An initiative providing every hospitality organization with a unique ID is being developed to improve how systems interact throughout the hospitality industry ecosystem.
The non-profit Hospitality ID initiative, founded by hospitality consultant Robert Cole, who is also Phocuswright senior research analyst for lodging, aims to tackle the challenges faced by hotels, travel and technology suppliers and booking platforms when communicating with each other.
Industry heavyweight Booking Holdings is supportive of the initiative, and the company has estimated Hospitality ID will save 80% on engineering time for integrations. Industry body Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) also plans to support.
Hospitality ID acts as a global registry to significantly improve how travel and hotel businesses share information, with each property given a unique ID, similar to a barcode on product on a supermarket shelf.
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Hotels and their travel, distribution and technology partners will be able to recognize and communicate about the same property through scheme with a secure, permission-based system, ensuring property owners retain control over who they share their data with and how.
According to Cole, the initiative has huge benefits for an ecosystem that currently suffers from inconsistent—and often duplicate—data.
These challenges can result in costs related to fixing errors or synching systems, delays in updates, confusion for travelers and lost revenue for hotels, he said.
"Hospitality ID creates a trusted way to identify and share property data that helps solve the inconsistent data problem, which is one of the industry’s biggest headaches."
In addition to hotels gaining better control of their data, Hospitality ID should also help with time and cost savings for technology suppliers through faster and more accurate integrations.
The initiative also means more reliable property data for booking sites and therefore enhanced booking experiences for travelers.
In addition to Booking Holdings and support from HFTP, Cole said he is in advanced discussions with a global distribution system, hotel property system, technology platform and hotel group to fill the remaining sector-specific, co-founder roles.
The project is expected to launch in beta in the third quarter of 2026, with the full launch in the fourth quarter of the same year.
Correction: The original version of this article incorrectly reported that Booking Holdings was a founding member of the Hospitality ID initiative.