A hospitality consultant contrasts a neglectful limited-service hotel stay with an excellent lodge experience to argue that emotional connection, not systems or technology, drives guest loyalty and repeat revenue.
Highlights from BLLA's 2026 Boutique Hotel Owners Conference cover boutique luxury RevPAR outperformance, AI's growing role in guest discovery, and how specificity and storytelling drive distribution and pricing power.
A customer experience consultant draws 10 CX lessons from Houdini's showmanship, covering audience knowledge, anticipation, effortless delivery, complaint recovery, and reputation protection.
Hilton and Marriott are now discounting franchise fees for hotels with strong guest satisfaction scores, signaling a shift toward incentivizing frontline service quality over points-based loyalty.
A framework for hotel procurement reviews that ties this year's purchase list to last year's measurable returns, covering spend-by-category analysis, vendor performance scoring, and a one-page sign-off process.
Hotels winning corporate bookings in 2024 are evolving into productivity and wellness ecosystems, blending frictionless tech with high-EQ staff to meet the demands of hybrid-era business travelers.
A Conrad New York Downtown GM argues that hotel lobbies must be actively programmed as social destinations to drive F&B revenue, local engagement, and brand differentiation.
Opinion piece arguing hotels should apply Blue Ocean Strategy by co-creating off-property experiences with local artisans and external partners to build brand loyalty and unlock new revenue.
Independent and boutique hotels command ADR premiums of up to 34% over traditional same-class hotels by leaning into authentic identities rather than chasing chain-style standardization.
Lessons from the 2026 FIFA World Cup offer hoteliers a practical playbook on supply chain prep, staffing, cultural adaptation, and procurement for LA's 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics.
A front desk associate at Newport Hospitality Group's Hampton Inn Jacksonville Beach is profiled for acts of compassion that turned one-time guests into lasting relationships.
As AI tools give customers more pre-purchase information, hospitality and service professionals must shift focus from providing facts to building confidence and reducing buyer anxiety.
Opinion piece arguing that luxury hotels lose repeat guests not to competitors but when personal knowledge of those guests disappears with departing staff, eroding the relationship that protected rate.
A Latin American host argues that STR operators erase local identity to appear modern, making their properties price-dependent and indistinguishable from a catalog.
Mews research of 3,250 travelers finds 75% say good hospitality depends on people, prompting the question of whether time saved by AI is actually reaching guests or simply disappearing into cost cuts.
Mercure Sheffield Kenwood Hall shows how a branded hotel can embed local identity through design, history and community ties without sacrificing brand consistency.
Trailing Millennials and Early Gen Z, dubbed the "Emerging Experience Generation," represent 78M+ US travelers who prioritize mobile-first tech, social media discovery, authenticity, and locally grounded experiences when choosing hotels.
Pertlink applies McKinsey's Global Energy Perspective 2026 to hospitality, arguing that energy constraints will determine where AI and guests can be served, and proposes tracking AI token costs alongside utility costs per occupied room.
An intern at GRACE La Margna, St. Moritz examines whether commission-based upselling incentives motivate genuine service or just sales, and how to design systems that reward both.
Six strategies for winning lifelong customers, centered on prioritizing retention over acquisition, aligning employees to a clear CX vision, and consistently delivering experiences that earn loyalty.