Everyday Hospitality

I recently had one of those days where everything just clicked in the best way.

Walking down the hallway at work, everyone I passed offered a warm hello and a smile. I passed two colleagues laughing in small talk. Someone held the door open for me on my way out.

And it got me thinking: Is hospitality back?

That same day, nine months after I preordered Will Guidara’s Field Guide, it arrived on my welcome mat. It is a workbook companion to Unreasonable Hospitality, filled with step-by-step ways to deliver bespoke experiences. One story featured a friend and former colleague, Tiffany, who created a custom wand-ceremony video filmed at Universal’s Hogwarts for a young girl whose day was spent in Urgent Care rather than the theme park.

It is wonderful to experience something once in a lifetime. Everyone should.

But what about the things that should happen every day, for everyone?

The smiles. The kind words. Holding the door for the person behind you. This kind of everyday hospitality may be the revolution we are actually looking for, because hospitality shows up in the small moments just as much as the big ones.

There is a reason we are called the hospitality industry. Shouldn’t that be how it feels when you walk into any of our businesses?

Intouch Insight’s 2025 Drive Thru Study highlighted friendliness as a true super driver. When service was rated as friendly, customers also rated it faster and more accurate. In fact, 97 percent of customers gave five-star overall satisfaction scores when service was friendly, compared to just 22 percent when service was not.*

In her recent CHART Talk, “Make Hospitality Hospitable Again,” Audrey Benet shared that the root of the word hospitality comes from the ancient Greek philoxenia, meaning “love of strangers.” You can watch Audrey’s talk here.

To make it in this industry, you have to get joy from making people feel good. You have to love strangers.

So is hospitality back?

If you still wake up with passion for this industry, put a smile on your face, and carry a willingness to look back and hold the door for the person behind you, I say it is. Maybe it never left.

Thank you for choosing hospitality – the industry, the gesture, and the revolution. You are making a difference.