In the race to digitize, automate, and personalize every corner of hospitality, some American brands have taken a wrong turn. While their websites glow with slick UX, and their emails seem to follow users like shadows, they’re still failing at the most basic tenet of hospitality: understanding the guest.
The U.S. hospitality industry has invested billions in digital tools, from CRMs to chatbots to influencer marketing, yet guests often emerge from these interactions frustrated, misled, or disengaged. These are not just technical errors. These are strategic failures, where the digitaltouchpoints are built for the system, not the guest.
Let’s get specific into how hospitality digital marketing can work best.
1. The Email Trap: Over-Automated and Underwhelming
American hotel chains have enthusiastically embraced marketing automation—too enthusiastically, in fact. Walk into any inbox today and you’ll see a barrage of emails from major hotel groups like Hilton, Wyndham, or IHG.
Here’s the problem: they all sound the same.
Take Hilton Honors, for instance. While the loyalty program is strong operationally, its marketingemails are often templated, repetitive, and disconnected from user behavior. A guest who stayed at a Hilton in Portland for business in February might receive an irrelevant email in July about a beach resort in Florida—without any logical connection.
Even worse are the generic discount emails sent days after a guest finishes their stay, despite thesystem knowing when they’ve checked out.
Hotels have the data but fail to use it intelligently. Segmentation is often superficial—based on geography or loyalty tier, not actual preferences or behaviors. The result? Fatigue. Unsubscribes. And worst of all: lost loyalty.
2. Chatbots That Annoy, Not Assist
There’s nothing quite as frustrating as needing help and being met with a chatbot that can’t understand a basic question. Yet this is the experience guests face across many U.S.-based hotel websites.
Marriott’s chatbot, for example, is helpful—until you ask a question about a very specific property or a non-standard request. Then, the system loops, redirects, or defaults to: “Please contact customer service.” So what’s the point?
The issue isn’t that AI isn’t ready—it’s that hotels treat chatbots as a cost-saving tool, not a service enhancer. The best practice would be hybrid systems: chatbots for basic FAQs and live human handover for anything more. But few U.S. brands execute this well, and fewer still track user frustration metrics in real time.
3. SEO & Content That Misleads
A major failure of digital marketing in U.S. hospitality is deceptive SEO and content strategy. In therace to rank higher on Google, hotels often optimize pages with generic keywords (“best hotel in San Diego,” “luxury stay in Manhattan”) but deliver content that’s bland, inaccurate, or outdated.
For instance, several Las Vegas hotel websites list amenities or renovations that are no longer relevant. Others fail to update COVID-era content, leaving travelers confused about mask policies, housekeeping schedules, or service availability.
This isn’t just poor UX—it’s damaging to trust. Google’s Helpful Content update penalizes such practices, yet many brands haven’t caught up.
4. Social Media Without Soul
Many U.S. hotels treat social media as a digital brochure. Look at the Instagram pages for major urban hotels—dozens of high-gloss photos of rooms, pools, and lobbies, all devoid ofstorytelling.
What’s missing? People.
Real guests. Real moments. Real-time interaction.
The Beverly Hilton’s Instagram feed, for instance, features beautiful photography, but zero guest engagement. There’s no community building, no reposting of guest content, no humor or relevance to current trends.
Social media is supposed to be social, but in U.S. hospitality, it’s often sterile and scripted.
5. Influencer Failures: Pay-to-Post, Not Partner
The rise of influencer marketing in U.S. hospitality has not been without its stumbles. Many properties, especially in tourist-heavy destinations like Miami, Los Angeles, or New York, fall for influencer metrics without assessing alignment.
They give free stays to anyone with a few thousand followers—regardless of whether those followers match the target demographic. The result? Posts with little engagement and zero ROI.
Worse, hotels rarely use influencer content beyond the original post. No repurposing for ads. No integration into email marketing. No long-term collaboration. It’s a transactional strategy dressed up as community marketing.
6. Direct Booking Portals That Aren’t Actually Better
“Book direct for the best rate” has become a marketing mantra. But when travelers try to book directly on many U.S. hotel websites, they’re met with:
- Slow-loading interfaces
- Unclear pricing
- Add-on fees not shown until checkout
- Confusing cancellation policies
Compare this with OTAs like Booking.com, which provide transparent rates, verified reviews, and frictionless booking.
Hotels are losing their war for direct bookings not because they lack traffic—but because their digital experience doesn’t match their promise.
7. Neglecting Mobile: The Invisible Gap
In 2025, mobile bookings are projected to account for nearly 75% of all travel reservations globally. And yet, many U.S. hotel websites still offer a compromised mobile experience:
- Popups that block key info
- Booking engines that aren’t mobile responsive
- Long forms for simple bookings
- Limited payment options (e.g., no Apple Pay or Google Pay)
Digital marketing starts with accessibility. If mobile UX is broken, everything else—ads, content, SEO—collapses.
8. Loyalty Programs That Confuse and Alienate
Lastly, digital marketing around loyalty in U.S. hospitality is often disjointed and unclear. Theemails may promise “double points” or “free nights faster,” but clicking through leads to T&Cs that feel like reading tax code.
Programs like World of Hyatt or Hilton Honors have value—but poor digital marketing execution leads to confusion. Guests don’t know how to redeem rewards, what counts as eligible spend, or whether the offer is truly personalized.
A great loyalty marketing strategy should feel like concierge service. Right now, it often feels like a math problem.
The Underlying Problem: Tech Without Empathy
What all these failures point to is not a lack of tools—but a lack of empathy in how those tools are deployed. U.S. hospitality marketers often prioritize scalability over connection and efficiencyover intuition.
But digital marketing in hospitality should enhance human experience—not replace it.
What Needs to Change
- Better personalization logic — Use data to enhance meaning, not just timing.
- Improved mobile experience — Treat mobile as the primary channel, not a secondary one.
- Smarter influencer strategy — Focus on alignment, not just reach.
- Human-centric automation — Chatbots should be helpers, not walls.
- Transparent, intuitive loyalty design — Don’t make guests decode your rewards.
The U.S. hospitality sector has no shortage of money, tech, or talent. But it often lacks humility—the willingness to test, learn, and listen. Real innovation doesn’t mean having more digital tools. It means using them with care, consistency, and above all, compassion.
Digital marketing isn’t about scale. It’s about connection. And until U.S. hospitality brands remember that, they’ll continue to spend more and achieve less.
