The Experience Behind the Choice

BY AZULOMO | 4 MIN READ

Beyond What Meets the Eye

A Different Kind of Desirability

What is changing in hospitality? Travellers are increasingly considering accommodation through the lens of personal motivations, trust, relevance and perceived value, rather than location, amenities and price alone. For independent hosts, this creates an opportunity to understand what guests want their time away to give them, and to shape a more distinctive experience around those expectations. The question is no longer simply what a property offers, but why someone would choose it.

Why does it matter? A beautiful property may attract attention, but a clearly understood experience gives the right guest a stronger reason to choose. Connecting Guest Fit, Stay Identity and experience design can help independent hospitality businesses make more informed decisions about positioning, guest satisfaction and commercial performance. Because desirability is not simply created through design, but through how relevant and valuable an experience feels to the guest.

What if guests aren't really buying what we're selling?

Imagine spending months creating a beautiful holiday home. You've chosen the furniture carefully, invested in quality finishes, perfected the photography and written a description highlighting every thoughtful detail.

Then someone arrives on your website, looks around for a few seconds and leaves. Perhaps they found somewhere cheaper. Perhaps another property caught their attention. Or perhaps, despite everything you've invested, they simply couldn't see why your stay was right for them.

This is something I find fascinating about hospitality. We invest enormous energy in creating and presenting the physical product, yet the decision to book is often influenced by something less tangible: what someone believes their time there will feel like.

A guest might be searching for a cottage, but what they really want is uninterrupted time with their partner. They might book a boutique hotel because they want to feel looked after, or choose a remote retreat because they need a few days without decisions, demands or distractions.

The property matters, of course. But it is only one part of what they are choosing. And this raises a question worth asking: are we describing what our properties have, when we should be communicating what they make possible?

Why are guest motivations becoming so important?

Recent travel research is drawing greater attention to the personal reasons behind a journey. Hilton's 2026 Trends Report explores motivations such as rest, reconnection and individual purpose, while Booking.com's 2026 Travel Predictions highlights the increasingly individual interests influencing travel choices.

These findings do not mean everyone suddenly wants the same kind of holiday. Quite the opposite. They remind us how varied people's expectations can be, even when their accommodation requirements look remarkably similar.

Consider two guests searching for a rural escape. Both want two bedrooms, a beautiful setting and a comfortable place to stay. One imagines slow mornings, long walks and evenings spent cooking together. The other wants to explore the region, discover restaurants and return somewhere comfortable after a busy day.

Neither is a better guest. Neither is necessarily looking for a more expensive property. They simply place value on different things. Yet conventional guest profiles might describe them in almost exactly the same way…

My background in experience design and optimisation has made me particularly interested in this gap between what people say they need and what actually influences their decisions. We can understand someone's practical requirements without fully understanding what makes an experience feel relevant, reassuring or desirable to them.

At azulomo, we call this relationship Guest Fit. It begins with understanding the experience someone hopes to have, rather than assuming their demographic profile tells us everything we need to know.

And once we begin looking at guests differently, the decisions we make about our properties begin to change too.

Could trying to appeal to everyone be making your stay less desirable?

There is an understandable temptation in hospitality to broaden our appeal. More amenities, more flexibility, more styles of guest, more reasons to book.

But I wonder whether this ambition sometimes makes properties harder to understand.

When every listing promises comfort, relaxation, luxury and an unforgettable experience, the language begins to lose its meaning. Beautiful photography may earn a moment of attention, but without a clear sense of character, one attractive property can become remarkably interchangeable with another.

“Distinctiveness is not necessarily about being unusual or offering something nobody else has. Often, it comes from recognising what a property is particularly well suited to deliver and expressing that with confidence.”

A restored farmhouse in the Alentejo, surrounded by olive groves and countryside, may be exactly what someone seeking privacy, quiet mornings and a slower rhythm needs. Its appeal lies not in how much there is to do, but in the freedom to do very little. Another property, equally beautiful, might find its strength in the region's food, wine, culture and local discoveries.

The opportunity is not to manufacture an identity that follows a trend. It is to recognise the experience already made possible by the property, its surroundings and the way it is hosted.

This is what we mean by Stay Identity: understanding the character of a stay and translating it into a clear, coherent experience.

When Guest Fit and Stay Identity come together, the question changes from “How can we attract more people?” to “How can we become more relevant to the people most likely to value what we offer?

That is a much more interesting starting point for both experience design and marketing.

What makes a stay feel worth the price?

There is another reason this matters, particularly when travellers are watching their spending.

Expedia Group's 2025 Traveller Value Index found that 58% of respondents expected to become more price-conscious. Yet 75% said they would pay more for a holiday rental with better reviews. That combination interests me because it suggests a distinction between spending less and wanting greater confidence in what we spend.

“A guest comparing two properties is not simply weighing one collection of amenities against another. They are also making judgements about quality, trust, suitability and the likelihood that their expectations will be fulfilled. And perceived value can be influenced by surprisingly small details…”

A thoughtful arrival can make a guest feel immediately at ease. Good lighting can change how a room is experienced. Clear communication can remove uncertainty before it becomes frustration. A well-considered recommendation can help someone discover a side of a destination they might otherwise have missed.

None of these details necessarily requires a substantial investment. What they require is an understanding of the experience being created and the people it is intended for.

This is where hospitality becomes particularly interesting to me, because design and commercial performance are no longer separate conversations. The decisions that shape the guest experience also influence what guests expect, what they notice and how they judge the value of their stay.

A more valuable experience is not always one with more things in it. Sometimes it is one where the right things have been considered more carefully.

And what happens when AI starts helping guests choose?

There is another development that makes this conversation increasingly relevant: the changing way accommodation is discovered. Booking.com's 2025 Global AI Sentiment Report found that 89% of surveyed consumers wanted to use AI in future travel planning, although trust in allowing AI to make decisions independently remained limited. This is not evidence that AI has already replaced traditional travel search. It does, however, suggest that AI-assisted discovery deserves attention.

Imagine a traveller asking an AI-powered travel assistant to find a quiet countryside stay with thoughtful interiors, good walking routes, privacy and somewhere suitable for a dog.

The request is not simply for accommodation in a particular postcode. It describes a desired experience.

For independent hosts, this makes the clarity of their digital presence increasingly important. A property needs more than attractive imagery and a generic description. Its location, characteristics, guest suitability and distinctive qualities should be communicated accurately and consistently, in language that both travellers and search technologies can interpret.

That does not mean writing for algorithms at the expense of people. It means becoming clearer about what makes a stay relevant in the first place.

After all, whether someone discovers your property through Google, a booking platform, social media or an AI assistant, the essential question remains the same. Why this stay, for this guest, at this moment?

What would change if we designed backwards from the guest?

This is the question I would encourage more independent hosts to explore.

Rather than beginning with what else a property needs, begin with what the guest hopes to experience. Then look at the property through that lens.

If someone is seeking rest, consider whether the arrival, lighting, privacy and communication genuinely support it. If they are looking for connection with a destination, consider how the stay introduces them to its character, people and traditions. If they value simplicity, examine the moments where unnecessary decisions or practical friction interrupt their experience.

From there, the commercial questions become more meaningful too. Does the photography communicate the experience accurately? Is the property's distinctive value clear? Are the right guests finding it? Do reviews reflect the qualities being promised? And where might the booking journey be creating hesitation?

This is the connected thinking behind Slow Living Hospitality™. It is not about prescribing a slower holiday or a particular interior aesthetic. It is about understanding what guests value and allowing that understanding to shape the identity, experience and business of a stay.

It is also why we created The Slow Living Hosting Masterclass™. The programme brings guest behaviour, experience design, visibility and commercial thinking together, helping hosts move from understanding what guests want to making more informed decisions about what they offer, how they communicate it and how they measure its effectiveness.

Because recognising that traveller behaviour is changing is one thing. Knowing what to do differently within your own property is where the real work begins.

Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question

I don't believe the future of independent hospitality belongs exclusively to the most beautifully designed properties, the longest amenity lists or the businesses with the largest marketing budgets.

Those things can matter, but they do not explain everything that makes a stay desirable.

The more interesting opportunity may lie in understanding the relationship between the person, the place and the experience. In recognising that guests are not simply booking rooms, but making choices about how they want to spend some of their most valuable time.

For independent hosts, this creates an opportunity to be more deliberate about what they offer, more confident about who it is for and more thoughtful about the value they create.

Perhaps the question is no longer simply “How do we make our property stand out?” Perhaps it is “How do we make it matter more to the people who choose it?” And that, to me, is where a more personal and distinctive future for hospitality begins…

Explore the bigger picture

In my latest Founder’s Essay, The Future of Personalised Hospitality, I explore the wider industry research behind changing traveller expectations, from personal motivations and wellbeing to perceived value, AI discovery and what these developments mean for independent hospitality.