In hospitality, consistency is everything. Guests remember how smoothly an experience feels, not the stress behind the scenes. The training methods used in professional beverage tastings offer powerful lessons for operational leaders—lessons that improve processes, strengthen systems, and create exceptional guest experiences. Here are five practical, real‑world strategies inspired by the course content.    Train...

IDeaS, a SAS company and the world’s leading provider of hospitality revenue management software and services, today announced that Pullman Phuket Arcadia

Reading Time: 2 minutesSaudi Arabia: US-based investment firm Patel Family Office has entered into a joint venture with Abdelmalik Tariq Al-Qahtani Company (ATQ) Hospitality Group to introduce and operate the AYARA platform, targeting 50 hotels. 
The post Patel Family Office and ATQ launch $1 billion Saudi hotel platform appeared first on Boutique Hotel News.

Reading Time: 2 minutesFrance: Hospitality group Accor now operates more than 180 hotels across five brand collections, with more than 100 on the way.
The post Accor growth supported by collection brands appeared first on Boutique Hotel News.

Brand conversions are emerging as an increasingly attractive, strategic path to growth in the hotel industry. While new development remains an important part of long-term expansion for hoteliers, converting existing assets from one brand to another offers a compelling alternative. This approach enables faster speed to market, more efficient capital deployment, and the flexibility to respond to evolving guest expectations and market dynamics. In today’s environment, conversions allow hoteliers to unlock value in existing properties […]
The post Rebranding for Results: How Conversions Are Powering Hotel Growth appeared first on LODGING Magazine.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation finished 2025 with plenty of momentum; the company recently announced that, as of year-end, it reached a record pipeline of approximately 148,000 rooms and marked its highest number of U.S. signings in five years. Newer brands, including Hyatt Select and Unscripted by Hyatt, comprised a significant part of this growth, as they accounted for over 65 percent of these new deals. As Hyatt continues to expand into new markets, Jason Ballard, global […]
The post Building the Next Phase of Hyatt Essentials: Jason Ballard on Growth and Consistency appeared first on LODGING Magazine.

Swiss-Belhotel International has entered into several agreements to manage hotels in Indonesia, marking a significant expansion of its operations within the country's growing hospitality market.

The United Nations Tourism and the United Nations Environment Programme have launched the "Recipe of Change" campaign to address food waste in the tourism sector.

India, 26th March 2026: RateGain Travel Technologies Limited (NSE: RATEGAIN), a global leader in AI-powered SaaS solutions for the travel and hospitality industry, today announced a strategic partnership with Cashfree Payments, a ​leading ​payments platform, as a Platinum Partner for RG Pay, RateGain’s unified technology infrastructure for the global travel and hospitality ecosystem. Through this partnership, RG Pay will bring together Cashfree Payments’ domestic payment gateway and cross-border payments ​stack ​to strengthen ​transactions​​ across the travel ecosystem. This​ partnership will enable Indian customers to seamlessly pay to international travel merchants across 176 countries through​​ familiar local payment methods such as UPI​ and ​RuPay​ cards​​. It will further help international travel brands​​ improve​ their​ checkout performance and transaction success rates. This collaboration strengthens the ability of travel and hospitality brands to deliver reliable, locally relevant payment experiences while improving checkout performance and enabling more efficient settlement across international markets. RG Pay brings together optimized checkout experiences, affordability options, virtual card (VCC) enablement, and cross-border settlement capabilities to help travel and hospitality companies improve conversion performance and manage payments more effectively across global markets. “Payments in the travel sector are inherently complex, involving multiple stakeholders and high-value cross-border transactions,” said Akash Sinha, CEO & Co-founder, Cashfree Payments. “By combining Cashfree Payments’ payment infrastructure and cross-border capabilities with RateGain’s deep understanding of travel and hospitality, we aim to help travel brands deliver secure, reliable, and locally relevant payment journeys for travelers worldwide. This partnership is a significant step toward setting a new global standard for travel financial infrastructure.” “RG Pay extends RateGain’s platform capabilities into the financial layer of travel commerce, helping brands improve how payments are accepted and settled across markets,” said Parijat Tiwari, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Distribution, RateGain. “By bringing Cashfree Payments’ scalable payment infrastructure into the RG Pay ecosystem as a Platinum Partner, we are enabling travel and hospitality companies to support local payment preferences and deliver more reliable transaction experiences for travelers worldwide.” Together, RateGain and Cashfree Payments are enabling travel and hospitality brands to operate with greater confidence as they serve travelers across increasingly diverse and digital payment environments. About Cashfree Payments Founded in 2015, Cashfree Payments is ​a leading​​ payments platform, processing over $80 billion in transactions annually for more than a million businesses–from high-growth startups, ecommerce & D2C brands, SMBs, and enterprises. Businesses use Cashfree Payments to collect payments across 180+ payment modes, provide seamless one-click checkout to their customers to improve conversions, and conduct cross-border payments across 176+ countries and 140+ currencies. Built for scale, Cashfree’s infrastructure handles an industry-leading 12,000 transactions per second, processing peak volumes without friction. Cashfree Payments is India’s first AI-native payments platform, enabling AI agents to process invoices and conduct payments autonomously through its MCP server, and allowing businesses to embed payments natively within AI chatbots through Cashfree Here. The company was one of the first fintech companies to hold all three RBI licenses of Payment Aggregator (PA), Payment Aggregator-Cross Border (PA-CB), and Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI). Cashfree Payments is backed by Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, State Bank of India (SBI), KRAFTON, and was incubated by PayPal. About RateGain RateGain Travel Technologies Limited is a global provider of AI-powered SaaS solutions for travel and hospitality, working with 13,000+ customers and 700+ partners across 160+ countries. RateGain helps travel and hospitality businesses accelerate revenue generation through acquisition, retention, and wallet share expansion. Today, RateGain is one of the world’s largest processors of electronic transactions, price points, and travel intent data, enabling revenue management, distribution, and marketing teams across hotels, airlines, destination marketing organizations, online travel agents, metasearch companies, package providers, car rentals, travel management companies, cruises, and ferries to drive better business outcomes. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in India, RateGain works with 33 of the Top 40 Hotel Chains, 4 of the Top 5 Airlines, 7 of the Top 10 Car Rental companies, and all leading DMOs, OTAs, and metasearch platforms, including 25 Global Fortune 500 companies, unlocking new revenue every day. Media Contact: Aastha Khurana: media@rategain.com
The post RateGain Partners with Cashfree Payments as Platinum Partner for RG Pay to Enable Local Payment Acceptance for Global Travel Brands appeared first on RateGain.

India, 24 March 2026: RateGain Travel Technologies Limited (RateGain), a global provider of AI-powered SaaS solutions for the travel and hospitality industry, today announced that MAI, a Myanmar-based international carrier, has chosen AirGain, RateGain’s pricing intelligence platform for airlines, to enhance its rate shopping and competitive pricing strategy. Founded in 1993, MAI operates an extensive network connecting major cities across Myanmar with key international hubs in Asia, supporting regional and cross-border travel. As the airline expands in a highly competitive market, access to timely and accurate market intelligence is crucial for making smarter pricing decisions. Through this partnership, Myanmar Airways will leverage AirGain to monitor competitive fares across both direct and indirect channels, enabling faster, data-driven pricing decisions throughout its network. As part of this collaboration, MAI will benefit from AirGain’s AI-powered Route Performance Digest, which provides daily automated route-level insights to identify pricing gaps and performance changes. By presenting actionable intelligence in a clear, structured format, the Digest helps revenue teams quickly find where intervention is needed. These capabilities make it easier for teams to access and act on market insights, leading to faster and more confident pricing decisions. Operating in a fast-changing, price-sensitive market, MAI aims to remain competitive while safeguarding profitability and maintaining consistent pricing across channels. With AirGain’s high-frequency fare shopping and intuitive analytics, the airline can monitor fare movements, spot market shifts early, and respond quickly through a single interface. This real-time insight is driven by competitive intelligence from over 300 airlines, 170 OTAs, and 50 meta-search platforms, backed by enterprise-level reliability and 99.95% uptime. Mr. Tanes Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of MAI, said: “Access to timely and reliable market intelligence is essential in today’s competitive aviation environment. Through our partnership with AirGain, we are strengthening our pricing capabilities and enabling faster, data-driven decisions to deliver greater value across our international network.” Vinay Varma, Senior Vice President and General Manager at AirGain, said: “We are glad to welcome MAI to the AirGain community. Airlines operating in dynamic and rapidly growing regions like Southeast Asia need real-time intelligence to stay agile. With AirGain, MAI’s commercial teams will have the clarity and confidence to track market changes, improve fare positioning, and support sustainable growth.” With this partnership, MAI joins a growing community of airlines, transforming how revenue teams use and act on competitive intelligence. As part of its AI-driven product development, AirGain will soon launch Smart Search — an industry-first natural-language feature in pricing intelligence. Instead of browsing multiple dashboards and static reports, revenue managers will be able to ask pricing questions directly and get immediate, contextual insights. This change shifts AirGain from just monitoring tools to an AI-powered decision-making assistant, strengthening its competitive edge and long-term strategic position. About Myanmar Airways International (MAI) Myanmar Airways International (MAI) is the leading airline in Myanmar, along with its sister airline Mingalar (formerly Air KBZ). Operating from its main hubs in Yangon and Mandalay, MAI serves 39 destinations both within Myanmar and internationally, including Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Cambodia, Vietnam, South Korea, Russia, and Laos. Its fleet includes eight Airbus A320 family aircraft, two Embraer E190s, four ATR72-600s, and one Boeing 737 freighter. About RateGain RateGain Travel Technologies Limited is a global provider of AI-powered SaaS solutions for travel and hospitality, working with 13,000+ customers and 700+ partners across 160+ countries. RateGain helps travel and hospitality businesses accelerate revenue generation through acquisition, retention, and wallet share expansion. Today, RateGain is one of the world’s largest processors of electronic transactions, price points, and travel intent data, enabling revenue management, distribution, and marketing teams across hotels, airlines, destination marketing organizations, online travel agents, metasearch companies, package providers, car rentals, travel management companies, cruises, and ferries to drive better business outcomes. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in India, RateGain works with 33 of the Top 40 Hotel Chains, 4 of the Top 5 Airlines, 7 of the Top 10 Car Rental companies, and all leading DMOs, OTAs, and metasearch platforms, including 25 Global Fortune 500 companies, unlocking new revenue every day. Media Contact: Aastha Khurana: media@rategain.com
The post Myanmar Airways International (MAI) Partners with AirGain to Strengthen Pricing Intelligence and Market Responsiveness appeared first on RateGain.

Hotel Designs
A new chapter at The Dorchester – the Royal Suite revealed
A new chapter at The Dorchester – the Royal Suite revealed
Pauline Brettell.

Hotel Designs
Clerkenwell Design Week: Circular Design and the Architecture of Listening top the agenda for 15th edition
Clerkenwell Design Week: Circular Design and the Architecture of Listening top the agenda for 15th edition
Stuart O'Brien.

Learn how Auténtico Hotel in San José, Costa Rica, gained strategic control over pricing, distribution and revenue by switching to SiteMinder's all-in-one hotel platform.

What is rate parity in the hotel industry? Hotel rate parity is the process of ensuring a property’s rates are consistent across all distribution channels, from online travel agencies (OTAs) to direct bookings. It is a contractual requirement that ensures the likes of Expedia and Booking.com aren’t undercut by properties that want to avoid commission […]

Chicago (March 30, 2026) — Hyatt Place Nanjing Xuanwu today announced its grand opening, marking the debut of the Hyatt Place brand in Nanjing. The opening further expands the brand’s presence...

CHICAGO (March 26, 2026) - Within just a year of opening, South Africa’s first Park Hyatt branded hotel, Park Hyatt Johannesburg, is setting new standards in luxury hospitality. Adding to the...

Visibility and duty of care pressures are concentrating demand into managed TMC and GDS ecosystems

Empathetic, human-led service in complex and emotional moments is positioned as the key differentiator in an AI-driven travel landscape, despite ongoing customer service challenges

A long layover at Honolulu airport doesn’t have to be wasted time. During an HNL airport layover, you can rest at a nearby hotel, grab a shower, explore Waikiki, or just find a quiet place to recharge before your next flight. The problem with a long layover at Honolulu airport is that HNL itself doesn’t […]

The best spring break destinations in the U.S. for 2026 include Miami, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, Scottsdale, Austin, and New Orleans. If you want to head international, Cancun, Cabo San Lucas, and Punta Cana are all within easy reach. Spring break falls between March and early April, and if you are still figuring out […]