What I learned about the future of hospitality from a book about its past
History is rhyming again, loudly and emphatically. We’ve faced a once-in-a-century fall and rise in the hospitality industry — we call it “unprecedented,” even — but there’s actually quite a bit of precedent to what is happening right now, and history has a lot to teach us about how to move forward.
I recently read Hotel: An American History, written by A.K. Sandoval-Strausz, a history professor at Penn State, and published by Yale University Press in 2007. The book goes back to the birth of American hotels at the beginning of the 19th century and follows their growth in tandem with the expansion and industrialization of the country.
The most striking similarity between hospitality then and now is how in both eras, the only long-term successful response to destabilizing and accelerating forces in the travel industry is to embrace flexibility. Both then and now, people on the move want to feel less constrained and empowered, and both then and now this is a direct response to new technology changing the way we interact with livable space.
During the 19th century, the hospitality industry graduated from inns and taverns to grand hotels at a time of burgeoning mobility in America — social mobility and literal mobility. Hotels expanded as railroads connected the nation and people were inspired to move. Throughout, travelers were seeking new places, new opportunities and new lifestyles and gravitating toward new kinds of hospitality that could meet those evolving demands.
A similar transition took place in the 1950s. During the postwar boom, President Eisenhower launched the Interstate Highway system. As new roads connected the country, small motor inns and hotels popped up alongside them to accommodate new travelers. These upstart ventures eventually grew into the giants of American hospitality we all know — Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, even Four Seasons.
Today, the hospitality industry has a similar growth opportunity, but the new technology isn’t infrastructure. It’s everything you can do with the phone in your hand. Just as the birth of the interstate produced a generation of great hospitality companies, today a huge building boom and a demand for home sharing is producing a new group of industry leaders.
Kasa taps into this historical moment by giving people self-directed hospitality experiences at a range of property types by using advanced technology. This is new in one sense: Our ability to offer guests end-to-end digitally supported accommodation experiences in different forms all over the country wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago, let alone 100. But this push for more freedom and flexibility is what has deep echoes in the past.
Here’s a forever truth about hospitality: As technology — whether it be the railroad, the interstate, or the smartphone — allows people to travel more frequently, to more places, and stay longer, guests will increasingly look for hospitality experiences that encourage that freedom. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. And when it does, Kasa is here to offer a home on the road.
