Choice Hotels Just Bought an RV Club and Now Has to Prove It Matters

0:00Today.

0:10Tasmin Lockwood: We're looking at choice hotels buying its way into the RV world, Airbnb's AI catch-up moment, and Radisson proving a hotel from the 1970s can go net zero operations. Welcome back to the Skiff Daily Briefing. It's Thursday, October 1st, 2026. I'm Tasman Lockwood, Skiff's climate and experiences reporter. Let's get into it. First up, Choice Hotels is heading off-road. Choice announced it's buying Harvest Hosts, a membership club for RV travellers, for about £130 million in cash. It's the first acquisition under Dom Drabisic, who was named permanent CEO in late August, and it's Choices' first move outside of hotels.

0:54Tasmin Lockwood: Here's how Harvest Host works. Members pay, typically$99 a year for the basic plan, or$175 for all access, to park their RVs overnight for free at more than 11 ,200 wineries, farms, breweries, and museums. Hosts don't get a fee. They get customers who buy the wine, the produce, and the beer. The company says its community includes more than 500 ,000 RVers. For context, growth equity firm Stripes bought Harvest Hosts for 37 million in 2021. Choice says its loyalty members over-index among RV travelers and it wants to deepen that engagement, but it's offered few specifics on how the marketing or loyalty pieces will actually connect.

1:38Tasmin Lockwood: Harvest Hosts keeps its brand and runs as a standalone business. And Choice is late to the outdoor party. Hilton partnered with AutoCamp, Hyatt with UnderCanvas, and Marriott bought postcard cabins and built a whole outdoor collection. The bottom line, Dražičić made net roofs his top priority. Now, he has to prove over half a million RVers will actually check into Choice Hotels, or this deal starts to look like a detour. Next, Airbnb just rolled out a wave of AI features in the US. And it's playing catcher too. Starting yesterday, there's a new search box on Airbnb's homepage and app where you can just describe what you want by text or by voice across homes, hotels, experiences and services.

2:22Tasmin Lockwood: There are also AI filters that anticipate what you need. Type baby and it'll serve as filters for cribs, playgrounds and toys. There are AI-powered listing descriptions and search results and side-by-side property comparisons once you build a wish list. Here's the thing, rivals got there first. Priceline's Penny has offered natural language search since 2023, Kayak launched AI mode a year ago, and Expedia already has AI search on Vrbo in comparison tools on Hotels.com. Brian Chesky at Skiff Global forum last month said that Airbnb is rebuilding itself as an AI native company and he's promised an agentic AI tool in 2027.

3:05Tasmin Lockwood: Where Airbnb might have an edge is integration. These tools could be woven deeper into trip planning than competitors versions. And it's not just AI. Airbnb also added a social travel map for connecting with friends and family, meal and grocery delivery in parts of Europe, and laundry pickup in select US cities. It also has baby gear rentals in more than 60 US cities starting in November. The takeaway? Kayak wasn't first to Metasearch either. For Airbnb, being late isn't the problem, but being equal could be. Finally, Radisson just showed that Net Zero isn't only for shiny new buildings. Radisson Hotel Group added four hotels to its verified net zero program, three in Stockholm and one in Copenhagen.

3:50That brings its net zero portfolio to nine, on the way to a goal of 100 by 2030. The headline is that some of these buildings are old. The Arlandia opened in 1980, the Royal Viking in 1984, and the Scandinavia in Copenhagen back in 1973. The two Stockholm hotels spent the last five to six years on upgrades like insulation, window ceiling, smart room control, LEDs and electrification, and now they run on 100 % renewable energy. Even the Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre, which hosts up to 3 ,000 people, made the cut. Radisson's sustainability chief made a key point. Roughly 80 % of the buildings that will exist in 2050 already exist today.

4:35But there's a catch. Radisson's net zero portfolio is concentrated in the Nordics, where the grid runs mostly on renewables. Scaling this to markets without clean power is the real test. The takeaway? Radisson proved old hotels can go net zero operations. Next, it has to prove it works outside the Nordics. That's your SCIFT Daily Briefing for Thursday, October 1st, 2026. For more travel industry news and analysis, head to SCIFT.com and sign up for the newsletter at SCIFT.com forward slash daily. Thank you.