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Why Guests Compare Your Hotel on Price: How Brand Personality Creates Preference
A Melbourne property rebuilt its rooms, upgraded amenities, and trained staff to hospitality awards standards. Their closest competitor—with older rooms and fewer services—consistently books higher rates and fills faster.
The GM's question: "Why do guests choose them when we're objectively better?"
The answer reveals the most expensive misunderstanding in hotel marketing: guests default to price comparison when personality is absent.
The Mirror Test
Before reading further, answer three questions about your property:
The Website Test: Remove your logo from your website. Would a guest recognize it as yours—or could it be any competitor in your city?
The Voice Test: Does your booking confirmation email sound like the same person who writes your Instagram captions?
The "Why" Test: When guests mention your hotel in reviews, do they describe the "comfy bed" or the "feeling" of staying there?
If you hesitated on any answer, you're competing as a commodity. Guests are comparing you on features they can't meaningfully differentiate, so they default to price.
Hotels articulate positioning through operational descriptors: "luxury service," "modern comfort," "exceptional experiences". Every competitor uses identical language.
When differentiation relies solely on features—room size, thread count, breakfast options—guests compare only what they can measure: price, location, star rating. Every property becomes interchangeable on the OTA list.
The economic consequence is predictable: direct bookings stay below 35%, rate parity becomes impossible to maintain, loyalty never forms because emotional connection never existed, and marketing spend increases while revenue quality deteriorates.
This isn't a marketing problem. It's an identity problem.
Properties with clear personality see the opposite pattern. Consistent brand presentation increases revenue by up to 23%. Emotional connection drives three times higher lifetime value.
When guests choose based on how a property makes them feel rather than what it offers, pricing power follows.
Identity creates preference. Preference sustains revenue.
The Five Personality Territories
Brand personality isn't about creativity—it's about strategic territory selection. Five distinct territories exist. Properties must choose one and defend it consistently.
The fatal error: Attempting to occupy multiple territories simultaneously. Sophistication combined with sincerity creates confusion. Excitement mixed with competence dilutes both. Properties claiming "luxury but approachable" or "professional yet relaxed" are actually saying "we're interchangeable."
Personality clarity requires rejection, not addition. The strongest identities come from what a property refuses to be, not everything it tries to become.
Personality becomes real through words. Commodity language sounds professional but indistinct. Identity-driven language reveals who the property is for and why they should care.
The consistency test: If these examples work for your three closest competitors with only the name changed, you're still in commodity territory.
Personality doesn't change through rebranding. It changes through systematic behavioral alignment across every touchpoint.
Properties implementing structured personality see measurable change: direct bookings increase from 25-35% to 44-55% over 8-12 months, marketing becomes faster to execute as personality provides clear guardrails, guest satisfaction improves as expectations align with experience, and rate parity violations decline 50-70% as preference reduces price sensitivity.
Clear personality requires rejection. It means accepting that some guests won't choose you—and that's strategically correct.
Hotels resist personality because leadership fears narrowing appeal. "We want to attract everyone" sounds commercially prudent. In practice, it guarantees commodity positioning.
The Melbourne property from the opening now has a distinct sophistication identity. They stopped trying to compete on amenities and instead focused on refined service and exclusive positioning. Direct bookings increased from 7% to 14% within ten months. Average booking value improved 19%. Rate parity violations dropped 67%.
The change wasn't spending more on marketing. It was accepting they weren't for everyone—and becoming essential for someone.
Hotels don't struggle from insufficient marketing. They struggle from insufficient willingness to choose who they're for.
Identity clarity creates preference worth paying for. Everything else is just noise that guests ignore while comparing your rates to competitors.
If this perspective resonates, connect with dhi Hospitality or explore more insights on dhi Edge.
