The Spotlight: A Lighthouse Podcast

With just weeks until kickoff, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is close enough for clear demand patterns to emerge. In this special Lighthouse x Expedia collaboration episode of The Spotlight Podcast, Daniel Foreman and Blake Reiter are joined by Bianca Navarro and Alex Fromson from Expedia Group for a market-by-market breakdown of the tournament’s hotel demand story. Using Lighthouse and Expedia data, th...

In this Strategy Lab, Blake Reiter and Daniel Foreman walk through how hotel commercial teams can identify pricing opportunities during periods of overlapping event demand. Using Lighthouse’s Smart Insights, forward-looking benchmarking and performance reporting, they show how to quickly surface dates that need attention and validate whether occupancy, rate positioning and segment mix support a pr...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter explores how Europe’s jet fuel crisis disrupted normal summer hotel pricing behavior across major leisure and metro markets. Using Lighthouse pricing data across seventeen destinations, he breaks down where pricing momentum stalled, which market types saw the largest swings and why flight dependency became a critical commercial risk factor. Blake also ex...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter explores how the 2026 March Madness tournament impacted hotel and short-term rental pricing across host cities. Using year over year ADR comparisons, he breaks down where hotels held pricing power, where short-term rentals outperformed and how market size and traveler behavior shaped results. Blake also examines lead time trends from the Final Four and c...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake explores how hotel pricing for the 2026 FIFA World Cup has evolved across host markets, with the latest data showing clear deceleration after early surges. While US cities average around 60% year over year growth, Mexico and Canada show stronger gains, though momentum has slowed since October. Blake breaks down how pricing power varies by market type, with lowe...

In this episode, Blake Reiter and Daniel Foreman analyze findings from a Lighthouse survey of 761 hospitality commercial leaders across six continents to understand how AI is being adopted today. The data reveals a clear disconnect: while belief in AI’s future impact is rising, current adoption remains largely unchanged. They explore where AI is being used, what’s slowing adoption, and how readine...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake explores how major concert tours influence hotel pricing, booking behavior, and length of stay across key markets. Using Lighthouse data, he compares the global impact of Harry Styles and BTS, highlighting how timing, geography, and fan base shape demand patterns. Hoteliers will gain a clearer understanding of how different event profiles affect pricing power,...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake explores how often third party websites undercut hotel direct rates across Asia Pacific and why frequency matters more than discount depth. Data from Lighthouse’s Bench Direct platform shows wide variation between markets, with Bangkok experiencing disparity more than one in three searches. Blake explains how persistent rate leakage impacts direct booking conve...

Taiwan shows one of the lowest direct booking conversion rates across major Asia Pacific markets, despite maintaining relatively strong rate parity. In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter explores why this disconnect exists and what it reveals about traveler behavior. Shorter booking windows and brief stays point to a mobile first, fast decision making guest profile. That shift places more pr...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake explores how one of the weakest ski seasons on record impacted hotel pricing in Vail. Snowpack levels fell sharply, skier visits declined, and resorts closed early, creating a clear demand shock across peak winter weekends. Blake compares advertised rates set in December with actualized pricing outcomes, showing how hotels were forced to discount far beyond ini...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake explores how the 2026 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix overlapping with peak cherry blossom season is reshaping travel demand into Japan. Using direct booking data, he highlights shorter booking windows, a sharp increase in desktop usage, and a major shift toward international travelers. These changes signal higher intent behavior and a different customer mix than...

How will artificial intelligence change hotel operations, and what does that mean for service? In this episode, Daniel Foreman is joined by Juanjo Rodríguez, Head of Marketing and Direct Booking Products at Lighthouse, to speak with Sebastian Lodder, CEO of Hotel Collection International. Sebastian shares perspectives from operating across Spain and Georgia, working with both global brands and ind...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter examines how the August 2026 total solar eclipse is already impacting pricing and demand across Spain. Hotel rates along the path of totality are rising sharply year over year, with smaller markets seeing the most extreme increases. Blake also highlights how short-term rentals are pricing even more aggressively than hotels, alongside a significant spike...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter reviews how hotel pricing and occupancy actually performed during the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. Early advertised rates suggested record pricing, but final realized rates settled below those initial expectations. Even so, hotels still achieved substantial year over year gains, with four star properties leading the market. Blake...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter examines how booking window and conversion rates vary by traffic source across five of the world’s most visited countries in 2025. Using Lighthouse direct channel data, he compares search window, booking window and conversion performance across direct, meta search, traditional search and social media traffic. The data reveals clear behavioral differences...

In this episode, Blake Reiter and Daniel Foreman break down Lighthouse’s H2 2025 pricing report , analyzing year over year hotel pricing performance across seven global regions and forward indicators for H1 2026. They examine how pricing weakness persisted but moderated, where declines flipped to growth, and why North America remains under pressure despite the upcoming World Cup. The discussion hi...

The D.I.R.T. (Data in Real Time) heads to Bilbao, where hotel rates for the European Rugby Champions Cup final are sliding – even with 50,000 fans expected. With finalists still unknown, hoteliers appear to be balancing big-event optimism against the risk of isolating base demand, while travel packages and limited city supply add another layer to the pricing story. Elsewhere, Kansas City climbs ah...

Device type reveals clear differences in booking behavior across hotel websites. In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter analyzes full year 2025 direct booking data from the five countries with the most international arrivals to compare booking window and conversion rate by desktop, mobile and tablet. Tablet users show the longest booking windows and the highest conversion rates, while mobile...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter looks at how World Cup group stage matches featuring Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are shaping hotel pricing across host cities in the United States. Using year over year growth, absolute price levels, and recent momentum, the analysis compares Argentina’s matches in Kansas City and Dallas with Portugal’s games in Houston and Miami. The data shows c...

When BTS added El Paso to its global tour, hotel pricing reflected just how far that demand can travel. In this episode of The D.I.R.T. (Data in Real Time), Blake Reiter and Daniel Foreman dig into why a K-pop supergroup might choose a non-traditional tour stop and what that decision appears to unlock for regional hotel demand. Along the way, they break down sharp price pops tied to ski season mom...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake explores how hotel pricing in San Jose evolved over the full booking window leading into Super Bowl Sunday. Using price evolution data from nearly a year out through game week, he walks through how rates responded to season kickoff, the halftime performer announcement, playoff outcomes and last-minute demand. The analysis highlights why pricing momentum often s...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake returns to Milan hotel pricing as the Winter Olympics draw closer, updating an earlier analysis from late last year. With the event just weeks away, advertised prices across all segments remain well above last year’s levels, led by the four-star category where demand is most concentrated. Blake examines how pricing held steady through much of the booking window...

In this launch episode of The D.I.R.T. (Data in Real Time), Blake Reiter and Daniel Foreman break down how hotel prices moved across global markets over the prior two weeks and what those movements signal. The episode covers seasonal demand shifts, event driven rate increases tied to festivals, tournaments and commencements, and meaningful price corrections in shoulder season and convention market...

This interview explores how revenue strategy changes at the ultra luxury end of hospitality, where personalization, experience design, and distribution discipline matter as much as price. Daniel Foreman speaks with Batuhan Sahin, Group Director of Revenue at Maxx Royal Resorts & Voyage Hotels, about moving from global hotel chains into a highly autonomous luxury brand environment. Batuhan shar...

In this Lighthouse Quick Take, Blake Reiter revisits US resort fee data after new transparency rules required hotels to show total prices upfront. Using updated Lighthouse data, he examines what those rules revealed about how common resort fees are and how hotels adjusted once fees became fully visible to guests. The findings show that most US hotels still avoid resort fees, but adoption varies wi...