Identifying High-ROI Business Ventures in 2026

Listen to the short article 17 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Following a year of broad economic unpredictability that stifled growth for hotels, hospitality industry leaders are looking toward 2026 with careful optimism. Rising functional costs are slated to challenge owners this year and lower-tier sections might struggle amidst a growing wealth bifurcation.

And through everything, hotel business are expected to fortify their portfolios with brand-new brand name offerings and partnerships. As the year gets underway, Hotel Dive spoke with hospitality leaders from differing corners of the industry about their 2026 forecasts. Below are the leading trends expected to effect hotel operations, performance, net unit growth and more this year.

Total wages, earnings and benefits paid by U.S. hotels increased to $127 billion in 2025, according to data from the American Hotel & Accommodations Association, shown Hotel Dive. In 2026, that figure is projected to climb up to $131 billion, representing an approximately 3% year-over-year increase, per AHLA. For hotel owners, increasing labor expenses position an obstacle to net operating income growth, Kevin Davis, Americas CEO at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, told Hotel Dive.

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Increasing labor costs have actually been a difficulty for hoteliers for years, Davis stated, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, hotel labor costs have actually increased 15.3% from 2019 to 2025, exceeding the 12.8% development in total operating earnings, according to AHLA.

3, 2024 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan by means of Getty Images In 2026, Davis kept in mind, union settlements will be "front and center" in New York City, where the New York Hotel and Video gaming Trades Council's union contract with the Hotel Association of New York City is set to expire in July.

In 2015, the union backed New york city City's newly elected Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, who operated on a pledge to raise New york city City's base pay to $30 per hour by 2030. Hotel industry associations, consisting of AHLA, have knocked comparable legislation throughout the country, including the just recently passed $30 wage regulation in Los Angeles. "Need has actually not kept up with this speed," she said. "We're also seeing these challenges compounded by legislation that targets hotel operations, such as severe labor and licensing policies like the New York City Safe Hotels Act. When demand is falling and expenses are skyrocketing, the mathematics simply doesn't include up." Salaries, incomes and payroll-related expenditures paid by hotels now represent more than 32% of overall revenue, according to AHLA.

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As more hotel guests turn to expert system to enhance their travel experience, scheduling hotels straight through large language models (LLMs) might be next, hospitality professionals stated. Agentic commerce a process by which self-governing AI agents act on behalf of a customer to discover, compare and complete purchases is a pattern that has sped up throughout markets like retail.

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According to PwC's 2025 Holiday Outlook report, 76% of millennials stated they're most likely to use AI for travel recommendations. A smaller percentage (57%) stated they 'd be most likely to utilize it for booking travel. That number is growing, Jonathan Kletzel, PwC's travel, transport and logistics leader, informed Hotel Dive. "The variety of customers that are searching [through LLMs] for services and products in travel has actually ballooned in the last 12 months and is speeding up every day," Kletzel said, including that inevitably, hotels will "take a difficult look at how they can make it possible for commerce and deals through agentic [AI]"" [Brands] can construct on the trust they currently have if they do a fantastic task with how they deal with AI in 2026." Michael Klein Head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at Talkdesk To stay competitive with direct reservation, bigger multibrand hotel business will "embed LLMs into their own brand websites and mobile apps, and change the way the customer searches," Kletzel stated.

"If you are not visible in an LLM search result which numerous brands aren't, and this is the big panic that they're all going through today customers aren't going to consider you," he stated. Michael Klein, head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at AI customer experience platform Talkdesk, likewise told Hotel Dive that hospitality players require to guarantee their property info is being indexed by LLMs to appear in traveler queries.