Marketing & Guest Loyalty

Let’s face it: the standard hotel Instagram post has become all too familiar. A perfectly fluffed bed. A sun-drenched suite. A caption reading something like, Your dream escape awaits. Book now. Sure, the photo might be beautiful. The lighting is just right. But let’s be honest—how often do posts like that actually spark meaningful engagement or drive direct bookings?

Hotel operators have only recently begun mastering digital marketing to effectively reach consumers. Just as many are catching their breath, a new revolution is well underway.

Hotel experiences have become increasingly tailored. Preferences remembered, services preempted, journeys smoothed out by systems that learn as guests move. AI and data analytics make all this possible, but they also raise an unavoidable question: what’s the cost of personalization?

Recently, I wrote an article about the customer service farce. One of several examples I shared was the line we often hear when calling customer support: “Your call is very important to us.” When we hear it, we hope it’s true. We hope it means that the company is going to respect our time, that someone will pick up the call quickly (versus being put on hold for an unreasonable amount of time), and that the agent we talk to will have the knowledge and skills to answer our question or resolve our complaint, and we’ll not have to repeat our story again and again.

Why industry leaders are moving from the traditional marketing playbook in the new community era.

There have been a lot of headlines that traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is dead due to the rise of AI Search via the generative AI platforms. Some experts herald the end of Google’s monopoly on search and claim that traditional SEO practices are obsolete. Others believe that SEO based on best practices is required not only for increased revenues from the direct online channel, but to ensure good positioning of the hotel website in AI search results as well.

By now, hoteliers aren’t just talking about personalization—they’re actively rolling out new strategies to make it happen. In 2025, personalization is the baseline. Guests expect experiences tailored to them—and the hotels that deliver are already seeing the payoff.

The hospitality industry is fiercely competitive. In a world of online travel agents and review sites, it’s more important than ever for hotels to stand out. And where better to do that than on social media?

Hotels across the globe made a remarkable recovery in 2024, reaching a record-high contribution of $11.1 trillion to global GDP. But beyond the numbers, what’s driving this transformation? Hospitality is evolving fast, with guest expectations, AI-driven insights, and online reputation management reshaping the landscape.

As we see time again, the story of a hotel is the story of the people working at the hotel. This is especially true for the luxury hospitality segment where service excellence, exclusive amenities and personalization are hallmarks of an experience worthy of the term ‘luxury’. With so much buzz around personalization these days, what is often missed is the precision of service delivery necessary to execute this attention to detail at scale, for which there’s no truer form of expressing this precision than through customization of the guest journey in a seamless blend of meticulously curated experiences.