Presence Is The New Luxury

Hospitality has always been about how people feel, but over the last decade or so, the industry tried to improve that feeling through structure alone. Better systems. Better standards. Better efficiency. The assumption was that if everything worked smoothly enough, the emotional experience would naturally follow. And what we are seeing now suggests the opposite.

Guests are not responding more strongly to smoother operations. They are responding to presence. To experiences that feel grounded, intentional, and most importantly human, in a world that increasingly does not. This shift happened because the environment guests arrive from has changed, and their sensitivity to how experiences land emotionally has sharpened as a result. This is not a result of hospitality losing its way. People arrive tired. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally drained. They are overstimulated, over-scheduled, and increasingly wary of interactions that feel transactional. Within moments of entering an hotel lobby or sitting down in a restaurant, they are already assessing something quietly but decisively: whether the experience will hold them or simply move them along.

That judgement is rarely verbalized, but it is deeply felt.

I have come to believe that the arrival experience, whether at a hotel entrance or a host restaurant stand, determines whether the rest of the experience is given a fair chance. Long before service begins, the guest is already deciding whether they are open to what follows or whether the operation will be working to recover from the start. From a leadership standpoint, the host or guest service agent must not be just a logistical function. It is the emotional gatekeeper of the experience. It sets the tone, establishes trust, and signals whether the operation is present or simply efficient. When arrivals are treated as transactions; even well-executed service, later in the experience, has to work uphill. I have coached teams where nothing was technically broken, yet the experience consistently felt emotionally flat. The common thread was always the same; arrivals were rushed, overly procedural, or handled without awareness of context. The moment a guest feels unseen at the door, they arrive at the table or front desk guarded. Service starts immediately from deficit.

When leaders prioritize the arrival moment, the effect is immediate. Teams slow down just enough to acknowledge the human before the process. Hosts are trained to manage flow without losing presence. The experience earns goodwill before anything is delivered. Guests become patient, more receptive, and definitely more forgiving because trust has already been established. Arrival needs intention. When the first interaction is handled with awareness, the rest of the experience unfolds with far less friction. When it is mishandled, service spends the entire stay or meal trying to regain ground it should never have lost.

The arrival is not where service begins; it is where permission is granted.

Service has always played a central role in hospitality, but at this moment, not in the way that it once did. Politeness alone no longer creates reassurance. Precision on its own no longer builds trust. Guests can tell when service is delivered correctly but without awareness. When questions are asked because they are required rather than because they matter. When an interaction follows protocol but ignores entirely the context. Then they encounter something different. A place where the pace adjusts naturally. Where silence is allowed to exist. Where conversation emerges rather than being imposed. Where a team member senses whether engagement is welcome or whether space is needed. Nothing overt happens, yet the experience feels fundamentally different. Calmer. More grounded. More human perhaps.

It is important to note that this difference has nothing to do with friendliness and everything to do with emotional intelligence-driven hospitality.

Presence cannot be scripted. It cannot be reduced to a checklist. It requires great confidence, some awareness and trust. Trust from teams that they are supported when they adapt rather than punished for deviating from rigid protocol. This is where hospitality organizations need to be quietly recalibrating, whether they name it or not. I have observed that training is finally shifting from what to say towards how to observe. How to listen. How to read subtle cues and respond instead of performing. Presence is becoming a practiced skill, and guests are responding to it immediately and positively. This responsiveness matters even more in an industry that has always lived with labor pressure.

Hospitality has never been overstaffed. Labor shortages are not a new problem. What has changed is the margin for dysfunction inside lean operations. Smaller teams expose everything. Weak communication, inconsistent leadership as well as a cultural misalignment that surfaces quickly. Lean teams cannot and will not survive in environments that are overly performance-driven or emotionally unsafe. There is no buffer. No redundancy. When culture deteriorates, absenteeism rises, callouts increase, and disengagements spread. What begins as a staffing challenges becomes very quickly an operational one.

On the other hand, when culture leads, lean teams become remarkably effective. Expectations are clear. Communication is steady. Accountability feels shared and universal rather than imposed. Pride tends to return. Guests feel the difference not in headcount, but in how smoothly experiences unfold. In how confidently problems are handled without defensiveness.

I have seen this repeatedly in practice. In one hotel I worked with, leadership initially believed service inconsistency was caused by being understaffed. The instinct was to add people. Time spent inside the operation revealed something else entirely. Supervisors led differently from shift to shift. Feedback varied depending on who was present. Expectations changed without explanation. The team was not overwhelmed by workload, but by deep uncertainty. Instead of hiring aggressively, leadership focused on alignment. Roles were clarified. Decision authority was defined. Leaders were coached and mentored to absorb pressure rather than transmit it. Communication rhythms stabilized. Within weeks, call-outs dropped noticeably. Guest feedback shifted as well, not because the hotel had more people on the floor, but simply because the people who were there felt grounded and supported. The experience itself became calmer, and guests responded to that calm.

This grounding is also what many visually-driven hospitality concepts lacked from the beginning. Too many restaurants and hotels now are designed primarily to be photographed, the next viral online frenzy, and choose to prioritize perception over structure. When the foundation of an experience is built to be seen rather than repeated, consistency becomes difficult to sustain. Teams are asked to uphold an image without the proper systems, training playbooks, or just decent leadership depth to support it. Guests feel this so quickly. The first visit may impress. The second often disappoints. Execution fluctuates. Service struggles to meet expectations set online. What looks compelling in photos no longer fit reality and lacks depth in delivery. This is important to recognize that craft requires discipline, solid structure and repeatability. This is not a rejection of creativity. Guests are just more educated and informed, perhaps more discerning, not more cynical. They are learning to distinguish between concepts built on solid operational foundations and those built primarily on perception. Craft will hold. Social media Gimmicks will not.

I personally believe consistency only matters if we are clear about what we are trying to keep consistent. In hospitality, it should not be about execution or sameness. What guests are responding to is consistency of experience, and that consistency is helped by presence. Guests don’t expect every interaction to unfold the same way. They don’t need identical words, identical gestures, or identical pacing. Sameness is not what makes an experience reliable. What they are looking for is familiar emotional landscape. A sense that the experience will feel the same way it did before, even as details shift. Presence is what allows that feeling to carry from one visit to the next. Where things begin to fracture is when presence fades. A restaurant that feels calm and grounded one evening, then rushed or distracted the next. A hotel that feels intuitive and generous on one stay, then oddly rigid on the following visit. Nothing is overtly wrong, yet the experience no longer holds the same way because the people delivering it are no longer fully with it.

That subtle instability changes how guests move through the experience. They become more alert. Less forgiving. Less willing to surrender to the flow of the evening or of the stay. Presence declined and the guest senses the difference immediately. Rules and repetition alone do not suffice to enforce the consistency of an experience. It requires people who are paying attention to the guest, to the room, to the moment. When the team is present, they adapt naturally while still honoring the intention of said experience. And when they are not, they lean on sameness to compensate, and that is when the experience tightens. Guests tend to relax these days in places where presence is reliable. They return to environments where experience feels familiar without feeling stale, or where the tone and care remain steady even as circumstances change. And they will quietly and silently disengage from places where each visit feels like a different interpretation of the same idea. You must be present enough to deliver the same feeling every time, that is when it matters truly.

I also think that this same discernment is shaping how people choose where to travel. Most travelers today are traveling with intention and purpose. Restoration. Connection. Reflection. Celebration. Distance from something, or closeness to something else. Travel is no longer simply about escape. It is about fulfilling a specific emotional need. This is where certain hospitality brands have quietly led the way. Auberge Collection, for example, has long understood that experience must align with intention. Their properties are not designed to overwhelm. They are designed to support how guests want to feel in that moment. Service pacing, spatial design, and human interaction work together to create a sense of grounded ease. Contrary to people’s belief, the experience does not compete for attention. It creates much needed space. Guests leave feeling restored rather than stimulated, and that distinction matters more than ever in today’s society.

Experience has overtaken aesthetic. Beauty still matters, but beauty without meaning feels hollow. Guests are no longer asking to be impressed, they are asking to be met where they are at that specific moment in time.

Leadership sits quietly beneath all of this, shaping outcomes whether it is acknowledged or not. Many of the challenges hospitality faces today stem from weak leadership. Not weak in intention, but definitely weak in preparation. People were promoted for individual technical excellence without being equipped to lead humans. Emotional regulation, communication, and self-awareness were assumed rather than taught. This is not about blame. It is simply what happened.

The consequences are real. Teams feel unsupported. Feedback becomes inconsistent. Pressure travels downward unchecked. Guests experience this instability indirectly through tense service, uneven service recovery and cautious interactions met with too much sensitivity. Leadership is a skill set, not a title. And skill sets can certainly be developed. Organizations willing to invest in leadership with the same seriousness they once invested in revenue growth will create environments that are stable and sustainable.

Talking about sustainability, it has followed a similar evolution. What once lived comfortably in marketing language is now expected to show operationally. Guests are not looking for grand declarations, just some genuine alignment. Brands like 1 Hotels, emerging from the Starwood Hotels & Resorts ecosystem, understood early that sustainability had to be built into daily practice, certainly not layered on afterward. Material choices, energy use, waste reduction, and operational discipline became part of the full experience itself. Practice, practice, practice…Not theater, not just in messaging.

Today, guests notice when sustainability informs decisions rather than decorates storytelling. When it becomes part of how a brand thinks rather than how it presents itself. Sustainability practiced honestly, signals long-term thinking. Long-term thinking builds trust. And trust builds loyalty. It is that simple.

I do not think what guests are choosing today is difficult to observe. They return to places that feel intentional. Where service adapts naturally. Where mistakes happen and imperfection is acceptable. Where teams move with confidence. Where leadership shows up as stability, not authority. Hospitality is not losing relevance. It is shedding what no longer serves it. What remains is quieter, more disciplined, and far more human.

Presence is the new luxury; it is not a trend. It is a return to fundamentals. Care cannot be automated. Connection cannot be scripted. Meaning cannot be staged or scheduled.

It must be built deliberately, patiently, one human interaction at a time.