Skift Take

Hotels have become too servile, letting badly behaved guests ruin carefully crafted experiences. They need to take notes from the Hôtel du Cap, where standards and behavior are gently enforced for the benefit of all.

Series: On Experience

On Experience

Colin Nagy is a marketing strategist and writes on customer-centric experiences and innovation across the luxury sector, hotels, aviation, and beyond.

You can read all of his writing here.

Hotel guests have gone too far: rude behavior towards staff and poor etiquette that ruins the experience for others – think work calls on speaker for all of us to hear.

It’s clear that the meticulously crafted aesthetic of luxury hotels, designed for travelers that notice the details, is being undermined by the behavior of the guests themselves. I've talked to countless hotel operators who tell me the balance of power has shifted too far. The issue has been the talk of General Manager conferences and over drinks. 

Consider this scenario: You’re in a beautifully designed hotel lobby lounge in Dubai, enjoying a coffee, while a fat cat in a bathroom robe with his gut exposed conducts a live FaceTime session. Last year, I was sipping wine while watching the sunset from a Tokyo skyscraper, the scene enhanced by perfect ambient music, only to be interrupted by American guests loudly discussing "Real Housewives" and showing each other