An opinion piece by a hospitality professor argues that storytelling is a practical communication tool for hospitality businesses, offering frameworks, historical cues, and a teaching assignment to show how stories build brand identity and emotional loyalty.
Tell stories that include plot, characters, conflict, resolution, and feelings to help guests connect to your brand.
Treat storytelling as part of organisational practice: assign simple exercises (student video project) and frameworks to convert ideas into shareable narratives.
Why storytelling matters in hospitality
Storytelling isn't a marketing fad. It's an ancient way people make sense of experience and relate to each other. In hospitality, stories translate product details, service rituals, and brand history into memorable impressions that influence booking, loyalty, and word-of-mouth.
History and founder narratives are practical story sources because they offer concrete cues you can reuse. The piece uses Kemmons Wilson, founder of Holiday Inn, as an example. His "20 Tips for Success" provide short cues—work ethic, attitude, risk-taking—that naturally prompt staff and leaders to tell short anecdotes about the brand and its values.
A simple framework for doing storytelling work
The author ties a university theme—Dreamers, Thinkers, Doers—to a storytelling workflow: identify an idea (dream), develop it (think), and act on it (do). That sequence converts abstract positioning into action and content.
The article describes a student video assignment as a teaching model: students are asked to take story cues, craft a short narrative that contains the plot/character/conflict/resolution elements, and produce a brief video. The assignment forces choices—what detail to show, who is the protagonist, how to resolve the conflict—which mirrors operational decisions a brand must make to communicate consistently.
How to start today (concrete steps)
Stories shape how people remember experiences. When hospitality teams practice storytelling, they build consistent phrasing and an emotional frame for the guest journey. Reusing simple cues and a repeatable workflow makes storytelling scalable across properties and channels.
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