Hotel Marketing 5.15 | Cannes Lions Insights, Pricing Trends, Q3 Challenges

The Hotel Marketing 5.15 | Weekly Brief: June 30, 2025

Marketing’s New Middleman: AI Agents | Bain

Agentic AI is the latest buzzword in the marketing world. In simplest terms, it’s an evolution of LLM (large language models) to agents that can act on the data it knows. But before you feel pressure to dive in, it’s worth understanding what it actually is, how it might apply to hotel marketing, and whether it’s even relevant for your current needs.

You don’t need to chase every trend or adopt every emerging tool immediately. But staying informed helps you remain adaptable and relevant in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Insights from Cannes Lions that caught my attention:

• DM9's Grand Prix Withdrawn as Cannes Lions Pledges to Introduce AI Safeguards | AdWeek

  • Cannes Lions revoked DM9’s Grand Prix award after determining the campaign used copyrighted material without proper disclosure, prompting the festival to implement new AI-related submission safeguards. Additonal submissions are now under review over concerns of AI generated data including unverifiable or misleading information (and copyright issues).

  • Hotel Marketing Takeaway: AI can streamline content creation, but marketers must verify accuracy and ensure outputs do not infringe on copyrights or rely on unverifiable data, especially as scrutiny around AI-generated content increases.

• Ritz-Carlton Ad Gamble Pays Off at Cannes Awards: 'Late Checkout' Takes Gold | Skift

  • At the 2025 Cannes Lions, The Ritz-Carlton's "Leave Better" campaign earned a prestigious Gold Lion, marking a major win for hospitality in a field typically dominated by fashion, luxury retail, and jewelry brands.

  • Hotel Marketing Takeaway: While campaigns from names like Cartier and LVMH were more common among winners, The Ritz-Carlton stood out for delivering a clear brand promise centered around personal transformation through travel. The campaign’s success signals a growing opportunity for travel brands to compete creatively at the luxury level, provided they lead with authentic storytelling and emotional resonance.

Hotels.com 2025 Price Index | Expedia

• Hotel prices rose 3% globally in 2024 according to Hotels.com's 2025 Hotel Price Index, signaling a stabilization in rates as luxury demand stays strong and travelers grow more value-conscious.

• Hotel Marketing Takeaway: Luxury isn’t slowing down, but as pricing stabilizes, highlighting exclusive experiences, flexibility, and loyalty perks can improve conversion.

Additional News Clips:

• Record 72.2 Million Americans Expected to Travel Domestically July 4th Week | AAA

• Marketing Mindsets That Matter | LinkedIn Post by Kristin Galluci

• 8 tiny experiments that led to huge growth wins | LinkedIn Post by Hannah Parvaz

• 2025 James Beard Award Winners | EATER

• 2025 Pinterest Summer Trend Report: Digital Detox Summer | Pinterest 

Job Postings

• Senior Marketing Manager | Schulte Group | Remote

• Director of Marketing | Schulte Group | Remote

• Client Success Manager | GCommerce | Remote

• Manager, Partnership Marketing | ALG Vacations, a Hyatt Company | Remote

Career News

• AI Talent Wars Heat Up | Skift

  • Skift’s newest series, Skift AI Talent Tracker, scans the current AI related open positions and promotions within the travel industry, uncovering AI-related strategies, features, and trends that those players are focusing on. Note to exec recruiters: great messaging opportunity on why those job postings should go to you, instead.

Upcoming Dates

Awards

• Skift IDEA Awards | Enter by June 30 (TODAY!)

• Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards | Vote by June 30 (TODAY!)

  • Would love your votes for Ka La‘i Waikiki Beach, Fairmont Kea Lani, and Fairmont Orchid!

• HSMAI Adrian Awards | Calls for entries start July 16

Conferences

• Hotel Data Conference | Aug 6 - 8 | Nashville, TN

• Marketing Brew Summit | Sept 10 | NYC, NY

• Digital Travel Summit | Sept 15 - 16 | Orlando, FL

• ILTM Cannes | Dec 1 - 4 | Cannes, France

Holidays and Activations

• Independence Day | July 4

• TikTok Deals for You Days | July 7 - 19

• Amazon Prime Day | July 8 - 11

• Black Friday/Travel Tuesday | November 28, December 2

• Start a Q3 challenge. Today is Monday, June 30, which means Q3 starts…tomorrow. The start of a new month, and quarter, is the perfect time to start a trackable challenge. Choose something you can track over the next month or quarter, then reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what to adjust moving forward. Here are a few challenge ideas to get started:

  • Business Related

    • Social Posting: Post daily on social media for one month. Track engagement trends, test different content formats, and observe how increased frequency impacts reach and audience interaction.

    • Website Review: Review one landing page or section of your website each day (copy, broken links, outdated info, mobile appearance, accuracy)

    • Process Audit: Tackle one workflow, automation, or recurring task each week. Identify inefficiencies, streamline steps, and document improvements to enhance consistency and scalability.

  • Personal Branding Related

    • Online Networking: One quarter of daily posting or commenting on LinkedIn

    • Virtual Coffee Meetings: Reach out to 1 new or dormant connection each weekday. Schedule at least 4 virtual coffees over the month.

    • Upskilling: Dedicate 30 min per day to better learning a tool (e.g. GA4, Canva Pro, ChatGPT prompt building, Excel formulas).

Because not everything fits in a box, all of the extras that I have bookmarked in my brain:

Newsletters I’m Reading

• Marketing Brew

• TLDR Marketing

• Travel Writer Lauren Harano’s Substack - filled with great media opps