How 20 Years of Traveling Shaped My Decision to Build a Hotel Business in the United States

A life measured in nights, not miles

Over more than twenty years, one traveler crisscrossed the globe with little more than a carry‑on and a laptop, keeping score not by frequent‑flier miles but by hotel nights. The itinerary spanned major business centers in North America and Europe, surf towns and islands in Southeast Asia, manufacturing corridors in Latin America, and fast‑growing cities across Africa and the Middle East. Along that path came practically every form of accommodation the market has invented: dorm beds in hostels, artsy boutique hotels in creative neighborhoods, gleaming convention‑attached towers, roadside motels reserved from the side of a highway at 11:47 p.m.

After a while, certain patterns wouldn’t stop surfacing. A late check‑in at a glass‑and‑steel corporate hotel with flawless Wi‑Fi but zero sense of place felt completely different from a small, family‑run inn where the welcome was warm but the sagging mattress and street noise destroyed any hope of real rest. When those contrasts repeat hundreds, even thousands of times, hotels stop looking like isolated one‑off experiences. They begin to resemble different outcomes of the same underlying machine—a hospitality system that can be understood, designed, and, ideally, improved.

That slow accumulation of nights, notes, and quiet comparisons eventually led to a very concrete choice: to move from observing hotels as a guest to evaluating them as assets. Years of long-term travel became a practical research phase for understanding what makes certain properties resilient, profitable, and worth owning. The pages that follow trace that evolution and distill practical takeaways for readers exploring hotel ownership opportunities in the United States and assessing which hotels for sale align with a more intentional hospitality strategy.

Why this story matters for future hoteliers and investors

Looked at casually, a long travel history is just a set of memories. Looked at methodically, it becomes a fairly rich data set: what guests truly value, what consistently frustrates them, and how different cultures, chains, and independent operators interpret the same idea of “good service.” For aspiring hotel owners, developers, and even private equity investors, this lived experience can be reorganized into an operating playbook—a source of insight for hotel positioning, concept development, and asset management.

The sections ahead connect subjective guest experiences to more objective hotel development lessons. They link repeated reactions—“this feels welcoming,” “this lobby is unusable for work,” “these fees are exhausting”—to harder metrics like demand strength, rate behavior, guest acquisition cost, and the rapid growth of experiential and blended travel in the U.S. lodging market. The intent is both inspirational and decidedly practical: to show how a life on the road can support a disciplined strategy for designing, underwriting, and operating a hotel that makes sense in today’s United States, not just on paper but on the P&L.

Two Decades on the Road: What Long-Term Travel Really Teaches About Hotels

The hotel as a system: more than a room and a rate

If you stay in enough properties, a hotel stops being “a room and a rate” and reveals itself as a tightly interlocked system. On the surface you see the obvious: lobby design, room layout, cleanliness, amenities, and brand standards. Behind that surface is the true engine—back‑of‑house logistics, staffing models, technology stack, vendor relationships, and how decisions are made when occupancy spikes or something goes wrong at 2 a.m.

High‑performing hotels align these visible and invisible layers. The doorman’s greeting, the speed of mobile check‑in, the housekeeping schedule, the property‑management system, and even the way complaints get escalated all point in the same direction: a coherent guest experience and a sustainable operating model.

Think of two contrasted stays. At one property, mobile check‑in took seconds; the room layout separated sleep, work, and storage zones so you could open your suitcase without blocking the desk; and front‑desk associates could instantly recommend restaurants that met specific dietary needs. At another, a striking lobby with designer furniture was undercut by a slow, paper‑heavy check‑in and staff who seemed unsure about basic transport options. For a single traveler passing through once, those differences can feel like luck. Over hundreds of nights, they look more like the predictable output of system design—good or bad.

For anyone building or buying a hotel, this systems lens is powerful. It keeps you from obsessing over isolated features (“let’s add a cool bar”) and forces the question: will the entire machine—brand, operations, technology, and physical product—deliver a repeatable experience that justifies the rate?

Service patterns, cultural contrasts, and recurring pain points

Extended travel across continents also makes certain service patterns and guest pain points impossible to ignore. Some expectations are almost universal now: guests want clean rooms, reliable hot water, and staff who communicate clearly. Yet the way those basics are delivered varies by culture and by brand, sometimes in revealing ways.

The recurring problems tend to repeat with surprising consistency. Unstable Wi‑Fi that fails during video calls. Poor sleep caused by thin walls, aggressive lighting, or noisy HVAC. Staff who are polite but unable to offer real local insight. Rigid policies that make no allowance for long stays, time zone fatigue, or remote workers. Even beautifully designed properties lose ground quickly when those fundamentals are neglected.

There is a flip side worth capturing. Genuine welcome at the door, flexible check‑in/check‑out around delayed flights, thoughtfully designed work‑and‑lounge areas, and staff who function as local curators all create outsized loyalty. These patterns can—and arguably must—be translated into concrete design guidelines and service standards: always‑on connectivity as core infrastructure, “sleep‑first” room design with soundproofing and blackout curtains, training programs that emphasize neighborhood knowledge, and operating policies that recognize extended‑stay and digital nomad behavior.

Over time, these building blocks naturally evolve into the DNA of a future brand. Not through slogans, but through specific, repeatable standards that turn lived experience into a competitive advantage.

Reading the Global Guest: Patterns That Kept Showing Up Everywhere

Convergence of expectations: what most travelers now want

Despite cultural nuances, traveler behavior around the world has been converging toward a shared baseline of expectations. Whether checking into a select‑service property in a secondary U.S. market or a lifestyle hotel in a European capital, guests increasingly assume a few “non‑negotiables”:

• Fast, intuitive digital check‑in and check‑out
• Strong, secure Wi‑Fi throughout the property
• Clean, ergonomically designed rooms that support rest and light work
• Transparent pricing without surprise resort fees or add‑ons
• Access to experiences that feel genuinely local, not generic

These expectations cut across price points. Economy hotels may deliver them with simpler materials; luxury hotels may layer on more design and service. But the underlying guest psychology is similar: “Give me reliability on the basics and authenticity where it counts.”

Macro travel trends support this convergence. Leisure travel represents a large share of global tourism spend, but corporate and group demand still drive higher ADR and more predictable patterns. Many business trips now quietly morph into blended business‑leisure (“bleisure”) stays, with guests working during the day and exploring in the evenings or over a weekend. When the fundamentals were met—good sleep, good connectivity, clear communication—satisfaction rose regardless of flag. When one of those broke, sentiment and reviews dropped sharply, often more sharply than owners expect.

For future hotel developers or investors, this is a useful filtering lens. Before debating rooftop concepts or interior finishes, it’s worth asking: does this asset truly deliver on the new global baseline?

The rise of experiential and blended travel segments

The growth of experiential travel and bleisure has also reshaped what many guests now consider a “complete” hotel stay. Business travelers tack on extra nights to see a destination properly; leisure guests seek more than sightseeing, looking for classes, food tours, outdoor experiences, wellness, or a chance to pursue side projects while away.

Hotels that present themselves only as “a bed and a breakfast buffet” risk underperforming in this environment. They may still capture transient demand, but they leave money on the table in average rate, ancillary revenue, and length of stay.

This shift has fueled the rise of lifestyle hotels and mixed‑use concepts. Properties integrating co‑working spaces, wellness zones, flexible F&B, and curated local experiences are better aligned with how people now blend work, rest, and exploration. Programmed social events, partnerships with local artisans, in‑house cultural programming, and spaces that work both for laptops and informal gatherings all respond to real guest behavior, not just design trends.

The strategic question for developers becomes: how much “experience” can your market genuinely support, and which components—co‑working, wellness, activations, F&B—offer the best return relative to their complexity and capital cost?

Why the United States Became the Target Market

Demand fundamentals in the U.S. hotel market

Against this global backdrop, the United States stands out as a compelling arena for launching a hotel platform. By 2024, demand in many U.S. lodging markets had recovered to or edged past pre‑pandemic performance, though the recovery was uneven across chain scales and geographies. Select‑service and economy segments felt pockets of softness in some areas, while upper‑upscale, luxury, and lifestyle hotels in strong urban and resort markets often demonstrated impressive rate resilience and RevPAR growth.

The U.S. remains one of the world’s largest single markets for both corporate and leisure travel spending. Domestic leisure travel continues to dominate trip volume, supported by everything from national parks and ski resorts to music festivals, sports, and cultural events. Business travel, while structurally altered by remote work, still underpins a huge portion of hotel revenue—especially where conferences, trade shows, and corporate headquarters clusters drive midweek demand.

Just as important, the U.S. hotel ecosystem is highly developed. Distribution channels are sophisticated, financing options are varied, and the legal and regulatory frameworks for hotel development are relatively well understood compared with many emerging markets. For a new concept seeking scale, this combination—resilient demand, mature capital markets, and professional management infrastructure—provides a solid foundation.

Matching lived experience to U.S. demand shifts

The guest patterns gathered across two decades of travel happen to line up closely with several U.S. lodging trends. Growing demand for experiential stays mirrors the expansion of lifestyle and boutique supply in walkable neighborhoods and resort destinations. Rising expectations around flexible work and digital infrastructure dovetail with concepts that offer co‑working areas, small meeting pods, and robust tech stacks as core features, not afterthoughts. Heightened interest in health and wellness opens doors for fitness‑forward amenities, biophilic design, and programming that goes well beyond a basic gym and a fruit‑infused water dispenser.

Within U.S. markets, segments like bleisure travelers, extended‑stay guests, remote workers, and wellness seekers are all meaningfully represented—from major gateways like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami to fast‑growing secondary markets and creative hubs. A hotel concept grounded in real travel insights can therefore find both emotional traction and commercial logic here, provided it is tailored carefully to each micro‑market.

For investors, the implication is straightforward: personal travel experience can sharpen your understanding of guest demand, but it must be reconciled with hard data—STR reports, pipeline analysis, corporate demand generators—before capital is committed.

Turning Travel Insights into a Hotel Concept and Brand Strategy

Defining the target guest and core promise

Years of quietly observing who stayed where—and why—naturally crystallized into a set of target guest archetypes. Three in particular stood out:

1. Global bleisure travelers who extend work trips into personal mini‑breaks
2. Design‑aware leisure guests who care about character, aesthetics, and neighborhood context
3. Remote‑first professionals who technically can work from anywhere but still need structure, reliability, and a sense of community

These segments share a common baseline: they demand consistent comfort, seamless connectivity, and friction‑light operations, then look for thoughtful touches that make travel feel less like a disruption and more like a chosen rhythm.

A coherent brand strategy follows from that understanding. The core brand promise rests on three pillars:

• Reliability in the fundamentals—sleep quality, cleanliness, connectivity
• Robust support for work and productivity
• Authentic, curated access to the surrounding community and experiences

This value proposition is not an abstract marketing exercise; it’s rooted in observed behavior. It also functions as a practical decision filter. Every design move, amenity choice, and partnership should strengthen at least one of those pillars—or it probably doesn’t belong in the concept.

Conclusion: Building a Hotel Business That Reflects a Life on the Road

From guest to host: closing the loop

A hotel business built on two decades of global travel effectively closes a loop: from guest to host, from observer to operator. The path runs through accumulating experiences, spotting patterns, choosing the U.S. as the platform, defining a concept and brand promise, stress‑testing it with feasibility work, and sketching an operational blueprint that respects what modern travelers demonstrably value.

The real asset here is not the number of passport stamps. It is the disciplined process of turning countless stays into structured insights, decisions, and ultimately systems. That process is repeatable. Anyone with meaningful travel history can step back, analyze what they’ve seen and felt, and translate that into more precise strategies for hotel, lodging, or broader real estate ventures.