Personalization Is Overrated
Why structure beats customization.
Welcome to Issue No. 024 of Sojourn. An independent publication delivering strategic interpretation for leaders shaping the future of travel and hospitality.
There’s a version of personalization that the hospitality industry has been chasing for years now. The idea that if you know enough about a guest, their preferences, their past stays, their pillow firmness, you can build an experience so tailored it feels made just for them. I understand the why. But I’ve been thinking about whether it’s actually what guests actually want, or whether it’s what the industry decided they should want.
Interpretation: Personalization, as it’s commonly used, is an answer to a question most guests aren’t asking. What they’re actually asking is simpler: is this place going to be right for me? That question isn’t answered by a preference form or a curated minibar. It’s answered by how clearly a brand communicates who it is and what staying there feels like. A guest who understands a brand immediately, who can place it without effort, already feels like the experience is theirs. Not because it was customized. Because it was clear.
Structure does something that personalization often can’t. It removes the need for the guest to figure things out. It makes the experience feel guided rather than assembled on demand.
What personalization gets wrong: The assumption behind most personalization efforts is that more options and more tailoring create more satisfaction. But there’s a well-documented gap between what people think they want, choice, control, customization, and what actually makes them feel good about an experience. Too many options create work. And work, in a context where someone is trying to rest and be present, is the last thing a brand should be asking a guest to do.
The most memorable stays I hear people describe weren’t the most personalized. They were the most considered. Someone had thought carefully about what the experience should be and made it easy for the guest to just be in it. That’s a different kind of attentiveness, and it requires less data than the industry seems to think.
Why structure feels like care: A brand that knows what it is can make decisions on behalf of its guests. It doesn’t need to ask what they prefer at every turn because it has a clear enough point of view to simply offer something, and trust that the right guests will find it right. That confidence is what guests actually respond to. Not the feeling of being seen in a granular, data-driven way. The feeling of being in a place that knows what it’s doing.
When a hotel offers a single breakfast rather than seventeen options, or designs every room the same way rather than offering twelve configurations, it isn’t cutting corners. It’s making a statement about what it believes good looks like. And that clarity, when it’s genuine, is more reassuring than a preference menu ever could be.
Bottom line: Personalization is a compelling idea that often creates more friction than it removes. What guests are looking for isn’t an experience built around their data. It’s an experience built around a clear, confident point of view, one they can recognize as theirs without having to ask for it. Structure, when it comes from genuine identity, is its own form of hospitality.
Have you noticed this in how your guests respond, whether the customization you offer is something they actively value, or something they tolerate on the way to what they actually came for?