I’m not suggesting that hoteliers should stop being hoteliers. In fact, quite the opposite. The craft of hospitality - the welcome, the service, the atmosphere - remains the beating heart of what makes a great hotel.
But there is a distinction the industry needs to become more comfortable with.
Until a guest walks through your doors, you are operating as a retailer. The moment they arrive, you return to being a hotelier.
Most hotels are exceptional at the second part. Very few are truly structured, measured or resourced to excel at the first. And that gap represents one of the largest untapped commercial opportunities in modern hospitality.
The problem - we still sell rooms like it’s 2005
For years, ecommerce in hospitality has effectively meant one thing: selling rooms.
We’ve optimised rates, refined yield strategies, invested heavily in revenue management systems and built entire commercial functions around RevPAR. All of that is important. All of it remains necessary.
But rooms are just one product.
No serious retailer would expect to survive by selling a single item. Brands like Selfridges or John Lewis don’t build resilient businesses purely on their core product; they win because they understand basket size, attachment rate, merchandising, margin mix and lifetime value. The “jeans” are rarely the whole story - it’s the outfit, the accessories and the way everything is presented together that drives performance.
Hotels, by contrast, have become incredibly sophisticated at selling the “jeans” - the room - while leaving the rest of the outfit offline, unstructured or invisible.
Experience is inventory - whether we manage it or not
Retail understands something hospitality often avoids saying out loud: anything with time and capacity attached to it is inventory.
Experiences take time, have capacity limits, create demand and carry cost. That makes them inventory - whether we choose to manage them as such or not.
Private spa cabanas. Prime restaurant tables. EV charging bays. Early spa access. Poolside day beds. Bikes. Arrival moments. These are all time-bound, capacity-constrained assets with revenue potential.
Retail would never accept stock sitting in a warehouse that customers couldn’t see or buy. Yet many hotels operate with significant volumes of unbookable, unstructured and effectively invisible inventory that never makes it into the digital storefront.
That isn’t simply “missed revenue”. It is unmanaged revenue.
Why phone calls are not “high touch” - they’re high friction
The industry often defends its reliance on inbound calls as a sign of personal service - something guests supposedly prefer.
It’s worth challenging that assumption.
When was the last time you phoned a retailer to purchase a pair of jeans?
Retail has deliberately engineered friction out of the buying journey. Phone numbers are hard to find because self-service is faster, clearer and more consistent for most customers.
Technology doesn’t forget to upsell. It doesn’t get distracted during busy periods. It asks the awkward but commercially important questions politely and consistently. And it is designed, by default, to increase average order value.
Hotels frequently rely on operational teams to perform tasks that technology handles more effectively, while those same teams are checking guests in, managing complaints and running complex physical environments.
That isn’t high touch. It’s unnecessary friction built into the commercial journey.
From revenue management to total revenue management
Retail doesn’t optimise a single product in isolation. It looks at basket value, attachment rate, conversion, margin mix and lifetime value in combination.
Hospitality has historically optimised the room and treated everything else as secondary.
Total Revenue Management is simply retail logic applied to hotels. It asks a broader question: what is the total value of this guest, and how do we help them build their stay in a way that is easy, visible and intentional?
When experiences are surfaced clearly and made bookable alongside the room, the impact is consistent. Average order value increases. Marketing efficiency improves. Repeat behaviour strengthens.
Not because guests are pressured, but because they are enabled to plan.
Why AI won’t save us if the foundations are wrong
The industry’s excitement around AI is justified. The potential is significant.
However, there is an uncomfortable reality that needs acknowledging: AI can only sell what exists as structured, bookable inventory.
If experiences are not priced, packaged and available online, AI cannot recommend them. It cannot bundle them intelligently. It cannot optimise their performance.
Packaging is particularly critical. Retail does not expect customers to assemble an outfit by navigating multiple disconnected systems. Yet hotels frequently require guests to book a room, call separately for the spa, email for dining and reconfirm everything again on arrival.
Every additional step reduces conversion.
AI performs best when inventory is structured, experiences are packaged and choices are clear. Retail mastered this years ago. Hospitality now needs to apply the same discipline.
Borrowing retail job titles - and why it matters
One of the most practical changes hotels can make is structural rather than technological: hire differently.
Retail organisations rely on roles that hospitality rarely adopts but increasingly requires - positions that own performance across the digital storefront and commercial journey.
A Head of Ecommerce responsible for the digital shopfront rather than just website maintenance. A Merchandising Manager deciding what is sold, where and when. A Trading Manager focused on conversion and yield across the total basket. A Digital Product Owner accountable for the booking journey as a commercial product. A Performance Marketing Manager measured on revenue contribution, not vanity metrics.
These roles do not dilute hospitality values. They ensure that the retail phase of the guest journey is commercially fit for purpose.
Retail KPIs hospitality should adopt
Retail measures what drives growth. Hotels often don’t - at least not beyond the room.
Average order value should sit alongside ADR. Attachment rate should be tracked with the same rigour as occupancy. Conversion by experience type, basket mix between rooms and non-rooms, and repeat purchase behaviour should all form part of the commercial dashboard.
RevPAR remains important. But focusing on RevPAR alone ignores a significant proportion of total revenue opportunity.
If experiences are inventory, they must also be measured as such.
A lesson from COVID we must not forget
During COVID, hotels were forced to innovate at pace. With fewer guests arriving physically, ecommerce became critical and digital experimentation accelerated. Hotels moved faster, tested more and embraced new ways of driving revenue because the situation demanded it.
As demand returned, many reverted to familiar patterns - driving rate, filling rooms and treating experiences as secondary.
Driving rate is essential.
But resilience today lies in diversified revenue: stronger basket value, structured ancillary sales and experience-led spend that increases the value of every booking rather than relying solely on price.
The call to action - think differently, act deliberately
This isn’t about replacing hospitality with retail thinking.
It’s about recognising that before arrival, you are operating as a retailer. After arrival, you are a hotelier.
The most successful hotels of the next decade will master both disciplines.
They will treat experience as inventory. They will surface it clearly online. They will package it intelligently. They will measure it properly. And they will enable AI to enhance performance because the foundations are commercially sound.
Hospitality doesn’t need to invent a new model.
It simply needs to borrow the retail discipline that already exists and apply it deliberately to the stay.
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