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, hospitality industry leaders are looking towards 2026 with careful optimism. Increasing operational expenses are slated to challenge owners this year and lower-tier sectors could struggle amidst a growing wealth bifurcation.

And through everything, hotel companies are expected to strengthen their portfolios with brand-new brand offerings and partnerships. As the year gets underway, Hotel Dive spoke with hospitality leaders from differing corners of the industry about their 2026 forecasts. Below are the leading trends expected to effect hotel operations, performance, net system growth and more this year.

Overall salaries, earnings and advantages paid by U.S. hotels increased to $127 billion in 2025, according to information from the American Hotel & Accommodations Association, shown Hotel Dive. In 2026, that figure is predicted to reach $131 billion, representing a roughly 3% year-over-year boost, per AHLA. For hotel owners, rising labor costs posture an obstacle to net operating earnings development, Kevin Davis, Americas CEO at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, informed Hotel Dive.

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"It is an absolute concern." Rising labor expenses have been a challenge for hoteliers for years, Davis said, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, hotel labor costs have actually increased 15.3% from 2019 to 2025, outpacing the 12.8% development in overall operating earnings, according to AHLA. Over the last few years, countless union hotel employees have actually gone on strike requiring higher earnings in order to stay up to date with the increasing cost of living in locations such as California, Hawaii and Las Vegas.

3, 2024 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan through Getty Images In 2026, Davis kept in mind, union negotiations will be "front and center" in New York City, where the New York Hotel and Video gaming Trades Council's union agreement with the Hotel Association of New York City is set to end in July.

"Need has actually not kept up with this pace," she stated. Salaries, wages and payroll-related costs paid by hotels now account for more than 32% of total revenue, according to AHLA.

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As more hotel visitors turn to expert system to improve their travel experience, scheduling hotels straight through big language designs (LLMs) may be next, hospitality experts said. Agentic commerce a process by which autonomous AI agents act on behalf of a customer to discover, compare and finish purchases is a pattern that has sped up throughout markets like retail.

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According to PwC's 2025 Vacation Outlook report, 76% of millennials stated they're likely to use AI for travel suggestions. A smaller percentage (57%) stated they 'd be most likely to use it for scheduling travel. However that number is growing, Jonathan Kletzel, PwC's travel, transportation and logistics leader, told Hotel Dive. "The number of consumers that are browsing [by means of LLMs] for product or services in travel has swollen in the last 12 months and is speeding up every day," Kletzel said, including that inevitably, hotels will "take a hard appearance at how they can make it possible for commerce and deals through agentic [AI]"" [Brands] can build on the trust they already have if they do an excellent job with how they manage AI in 2026." Michael Klein Head of retail, travel and hospitality item marketing at Talkdesk To stay competitive with direct reservation, larger multibrand hotel business will "embed LLMs into their own brand name websites and mobile apps, and change the way the customer searches," Kletzel said.

"If you are not visible in an LLM search results page which many brands aren't, and this is the big panic that they're all going through today consumers aren't going to consider you," he stated. Michael Klein, head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at AI customer experience platform Talkdesk, similarly told Hotel Dive that hospitality players need to guarantee their residential or commercial property information is being indexed by LLMs to appear in tourist queries.