If you sit in an owner’s chair or run a portfolio, you probably do not wake up thinking about “marketing innovation” or “AI’s impact revenue."
You wake up thinking about something different.
Are we going to hit the number? Are we getting paid for the risk we are taking? Are our revenue teams focused on the right things?
When you go from the boardroom to the hotel, it often feels like two different worlds. On one side, a clear financial vision. On the other, a swirl of sales activity, marketing campaigns and revenue moves that do not always connect to that vision and sometimes work directly against it.
As we look to 2026, four shifts stand out as essential if sales, marketing and revenue management are going to deliver the outcomes you care about.
1. Close the gap between the financial vision and commercial behavior
There is a quiet but dangerous gap between what we say we want financially and what our commercial teams are set up to do.
We see it when:
- Financial plans call for mix shift, but sales is still chasing volume in low value segments
- We want more profitable revenue, while marketing spends most of its time feeding the brand engine instead of the owner’s P and L
- Revenue management is asked to “drive share,” while everything upstream trains the customer to wait for a deal
We confuse activity with progress. We celebrate being “busy.” We do not ask hard enough whether the work being done is the shortest path to the outcomes in the pro forma. In most cases, if we miss the goal, we do not do the forensics on whether the strategy we had in place was ever going to get us there. We often do not have the visibility to see the gap. Ignite, a program and platform we use, exists to make this gap visible and then close it.
In practice, that means:
- Starting with the financial vision and translating it into a small set of commercial plays that mathematically support it
- Making the weekly work of sales, marketing and revenue visible against those plays at the account, segment and channel level
- Shortening the time from “we see a trend” to “we have adjusted what we are doing” from six months of analysis and decks to a matter of weeks
Gone are the days when SMART goals — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound — on a slide are enough. The new standard is "align, align, align." Align the financial vision with the commercial plays. Align every major activity to those plays. Align metrics so you can see, in plain language, whether the work is moving the number or just filling the calendar.
2. Treat AI as a commercial engine and prepare for AEO to supplant SEO
Most AI conversation in hospitality sits at the edges of commercial work.
Individual contributors quietly use tools to write faster or summarize faster. Leaders say “we are starting to use AI” and point to a few pilots. Meanwhile, the bigger shift is already under way in other industries.
They are planning for a world where answer engine optimization supplants search engine optimization.
In a search world, customers typed keywords and scrolled options. In an answer world, they ask questions and expect the system to recommend the best one or two choices.
Which partner is the safest bet for our next project. Which provider best fits our constraints. Which option understands our situation and will be easiest to work with.
Those answers are being shaped by AI models that pull from every signal they can see: content, reviews, pricing, relevance, consistency, reputation.
Travel is not far behind. At some point soon, your guests and corporate buyers will lean on answer engines to choose hotels, not browse pages of links. When that happens, the commercial question changes.
Are we the obvious answer for the customers that matter most.
To get ready for that, commercial teams need a different conversation about AI:
- Stop treating AI primarily as a writing tool and start using it as your sharpest commercial analyst and pattern detector
- Think in questions, not just keywords: what are the real questions our best guests and clients ask at each stage of their journey
- Build strategy, content and account plans that make your hotel or portfolio a clear, credible answer to those questions
Ignite quietly embeds this mindset. Under the surface, it uses intelligence to connect strategic revenue plans to actual behavior along the customer journey and to surface where effort and outcomes are out of sync. The point is not the “AI” label. The point is better choices about which customers to prioritize, which plays to run and which work to stop doing because it will never move the P and L.
3. Redefine account-based marketing as high definition, journey-led growth
Hospitality lags badly in account-based marketing.
We over index on product marketing and awareness: brand stories, promotions, loyalty pushes. We measure impressions and clicks. Those things have value, but they are not a strategy for your most important accounts and clients.
Next generation ABM is high definition, outside in and journey led.
It starts with a clear view of how real buyers move from the point of inspiration all the way through booking and into long term value. Then it asks two questions:
Where are the moments in that journey where we could help them think better or plan better. How do we show up at those moments with something more valuable than “book now.”
For a key corporate account, that might mean:
- Being present when a new travel policy is being shaped, not just when rates are being compared
- Helping a meeting planner think through attendee experience and risk, not just room blocks
- Offering examples, access or ideas at the very beginning of project scoping, not just a response to an RFP
We call this customer-led, team-enabled ABM. Customer led, because it is built around their buying and decision journey, not our internal calendar. Team enabled, because it takes sales, marketing and revenue management working from one account plan to orchestrate those touches. Ignite supports this by anchoring commercial planning in the customer journey and by making account level activity and impact visible across functions. It helps teams decide where in the journey to invest energy, how to align communication with customer focal points and how to measure impact in relationship strength, deal quality and long-term value, not just campaign metrics.
The practical win is simple. When your must-win accounts first start thinking about their next project, meeting, or assignment, you are already in the conversation. By the time they see your rate, they already see your relevance.
4. Stop letting revenue strategy start at the end of the buying cycle
We also need to be honest about where revenue management usually operates.
It sits at the end of the customer’s buying cycle.
By the time a guest or buyer is looking at specific dates and rates, most of the emotional and practical decisions have already been made. If our primary “revenue strategy” lives there, we are choosing to fight on price and promotion, right where every competitor also lives.
A promotion is at the point of purchase. It is about market share, not mind share.
Next gen revenue thinking moves strategy to the front of the journey.
Revenue leaders, marketers and sellers sit together and ask:
- How do we shape demand earlier, at the point of inspiration and early research
- How do we package and position what we offer so price is a factor, but not the whole story
- How do we use revenue insights to tell sales and marketing where to focus and then let them build value before a rate ever appears
Ignite gives commercial teams a shared view of targets, trends and account health and connects upstream plays to downstream results. Revenue management still optimizes price and inventory, but within a broader strategy that has already influenced who is shopping and why. From 2026 on, the hotels that win will not be the ones with the loudest promotions or the busiest teams. They will be the ones closest to their customers, running a new playbook:
Do less. Make it mean more. Align the financial vision with what commercial teams do. Use AI and AEO to become the best answer for the right customers. Run high definition, journey-led ABM that starts at the point of inspiration. Move revenue strategy upstream so you compete on value, not just price.
Kate Burda is CEO and founder of Kate Burda & Co., a consultancy focused on improving revenue performance.
This column is part of ISHC Global Insights, a partnership between CoStar News and the International Society of Hospitality Consultants.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of CoStar News or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.