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India Gazette
3 days ago
- Business
- India Gazette
India emerges as key player in Asia Pacific Hospitality Growth
New Delhi [India], May 30 (ANI): India continues to emerge as the key player for driving the Asia Pacific (APAC) hospitality sector, especially in Asia Pacific countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea, according to a report by report highlights that while capital investments in the region are currently focused on high-liquidity markets like Japan, South Korea, and Australia, India is emerging as a crucial driver of demand.'With rising disposable incomes and growing appetite for experience-led travel, Indian tourists are becoming a dependable, year-round source of demand in the hospitality sector,' according to the Colliers release. This trend is contributing to sustained strong room rates and signifies a structural change in regional hospitality dynamics.'India is driving a structural shift in Asia Pacific's hospitality landscape, fuelling resilient domestic growth while emerging as a powerful outbound force,' Nikhil Shah, Managing Director Hospitality & Alternatives, said. Adding, 'With strong demand across the luxury, lifestyle and MICE segments, and rising investor confidence in experience-led assets, India is now central to regional tourism flows, sustaining premium pricing and reshaping travel dynamics.'Additionally, according to Vimal Nadar, National Director and Head of Research, Colliers India, 'The outlook for the Indian hospitality sector remains strong, with Tier II destinations set to become key contributors to the next phase of expansion. Interestingly, spiritual tourism is emerging as a key driver of inbound travel within India, driving the growth of the hospitality sector.'Cities like Phuket, Tokyo, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Osaka led the region in Average Daily Room Rates (ADR) growth in Q1, helped by strong domestic demand, a surge in international travel, and effective market positioning.'The first quarter has traditionally been a slow period for transactions, and given geo-political uncertainty, it is not unexpected that many adopted a cautious, 'wait-and-watch' approach. However, as market conditions stabilise and the imperative to deploy capital intensifies, a pickup in activity is anticipated as the year progresses,' said Govinda Singh, Colliers' Executive Director. (ANI)
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Indian outbound travel fuels hospitality sector in APAC locations: Colliers
India is rapidly emerging as a central force in the Asia Pacific hospitality sector, according to Colliers' latest report, Asia Pacific Hospitality Insights May 2025. The country is driving both resilient domestic growth and acting as a significant catalyst for outbound travel to key regional destinations. 'India is driving a structural shift in Asia Pacific's hospitality landscape, fuelling resilient domestic growth while emerging as a powerful outbound force,' said Nikhil Shah, managing director, Hospitality & Alternatives, Colliers India. He emphasised the strong demand across luxury, lifestyle and MICE segments, coupled with rising investor confidence in experience-led assets, making India central to regional tourism flows and sustaining premium pricing. While overall Asia Pacific hospitality investment volumes saw a 19 per cent dip in Q1 2025, India's unique position is reshaping the landscape and sustaining robust valuations. The report highlights that the steady momentum from 2024 has continued into 2025 for the Asia Pacific hospitality sector, shifting towards performance-led growth. But India stands out. A key development is the burgeoning Indian outbound travel market, which is increasingly fuelling the hospitality sector in destinations such as Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea. With growing disposable incomes and a strong appetite for experience-led travel, Indian tourists are becoming a dependable, year-round source of demand, contributing to strong room rates and marking a structural change in regional hospitality dynamics. Domestically, the outlook for the Indian hospitality sector remains robust, with Tier II cities poised to become significant contributors to future expansion. Spiritual tourism, in particular, is emerging as a crucial driver of inbound travel within India. Towns such as Ayodhya, Dwarka, Puri, Shirdi, Tirupati and Varanasi are set to unlock new investment avenues and fuel long-term growth, backed by focused government policy support and rapid infrastructure development. Despite limited liquidity in the broader investment market, robust valuations persist in India, driven by long-term conviction in the sector's future rather than solely cap rate-based transactions. Across the Asia Pacific, hotel performance remained resilient in Q1 2025, supporting ongoing deal activities. Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) across the region saw a 2.1 per cent year-on-year increase — a significant improvement from the modest 0.4 per cent growth between 2023 and 2024 — primarily driven by Average Daily Room Rate (ADR) growth and higher occupancy rates. New Delhi and Mumbai were among the top performers in the region for ADR growth, alongside Phuket, Tokyo and Osaka, reflecting strong domestic demand, international travel surges and effective market positioning. Govinda Singh, Colliers' executive director, APAC Capital Markets, Hotels & Hospitality and Advisory, acknowledged the traditionally slow first quarter for transactions and the cautious 'wait-and-watch' approach due to geopolitical uncertainty. However, he anticipated a pickup in activity as the year progresses, with investors shifting towards value-add strategies focused on cash flow and income growth.
Times of Oman
3 days ago
- Business
- Times of Oman
India emerges as key player in Asia Pacific hospitality sector growth
New Delhi: India continues to emerge as the key player for driving the Asia Pacific (APAC) hospitality sector, especially in Asia Pacific countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea, according to a report by Colliers. The report highlights that while capital investments in the region are currently focused on high-liquidity markets like Japan, South Korea, and Australia, India is emerging as a crucial driver of demand. "With rising disposable incomes and growing appetite for experience-led travel, Indian tourists are becoming a dependable, year-round source of demand in the hospitality sector," according to the Colliers release. This trend is contributing to sustained strong room rates and signifies a structural change in regional hospitality dynamics. "India is driving a structural shift in Asia Pacific's hospitality landscape, fuelling resilient domestic growth while emerging as a powerful outbound force," Nikhil Shah, Managing Director Hospitality & Alternatives, said. Adding, "With strong demand across the luxury, lifestyle and MICE segments, and rising investor confidence in experience-led assets, India is now central to regional tourism flows, sustaining premium pricing and reshaping travel dynamics." Additionally, according to Vimal Nadar, National Director and Head of Research, Colliers India, "The outlook for the Indian hospitality sector remains strong, with Tier II destinations set to become key contributors to the next phase of expansion. Interestingly, spiritual tourism is emerging as a key driver of inbound travel within India, driving the growth of the hospitality sector." Cities like Phuket, Tokyo, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Osaka led the region in Average Daily Room Rates (ADR) growth in Q1, helped by strong domestic demand, a surge in international travel, and effective market positioning. "The first quarter has traditionally been a slow period for transactions, and given geo-political uncertainty, it is not unexpected that many adopted a cautious, 'wait-and-watch' approach. However, as market conditions stabilise and the imperative to deploy capital intensifies, a pickup in activity is anticipated as the year progresses," said Govinda Singh, Colliers' Executive Director.
Hospitality Net
6 days ago
- Business
- Hospitality Net
How Multi-Modal AI Empowers Hotel Teams
Imagine you have a new employee working at the front desk of your cozy hotel in the Alps. A guest, freshly landed, sends a message: I heard you have rooms with breathtaking views. What do they look like, and how much would it cost to upgrade? To seize this upsell opportunity, your new employee must: Check which rooms with views are available Find images of those rooms, ideally showcasing the scenery from the window Select the one that would be the best fit for the guest Write an enticing description of the room's features and the view Inform the guest of the upgrade cost Even if all the information is in the PMS, consolidating everything takes time and can be especially difficult for new staff. And if images or room details aren't readily accessible, it can slow down even the most experienced team member. Now, imagine there's a tool that understands the inquiry, scans hundreds of files in seconds, pulls the relevant images, generates a description, checks availability and pricing, and packages everything up for you. All you need to do is review, make any final tweaks, and send it off to the guest. Better yet, picture this entire exchange happening between the guest and a chatbot, with no human intervention. That's the power of multimodal AI. What is multi-modal AI? Multimodal AI represents the next generation of AI systems that can process and integrate different data types and formats simultaneously. For example, while a traditional AI-powered chatbot might provide room availability from structured data and a list of features from a library of text descriptions, multi-modal AI brings together all the information stored within a hotel's systems and combines it automatically to generate outputs in multiple formats that are richer and more contextually relevant. As Nikhil Shah, Cloudbeds' Head of Data Science, explains, multimodal AI transforms absolutely any type of content into numerical data points, which reside within what's known as an embedding space. There, we have vector-based representations of the content, whether it's room images, maintenance, voice notes, or training materials. This enables hoteliers to create a comprehensive library of knowledge specific to their hotel and locate anything from a single search bar. A simple example of multimodal AI in action is asking platforms like ChatGPT to create an image from a textual prompt or build a chart from a dataset. However, multimodality extends to integrating diverse data points. For instance, if I ask ChatGPT, I'll be traveling to Paris next weekend. I enjoy museums, love good food, and prefer walking tours. Can you create a two-day plan for me, also considering the weather forecast? The exchange may appear purely textual, but it integrates multiple data points: my interests, the destination, the timeframe, and the weather. Applications across industries The global multimodal AI market size is expected to reach $8.4 billion by 2030, with a market growth of 32.3% CAGR. Here are a few examples of how other industries are using it. Healthcare If anomalies are detected in an X-ray, multimodal AI integrates this with results from other medical exams, the genetic markers, and current conditions of the patient, to assess risk and suggest a course of action for a complete diagnosis. eCommerce Multimodal AI integrates data from different sources—in-store cameras, website interactions, purchase patterns, and social media—to gain deeper insights into customer behavior, personalize their shopping experience, and recommend products. Agriculture Farmers already use satellite imagery, soil sensor readings, and weather data to optimize practices and inputs. Multimodal AI links this data into a unified system, enabling them to correlate satellite imagery of crop health with soil conditions and weather forecasts to make precise decisions about irrigation, fertilization, or pest control. Transportation GPS for precise location data and route optimization is standard in fleet management. Multimodal AI enhances this by integrating live video feeds to identify obstacles, radar to measure the speed and distance of nearby objects, and lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) to create accurate 3D maps of the surroundings, making operations safer and more efficient. Finance Multimodal AI strengthens fraud detection by combining transaction details, spending patterns, geolocation, and surveillance data. For instance, if a credit card transaction occurs in a foreign country while the user's phone geolocation shows them in their home city, the AI flags the activity as suspicious, cross-checking it against historical spending patterns and ATM footage (if available) to identify potential fraud. Why is multimodal AI important for hotels? As Cloudbeds' CEO, Adam Harris said on the Hotel Tech Insider podcast, a successful hotel operation relies on five pillars. The first three have always existed: finding and retaining customers, improving the guest journey, and improving operations. The fourth pillar is data. Thanks to digitalization, there's no lack of it in hotels. However, this abundance risks being siloed across too many platforms. Data is everywhere. The average number of systems that are powering a hotel is 19 right now , Harris noted. This challenge creates the need for the fifth pillar: intelligence - the ability to control all the data points generated by the other four and derive insight from them. That's where harnessing the correct forms of AI creates superhuman front desk staff, better guest experiences, better ways of reaching guests, more revenues from guests, and better customer journeys overall , said Harris. Multimodal AI is one of these essential technologies. The ability to communicate using different formats has always been a hallmark of human interaction. Multimodality transforms AI from smart software into an expert assistant, bringing it closer to how humans think and operate. Multimodal AI systems are more resilient to noise and missing data. If one modality is unreliable, unavailable, or incomplete, the system can depend on others to ensure consistent and accurate outputs. 5 ways hotels can use multi-modal AI The potential of multi-modal AI in hospitality is endless. Here are five examples of its possible uses. 1. Answering guest queries If a guest asks via chat what equipment the gym offers, the AI can instantly locate stored images or videos of the gym, generate a descriptive text based on them, and send it to the guest. This approach combines visual and textual data to deliver accurate, engaging responses quickly, enhancing the guest experience. 2. Upselling amenities and services If a traveler enquires about family-friendly room options, the AI can combine visual and contextual data (e.g., room availability and the number of travelers) to present an image of a standard room while suggesting an upgrade to a family room, highlighting its additional space and features. If the traveler accepts, the AI can confirm the booking and send a payment link automatically. 3. Improving event planning Multimodal AI can review images or videos of layouts from past events alongside guest feedback to identify what worked best. This helps teams replicate successful setups more efficiently, whether for corporate events, weddings, or conferences. This functionality also supports room configurations. For example, if a couple is celebrating an anniversary, AI can detect this note in their guest profile and alert housekeeping. The team can then configure the room based on past setups, including a chilled bottle of champagne and rose petals. 4. Maintenance Multimodal AI can analyze diverse data sources—maintenance logs and images or videos —to detect and address problems in hotel rooms, such as clogged drains or weak wifi. Say that a guest reports a leaky tap to the front desk, maintenance can request a picture ahead of investigating the issue to determine a plan of action before heading up to the room. After the issue is fixed, the front office can then thank the guest for their patience and offer a voucher to compensate for the inconvenience caused. 5. Ad optimization Before launching a marketing campaign, multimodal AI can analyze data from previous ones to identify which visuals and messages performed best. This information is used to create highly engaging ads and landing pages. Cloudbeds: Using multi-modal AI to transform hotel operations Cloudbeds Intelligence is an AI layer built into the Cloudbeds platform that leverages causal and multimodal AI to boost revenue, optimize time and costs, and improve the guest experience. Cloudbeds Intelligence leverages multimodal AI to transform staff training and enablement, helping teams standardize processes and respond to guest queries fast to improve satisfaction and capitalize on revenue-generating opportunities. About Cloudbeds Cloudbeds is the leading platform redefining the concept of PMS for the hospitality industry, serving tens of thousands of properties in more than 150 countries worldwide. Built from the ground up to be masterfully unified and scalable, the award-winning Cloudbeds Platform brings together built-in and integrated solutions that modernize hotel operations & finance, distribution & marketing, guest experience, and revenue & analytics. Founded in 2012, Cloudbeds has been named a top PMS, Hotel Management System and Channel Manager (2021-2025) by Hotel Tech Report, World's Best Hotel PMS Solutions Provider (2022) by World Travel Awards, and recognized in Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 in 2024. View source
