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, hospitality market leaders are looking towards 2026 with careful optimism. Increasing functional costs are slated to challenge owners this year and lower-tier sections could have a hard time in the middle of a growing wealth bifurcation.

And through everything, hotel companies are anticipated to fortify 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 market about their 2026 forecasts. Below are the top patterns anticipated to impact hotel operations, efficiency, net unit growth and more this year.

Total wages, incomes and advantages paid by U.S. hotels rose to $127 billion in 2025, according to information from the American Hotel & Accommodations Association, shared with Hotel Dive. In 2026, that figure is projected to reach $131 billion, representing a roughly 3% year-over-year increase, per AHLA. For hotel owners, rising labor costs posture an obstacle to net operating income development, Kevin Davis, Americas CEO at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, informed Hotel Dive.

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"It is an outright concern." Rising labor costs have been a difficulty for hoteliers for many years, Davis said, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, hotel labor expenses have actually increased 15.3% from 2019 to 2025, outpacing the 12.8% growth in total operating revenue, according to AHLA. Recently, thousands of union hotel workers have actually gone on strike demanding greater earnings in order to stay up to date with the increasing expense 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 City Hotel and Gaming Trades Council's union agreement with the Hotel Association of New York City City is set to end in July.

"Need has actually not stayed up to date with this speed," she stated. "We're also seeing these obstacles intensified by legislation that targets hotel operations, such as extreme labor and licensing policies like the New York City City Safe Hotels Act. When demand is falling and costs are soaring, the mathematics simply does not build up." Incomes, earnings and payroll-related expenses paid by hotels now represent more than 32% of total revenue, according to AHLA.

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As more hotel visitors turn to artificial intelligence to boost their travel experience, reserving hotels directly through large language designs (LLMs) might be next, hospitality experts said. Agentic commerce a procedure by which autonomous AI representatives act on behalf of a customer to find, compare and complete purchases is a trend that has accelerated throughout industries like retail.

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According to PwC's 2025 Holiday Outlook report, 76% of millennials stated they're likely to utilize AI for travel suggestions. That number is growing, Jonathan Kletzel, PwC's travel, transportation and logistics leader, informed Hotel Dive. Michael Klein Head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at Talkdesk To remain competitive with direct reservation, larger multibrand hotel companies will "embed LLMs into their own brand name sites and mobile apps, and alter the method the consumer searches," Kletzel stated.

"If you are not discoverable in an LLM search result which numerous brands aren't, and this is the huge panic that they're all going through right now consumers aren't going to consider you," he stated. Michael Klein, head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at AI consumer experience platform Talkdesk, likewise informed Hotel Dive that hospitality gamers need to guarantee their residential or commercial property information is being indexed by LLMs to appear in traveler questions.