01 · Frame
Define the decision problem before searching.
The current program asks how decision authority should be divided between hotel managers and intelligent systems. Discovery terms such as “AI in hotels” do not replace the research question.
Methodology
How Hotel Decision Lab handles evidence.
Hotel Decision Lab uses a structured integrative review to synthesize relevant hotel and adjacent-domain evidence, identify contradictions and gaps, and develop bounded propositions for future testing.
This work is not presented as a systematic review, peer-reviewed research, original empirical research, or a validated framework.
Review design
A structured integrative review, with a documented source trail.
The review combines conceptually relevant evidence from multiple research traditions because no single hotel-specific literature currently answers the full decision-authority question. Search, access, classification, extraction, synthesis, and publication decisions are documented in project files.
As of the August 2026 research-gap synthesis, the working corpus contained 25 high-value sources: 17 full texts or accepted manuscripts, 15 detailed evidence dossiers, six abstract-only records, and two bibliographic records. These categories overlap where a full-text source also has a dossier. The corpus and access status can change as stronger sources are acquired.
Workflow
From question to publication.
02 · Acquire
Prioritize primary, accessible, decision-relevant sources.
Priority goes to peer-reviewed empirical work, foundational theory, high-quality reviews, and hotel-specific studies that bear directly on reliance, intervention, explanation, forecasting, governance, labor, or downstream decision quality.
03 · Extract
Record what the source actually supports.
Evidence dossiers capture the study context, sample, methods, measures, findings, limitations, source access level, hotel relevance, transfer limits, and claims the source cannot support.
04 · Synthesize
Preserve agreement, contradiction, and uncertainty.
The synthesis does not force conflicting findings into consensus. It separates patterns supported across studies from interpretations, transferred insights, propositions, and unresolved questions.
05 · Review
Apply evidence, Canon, and publication gates.
Before publication, claims are checked against source access, the current HDL Canon, transfer boundaries, confidentiality rules, citation proximity, and language that might overstate validation or generalizability.
Source access
Full text and abstract-only evidence are not treated as equivalent.
Full text or accepted manuscript
Eligible for detailed extraction.
Methods, measures, results, boundary conditions, and limitations can be reviewed directly. Claims still remain bounded by the study design.
Abstract only
Used conservatively.
Only claims visible in the abstract may be used. Abstract-only sources do not support detailed methodological interpretation or unreported boundary conditions.
Bibliographic only
Discovery, not substantive support.
A title, citation, or inaccessible record may help locate literature but does not support a substantive empirical claim.
Secondary synthesis
Useful for orientation and triangulation.
Reviews and syntheses help map a field, but primary studies are preferred when making precise empirical claims.
Claim discipline
Five categories keep evidence and argument separate.
Direct finding
What a source reports.
The statement stays close to the study’s population, setting, measures, comparison, and outcome.
Author interpretation
How the source authors explain their finding.
An interpretation is attributed to the source rather than restated as a demonstrated fact.
Hotel Decision Lab inference
A bounded synthesis across evidence and hotel context.
The reasoning is made explicit, including where it transfers from another domain or depends on hotel operating logic.
Proposition
A claim designed for future testing.
Propositions are not findings. Framework elements and decision modes remain proposed unless empirical work validates them.
Open question
What the evidence does not yet resolve.
Unknowns remain visible instead of being filled by search demand, professional intuition, or rhetorical certainty.
Transfer discipline
Hotel-specific and transferred evidence remain distinct.
Hotel-specific evidence comes from hotel, hospitality, or closely matched operating contexts. Even then, evidence about intention, trust, or adoption is not treated as evidence about downstream decision quality.
Transferred evidence comes from adjacent settings such as forecasting, medicine, public-sector decisions, or general algorithm-use research. It can identify mechanisms and boundary conditions, but transfer to hotel operations is labeled and not presumed.
Professional hotel experience helps assess plausibility and operating relevance. It does not convert transferred evidence into hotel-specific evidence.
Integrity and confidentiality
Experience informs the work without becoming evidence.
Hotel Decision Lab does not use proprietary employer, customer, prospect, or hotel information as research evidence. Operating examples are generalized, publicly documented, or explicitly hypothetical unless a source states otherwise.
Relevant commercial, professional, or intellectual conflicts are disclosed when they bear on a publication. SEO, distribution, or audience response cannot change what a source supports.
Publication gate
What must be true before a page goes live.
- Every empirical claim is supported at the available access level.
- Hotel-specific and transferred evidence are visibly separated.
- Inferences, propositions, frameworks, and unknowns are labeled.
- Contradictory evidence and material limitations remain visible.
- The page matches the current HDL Canon and research question.
- Citations sit close to the claims they support and use stable source links where available.
- Metadata, schema, snippets, and distribution copy do not overstate the page.
- Confidentiality, accessibility, mobile, and technical SEO checks pass.
Read the current research agenda or begin with the AI in Hotels gateway.