Travel has rebounded, luxury demand is strong, and guests are willing to spend. Yet many hotels still feel under pressure, with margins tight, costs rising, and revenue growth stubbornly capped.
The reason isn’t a lack of opportunity. Is it that a significant amount of guests' spending never materialises at all?
The revenue guests want to give you, but can’t
Every day, guests arrive with intent. They want to book a table for Friday night. They want to secure a spa treatment before it becomes unavailable. They want to plan activities, celebrate an occasion, or make the most of limited time away. But too often, that intent hits friction. The experience isn’t visible online. Booking requires a phone call. Availability is unclear. The decision gets deferred, and then forgotten. When that happens, revenue doesn’t decline. It simply vanishes.
What makes this especially dangerous is that the loss is almost invisible. Unlike an empty room, unbooked experiences don’t show up clearly on a P&L. There’s no obvious “missed booking” line item. Just quieter restaurants, underutilised spas, and guests leaving with the feeling that they didn’t quite do everything they wanted to do.
The numbers explain the pressure
European hotels are operating at around 71% occupancy, yet year-on-year growth is marginal. ADR has been doing most of the heavy lifting on performance, but pricing power is increasingly uneven and fragile across markets. As a result, RevPAR growth is now driven far more by rate than by demand and forecasts point to only modest growth in the years ahead. In short, room-led performance is reaching its natural limits. Future gains won’t come from selling more rooms, but from unlocking more value around the stay.
Friction is the silent killer of spending
In retail, friction is measured obsessively. In hospitality, it’s often accepted as normal. Phone-only bookings. Manual confirmations. Disconnected teams. Experiences that exist operationally, but not commercially. Each small barrier reduces the likelihood that a guest will buy, especially before arrival, when anticipation and willingness to spend are highest. The irony is that hotels invest heavily in creating beautiful experiences, only to make them hard to access at the moment guests are most ready to commit. If a guest can’t book it easily, it may as well not exist.
The difference between availability and intent
Availability tells you what you can sell. Intent tells you what guests want to buy. Many hotels manage room inventory brilliantly but capture intent poorly. They track occupancy, reservations and utilisation, but miss the early signals that indicate where demand is already forming. When guests browse your site, linger on a spa page, or look for dining options before booking, they’re telling you something. When there’s no clear path to purchase, that intent dissipates. The result? Hotels underestimate both the scale of opportunity and the revenue they’re quietly leaving behind.
Experiences aren’t “extras”, they’re commercial assets
One of the misconceptions in hospitality is that experiences are secondary to the stay. In reality, they are often the reason for it. Dining, wellness and activities don’t just enhance a visit they influence booking decisions, length of stay, and total spend. When treated as optional add-ons rather than core products, their commercial potential is never fully realised.
The most forward thinking hotels are beginning to recognise that experiences need to be:
Clearly defined
Properly priced
Easy to discover
Simple to book
Not as a nice-to-have, but as a fundamental part of how the hotel trades.
What’s really at stake
Leaving money on the table isn’t just about lost revenue at the moment. It has a compounding effect. Guests who don’t fully engage with a property’s experiences are less likely to:
In other words, friction doesn’t just reduce immediate spend, it limits lifetime value.
A quiet shift is already underway
Across hospitality, a shift is happening. Leading hotels are moving away from selling isolated components and towards shaping complete, bookable journeys.
They understand that when experiences are visible, relevant and easy to access, guests don’t need persuading. The opportunity isn’t theoretical. It already exists, hidden in guest intent, anticipation and unmet demand.
The question is whether hotels are set up to capture it.
In our upcoming white paper; Stay for the story: How hotels can unlock Return on Experience, we explore how hotels can turn experiences into measurable commercial success, and what it really means to unlock Return on Experience.
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