It is both frustrating and amusing to watch hotels and hotel groups scramble over each other as they look for the next Big Thing that will give them the edge over everyone else. But as soon as one hotel group finds a new piece of technology or a new way to use the internet, they all copy each other and then every hotel group becomes exactly the same again. Hoteliers have become so programmed to think in terms of technology and the internet that they cannot see any other possible direction to go in to find the next Big Thing. The blind are leading the blind.
The irony is that the next Big Thing is closer to them than their life’s vein. The irony is that while reading this article hoteliers are literally staring at the next Big Thing that will revolutionize the guest experience, and increase their hotel’s revenue or their hotel group’s success. But the problem lies with the inability or unwillingness of hoteliers to accept something that flies in the face of tradition.
What is the next Big Thing? It is using energy to create the guest experience – thought energy and heart field energy. … See what I mean? Immediately, you probably felt disappointed and no doubt thought, “This is nonsense. I have no time for this rubbish!” You were probably hoping for something more tangible than that. Something you could see pictures of on a website and buy.
It does not surprise me that hoteliers reject such a suggestion. In my opinion, hospitality has become so westernized that it has been stripped of its essential components of loving-kindness and compassion. These have been replaced by emotionless SOP manuals, emotionless policies and procedures about how to care for guests, and emotionless technology. Love has become a persona non grata in hospitality, which itself has been downgraded to an almost robotic experience that focuses on satisfying guests according to emotionless SOPs. But yet hoteliers still want their lives to be filled with the energy of love and compassion. “Oh, but that’s different!” I hear you cry. “Nonsense!” is my reply.
Yes, the next Big Thing is intangible, and this is no doubt why no hotel group has discovered it yet. They are all looking for something they can touch. As a result, they are all looking in the wrong places, copying their competitors who are doing the same.
Machines can photograph and film energy and measure it, and you can feel it, but you cannot see it with your eyes unless you have been trained to do so. You can see the effects of thought energy and heart energy on healing illness at great distances. You can use energy at great distances to make plants grow faster or make water healthier to drink, and you can feel it. But you cannot see it, and this seems to be the essential problem for corporate people. “How can it be the next Big Thing if you can’t see it?”
So hoteliers continue to look for the one tangible item that will give them the edge; something they can touch or something they can see on a computer screen. Perhaps the problem is that the concept of using energy to create the guest experience is just too advanced for the hotel industry at the moment. But that can’t be right because a farmer who has never been to school can understand and use energy to make his crops grow better.
The problem is also that it is not corporately respectable to talk about energy. No 50+-year old corporate person will endanger his company pension by standing out on a limb and saying something like, “Why don’t we use thought energy or the heart energy field to change the guest experience?” or “I would like to suggest that we increase the energy of love in our hotels.” Fellow corporate folks will question his sanity or advise him to take a day off. People will snigger in the Corridors of Power as they walk past him while whispering, “Poor chap!” and “So, he’s the one.”
So, hoteliers continue to look for the Next Big Thing in all the wrong places, but in the respectable places. Currently, the belief seems to be that technology is the Next Big Thing. But still the spirit of hospitality has not changed for the better, has it? Design, the Lobby layout, the bed, bathroom amenities, minibar, colours, and smells have been tried, but they didn’t change the guest experience much, did they?
Yes, I’m the child in The Emperor’s Clothing who pointed out that the Emperor was naked. Yes, I’m a rebel who dares to question the path that the industry’s coveted leaders are taking the industry down. The hotel industry needs rebels. Lots of them!
Here is another way to look at the situation. I’d like to tell you the story called The Piano Principle by Brad Yates.
“Imagine walking into someone’s home, and finding the living room dominated by a beautiful grand piano. You ask your hosts for a recital, to which they reply that they don’t play. As you run your hand over the sleek exterior of this magnificent instrument, you think to yourself, ‘What a shame…’
I think human beings are like grand pianos – incredible creations capable of producing wonderful music. But too often that potential goes untapped. We think that greatness is meant for someone else, that we don’t have the talent (the looks, the money, the time, the breaks…) And so we live lives ‘of quiet desperation’, occasionally entertaining thoughts of ‘what if…?’
What if Mozart had hidden his talent? (Or Bowie, or, moving from music, Edison or Gandhi or anyone else who has made a positive difference.) I’m not saying that everyone should feel compelled to live that big, but if one has that inkling… It seems a shame that, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ‘The average person goes to their grave with their music still in them.’
Imagine a world where people felt free to share their grandest music and make a huge positive difference. Or, at the least, were free from the negativity that causes them to hurt themselves and others. Consider what would be possible. So, look for ways to enhance your music-making capabilities – I encourage you to continue to make powerful choices as you reach ever-greater levels of success.”
The hotel industry’s grandest music is still hidden inside it. But hoteliers don’t want to break out of the confines of tradition. Nobody dares to go over to the piano and touch the ivories. Every hotel group seems to have satisfied itself with being normal, and is happy to sit staring at the piano like everyone else. Is this the legacy you want to leave the industry? Is this what you want to tell your grandchildren about your decades as an hotelier? Is this what you want people to say about your life at your funeral? Would it make you feel proud? “He would have been a great hotelier, if he had only dared to be different.”
If you want scientific proof that thought energy and heart field energy can influence people, spaces, buildings, and the environment, there is all the scientific proof you could possibly want available. Stop listening to the proponents of tradition as they are just making sure that hotels everywhere stay so similar to each other. The hotel industry is looking in all the wrong places for the next Big Thing. The next Big Thing is energy.
I’ll leave you with Marianne Williamson’s poem, “Our Greatest Fear”, to think about:
“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
