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, hospitality industry leaders are looking toward 2026 with cautious optimism. Increasing operational costs are slated to challenge owners this year and lower-tier sections could struggle in the middle of a growing wealth bifurcation.

And through it all, hotel business are expected to fortify their portfolios with brand-new brand name offerings and collaborations. As the year gets underway, Hotel Dive consulted with hospitality leaders from differing corners of the market about their 2026 predictions. Below are the leading patterns expected to effect hotel operations, efficiency, net system growth and more this year.

Overall wages, salaries and benefits paid by U.S. hotels increased to $127 billion in 2025, according to data from the American Hotel & Lodging Association, shared with Hotel Dive. In 2026, that figure is predicted to reach $131 billion, representing an approximately 3% year-over-year boost, 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 absolute issue." Increasing labor costs have been a challenge for hoteliers for several years, Davis stated, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, hotel labor costs have actually increased 15.3% from 2019 to 2025, exceeding the 12.8% development in overall operating earnings, according to AHLA. In the last few years, thousands of union hotel workers have gone on strike requiring higher earnings in order to stay up to date with the rising cost of living in places such as California, Hawaii and Las Vegas.

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

In 2015, the union backed New York City's freshly elected Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, who ran on a pledge to raise New york city City's minimum wage to $30 per hour by 2030. Hotel market associations, consisting of AHLA, have knocked comparable legislation across the nation, including the just recently passed $30 wage regulation in Los Angeles. "Need has not kept up with this pace," she said. "We're likewise seeing these challenges intensified by legislation that targets hotel operations, such as severe labor and licensing policies like the New York City Safe Hotels Act. When need is falling and costs are soaring, the mathematics simply does not accumulate." Salaries, wages and payroll-related expenses paid by hotels now represent more than 32% of overall revenue, according to AHLA.

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As more hotel guests turn to synthetic intelligence to enhance their travel experience, scheduling hotels straight through large language designs (LLMs) might be next, hospitality experts said. Agentic commerce a process by which self-governing AI representatives act upon behalf of a customer to discover, compare and finish purchases is a pattern that has sped up across industries like retail.

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According to PwC's 2025 Vacation Outlook report, 76% of millennials said they're likely to use AI for travel recommendations. That number is growing, Jonathan Kletzel, PwC's travel, transport and logistics leader, told Hotel Dive. Michael Klein Head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at Talkdesk To stay competitive with direct booking, larger multibrand hotel business will "embed LLMs into their own brand sites and mobile apps, and change the way the customer searches," Kletzel said.

"If you are not discoverable in an LLM search results page which lots of brand names aren't, and this is the huge panic that they're all going through right now customers 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 informed Hotel Dive that hospitality players require to ensure their property details is being indexed by LLMs to appear in tourist inquiries.