Brilliant insights into the modern hotel guest experience and what today’s hotel guests value - exactly why we created Digi-Hub. It’s designed to elevate every stay, enhance the lived-in experience, and build long-term loyalty. Thank you for sharing these valuable findings Derrick Hales! Institute of Hospitality #hospitality #guestexperience #hotels
Co-Founder, Head of Strategy @ The Travel Foundry | Expert in Travel & Hospitality Marketing
The biggest threat to hotels in 2025 isn’t another hotel. It’s the guest’s expectation of how the world should work now. Our research keeps showing the same pattern across boutique properties, lodges, luxury resorts, and everything in between. Guests are bringing expectations shaped by every great experience in their daily life, not just their last stay. They expect clarity because other industries trained them to. They expect speed because airlines and apps deliver it without friction. They expect emotional payoff because storytelling-heavy brands taught them to look for it. So when a hotel keeps the same check-in flow, the same templated emails, the same “standard” lobby experience, the guest feels the gap immediately. Not because the hotel is failing, but because the reference point has moved far beyond the category. Our findings reveal this over and over: • Properties renovate rooms but leave pre-arrival untouched • Menus get refreshed but the emotional arc of the stay doesn’t • Visuals get updated but the guest-facing storytelling stays flat Meanwhile, guests are walking in with a completely different internal baseline for what service, design, and digital interaction should feel like. Your true competition is the guest’s lived experience, not the property next door. And that lived experience is being shaped by Apple, Delta, Patagonia, Sweetgreen, Aesop, Nike, and every brand that obsesses over the small signals that make things feel intuitive and human. Hotels that understand this will start designing stays around psychology, not tradition. Hotels that don’t will get stuck in the “nice but forgettable” category, which is the most dangerous place to be in hospitality. Hospitality leaders, I’m genuinely curious. Are you seeing this shift on your end, or is the industry still focused on the wrong competitors? #travelmarketing #hospitalitymarketing #hotelmarketing #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #marketinginnovation #travel #hotel #hospitality #humanfirst #agencylife #marketingagency #adagency #brandresearch #consumerinsights