Customer Experience: not a service, but an obsession

In continuation of my last post on AI and its role in hotel search, I came across several articles and figures highlighting the convergence of two major trends: artificial intelligence and customer experience.

OTAs and artificial intelligence have made access to hotel offers completely uniform. Finding a room or comparing a price has become a simple and immediate gesture. But what the customer is looking for today is no longer just a booking: it is an experience.

Emirates is the perfect example. The airline invests billions each year to transform a plane ticket into a luxury pause, a moment of exception. It no longer sells transport, but emotion. In hospitality, the logic is identical: the guest wants a memory of their journey, not just a bed for the night.

This memory is built in the details. The welcome at reception, the room designed as a cocoon of comfort, the breakfast conceived as a moment of discovery, and the hotel services that extend the stay into unique experiences. Every interaction is an opportunity to create emotion, and it is this emotion that drives loyalty.

The figures confirm this trend. In 2025, customer satisfaction reached 86%, a record. Response times to reviews have halved in three years. More than half of travellers reduce their loyalty if personalisation is absent. The hotel sector now contributes over 11 trillion dollars to global GDP, and the three essential “C”s for guests are comfort, control and convenience.

In a market where technology makes the offer interchangeable, an obsession with customer experience becomes the only true strategic lever. Hotels that understand this will no longer sell rooms, but stories to live.

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