Among friends, we joke that WIHP (now part of Cendyn) was the PayPal Mafia of hotel marketing. It sparked more entrepreneurs than any other hotel tech startup I know of (Design Hotels did quite good too). It wasn’t planned that way, of course. But for a few years, there was this unique cluster of talent, energy, creativity, and sheer determination that somehow all landed in one place – and which then went off to create even more hotel marketing technology and agencies.
I was lucky enough to be there during that time. In fact it was WIHP’s founder Vincent who got me into the hotel industry. 20 or so years ago I was looking for a new start after several years in marketing and sales. Vincent, who had recently acquired a few small hotels in Paris, took a chance on me and asked if I wanted to work for him. I had zero hotel experience (but that’s the beauty of the industry). After a few years, I moved over to WIHP, the marketing company he was launching. He took a risk on me and many others (thanks Vince).
Back then, online hotel marketing was was still new. There were no playbooks, just trial and error, and we were running scrappy experiments (some clever, some borderline crazy). It was the kind of era when you could boost rankings on OTAs by adding a few hundred imaginary rooms to your listing. Yeah, not everything was pretty. But we learned and got better.
I remember when mobile apps became a thing and some snake-oil salesmen were creating and selling templated hotel apps that really had no purpose for big money. Some of those sales men came to our offices shouting at us because we were telling our clients they didn’t really serve any purpose. It was the wild west. But I digress.
WIHP went on to become Europe’s largest hotel marketing agency and grew into a tech company. Watching Vincent’s recent interview on 10 Minutes News brought all that into focus again.
Working in hotels taught me that hospitality attracts a certain kind of person. Those who like solving problems in real time, who thrive on improving something every day.
Currently, we’re at one of these pioneering moments again. AI might do to hospitality what the internet once did, change distribution, systems, tech – and drive more growth. In fact it might do a lot more. We’re once again figuring it out in real time. The internet revolution has brought incredible growth to the industry, and still does.
Guest satisfaction continues to rise, even as prices climb. That’s not normal in most industries, yet hospitality keeps pulling it off. Better hotels, smarter tech, more connected teams, it all adds up.
We don’t know where the AI revolution is leading, just like we didn’t really know how far the internet would go. Last time it was a distribution shift, this time it is a lot more. Revenue management, guest engagement, personalization, automation and a lot more. Where are the next groups of innovators?
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