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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #98: Micro-Changes in Guest Experience for Macro Revenues | with Danica Smith
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to another episode of the GAIN Momentum Podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, food service, travel, and technology. Very special episode today. I'm here by my co-host, Zoe Koumbouzi, and we are here interviewing a fellow lead gain advisor, focusing on guest experience design. Danica Smith. Danica, how are you?
Danica Smith: Hi. Thanks for having me guys. It's nice to be on this side. I've seen your work. Adam and Zoe, I'm loving all of your podcast and LinkedIn live, so thanks for having me. I'm excited for the questions and to dive straight into it.
Adam Mogelonsky: Let's dive straight in.
Zoe Koumbouzi: Fantastic. Also happy to be here today with two amazing colleagues. What fun. Um, first question, Danika, so we, we've worked a long time on hotel and travel technology, but what is it that excites you about the industry?
Danica Smith: The people. The people. Look how much fun. We've just giggled in the preset call for this, Adam, like we were meant to start 20 minutes ago. Uh, so. Um, I realized at certain moments in my career and ITB was one of them and it was, uh, a very infamous, uh, after party and it was 4:00 AM on the dance floor and I saw my whole LinkedIn feed on the dance floor. And I thought, okay, everybody in this industry, operator, hotel side, travel side, we all have so much in common. You know, we're fun people, slightly crazy like to party and love to travel. And so I think everybody that I've had the pleasure of, you know, making friends, acquaintances, it's the people that makes everything I do so exciting.
And, uh, I feel very privileged to work in such a vibrant industry. And that's just the people, I mean the innovation. Has been the best year in terms of guest experience. So the innovation is super exciting, but you can get that in lots of other industries as well. So for me, hospitality, it's the people.
Zoe Koumbouzi: Definitely, I do think it brings together a really unusual bunch and I think, you know, we've done a lot in hospitality tech, but this year travel tech has also been on the horizon. So, you know, we went to the Future Travel Summit and it was really interesting to branch out and see what other things people are doing in our industry.
Don't you think?
Danica Smith: Yeah, and it's still very siloed though. I've thought about that a lot. Um, you know, and IC certainly on both the tech vendor side and the operator side. I mean, so many. I did a, a round table event with CIOs and the main takeaway was we need to look at, you know, other industries, travel airlines. And we've been saying that from revenue management, from distribution, from check-in online, look at the airlines, but we never had the opportunity to.
And when there is a conference like that, there's so much talk, but we need more of that cross pollination. And then I'm not even talking about retail and FinTech, just wi with our fellow travel, uh, industries would be a good start. And I think just scratching the surface of that and hopefully 2026 will bring more cross pollination with those sister industries.
Zoe Koumbouzi: Definitely. It's like we're always saying the airlines do it this way. The airlines do it that way. But when's the last time that somebody from Hospitality Tech went to an airline conference? And
actually really imported some of those ideas. That's great. what interesting projects are you working on at the moment?
What clients?
Danica Smith: Oh, some really, really cool projects. Um. Yeah, so one of them I work with, um, the number one guest intelligence provider guest review. And in terms of guest satisfaction, guest intelligence, AI has been a complete game changer. You know, I, uh, had a client that had 35 hotels and the CEO would download all of their mentions, put them into chatGPT and say what's actually been happening with my sleep negative mentions.
And that's how. Many operators have been using guest intelligence for the last 24, 12 months, and now we're seeing finally in 2025 vendors like guest review integrating AI into their semantic analysis, into their, um, analytics that you can get. So that's been a complete game changer in terms of how.
Hotels can actually leverage an action data. So that's been fun. Um, another client that we work with again is, I reckon you, and it's just, I mean, I'm an ex hotel marketer, so I'm so excited when I hear what they're doing in terms of data profiles and in, in, in terms of that whole. CRM, CDP, it's very blurred, you know, and I feel like, I reckon you, you have positioned themselves, um, perfectly and are such a product led first business, which I love.
You know, I've supported lots of sales teams and lots of different tech vendors and, you know, sometimes you're selling a dream and it's been really cool to work with a client where their product is so sound. So robust. So innovative. Our job is just to help elevate that message. So that's been really nice as opposed to having to sell the dream.
So two very, very different projects. Um, but both have innovation at the core. Um, and it's been great working with, with teams as well because when you're an independent advisor, Adam, Zoe, I'm sure you are the same, it's so nice you feel like part of their team. I just wish I had some Christmas parties to go to.
Um, but yeah, so they, they've been two of my client projects that I've been working on in, in Q4 that I've really enjoyed.
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Adam Mogelonsky: We can unpack both of those 'cause they play up big, big aspect into experiential design. But first, you know, you mentioned something about the lack of Christmas parties when we're working virtually, but both of you are based outta Barcelona. So therein there's a couple questions. Number one is, why is Barcelona such a hub for travel, tech and hotel tech?
Danica Smith: So I think that's a good question. And ironically, it doesn't have the networking connection scene that Berlin, London, and Amsterdam has. So that's a disappointment and that's something Zoe and I and others have really tried to change. Like I've been working. In Hospitality Tech in Barcelona for eight years.
And I've gone to three networking events in eight years in Barcelona, in the industry, you know, in three, because there's none. There's really none on the calendar. And we have organizations like Travel Massive. Zoe wants to launch her supper clubs to try and bring the industry in that network inside. So that's a bit of an issue.
Um, but in terms of the number of tech vendors that are here in Barcelona, I think we've. Access to such a great talent pool. Um, you know that we have really great product managers, pro engineers, developers that you can tap into that market. And, and then it's kind of a catalyst, like there's so many great hospitality tech vendors.
You know, you've got CG Review Pro, you've got the Hotel Network, you've got autonomize, which is doing fantastic things. Um, there's so many of them. Uh, lighthouse is based here. We've got a booking.com office. So there is definitely the tech scene and I, I think the talent pool, which is much more affordable than London and Berlin is also very attractive to investors and, and founders.
Um, and then the.
Zoe Koumbouzi: Definitely who want, wouldn't wanna live in Barcelona. I mean, I think if you're gonna choose Europe, a lot of people end up gravitating here because we about work life balance today. You. You know, did used to go on pay packages and you know, corporate career development. But I think especially since the pandemic, we're seeing this massive shift into being much more respectful to how I live, how I live my days.
Do I wanna be by the beach? Do I wanna be somewhere where there's sun? Am I willing to forfeit a little bit of my wages for that? And I think the resounding answer is yes from a lot of people, and that's why people end up in Barcelona.
Um. Add to that, Barcelona has done a lot to revive or to, well, to come alive the tech scene.
So we've, you know, there's been a lot of offices built, there's a lot of, um, advantages for companies and it's been purposely set up by the, the local government. So I think a combination of all those things means that we're in a great place and we definitely need more networking. So watch this space.
Danica Smith: And I think in 2026, like when you look at the Catalonia government as well, they're doing a lot with AI investments, um, and a lot of funding. So it's quite an attractive market for the new startups that's coming. So hopefully we'll be like the mini San Francisco in Europe. That's kind of how, uh, certainly Barcelona's trying to position themselves.
I mean, Adam, what's your perspective of Barcelona? Obviously not coming from Europe. Do you see Barcelona as the hub of technology and innovation out
Adam Mogelonsky: No, I don't, uh, because the news doesn't reach that far. I'm in Toronto right now, and the news we got outta Barcelona is over tourism, blah, blah, blah. Beautiful city, go to par, uh, you know, get your advanced museum passes, et cetera. But all we hear really is the overt tourism story. We don't hear about this tech hub.
And again, things like how the, the, I guess the state government outta Catalonia is supporting that through startup, uh, incubators. We don't, we don't hear that news. So it's great
to hear it from two people who. On the
Danica Smith: It might be surprising to hear Adam, but I'm not on the Catalonia political scene or, but I will take that forward if ever I can with my lack of Spanish and Catalan. Um, but you know, even saying that like, look@booking.com for example, or Google, their office, their head offices in Spain is Madrid.
See, there is still that competition of what sits in Madrid and Barcelona I think still has that kind of, it's not as professional. It's not as. Serious as maybe what madrid's from external investment as well, which is, you know, we're not, we're not the, the capital. So
Adam Mogelonsky: So to now look at this, the idea of a hub and the technology that you're working on and have access to, how does that affect your role in experiential design?
Danica Smith: specifically from Barcelona, would
you say?
Adam Mogelonsky: I mean, Barcelona or otherwise, you know, you have your ears to the street on the latest and greatest of tools, and therefore you can deploy them to really help hotels.
Danica Smith: Yeah, well, I think specifically talking to Barcelona, you know, we have some tech vendors that are quite old. You know that in, in hotel technology, they've been there for 15 years, and I think that's really important. I love innovation. I mean, I have so many great conversations with so many fantastic new AI founders, startups, and every week somebody will contact me about a new operational efficiency guest communication platform that they've built, which is amazing. But there is something to be said about that approach to building hospitality specific technology, that having a decade of legacy really elevates you. You understand hotels, you build for hotels. You understand the limitations of legacy tech and ecosystem that we live in.
Um. You know, you also understand how long it takes to ship tech and ship products, you know, and I think that's what I really respect about Barcelona and about some of the Indus, the companies that I work with, that they have been around for 10, 12 years, um, and they still innovate and are leveraging ai, but I really lean on their heritage.
Processes, whether that's onboarding or customer success or you know, data and benchmarking report. They just have so, such solid foundations that I think if I was a Hotelier, you really need in that. Partner approach, not vendor approach. So that's something, you know, um, that I really admire because I think innovation, I can't keep up in terms of guest experience with innovation.
I cannot keep up with the quality as well. I keep hearing such contradicting things from my clients, from partners, from the industry. You know, I had a call the other day and, and somebody was just telling me that they did an RFP for guest communications and chat bots and just the quality was not there.
And I was completely surprised because, I mean, Zoe and I built a chat bot in 2018. We not built the company we worked for. Our job was to take to market a chat bot. And of course the quality wasn't there. But I really thought six years on it, it was fantastic. So again, the overwhelm and the confusion of the innovation is difficult for me to digest and understand, and that's why the legacy of what a partner of a established.
Technology vendor can bring to a hotel. That's something that for me, is as important as what is their roadmap and innovation for the next 1218 months.
Zoe Koumbouzi: I often just think, you know, if, if the industry and the amount of tech and the new amount of tech overwhelms us that we're on the provider, on the vendor side, we've got that lens. That's our trade, if you like. I can only imagine what hoteliers go through. And I think, you know, I know we're not here to talk about communications, but on the communications side as well, it just absolutely bombarded every day.
And this is a problem for the industry, not just a problem for hoteliers, but a problem for providers, a problem for all of us that we do need to solve. Like how are we making sure that they get quality education? They, they can make informed choices when there is so much on the market.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, and particularly now everyone's saying that they all have chat bots, so how do you actually distinguish the ones that are, uh, that can deliver high confidence answers and are adaptable to future use cases?
Danica Smith: Yeah, but test it like not, not enough Hotelier. And I understand they're so busy and I think this is like the role of why advisors are so important. You know, like when you look at digitalizing the guest journey, for example. I mean, don't even get me started on. the booking journey and the website journey of some hotels, but it's kind of like, have you scanned the QR code in the room?
Did you not know that that QR code goes to a 404 page? You know, like that basics of like walk the steps. If you have a chat bot, you know, get a hundred of your staff to test it for two days and you're gonna find any inaccuracy problems accuracy So.
I also kind of think from The, operator side and as an industry like we shouldn't tolerate that because this testing culture we need, and I do think since COVID we've lost that space to test trial, you know, have a play, have a think about it. We just like go to a conference, oh, I need to do this. Right. Implement, have three demos from different vendors. Go with the cheapest, implement it, and then onto the next project.
Nobody's monitoring. Did that move the needle on guest satisfaction? On guest experience? Is it working? Um, so I think that funnel process of like, what does success look like is kind of, I don't wanna say broken, I wanna say rushed right now.
Zoe Koumbouzi: People are in a rush though, and they're in a rush to get results. It's a competitive market. I mean, I think one of the things that we may start to see with this type of market is more middlemen type, you know, marketplace type platforms for hotel tech. So obviously, you know, we've got hotel tech report that that does that.
We've also got brands like fy, which actually. You know, they actually test each and every one of the products that comes onto the site. So if I was a Hotelier, I would want that, especially if I'm time poor and I'm not a technology specialist, I'd wanna kind of have somebody, whether it's a consultant or or a marketplace, testing it for me to make sure it's not just, you know, you know, a flash in the pan type product and it actually works.
Danica Smith: I do think this element of, and it wasn't until I went to the CIO event and rightly so, like the CIO of a very well-known famous luxury hotel, corrected all of us that, let's not forget, we are one of the most profitable industries. Our profit margins at a hotel is insane. So there's this, this pressure of things are bad and no, a DR rates are still the highest they've ever been and occupancy rates, okay. Certain markets, of course, but certainly in Europe are as high as they've ever been. So, team, take your time, take a day out of the office, strategize properly. You know, this, this constant thing. It's not like we're losing money, I mean. Your average city center full star hotel has had the best financial year, even with rising costs.
The p and l? Yes. The margins have decreased, but they're still pretty healthy.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well to push back there, Danica, now that we're getting into, uh, p and l and income statements is, you know, yes, things are good right now, but nothing lasts forever. Therefore, number one rule of business is cashflow, and therein its controlling costs.
So oftentimes that that core, core, core principle can dictate what you're spending money on
Danica Smith: I disagree with that though. That, and I think that's, yeah, because, and this is the problem with so many non hoteliers and pure looking at the guest experience, and Adam, I'm totally biased. I'm all about guest experience and guest satisfaction. And the problem with asset management companies is all they care about is that bottom line figure.
And that's not hospitality. That's not how we operate as an industry. I don't think it has to operate that way. Look at brands like Staypineapple You know, I had the joy of interviewing diner, you know, and what they do is they, you know, put guest experience at the heart of everything. Do not have a ceiling cost against it.
Do not put it as a budget line. Don't, you know, it's just, it costs what it costs and that's okay. Not everything needs to have an ROI. Especially when you're profitable, and that's my concern when it comes to really caring about the guests, caring about your staff, and really wanting to be a profitable business.
You can't just look at it in the cold bottom line figures. To me, I think that's, you know, then you're just in asset management. Go invest in an AI company and be a silent partner. You know, that's, I get really frustrated. Um, it's probably scarred tissue. I did a conference at an asset management company, all about the importance of guest satisfaction.
I've never had an audience so disengaged. Every single one was just on their phones, because it's not, it's not a metric that interests them. It's not a metric that they look at. I just wanna know what my return is, is on my investment. And for me, that's a difficult issue for me.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, it's, it's very interesting that you're, you're raising this, um, this schism almost between us. Asset management and the, uh, the people that truly understand that guest satisfaction equals return visits more. More total revenue spend
more customer lifetime value. Right.
Danica Smith: and people like happy staff as well. Happy people. Like invest in your people. you know, the good old three Ps, people, planet, profit. I think that's all how we should be running our businesses, especially as hotels.
Zoe Koumbouzi: Happy staff, guests.
Adam Mogelonsky: Are, uh, Danica and, and Zoe, are there any metrics that we can use to bridge the gap between what asset managers care about, which is NOI flow through RevPAR and ones that are, that we know translate to more long-term RevPAR, NOI, et cetera, like the guest satisfaction scores. Csat, uh, customer satisfaction,
NPS, all that stuff are, are there any other statistics that we can use almost as leading indicators that we are going to be looking forward to greater profitability later on?
Danica Smith: At no new statistics, like in other than kind of, you know, you have the canal research study and there's so ski research, there's booking.com, there's so much research Exactly that. How much does your reputation impact your a DR occupancy and therefore revenues and bottom line, there's no new metrics.
Other than the ones that have been used, like you've just mentioned for the last 10 years. But there are a lot more conversations around emotional intelligence, around staff engagement, around the booking funnel and, and the storytelling. But there's no metric yet. And I'm hoping, um, that that will come in place, uh, in the next 12 months because it would be great to understand.
Okay. How does emotional intelligence. Impact my revenues when hiring staff, you know, when doing storytelling of my brand, of, you know, of positioning of my brand. We all know guests want authentic stays guests want memorable stays, but right now there's no clear benchmark metric that I know of. And if anybody listening has one, please.
Reach out to me, um, because I think we really are missing that final, I guess, softer metric that we can help close the gap between guest experience and, you know, pure asset management, p and l accounts.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, maybe to bridge the gap here. You mentioned the word storytelling,
and I love that word. So maybe we could bridge the gap by telling a story. And a story is, uh, beginning, middle, end. And you mentioned earlier about sentiment analysis. So perhaps you could tell a story of. Sentiment analysis and how that improved RevPAR, NOI, et cetera,
by saying, here's what we, here's what we did, and or here's the problem, here's what we did and discovered, here's what we implemented.
Here's the result.
Danica Smith: Oh, I've got loads of stories and it also ties in with your positioning and your guest expectations set in. Um, so for example, I worked with a hostile chain in Barcelona. Super, super cool brand, uh, in a great location in Gracia. Uh, they are about. A 30 minute walk to the beach and on public transport, probably 10 minutes on the tube.
Uh, so not close to the beach at all, and we couldn't understand why on sentiment and online reputation scores. This particular property was getting hammered with negative scoring and sentiment around location. And it was because their full picture on booking.com was a picture of the beach. Simple, simple fix, remove the picture, and then their location score went from something like seven to a nine, improved their ranking positions, and then obviously the rest.
You can imagine trickles on. So there's that story. I had a conversation today with a parking vendor, um, around how guest experience can help them because it's something that's so tangible. Again, lots of hoteliers ignore parking. Um, but when they're not transparent about the cost or they are not clear about.
You only have two car spaces or it's far, it negatively impacts your guest satisfaction. And when you are a five star property charging, the highest a DR rates in your comp set is these small changes that make such a big difference to your online reputation, um, to your scoring, to your guest sentiment.
And therefore, you know, in some cases, can. You know, the research so shows for every 1% increase in your reputation score, it can equate to a 1.8%, um, increase in a DR and a n 0.8% increase in occupancy. If I'm a five, you know, if I'm a $5,000 night hotel, that's a lot of money. So there are some real simple, simple changes.
I had another client where their whole book, direct campaign was on their sleep. They'd invested so much money onto a whole new mattress and bed campaign, and actually, sorry, I'll start again. 50 and in this case, 53% of all their sleep mentions were negative. So all they had to do was look at their data where guests were talking so positively about their stuff.
Um, you know, the research shows us from Cannell University that for every 1% increase in your guest sentiment in your online reputation scores. Then it can equate to a 1.8% increase in ADR and a not 0.8% increase in occupancy. Now that's huge. If I'm cha, you know, if my average daily rate is 5,000 pounds a night, that's a significant impact on my revenues with such a small change.
And this is really, if you've got a great guest satisfaction and you wanna grow these micro changes that you need to make guess expectation part. Um, you know, uh, don't say you've had a refurb. If you haven't had a refurb in the last six months. Uh, that kind of, uh, initiative's really important to connect the dots.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, I think you, uh, just introduced a new word that every Hotelier should know is micro changes
and everyone's thinking like, oh, we need a property improvement plan, and that will really elevate our a DR, all these high CapEx, high expense things. But what you're talking about here are things that. Are potentially overlooked that are small, incremental operational improvements that are very light on cost.
Danica Smith: Yeah. And they have the access to the data. That's what's so frustrating. Stroke. Lovely. Um, because, you know, amenities, I worked with another, um, brand five star property and for reduced cutting profit led initiative. The decision from procurement was to reduce the largest, you know, luxury amenities.
Bottles in the room to the smallest had a direct impact on their guest experience. They were predominantly corporate based. Obviously their repeat corporate guests were not happy with that change when their rates had been increased. And that's what I come back to of you cannot lead everything with this pure profit, um, cutting exercise 'cause it does impact the guest experience.
Now luckily, this particular hotel chain was all over their guest intelligence. So they made the change, tested it in one property, the right thing to do, realized after a month had a negative impact, went back to the old version, and then all the staff had the small bottles for the rest of the two years, you know?
Um, and that's, that's the best success story where you are looking at the data and closing the loop constantly to see has this micro change, how is it impacting my guest satisfaction?
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I guess the term is Pennywise pound foolish
Danica Smith: I guess so. Yes. Yeah, and that's Adam, like my kind of 2025 mission, to be honest, for the last 15 years. It's just trying to help the industry like not forget about the guest's satisfaction. That's, it doesn't matter about anything else. It's how does that guest leave my property? How do they feel? Are they happy or not?
You can have the best digitalized guest journey, the best website, the best personalization, but if the guest isn't happy, it's all wasted. Nobody says, what was the best part of your state? The super fast digitalized check-in. No. Slick in dining. No, they don't. So let's remind ourselves what a, what a guest experience.
Adam Mogelonsky: Right. Micro changes. There are also macro changes that you have to look at because one big thing that does impact guest bookings and guest experience is the design of a hotel, interior architecture, landscaping in-room design, et cetera. So I'm wondering if we could move from the micro to the large CapEx. What have you seen? From a design standpoint, an interior design standpoint that can positively or negatively impact guest satisfaction.
Danica Smith: Uh, lifts number one for sure. And that this is where I love working with asset managements because sometimes they'll come to me and I help with their negotiations. 'cause I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You are buying that building for 3.8 million. Did you know 70% of their negative mentions are around the slow lift?
You're gonna have to replace the lift. So that's really cool. Um. Sometimes it's really difficult, you know, air conditioning for example. It's certainly in Europe, rising temperatures has been the number one negative complaint when it comes to guest experience and room satisfaction. It's the element that is impacting guest calls the most.
And unfortunately, there's many hotels that either A, are not investing in aircon or can't because. The building that they have, that's then really difficult for me as a guest experience advisor of like, okay, how can we be creative here? So there was one particular London Hotel, 600 beds, a really famous property, large property for London, lift slow.
We pinpointed it to, you know exactly how it was impacting guest satisfaction, where they were losing against their competitors. Put this whole cool proposal together, full CapEx investment. The boards came back and said, no, we're not investing for the next 12 months at that property. The general manager then created a selfie stand on Fridays when it was busy, free champagne, put that into her budget and got approved and it managed to soften the blow a little bit. And that's really where you need to have grit as a GM to keep going, keep being innovative, keep being creative, and keep wanting the sheer drive to keep improving guest satisfaction even if you don't have the CapEx macro investment that you clearly need. Um, so that, that's interesting. Another story I worked, um, in my previous tech company with a very, very large.
Uh, three star chain and they had a franchise, properties of eight in Europe. Now we could prove at this three star property that they had a hygiene problem regarding guest sentiment and guest satisfaction in their bathrooms because they had the physical bath mats, you know, like the ones that you step out.
Nobody wants that in a hotel. So again, we did the data analysis. We proved exactly what it was with guest sentiment, et cetera. And unfortunately that was a brand standard, so you had to have it. So, um. It's interesting for me working with different companies of how much they're willing to change or not change, even when the data's there, whether it's macro or micro.
Um. Yeah, so I dunno if that answers your question, Adam, but the macro and in terms of design, sorry, your question was more about design. I, again, I still think there's a bit of a gap there. For example, I don't really work with many interior designers. Um, so interior designers reach out to me if you need help, but I would like to understand.
That process more and see if there is guest data and how we can feed that. I mean, certainly it's more from a negative standpoint of, you know, where the restaurants place and how that impacts the suites with the noise. Um, you know, the spa where people will complain with the spa because there's a room next door and they can hear that.
So it's more on the negatives that I come across. I haven't really had any, um, examples or stories I can share where it's. The design of the building, the flow, the architecture has been built around guest experience. I haven't had that use case yet.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, it's, I think that there's ripe opportunity to bridge that gap
because there, there, there is software that's coming into play to help interior designers, heat mapping and all that things. There's always the, the micros that they don't take into account in terms of how furniture's laid out or, uh, going for style over comfort and sofas and things like that.
Danica Smith: Yeah, I mean, sofa beds is a big one. Like I've, I work with quite a lot of, um, four star, five star service departments and woo, sofa beds is a hot topic when it comes to their board, and I'm always pulling reports on what people say. And it's exactly that comfort over design because the comfortable ones look very ugly in a room.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And I love you mentioned the selfie stand, um, because that is the same solution that Disney came up with they realized their, their lines were too long. People were complaining, but it's only you can build an additional ride, right? Right there. They're limited on, on space and, uh, and everything. So rather than do that, make the lines, the point of the entertainment, uh, insert, uh, you know, points, uh, things to distract people while they're waiting one hour to, for a three minute ride. So, hey, if it works for Disney, then it can work for your hotel, right?
Danica Smith: Yeah, and I, I think it, that also comes down to like the culture of the company that GM could have quite easily just sat back, turned up to her board meetings and said, yeah, I know I'm getting hammered because of this. But she didn't, she, she tried everything and that's because the company that she worked for was a great company with great culture that she was looked after.
So again, that putting your people first, you continue to get. Create such goodness outta them that you can't quantify.
Adam Mogelonsky: It's a timeless lesson, uh, that deserves repeating multiple times
Danica Smith: Yeah, it, it was Nadine at the Cumberland, so shout out to you, Nadine. She's no longer there, but in case she's listening at the Cumberland Hotel
Adam Mogelonsky: Uh, we'll, we'll send her an email, Uh, for the trial afterwards with an exact
timestamp. You know, time is everyone's busy,
right? Uh, so looking ahead to 2026, we've talked a lot about technology, but. So broader than technology, what trends are you looking forward to and, uh, what can hotels really leverage to make a big
Danica Smith: Yeah. Oh Adam, I love this question 'cause I'm so excited about it and I've had so much fun sharing data reports around the what, the reason why guests travel. And you know, that's completely changed in 2025. It's a game changer. You know, we are not just looking for a room to put our head down. We want connection.
We want memorable stays, authentic stays. So when you look at what that does for hotels, it really. Opens up creativity, innovation. So for example, TripAdvisors research showed that, um, their, across all of their platforms, search terms and mentions for astronomy in 2025 increased 350% year on year. Now imagine you're a service department or a hotel with a really nice skylight.
Well, you know, go and buy a telescope. That could be a really cool market that you could tap into. So these. This kind of like guest experience, um, approach with this new wave of micro communities, micro interests. You know, I created a terminology this year of the four Ps. Um, so through all of this research I could see that actually the way guests are traveling are driven by one or ideally, or four Ps, and it was the first one is to be personalized.
We absolutely know that, uh, it's been around for a long time, but it's, it's more than just know my name and birthday. It's understand. I want, you know, a cocktail with my husband, a wine with my husband, a cocktail with Zoey and a coffee with my kids. You know, I feel like in that. Realm of personalization hotels are competing with Amazon and Netflix as a consumer. So there's that aspect, which is we've known, but now it's on steroids in terms of guest expectations in 2026. The second P is be purposeful the way that we travel. We want to learn, we want to, um. Connect more. We want to grow and there's lots of stats and I can share my article that I wrote about this in late, earlier on in the year.
Um, and again, loads of different stats around how people want to travel with purpose so that, you know, if you. Like there was a London hotel that did a, an astronomy night, you know, and you could learn about astronomy or astrology or whatever it is, or cooking or you know, breath work. Like we wanna grow as people.
So that's the world is your oyster with that one. The third P is to be playful, you know, like we'd. We're meant to have fun in hospitality. So think of how you can engage your team, engage your staff to really be playful, inject a bit of fun into their lives, surprise and delight, but in a really meaningful, nice way.
Doesn't have to be expensive Again, stay pineapple. A great example of how they bring playfulness into the guest experience. Um, right the away from the way that they recruit to the, the experience that they deliver. And then the fourth P is, um, uh, participatory. So include me. Uh, we have a huge loan list problem and actually Gen Z when they travel, um, I can't remember the exact stats, but I think it was like 70% said that the feeling of being belonging is more important than the room amenities.
So again, like corporate travel, what spaces do we have? How can we create hubs? How can we create connection? How can we tap into the local market? If I am a Berlin Hotel, you know, I don't wanna see the sites of Berlin, the mass tourism of Barcelona that you mentioned. How can we really. Highlight these hidden gems where it's the granny's local bakery down the road.
This is what guests are seeking, craving, wanting. Um, and I think it's comes back to that storytelling. It's a. Running a hotel and doing business by putting these four interests at the heart of your strategy. I think that's super cool and I think more and, and the data stats, the commercial stats are all there as to how it drives positive reviews, guest returns, staff engagement, staff retention.
The data's there. So I think this is like a really cool way of looking at room packages, designing guest experiences with these four Ps in mind in 2026.
Adam Mogelonsky: So to close out personalization, purpose, play, participation
Danica Smith: Yeah,
Adam Mogelonsky: four Ps.
Danica Smith: the full PS of the new guest experience.
Adam Mogelonsky: That is brilliant. Danica, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a very powerful 35, 40 minutes to really learn about, uh, what you do and some very, very tangible things that hotels can do in terms of micro changes.
Danica Smith: Thank you so much Adam and Zoe. And I just want to caveat, I really appreciate my perspective and my view is very, very biased to guest satisfaction. Um, so I am aware I am looking at it, you know, as a Hotelier, I am one 20th of their view of what they're looking at. I one 200. So I do caveat everything that I say, um, but hopefully I've got some brains thinking by listening and I've really enjoyed talking to you both. So thank you so much.
Adam Mogelonsky: Danica, thanks.