What Hotels Say They Want vs. What They Actually Do

I've spent 25 years listening to what hotels say they want. I hear things like ‘innovation’, ‘differentiation’, ‘direct relationships with guests’, ‘better conversion’, and ‘reduced dependency on intermediaries’.

I've also spent 25 years watching what hotels actually do, and there's often a gap.

This isn't a criticism. Hotels operate under real constraints, from ownership pressures and operational complexity, to risk aversion and budget limitations. Understanding why the gap exists often matters more than pointing it out.

But if you're trying to work with hotels — as a vendor, a partner, an advisor — understanding this gap is essential. Otherwise, you'll keep building for what hotels say they want and wondering why adoption is slow.

The Pattern

The pattern goes something like this:

Hotels identify a problem — OTA dependency, poor conversion, undifferentiated guest experience. They express interest in solutions, attend conferences, take meetings, participate in pilots.

Then, when it comes to actual implementation, things slow down. Budgets don't materialise, priorities shift, the pilot doesn't scale, and the innovation that seemed urgent becomes something for "next year."

I've watched this happen from multiple angles. As an agency leader negotiating with hotels, as a tech founder trying to sell innovation, and as an advisory board member hearing the same challenges discussed year-after-year.

The pattern is remarkably consistent.

Why the Gap Exists

Several factors contribute to what appears like ground hog day.

Ownership complexity. Hotel operations often sit between brands, management companies, and property owners — each with different incentives. A general manager might want to innovate, but the owner wants cost control, and the brand wants consistency. Getting alignment is genuinely difficult, as is getting the ear of an extremely busy general manager.

Risk aversion. Hospitality is a conservative industry. The cost of getting something wrong — a system failure, a guest complaint, a brand inconsistency — feels bigger than the benefit of getting something right. The incentive structure favours caution.

Short-term pressure. Hotels operate on daily, weekly, monthly performance cycles. Metrics such as RevPAR, occupancy, and ADR demand immediate attention. Longer-term investments in guest experience or direct booking capability compete with today's seemingly more urgent demands.

Vendor fatigue. Hotels have been sold a lot of technology that didn't deliver. Promises of transformation that turned into implementation headaches, so the scepticism isn’t surprising because it has come with experience. New solutions have to overcome their own challenges as well as the residual distrust from everything that came before. This is something I have experienced both as an agency director and the cofounder of a hospitality technology business.

Post-Pandemic Regression

The pandemic offered an interesting test case. During lockdowns and recovery, hotels had space to rethink and guest expectations changed. Direct relationships became more valuable, and there was a genuine openness to change.

However, what I observed was a pattern of regression. As occupancy returned and hotels were short on staff creating pressure around securing occupancy and the ability to deliver to customer expectations, many hotels reverted to familiar habits. The distribution mix shifted back toward OTAs, and the experimentations with guest experience slowed. The focus returned to filling rooms.

This isn't irrational, especially not after almost two years of record low occupancies when the world was barely allowed to travel. When you're under pressure, you often go with what you know works. Better the devil you know. But it does illustrate the gap between stated aspirations and operational reality.

The Implication for Anyone Working With Hotels

If you're building products for hotels, advising hotels, or partnering with hotels, this gap has practical implications.

Expect longer timelines. What feels like an obvious solution to you may take years to reach adoption. The sales cycle reflects the decision-making complexity, not a lack of interest.

Understand the stakeholders. The person you're talking to may genuinely want what you're offering, but they may not control the budget, the IT infrastructure, or the brand guidelines. Mapping the actual decision-making process matters and you will need to understand whether someone is simply displaying ego when they say they are the decision-maker. It’s rarely the decision of just one person.

Prove value in their terms. Hotels care about conversion, revenue, operational efficiency, guest satisfaction. Abstract benefits don't land, but specific, measurable outcomes do. As a hospitality software vendor, we were once warned by the corporate office of a major international hotel chain ‘not to sell on impact and sustainability’ despite it being a major benefit of our solution, a stated brand objective, and of increasing importance to their end customers.

Be patient with pilots. A successful pilot doesn't automatically mean scale. There are layers of approval, budget cycles, competing priorities. The path from pilot to rollout is rarely linear. We trialled our hospitality solution with three hotels from a large global hotel chain and it took four-years from that trial to secure a contract with them to scale up the solution across two majors brands in their portfolio. Value takes time to demonstrate and patience. Pilots need to be repeated in different locations where challenges may differ, enabling trust to be built in the solution.

The Opportunity in the Gap

The gap between what hotels say and what they do isn't just an obstacle, it's also an opportunity.

Hotels genuinely do want the things they say they want. The constraints are real, but they're not permanent. The hotels that figure out how to close the gap — how to actually implement the innovations they talk about — will have significant advantages.

And the partners who understand the gap — who build for the reality of hotel decision-making rather than the aspiration — will be better positioned to help.

The question isn't whether hotels mean what they sae because they usually do. The question is whether you understand what it takes to turn intention into action.

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Alan Newton has spent 25 years working with hotels — as an agency procurement leader, a hospitality tech founder, and an advisory board contributor for major hotel brands. He advises hotels and hospitality technology companies on strategy and go-to-market.