There is a significant wind of change blowing, which seems to have blindsided all the hotel industry visionaries and gurus, namely the demise of the current guest experience concept called SOP-Customer Satisfaction, and its replacement with energetic Heart-Based hospitality.
In my opinion, the whole hotel industry is looking in the wrong direction for the Next Big Thing because everyone is copying each other’s thinking about the contribution of technology, mobile devices, and software.
Everyone is focused outwards on material things in order to find the Next Big Thing, but ironically it is closer to us than one’s life vein. The Next Big Thing is inside us, but corporate people cannot see this because it is not fashionable, politically correct, or even corporately respectable enough to look for it inside.
The revolution in the hotel industry will come when hoteliers apply ancient wisdom about energy, and scientific research into energy and the power of the heart-brain, in order to create the guest experience, and stop copying the obsolete guest experience paradigm and concept of the big hotel chains, which is based on the obsolete, 17th century Newtonian worldview. The revolution will come when hospitality is allowed to return to its spiritual origin and essence, which is in loving-kindness, compassion, and genuinely heart-warming care. Unconditional love has been booted out of hospitality by the money- and shareholder-oriented model.
The whole discussion about OTAs vs Chain Hotels will change dramatically as a result of the revolution because the intransigent, big chain hotels will decline while the flexible, small hotel groups and independent hotels will dominate the industry. But nobody can see this revolution coming, not even the gurus and visionaries. Even if they could, would they dare to say something so politically incorrect at a major hotel conference attended by representatives of the big chains? They would surely be banned from speaking ever again at the big conferences. Their “guru” credentials might even be cancelled.
The hotel industry is going to be transformed when the guest experience concept is changed from the old-style, emotionless, mechanical, shareholder-oriented approach of SOP-Customer Satisfaction. This is going to be a huge disruptor and it will lead to a massive change in the hotel industry.
Hoteliers know that something is wrong with the guest experience, and every effort to find a solution with material means is failing. Hoteliers will not be able to solve the problem with the same kind of thinking, which caused it in the first place. Change is coming in a big way, but The Emperor’s New Clothes paradigm prevails. Who will be the first visionary or guru to dare to point this out?
