Analyzing Fast Casual Market Share Trends for 2026

, hospitality market leaders are looking toward 2026 with cautious optimism. Increasing operational expenses are slated to challenge owners this year and lower-tier sectors might have a hard time amidst a growing wealth bifurcation.

And through everything, hotel business are anticipated to fortify their portfolios with new brand offerings and collaborations. As the year gets underway, Hotel Dive talked to hospitality leaders from differing corners of the industry about their 2026 forecasts. Below are the top patterns expected to effect hotel operations, performance, net system development and more this year.

Total wages, earnings and benefits paid by U.S. hotels rose to $127 billion in 2025, according to data from the American Hotel & Lodging Association, shown Hotel Dive. In 2026, that figure is projected to reach $131 billion, representing an approximately 3% year-over-year boost, per AHLA. For hotel owners, increasing labor costs posture an obstacle to net operating earnings development, Kevin Davis, Americas CEO at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, told Hotel Dive.

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Increasing labor costs have been an obstacle for hoteliers for years, Davis said, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, hotel labor costs have increased 15.3% from 2019 to 2025, exceeding the 12.8% development in overall operating profits, according to AHLA.

3, 2024 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan through Getty Images In 2026, Davis kept in mind, union negotiations will be "front and center" in New York City, where the New York City Hotel and Video gaming Trades Council's union agreement with the Hotel Association of New York City is set to expire in July.

Last year, the union backed New York City's recently chosen Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, who worked on a promise to raise New York City's base pay to $30 per hour by 2030. Hotel industry associations, consisting of AHLA, have knocked similar legislation across the country, consisting of the recently passed $30 wage regulation in Los Angeles. "Demand has actually not kept up with this rate," she stated. Wages, incomes and payroll-related expenditures paid by hotels now account for more than 32% of overall income, according to AHLA.

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As more hotel guests turn to expert system to improve their travel experience, reserving hotels directly through large language models (LLMs) might be next, hospitality specialists stated. Agentic commerce a procedure by which self-governing AI agents act on behalf of a customer to find, compare and finish purchases is a trend that has accelerated throughout markets like retail.

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According to PwC's 2025 Holiday Outlook report, 76% of millennials said they're likely to utilize AI for travel suggestions. A smaller percentage (57%) stated they 'd be likely to use it for booking travel. That number is growing, Jonathan Kletzel, PwC's travel, transport and logistics leader, informed Hotel Dive. "The number of consumers that are browsing [by means of LLMs] for product or services in travel has actually ballooned in the last 12 months and is speeding up every day," Kletzel said, adding that undoubtedly, hotels will "take a difficult take a look at how they can enable commerce and transactions through agentic [AI]"" [Brands] can construct on the trust they currently have if they do a terrific task with how they deal with AI in 2026." Michael Klein Head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at Talkdesk To stay competitive with direct reservation, larger multibrand hotel companies will "embed LLMs into their own brand name sites and mobile apps, and change the method the consumer searches," Kletzel stated.

"If you are not visible in an LLM search result which many brand names aren't, and this is the big panic that they're all going through right now customers aren't going to consider you," he said. Michael Klein, head of retail, travel and hospitality product marketing at AI customer experience platform Talkdesk, similarly told Hotel Dive that hospitality gamers require to ensure their property information is being indexed by LLMs to appear in tourist questions.