The Human Resource Playbook for Competing With Alternative Stays

Airbnb and other alternative-stay platforms did more than add inventory to the lodging market. They changed the guest’s frame of reference. A traveler can now choose a home with multiple bedrooms, a kitchen, a neighborhood setting and, in many cases, fewer formal touchpoints. The appeal is control, flexibility and the promise of experiencing a destination more than the accommodation.

Hotels have spent considerable time answering with redesigned rooms, residential-style amenities, mobile technology and new concepts. Those responses matter. But they do not fully address the competitive question. A hotel will rarely "out-house" a house. Nor should it try.

The advantage of a hotel or resort is hospitality itself: the ability to combine consistency, service recovery, shared experiences and genuine human connection. Yet that advantage exists only when the workforce is prepared and empowered to deliver it. A beautiful lobby does not create welcome. A mobile application does not demonstrate empathy.

Clearly, competition from alternative stays is as much of an HR issue as it is an issue for operations or hotel sales. The workforce is the guest experience. The function responsible for how that workforce is designed, recruited, developed and led is helping define the business. There is no denying HR’s significance to the hospitality business model when combatting the AirBnB’s of the world.

Step One: Define the Experience You Are Promising

Every workforce strategy should begin with a basic but important question: Why should a guest choose us?

If the answer is only a room, a bed and a list of amenities, the property is competing where alternatives stays often have the competitive advantage. Why not rent a condo found online if there is not much more being offered by the hotel?

The key is what a hotel or resort can offer that an unstaffed residence cannot: people-led experiences beginning with a thoughtful arrival, informed recommendations, immediate assistance, anticipatory service, meaningful programming and professional recovery when something goes wrong.

HR cannot translate that promise into people practices until leadership defines it clearly. “Provide excellent service” is not enough. What should an associate notice? What decisions may the associate make? What should a guest feel at arrival, during a problem and at departure? Where is consistency essential, and where should personality and discretion enter?

Step Two: Hire Hosts, Storytellers and Problem Solvers

Most alternative stays have no one present to tell the story of the destination or personally solve a problem. A forward-thinking hotel or resort offers its people as the solution. Properties that want to rise above alternative stays (and most of their hotel competitors) must look beyond experience and technical familiarity. They need people with personality: people who can tell stories, read a situation and demonstrate a history of genuinely caring for others.

The better question is not merely, “Has this candidate done the job?” It is, “Can this person create a special moment?”

The employee who creates loyalty may be the front-desk professional who notices that a family has had a difficult travel day and simplifies the arrival. It may be the server who explains the history behind a regional dish. It may be the housekeeper who recognizes a pattern and quietly makes the stay easier. These are not scripted transactions; they are genuine interactions between a guest and an employee who has a "servant heart". These interactions require curiosity, judgment, emotional intelligence and ownership from an employee who cares. Despite their convenience, without a present and engaged host, most alternative stays simply cannot produce those moments. This is an immeasurable advantage for hospitality professionals running hotels.

Recruiting should test for genuine care and interest in service-providing. Behavioral interviews should ask candidates to describe when they noticed an unstated need, recovered a service failure, changed their approach for a different audience or learned enough about a place or product to make it meaningful to someone else.

This is also where “culture fit” should be handled carefully. The goal is not sameness. Hospitality teams benefit from different backgrounds, languages, personalities and life experiences. The objective is alignment around service, accountability and care. When a diverse workforce understands that expectation, associates can create an amazing guest experience from their varying points of view and backgrounds.

Step Three: Design a Service-Oriented Workforce

Alternative stays benefit from a relatively simple labor model. Hotels do not. They operate around the clock, across departments, with demand that may shift by season, day part, occupancy, events and weather.

That complexity makes deliberate workforce planning essential. Every position, domestic, seasonal, international, full-time or part-time, should have a defined operational purpose. Bringing people in as general “fill-in” labor and deciding later where to place them is expensive and destabilizing. It can create overtime in one area while hours are underutilized in another. A hotel trying to distinguish itself from alternative stays cannot afford to sacrifice strategic workforce planning.

HR and Finance should understand the full cost of each staffing strategy, not merely the hourly wage. Recruiting, housing, transportation, legal and visa expenses, overtime exposure, training time and management capacity all belong in the analysis. International programs can provide valuable skill and stability, but they should be used intentionally, with associates slotted into real positions and schedules before arrival. Domestic recruiting deserves the same rigor, including whether a slightly higher wage, housing support or a stronger supervisor could produce a better total result.

Cross-training also matters, but it should not become a substitute for planning. Flexibility is valuable when associates are trained, compensated correctly and clear about expectations. The purpose is not simply to control labor by slashing and cutting. It is, instead, to place the right labor where it can produce the strongest guest and business outcome.

Step Four: Turn Onboarding Into Destination and Culture Integration

Leaving alternative stays behind is built on creating an amazing experience. People can deliver that experience only when expectations are established early and carried forward. That is why onboarding must move beyond forms, policies and a property tour.

Associates should learn the story of the organization, the character of the destination and the experience the property is trying to create. They should know what is happening beyond the front door: neighborhoods, attractions, restaurants, traditions and lesser-known experiences appropriate to different guests.

More importantly, they should understand how to use that knowledge. Reciting a list is not hospitality. Asking two good questions and making a recommendation that fits the guest is.

Onboarding should therefore include scenarios, property immersion and practice. What does a family need on a rainy day? How might a couple celebrate an anniversary without a formal itinerary? What can an associate do when a guest’s room is not ready? Which decisions can be made immediately, and when should a leader become involved? This is integration, not orientation. It teaches associates how the brand thinks when the answer is not printed in a manual. That is how a hotel becomes more than another place to put a head in a bed.

Step Five: Make Managers the Culture Carriers

No service initiative survives inconsistent management.

Managers are where strategy becomes the daily experience. They set schedules, review overtime, reinforce standards, release labor when business levels change and decide whether a service problem becomes a coaching moment or is quietly ignored. They also determine whether associates feel trusted enough to exercise judgment.

In a twenty-four (24) hour operation, managers cannot be reduced to schedule builders and problem escalators. They must be visible culture carriers. That means modeling the desired experience, conducting purposeful pre-shift conversations, coaching in real time and addressing misalignment early.

Managers also need to thoroughly understand the operation. An associate cannot deliver warm, unhurried service when the schedule is poorly constructed, the department is chronically short-staffed or avoidable overtime has exhausted the team. Conversely, more labor does not automatically create better service. Managers must be able to adjust staffing to actual demand while protecting the moments that matter most to the guest.

Step Six: Use Technology to Create More Human Time

Technology should make hospitality more human, not simply less staffed.

Artificial intelligence, mobile check-in, forecasting tools and automated communication can remove friction, anticipate preferences and reduce repetitive work. Used well, they give associates more time to notice, converse, recommend and recover. People are not removed from the workforce; the tools are used to enhance the service people can provide. Used poorly, they can create a property that feels efficient but emotionally empty.

The correct question is not whether technology can perform a task. It is whether automating that task improves the guest experience and allows people to contribute where human judgment matters most. A system may identify a returning guest’s preference. An associate decides how to acknowledge it without making the interaction feel mechanical. A chatbot may answer a routine question. A leader must still recognize when frustration, vulnerability or complexity requires a person.

HR should be involved in technology decisions because every automation changes roles, skills and expectations. Teams need training not only on how to operate a tool, but on what they are expected to do with the time and information it creates.

Step Seven: Treat the Associate Experience as Part of the Product

Guests recognize the connection between the employee experience and their own experience. They notice when a team appears depleted, disconnected or afraid to make a decision.

Competitive hospitality therefore requires more than asking associates to care. The organization must create conditions in which care is sustainable. Fair scheduling, functional tools, safe working conditions, clear communication, reasonable workloads and respectful leadership are not separate from service strategy. They are its foundation.

This does not mean avoiding accountability. In fact, healthy cultures are clear about standards. Not every service failure violates a policy, but a dismissive tone, lack of ownership or indifference can still damage the brand. Managers must have the courage to coach those moments and, when necessary, address continued misalignment.

Recognition matters as well. Properties should celebrate associates who demonstrate judgment, recover trust, share local knowledge or support another department—not only those mentioned by name in a survey. What gets recognized becomes a practical definition of what the organization values.

Step Eight: Measure What the Guest Actually Experiences

Most hotel scorecards already track occupancy, labor, turnover, guest satisfaction and online reputation. The opportunity is to connect them.

If turnover rises in a department, what happens to service recovery, overtime and guest comments? If onboarding is strengthened, do new-hire retention and guest recognition improve? If managers receive better labor training, does the property reduce avoidable overtime without weakening the experience? If technology removes a process step, do associates create more meaningful guest contact or simply absorb another task? The goal is not a larger dashboard. It is a more useful conversation.

HR metrics should help leaders understand whether the workforce can deliver the brand promise. That requires examining patterns by property, department, position, manager and season rather than relying only on company-wide averages. A healthy total applicant pool can conceal a difficult recruiting market for the positions that most directly affect the guest. An acceptable turnover number can conceal instability under one manager.

Accountability becomes constructive when leaders can see the relationship between people decisions, operational execution and the guest’s experience.

The Competitive Advantage Is Hospitality

Alternative stays will remain an important part of the lodging landscape. They offer real benefits, and hotels do not strengthen themselves by dismissing those benefits or attempting to imitate them superficially.

The better response is to become more intentional about what hotels uniquely do well.

Recruit for curiosity, judgment and care. Build a workforce plan rather than filling vacancies in isolation. Integrate associates into the destination and the culture. Develop managers who can balance labor discipline with service leadership. Use technology to create more human time. Protect the associate experience. Measure whether people practices are producing the experience promised to the guest.

None of these are stand-alone HR initiatives. They are business imperatives.

Guests have more choice, more information and more control than ever before. A hotel cannot always offer the largest space, the most private setting or the fewest touchpoints. It can offer something a non-staffed alternative cannot: people who recognize the guest, interpret the moment and take responsibility for making it better. That is hospitality’s advantage.

Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from www.HotelExecutive.com.