Plus: Guests remember how their stay ended | Monetizing the stay
Hospitality has always lived in the details, and recently, the industry got a few reminders of just how much they matter.
New York City's crackdown on hidden hotel fees underscores a growing intolerance for surprises that feel less like perks and more like trust breakers. Behavioral psychology backs it up: guests don’t remember every moment equally—they remember how things ended.
Add Gen Z’s quiet migration to the "cozy web", where authenticity and intention rule, and the signal is clear. Transparency, warmth and thoughtful follow-through are table stakes, not trends.
The asterisk just vanished. New York City just banned hidden hotel fees, and the ripple effects won’t stop at the five boroughs. What looks like a consumer win is about to become an operational reckoning for hotels everywhere.
🥇 And the winner is… "Best-in-class" can’t be a vibe—it has to perform. The 2026 HotelTechAwards, judged by verified hoteliers, reveal the products that actually earn their keep.
Make your hotel "shoppable." If luxury is the experience, why are we still monetizing just the room? Turn everyday guest touchpoints into experiences that feel personal and pay off.
Memoir, but make it relatable. Michael Albanese, founder of Element Lifestyle, has seen. Some. Things. In his new book, "I’ve Got a Guy— Stories, Thoughts, and a Few Confessions from a Hospitality Rebel", he explores the friction between performance and purpose, sharing how the experience economy gets built in real life (and not without a few missteps).
Say what? Five ways guest feedback shows that tech acceleration doesn’t always land the way hotels expect.
Alpine sanctuary
Larch House, a 39-key luxury boutique hotel in Montana, is composed as a collection of 10 small buildings gathered around a shared central courtyard, where fire pits and an architectural boulder garden create natural gathering points. The property is conceived as an "intimate alpine enclave."
Why it matters: Breaking a property into smaller structures softens the guest experience and encourages movement and discovery, serving as "both a launch pad into the beautiful, big-sky landscape of Whitefish, Montana, and a place of refuge after time spent in that wild landscape,” says Tom Kundig, founder and principal of the design firm behind the space, Olson Kundig. Design grounded in tactile materials and regional references creates comfort while keeping character front and center. (Hospitality Design)
The central courtyard at Larch House. (Courtesy)
Fixed isn't finished
Everything worked out—on paper. But technically resolved and meaningfully complete isn't the same thing. Behavioral psychology backs what hoteliers already sense intuitively: the ending carries disproportionate weight. If a refund, apology or checkout interaction lacks warmth, the guest’s emotional takeaway skews neutral at best, even after a great stay.
Why it matters: The peak-end rule reminds us that memory is selective, not fair. Guests often judge an entire stay experience by how they felt at the most emotional moment and at the end, which means impersonal service or a flat farewell or can quietly erode loyalty. Indie hoteliers, you have an edge here: a human goodbye, a thoughtful close or a personalized follow-up can shift the memory from “fine” to "handled with care." (CX Dive)
Get cozy
As social feeds get louder and more transactional, guests are retreating to smaller, calmer corners of the internet, like newsletters (hey 👋🏻), group chats and private communities. The "cozy web" favors brands that feel like insiders, not advertisers.
Why it matters: This trend plays directly to the strengths of independent hotels: storytelling, personality and a real sense of belonging (and, dare we say, ownership). A thoughtful newsletter, a well-timed pre-arrival note or a sincere post-stay follow-up can now outperform paid reach by building genuine affinity, rewarding brands that trade volume for meaning. (Ad Age)
"Great standards are not about compliance, they’re about confidence. When teams know exactly what is expected of them, they’re free to bring their own personality to the experience. Confidence creates space for charm to thrive, and confidence is built on competence.” - ADAM TUTTLE, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, YIPY
Toss the binders
Hoteliers are increasingly focused on closing the gap between standards on paper and service in practice, and a new startup just raised $1M to help do exactly that. Yipy’s hospitality standards management software brings clarity and visibility to execution so nothing gets lost between handoff and delivery.
Why it matters: Consistency in the guest experience starts with how your team interprets and implements your service DNA.
"Independent hotels thrive on personality, not policy, and that belief sits at the core of why Yipy was built,” Adam Tuttle, CEO and co-founder of Yipy, told Mint Pillow. “With every property, Yipy focuses on two parallel tasks. One is implementing technology. The other is adopting culture. Ultimately, it is about capturing the culture and values of a property or organization and translating that into daily execution.”
With Yipy’s system now getting a runway to grow, hoteliers can start turning fragmented procedures into a single source of truth. Scattered documents shift into a living operational backbone, reducing onboarding chaos, cutting training overhead and giving leaders clear insight into where excellence is thriving and where it might need a little TLC. (PhocusWire)
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Mint Pillow is curated and written by Jennifer Glatt and edited by Bianca Prieto.
