Press Releases
The AAA Four Diamond rated Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, owned by Duke University, has joined Preferred Hotels & Resorts, a global independent hotel brand with more than 625 hotels in 80 countries. It is now the only property in North Carolina in the L.V.X. Collection. The recognition follows significant renovations completed in 2024 and 2025. The inn has held a AAA Four Diamond rating for 26 consecutive years. As of October 20, eligible guests can earn points through I Prefer Hotel Rewards.
Sogolytics released its report "Non-Negotiables in Hospitality Customer Experience," based on a survey of 1,003 American adults, finding that air travel is the most price-sensitive category, with 62% of travelers favoring the lowest fare; nearly two-thirds of travelers (64%) expect free carry-on bags, and 50% would switch airlines due to the fee. Service reputation is the only metric ranking in the top three premium drivers across all three industries, while high ratings did not enter the top five.
Hotel management system provider Cloudbeds announced on June 8, 2026, a series of new platform features covering group sales, direct booking, operational workflows, accounting infrastructure, business intelligence, and conversational AI. The release, described by the company as one of its most comprehensive product expansions to date, includes Groups & Events, Spaces, an immersive booking engine, an updated calendar, Cloudbeds Accounting, enhanced Data Insights, and an early preview of Ask Signals.
Lighthouse, a commercial operations platform for the travel and hospitality industry, announced the launch of an AI colleague named Ernest, positioned as a new member of commercial teams, aimed at connecting cutting-edge general AI models with hotel-specific data, systems, and decision-making scenarios. Ernest provides three core capabilities: cross-platform intelligence integration, next-step action recommendations, and automated execution based on preset guardrails, and supports integration with over 500 existing hotel platforms. The product is now available in beta to select customers and is planned to expand globally within 2026.
On June 15, 2026, Canary Technologies released Agentic Sales Coordinator, a product based on Canary AI built specifically for the hospitality industry, which automatically handles the sales process from initial inquiry to confirmed booking, helping hotel sales teams reduce administrative burden, improve lead response speed, and increase deal closure opportunities. The product will be officially unveiled at the HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference and HITEC 2026.
Lighthouse and Bowerbird Technologies announced a partnership to deliver the first end-to-end rate parity solution for global hotel groups. The solution combines Lighthouse's AI-driven Parity Insight real-time monitoring with Bowerbird's copyright enforcement capabilities, forming a "detect-remove-protect" closed loop. In a Radisson Hotel Group pilot, all targeted unauthorized sellers were removed, rate parity losses decreased by approximately 25%, and the Parity Meet rate improved by 20%.
At HITEC, Cloudbeds highlighted Vacatia as a key example of its open API platform's scalability. Through the Cloudbeds Open API, Vacatia connects its proprietary timeshare technology with a unified hotel platform, covering nearly 60 independent resorts, over 11,000 units, and nearly 500,000 owners, achieving technology integration, operational discipline, and profit management, while laying the data foundation for AI applications.
On July 23, 2026, Cloudbeds announced the launch of Cloudbeds Insights, a real-time reporting and data intelligence product built directly into its property management system. Designed for large hotel groups and multi-property operators, it offers native reports, a Custom Builder, and a Data API, enabling customers to view and directly interact with real-time data within a unified platform, while also syncing data to external data warehouses and analytics systems.
On August 3, 2026, AD1 Hospitality announced that 11 hotels in its managed portfolio received the 2026 Tripadvisor Travelers' Choice Awards, representing more than half of its 21-hotel portfolio. Based on genuine traveler reviews from the past 12 months, the awarded hotels rank among the top 10% globally on Tripadvisor. The winners span locations including Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, and involve brands such as Marriott, IHG, and Wyndham.
