach to monetizing lower growth, capital-intensive assets and redeploying proceeds to enhance liquidity, reduce leverage, and support higher return uses across the portfolio."
Mark Hoplamazian, chairman, president and CEO, Hyatt Hotels Corp.
"On December 30th, we sold the remaining 14 hotels in the Playa portfolio to Tortuga Resorts for approximately $2 billion and entered into long-term management agreements for 13 of those properties. This transaction strengthens our position as the global leader in luxury all-inclusive offerings and is another example of delivering on our commitments and emerging with a value accretive, asset-light platform.
"During the quarter, we also completed the sale of three Alua properties in Spain, which we acquired in late 2024. As part of this transaction, we entered into long-term management agreements, and the new owner plans to invest additional capital into those properties. We continue to make progress on the sale of additional owned properties, and we currently have three hotels under purchase and sale agreements. We expect to close these transactions in the second quarter of 2026 subject to certain closing conditions, and we will provide further updates as these transactions progress.
"We are also evaluating opportunities to sell additional assets beyond those assets already under contract. Since announcing our first asset sell-down commitment in 2017, we have realized over $5.7 billion of real estate disposition proceeds at an average multiple of 15 times, and we've invested approximately $4.4 billion into asset-light platforms at a blended multiple of less than 10 times. We've returned $4.8 billion to shareholders over this period of time, proving that we can return significant capital to shareholders while also investing in growth that creates long-term value."
Marcel Verbaas, chair and CEO, Xenia Hotels & Resorts
"I think there's some more product out there than what we've seen over the last few years. Certainly, the broker community seems to be a little bit more optimistic going into this year. Now, brokers are usually optimistic, but so far it does seem like there's a bit more product out there, and there could be some more opportunities out there. We've been very active on the share repurchase side. Just felt like there has been over the last few years a pretty big gap between where we could essentially acquire our own assets versus what external growth opportunities were out there. So, to the extent that that starts narrowing, then it becomes clearly more interesting for us to to dig a little bit deeper and harder into those opportunities that are out there. So, clearly, over the next few years, we'd like to see some some external growth opportunities come to fruition, and that's going to be really driven by the opportunity set, the pricing and certainly where our own shares are valued."
Major events, particularly sports, seem to be the unifying theme of how hoteliers are looking at 2026.
Many CoStar News Hotels podcasts dove into that topic. Here are the highlights from recent podcast episodes that discuss that and more.
CoStar News Hotels
San Francisco and Santa Clara, California, recently enjoyed the outsized performance that comes along with hosting the Super Bowl, and Colin Sherman, director of hospitality analytics for Texas and the U.S. South for CoStar Group, said that showed up in the numbers.
"The transient and group demand have definitely expanded from that corporate base, which is helping improve their activity overall. You also have this large return-to-office trend in the past years, which has also fueled that midweek rise in transient demand," he said.
Another recent episode keyed in on San Francisco, but from a different perspective. HotelAVE cofounder and CEO Michelle Russo discussed the complicated process of getting the city's two largest hotels from receivership to sale after Park Hotels & Resorts decided to hand the keys back to their lenders rather than keeping up on $725 million in debt.
"They were beasts of assets," she said. "Two, thousand-plus-room properties with lots of moving parts. I have to say Park was really cooperative in assisting us in the transition."
While events have been much of the early discussion this year, a shift in artificial intelligence is also a major change the industry must face, Kurien Jacob, partner at Highgate Tech Ventures, said.
"There is actual validation of productivity and gains that is going to transform the overall landscape, and not just hospitality," he said. "As in any wave like this, you're going to have companies do extremely well, and you're going to have certain companies fail. And that's just part of reality."
On the other side of the globe, CoStar News Hotels' monthly check in on the Asia-Pacific region focused on Australia's Trilogy Hotels, a third-party operator looking to replicate the American model.
Hotel operators have "got so many dials that you can manipulate to drive a really fantastic financial outcome," Executive Chairman Tony Ryan said, adding he chose to get into operations after years as a lawyer focusing on hotel deals across the Asia-Pacific region. "The opportunity to get a lift in profit for a hotel, that opportunity is so much greater for us than in a shopping center or traditional property asset classes. ... So I think we want to be in the hard business, the bit that involves human beings. As everything else gets commoditized, it's the human element."
Tell Me More
The February edition of Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast, focused on how the year was getting off to a strong start to the year.
Co-host Isaac Collazo, STR's senior director of analytics, said the turnaround has been pinned largely to demand rather than revenue with hotels in January seeing their first demand increase since March 2025.
Next Gen in Lodging
The latest episode of Next Gen in Lodging focused on how hotels and restaurants are dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids impacting their employees.
Lilly Rocha, CEO of the Latino Restaurant Association based in Los Angeles, described the raids as "catastrophic."
"Obviously that creates issues for the entire economy of Los Angeles, California, in general because we as the Latino workers ... are like the backbone of the workforce, in restaurants," she said. "With the ICE raids, it created a very unstable employment environment where folks were either not going to work at all or just afraid to go to work."
The Upgrade
The latest episodes of CoStar News Hotels' Europe, Middle East and Africa focused podcast The Upgrade focused once again on the impact of sports and events, this time noting how Formula 1 has been a driver of demand.
Sarah Duignan, STR’s director of client relationships, discussed how the race in Abu Dhabi has boosted hotel rates roughly 80% since 2022.
“Abu Dhabi, in my humble opinion, is the most-exciting Formula 1 race of the season. … It is currently the last race of the season,” she said, adding that at the beginning of the race there were three drivers in contention to be the overall season champion.
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