The Founder’s Essay Series by azulomo

Ideas for a More Human Kind of Hospitality

By Elke Bretz, Founder of azulomo

Perhaps the most important question in hospitality isn’t where people want to stay, but how they want to feel when they get there.

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When we talk about why people travel, we tend to talk about destinations. A week in the Algarve. A long weekend in Copenhagen. A cottage in the countryside. A hotel by the sea.

But I’m not sure the destination is always the real beginning of the story.

Behind almost every trip sits another, quieter motivation. Someone wants to rest. Someone wants to reconnect. Someone wants adventure, privacy, celebration, inspiration or simply a break from the version of themselves that has spent the last six months answering emails, organising everybody else and thinking about what needs to happen next.

The destination gives that desire somewhere to go. But the feeling is often what we were searching for in the first place.

And perhaps that is where the experience should begin.

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We arrive carrying more than our luggage

I find the moment someone arrives at a property fascinating. They might have spent three hours in a car. Navigated an unfamiliar airport. Finished work later than they intended the night before. Packed for two children. Had an argument on the journey. Checked their phone 47 times. Or spent months quietly imagining these few days away.

Then they arrive.

Hospitality tends to see that moment operationally. Is the property ready? Has the guest received the access information? Is check-in smooth? Is everything clean and where it should be? All important. But there is another arrival happening at exactly the same time. The guest is trying to cross from one state into another.

From busy to unhurried. From responsible to free. From stimulated to quiet. From disconnected to together. From being needed to simply being.

I think some of the most thoughtful hospitality understands that transition instinctively.

It doesn’t simply give someone a key. It helps them arrive.

Hospitality is very comfortable with demographics. Couples. Families. Solo travellers. Empty nesters. Millennials. Gen Z. Affluent travellers. Dog owners. Digital nomads.

These descriptions are useful. They tell us something about who might book. But they tell us surprisingly little about why…

Two couples of exactly the same age, income and location can want entirely different experiences from the same three-night stay. One wants restaurants, recommendations, conversation and somewhere that feels connected to the life around it. The other wants a gate they can close, a beautiful kitchen, silence and absolutely no reason to leave until Monday morning. Well, demographically, they look almost identical.

Experientially, they are worlds apart!

This is why I have become much more interested in what I call the desired state of the guest. It moves the question beyond who are they? towards something I think is far more useful:

Who do they want to be while they are here?

Because once you understand that, the decisions become much more interesting.

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A guest doesn’t necessarily want more. They want the right things to matter.

Imagine a small rural stay. There is no spa. No concierge. No pillow menu. No extensive programme of activities.

There is, however, a bedroom that becomes completely dark at night. A terrace positioned for the last hour of evening sun. Coffee good enough to make slowly. Somewhere comfortable to read. A walking route that begins at the gate. A kitchen that makes staying in feel more appealing than going out. And enough privacy that nobody feels observed.

For the guest who came to disappear for three days, that might be extraordinary hospitality.

For somebody else, it could feel isolating.

This is why I’m cautious about universal lists of what makes a great guest experience. There are fundamentals, of course. Cleanliness, comfort, trust and ease matter enormously. But beyond them, hospitality becomes much more contextual.

What people want to feel should change what we design

Once you begin with the desired state rather than the property, seemingly small decisions take on a different significance.

If your guest is coming for connection, where will they naturally spend time together?

If they are coming for deep rest, what happens with light, temperature, sound and the bed?

If they want freedom, how many instructions are you giving them?

If they want to feel rooted in a place, could they spend the entire stay inside your property without learning anything meaningful about where they are?

If they are seeking privacy, does your version of attentive hosting actually interrupt the experience they came for?

These aren’t abstract questions. They can influence the layout of a room, the position of a chair, the photographs you choose, the language on your website, what goes into your guest guide, when you communicate and when you deliberately don’t.

This is where experience design becomes tangible.

The feeling isn't the finishing touch. It should help determine the decisions that come before it.

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There is a commercial consequence to understanding desire

This is also where the conversation becomes commercially interesting.

Most guests begin their search with more choice than they could possibly evaluate properly. Hundreds of properties may satisfy the functional requirements. Enough bedrooms. Correct location. Pool. Parking. Dog friendly. Within budget.

Those filters help someone create a shortlist. They don’t necessarily determine which property they want. Desire enters somewhere else.

It happens when a guest sees an image and can imagine themselves inside it. When the words describe something they have been wanting without quite knowing how to articulate it. When the experience feels unusually relevant to the kind of trip they hope to have.

At that point, the property stops being simply one acceptable option among many.

It starts to feel like the one that understands them.

And that matters commercially.

Because when a stay feels more relevant, its differences become easier to see. When its differences are easier to see, its value becomes easier to understand. And when value is understood, price no longer has to carry the entire burden of persuasion.

This is why I don’t see guest psychology as separate from commercial strategy.

Understanding desire can influence what gets noticed, what gets chosen, what feels worth paying for and what is remembered afterwards.

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Sometimes the most valuable thing you can design is absence

There is another side to this that I think hospitality sometimes overlooks.

We naturally associate good hosting with provision. What can we give someone? What can we add? What might impress them?

But many of the things people are increasingly hungry for are defined by what is absent. No alarm to wake to, no commute, no traffic outside the window. No need to decide where everyone needs to be next, reply to a message or join another queue. Less clutter, fewer demands, and for a little while, nobody needing anything from you.

Silence, privacy, space and time may be difficult to photograph as amenities, but for the right guest they can carry enormous value. Sometimes, what is missing from an experience is precisely what makes it feel so valuable…

That doesn't mean every stay should become silent, remote or minimal. Slow Living Hospitality™ isn't a prescription for one particular way of travelling. It means recognising that hospitality can create value not only through what it provides, but through what it allows the guest to stop carrying for a while.

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The promise begins before the experience does

There is a commercial reason to understand this before a guest ever books.

If I operate a beautifully quiet rural property designed for people who want to disconnect, but market it primarily through a list of amenities, I may be underselling the most valuable thing about it.

Three bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Private pool. Wi-Fi. Parking. Fully equipped kitchen. All useful information. But none of it explains why someone should care.

Compare that with understanding that your guest may be looking for three days where the loudest decision is whether to have coffee outside or go back to bed.

Suddenly photography changes. Copy changes. The order in which information is presented changes. The experiences you recommend change.

Perhaps even pricing confidence changes, because you are no longer simply selling a collection of physical features. You are communicating a more specific kind of value.

The better we understand what the guest is really seeking, the better we become at making that value visible before they arrive.

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This is why Guest Fit matters

At azulomo, I think about this through Guest Fit.

Guest Fit isn't about creating a narrow profile of the perfect customer or deciding that everybody else is unwelcome. It is about understanding where the strongest alignment exists between a particular guest, what they are seeking and what a particular stay is genuinely capable of giving them.

That matters because not every beautiful property is right for every guest. Nor should it be.

A place becomes more distinctive when it becomes more confident about the experience it is particularly good at creating. That confidence can then travel through the property itself, the photography, the listing, the direct website, the communication and ultimately the way the stay is positioned and priced.

The aim isn't to appeal to fewer people for the sake of exclusivity.

It is to become more meaningful to the right ones.

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Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question

Hospitality spends a great deal of time asking what guests want.

A pool? Breakfast? Late checkout? A smart TV? Recommendations? Contactless check-in?

Those questions matter.

But I think there is a question underneath all of them that can tell us much more.

What is this person hoping to feel that they don’t feel enough of in ordinary life?

Perhaps it’s feeling rested or unhurried. Free, curious or inspired. Closer to the people they’re with, quietly cared for, comfortably anonymous, or simply more alive.

Once you understand that, hospitality begins to look different.

You stop designing solely around what the property has and start thinking about what the experience can make possible.

You stop seeing the guest as a demographic and start seeing the human being arriving with them.

And you begin to understand that the most valuable thing a stay can offer may not be something a guest can point to at all.

It may simply be the feeling that, for a few days, life felt exactly the way they hoped it would.

That is where I believe truly distinctive hospitality begins.

Elke Bretz
Founder, azulomo

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