The “The commercial playbook is being rewritten” expert panel at Ambition Bangkok by Cloudbeds, featuring Ben Charlton, Regional Director, APAC at Cloudbeds, Michael Belanger, Vice President of Commercial Strategy at GCP Hospitality, Riku Penttinen, Chief Commercial Officer at Avalon Analytics and Yann Gouriou, CEO at Unicorn Hospitality and COO at WINK.The hotel commercial function is changing. Revenue management, distribution, marketing and technology were once treated as distinct disciplines, each with its own systems, teams and responsibilities. That model is increasingly being challenged.
As artificial intelligence changes how data is interpreted, how prices are set and potentially how travellers discover and book hotels, the next generation of hotel commercial strategy will demand something different: people who understand technology, data and how to turn both into decisions.
That was the focus of the “The commercial playbook is being rewritten” expert panel at Ambition Bangkok by Cloudbeds, featuring Michael Belanger, Vice President of Commercial Strategy at GCP Hospitality; Riku Penttinen, Chief Commercial Officer at Avalon Analytics; Yann Gouriou, CEO at Unicorn Hospitality and COO at WINK; and Ben Charlton, Regional Director, APAC at Cloudbeds.
Technology That Serves the Business
For Mr Michael, the starting point is not technology for technology’s sake. Hotels need to use technology that actually matters.
That sounds simple, but it represents an important distinction at a time when the hospitality industry is being presented with an ever-growing number of tools and platforms.
The challenge is no longer simply gaining access to technology. It is knowing which technology can genuinely improve commercial performance.
That also changes the type of people hotels need. Mr Michael emphasised the growing importance of hiring people who understand technology, reflecting a wider shift in the skills required within hotel commercial teams.
From Static Reports to Smarter Decisions
For Mr Riku, that shift begins with data.
Managing data has become increasingly important as hotels look to AI systems to support commercial decision-making. The potential is not simply about generating more reports. It is about moving from information to action.
Revenue professionals therefore need to become increasingly comfortable with technology and understand how to make these tools work for them.
AI may be able to process information at a scale that humans cannot, but the commercial value still depends on people knowing what to ask, what to trust and what action to take. That makes the human side of technology just as important as the technology itself.
From Being Discoverable to Being Bookable
Mr Yann approached the question from an owner and asset perspective. His message was to “give love to the hotel” — to put yourself in the shoes of the owner of the asset and think about what is ultimately driving the property’s performance.
That owner-centric approach brings the conversation back to a fundamental commercial question: Is the hotel actually positioned to capture the demand that exists?
Gouriou also highlighted the importance of being bookable, not simply discoverable.
The distinction could become increasingly important as the booking journey changes.
A hotel can be visible across digital channels, but visibility alone does not guarantee revenue. The property needs to have the information, availability and booking capability required to convert that attention into an actual reservation.
And the next major shift may come from AI.
Preparing for the Agentic Booking Journey
Mr Yann pointed to the potential rise of agentic AI, suggesting that by 2030, 30% of bookings could come through agentic channels. The significance extends beyond the number itself.
If AI increasingly searches, compares and makes choices on behalf of travellers, hotels will need to consider how their properties are represented within those systems.
The traditional question has been: Can guests find us?
The emerging question may be: Can AI find us, understand us and book us?
That is a very different commercial challenge.
