Weekly Brief: February 9, 2026
Day After Superbowl
Like many marketers, I watched purely for the halftime show and commercials. Travel made a brief appearance among the sea of bigger brand commercials, with Southwest, Expedia, Frontier, and Universal buying ad spots. My favorite? The Kurt Russell spot for Michelob Ultra. See all the ads, and their ad meter ranking, on USA Today.
Put It On Your Calendar
National Travel and Tourism Week #NTTW26—May 3–9, 2026
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Marketing Briefs
Did You Know?
Trending news, marketing news, and reports:
The Travel Ads You’ll See During Super Bowl LX // TravelPulse
How YouTube Is Taking Super Bowl Ads Beyond a 30-Second Play // AdWeek
Every Hotel Is a Luxury Hotel During Super Bowl Weekend // NewsWeek
February 2026 Map of the Media Universe // eshap
2026 Travel Trends // Amadeus
The future of hospitality // Deloitte
Big Tech to Spend $650 Billion This Year as AI Race Intensifies // Bloomberg
The Perfect Pitch: What Millions of Emails Taught Us About Pitching Journalists // Buzz Stream
AI Hallucinations, Errors, and Accuracy: What the Data Shows // Neil Patel
It just got easier for Claude to check in on your WordPress site // TechCrunch
Google's Top Crawling Challenges In 2025 // Search Engine Roundtable
Programming & Activations
Miami International Airport Launches Books with an Altitude Pop-Up Library for Passengers During Winter Storm Delays // Travel and Tour World
Milano Cortina Winter Olympics: A Celebration of Italian Style, Sport, Design, Creativity // WWD
Industry Updates
Agency News
Congratulations to the winners of The PR Net Next Gen Awards’ 2026
Job Postings & Career News
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What is the 5.15
Leading luxury hotel marketing across resorts and task force marketing roles over the past 15+ years led me to begin publishing The Hotel Marketing 5.15 in 2025 as a way to help keep clients up to date on hospitality marketing news and activations. I currently work remotely for Ka Laʻi Waikīkī Beach, LXR Hotels & Resorts and manage email marketing and newsletters for hospitality clients.
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.
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