What Are You Really Here For? The Hotelier's Purpose, Revisited
Twenty-five years ago, the General Manager of a large hotel in a European capital had an enviable opportunity. Hosting a breakfast meeting for some of the country’s top business leaders came with a bonus: a full-page profile in the nation’s leading business newspaper. Every month, the paper spotlighted the host with a glowing interview on its back page—free advertising, aside from the cost of coffee and doughnuts.
During the interview, the journalist mentioned something that struck a nerve: “Hotels don’t feel as warm or welcoming as they used to.”
“In the old days,” they said, “the General Manager was visible. You’d see them greeting guests in the lobby, maybe sharing a coffee or drink with a regular. How come we never see you among the guests anymore?”
The GM, knowing he was talking to a financial journalist, leaned into numbers. “I have more important things to do,” he replied, listing the reports he analyzed and sent off to corporate.
The next day, the headline read:
“The General Manager Who Doesn’t Care About His Guests.”
That quote, intended to sound smart, ended up causing a reputational crisis for the GM and his hotel.
Hoteliers Have Forgotten Their Purpose
This week, I was reminded of that story during the opening keynote at the BC Hotel Association Summit in Vancouver. Ron Tite, founder of the marketing agency Church+State and a former stand-up comedian, didn’t pull any punches.
He told the room full of hoteliers, “Many of you have forgotten your purpose.”
His words echoed the journalist’s critique from years ago, and the GM’s unfortunate response.
Tite also pointed out something else. Some people in the room didn’t come to be inspired. They came to confirm their belief that things are hopeless. He called them out directly:
“Being resigned is worse than resigning.”
That line hit me hard. It reminded me of a call I received in 1996 from legendary hotelier and then-CEO Kurt Ritter. I had just resigned—burnt out, frustrated, and blocked from making meaningful change.
Ritter didn’t try to convince me to stay. Instead, he said, “The good ones always come back.” And three months later, I did.
Tite introduced a new acronym: FOBO – Fear of Being Obsolete.
Unlike FOMO, which drives action, FOBO paralyzes leaders. It kicks in when we forget our purpose, or when we mistake purpose for a few buzzwords scribbled on a flip chart during a leadership retreat.
What Is Purpose Anyway?
Purpose isn’t a PR strategy. It’s a guiding belief tied directly to how you make your money.
Take Lego, for example. Their purpose isn’t to make rock-hard plastic pieces that hide in your carpet and pierce your foot.
Their purpose is to inspire children to create through play.
Like a basketball player keeping their pivot foot grounded, your purpose keeps you stable and allows you to pivot. That’s more important than ever as consumer expectations shift almost daily.
Yes, personalization is expected. But don’t lose your purpose in your rush to prove how much you’re doing for your guests.
“What guests really want,” Tite said, “is for you to shut up about you, listen to them, get to know them, and solve their problems.”
Trust doesn’t come from noise. It comes from authenticity. And being authentic means getting comfortable with imperfection. Nobody’s perfect, so stop trying to be. Be someone guests can trust, not someone hiding behind polish.
As his keynote wrapped up—after Tite had walked through the ballroom, greeting some attendees by name and handing out high fives—he dropped a line that made me want to stand and cheer:
“Get rid of the scripts!”
He pointed to the robotic check-in process.
You greet the receptionist, show your ID, provide a credit card, receive your key, and ask where the elevator is. Without looking up, they say, “Right behind you on the left.”
Sound familiar?
Why was hearing a famous keynote speaker tell hoteliers to get rid of stupid scripts music to my ears?
Because we created a training program a couple of years ago called Ditch the Scripts.
We knew that real hospitality requires real connection.
Ron Tite agrees.
His new book, The Purpose of Purpose, comes out May 6. I’ll drop the link to pre-order it below, and if he wants to share royalties for borrowing our catchphrase, I’m OK with that!
Stay safe,
Always Care
Hi! I’m Paul.
I was born, raised, and currently live in Canada. After high school, I embarked on a gap year in Europe. It lasted four decades. I went to university in Norway and started my hotel career in the basement of a five-star hotel in Oslo. The manager who hired me told me I was too old, too educated, and had too many opinions to be a security guard. He also told me that the only other person who applied for the job didn’t want it.
Thirty years later, I left that same company. It had grown from a small regional hotel chain with twenty-something hotels in Scandinavia to become a large, multi-brand hotel group with over a thousand hotels in almost one hundred countries.
Along the way, I moved from Norway to Denmark to Belgium. Before I left, the company awarded me their highest individual honour for leadership, and security professional peers selected me as the world’s most influential corporate security executive.
I’m a hospitality professional. I’m a security professional. If you ask, I will tell you that security was my job, and hospitality was my business.
Today, I’m an educator and a consultant passionate about hotels, hospitality, and keeping people safe during their travels.
In addition to the Always Care Community, I also write for Risk Resiliency’s Keep Travel Safe. If safe, secure hospitality, hotels, and travel are important to you, please subscribe to KTS!
Written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties, the Always Care Community is a newsletter of how life has made me an emigrant, an immigrant, and gifted me experiences I never dreamed possible.
Thanks for reading. Your support is my motivation and I’m genuinely grateful that you’re here. Please share, subscribe, and connect with me.
That headline was funny and catchy but I'm not entirely sure it was fair.