A first-timer's view of XP Hospitality Edinburgh 2026: what Scottish tourism leaders, HARPA, Zonal and others said on policy, websites and AI, and why independents do better sharing.
I’m going to start with a confession…this was my first time in Edinburgh, well actually my first time in Scotland, full stop. But I made it this year, and I am so relieved I did, because it was incredible.
On this page
Not just because the speakers were, insanely incredible, it was the whole vibe of the city too. The people, the energy, so generous and supportive. A fair few of you told us you wanted us up multiple times a year, and we appreciate that more than you know… we will do our best to get back up more often!
We were lucky enough to arrive the day before, and had a great evening with our partners. As always it didn’t matter what company they came from, everyone mingles, talks to each other, relaxes… it’s refreshing.
Bright and early the next morning, we got into the room and it was beautiful, as always, exactly what you’d expect from such an exceptional team.
The Place Hotel in Edinburgh, thank you yet again for hosting us, we will be back because the service is exceptional. Thank you to all the staff on the day, everyone was brilliant.
As always, I always surge with worry at this part of the event… but I had zero need to worry.
Everyone turned up early, which was ideal, because everyone was mingling and talking and already sharing things before we’d even started. It’s rare to get to an event and have the buzz already there, straight away. Just everyone talking. We almost forgot to start because everyone was having such a good time.
Our very own Scot, Dave Mc opened the day and set the tone, collaborative and welcoming, with lots of fun and (of course) a bit of shared commiseration for fellow Spurs fans…
Marc is Co-Chair of Scotland’s Tourism and Hospitality Industry Leadership Group, received an MBE for services to the Scottish tourism industry, and was awarded the Institute of Directors Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025. Few people have a clearer view of where Scottish tourism is heading, what the sector needs from its operators and leaders, and how national strategy translates into practical decisions on the ground.
He talked us through what he and the team at the STA are doing to offset a lot of the government policy changes, VAT / tourism tax. The main thing though is his passion. He doesn’t even need the slides, he can just talk about the Scottish tourism sector, the people, the vibe, and what’s needed, and it’s inspiring. It’s inspiring to see someone who lives and breathes not just the city but the country, and wants the best for the people who work in it.
If you want more of Marc after this, the STA’s 2027 Signature Conference is on 23-24 February in Glasgow, running alongside ScotHot with the STA Spotlight Stage as a key feature. Around 500 industry leaders were there this year and we will be returning there again next year.
This is something we all talk about as marketers, wanting to stay ahead and really push forward while everyone else is talking about how difficult it is right now. Sam’s talk on where websites are going, and the lovely thing of not writing for robots anymore, which we’ve all been doing for years with SEO, was ironic given it’s taken AI to jolt us out of that.
The way he speaks about digital, tech and websites is so human.It’s about you, your brand, your content, your imagery living and breathing that, not what someone else is saying. Real imagery, real people, not roofs of properties or empty locations when you’re an experience-led venue.
Content that tells your story clearly, in narrative, not written for robots. And then having the bits AI needs too, AEO, GEO, SEO, structured content, schema, headings, alt tags, the same things we’ve all been doing for years, just used properly now. You could see people in the room going right, okay, that’s easier to understand, that’s where you start.
80 DAYS is a full service creative and digital agency that specialises in working with some of world’s most respected hotel and travel brands.
Sarah works directly with parks and outdoor hospitality operators across Scotland on the issues that matter most to them day to day, from innovation and investment to the policy and industry pressures shaping decisions on the ground. This was her second year returning to XPH, and we’re so grateful for her wealth of knowledge and passion for the parks sector.
Sarah is a wonderful human being, irrespective of anything else, and her passion for the sector and her humour shone through.
‘Coolcations’ around the fact that Scotland has been preparing for this for thousands of years. We should be celebrating that, as hospitality providers, as people who make memories, while also being honest about the real difficulties. Misselling, people having less money, third parties taking so much… HARPA are joining Marc and other experts in speaking to government to try and get things improved for everybody.
Join us at the HARPA Scotland conference in November! See the HARPA website for more information.
Get the slides
Glenn is Product Director at Zonal, the UK’s largest EPOS and SaaS provider for hospitality, where he’s spent over 14 years shaping products for businesses of every size, from ambitious independents to major enterprise groups. As he put it: AI has changed the way we search, but it will also change the way we use and interact with software.
Glenn showed us their research on how people are booking, how they’re eating, how they’re experiencing venues, including F&B and POS, and how that’s changing not just how guests experience a stay but how venues manage last minute changes.
Zonal continue to share their learning and insight for the benefit of us all. Continuously adapting to how people shift in behaviours – such as going out a bit later, maybe shorter, maybe not straying far from where they are…
Josh is Director of Traveltech for Scotland at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, working at the meeting point of academic research and the travel industry on where agentic AI is taking travel distribution. He’s spoken at some of the biggest events in hospitality in the world, ITB Berlin, Phocuswright, World Travel Market, and he manages to make things that are incredibly complicated feel uncomplicated.
I don’t know how he does it, but he does, and it’s very impressive.
Josh is incredible. Not just his energy and enthusiasm, which are infectious, but his knowledge of AI, tech and systems and the global hospitality market, and the way he teaches it. He’s an exceptional educator, really able to make you feel less out of control about all of it. But he’s also realistic, not falsely reassuring. He’s honest that we don’t fully know what’s coming so anyone that says they do… is probably not being 100% truthful.
Some of it could be scary, there’s a lot of noise, but he brought it right back to the human and wider societal impacts.
Watch the video
Our closing session, with Ian back again after last year, this time joined by Jay Thomson, CEO of Maaten. Ian co-founded The Union, one of Scotland’s most respected agencies, and led it for nearly three decades before it moved to employee ownership. Jay’s spent 25 years turning emerging technology into practical business growth, and built Maaten to do exactly that with AI and marketing.
Taking us on a journey through time and spac, using a clip from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where an artifact left on earth four million years ago by superior beings is changing the course of existence, to 2023 and the launch of Chat GPT, to today…
Between them it was a masterclass on the types of things you can now do with AI, from making an AI brain the heart of your business, so you can do the human things instead of analysing data for hours or building campaign plans in spreadsheets. You can give your real insight and plans as one huge prompt and it will structure it for you, join it together, search it, compare it, benchmark it, learn from it, and become your whole marketing brain. It’s about connecting your systems and your knowledge so your people spend less time chasing data and more time being human, more productive and more useful.
But this only works properly in the hands of someone who already has the wealth of experience in digital, marketing and comms. AI can do it without that, it just won’t be anywhere near as impressive. It felt strange, sat there realising that some of what they were showing is already something I’ve built into HolidaymakerXP as our own ‘brain’…
And that led us, breathtakingly, to the end of the day and the bar opening. We were all left with the realisation that we’d just experienced something. Community, knowledge, sharing, learning, and hopefully a room where everyone got what they wanted out of it. As exhausting as we all were afterwards, there was a real sense of achievement, that we’d brought people together, no matter what part of the sector they were from, or from outside it entirely. So many tech providers, people starting up, people starting their own businesses. I really hope to keep doing this, keep spreading the message.
Because it really is us trying to help independent hospitality bridge the gap with tech companies. If we don’t unite on data and systems, we’re going to get left behind. It’s not about AI or tech taking over, these are all unknowns, as Josh said, we don’t know what’s going to happen, the trajectory might shift. But through our learning and expertise, the experts, through our connections, through trying, testing, learning… building in the governance and safeguards to protect people and their data and keep our brand and who we are at the centre, together we’ll be okay.
Because none of us know whats ahead. But isn’t it easier when you have friends by your side?
Keep exploring: Shelter at XP Hospitality Devon, and our partners and suppliers directory. Recordings of the day are on the Holidaymaker YouTube channel.
Ask us for the slides from XP Hospitality Edinburgh, or send a question to the team, and we will reply.
Request the slides
