Experience Over Price: The Hospitality Industry’s New Reality

Would you believe that nearly two-thirds of full-service restaurant customers say experience is more important than price?

Thats not fiction, The National Restaurant Associations State of The Restaurant Industry 2025 is crystal clear: it’s your new reality.

This is not just a trend, it’s a fundamental shift in hospitality. Customers no longer choose restaurants, hotels, or venues based on price alone. Instead, they want something more. Something intagible. Something difficult to quantify yet something we all know what feels like. They want an experience. They want to create memories that justify their spending.

And here’s the best part, 86% of buyers across industries say they’re willing to pay more for a great experience. This is more than a trend, it’s consumer behavior in action. It’s them letting you know that if you are ready and able to provide the exceptional experience they seek, they will stay longer, spend more, come back again, and often.

Sounds great hey?

But here’s the challenge: What defines a “great experience” varies from person to person.

So, how do you create something that is, by nature, subjective?

If You’re Not Asking, You’re Guessing

Many hospitality brands invest heavily in making improvements they think will enhance guest experience. Better lighting? New menu items? Faster service?

The truth is, if you’re not asking your guests what matters most, you’re just making expensive guesses. Some will pay off. Some won’t. But why gamble with guest satisfaction when you can use data to drive decisions?

The key to creating a truly outstanding experience isn’t guessing, it’s listening.

Now, sure you could spend your nights trawling tripadvisor, scraping yelp and gobbling up every morsel of information in your google reviews. But reviews are often too-late, and they don’t go deep enough.

In a typical review a customer will tell you about their experience, but in 2025 is that really enough? We need to be knowing exactly what is is that created that experience. Why did they give you 4 stars instead of 5? They thought your staff were nice, great, but why? Was it how they greeted them, their follow-up during the meal, their service? In 2025 we need to go deeper. If not we’re still guessing.

Theres a difference between feedback and reviews. Reviews are about you. Feedback is for you. For you to improve. For you to be able to delight your customer, to give them the experience their yearning for.

Real-time guest feedback allows you to:

✔ Understand what actually influences customer satisfaction.
✔ Focus on the areas that matter most to guests.
✔ Make data-driven decisions that increase satisfaction and retention.

But what if you could go one step further? What if you could know, with certainty, which areas of your service have the biggest impact on overall guest satisfaction? What is it that specifically helps create that experience they desire?

Importance Rank

Imagine if every piece of feedback you received was ranked, not just by score, but by how much it actually impacts your guests’ overall satisfaction.

That’s exactly what our new Importance Rank does.

Using machine learning, Importance Rank analyzes all the feedback you collect and tells you which aspects of your service have the greatest influence on satisfaction and the highest improvement potential. It cuts through the noise and prioritizes what really matters.

Here’s an example: A company cafeteria receives a low rating for coffee quality (3.7 out of 6.0). Normally, this would seem like an urgent issue to fix. But when Importance Rank assesses the data, it finds that coffee quality has very little impact on overall guest satisfaction. In fact, it ranks #31 out of 35 priorities, bottom 10%.So instead of wasting time and budget fixing something that doesn’t really matter, the cafeteria can focus on what actually moves the needle.

Now, lets look at the reverse scenario.

A stadium food and beverage operator receives a strong rating of 5.5 out of 6.0 for mobile ordering speed. At first glance, it seems like everything is great, and no action is needed.

But Importance Rank tells a different story. Despite the high score, mobile ordering speed is the highest-ranked factor influencing overall satisfaction. In other words, improving it even further could have the biggest impact on your guest experience and revenue. If wait times were reduced by just 10-15 seconds, it could lead to a higher per-fan spend and reduce congestion at key food and drink locations. So instead of assuming that a good score means no action is needed, Importance Rank helps your prioritize improvements that actually impact satisfaction, actions that help create and experience and that drive real results.

Data-Driven Decisions Lead to Better Customer Experiences

If nearly two-thirds of restaurant guests prioritize experience over price, and 86% of buyers are willing to spend more for a great experience, why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to understand what makes an experience great?

By leveraging real-time feedback and Importance Rank, hospitality brands can:

✔ Identify what actually matters most to guests.
✔ Reduce guesswork and focus on high-impact improvements.
✔ Increase customer satisfaction, leading to higher loyalty, more repeat visits, and better revenue.

In 2025 where the experts think that experience will define success, listening really isn’t just polite, its profitable. And the Hospitality brands who truly listen and act will come out on top.

Experience over price: The Hospitality Industry’s New Reality

Your guests are telling you what they want. Are you listening?

In 2025, if you aren’t set up to measure, prioritize, and improve the factors that actually matter most to your customers, you’re already falling behind.

Let’s make this the year you truly start listening, and really start creating great experiences for your customers and better business outcomes for yourself.

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