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🛫 Booking.com, Google, and OpenAI are competing in travel bookings using AI tools such as Trip Planner, chatbot Gemini, and Operator. OpenAI's Operator, in Beta for pro subscribers, connects with platforms like TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Priceline, and more, offering complete reservation capabilities. Travelers face a choice between sticking with familiar platforms or switching to AI assistants from Google or OpenAI. Operator allows for setting preferences and direct booking through partner platforms. Tripadvisor has also partnered with Perplexity, showcasing the intensifying rivalry.

🏨 December 2024: European hotel sector sees performance indicators rise with average occupancy rates up by 1.6 points, driven by high-end hospitality, countering weaker lower segments. This reflects Europe's attractiveness to international visitors during year-end.

📈 Launched in 2016 by the global spirits leader, Pernod Ricard's Data Portal aims to centralize, govern, distribute, and exploit data for its decentralized group, including 240 brands in 74 countries. Accor joined the initiative formed with JC Decaux, addressing digital age challenges by consolidating data to better understand diverse markets and meet three major data challenges: identification & use; sharing & reuse; understanding. A unique data entry point was established, enhancing the portal with tools like Data Catalog and datasets from Datawarehouse or Data Lake, and providing user training through a Data Academy.

📈 MKG Consulting annually predicts the evolution of key European hotel markets. France and the UK, the "pioneer" markets, recovered post-Covid but showed a relative activity slowdown in 2024. They are expected to perform better in 2025, though growth rates of KPIs are predicted to be below historic standards. Germany, DACH region, and Benelux anticipate an "alternating slowdown" with expansion and contraction phases. Despite a positive 2019/2024 growth, recent months have shown a slowdown and reduced occupancy rates. Southern Europe, with strong growth and occupancy rate increases in 2024, is expected to support prices in 2025 amidst moderate supply growth.

🏨 Atypio Hotel Group, led by Etienne Faguer and Jérôme Schibler, partners with ExtendAM and Bpifrance to add Novotel Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to its portfolio, targeting the goal set in November 2023. Founded in 2018 by hospitality veterans Schibler, François-Xavier Bertin, and Faguer, Atypio now has 25 hotels and aims for 10 to 20 management mandates in the coming years. By the end of 2024, Atypio will manage 12 hotels in Île-de-France and Occitanie, under a new partnership with real estate firm Covivio. The company's latest investment includes the acquisition of the 131-room Mercure Paris Boulogne from AccorInvest.

🏨 Investors and operators are favoring highly automated hotels with minimal staffing and luxury hotels for their profitability despite rising management costs. Over recent decades, one million luxury rooms have been added to the market, accelerating growth. By 2024, around 1,500 5-star establishments will constitute approximately 7.5% of the global supply (MKG Consulting).