Travel: experience is the product, identity must live on-site

In 2025, Vietnam welcomed over 21 million international visitors, an increase of about 13 to 20 percent compared to the previous year, according to the General Department of Tourism. Domestic bookings are also rising sharply. On the surface, the industry looks very good. But inside thousands of homestays, boutique resorts, and mid-range resorts, a silent crisis is occurring: everything looks the same, and no one remembers anyone.

When beautiful photos become a trap of expectations

A traveler's journey begins on a screen. They scroll through Instagram, look at drone photos of an infinity pool overlooking a pine forest, and read words like “hidden paradise” and “healing space”. They book because of expectations built by images. Then they arrive.

If the scent in the welcoming lobby doesn't match, a feeling of dissonance appears. If staff fumble when a guest asks a question outside the script, that feeling appears too. If the bath towels are dull while the photos online show pure white, guests notice right away. Guests don't need to name that feeling. They simply feel deceived, even though the owner never intended to deceive anyone.

This is not a marketing issue. This is a problem of a brand that exists only on media channels but has not been implemented in practice.

Experience is the product, not the context

In most industries, the product is what customers buy before experiencing the service. In tourism, this is completely reversed. Customers purchase before knowing what they will receive. And what they are truly buying is a feeling: the feeling of relaxation, being cared for, and being in a place entirely different from everyday life.

Wally Olins, who laid the foundation for modern branding thinking, argues that a brand is created by four vectors: product, environment, communication, and behavior. In tourism, all four vectors are present at once, in the same space, with the same guests. No industry demands higher consistency.

A beautifully designed room with indifferent staff is a contradiction guests will remember. A delicious breakfast that is presented messily signals that the owner isn't paying attention. Conversely, a modest place that is consistent, from how the towels are folded to how the note on the pillow is written, can still feel special. That is something a five-star hotel cannot buy with money.

A brand is not a logo. A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization. (A brand is not a logo. A brand is a person's gut feeling about that product, service, or organization.)

Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap

Which touchpoint is speaking for you

Try to go through the journey of a real guest: they search on Google, visit the booking page, view photos, and read descriptions. Then they send a message to ask for more information. The attitude of the person responding to that message is a brand touchpoint. The content of the booking confirmation email is a touchpoint. The wayfinding from the entrance to the lobby is a touchpoint. The scent when the room door opens is a touchpoint. The way the staff greets guests at breakfast is a touchpoint.

Most accommodation owners can only control digital touchpoints because they are visible and easy to edit. Physical touchpoints and human interactions are left to chance or handled according to the discretion of each staff member during their shift.

The result is a brand with a significant gap between promise and reality. And in tourism, that gap is measured by reviews on TripAdvisor, Google Maps, and Booking.

The OTA trap and why a strong brand is a financial asset

When there is not a strong enough brand, accommodations rely entirely on online booking platforms to attract guests. The platforms take 15 to 25 percent per booking. Besides the financial cost, there is an invisible cost: the property owner loses ownership of the relationship with the customer. They have no data, no way to follow up, and no way to create loyalty outside of third-party channels.

When a lodging establishment builds a brand that is clear enough, customers remember the name, recall the feeling, and search for it by name rather than by price. This is not romantic. This is a practical business mechanism: reducing dependence on OTAs, lowering the cost of attracting new customers, and increasing direct booking rates.

Kantar BrandZ found that brands perceived as “meaningful and different” make customers willing to pay 38 percent more on average. In tourism, this means that for the same room in the same location, the stronger brand can charge a higher price without guests complaining.

The local story: the only thing that cannot be replicated

With thousands of homestays and small resorts competing, the most lasting advantage is a local story that cannot be copied, because it is tied to a specific land, people, and community.

A resort that tells the story of the surrounding fishing village, puts meals from local fishermen on the menu, and names its spaces after real places in the region is building an asset competitors cannot copy. That is “sense of place”, a central concept in modern hotel experience design.

But a local story does not live in a few handmade objects placed in the lobby for show. It has to seep into how staff introduce the surrounding area, into the language on the menu, into the choice of materials in the space. It also lives in the small details guests notice when they pay attention. That is when a brand truly lives in every on-site touchpoint, not only on social media.

Consistent identity in operations is not an aesthetic matter. It is the mechanism that gives a brand lasting value. Each time a guest has the experience they expected, the memory of the brand is reinforced in their mind. This is exactly the mechanism Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp describe in their research on distinctive brand assets and mental availability.