This week: Hilton Pay with Points, Japan tops Virtuoso's 2027 Luxe Report, HOTEL THE MITSUI HAKONE opens December 15, Pemako Punakha joins LHW, the anti-optimized holiday, The Power of Moments and Viking's 2027 Nile eclipse cruise.

Count Rudi, the Marbella Club's legendary general manager, has died aged 94. The Cape Town EDITION, Marriott's first EDITION in Africa, is due to open later this year. Casetta's Hotel Lucile has opened in a 1931 Los Angeles church. Plus Will Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality, why AI booking agents are getting stuck at hotel websites, and Queen Mary 2's 500th Transatlantic Crossing.

Orient Express names a CEO from LVMH Hotel Management, Malta lands a $2 billion tourism commitment, The Webster opens by Covent Garden, and more from this week's edition of The Digital Concierge.

JW Marriott Costa Elena opens as the brand's first all-inclusive in Costa Rica, plus Imperial Hotel Kyoto, Guanacaste and the race to own the guest journey.

AI search is changing how travellers choose hotels. Platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini are no longer listing results. They are selecting them. And that changes how hotel visibility works entirely. In our previous article, we broke down the difference between SEO and GEO, and why ranking is no longer the goal. In this article, we go one step further. How does AI actually decide which hotels to recommend? What determines which hotels appear in AI search? Most