Hotel Tech Report periodically updates the HTScore algorithm to better reflect how hotel buyers evaluate technology vendors, respond to market changes, and identify the most relevant solutions for their properties.

Valhalla is a meaningful HTScore algorithm update that modernizes 3 key ranking factors to help hotel tech buyers find the best solutions for their businesses based on the latest market data. AI has increased the pace of product development, market movement, and buyer research behavior. As a result, the HTScore is being updated to place greater emphasis on recent, validated market signals.

3 Small Simple (but meaningful) Changes?

Who will be impacted by this?

It is nearly impossible to predict exactly how any algorithm update will impact each individual company, product, or category. The impact will depend on the full set of signals that contribute to each company’s HTScore relative to others in its competitive set.

All else equal, companies with strong, positive, and recent market momentum are more likely to see their HTScores and rankings improve. Companies with older, less current, or negatively trending customer feedback may see their HTScores and rankings decline.

What can companies do to prepare?

Nothing changes in terms of what is important to the HTScore. The same core principles that have always mattered continue to matter: positive customer feedback, verified market validation, strong partner support, and sustained product momentum.

The best way to improve your HTScore is to ensure there is ongoing, positive, and recent validation around your company and products from both hoteliers and partners. Vendors should continue focusing on building great products, serving customers well, collecting verified feedback, maintaining strong partner relationships, and demonstrating consistent market momentum.

These updates are designed to ensure that the HTScore continues to reflect the most current, reliable, and useful signals for hotel technology buyers in a market that is changing faster than ever.

Win the shopper who's actively comparing you against the competition — and become the answer when buyers ask AI for alternatives.

This is the second step in a broader effort — following our redesigned comparison analyst reports — to infuse Hotel Tech Report's proprietary data and analysis into richer, decision-grade content. We're taking the same engine behind Segment Rankings — every verified review, scored across hotel size, type, and region — and using it to power the pages buyers rely on most.

When a hotelier searches "[your product] alternatives," they aren't browsing — they're in a buying decision, weighing their options before they commit. We've rebuilt these pages from the ground up to make that high-intent moment work harder, for buyers and for the vendors our community recommends.

Check out a sample alternatives page

What's new

• One page per company — we consolidated overlapping product-level pages into a single, authoritative alternatives page per company. Better for buyers, stronger for SEO, and no more pages competing against each other for the same search.
• Powered by Segment Rankings — alternatives are broken out by hotel size (small, mid-sized, large), drawing on the same verified-review data behind Segment Rankings, so shoppers see the products that fit a property like theirs instead of a generic one-size-fits-all list.
• Real data, real analysis — verified recommendation rates, HT Scores, pricing tiers, AI-generated summaries, and head-to-head comparison links in one view, so buyers can build a shortlist without bouncing back to Google.
• Built for LLM discovery — clean URLs, structured data, and a crawlable layout so your rankings get cited when buyers research alternatives through ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
• Faster and mobile-first — optimized to load quickly and read cleanly on any device.

What this means for vendors

Your data is the engine. These pages are dynamically generated and live-updated from real Hotel Tech Report signals — your verified reviews, your segment rankings, your recommendation rates, your content and editorial presence. That makes everything you build on HTR more valuable than ever: the stronger your reviews and the richer your presence, the more prominently and persuasively you show up in the moments buyers are deciding.

Added Perks for Premium Members 

On your own alternatives page, Premium tilts the experience in your favor:

• Boosted visibility — Premium products get boosted visibility to drive additional visibility and leads from high intent alternatives pages putting you in front of buyers who are actively comparing your competitors.
• Positive framing — your product anchors the page instead of a grid of potential alternatives and the page is designed around helping buyers shortlist you, not around why they should consider alternatives instead
• Fewer competitor placements — keep the visitor focused on your brand, with a prompt to reach out to your team before they decide.

And with an active PPC campaign, you earn paid placement across alternatives pages site-wide — in the segment rankings, the comparison table, and on your competitors' pages — sending high-intent, ready-to-buy traffic straight to your site.

This is just the beginning — we're continuing to bring our proprietary data and analysis into more of the surfaces where buyers make decisions.

See where your product ranks across hotel size, type, region, and country — and become the answer when buyers ask AI.

Hoteliers are increasingly researching vendors through ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. These models reward specific, structured, real-data-backed content over generic claims. A single overall rank gives them little to work with — but "#1 PMS for boutique hotels in Italy, based on 47 verified reviews" is exactly the kind of niche, long-tail, data-grounded signal AI search cites.

Segment Rankings turn your real HTR data — every verified review from every hotelier — into rankings that work this way.

Four dimensions

• Size — small, mid-sized, large, enterprise
• Type — boutique, luxury, branded, and more
• Region — Europe, North America, APAC, etc.
• Country — every market with enough hoteliers to qualify

Each ranking shows your position, % recommended, review count, and quarter-over-quarter trend. You qualify in a segment with 5+ verified reviews from hoteliers in it; below that, a progress indicator shows how close you are. Refreshes quarterly.

Why it matters

LLMs answer buyer questions like "what's the best PMS for mid-sized hotels in Europe?" by leaning on niche, structured, source-backed content. Segment Rankings are exactly that:

• Niche and long-tail — hundreds of specific positions per category, not a single overall rank
• Real platform data — every ranking traces to verified hoteliers in that segment, not editorial claims
• Structured for citation — clear position, denominator, and recommendation percentage AI can quote directly

The same granularity sharpens your sales work too — specific segments to lead with in case studies, growth opportunities one or two reviews from qualifying, and concrete wins to quote ("#1 for Mid-sized PMS in Europe" beats "highly rated").

What Premium adds

All vendors see their rankings in the dashboard. Premium changes how buyers — and AI — see them:

• Indexed for AI search — your rankings are exposed to LLM crawlers with schema markup and indexing so they're cited more easily when buyers ask for recommendations
• Visible to non-logged in visitors and LLMs — every non-logged in visitor and LLM sees them, not just logged-in HTR members
• Customizable featured rankings — pick three to showcase across the site. They replace the default Popular Alternatives block on your profile (which sends visitors to competitors) and take over the default survey result placements

What's Coming Next

In the weeks ahead we'll be rolling out a full AI visibility dashboard that will give you the ability to see in real time which LLMs and bots are researching your brand and products on Hotel Tech Report.

Related Posts

• AI Powered Alternatives Pages
  
• AI Powered Product Comparison Analyst Reports

We've rebuilt our comparison pages into full analyst reports — and changed how we generate, publish and index them.

• Richer content & data: verified review scores, HotelTechAward rankings, AI-powered sentiment analysis with real quotes, segment-specific fit, AI-generated verdicts, and integration data — all in one view.
• Quality over quantity: we only publish a report when we have enough verified data and content to make it genuinely useful. No filler pages.
• Faster performance: optimized to load quickly and read cleanly on any device.
• Built for LLM discovery: updated sitemap and a crawlable structure optimized for LLMs to index — meaning more visibility for the vendors our community strongly recommends, in the places buyers are increasingly starting their research.

For our vendor partners: the stronger your reviews and editorial presence on HTR, the more visibility you earn — both with hoteliers and with the LLMs they rely on.

Cloudbeds myfrontdesk vs. Mews → · All reports →

We're excited to announce a new feature that gives vendors instant visibility into what's impacting their lead generation performance on Hotel Tech Report.

What's New

Starting this month, vendors will see live performance alerts directly in their Lead Inbox when specific issues are affecting their visibility and inbound lead volumes. These alerts appear as coaching tips that help you understand exactly what's holding back your lead generation potential.

How It Works

At the beginning of each month, we automatically analyze your account performance across three critical areas:

1. Product Rankings & Reputation We track how many of your products rank in the top 3 within their respective categories. If any of your products fall outside the top 3, you'll receive an alert explaining how this impacts your visibility with buyers (you can check your reputation and get real time tips to improve in the Reputation Report Card)

2. Targeting Coverage We measure what percentage of available segments you've enabled for Instant Connect across your product categories. If you have less than 50% of segments enabled, you'll see an alert about expanding your targeting to capture more qualified leads.

3. Membership Status We track whether you had an active Premium membership during the month. Premium members receive boosted visibility in non-rank-based locations, which directly impacts your lead generation potential.

What You'll See

When performance issues are detected, you'll notice:

• A clear alert count indicator in your Lead Inbox
• Specific, actionable insights for each issue
• Data showing exactly what's impacting your performance (e.g., "1/1 of your products didn't rank in the top 3")
• The timeframe when these issues occurred

Why This Matters

Previously, vendors had to guess why their lead volumes might be lower than expected. Now, you get proactive coaching on the specific factors affecting your pipeline generation, allowing you to:

• Take immediate action on issues impacting your visibility
• Understand the why behind lead volume fluctuations
• Optimize your strategy based on real performance data
• Maximize your ROI on your Hotel Tech Report presence

Getting Started

This feature is now live for all vendors. Simply navigate to your Lead Inbox to see if any alerts apply to your account. Hover over the alert count to see detailed information about each issue.

NOTE: Alerts will only be available from the month the feature was deployed (beginning Feb '26)

What's Next

This is just the beginning. We're continuously expanding our alerts system to provide even more actionable insights that help you grow your pipeline and close more deals.

Have questions about your alerts? Contact your Hotel Tech Report account manager or reach out to our support team.

The next time you login you'll notice that the Lead Inbox got a fresh redesign including: 

• Redesign of the main lead inbox
• New focused view when new leads are pending
• Enriched lead cards for accepted leads with additional details and activity log
• Live coaching tips to optimize your lead volumes and conversion
• Lead insights tab to show lead segmentation and ROI (Premium feature)

Reach buyers right after they take high-intent actions. Our new success-page placements embed PPC auctions into post-review experiences, unlocking a highly efficient way to promote products and monetize key conversion moments.

• Trending Hotel Tech Tools
• Operations Tools
• Revenue Manager Tools
• Guest Experience Tools
• Hotel Marketing Tools

Turn content into clicks. Our new eBook & Webinar PPC auction helps vendors drive low-CPC, high-intent traffic to gated assets—perfect for pipeline creation, not just brand awareness.

Learn more & view placements

Beginning December 1, 2025 HTR will be migrating the Legacy Static Site Takeover format to the New Dynamic Auction Format.  

Comparison of Old vs New Site Takeover Formats

	OLD FORMAT	NEW FORMAT
Ad placement	Exit intent modal (site wide)	Exit intent modal (site wide)
Ad format	Static. Pre-reserve exclusive placement for static 2-week intervals 4-6 months in advance (example)	Dynamic. Bid for placement in the real time PPC auction  (examples)
Example
# of Advertisers	1x advertiser	3 advertisers
Ad type	Promote a piece of content (ebook or webinar)	Promote a product
Pricing	$4,000 per 2-week interval	Real time PPC auction starting @ $15/click
Availability	Reserve 4-6 months in advance	Activate in real time

What challenges does the new auction format solve?

1. Performance based: The old static format was priced based on 2-week reservations which meant one advertiser could pay the same fee who achieved 2x the results and vice versa (since it was a static fee per period).  The new PPC auction ad format changes this entirely by making the ads entirely performance based so you don't pay for impressions or visibility but instead you pay for results (aka interested hoteliers clicking through).
2. Higher intent: The old format promoted content vs the new format promotes products which means the clicks are higher intent clicks (aka more valuable clicks)
3. Full automated process: The old format required companies to submit a piece of content to promote, after which HTR would produce a campaign and send a draft to go through revisions which added work for clients.  The new format promotes products which we already has all of the content you need which eliminates the need for back and forth, campaign production or revisions and means you can set campaigns live instantly with zero effort required.
4. Last minute inventory: Since the old static site takeover had fixed reservations and was limited to a single advertiser, it meant that in order to reserve a campaign you had to purchase and reserve it 4-6 months ahead of time.  Now with the new format, advertisers can activate a campaign in real time via the PPC dashboard and start generating clicks. 
5. More opportunities for advertisers: Since the old static format could only promote a single piece of content with fixed 2-week reservations, it meant there were less than two dozen slots for advertisers many of which got reserved by a single advertiser.  
6. Market based pricing: Compared to the previously static priced legacy site takeover ad campaigns reserved in 2-week increments, the new live auction format unlocks real time pricing based on supply and demand in the market in real time.

What if my company has already reserved a legacy static Site Takeover for after the December 1st migration to the new format? 

For companies who have reserved static/exclusive site takeover campaigns starting December 1, 2025 these campaigns will be converted into PPC credits for you to utilize in the live auction at the dollar value of the legacy site takeover campaigns ($4k per 2-week campaign interval).  Our team will be reaching out to all companies with existing reservations to notify you about the change and confirm that the equivalent credits have been added to your account so that you can utilize them to run Site Takeover Campaigns via the new live auction format.

We’ve completely redesigned our category pages to help hoteliers evaluate software faster, with more clarity and less noise.

This isn’t a cosmetic update. It’s a structural upgrade to how buyers research technology on Hotel Tech Report.

Smarter, clearer comparisons
Category pages now prioritize decision-making frameworks over feature lists — helping you quickly understand differences between vendors based on hotel type, size, region, and use case.

Operator-focused buyer guides
Each category now includes a structured buyer’s guide covering:

• How the software impacts hotel performance
• Key evaluation criteria
• Pricing benchmarks and tradeoffs
• Critical integrations
• Implementation considerations
• Emerging category trends

Segment-based insights
Instead of generic rankings, we’ve enhanced visibility into how products perform across different hotel segments — so independents, groups, luxury, resorts, and limited-service properties can evaluate based on fit, not popularity.

More transparent evaluation methodology
Our framework now more clearly explains how we analyze:

• Verified hotelier reviews
• Hands-on product demos
• Workflow depth
• Integration strength
• Segment fit

This helps buyers understand not just who ranks highly, but why.

Why We Built This

Buying hotel software is high-stakes. The wrong decision creates operational friction, revenue leakage, and long-term switching costs.

We redesigned category pages to reduce evaluation risk and increase buyer confidence — whether you’re shortlisting vendors or conducting a full tech stack review.

We’re continuing to roll this out across all major categories.

Explore the new experience → https://hoteltechreport.com/operations/property-management-systems