How Hotels Share Guest Recommendations in 2025: A Case Study
Tispiti Blog. Made for everyone, curated by locals.
The Idea
As travellers ourselves, we can tell you there’s a growing demand for connection and community.
And the longer you spend around hotels, the clearer it becomes – travellers today want more than a clean room and a quick check-in.
They want to understand where they’ve landed. They want to feel connected to the neighbourhood, to the local culture, and to the local people.
The question is whether hotel systems have kept up. The traditional model of “service and comfort” is evolving into something broader – an experience built on belonging, discovery, and a sense of place.
Most hotels know this. “Guest experience” has become one of the industry’s favourite phrases; a headline term for almost everything a stay involves. But what it actually means – what it covers, and where it begins – still varies wildly from place to place.
For many guests, that experience starts before check-in. It often begins with a simple, universal question:
"What should I do nearby?”
The moment can say a lot about how a hotel sees its role. Is it simply a place to stay – or an ambassador to its surroundings?
We wanted to find out.
The Methodology
To keep things natural, we reached out to hotels the same way any traveller might – casually over email.
We weren’t confirmed guests, and that’s worth acknowledging up front. Some properties may reserve their full set of recommendations for paying guests or those already on-site, so this captures the pre-booking experience, not what happens after check-in.
Each message kept a friendly, curious tone – short, polite, and human. Something like:
“Hey there – I’m planning a trip soon and comparing a few options. Do you usually share local recommendations – food spots, bars, things to do nearby? Would love to hear some. Even a simple PDF would be great.”
The goal wasn’t to catch anyone out. We simply wanted to see how hotels respond when a potential guest asks one of the simplest questions in hospitality: What should I do?
We sent versions of that note to a mix of hotels – global chains, boutique independents, city centres, coastal towns – covering a range of sizes and price points. Every reply has been anonymised; the focus here is on behaviour and communication, not on call-outs.
The Findings: How Hotels Actually Replied
Clear patterns emerged quickly – each reply showed a different interpretation of what “guest recommendations” are, and a different way of handling them.
The No Reply
More than half of the hotels we contacted never replied.
And look, it’s easy to understand why. These weren’t booking confirmations or urgent in-guest requests – just short, curious emails from people still deciding where to stay. For teams already stretched thin, anything that isn’t tied to a reservation naturally slips to the bottom of the inbox.
The silence, though, says as much as the replies did. It suggests that guest recommendations are still seen as something that happens after check-in. Most hotel workflows are built around transactions: bookings, payments, and arrivals. What’s missing is a system for moments between – for treating pre-arrival questions as part of the guest experience rather than a distraction from it. Because these are moments that could easily create value.
And it’s not a criticism. Staffing shortages, inbox volume, and constant guest turnover make it hard to respond to every “maybe” that lands in the inbox. But there’s an opportunity here too. A simple, well-written template or a link to a digital guide could turn a curious email into a booking.
For now, that moment mostly goes unanswered.
Key Takeaways
Most hotels still treat guest recommendations as a post-check-in service rather than a pre-booking opportunity.
The silence reflects stretched teams and missing systems more than indifference or neglect.
The No Recs
Then we have the hotels that did reply – politely, quickly, and often with genuine warmth – but without much to offer.
Replies tended to sound like:
“Ask us when you arrive.”
“We don’t have a concierge, but our front desk will be happy to help.”
“Provide your booking confirmation and we’ll see what we can do.”
On the surface, they’re non-answers. But the effort to respond was there – someone still took the time to reply to an email that didn’t promise any immediate revenue. That alone reflects care.
We’re now looking at the other side of the same coin. Instead of silence, we’re garnering a response – but it still doesn’t take the guest anywhere.
As we’d somewhat expected, for many hotels, recommendations seemed to sit behind an informal paywall. That logic isn’t hard to understand; for teams running at full capacity, prioritising current guests feels like good business. And for others, it might make sense not to give non-paying people the same tips you’d give your paying customers. But it’s still, arguably, a missed moment – the chance to use local knowledge as a reason to book, not just a service after booking.
For others, the barrier was again a lack of time and tools. The staff member on the other end often wanted to help, but had nothing official to point to.
And that’s our takeaway: it’s not always a lack of willingness – hotels care, but care alone doesn’t scale without tools to support it.
Key Takeaways
The intent to help is often there – it’s the infrastructure that’s missing.
Are guest recommendations a paywalled service?
The Flyers
A hospitality relic that we were surprised to see has survived into 2025 is the flyer cabinet.
A familiar sight for anyone who travelled in the noughties: a crowded rack of glossy pamphlets – mostly ads from tour operators and third-party attractions. It’s less a collection of local insight and more a physical feed of sponsored content.
A handful of hotels pointed us there:
“We mostly have flyers in our reception area. You must check online which is better 😊.”
“We have some flyers about Huntington Beach fun sites available to all our guests.”
The crux here is that flyers are supplied by other businesses – usually as paid placements, and almost always skewed toward “day out” attractions rather than neighbourhood-level recommendations.
For a guest searching for a sense of place, that aesthetic sends a message.
It feels dated and disconnected from the community outside the lobby doors. We find it hard to imagine someone rifling through a stack of glossy brochures and thinking, This is the heartbeat of the city. (Because we’ve been that person.)
The intention is understandable. Flyers are easy – no training, no upkeep, no internal coordination, and no real investment required. They give guests something rather than nothing, and for many hotels, they simply fill a gap when no modern system exists.
But the flyer format hasn’t kept pace with guest expectations. What once worked as a broad, accessible catch-all now feels out of step with how travellers explore a city in 2025.
Our bad memories of glossy attraction pamphlets are very different from a handful of local community flyers advertising upcoming events or small venues. Those can still add value – but only alongside a larger system. That’s the key point: they work as a supplement, not a substitute. A rack of generic attraction pamphlets instead of a system leaves guests with very little to go on.
Key Takeaways
Flyer racks signal that a hotel’s recommendation system is dated.
The instinct behind them is sound, but the format no longer meets traveller expectations.
The TripAdvisor Redirect
If the flyer rack is the analogue shortcut, TripAdvisor is the digital one.
“THE 10 BEST Restaurants in Yuba City (Updated June 2025)”
“THE 15 BEST Things to Do in Yuba City (2025) – Must-See Attractions”
Cards on the table: it’s fast and familiar – which is why it shows up so often. TripAdvisor is that recognizable industry name, so it feels like a safe, neutral answer.
Cards on the table: it’s fast and familiar – which is why it shows up so often. Plus, TripAdvisor is that recognizable industry name, so it feels like a safe, neutral answer.
But it’s a complete handoff of the guest experience.
The moment that link is sent, the hotel steps out of the interaction entirely. The guest is now navigating a third-party consumer platform full of ads, sponsored placements, and popularity-driven rankings – not anything shaped by the hotel’s knowledge of the neighbourhood.
And there’s a real risk here: whatever the guest finds, they’ll often associate it with the hotel. If the TripAdvisor tips are generic, crowded, touristy, or irrelevant, that can reflect on the property that sent them.
The hotel is giving away a valuable touchpoint – and gets none of the benefit.
And this is where the distinction between outsourcing and partnering matters. TripAdvisor is a handoff – no control or curation. But using an external tool isn’t inherently the problem. When a hotel chooses a platform intentionally, shapes the content, or uses something that reflects its own voice, that’s not outsourcing; it’s ownership. A good external tool can extend the hotel’s guest experience.
Again, we’re looking at convenience. When there’s no internal system, TripAdvisor becomes the quickest way to give someone something.
Key Takeaways
TripAdvisor is easy – but it hands the entire discovery process to an external platform. The hotel is relinquishing all ownership of the guest experience.
Convenience replaces curation, and the hotel’s voice disappears the moment the link is sent.
Want to see how Tipsiti stacks up against TripAdvisor? Take a look at our side-by-side comparison here.
The Tourism Board Redirect
Other hotels pointed us toward official tourism-board sites instead:
“If you go to visitburbank.com you’ll find things to do and places to eat.”
“The Coronado Visitor Center has all the information you need.”
Tourism boards are great resources, especially for maps, neighbourhood overviews, and big-picture information about a destination.
But here’s the question: Are these hotels also passing on ownership of the guest experience by deferring to them? We'd argue, yes.
We’re again talking about hotels losing touchpoints. The handoff means the hotel loses the moment entirely. The guest steps out of the hotel’s environment and into a city-branded space where the hotel likely has no presence, no voice, and no influence over what they’ll see next.
Tourism board information in tandem with a hotel’s own system? Now we’re talking. That combination works – official information layered with hotel-level curation and personality.
Key Takeaways
Tourism boards are valuable, but relying on them alone still shifts ownership of the guest experience away from the hotel.
They work best as a supplement to a hotel’s own curated recommendations, not a substitute.
The GPT Redirect
A few hotels took an unexpected route entirely (but one we should have expected):
“To be honest, I think ChatGPT would be your best bet. It does an amazing job. Try it out if you haven’t.”
It’s a very 2025 answer. From a time-pressed front desk, it probably feels practical and modern.
But we’re still in handoff mode. The recommendation is no longer tied to the hotel’s knowledge, taste, or judgment – it’s whatever AI pulls from its knowledge context (an aggregation of the same generic “top 10” lists the guest has likely already seen).
There’s also a brand risk: if the AI responds with something irrelevant, touristy, inaccurate, or simply bland, the guest may still associate that experience with the hotel that sent them there.
Again, we can say the instinct is right: use technology to help guests quickly. But the execution is the opposite of ownership. It reflects the broader gap we’ve seen throughout this experiment: the desire to help is there, but the system to support it isn’t.
So we’re back in the same zone as we were with TripAdvisor and the tourism websites. The AI option may feel more modern and slick. However, the hotel is still just holding a Move along sign when the guest comes looking for help.
Key Takeaways
A modern shortcut, but still a full handoff of the guest experience.
AI can be useful – but not when the hotel’s voice and judgement disappear entirely.
See how Tipsiti and ChatGPT compare for guest recommendations on our comparison page.
The Website Page
Some hotels directed us to their own sites, where they’d nested a dedicated recommendations page or “Things To Do” hub:
“You can check Local Activities, Services & Attractions on our website.”
“On our site’s ‘Things To Do’ page, you’ll find places to visit.”
The content and format here isn’t wildly different from a tourism-board page – place names, short descriptions, a few photos, maybe a map or two – but the experience is at least tied to the hotel.
These hotels had decided to create and host their own information. They’d taken ownership of the recommendation experience, however simple the format may be. It reflects an internal effort to give guests something specific to the property, not just a generic external link.
There are natural limitations, of course. Web pages aren’t the most dynamic format. They require upkeep to stay accurate, and not every team has the time or systems to keep them updated year-round. They also tend to be static snapshots rather than something guests can interact with in real time.
But as an approach, it sits in an interesting middle ground. It’s not outsourced like TripAdvisor. It’s not analogue like flyers. It’s a hotel trying to provide its own layer of guidance – even if the format itself has practical constraints.
Key Takeaways
Website-based rec pages show a hotel taking ownership of the guest experience.
They work, but their static nature means upkeep and freshness can be challenging.
The PDF Keeper
One of the most popular methods we saw was the trusty PDF. Several hotels sent over attachments – sometimes a clean, branded mini-guide, other times a simple Word document with a handful of places someone on the team put together at some point in the past.
“Thank you for the email. I have attached a fact sheet on the hotel and its surrounding areas. Although this PDF is more for the hotel itself, our front desk would also be able to provide recommendations.”
““Please find attached pdf of areas of interest and recommended restaurants. You may go online for much more.”
This is another guest experience ownership win for hotels. Unlike TripAdvisor links or tourism-board redirects, these guides were clearly created by the hotel itself. And that alone says something about how the property sees its role in shaping the guest experience.
Like webpages, though, PDFs are static, and keeping them fresh requires active upkeep. For small teams, that can be a big ask – which is why many of the guides we received felt like snapshots from the moment they were first made rather than something actively maintained.
Still, they offer something meaningful: a curated, hotel-owned perspective. A personalised PDF created for an individual guest can feel genuinely thoughtful. The challenge is simply that the format isn’t built for dynamism – it’s a container, not a system.
Key Takeaways
PDFs show clear hotel ownership of the guest recommendation experience – often with branding and local insights.
The format is useful but static – great when curated, limited when not maintained.
The Writer
A small number of replies stood out because they were clearly written by hand – not pasted links, not redirects, not PDFs. Just a person sitting at a desk, writing what they know.
“I’ve attached some restaurant recommendations and will provide some ideas for bars below.”
“There are many restaurants in the area:” [followed by a list]
Sometimes it was a neatly formatted list with full descriptions, cuisine notes, opening hours, and links to Google Maps. Sometimes it was a shorter list: nothing fancy but still thoughtful. And sometimes it was a casual paragraph – a mix of local tips, personal favourites, and “if you like X, try Y” suggestions.
For the most part, they all showed real, local insight paired with genuine care.
But the limitation is obvious: it doesn’t scale.
These replies take time. They live in individual inboxes. And once they’re sent, they can’t be reused by colleagues or captured as shared knowledge inside the hotel.
The hospitality is genuine – it’s just trapped in the format.
Key Takeaways
The most human replies – but the least scalable.
Local knowledge exists; it’s just trapped in individual inboxes.
What These Replies Reveal
If we step back from the individual replies (and ignore the chunk of hotels that didn’t reply), one theme kept surfacing: the intention to help is almost always there – the infrastructure to support it isn’t.
Hotels care about guest experience. You can see it in the warm tone of the replies, the PDFs someone once built, the handwritten lists, and even the redirects to “official” sources. But each of these approaches also exposed the same gap.
Concierges used to handle this work, but most hotels today don’t have one. The responsibility now sits with front desk teams who are already stretched thin. Against that reality, building or maintaining a modern recommendation system feels unrealistic. So hotels fall back on whatever they already have: a flyer rack, redirecting to TripAdvisor, a tourism-board link, a PDF, or personal knowledge. “Something is better than nothing” becomes the default.
Most importantly, every time a hotel hands a guest off to an external platform, it gives away a valuable touchpoint that could have built trust, familiarity, or even nudged someone toward booking. The guest keeps moving – just not with the hotel.
The most memorable replies were the human ones. They showed the insight and care already inside the hotel. The issue isn’t the people – it’s that their knowledge has nowhere sustainable to live.
There’s care in the industry. But a lot of properties lack the systems to carry that care consistently across every guest interaction.
