Hospitality and leisure 2010: Experience rules

This paper envisions a fundamental shift from traditional hospitality and leisure offerings -- those of facilities and services for business and leisure travellers -- to a new paradigm of individually customised travel experiences. This will transform traditional hospitality and leisure offerings and the way they are deployed, configured, staffed, marketed and sold.

In the past, travel was about a destination. In 2010, travel will be about engaging in powerful personal experiences that are carefully tailored to the tastes and demands of individual guests. Successful hospitality and leisure companies will understand target consumer segments and entice them with differentiated experiences, customised to meet individual needs -- whether it's the challenges of high adventure or total immersion in a foreign culture, the comfort of luxurious full service or the value and convenience of self service.

The travellers of 2010 will be demanding. They will be better informed, more global, more discerning and more varied in their desires than the travellers of today. And they will expect travel providers to anticipate their needs and provide compelling experiences.

Two primary forces will shape the hospitality and leisure industry in the coming decade. First, globalisation -- the commingling of economies, the falling of borders and the democratisation of culture and information -- will allow and inspire diverse peoples to go to places and interact in ways that were, until recently, inconceivable.

Second, technological advancement will fuel economic growth and enable companies to provide the experiences their customers demand. These forces will accelerate an evolution in consumer demographics and preferences -- the micro-segmentation of populations, widespread dispersal of wealth and the quest for new sensations -- that will compel companies to focus on and to develop experiential offerings for an increasingly discerning consumer base.

This paper contends that between now and 2010, companies will undertake key transformations related to their customers, brands, products and service delivery, business operations, employees, sales and distribution and technology deployment. It also offers near-term, actionable steps that hospitality and leisure providers should consider in preparing for a competitive environment in which Experience Rules.

To learn more, download the executive summary or the full report in PDF format at the top of this page.