Each of us, whether at work or home, have been found guilty of getting caught paying too much attention to detail. Whether it’s the exact shade of grouting on a DIY project or the paper density on a menu, the devil is indeed in the detail and casting them out is often what lets us move forward to the finished project.
But, protests that devil, it’s the details that matter and none more so in hospitality, where the smallest touch can be a signal to the guest that you care. Years have been spent developing bespoke scents to waft out of hotel doors to create an olfactory connection with passing pedestrians and who’s to know what role that plays in the booking process?
As the sector grows, so too has the debate, driven by the complexity of delivering an investor-friendly product. Optimizing operations means that every business has been broken down into its constituent parts, with a specialist for each one and, while more expertise is always to be welcomed, it has created a competition for attention in which seeing the bigger picture has become harder.
With hospitality moving into the mainstream as an asset class, the temptation has been to see the owner, not the guest, as the customer. As the large, branded players have moved away from ownership and toward fees, they have also moved away from service and into distribution. This is a critical area as the online travel agents continue to spend billions of dollars on marketing every year.
Earlier this year owners struck back, with a group representing around 1,000 hotels writing to Marriott to complain that they were missing out when guests cashed in points earned on the group’s credit card for rooms. Their point was clear; the company’s co-branded credit card fees were $716 million in 2025, making it the most successful program in the sector and one that is forecast to grow. They felt they were owed a cut.
Marriott’s response was to lower loyalty charge-out rates and improve owner reimbursement on high-demand nights, but it was during the most-recent round of results that the impact of the letter showed itself across the industry, with Hilton joining the efforts to keep owners onside.
Hilton President and CEO Chris Nassetta told analysts that the company would ease brand standards, cut loyalty fees and reward hotel owners who achieved good guest satisfaction scores, “incentivizing the right behaviors vis-a-vis delivering the right outcomes for customers.”
This approach was echoed a few days later by Marriott President and CEO Tony Capuano, who applauded the “passion and commitment” of hotel owners and said that, from August, Marriott was rolling out a new Intent To Recommend incentive in the U.S. and Canada that would provide a fee discount for “top hotels that receive strong guest satisfaction scores … [to] benefit all the constituents we serve.” The program would reimburse top-performing hotel owners up to 50 basis points of gross room revenue for achieving the group’s designated guest satisfaction score thresholds.
The pressure behind this decision was not just receiving a difficult letter, it was the strained environment hotels have been operating under for the past decade as costs have risen and margins have shrunk. Over the same period, we have heard a lot about the role of experience in driving loyalty; true loyalty, not the kind you feel when you hit the next level in group program after 1,000 stays.
"Experience" is spoken of extensively but understood little, talked about vaguely at industry conferences using terms such as "magic" and referring to team members who have special hospitality "gifts." With such an air of mystery, it’s no great wonder that the hospitality sector would rather spend its time in the quantifiable area of distribution, lest they face accusations of witchcraft.
As Marriott and Hilton are now illustrating, there is no need to start hunting through the kitchen for eye of newt; satisfaction can have its own line on the P&L. We have proven that food and beverage is one area where revenue growth and experience come together to build profits now and in future bookings. A destination restaurant at your hotel creates a reason for guests to book, a reason to spend on-site and a memorable experience that stays with the guest beyond the visit and into the next time they are telling their friends about the great places they have been.
With all of those factors now tangible, hotel food and beverage is no longer a distracting detail, it is core not only to improving revenue, but to reducing your brand fees. It’s officially OK to start obsessing.
Gabriel Gonzalez is managing director of LIMA London.
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