- 53 percent use AI; 10 percent would let it make most decisions.
- 47 percent struggle to hire revenue management talent.
- U.S. hotel expenses forecast to outpace inflation.
MORE THAN HALF of hotels use AI to help set room prices, but only 10 percent of hoteliers would let it make most pricing decisions, according to a survey by RoomPriceGenie, a revenue management software firm. Most still check AI recommendations by hand, even though 47 percent struggle to hire qualified revenue management staff.
RoomPriceGenie surveyed 450 senior revenue decision-makers in eight markets, including the U.S., for its 2026 State of Revenue Management Report.
“Margins are tighter than they’ve been in years, and guests compare dozens of options before they book, so a wrong price costs real money, fast,” said Chas Scarantino, RoomPriceGenie CEO.
In the U.S., CoStar and Tourism Economics in August raised their 2026 RevPAR growth forecast by 1.6 percentage points, to 4.4 percent, Asian Hospitality reported. But STR President Amanda Hite said expenses will rise faster than inflation in 2026 and 2027, calling the trend “worrisome.”
Trust needs talent
AI adoption is outpacing dedicated revenue management at hotels.Photo credit: iStock
Approximately 77 percent of respondents trust AI to some degree, RoomPriceGenie found. Only 24 percent give a dedicated revenue manager primary responsibility for pricing. At many hotels, general managers and owners set rates alongside other duties.
Size shapes who hires that expertise. Hotels become significantly more likely to employ dedicated revenue staff once they pass 50 rooms and the median hotel makes that hire at 146 rooms, the survey found.
Many hotels also lack basic tools. About 43 percent of those surveyed have no revenue management system: 14 percent price by instinct or fixed seasonal rates and 29 percent use spreadsheets. Only 30 percent said gathering pricing information was quick or easy, rising to 47 percent among hotels with an established system and strategy.
The study does not report whether AI pricing raised hotels’ revenue or profit.
Chain-affiliated hotels often rely on centralized revenue managers, while independents split pricing among the general manager, sales and reservations staff, according to Exely, which sells hotel software and outsourced revenue management.
Many independents still price by hand. TakeUp, which sells AI pricing software to independent properties, surveyed nearly 200 U.S. independent lodging owners and managers for its 2025 Voice of Independent Hospitality report. It found 51 percent relied on manual seasonal price adjustments, and 76 percent spent one to six hours a week on pricing and revenue management.
Opening the black box
Explainable AI pricing can build hoteliers’ confidence in automated recommendations.Photo credit: iStock
RoomPriceGenie said the next challenge for AI pricing is explaining recommendations well enough that hoteliers feel confident acting on them.
Academic research points the same way. A 2026 study in the journal Tourism Economics by Ibrahim Mohammed of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Basak Denizci Guillet of Griffith University drew on 27 interviews with hotel revenue management professionals and technology experts. The researchers found that systems able to explain their pricing decisions match what users need to know, but awareness of such tools remains low.
For investors, revenue management is part of due diligence. Vienna-based hotel consultancy mrp hotels says its pre-acquisition reviews assess an operator’s revenue management capabilities and benchmark performance to identify underperformance, pricing potential and upside.
