As Afar’s resident hotel expert, I spend most of my year covering what’s new and next in the world of hospitality. (Check out our Hotels We Love series and Stay Here Next reviews.) And once a year, I get to spend four days interviewing leaders from the world’s top hotel brands, cruise lines, and trip-planning companies, when they come together at a conference called the International Luxury Travel Marketplace in Cannes, France. The information they share paints a picture not only of travel trends—but also of how those trends will shape your travels in the coming years.
One of the most insightful conversations this year took place at a roundtable that Afar hosted with leaders from three of the biggest hotel brands: Hyatt, Hilton, and Intercontinental. Our conversation ranged from tech to sustainability to loyalty programs. Here are four key takeaways that all travelers need to know about.
Panel:
Crystal Vinisse Thomas, Vice President - Global Brand Leader, Lifestyle and Luxury Brands, Hyatt
Jane Mackie, SVP of Luxury, Lifestyle, and Premium Brands at Intercontinental Hotels Group
Dino Michael, SVP and Global Head, Hilton Luxury Brands
These excerpts have been edited for clarity.
Travelers want experiences that money can’t buy, and hotels are trying to provide them.
Crystal Vinisse Thomas, Hyatt: What we’ve been seeing is, particularly within the luxury segment, [travelers] want experiences that will change them more than experiences that are just something I can post on Instagram. How will I see or gain a different perspective of the world and my place in it in a different way? How do I have an experience that shows me how meaningful it is to be alive and to live in this world that has so many things to offer that I haven’t seen? And how do you as a hospitality company enable that for me and the destination? We are selling a product, but we’re also selling the experience.
Jane Mackie, Intercontinental: One of our more popular experiences at Six Senses Ibiza is the silent tour. It’s just a trek through the hills with a local Ibiza guide and it’s purely in silence. And then the guide will say, “Now you can speak, we’re heading back.” And often [travelers] say, actually, could we go back in silence as well? Because they’re just really loving that experience. That’s something money cannot buy. The value they’re getting out of it is that sense of personal transformation.
Hotels are using AI to complement—rather than take away from—the human side of hospitality.
Dino Michael, Hilton: [Travelers] want the interaction. Yes, you’ll communicate 90 percent of the time on text or WhatsApp or WeChat, the messaging platforms, but they do want the personal interaction. They’re happy to sit down with us and listen to our teams when they want true insider knowledge, and great if AI can also help predict when housekeeping should enter a room and when not to, and if it can help with major preplanning through AI on a trip. The analog part comes in when you get to a hotel, and you sit down with someone, and you refine that experience. I think the two should sit comfortably side by side, especially in luxury when we’re always going to have the touch, the analog, the bespoke, the personalization.
Mackie: [AI] is an “and,” and not an “instead of,” particularly in luxury. [We use] something called Kipsu, a text-based technology that’s like Uber in that it automatically translates. So, you’re not dealing with a language barrier. So, usually you’ll get a text if you’ve opted in as a guest when you get to your room. It’ll say, Do you need anything else? And you can reply in English or whatever. And the extra hangers or whatever it is you may have requested, up it comes and you’re not dealing with language, or maybe you prefer text. Or maybe you prefer the phone call. It’s just giving people more options.
Travelers expect the hotels they choose to be good neighbors.
Thomas: It’s all about the dialogue that you have with the community you’re in. I never want to be that brand that simply comes in and puts our awning up. It has to be intentional. A lot of that starts before the doors ever open. Once the general manager is selected, one of the first jobs is to be embraced by and immersed in that community. One of our guiding principles is, be a good neighbor. At our property in Fort Bishangarh, they fund the schools in the village that surround it, and there are generations of colleagues who’ve worked at the hotel, so the hotel doesn’t feel like a place to work, it feels like their home. That ends up being translated to the guest. When you have an authentic relationship with the community you’re around, guests can feel that. Speaking as a millennial, we can see right through it if you don’t have it.
Michael: If you think about some of the new territories that all of us go into, you’re building economy and providing income, security, stability. We’re fortunate that we come from large organizations where we have strong ethical practices in the way we think about our employees first and foremost, the way we develop and we craft our team member facilities, our benefits, even our Hilton employee rate. We have a program where a certain dollar amount goes to an employee assistance fund, so we have mechanics that allow us to support employees in times of crisis. Secondly, we work with owners generally who are from that area, and they have an overriding obligation to make sure they’re doing the right thing for their community. So I think it’s a partnership. It’s not all down to us. We have the right owners and partners, and they want to make the right impact.
Travelers want to be recognized for their loyalty beyond just earning points—and hotels are adapting.
Mackie: The big change we made [in our loyalty program] was the element of choice with each stay. You can choose which extra amenity you want. Maybe on this trip you want the extra points, and on the next one you may want free breakfast. So giving that flexibility and element of choice. . . . And let’s face it, they also want the upgrade. They want some of those tangibles as well. And if they’re recognized at arrival, they will anticipate they’re having a better experience than if they weren’t loyal to you.
Thomas: The customization part is important and, to take it a step further, what we realize with our loyalty members is they care about the people around them as well, especially like the road warrior who is away from home and maybe wants to extend their status to somebody else because they never get to use it outside of business. So, if my mom is traveling and I’m a World of Hyatt globalist, I can extend my globalist benefit to her. [Travelers] love that ability to be able to say, OK, I’m not going to use this benefit that you’re giving me because I’m traveling so much, and I’m expensing most of my things, so I can use the points and the free nights in a different way.
Michael: The key to unlocking loyalty is really making [travelers] feel as though they belong. That has never changed. You joined because you want to feel like you’re part of something, and you’re recognized for that. And AI will help us get those preferences even more ingrained. It’d be great if we know what side of the bed you sleep on for turndown or know we’ve got the right pronouns. If you’ve got same-sex couples traveling, you might have a “his and his” or “hers and hers” hat versus having “his and hers.” That level of granularity, I think, is where loyalty is really going to come into it.
