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⚡️ Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards 2025 // Condé Nast Traveler

Condé Nast Traveler’s 2025 Readers’ Choice Awards highlight traveler sentiment across hotels, resorts, airlines, and destinations, reflecting a continued preference for experiential luxury and design-driven properties

⚡️ ChatGPT Integrates Expedia and Booking.com to Transform the Future of Trip Planning // Travel and Tour World

ChatGPT has deepened its integration with Expedia and Booking.com, allowing users to search, plan, and book hotels directly within the chat interface. This marks a major shift toward conversational trip planning, reducing friction between inspiration and booking and giving users personalized, AI-curated recommendations based on intent and travel data.

AI Ready CMO Newsletter // The future of marketing belongs to those who master AI. Subscribe to get 2x a week insights, news, and frameworks to future-proof your marketing.

Trending news, marketing news, and reports:

▶️ The 2025 MICHELIN Key Hotels: A Guide to the Global Selection // Michelin

▶️ State of Creator Marketing // CreatorIQ

▶️ 5 Travel Trends That Will Be Huge in 2026, According to Luxury Travel Advisors // Veranda

▶️ 5 travel trends that are so over, according to travel industry pros // Yahoo Creators

▶️ The Boldest Grocery Trends Coming in 2026, According to Whole Foods // Food & Wine

▶️ Hilton’s 2026 Trend Report. The Whycation: Travel’s New Starting Point // Hilton

▶️ Google Announces AI Training Programs for SMBs // Social Media Today (This might be helpful to share with anyone on your leadership teams who has shied away from tackling AI yet)

▶️ Expedia Group B2B Supercharges Partner Growth With New AI-Powered Trip Planner and Multiple APIs // Hospitality Net

▶️ American Express debuts ad network boasting contextual targeting prowess (with Marriott piloting first ad tests) // Marketing Dive

▶️ Alex Cooper launches Unwell Creative Agency to dive into $2.4 billion U.S. podcast ad business // TubeFilter

▶️ 4 Layers of Brand:

Tracking the agencies shaping the hospitality industry’s biggest moments while building an ever-growing resource list for hotel marketers.

Did your agency land a new client, or are you working with a new hospitality-focused agency at your hotel that you want to highlight? Tag me in your announcements, add me to your press release distribution list, or reply directly to this newsletter.

✅ Modern Currency Public Relations Named PR Agency of Record for Hoback Club Jackson Hole

✅ Lark Hospitality has named olive as its portfolio-wide booking partner

✅ RateGain, which announced its acquisition of Sojern last week, announced that it rebranded the identity of its previous acquisition, BCV Social, to SoHo (Social for Hospitality), an AI-powered social tool and platform.

✅ The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism has launched ‘Welcome to vaCay,’ a $12 million global campaign developed with global agency Grey New York, positioning the destination as an antidote to overbooked, high-stress travel.

✅ Rosewood Hotels unveils new branding, and it’s featured color, Discovery Green, with the help of branding agency, COMMUNION Studio. The rebranding comes at a time when Rosewood is expanding its portfolio, “expanding with intention” by identifying locations that uncover travel experiences fostering cultural richness, celebrating local practices, and welcoming an innovative approach to luxury.

Up Next:

A weekly round-up of fresh inspiration and a closer look at experiential design, sensory branding, and the quiet details that define unforgettable spaces.

wellness // Travel That Makes You Sweat
From marathon destinations to cycling retreats and endurance-based wellness programs, travelers are redefining rest as movement. The rise of active escapes blends fitness and adventure, offering itineraries where sweat replaces stillness. Whether it’s a triathlon in the Alps, a surf retreat in Costa Rica, or a desert hike in Utah, these experiences trade indulgence for endorphins, proving that luxury travel today is as much about vitality as it is about relaxation.

design // Manifest Washington D.C.
A hybrid social and retail space, Manifest redefines the modern grooming experience through design and culture. Conceived by founder Jonnie Hughes, the Washington D.C. location blends a barbershop, speakeasy, café, and retail concept into a single immersive environment. Dark woods, ambient lighting, and curated art evoke an atmosphere of understated sophistication, where self-care meets community.

wellness // The Swedish Prescription
Visit Sweden playfully reframes travel as therapy with a campaign inviting doctors to “prescribe” a trip to Sweden. The initiative highlights the country’s balance of nature and culture as a remedy for stress, fatigue, and anxiety. From wild swimming and sauna bathing to open-air sleep and art immersion, the experience celebrates travel as medicine, an evidence-based path to restoration and wellbeing, rooted in Sweden’s calm, grounded way of life.

design // The Renaissance of New York’s Grand Hotels
“They’re making these gathering places, and that’s what they’re getting right.”
A new era of luxury is unfolding across Manhattan as icons like The Carlyle, The Pierre, Waldorf Astoria, and The St. Regis unveil thoughtful renovations that honor heritage while embracing contemporary design. These transformations go beyond aesthetic updates, blending architectural preservation with modern cultural relevance. From refreshed art collections to revived cocktail bars, New York’s storied hotels are redefining what timeless hospitality means: rooted in history, yet alive with new energy and intent.

seasonal // Luxury Advent Calendars 2025
From Dior and Diptyque to Aman, Claridge’s, and The Peninsula, this year’s luxury advent calendars turn anticipation into an art form. Designed with exquisite craftsmanship and sensory detail, each one transforms the holiday countdown into a ritual of discovery. Whether it is Aman’s wellness-infused collection or Claridge’s artful homage to timeless design, these calendars reflect the essence of modern luxury, where storytelling, scent, and surprise elevate even the smallest moments of the season.

I’m Rachel Watroba, a passionate hotelier and luxury hotel marketer, and publisher of The Hotel Marketing 5.15.

Based on a communication method developed by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, the 5.15 is a weekly format designed to synthesize key insights in 15 minutes or less and be read in five minutes. This newsletter applies the same principle to hotel marketing: concise, actionable trends and opportunities curated for industry professionals.