This keynote address opens a day of conversation focused on how the commercial landscape is shifting and what leaders and teams need to do to adapt, respond, and grow. In an environment shaped by constant change, rising expectations, and increasing uncertainty, resilience and growth mindset are no longer optional. They are essential to how individuals lead, learn, and perform.

In this opening session, Heidi Gempel explores how limiting beliefs, loss aversion, and protective thinking can quietly hold leaders and teams back from adapting well to new realities. Drawing on practical examples from Revenue Management, Sales, and Marketing, she will examine what it really takes to develop a growth mindset, strengthen resilience, and create teams that are more confident, adaptable, and forward-looking.

Designed to set the tone for the day, this keynote will challenge participants to think differently about change, leadership, and performance, while offering practical insights that can be applied across commercial functions.

This session explores the evolving landscape of customer loyalty in the hospitality industry, highlighting the latest trends and shifts in consumer behaviour.

Not all AI is created equal. While generative and agentic AI are reshaping productivity, it is mathematical AI that is redefining pricing and forecasting in hospitality. In this session, we’ll explore how AI-driven demand intelligence and advanced pricing capabilities enable more precise, granular, and impactful revenue decisions—and why the future of revenue management lies in trusted decision intelligence.

As AI becomes an increasingly influential intermediary in how hotels are discovered, compared, and booked, the way pricing is structured and communicated is no longer just an operational detail—it’s a strategic priority.

Inconsistent rates across channels don’t just create friction for customers; they can distort how AI systems interpret your hotel’s value, positioning, and reliability. Drawing on both academic research and real-world industry experience, this session explores how fragmented pricing and distribution strategies impact AI-driven visibility and decision-making.

We’ll break down what “clean” pricing really means in an AI-driven landscape—and where commercial teams should focus now to ensure their data is working with them, not against them.
Key Takeaways
• Why pricing consistency now impacts AI visibility: Understand how AI systems interpret rate discrepancies across channels—and why it matters more than ever.
• The hidden cost of fragmented distribution: See how misaligned pricing and channel strategies can weaken positioning, trust, and conversion.
• What “AI-ready” pricing actually looks like: Learn the practical foundations of clean, structured, and consistent rate communication.
• Where to focus first: Identify the priority fixes commercial teams should address to strengthen performance in an AI-influenced ecosystem.

Before you optimise for AI, make sure your pricing isn’t confusing it.

In today’s environment, every dollar matters more than ever. So what separates upsell offers that convert from those that get ignored?

Across millions of guest interactions globally, clear patterns are emerging about when travellers are most open to enhancing their stay. Yet many hotel upsell programs still rely on static offers, generic emails, or manual front-desk processes that miss these high-intent moments, leaving meaningful revenue on the table.

In this fast-paced session, Plusgrade shares real-world insights on how guest behaviour varies across the booking journey—from pre-arrival to check-out–and where the most valuable opportunities exist to engage.

You’ll learn three key patterns shaping guest upgrade behaviour today, and three practical actions hotel teams can take immediately to design more effective upsell strategies.

Attendees will walk away with clear ideas they can implement next week to improve conversion, create better guest experiences, and unlock incremental revenue across the guest journey.

HSMAI updates on what’s happening in APAC and the globally. What can your association do for you?

Enjoy a delicious lunch prepared by Marina Bay Sands especially for us. Our Partners are ready and waiting to solve common problems in hotels in APAC. Make sure you carve out some time to talk to them.

We will move into two breakout rooms:
1) Revenue & Distribution in Room 3304
2) Sales & Marketing in Room 3404
These are 2 hour streams, you will get a chance to change rooms between sessions if you want to do a mix of both.

This session will address some of the latest travel and technology trends coming out of China, which are reshaping tourism and hospitality booking and experience delivery. Too often, Chinese travellers are viewed as an outbound cohort whose interactions begin the moment they arrive at the airport of their chosen destination. But Chinese domestic tourism is the sandbox for a range of dynamic new travel services, experiences and AI interfaces that influence the expectations and behaviours of Chinese tourists when they visit your hotel, your city, your resort and your local communities. Some of these are also already being adopted by tourists from ASEAN countries. What is taking place in Chinese travel and tourism today is radical, and will transform how APAC tourism marketers and planners develop and prepare their strategies. This session goes far beyond the “China Ready” presentations of yesteryear, and delivers real-time updates, case studies and analysis that travel and hospitality professionals need to know about as competition to attract tourists becomes ever-more competitive across the region.

Today’s traveller is already using AI across the journey—from discovery to decision-making—and that is changing how hotels must think about visibility, conversion, pricing, and guest value. This session will explore how commercial teams can respond to this shift by moving beyond fragmented tools and manual processes toward a more connected, AI-enabled approach to growth. Drawing on industry benchmarks and the evolving guest journey, the talk will show why the winners will not be the hotels with more technology, but the ones with smarter, more connected systems that help them be visible, personalized, and optimized at every stage..

Authenticity has been hospitality’s favourite promise for over a decade. It shaped brand strategies, informed service culture, and filled countless keynote slides.
But in a market where every hotel claims to be authentic, curated, and bespoke, the word has stopped differentiating. It has started blending.
This session challenges that orthodoxy. It argues that the commercial language hospitality has relied on is no longer doing the job – and that a more demanding, more precise alternative is overdue.
Because guests do not reward consistency of voice. They reward being understood.
And in a world where AI is quietly filling every gap hotels leave behind, the cost of vague value communication has never been higher.
This session will change the way you think about how your property is seen, understood, and ultimately chosen.

In today’s market, experiences are no longer just about differentiation—they are a core driver of revenue, positioning, and long-term asset value.

Experience design has become one of the most talked-about drivers of differentiation in hospitality—but what does it really take to make it work commercially? In this session, Andrew & Brandon share how experience design is approached from an ownership and commercial perspective—where every concept, space, and touchpoint must justify its return.

We then shift to the operator’s reality, as a hotel GM or F&B Director brings the execution lens—what actually works on the ground, what challenges arise, and how to balance creativity with operational and commercial performance. Expect honest insights, real examples, and practical takeaways on designing experiences that are not only memorable, but commercially effective.

The 2026 Inaugural Trailblazer Awards will be presented by the CEO & President HSMAI Global, Brian Hicks. Natasha Mehta from Sommet Education Business Solutions will present the Glion/Les Roches Prize.