Check-in 2026 and beyond - Technology Trends and Developments shaping Hospitality
Summary
This ITB Berlin 2026 panel, moderated by Lea Jordan, brought together four hospitality technology leaders — Pedro Colaco (direct booking advocate), Champa Hariharan Magesh (Acess Hospitality), Teresa Mackintosh (Synexis, formerly Aan Hospitality), and Dan Ogen — to debate the technology trends reshaping hotel operations and distribution. The session opened with a shared diagnosis: the hospitality industry's core problem is not a lack of technology but a failure of execution and leadership discipline. Pedro Colaco drew a sharp distinction between AI (which has driven revenue management systems for over 15 years) and generative AI (the genuinely new capability to create content and respond to conversations), urging hotels to stop chasing 'hyperpersonalization' and start with basic personalization — for example, not showing babysitting add-ons to solo travelers.
Champa reframed the software paradigm with a striking analogy: today's software forces staff to adapt to it rather than the reverse. Agentic AI, she argued, inverts this — a general manager logging in would be greeted with their top three priorities, relevant alerts, and frequently used actions contextually surfaced, eliminating hours of training and toggling between systems. Teresa reinforced that the rate of change is now measured in three-to-six month windows, not three-to-five years, and that real efficiency gains are already being delivered on consolidated platforms like Synexis.
A significant portion of the discussion focused on AI discoverability — Pedro's prediction that AI search interfaces (ChatGPT, Gemini, Siri) will reduce hotel shortlists from 150 options to three or four represents the most disruptive economic shift on the horizon. He expressed both optimism (differentiated hotels could finally surface on merit rather than OTA spend) and pessimism (the new AI platforms will likely develop their own economic extraction models similar to OTAs). Champa added that discoverability is no longer just about what hotels publish — AI is pulling from Reddit reviews, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and review responses, making end-to-end operational excellence a distribution strategy.
Teresa introduced MCP (Model Context Protocol) as a concrete technical requirement: hotels need MCP-enabled platforms to be findable by agentic booking agents. The panel closed with rapid-fire homework assignments for hoteliers: audit your online guest booking journey personally (Pedro), gather granular personalization data to drive direct bookings (Teresa), and assess tech partners on their ability to simplify your stack and operations (Champa).
Key Takeaways
- •Pedro Colaco: 'Hotels don't have a tech problem, they have an execution problem' — leadership failure to treat technology as an enabler of strategy rather than a collection of widgets is the root cause of poor tech ROI.
- •AI in revenue management has existed for over 15 years; what is genuinely new is generative AI's ability to create content and hold conversations — panelists urged hoteliers to distinguish the two before investing.
- •Pedro Colaco criticized 'hyperpersonalization' as an industry buzzword without meaning: 'Why don't we start with personalization?' — citing as a broken example that solo travelers are still shown babysitting and champagne-for-two add-ons.
- •Champa Hariharan Magesh predicted that agentic AI will invert the software-staff relationship: instead of training staff to navigate software, the software will surface each user's top priorities, alerts, and frequent actions contextually on login — eliminating training costs and toggling.
- •Teresa Mackintosh stated the planning horizon for AI change is now '3 to 6 months, not 3 to 5 years,' and confirmed her company (Synexis, rebranded from Aan Hospitality) is already delivering measurable operational efficiency improvements on its consolidated platform.
- •Pedro Colaco prediction on AI distribution: AI search interfaces will reduce hotel shortlists from ~150 OTA results to '3 or 4' options — creating both opportunity (merit-based discovery for differentiated hotels) and risk (new AI platforms will likely develop their own OTA-like economic extraction models).
- •Champa Hariharan Magesh: AI discoverability is now determined by Reddit comments, Trustpilot reviews, Glassdoor staff reviews, and hotel review responses — not just SEO or paid channels. Operational excellence is now a distribution strategy.
- •Teresa Mackintosh recommended that hoteliers prioritize MCP (Model Context Protocol)-enabled platforms in 2026 as the foundational requirement to be discovered and booked by agentic AI booking agents.
Transcript
So I think in the next 12 months the opportunity is now to consider how you eliminate that fragmentation, stop paying that toggle tax, improve your staff experience, and lay the foundation for AI to be an accelerant in your business. >> Theresa, are you nodding in agreement? >> I am. I'm in complete agreement. I think the most important thing we can do in the next 12 months is focus on data enrichment and governance because much like she said it it's all around getting ready for those AI opportu...
