A Back Office That Runs Itself: Automating Hotel Operations in 2027

Revenue came back. Profit didn’t. CoStar and Tourism Economics expect U.S. hotel GOPPAR to grow just 1% in 2027, as labor, insurance and energy costs keep climbing faster than inflation. The next margin gains won’t come from the top line. They’ll come from the work guests never see.

A Back Office That Runs Itself is a new Otelier report built on fresh conversations with the people running hotel finance, operations and technology today, from CoStar and CoralTree Hospitality to Crescent Hotels & Resorts, MCR Hotels, and more. It looks at what’s worth automating now, what still needs a person, and how teams change when the busywork goes away.

Whether you oversee finance for a management company or run operations across a growing portfolio, this report offers a practical roadmap for hotel back-office automation – starting small, proving the hours and building from there.

What You’ll Learn

• Which accounting tasks are ready to hand off today – from night audit to financial reconciliation to income journaling 
• How operators are replacing report overload with fewer, sharper signals for GMs and regional leaders
• Why hotel BI is moving from dashboards to answers – and the data foundation it takes to get there

Sources

• Jan Freitag – National Director, Hospitality Analytics, CoStar Group

• Dana Cariss – SVP, Revenue Optimization, CoralTree Hospitality

• Rob Smith – CFO, Crescent Hotels & Resorts

• Joseph Klam – Partner, BalanceHub

• Kelly Baker – Accounting & Operations Training Manager, Stonebridge Companies

• Kyle McCaig – VP, Technology Operations, MCR Hotels

• Todd Wood – VP of Technology in the Americas, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group

• Chris Sigala – CEO, Otelier

• Russ Meek – Sr. Director of Product Strategy, Otelier