This isn’t advice. This isn’t a framework. This is a letter that no hotel would ever be brave enough to publish but every good hotel would quietly agree with. Read this as a guest. Read this as an owner. Read this as someone who actually cares about hospitality and not just the optics around it.
Dear Guest,
We love welcoming you. Truly. We love the energy you bring when you arrive excited, curious and open to the experience. But there are things we’re tired of pretending don’t exist.
We’re tired of being treated like a product instead of a place filled with people. We’re tired of one imperfect moment outweighing one hundred thoughtful ones. We’re tired of being compared to the hotel you stayed at five years ago in a different country, with a different price point, a different culture and a different reality.
We’re tired of guests saying they want authenticity, then punishing us when things feel human instead of scripted. We’re tired of being told we’re too expensive by people who still expect perfection, personalisation and instant gratification. We’re tired of being judged through a screen by people who haven’t even arrived yet.
What many of you misunderstand is this. Hospitality is not a switch we flip. It’s a relationship we maintain. It’s built by people who work long hours, miss holidays, absorb stress and still show up with warmth. It’s shaped by staffing realities, supply chains, training, culture, leadership and, yes, margins.
What many of you don’t see is how much care goes into the moments that feel effortless to you. The room that’s ready. The breakfast that appears. The problem quietly solved before you ever know it existed. When you reduce us to a star rating or a comment typed in frustration, you’re not reviewing a building. You’re impacting people.
We don’t need blind loyalty. We don’t need perfection. We need understanding. We need patience. We need guests who remember that hospitality only works when it’s a two-way exchange of respect.
Signed, A Hotel That Still Cares
Now here’s the uncomfortable truth. Hotels can do better. Guests can do better. But the real gap in this industry isn’t luxury versus budget or boutique versus big brand. It’s empathy. And until both sides acknowledge that hospitality is built by humans for humans, we’ll keep confusing entitlement for experience and perfection for care.
