This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.
Independent hotel brands are trying to solve a problem the industry has wrestled with for years: how to gain the reach of a global chain without becoming part of one.
Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) CEO Chris Hartley and Executive Vice President of Strategy Kristi Gole joined Skift President Carolyn Kremins at the Skift Global Forum 2026 to discuss whether independent hotel brands can gain the benefits of scale without giving up the identity that sets them apart.
GHA recently surveyed the CEOs across its independent hotel network of 60 brands about how they see the market developing through 2027, and their responses formed the basis for much of the discussion. The findings framed the outlook for international demand, loyalty, brand differentiation, and the growing role of AI in hotel discovery and customer relationships.
Independence at Scale: Paradox or Opportunity?
International Travel Remains Resilient
According to Hartley, geopolitical uncertainty is weighing on the industry, but international travel demand continues to hold up. He described sentiment among GHA’s hotel CEOs as “K-shaped.” Leaders remain concerned, but international travel has continued to prove resilient.
“We saw a drop-off in the Middle East in March and April after the conflict started, but occupancy has now recovered to just below 2025 levels,” Hartley said. “Looking into 2027, sentiment among our CEO group is very positive on international travel, especially leisure.”
Loyalty Is Becoming an Economic Question
The CEO research also pointed to loyalty as one of the biggest opportunities for independent hotels over the next three years. Gole said eight in 10 CEOs considered loyalty critical or very important over the next three years, placing it ahead of trends such as AI, wellness, and longevity.
“Loyalty gives customers a reason to choose the hotel and book direct,” Gole said. “That lowers the cost of sale while giving brands a stronger direct relationship with the guest.”
The majority of GHA’s properties are owner-operated. Direct bookings can reduce distribution costs, while loyalty membership also creates access to first-party customer data that hotels can use to personalize communications, promotions, recognition, and the stay itself.
Gole said the opportunity for smaller independent brands is therefore to access a loyalty platform large enough to influence customer choice without sacrificing the independence that differentiates them.
Hartley acknowledged that major groups such as Marriott and Hilton can drive significant occupancy through their loyalty programs. However, GHA’s proposition is different. Its model uses collaboration to build enough reach to compete, without requiring participating companies to surrender their independence.
“We bring together nearly 40 million customers and drive roughly 30% to 35% of occupancy collaboratively, rising to around 50% in some markets,” Hartley said. “We deliver the loyalty platform at about a third of the cost of the big brands, so we can really compete cost effectively with the big players by collaborating.”
Scale vs Sameless
Scale creates another problem for hospitality companies: sameness. Kremins cited Skift Research during the session, which found that three out of four travelers felt hotel brands were increasingly blending together, while 83% said they would switch loyalty programs for greater personalization.
That raises a difficult question for any alliance of dozens of hotel brands: how do you make the experience consistent without making the hotels interchangeable? According to Gole, GHA’s portfolio benefits precisely because its member brands were not created to fill gaps in a corporate brand architecture.
“They actually are true, genuine, homegrown, local brands with heritage and history,” she said. She pointed to Kempinski’s 150-year history, Outrigger’s 80-year Hawaiian heritage, PURO in Poland, Unike in Norway, The Marmara in Turkey, and The Leela in India as examples.
GHA DISCOVERY, the loyalty program shared by all hotels in Global Hotel Alliance, provides the shared infrastructure across those individual brands. Customers have one profile, and enjoy one tier structure, one base set of benefits, and one rewards currency across all 1,000+ hotels, while each property retains its own identity and experience.
Gole described that combination as “the best of both worlds.” It allows GHA to standardize elements such as loyalty recognition and rewards while preserving the physical experience, service culture, and local identity of each hotel brand.
AI Changes Discovery, But Not the Value of Hospitality
AI is introducing a new test for that model. As travelers increasingly use AI assistants to research and potentially book trips, hotels risk losing another part of the direct path between brand and customer. Gole said GHA’s CEOs largely view AI positively, but independent brands will need to adapt to how these new interfaces surface and recommend hotels.
“You have to go where the customer is,” Gole said. “If travelers are using AI assistants like Instinct or Muse, we have to adapt just as we did when search engines emerged. That means thinking beyond SEO to AEO and GEO, and making sure our hotel content appears accurately in AI-driven discovery.”
Independent brands should not have to solve those challenges individually. Gole said shared infrastructure can help participating hotels remain visible as discovery channels evolve. She also challenged the idea that one company must own every stage of the guest relationship. An AI platform may own the discovery interaction, while the hotel retains control over what happens when the traveler arrives.
“The hotel owns the experience when the guest arrives,” she said. “That high-touch service and human connection is where hospitality still has the strongest relationship with the customer.”
That may ultimately be the distinction independent brands need to protect most carefully. Technology can provide reach, loyalty can strengthen customer relationships, and collaboration can reduce the cost of achieving scale. But the local experience still needs to give travelers a reason to choose one hotel over another.
Hartley closed the discussion by arguing that independent brands do not have to choose between staying independent and gaining scale.
“There’s the option of going to one of the big brands, but there’s an alternative,” he said. “By collaborating, independent hotels can compete with the big players, retain their independence, and do so at a much lower cost of sale.”
To find out more about Global Hotel Alliance, visit globalhotelalliance.com
This content was created collaboratively by Global Hotel Alliance and Skift Studio.