11th November 2025: Here are few of the stories that caught our attention over the week with some of our takeaways. Watch the video for a summary or scroll down for the analysis.
Story 1
When Souvenirs Become Strategy: American Express Unveils 2025’s Travel Mindset
American Express’ 2025 Global Travel Trends report, drawing from responses across seven countries, reveals a fundamental recalibration in how travellers approach their journeys – one that hotels would be wise to decode for its distribution and revenue implications.
The headline figures confirm sustained travel intent: 77% of global respondents plan equal or increased international trips compared to 2024, with 59% planning 1-3 international journeys. But the more instructive insight lies in what’s changing beneath these numbers.
The Souvenir Economy Gets Serious
Consider this shift: 82% of Millennials and Gen Z are intentionally seeking one-of-a-kind goods to share stories about, compared to 68% of older generations. More striking still, 57% of younger travellers are selecting destinations specifically to access high-quality, handmade, or authentic items. Designer goods lead their shopping priorities (58%), followed by beauty products (46%) and housewares (43%).
This isn’t casual window shopping – it’s destination selection driven by retail opportunity. The commercial question for hotels: are you positioned in markets where this purchasing behaviour naturally occurs, and are your distribution channels highlighting proximity to these authentic shopping experiences?
Multi-Generational Travel Reshapes Booking Patterns
The family travel dynamic has evolved considerably. Some 58% of Millennial and Gen Z parents plan to bring extended family on holiday in 2025 – nearly double the 31% rate among older generations. Their primary motivation? Quality time ranks at 89%, dwarfing childcare assistance at 24%.
The revenue management implications are tangible. These groups book larger room blocks, exhibit different booking windows, and demonstrate willingness to travel during off-season periods (72% would take children out of school for off-season trips). Yet our distribution systems and rate strategies often remain calibrated to the traditional two-adult, two-child model.
The Points-and-Cash Calculation
Perhaps most relevant to hotel commercial strategy is the accelerating sophistication around loyalty and payment methods. Some 61% of Millennials and Gen Z actively maximise credit card rewards for travel – compared to just 36% of older generations. Three-quarters of younger travellers describe booking with points as feeling like a reward, versus 62% of their elders.
The distribution challenge becomes clear: 45% choose destinations based on where they can best utilise their points, whilst 43% delay booking until they’ve accumulated specific point thresholds. Hotels participating in multiple loyalty ecosystems gain access to travellers making destination decisions through the lens of point optimisation – those outside these networks risk never entering the consideration set.
Technology as the New Concierge
The technology adoption gap is widening. Eighty-three percent of Millennials and Gen Z found generative AI useful for travel booking, compared to 64% of older travellers. The applications they value – personalised trip recommendations, budgeting tools, translation services, activity suggestions – are increasingly shaping how they discover and evaluate accommodations.
Mobile commerce continues its march forward: 39% of younger travellers search for deals on smartphones but switch to desktop for booking completion. This cross-device behaviour demands distribution strategies that maintain session continuity and pricing consistency across platforms – something many hotel booking engines still struggle to deliver seamlessly.
The broader pattern these four trends illuminate? Travel decisions are becoming more calculated, more influenced by ancillary benefits, and more dependent on integrated technology experiences. The hotels that thrive will be those whose distribution strategies acknowledge that younger travellers aren’t just booking rooms – they’re orchestrating complex, multi-faceted journeys where the accommodation decision represents just one piece of a larger value optimisation puzzle.
Story 2
The £95 Billion Question: Why Loyalty Programmes Are Failing Their Most Basic Promise
The Loyalty Value Playbook, a collaborative analysis from Agoda, Rocket Travel, and Skift, delivers an uncomfortable diagnosis: traditional loyalty programmes are haemorrhaging value through a widening gap between customer expectations and programme performance.
The evidence is stark. Nearly half of all loyalty points go unredeemed – a £95 billion annual problem in the UK alone, scaling to $1.7 trillion across six major economies. This isn’t just a liability on balance sheets; it’s a fundamental failure to complete the loyalty loop that these programmes promise.
The Redemption Crisis
Whilst earning points has become frictionless through co-branded credit cards and expanded partner networks, the redemption experience has stalled. The result? Twenty-eight percent of customers abandon programmes because the rules are too complex or rewards don’t justify the effort. Another 43% cite rewards that take too long to earn, whilst 25% point to irrelevant benefits.
The commercial consequences are severe: 77% of consumers report being quicker to drop loyalty programmes than just three years ago. This loyalty leakage is fuelling OTA growth, with the market expanding at nearly 8% CAGR and outpacing direct hotel channels.
Consider the booking behaviour: 31% of travellers book outside their preferred programme when flight schedules or hotel locations are more convenient, whilst 21% do so for better pricing. The uncomfortable truth? Practical concerns consistently override emotional brand attachment.
The New Loyalty Benchmark
The report argues that future-proof programmes must be rebuilt on three pillars: Practical Value (tangible, immediate benefits), Clarity and Transparency (simple, easy-to-understand rules), and Relevance (personalised, context-aware rewards). The ultimate test? Whether members willingly spend cash within the loyalty ecosystem, proving the programme delivers competitive value on its own merits.
The data supports this framework. Deloitte research shows 86% of travellers rate ease of use and clear financial benefits as “important” or “very important,” whilst 78% of consumers engage more with brands that personalise rewards.
The Partnership Imperative
Strategic partnerships are emerging as critical for extending value beyond core offerings. The Flying Blue and Rocket Travel by Agoda collaboration demonstrates the model’s potential: a 200% increase in hotel bookings, an average of four repeat bookings per member, and access to over one million properties worldwide.
Chris Besendorfer of Citigroup frames the shift clearly: “Loyalty is no longer just about earning—it’s about access.” Southwest Airlines takes this further, boasting an industry-leading share of seats booked with points – double that of most carriers – which they view as their primary indicator of customer retention and engagement.
The Metrics That Matter
The report identifies five north-star metrics for managing loyalty as a growth engine: Value Parity Index (tracking how closely redemption value matches cash prices), Redemption Rate and Frequency per Active Member, Repeat Cash Booking Rate (the ultimate loyalty signal), Programme NPS and Satisfaction Scores, and Partner Coverage and Quality Score.
These metrics expose a crucial gap in how most hotel loyalty programmes currently operate. We’ve optimised for acquisition and status tier advancement whilst largely neglecting the redemption experience that actually determines whether members return.
The distribution implication? Hotels participating in loyalty ecosystems that prioritise seamless redemption and value parity will capture more of the repeat booking behaviour that drives higher lifetime value. Those treating their loyalty programme primarily as a direct booking incentive whilst offering suboptimal redemption experiences risk watching their most valuable customers leak to platforms that deliver on the complete loyalty promise.
Story 3
Hyatt and Chase Bet £105 Million on Status as Currency
Breaking Travel News reports that Hyatt Hotels Corporation and Chase have expanded their 15-year partnership with a deal projected to deliver approximately £50 million in adjusted EBITDA impact in 2025, rising to roughly £105 million by 2027, plus a £47 million upfront cash payment.
The agreement’s commercial architecture reveals evolving thinking about how hotel loyalty intersects with financial services distribution. Beginning mid-2026, top-spending Chase Sapphire Reserve cardmembers will receive World of Hyatt Explorist status automatically – a benefit traditionally requiring 30 qualifying nights or £16,000 in qualified spending at Hyatt properties.
Status as Distribution Channel
This represents a fundamental shift in how elite status functions within the distribution ecosystem. Historically, hotel status served as a retention mechanism – rewards for demonstrated loyalty to encourage continued direct booking. By granting status based on credit card spending rather than room nights, Hyatt is effectively treating elite tiers as an acquisition channel rather than purely a retention tool.
The logic becomes clear when examining the numbers. World of Hyatt has grown nearly 30% annually since 2017, reaching over 60 million members with 40% more members per hotel than its nearest competitor. The programme’s members spend more, stay more frequently, and book direct more often than non-members. If Hyatt can convert even a fraction of Chase’s Sapphire Reserve base into active bookers, the economics justify the status dilution.
The Platform Play
The expanded collaboration extends beyond co-branded cards into Chase’s broader ecosystem, including Chase Travel and Chase Ultimate Rewards. Hyatt will increase participation of luxury brands like Park Hyatt and Alila in “The Edit by Chase Travel,” Chase’s curated luxury hotel programme.
This multi-channel distribution approach acknowledges that travellers increasingly make booking decisions within integrated platforms rather than through single-channel searches. By embedding Hyatt inventory across Chase’s travel commerce infrastructure – from Ultimate Rewards redemptions to The Edit’s curated selections to Sapphire Reserve member benefits – the hotel company is ensuring visibility at multiple decision-making touchpoints.
The Co-Brand Performance Foundation
The deal builds on strong co-branded card performance: over 30% growth in card spend and more than 25% increase in total cardmembers over two years. The cards offer compelling earn rates – up to 9 points per £1 spent at Hyatt properties – and anniversary benefits including free night certificates at Category 1-4 properties.
For hotel commercial teams, the partnership demonstrates how co-branded credit cards function as high-margin distribution channels that deliver customers with demonstrated spending capacity and booking intent. The upfront cash payment and projected EBITDA impact suggest the economics of credit card partnerships may now rival or exceed those of traditional wholesale or OTA relationships for properties with sufficient brand strength to support card programmes.
The Competitive Distribution Question
The expansion places pressure on competing hotel companies to deepen their own financial services partnerships or risk ceding share of wallet to properties where loyalty and payment become more tightly integrated. When booking decisions increasingly occur within banking apps and travel reward platforms, hotels lacking these distribution touchpoints face a visibility challenge that traditional marketing cannot easily solve.
Story 4
The £95 Billion Shadow Work Problem: Why TravelPerk Just Stopped Being a Travel Company
Travolution reports that TravelPerk has rebranded to “Perk” and pivoted from corporate travel management to combating what it terms “shadow work” – the invisible, non-core tasks draining employee productivity across organisations.
The strategic repositioning comes with striking economic justification: commissioned research reveals shadow work costs UK businesses £95 billion annually, rising to $1.7 trillion across six major economies. UK employees lose approximately nine hours weekly to tasks like booking work trips, filing expenses, coding invoices, and chasing approvals. Each task switch costs 12 minutes of lost focus.
The Platform Expansion
Perk’s new unified, AI-native platform now integrates travel and spend management, aiming to automate two-thirds of these productivity-draining tasks. The core addition is an AI-native Spend Management module with Perk Pay, a physical card solution that centralises company spending control whilst automating expense reconciliation.
The company’s timing aligns with significant corporate growth: over $300 million in annualised revenue, 1,800 employees, 12 global offices, and dual headquarters in Boston and London. Two strategic acquisitions in under a year and heavy AI investment signal ambitions extending well beyond travel booking.
The Distribution Implications for Hotels
For hotels, corporate travel platforms like Perk represent an increasingly important distribution channel – one that’s consolidating control over business travel decisions whilst simultaneously commoditising the booking experience. When travel becomes just one line item within broader spend management automation, hotels face the risk of reduced direct relationship with the actual traveller.
Consider the workflow: an employee requests a trip, automated approval rules apply, the AI suggests options based on company policy and pricing, booking occurs with minimal human intervention. The hotel never directly engages the guest until check-in. Brand consideration happens (if it happens) within policy parameters set months earlier by procurement teams optimising for cost containment.
The TMC Consolidation Trend
The rebrand reflects broader travel management company evolution. As these platforms add spend management, expense automation, and payment processing, they’re becoming enterprise operating systems for all work-related spending. Travel represents the entry point, but the ultimate value proposition is eliminating friction across the entire employee spend lifecycle.
This consolidation creates challenges for hotel distribution strategies built around direct relationships. When booking decisions occur within corporate platforms optimising across variables hotels can’t directly influence – approval speed, expense coding accuracy, policy compliance, payment processing efficiency – traditional differentiation factors like brand loyalty or guest experience become secondary considerations.
The AI-Driven Commoditisation Risk
Perk’s platform “continuously learns from anonymised data—including real-world trips, receipts, invoices, and payments—from its 10,000 corporate clients worldwide” to improve automation speed and accuracy. As these AI systems mature, they’ll increasingly shape which hotels appear in searches, how options are ranked, and what criteria drive selection.
Hotels participating in corporate channels need to ensure they’re not just available within these platforms but that their offerings align with the variables these AI systems are optimising for. If the algorithm learns that employees at similar companies book certain property types at specific price points, hotels outside those learned patterns risk becoming invisible regardless of their actual suitability.
The broader question: as corporate travel platforms evolve into comprehensive spend management systems, are hotels adequately represented in the criteria these platforms use to evaluate and recommend properties? Or are we allowing procurement-optimised algorithms to reshape corporate travel distribution in ways that prioritise cost and convenience over the factors that traditionally drove hotel selection?
Story 5
Biometrics and Mobile: IATA’s Survey Reveals the Airport of Tomorrow
Web in Travel covers the International Air Transport Association’s 2025 Global Passenger Survey, drawn from over 10,000 responses across 200-plus countries, revealing two dominant trends reshaping the travel experience: accelerating mobile device reliance and expanding biometric adoption.
The mobile migration shows clear momentum. Whilst airline websites remain the most popular booking channel at 31%, their usage has declined from 37% in 2024. Airline web apps have grown from 16% to 19%, driven by younger travellers (25% prefer apps). Payment methods reflect similar shifts: credit and debit card usage has fallen from 79% to 72%, whilst digital wallet adoption has surged from 20% to 28%.
The Unified Digital Credential Demand
The most striking finding: 78% of passengers want a single smartphone application combining digital wallet, digital passport, and loyalty cards to manage all journey aspects. Electronic bag tag usage has risen from 28% to 35%, indicating growing comfort with mobile-enabled airport processes.
For hotels, this mobile-centric expectation extends well beyond air travel. If guests expect to manage flights, payments, identity verification, and loyalty programmes through unified mobile experiences, they’ll increasingly expect the same from accommodations. Properties still requiring separate apps for booking, check-in, room access, and amenity ordering risk appearing anachronistic.
Biometric Adoption Accelerates
Half of all passengers (50%) have now used biometrics at some airport touchpoint, up from 46% in 2024 and representing nearly 20 percentage point growth since 2022. Satisfaction stands at 85%, with security (44%), exit immigration (41%), and entry immigration (35%) being the most common touchpoints.
The willingness to trade privacy for convenience is notable: 74% would share biometric information to bypass manual passport or boarding pass checks. Even among those currently unwilling, 42% would reconsider if data privacy were assured.
The Hotel Distribution Connection
The survey’s regional insights reveal variations that matter for hotel distribution strategy. Asia-Pacific leads in digital adoption and biometric use whilst expecting fast, seamless journeys. Europe remains most traditional and cautious, preferring airline websites and showing the highest hesitancy about data sharing. North America prioritises convenience and has the strongest privacy concerns globally.
These regional differences in digital adoption and privacy comfort should inform how hotels approach mobile check-in, digital key distribution, and biometric room access in different markets. A strategy that works in Singapore may face resistance in Frankfurt or Chicago.
The Trust Prerequisite
IATA’s Senior Vice President Operations emphasises that cybersecurity must be a core priority to build necessary trust for digital transformation. The ultimate goal – fully digital international travel – depends on governmental action: “governments need to start issuing digital passports and enable their secure recognition across borders.”
For hotels, the parallel is clear. As guests grow comfortable with biometric identity verification at airports, they’ll expect similar seamless experiences at hotel check-in. Properties investing in mobile-first guest journeys with optional biometric authentication are positioning themselves to capture travellers who increasingly view physical check-in queues and plastic room keys as friction points to be eliminated.