Hospes

Dear Executive:The gap between brand promise and lived experience continues to widen not from neglect, but from miscommunication. The missing piece is experiential communication: the emotional consistency that links promise to perception. Hospitality is not proclaimed, it is lived. The measure of excellence resides in what guests see, feel, and sense—the unspoken moments where authenticity or artifice reveals itself.

The Experience Is the MessageBrands like Marriott, Wyndham, and others have earned global reputations for hospitality leadership. Yet that pride too often halts at the lobby doors. Guests encounter dazzling branding but diminishing congruence. The check-in smile fades when lighting feels cold, furniture tired, and service indifferent. True communication happens between the lines through scent, sound, texture, and gesture. When those sensory notes fall out of tune, trust unravels. Loyalty does not dissolve overnight; it dissolves by degrees of disconnect.

The drive for size and efficiency has thinned the fabric of care. Mass expansion has eclipsed design quality, individualized service, and a sense of human pride. “Pay less, gain more” may please short-term investors, but the hidden cost is the erosion of spirit that no marketing campaign can mask. Declarations like “It’s an honor to serve you” ring hollow amid neglected rooms and weary spatial narrative. Communication collapses when words and experiences part ways. The result? Guests who no longer believe what they’re told because they no longer feel what they’re promised. Meanwhile, smaller boutique brands thrive precisely because their story and setting speak in harmony. From lobby to lavatory, their message is felt, not forced: We’re honored to have you here.

Hospitality begins and ends with knowing how it feels to be the one paying, waiting, hoping for care. To see is to design through the eyes of the guest: to look with empathy, not ego. To serve is to lead through genuine presence, where every human interaction reflects pride and gratitude, not procedure. To surprise is not spectacle; it is sincerity catching someone off guard. It is the unexpected warmth of a gesture, the quiet precision that makes a traveler pause, take notice, and smile. Delight is differentiation—the emotional imprint that drives return and remembrance. When leaders see clearly and serve authentically, surprise emerges not as strategy but as consequence.

Dear Designer:Design speaks long before a greeting is exchanged. Every surface, tone, and transition communicates a story—authenticity or apathy, belonging or neglect. Hospitality is, at its heart, emotional architecture, a dialogue told through light, material, and gesture. Too often, the story feels fractured. Brands preach warmth yet deliver sterility; they promise connection but design dissonance... design betrays the story.

Grandeur at entry and fatigue by the elevator ride is an abhorrent collapse of narrative. The plot flatlines when lighting drains rather than uplifts. Hallways that feel like compromises compromise the ending and guest senses it immediately. Care should not be silenced by cost control. Every texture is a message, every shadow a whisper of intention or indifference. The sensory contract cannot be voided because of the budget.

True hospitality lives where consistency meets compassion, where design and service breathe the same message. To restore design’s humanity, the industry must treat every sensory detail as dialogue—one that says, again and again, You are valued here.

See. Serve. Surprise.Across every scale, brand, and space, the future of hospitality lies in fulfilling this simple triad. To see through the guest’s eyes. To serve with humility and integrity. To surprise with delight that lingers long after departure. The experience—the visual, the tactile, the audible, the olfactory— is, and always will be, the message... constantly in the ear of the guest, whispering what marketing collateral cannot.

Need help? Seek it. But for the love of hospitality, and all that's decent, stop sweeping the design and experience shortcomings under the rug hoping no one notices.