52%

Ilenia tackled what it actually takes to turn a guest into a guest for life, and why the answer isn’t just more technology. And the stakes are higher than they sound. Emotionally connected customers, she said, are worth 52% more than merely satisfied ones. 

 

Machine customer service is heading there fast. Speed and accessibility used to set a hotel apart, now they are simply going to be expected. What’s left is what happens after that – whether you stand out enough to be memorable.  

There’s a shift coming that people haven’t considered enough: The faster the digital side speeds up, the rarer human connection becomes. And we need to remember, human touch is not an area where we should look to cut costs. It’s hospitality – it’s the product itself. The human touch, she said, is instead becoming the new premium. She pointed to banks opening branches while competitors close them, supermarkets adding slow checkout lanes for people who want to talk, and coffee shops carving out space for their regulars.  

That’s the line she draws between service and hospitality. Service is simply delivering what you promised. Hospitality however, is going past it – the sprinkles of magic, how you greet someone, somebody noticing something outside of their to-do list. She told two stories to make the point. Someone comforting a worried guest. A postman noticing a seven-year-old’s handwriting on an envelope and not throwing away the letter. Neither of them had a bigger budget, but they were paying attention. 

Agentic AI is on everyone’s mind. Software that plans a guest’s stay, books a dinner, and arranges the airport transfer without friction. That’s a real shift, and a good one. It clears the small, repeated jobs off a person’s plate. That leaves more room for the moment that actually earns loyalty. 

Being satisfied and sitting on your laurels, she said, is the most dangerous place a company can sit. Guests don’t compare you to who you were five years ago. They compare you to the best experience they had last week. 

Vidili built her answer to that problem around three Hs: Hero, Human, and Habits. 

Hero. Most build the story around the company. But the real storytellers are the Heros, the people, the magic spotters. The company’s job is to provide the culture, enabling the magic and stepping outside of the box.   

Human. Every organization has policies and routines to follow, written by people who were not in the room when it mattered. But we need to give permission to be human. Being able to make decisions and bend a rule to help a guest in a tricky situation.  

Habits. Great experiences are not delivered by good intentions alone. They are designed. It can be anything from a restaurant team using silent hand signals so any waiter can bring the right water to the right table in seconds, to how a beautician plans a luxurious element in their routine.   

 

Change does not need a programme behind it, it needs a habit. A daily practice: create 1% magic every day. Anyone can start it tomorrow. And that’s the edge no software update will ever be able to do, and it’s still ours to keep.