The Most Dangerous Divide in Hospitality: When Brand Consultants Collide With Reality

Walk through any major hotel brand's HQ, and you'll hear words like "authentic," "transformative," and "experiential" wafting through rooms like corporate incense. The reality on the ground is often much different.

This isn't just a hospitality problem, but it’s especially painful in this world because the product is so based on a human experience, particularly in vulnerable moments when people are tired, displaced, and dependent on a hotel and its staff for comfort.

Too many marketing teams have become brand tourists rather than brand stewards. They've outsourced the soul of their brands to agencies and consultancies that specialize in creating beautiful strategies that look impressive in PowerPoint but crumble under the weight of the