What the survey covers
RateGain Travel Technologies, the NYU School of Professional Studies Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality and HEDNA released the third edition of The State of Distribution on 15 September 2026 in Lisbon. The sample covers 270-plus brands, 58,000-plus properties, 141 cities and 53 countries in the release, and 140-plus cities, 58,000-plus properties and 270-plus brands on the report's own site. The survey window runs 1 December 2024 to 30 November 2025, and respondents work in revenue management, marketing, distribution and sales.
Adoption runs ahead of impact
Hotels using or procuring generative AI reach 53.54 percent. Hotels reporting that AI has cut manual work by more than 30 percent reach 7.77 percent. The report names accuracy, privacy, compliance, explainability and human oversight as the hold on autonomy.
The decision layer
The systems of record are close to universal. Property management systems reach 96.97 percent, website booking engines 90.91 percent, channel managers 78.79 percent, revenue management systems 70.71 percent, central reservation systems 67.68 percent, rate shopping or intelligence 60.61 percent and paid media tools 60.61 percent.
The layer that turns those systems into a rate sits thinner. Website analytics reach 71.72 percent. A customer data platform or data warehouse reaches 27.27 percent, analytics tools such as Looker or Tableau reach 26.26 percent, AI-driven pricing reaches 23.23 percent and media attribution reaches 22.22 percent.
Reporting still runs by hand across half the function. Fifty percent of distribution specialists rely on fully manual reporting workflows. Sixty-two percent of hotels report rising technology budgets. Twenty-two percent use attribution or data-warehouse capability.
A day-use rate is priced for a window that opens and closes inside the same day. The check that follows from these figures is the path a rate change takes from the pricing decision to the booking engine, and how long that path runs. AI-driven pricing reaches 23.23 percent. Property management systems reach 96.97 percent.
The channel
OTAs generate close to twice the bookings of hotel-owned digital channels, per the release. Seventy-nine percent of hotels say OTA reliance is necessary but over-indexed. Fifty-five percent have made no change or only a minor change to distribution strategy. Four percent of reservations are already influenced by AI search.
The guest record follows the channel. Check which system keeps the record for a day-use booking, since a customer data platform or data warehouse appears at 27.27 percent of hotels.
The sample
The 2025 edition drew on more than 700 hotel brands, 21,000-plus properties and 310 cities. Cross-edition comparisons rest on a changed sample.
The operator's read
Bhanu Chopra, founder and managing director of RateGain, states the position the figures describe: buying AI is easy, and getting value from it is not. RateGain trades as RATEGAIN on the NSE and 543417 on the BSE.