Episode
This Week in Hospitality: CoStar’s Forecast Reversal, Marriott Hits 10K Hotels, and Amsterdam’s Tourist Tax Revolt
- Podcast
- Behind the Stays
- Published
- Jun 19, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4596
- Processing state
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Summary
Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUyApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week opens in full TWIH chaos: Zach and Scott are somehow a mile apart in San Antonio and still not together, Ben is on the Connecticut shore debuting smarter-looking glasses, and Edwin is back in Barcelona sweating through a muted AC situation. Then the guys get into the real stories moving hospitality. CoStar and Tourism Economics upgrade 2026 RevPAR forecasts, but the panel is skeptical. Luxury keeps pulling away, select service is stuck below inflation, and Ben argues the real problem is product-market fit: too many boring midscale hotels charging more without giving guests a reason to care. Edwin warns that the rush into luxury could create a wave of copy-paste properties that look expensive but mean nothing. Scott lands the bigger question: are we measuring industry health while ignoring the health of the guest experience? From there, Marriott hits 10,000 properties with the JW Marriott Ranthambore in India — and the milestone becomes a debate about scale, owner trust, Bonvoy economics, and whether loyalty programs are quietly becoming financial institutions. Edwin points to owners pushing for a bigger slice of Marriott’s credit-card and loyalty revenue, while Ben argues younger hoteliers may not see the same value in flags that previous generations did. The crew digs into whether AI, better data, and a more independent-minded generation of owners could start cracking the big-brand moat. In What’s in Your DMs, Ben is seeing a wave of narrative-driven independent hotel projects, Scott…