GMH Hotels: Two Billionaires Just Bought the Las Vegas Strip.
Good Morning Hospitality
06/03/26
•34m
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On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down a week where ownership, distribution, brand strategy, and climate risk all moved at the same time.
The conversation opens with two billionaires making moves on the Las Vegas Strip in the same week. Tilman Fertitta agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment for $5.7 billion while assuming nearly $12 billion in debt, and Barry Diller is preparing an $18 billion bid to take full control of MGM Resorts International. From there Sarah and Steve dig into a ten-year look at whether the direct booking fight actually paid off for hotels, Hilton's new Undergraduate brand targeting smaller college towns, and how sargassum seaweed is now showing up directly in Caribbean hotel occupancy numbers.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
Previous Episode
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down a week where the infrastructure of hospitality is being stress-tested from every direction.
The conversation opens with a sobering security story: scammers are using real guest reservation data to launch highly targeted phishing attacks, with at least 350 hotels and vacation rentals across 50 countries already caught up.
From there, the team digs into Mews and SiteMinder's new native integration, which is designed to break down the data silos holding hotels back from AI adoption, and closes with Expedia Group's partnership with IShowSpeed and what it signals about where Gen Z travel discovery is actually happening.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
Next Episode
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down what AI is actually doing to travel economics and operations right now.
The conversation opens with a story that stops you in your tracks: one traveler used Claude to run 881,076 searches on Etihad Airways to find one flight. The infrastructure cost of that search exceeded the commission.
From there, the team digs into Brian Chesky's move to build an AI lab outside of Airbnb and what it signals about the platform's AI strategy, before closing with a look at what real AI adoption looks like at scale through Evolve's playbook of deflecting 60% of guest inquiries without human intervention.
This episode is presented by Cloudbeds & Bilt. Visit cloudbeds.com/gmh to learn more.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more.
And if you're leaving direct bookings on the table, StayFi turns your wifi into a guest relationship engine. Visit https://stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality/ to learn more.
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