Converging Forces – The Future is Hybrid by Design
The hotel industry in 2026 stands at the intersection of powerful, converging forces. Technological acceleration, climate urgency, shifting guest expectations, labour market disruption, and economic realignment are no longer emerging trends. They are active dynamics reshaping hospitality in real time.
In this context, one thing has become clear: the most resilient and forward-thinking hotel organisations are those that embrace hybridity by design. By this I mean the intentional blending of digital and human, global and local, automation and empathy, standardisation and personalisation, growth and responsibility. The future will not reward those who choose one side over the other. It will reward those who are able to design integrated systems that hold these forces together in a coherent way.
What unites this year's contributions is a shared belief that the hybrid future is not a compromise. It is a creative reimagining of what hotels can be: platforms for connection, care, commerce, and culture, powered by both technology and humanity.
This year’s Yearbook brings together a broad range of expert voices from all corners of the global hotel industry. Our contributors include senior executives, owners, asset managers, technologists, consultants, academics, and innovators. They write on strategy, technology, sustainability, finance, asset management, food and beverage, human resources, design and architecture, operations, and more. Each of them reflects on the central theme of intentional hybridity in an age of convergence, and each offers a lens through which you can look at your own organisation and ask: what might hybrid by design mean for us?
I am deeply grateful to all the authors who have shared their expertise and their time with us. Many of them are long-standing friends of The HOTEL Yearbook, others are new voices joining this conversation for the first time. Together they make this edition far richer than any single perspective ever could.
My sincere thanks also go to our publishing partners and supporters, whose collaboration makes it possible to bring this Yearbook to life each year. Their continued commitment to high-quality, forward-looking content is a clear signal that our industry values thoughtful reflection just as much as it values innovation.
A publication like this is, at its best, a catalyst. It is meant to inform, to provoke, and to support dialogue. I therefore invite you not only to read The HOTEL Yearbook 2026 but to use it. Share articles with your teams as discussion starters, bring selected viewpoints into your boardroom and strategy sessions, and circulate the publication among industry friends and colleagues who may benefit from its insights. The more widely these ideas travel, the more value they can create for our community.
Across disciplines, geographies, and scales, one message emerges clearly from this edition: the future belongs to those who can fuse apparent contradictions into coherence. The hotels that will thrive are those that manage to be both high-tech and high-touch, both globally connected and locally rooted, both commercially successful and socially responsible.
In 2026, hybridity is no longer optional. It is strategic. And intentionality is what will set true leaders apart.
I hope that this Yearbook will inspire you to look at your own hybrid future with clarity, curiosity, and confidence.
Wishing you a reflective year-end and a successful year ahead,
Henri Roelings | Publisher