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Series: On Experience

On Experience

Colin Nagy, a marketing strategist, writes this opinion column for Skift on hospitality and business travel. On Experience dissects customer-centric experiences and innovation across the luxury sector, hotels, aviation, and beyond. He also covers the convergence of conservation and hospitality.

You can read all of his writing here.

Luxury hospitality has always been image-based. But recent trends have created jarring distortions that make it hard for guests to understand reality. 

This is made worse by the surge in new properties and their marketing budgets: Great properties don't get the attention they deserve, and others serve up superficial goods but fail to deliver.

I've broken down these reality distortion fields into a few main areas:

The Pervasiveness of the Age-Old Influencer Strategy:

It may seem surprising, but the 2010-era influencer strategy is alive and well. Communications teams invite people with large social followings to show up, get comped, and chomp shrimp cocktails without really caring about the brand they are aligning with. 

There is a danger in this. You want people associated with your brand who share your values. But when you cater only to the volume of followers, you're outsourcing to hired guns who may easily show up at competitors tomorrow