Hyatt didn't say if AI tools would be used to replace the employees, but hotels are increasingly turning to AI to handle customer service and back-office tasks.
Booking Holdings resumed hiring fairly aggressively after the pandemic, but is now trimming its workforce as part of a plan to get a handle on costs. A major part of the reorganization is to figure out the best areas for investment.
Was Booking Holdings getting too fat? With operating costs outpacing revenue growth, something had to give. We might not know the exact chess moves for awhile.
If you double your hotel empire over a decade, someone's eventually going to ask: "Hey, are we running this thing efficiently?" At Marriott, that someone is CEO Anthony Capuano.