Business travel Weekly · 2026 · Week 34 · 17 Aug — 23 Aug

Expedia Group has cut eight senior leaders, including Sachin Singh, SVP of book-to-trip technology, and seven other VPs covering payments, fraud and risk, and self-service tools. Their responsibilities will be divided among remaining tech executives, the CISO, and finance. The reorganization aims to shift authority to smaller AI-focused squads that can build closer to the brands they support. Roughly half of Expedia's 16,000 employees work in technology, with about 5,000 engineers.

HotelData.com's H1 2026 Profitability Performance Report, based on financial data from 5,000 U.S. properties on Actabl's ProfitSword platform, reveals overall GOP margin expanded 3.6 percentage points year-over-year to 44.9%, reaching 47.2% in Q2. Luxury properties led with ADR up 10.1%, RevPAR up 15.9%, and GOP margin up 4.0 points to 38.6%. Economy was the only chain scale with falling RevPAR (-2.7%) despite highest occupancy gain (+4.6 points), as ADR dropped 9.3%. June, boosted by FIFA World Cup, saw strongest rate environment with ADR +11.4% and RevPAR +13.1%.

The UK FCDO has updated travel advice for Nigeria, highlighting security risks in the northeast, northwest, north-central, and southeast regions. It advises against all travel to Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Katsina, and Zamfara states. All but essential travel is advised against to several other states. Additionally, all passengers must complete an online Health Declaration Form before entering Nigeria.

The Venetian Resort Las Vegas has launched its new Venetian Rewards App, integrating real-time casino management system (CMS) point redemptions with property-wide indoor navigation. The app allows loyalty members to view point balances instantly, track tier progression, and execute direct point-to-comp conversions. It features blue-dot indoor wayfinding across the property's multi-million-square-foot footprint, guiding guests to casino floor, restaurants, meeting spaces, and entertainment venues. The app also includes gamification elements and mobile check-in/check-out workflows.

Hospitable, a property management platform for short-term rentals, has launched its Business Dashboard, replacing passive reporting screens with a personalized command center. The dashboard features an 'Opportunity Center' that analyzes account performance, listing settings, and market trends to deliver prioritized prompts, such as advising low-occupancy properties to activate dynamic pricing or suggesting early check-in upsell modules. It also consolidates daily arrivals, departures, turnovers, and maintenance alerts, and dynamically scales recommendation logic based on portfolio complexity.