Tips & Best Practices for Hospitality & Travel Professionals | RateGain Blog

According to HEDNA, NYU SPS Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, and RateGain’s 2025 industry benchmark, the direct channel now accounts for roughly 21% of hotel bookings. That shift puts the booking engine at the centre of commercial strategy. It sits at the exact point where website traffic either becomes a confirmed reservation or leaks back to an OTA. The stakes are concrete. Research cited across hospitality technology studies shows hotel websites load in an avera...

TikTok is no longer just a social media platform for dance trends and viral memes. It has become one of the most powerful travel discovery engines in the world. Today’s travelers increasingly use TikTok to: discover destinations, choose neighborhoods, evaluate hotels, plan itineraries, and now — with TikTok GO — even complete bookings directly inside the app. For hotels, this represents a major shift in digital marketing. Travel inspiration, influence, and book...

For years, TikTok has shaped where people eat, stay, and travel. Now, it wants to own the booking journey too. TikTok has officially launched TikTok GO, a new in-app travel booking experience that allows users to discover and book hotels, attractions, and experiences directly inside TikTok. In many ways, TikTok GO is doing for travel what TikTok Shop did for retail: turning scroll behavior into instant purchasing behavior. For years, travelers used TikTok to: di...

Google’s AI transformation of Search is accelerating — and travel is now at the center of it. Google has officially expanded AI Max into travel advertising, signaling one of the biggest shifts in hotel search marketing since the rise of Performance Max. The update introduces “Search Campaigns for Travel,” a consolidated advertising framework that combines hotel, flight, and travel-specific formats into Google’s broader AI-powered Search ecosystem. Earlier, Google introduce...

Hotels retain nearly 96% of guest-paid revenue from direct voice bookings, significantly higher than OTA channels, which retain just ~82%. Source: Revinate The guest journey doesn’t begin at the front desk. It begins with a phone call. Sometimes it’s late at night, when a traveler is comparing options across multiple tabs. Sometimes it’s a hurried call between meetings. Sometimes it’s a guest asking quietly if the hotel can support a special need. These calls are deepl...

By Mayank Rastogi, SVP & General Manager, RateGain Hotel revenue teams have access to more data than ever before — yet decision-making has never been harder. Every day, they sift through dashboards, reports, and spreadsheets, trying to make sense of disconnected information. Instead of empowering faster pricing decisions, the data deluge has slowed them down. In an era designed for agility, 80% of hotels spend up to two full business days every week on manual report...

At Destination AI, one theme rose above the rest: if you want to compete in the next era of hospitality, you can’t keep tinkering at the edges. Fragmented “AI islands” aren’t enough. The path forward is a unified AI backbone—a strategy that connects your PMS, CRM, GMS, and distribution systems into a single intelligence layer. Without it, you’re only adding noise while OTAs continue to own the guest relationship.  1. Stop Thinking Incrementally This isn’t about sl...

At the Glass House in New York, leaders from across travel and hospitality came together—Booking, Expedia, Airbnb, RCG, Frontier, Kayak, Air Asia, Oyo, IHG, Marriott, and many others. The discussions were focused, and the themes consistent. 1. Economic Headwinds The North American market appears to be softening. Search volumes are down 15%. OTA and TMC bookings are flat. Margins are under pressure. Niche segments such as Luxury travel and vacation rentals seem ...

If you’re looking to stay ahead in hospitality, HEDNA Lisbon 2025 made one thing clear: the future is arriving fast. Over several days of discussions, workshops, and networking, you could feel how quickly the industry is evolving — and how much opportunity there is for those ready to embrace change. From practical AI to frictionless travel to navigating complexity, the conversations focused on turning innovation into action. Here are four key takeaways you can...