Hotels Try to Soothe Guest Concerns in an Age of Permanxiety
Skift Take
It's a constant challenge for hoteliers to ease the concerns and anxieties of their guests. The process, however, starts with strong training and compassion for others.
Skift launched the latest edition of our magazine at the Skift Global Forum in September. This article is an excerpt from our look into the current state of the traveler and consumer mindset through the lens of the pervasive state of anxiety felt worldwide.
Download the full version of Skift's Travel in an Age of Permanxiety magazine here.
To combat travelers’ general anxieties, today’s hotels are hosting meditation retreats, coaxing smartphone-addicted travelers to “unplug” in their device-free settings, and urging them to indulge in all things wellness-related.
While those efforts are all well and good for our collective mental health, they don’t amount to much more than escapes in a bubble — temporary fixes for living in an increasingly stressful world.
But whether a hotel offers complimentary yoga classes or special programs designed to help you unwind doesn’t carry as much weight as having a staff that knows how to treat its guests with hospitality that’s free from bias or ignorance. It’s hospitality that’s genuine, intuitive, and accommodating that really sets travelers’ nerves at ease when they walk in the door — and that’s sometimes much harder to find than a fancy hotel spa.
“The fact that travel can be so stressful, I always thought about what we can do as a hotel, when the
