Hospitality Has Lost Its Way. The Odyssey Offers a Way Home.
By Jake Haupert, The Transformational Travel Council
I have spent much of my life traveling around the world, and I have never really experienced a hotel through a checklist and I often try to leave my expectations at the door. I enter through my body, noticing the light, the scent, the sounds, the energy between people, whether anyone is making eye contact, whether the welcome feels genuine or rehearsed, whether the room invites me to settle into the moment or simply wants to impress me. Some places have a pulse, a certain aliveness that is difficult to manufacture or explain, while others merely have a concept, beautiful perhaps, impeccably executed, and yet somehow empty.
I have always been sensitive to that difference, spotting the superficial and artificial, craving something more real, more connective, more human, and perhaps that is why I believe modern hospitality lost its way a long time ago. We became darn good at delivering rooms, amenities, efficiencies, and choreographed service, but somewhere in all that perfection we drifted away from the deeper purpose of welcoming another human being. We started confusing consistency with care, performance with presence, luxury with more, and seamlessness with something people might actually remember.
Bashar Wali has offered one of the clearest reminders of what we have forgotten: service is what we deliver, while hospitality is how we make people feel. I would add that feeling is also where human connection and development begin, because when people feel seen, understood, and safe enough to exhale, they become more present, more curious, more available to themselves and the world around them, and that is when something meaningful can actually happen. Not necessarily some grand, life-altering transformation, but perhaps a moment of awe, a conversation that matters, a deeper connection with a partner, or the first real deep breath someone has taken in months.
This is not soft or peripheral to value creation, not at all. It is the source of it. A guest who feels genuinely connected is not simply more satisfied, they are more likely to remember the experience, tell its story, return, recommend it, and value it beyond the usual comparison of rooms, rates, and amenities. What we often call loyalty is really resonance, the feeling that something about a place aligned with something meaningful within us, and when the purpose of the property, the experience of the guest, the wellbeing of the team, and the relationship with the surrounding community all reinforce one another, coherence emerges. You can feel it. It is what makes certain places seem alive, soulful, even magnetic.
The same is true for the people creating the experience. Teams cannot create belonging for guests while feeling invisible themselves, and they cannot offer genuine presence when they are exhausted, tightly scripted, or disconnected from the purpose of their work and the organization’s values. When team members feel seen, trusted, valued, and part of something special, hospitality stops being a performance and becomes an expression of culture and community. This energy penetrates the guest, the guest reciprocates, and something relational begins to come to life, something that no brand standard, technology platform, or service script can create on its own.
This understanding is not new. It sits near the heart of one of humanity’s oldest travel stories. Homer’s Odyssey is not simply an adventure about monsters, temptation, and a man trying to find his way home, it is also a story about xenia, the sacred and reciprocal responsibility between host and guest, protected by Zeus. The stranger arriving at the threshold was to be offered food, shelter, safety, and dignity before being questioned or judged because they might be more than they appeared, perhaps even a god in disguise. Hospitality was not an industry. It was part of the moral architecture, a sacredness, holding society together, and throughout the story, character is revealed by how someone welcomes the stranger, honors the host, or violates that trust.
Yet The Odyssey is equally a story about nostos, the return home. Odysseus is not wandering for the sake of wandering, although that is nice too; in this context, he longs to return to Ithaca, to Penelope, to his son, and ultimately to himself, but the person who returns is not the person who departed. He has been tested, disoriented, humbled, and changed. Joseph Campbell understood this as a foundational expression of the Hero’s Journey, and his protégé, my mentor Phil Cousineau, has helped me understand that the true measure of a journey is not how far we travel but how deeply we engage, who we become along the way, and what we bring back.
Hotels occupy a powerful space between xenia and nostos, between the welcome and the return, and this is where Experience Impact lives. What does someone need in order to feel seen? What might help them become more present and purposeful? What connection can our people and place make possible, and what might the guest carry home into their relationships, choices, and community?
Xenia asks how we receive the traveler. Nostos asks how they return. Perhaps remembering both is how hospitality begins to find its way home. Looking forward to building on this in Rome.
Jake Haupert is a strategist, speaker, and Experience Impact advisor with an instinct for seeing around corners and bringing the soulful back into business. He is the founder and CEO of the Transformational Travel Council, founder of the nonprofit Transformational Travel Institute, and leads a personal consultancy advising hospitality leaders, destinations, experience companies, and purpose-driven organizations. His work helps leaders anticipate what is emerging, clarify what matters, and intentionally design experiences that create greater value through human connection, meaning, wellbeing, and positive impact.
The Global Consultant is Hotel Management’s monthly contributed column featuring insights from members of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC). Each installment explores the trends, challenges and opportunities shaping the hospitality industry.
