Top 5 Takeaways from ALIS 2026: What the Data, the Dialogue, and the Mood Revealed About Hospitality

I returned this week from the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) with a familiar feeling — not energized by momentum, but thoughtful about where the industry actually stands.

ALIS has always been a place where tone and behavior matter as much as forecasts. This year felt different. There was less deal chatter and less certainty, and more quiet processing of the realities the industry is navigating.

I was grateful to join a panel during the conference focused on the entrepreneurial side of hospitality. What made it especially fun was that it didn’t feel theoretical. Hospitality demands entrepreneurial thinking every day simply by the nature of the business — long timelines, heavy capital requirements, operational complexity, and real risk. Conversations about judgment and restraint resonate here because they aren’t abstract ideas; they’re part of the work.

That panel discussion ended up being a fitting lens for the broader conference. ALIS 2026 felt measured, cautious, and quietly reflective — less about what might happen next, and more about coming to terms with what has already changed.

Before getting into detail, here’s the short version of what stood out most:

ALIS 2026 — At a Glance

1. Attendance was light, not just because of weather, but because being in the room didn’t feel as urgent this year.

2. RevPAR forecasts remain divided, but margin pressure is no longer debated.

3. Performance is fragmenting, with turbulence and widening gaps by segment and market.

4. Rising renovation and development costs are fundamentally reshaping feasibility.

5. International travel remains uneven, while optimism for 2026 leans heavily on temporary events.

The last few years carried real hope for a broad rebound in hospitality. No one at ALIS this year suggested a pending crisis, but the tone felt like a collective bracing — for volatility, selectivity, and a less predictable path forward. More cautious than catastrophic.

Below are my five takeaways in more detail.

ALIS Takeaway 1: Attendance Was a Signal

Yes, a large snowstorm last week had significantly disrupted travel. Flights were canceled and schedules unraveled. But what mattered more was how many people chose not to rebook once attendance became inconvenient. In stronger cycles, people still find a way to show up. They fly in for a day, take meetings, and leave because the cost of missing the room is simply too high. This year, that cost felt low. When transaction volume is thin and conviction is muted, urgency fades. Attendance reflects that faster than any data point on a slide.

ALIS Takeaway 2: The Outlook Is Fragmented — and That’s the Risk

The forecasts presented at ALIS didn’t tell one story. CoStar and Tourism Economics projected roughly +0.6% RevPAR for 2026. Kalibri Labs projected closer to -1.0%. That gap felt like more than a rounding error. It reflected how uncertain near-term fundamentals still are and how little consensus there is on what comes next.

What was consistent across panels was this: occupancy pressure remains, ADR growth is thin, and expenses are rising faster than both. Labor, insurance, and utilities are not reverting.

Much of the response from the stage landed somewhere around “operators need to manage better” or “brands need to deliver behind their fees.” Operational discipline matters, but it doesn’t solve a math problem when the inputs have changed. You can’t yield-manage your way out of structural cost inflation or optimize away soft demand.

The risk for hospitality isn’t just poor execution. It’s pretending execution alone can compensate for fundamentals that are no longer moving in sync.

ALIS Takeaway 3: Turbulence and Bifurcation Are the Real Story

Another clear theme was that 2026 is shaping up to be a turbulent year, not a smooth recovery. Rather than a rising tide lifting all boats, hotel performance is becoming increasingly uneven across segments and markets.

Luxury and higher-end properties with pricing power and differentiated experiences appear better positioned. Economy and lower-tier assets are facing more pressure on both average rate and demand. The gap between those segments is widening and that no longer feels like one market moving together, but more like several sub-cycles unfolding at the same time.

This showed up not just in the data, but in the tone of conversations at ALIS. Capital discussions felt more selective. Assumptions were questioned more closely. Durability mattered more than growth narratives.

In this environment, turbulence isn’t an anomaly. It’s the operating condition.

ALIS Takeaway 4: Costs Are Rewriting Feasibility

Rising costs were not an abstract concern at ALIS, they came up early and often. At the beginning of the conference, attendees were polled on expected renovation cost growth for the coming year over the prior year. Most responses landed in the 1%–10% range, which is already wide. When I mentioned this to a contractor friend at the conference, his response was immediate: “Ten percent sounds right.”

Later, during a development panel, one speaker noted that a full-service luxury hotel that might have cost around $600,000 per key just a few years ago would likely cost closer to $900,000 per key today. The reaction in the room said everything. A roughly 50% increase in development cost against debated RevPAR growth of plus or minus one percent fundamentally reshapes feasibility. It helps explain why fewer projects pencil, why transaction volume remains constrained, and why creativity in capital structures is becoming essential.

Public-private partnerships, joint ventures, mixed-use strategies, and branded residential components aren’t trends for their own sake. They’re responses to a cost environment that has changed faster than revenue assumptions.

ALIS Takeaway 5: Demand Is Shifting — and We’re Still Underestimating What That Means

International travel to the US remains uneven, particularly from Canada, which historically was one of the most reliable source markets. Other international segments are recovering at different speeds, contributing to a more fragmented demand picture than the industry was used to pre-pandemic.

Optimism for 2026 leaned heavily on upcoming events like the World Cup games and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. These will drive demand in specific markets, but they’re temporary. Event-driven spikes help performance in the moment; they don’t replace sustained international or corporate demand.

Short-term rentals did come up in the data and were acknowledged briefly as part of the broader lodging landscape. What felt less developed was the conversation around what their continued professionalization actually means for hotels. STR supply growth has moderated, demand has stabilized, and in many markets operators are achieving steady returns while offering the flexibility, personalization, and experiential stays many travelers now expect.

You don’t have to view hotels and STRs as directly comparable to recognize the signal. Guest expectations are evolving faster than parts of the industry dialogue. Treating STRs as background context rather than a structural force risks missing how demand is really changing.

Acknowledging the data is a start. Acting on what it means is harder.

ALIS Final Thoughts

ALIS Final Thoughts (Final Edit)

ALIS 2026 didn’t give the impression of a market about to accelerate. It felt like an industry taking stock of costs, of assumptions, and of how much has shifted over a relatively short period of time.

Hospitality is resilient, but it doesn’t forgive impatience. Cyclical, capital-intensive businesses rarely do. The groups that navigate this phase best won’t be the ones chasing momentum or waiting for a single catalyst. They’ll be the ones willing to face uncomfortable realities early, pressure-test their assumptions, and make decisions that still make sense when conditions change.

The question coming out of ALIS isn’t whether the industry will adapt. It’s how long we’ll wait before we start acting upon it. Facing bad news head-on isn’t pessimism. It’s how durable strategies, as well as and durable businesses, get built.

These reflections are personal observations from ALIS and are not intended as investment advice or a forecast.