Analyzing Fast Casual Market Share Trends for 2026

Listen to the article 17 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Following a year of broad financial unpredictability that stifled growth for hotels, hospitality market leaders are looking towards 2026 with careful optimism. Rising operational costs are slated to challenge owners this year and lower-tier sections might struggle amid a growing wealth bifurcation.

And through it all, hotel business are anticipated to strengthen their portfolios with new brand offerings and collaborations. As the year gets underway, Hotel Dive spoke with hospitality leaders from differing corners of the industry about their 2026 forecasts. Below are the leading patterns anticipated to impact hotel operations, performance, net system growth and more this year.

Total salaries, salaries and advantages paid by U.S. hotels increased to $127 billion in 2025, according to data from the American Hotel & Accommodations Association, shown Hotel Dive. In 2026, that figure is forecasted to climb to $131 billion, representing an approximately 3% year-over-year increase, per AHLA. For hotel owners, increasing labor costs pose a difficulty to net operating earnings development, Kevin Davis, Americas CEO at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, told Hotel Dive.

Evaluating Top Investment Schemes for Growth

Increasing labor costs have actually been a difficulty for hoteliers for years, Davis said, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, hotel labor costs have actually increased 15.3% from 2019 to 2025, outpacing the 12.8% growth in overall operating earnings, according to AHLA.

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

"Need has actually not kept up with this speed," she said. Wages, incomes and payroll-related expenditures paid by hotels now account for more than 32% of total revenue, according to AHLA.

The Future of 2026 Brand Expansion Strategies

As more hotel guests turn to expert system to improve their travel experience, reserving hotels straight through big language models (LLMs) may be next, hospitality professionals stated. Agentic commerce a procedure by which autonomous AI agents act upon behalf of a consumer to discover, compare and complete purchases is a trend that has sped up across markets 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 suggestions. That number is growing, Jonathan Kletzel, PwC's travel, transport and logistics leader, told Hotel Dive. Michael Klein Head of retail, travel and hospitality item marketing at Talkdesk To remain competitive with direct booking, bigger multibrand hotel business will "embed LLMs into their own brand websites and mobile apps, and alter the way the customer searches," Kletzel said.

"If you are not visible in an LLM search engine result which many brand names aren't, and this is the big 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 item marketing at AI consumer experience platform Talkdesk, likewise told Hotel Dive that hospitality players require to guarantee their residential or commercial property details is being indexed by LLMs to appear in tourist questions.