Joe Pettigrew, Hotel Commercial Strategy, AI, and Distribution on Joe Pettigrew

Hotels Are Ignoring YouTube, The Social Channel AI Can Read

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Hotel marketers are still using the wrong scoreboard.

They look at Instagram and see reach. They look at TikTok and see cultural momentum. They look at YouTube and see an old channel with stale brand films, weak comments, low subscriber growth, and a handful of videos nobody has touched in years.

That was a tolerable mistake when social media was mainly about feeds.

It is a much bigger mistake now.

The Hotel Commercial OS

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Redesigning Hotel Operations Around Asset Value

Most hotel management teams can show activity.

Sales meetings completed. Website traffic up. Social reach growing. Reporting decks filled with charts, pace commentary, and functional metrics that demonstrate effort and momentum.

What they often cannot show with enough clarity is this:

What, specifically, improved Net Operating Income?

Not revenue. Not occupancy. Not direct booking share. NOI.

For hotel owners, NOI is the operating outcome that most directly links commercial performance to asset value.

About Joe Pettigrew

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I run commercial strategy for hotels. Revenue, sales, distribution, marketing, brand, and guest experience reporting into a single framework oriented toward one outcome: asset value.

I'm the Group Chief Commercial Officer at L+R in London. Before that, I spent 20 years building and leading commercial functions for hotel companies across three continents.

Years in hotel commercial strategy

1,100+

Hotels across career

£7B

Current portfolio AUM

Career

Group Chief Commercial Officer

L+R, London

Nov 2024 – Present · 113 hotels · £7B AUM

Leading revenue management, sales, marketing, brand, and digital strategy across a global portfolio spanning select-service franchises to properties like Fairmont Monte Carlo, Cliveden House, and Excelsior Venice. Launched Iconic Hotels & Resorts as L+R's luxury and lifestyle operating platform.

Chief Commercial Officer

EOS Hospitality, New York

Apr 2024 – Nov 2024 · 51 hotels · $2B AUM

Led commercial strategy across independent luxury destination resorts. Built a centralised team of 47 specialists. Secured four HSMAI Adrian Awards including Gold for Best Relaunch Campaign.

Chief Commercial Officer & SVP, Hotel Asset Management

Starwood Capital Group, London

Mar 2022 – Apr 2024 · 900+ hotels · 86,000+ keys · $19B AUM

Trusted advisor to the Investment Committee. Responsible for the commercial performance of all hotels and companies owned by Starwood Capital Group globally, including Extended Stay America, 1 Hotels, Treehouse, YOTEL, and De Vere.

Chief Commercial Officer, YOTEL

Starwood Capital Group

Jun 2019 – Mar 2022 · 19 hotels · $200M revenue

Led YOTEL's global commercial strategy on behalf of Starwood Capital's 30% stake. Centralised commercial engine reduced cost per hotel by 35%, improved market share by 22%. Direct booking share from 18% to 33%.

Director, Revenue Maximisation

Starwood Capital Group

Nov 2017 – Jun 2019 · 93 hotels · £530M revenue

Identified revenue upside across all European and Asian assets including YOTEL, De Vere, and Shimao Star. Developed digital strategies for SH Group brands including 1 Hotels and Baccarat Hotels.

Head of Ecommerce

The Principal Hotel Company (Starwood Capital)

Jul 2013 – Nov 2017 · 54 hotels · £245M revenue

Quadrupled direct booking share in three years. Built a full-funnel digital acquisition strategy delivering +300% ROAS improvement. Launched new website, CRM, loyalty programme, and revenue analytics platform.

VP Operations · Market Manager · Hotel Operations

Shorerock Group · Expedia · Las Vegas Hotels

2005 – 2013

Started on the floor in Las Vegas hotel operations. Moved to Expedia to understand the demand side from inside an OTA. That perspective shaped everything since.

Original Thinking

Two ideas define my work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Who is Joe Pettigrew?

Joe Pettigrew is the Group Chief Commercial Officer at L+R in London, responsible for commercial strategy across a £7B global portfolio of 113 hotels. He spent nearly 11 years inside the Starwood Capital Group ecosystem, rising from Head of Ecommerce at a portfolio company to Chief Commercial Officer and SVP of Hotel Asset Management across 1,000+ hotels globally. He is the creator of The Hotel Commercial OS and Inverse Distribution Theory. He serves on hospitality technology advisory boards for Oracle and Sabre, and his commentary focuses on connecting macroeconomic events, AI developments, and geopolitical shifts to their direct impact on hotel operations and asset value.

Inverse Distribution Theory

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Thesis

For the past 25 years, hotel distribution has largely been shaped by visibility.

Hotels won by appearing in the right places, ranking well within those places, and converting demand once the traveller had entered the funnel. OTAs, metasearch engines, search results, TMCs, wholesalers, and other intermediary led channels became the dominant gateways to awareness. Commercial strategy focused heavily on access to those shelves, position within them, and the tactics required to outperform the hotel next door.

Media and Speaking

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Podcasts

Revinate Hotel Moment

"Is NOI the only thing that matters?"

Podcast

Hotel Tech Insider

AI, distribution technology, and hotel commercial operations

Podcast

Mews

"Hotel investment strategies with Joe Pettigrew"

Podcast

Publications & Press

Hotel Investment Today

"L+R restructures tech stack to maximise share"

Article Jul 2025

Skift

"L+R Hotels streamlines operations and tech, rethinks loyalty"

Article Jun 2025

PhocusWire

"Does your hotel have a revenue maximiser?"

Article Jul 2023

PhocusWire

"From SEO to GEO, hotels confront the future of digital discovery"

Article

Mews

"Evolution of Hospitality: your questions answered"

Article Apr 2021

Mews

"The fight for the leisure guest"

Article Jul 2021

CoStar

"Revenue managers hit reset buttons and dive into data"

Article Jun 2020

Hospitality Net

"Why being different drives profit"

Article Feb 2020

Triptease

"10 useful insights to maximize your hotel's revenue"

Article Jun 2019

Travel Daily

"How can hotels protect their rates when OTAs undercut hotel direct rates in 75% of searches?"

Article Jan 2019

Skift

"Hotel investors see new promise in long-term gap between supply and shifting demand"

Article Mar 2023

Also Featured In

HOTELSMag Hotel Business Hotel Management The Caterer HospitalityNet

Speaking

Iconic Leadership Conference 2026

Keynote: "The Shift We're Living Through"

Keynote

Skift Live

Panel on the future of hotel distribution

Panel

Skift Future of Lodging Forum

Panel session

Panel

IHIF (International Hospitality Investment Forum)

Revenue management breakout panel

Panel

Mews Unfold

Panel speaker

Panel

Direct Booking Summit Amsterdam

"Unlocking value from every channel"

Presentation

Hilton Owners Meeting

Speaker

Awards

●

Best Relaunch of Existing Asset

HSMAI Adrian Award

2024

●

Best B2C Campaign

HSMAI Adrian Award

2024

●

Best Website

HSMAI Adrian Award

2024

●

Best Special Event

HSMAI Adrian Award

2024

●

Best Digital Marketing

HSMAI Adrian Award

2014

●

Best Website

HSMAI Adrian Award

2014

●

Best Website

MIMA

2014

●

Best Accommodation Website

Travolution

2014

Your Hotel Is Already Invisible to AI Trip Planners

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Ask ChatGPT to recommend a boutique hotel in Barcelona with a rooftop pool under €200 per night. It will give you a list. Your property probably isn’t on it. Not because it’s a bad hotel. Because the AI couldn’t evaluate it with enough confidence to recommend it.

This is already happening at scale. Every major technology company has launched or is building AI travel planning features. Google, OpenAI, Perplexity, Apple, Meta. The way travellers discover and book hotels is shifting from search results pages to conversational AI agents. And these agents don’t work like traditional search.

The Real Cost of Running Revenue, Distribution, and Marketing in Silos

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

A revenue manager pushes ADR up by 4%. The distribution manager opens three new OTA channels to fill soft dates. Marketing runs a brand campaign that drives awareness but shifts the booking mix toward lower-rated segments. Guest experience changes the breakfast offering without telling revenue that the rate fence justifying the premium room category just disappeared.

Every function delivered against its own KPIs. The hotel’s NOI went backwards.

I’ve seen this pattern in hundreds of hotels across every continent. It’s not a people problem. The revenue manager is good. The marketing team is competent. The distribution manager knows the channel landscape. The failure is structural. These functions operate as independent departments with separate reporting lines, separate budgets, separate definitions of success, and no shared accountability for the number that actually matters: net operating income.

How Energy Costs Flow Through to Hotel P&Ls

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Most hotel operators track energy as a line item. Electricity, gas, maybe diesel for backup generators. When oil prices spike, they watch the utility bill. That’s one channel out of four. The other three do more damage.

I’ve spent 20 years watching oil shocks ripple through hotel P&Ls. The pattern is consistent. Direct energy costs are the obvious hit. But the indirect effects on air capacity, consumer spending, and currency moves compound the pain in ways that don’t show up in the same quarter. By the time operators recognise the full impact, the damage to NOI is already locked in.