The Post Experiential Era

By Bashar Wali on 12.11.25

Your guests don’t need a performance. They want a part to play. As I like to say, hospitality isn’t theater, it’s human chemistry.

Travelers schedule every minute of their trips and wonder why nothing moves them. The tighter the plan, the flatter the feeling. People want real encounters again. They want to be involved, not entertained. Hospitality is a feeling, and feelings don’t follow scripts. They want to sense the rhythm of a place instead of consuming a polished highlight reel.

In a recent report from Design Hotels, the tension becomes clear. Travelers want the unexpected, yet they plan their journeys so thoroughly that surprise becomes impossible. They want connection, yet they rely on pre-set itineraries that keep them at arm’s length from the world they claim to seek. They want friction, yet the industry keeps sanding every surface until there’s nothing left to hold onto.

We’ve stepped into the post-experiential era. This is the moment when the guest stops watching and starts shaping. Anyone can take your luggage, but only great hosts handle your baggage. It’s hospitality as co-authorship, where meaning emerges through what guests and hosts create together rather than what a brand scripts in advance.

Flows matter. They are the real forces that give a place life: the labor that keeps it running, the stories that define it, the materials that ground it, the local culture that sustains it. When hotels hide these flows, they flatten the experience. When they reveal them, they invite guests into a living system where memory forms through participation, not consumption. Transparency becomes texture, and friction becomes the spark that makes something unforgettable. Perfection comforts, but imperfection connects.

Invitations matter. Good hospitality doesn’t dictate behavior. It creates signals that encourage engagement. A space that invites curiosity. A team that invites conversation. A program that invites contribution. Travelers want chances to shape their stay. Give people a role and they rise to it every time. Most are ready to co-design aspects of their experience. They want honest interactions with people, not rehearsed exchanges. They want rituals they can adopt and simple acts that pull them into the life of the place.

Becoming matters. This is what happens when the host and the guest move toward each other and the environment responds. These moments can’t be engineered. They happen when improvisation replaces routine and when both sides adjust to what’s unfolding. These shifts create belonging because they’re shared, spontaneous, and grounded in human attention. Belonging is the real check-in moment. Keys come later.

And AI? Travelers don’t want a predictive machine replacing intuition. They want technology that removes clutter, not character. The report shows a strong preference for service led by human judgment. The promise of AI is support, not substitution. Let machines do the math so humans can do the meaning. Use it to free teams from noise so they can focus on people. Use it to reveal patterns that deepen understanding, not to automate the essence of hospitality.

This is where the industry is heading. Less choreography, more openness. Less predefined experience, more shared authorship. Hospitality becomes a process of shaping with, not delivering to. Guests feel held rather than managed. Staff feel engaged rather than scripted. The unexpected becomes part of the design, not a disruption to it.

The post-experiential era asks a simple question. Are you designing a stay, or designing the conditions for meaning to occur? One creates a memory that fades. The other creates a memory that stays alive.

Choose the second path and the relationship between guest and place transforms. The guest leaves changed, and the place gains another layer of story.

Have your people call my people.