Lodging as infrastructure to experience the world

Plus: #MyHospitalityStory and "servitization" in the hospitality industry

October 21, 2021

Hospitality Daily is a summary of stories for busy people who want to get better each day at providing hospitality.

Today, you’ll find:

  • Lodging as infrastructure to experience the world

  • “Servitization” in hospitality

  • How less is more in F&B

  • #MyHospitalityStory

Lodging as infrastructure to experience the world

John Andrew Entwistle wrote about lodging as “infrastructure to experience the world” in a blog today to announce a funding round for his company, Wander.

It was early 2021, and I went to a cabin in Colorado to decompress after stepping down as CEO from my previous company. The place was disappointing. It looked nothing like the photos online, the internet didn’t work and the beds were uncomfortable. The trip was supposed to be a relaxing escape, but it felt like the opposite. There had to be a better way –– an entirely new kind of travel experience that would allow you to seamlessly transition between work and play.

Whether you run a vacation rental or a hotel or an all-inclusive resort, I like this positioning as lodging being both a home base and a springboard into adventure. For me, that’s where hospitality is always at its best: helping people live life more fully.

Enabling guests to seamlessly transition between work and play is another theme I expect more hospitality providers to pick up on. I saw the Four Seasons Whistler promoting packages supporting this during my recent stay, and feel there is a significant opportunity in catering to location-independent workers now.

“Servitization” in hospitality

Today, guests expect a consumer-centric hospitality experience from the word go. They want new experiences, faster customer service, ... and the list goes on. How can operators meet these needs?

Through “servitization” says the EHL group in a recent article.

It’s a term that emerged in the 1980s in manufacturing to describe adding services to product-focused businesses to provide customers with the desired outcome continually. And it’s something that is conducive to the experiential nature of hospitality.

An example? AI-driven chatbots that analyze data from various sources (guest interactions with the hotel, food preferences, purchase history, spa, and amenity usage, etc.) to help hotel operators provide a more personalized experience to their guests.

When more data is available for the chatbots to learn from, the easier it becomes for a restaurant to provide customized services to its customers. Besides that, chatbots have a quick response time. This means guests can receive answers to various questions quickly the same way they would when speaking with a knowledgeable person face-to-face.

Less is more in F&B?

In a recent Lodging Conference panel, Hilton’s global head of F&B Adam Crocini shared that less is more.

“In May 2020, we started hearing back from ownership and pivoted to create a new breakfast experience for Hampton and Homewood that focused on finding out what the consumer really wanted. It didn’t have to be 70 items.”

The result? Higher guest satisfaction scores and a model that will continue post-pandemic.

#MyHospitalityStory

My former colleague David Gerrard recently shared:

The most important thing a Product Manager can do is listen to market problems. For hotels the world over, one of the greatest problems today is gaining and retaining staff following the pandemic.

When I was first starting out in hospitality, one of my biggest blindspots was not knowing about the excellent potential careers that were possible in our industry.

That’s why I’m launching a #myhospitalitystory campaign, to showcase the various types of careers available in hospitality.

Would love to hear your story!

Tweet of the day

If you’re working on something you’d like me to share here - or come across a story of someone providing exceptional hospitality - let me know by replying to this email ([email protected]).

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And that’s it, folks! Go out there and make someone’s day today.