If you want to design the Perfect Guest Experience then you need to get out of your office.
(PRUnderground) December 8th, 2025
If you’re writing a strategy in the hotel industry, the best place to guide you is your hotel lobby.
I was talking to a friend I value very much; he’s also the general manager of a hotel, and he made a wonderful statement: “Your reports will always tell you everything is perfect, but if you look at the guest reviews, you’ll see the opposite.”
So, what’s causing this?
We’ve summarized the situation in one sentence…
“Staying in the office, observing from afar.”
My dear friends, remember that there will always be a gap between the job we dream of in the hotel industry and the work that actually happens on the ground. And it’s impossible to see this gap just by sitting in the office.
While researching this topic, I came across a beautiful Japanese word: “Gemba.” It means “Real Place.” I’ll call it reading the emotions of hotel employees.
Now, when we go into the field in the hotel industry, our goal is always to monitor, but this time, when you get out there and feel it, you’ll begin to see the details I’ve outlined below.
- The first of these is the lack of visible tension on guests’ faces during check-in in the Front Office reports. In other words, micro-frictions.
- The second is the low energy of field staff. No matter how expensive your hotel is, if your team operates with low energy, this will reflect on your guests. It’s important to act like a leader, go to the field, and identify the root causes of this situation. Let’s call this emotional contamination.
- The third situation sometimes involves not guiding your employees. If your employees are developing and implementing a solution on their own for a truly flawed operation, the situation can worsen. You can’t just see this from the office; you need to go out into the field, assess the situation, and teach them how to proceed correctly.
Now, let’s talk about what we need to do. Get out of the office, go to the field, and watch the operation live. Simply observing the operation without intervening throughout the day will be sufficient.
Designing a flawless guest experience is easy on paper, but the situation will always be different when the operation is side-by-side with the guest during the implementation phase. This issue can’t be left solely on paper.
After all, isn’t “Leadership” about being felt, not being visible?
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Original Press Release.
