Many hotel organisations spend too much of their brand-building time and money focused on telling people about their brands in the hope that what they say will have a profound influence on what customers feel about them.

This results in several problems.

First, there’s regularly a disconnect between what is said and the reality of what the brand does. This leads to customer disappointment, frustration and a lack of affinity to the brand.

Second, the focus on marketing and communications efforts to build the brand diverts attention and resources away from other aspects of brand building that have a more profound and longer-lasting effect on the customer than any brand name, logo, advertising campaign or short-term promotion ever will.

Just think about your own encounters with hotels. Was your perception of those brands created by the reality of the experience or by what the company said about their own view of reality?

The likely answer is the former: the style of service, the decor of the bedroom, the quality of the food, the nature of the entertainment, the friendliness of the staff and the efficiency of the check-in processes, not the attractiveness of an advertisement or the appeal of a brochure (even though they may have enticed you there in the first place).

The way these kinds of encounters make you feel about a hotel is that hotel's brand. A brand is not what you are told it is, but what you - the customer - perceive it to be. And these perceptions are created and shaped every time you come into contact with the brand and its services.

So, what’s the solution? »