Good Morning Hospitality

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a week where the infrastructure of hospitality is being rebuilt from every angle. They open with the news of Mews cutting 15% of its staff and pointing to AI and what that means for hotel operators who depend on its platform. From there, the conversation digs into why extended-stay de...

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley and Michael Goldin break down who is actually controlling the relationship between a traveler and a booking right now. The conversation opens with the race among Expedia Group, Booking.com, and Trip.com Group to become the trusted infrastructure layer for AI agents and what that means for STR operators who depend on Airbnb an...

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk are joined by Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit to break down a question that is reshaping the hotel industry: is the brand still worth the price? Sarah Kopit joins for a special segment on her investigation into why hotel owners are quietly dropping the big brands as more than 1,200 franchise a...

Airbnb hosts and short-term rental operators are facing renewed questions around platform security after third-party research from Saily and NordStellar, cited in recent press coverage, claimed a sharp increase in Airbnb-related scam activity since 2023. In this episode of Good Morning Hospitality, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane discuss what account takeovers, fake listings, and...

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a week where hotel brands are redefining what they actually are. The conversation opens with Hyatt's lifestyle chief, Amar Lalvani, making the case that the smartest brand strategy is sorting guests by taste rather than price point — and showing what that discipline looks like in prac...

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down three platform moves that sound host-friendly on the surface but deserve a much closer look. The conversation opens with Airbnb's first fintech product — a cancel-for-any-reason feature that auto-enrolled hosts without requiring an opt-in. Hosts still get paid, but still have to scra...

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Steve Turk and guest host Katie Cline break down a week where consolidation is happening at every layer of the hotel industry at once. The conversation opens with NORWEGIAN AIR UK LIMITED's $843 million bet to acquire Nordic Leisure Travel Group AB Group and own the entire travel value chain from flights to hotels. The numbe...

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down where STR demand is actually coming from right now and who controls the guest relationship as platforms make their next big bets. The conversation opens with the FIFA World Cup 2026™ - Canada, Mexico and the United States booking story every operator in a host market needs to hear. H...

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down why hotel AI is stuck on the wrong side of the ledger and what it will take to flip it. The conversation opens with Mews founder Richard Valtr making the case at Skift's Data and AI Summit that fragmented hotel data is the reason AI keeps cutting costs instead of driving revenue. From...

Independent hoteliers are under pressure from every direction, and now there's an AI mandate on top of it all. Wil sits down with Adam Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of Cloudbeds, to cut through the noise. Adam's argument: most operators aren't failing because they lack effort or the right tools. They're failing because they haven't defined the problem, and they're sitting on fragmented data that make...

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down what AI is actually doing to travel economics and operations right now. The conversation opens with a story that stops you in your tracks: one traveler used Claude to run 881,076 searches on Etihad Airways to find one flight. The infrastructure cost of that search exceeded the commis...

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a week where ownership, distribution, brand strategy, and climate risk all moved at the same time. The conversation opens with two billionaires making moves on the Las Vegas Strip in the same week. Tilman Fertitta agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment for $5.7 billion while assuming nea...

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down a week where the infrastructure of hospitality is being stress-tested from every direction. The conversation opens with a sobering security story: scammers are using real guest reservation data to launch highly targeted phishing attacks, with at least 350 hotels and vacation rentals...

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a week where three big stories all pointed at the same shift: the distribution, loyalty, and infrastructure layers of hospitality are all getting reshuffled at once. The conversation opens with Airbnb naming Andrea D'Amico, an 18-year Booking.com veteran, as its new VP of Hotels, and...

On this special holiday episode of Good Morning Hospitality, Brandy Canaley and Michael Goldin unpack one of the biggest shifts happening in travel right now: AI-powered booking. Joined by Jason Cincotta, founder of Kismet, the conversation breaks down Google’s new push into agentic hotel booking, what it means to become “AI-bookable,” and why independent hotels and vacation rentals may need to re...

In this special GMH Bonus episode, Jamie Lane sits down live in San Francisco with Airbnb Chief Business Officer Dave Stephenson following Airbnb’s 2026 Summer Release event. The conversation breaks down Airbnb’s biggest updates, including expanded hotel distribution, new AI-powered search and personalization tools, rental cars, airport pickups, grocery delivery partnerships, and the continued pus...

On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a question every operator is quietly asking right now: how do you build a real edge when there is no moat? They open with the NYC labor deal that just reset the national benchmark, with housekeeper pay crossing $100K a year by 2034, and Hotel and Gaming Trades Council now setting the b...

On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Wil Slickers, Michael Goldin, Brandreth Canaley, and Jamie Lane break down why Airbnb, Uber, and TikTok are all making the same bet at the same time and what it actually means for operators. Plus: travel costs are running double inflation, and most hotel brands have more than one Gen Z problem. This episode is presented by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Plusgrade⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

On this week’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a growing debate across the hotel industry: are brands mistaking temporary strength for long-term stability? From luxury demand and premium travel to pricing power and loyalty, the industry may be more vulnerable than executives want to admit. They also explore why Hilton and Marriott...

On Monday’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Wil Slickers, Michael Goldin, Brandreth Canaley, and Jamie Lane break down what Airbnb’s latest product and earnings commentary reveal about the future of travel platforms. The conversation centers on Brian Chesky’s push toward blending hotels, homes, services, and experiences into a more adaptive marketplace, signaling how Airbnb is positioni...

On today’s GMH Hotels, Katie Cline and Steve Turk unpack mixed earnings from Hyatt, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and Choice Hotels International, plus growing concerns that World Cup hotel demand is falling short of expectations in host cities. They also discuss Accor’s mysterious activist investor situation and what the $6.3B Amex GBT acquisition says about the next wave of travel consolidation. Thi...

On Monday’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Wil Slickers, Michael Goldin, and Brandreth Canaley celebrate the show’s 500th episode and break down how travel platforms are expanding beyond booking and competing for the full traveler relationship. The team starts with Uber adding hotel booking through a new partnership with Expedia Group, with Vrbo rentals expected to follow, marking Uber...

On this week’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down Hilton’s latest push into AI with its upcoming ChatGPT app and evolving “Select” deals strategy, and how the company is positioning itself more like a platform that controls pricing, distribution, and guest engagement. They also explore Hilton’s continued expansion of lifestyle and lu...

On Monday’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Michael Goldin, Brandreth Canaley, Jamie Lane, and Wil Slickers are joined by Sean O'Neill, Senior Hospitality Editor at Skift, to break down a major strategic shift in the short-term rental space. onefinestay is pulling back from hundreds of urban rentals to focus on ultra-luxury homes and high-end leisure destinations, signaling a broader mo...

In this Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast Bonus episode, Brandreth Canaley and Michael Goldin sit down with Tim Rosolio, VP of Vacation Rental Partnerships at Vrbo/Expedia Group, from a standout “Vacation Rental of the Year” property in New Hampshire. Tim breaks down what actually drives performance on Vrbo today, from must-have amenities and pricing strategies to the growing importance of...