Fluff Makes the Difference: How Hospitality Creates Lasting Memories

Douglas Kennedy
5/12/2025

Throughout my career as an accommodations industry trainer and conference speaker, I have often had some version of this conversation when I meet new people in casual social settings when a polite conversation migrates from “So, Douglas, where are you from?” on to “So, what do you do for work?” Unlike so many traditional professions, my life’s work seems to be a bit harder to understand for most people, and the conversation usually goes like this:

Doug: “My company conducts training for the existing staff of hotels and vacation rental management companies.”

Stranger: “Training? So, what do you train them on?”

Doug: “I do training on hospitality, sales, and service.”

I can appreciate that most people are confused to the point where a further explanation is needed, but way too many times I have heard this response: “So basically, you train them on fluff, right?”

Now, early on in my career, I found this to be offensive, immediately feeling the need to speak up in defense of my profession, but over time I simply came to ignore their inadvertent rudeness and would simply reply “Well, yes.”

More recently, though, I have taken a fresh approach, which is to embrace this comment and to exclaim, “Exactly! You’ve got it! I travel the world teaching hospitality staff how to create fluff for their guests.”

Why the change? Because it one day occurred to me that “fluff” is exactly the perfect word to describe what delivering experiences does for guests, turning the commodity of any lodging accommodation into a memory-making travel experience. After all, what is a hotel or vacation rental “unit” without the fluff? As the well-known hotelier Bashar Wali says so pithily in his TEDx presentation, “A hotel is just a building”; thereafter, adding many great examples of seemingly “small” things that people do to make his hotel stays memorable.

Think about it, what truly makes one vacation rental property stand out from all the others within the same marketing segment? Location? I doubt it, as vacation rentals tend to be clustered in the same locations, and chances are good that other VR companies offer even in the same residential development or condo building.

Décor? Based on the 40 or so vacation rental properties I stay in each year, interior design and furnishings is becoming ever more standardized, at least within the same “segment.” Price? Increasingly automated revenue and dynamic pricing systems pull from the same data sources, leading to rate parity. Amenities? Tech? As I often say, you can’t “out-tech” or “out-amenity” the competition.

But there is one timelessly proven way to outperform your comp-set, and that is to “out-people” them! And what can your people provide for your guests that means more than anything else? Fluff!

Truly, it is the fluff that creates happy memories for all humanity.

What makes the experience of eating s’mores around a campfire memorable? Fluff!

What makes the peanut butter sandwich in your kid’s lunchbox cause every kid in the cafeteria to want to trade? Fluff!

What makes your bed so comforting that you can’t wait to jump in it at night and don’t want to leave it in the morning? Fluff!

What makes a thick coat feel snuggly and toasty warm on a bitterly cold day during a long winter? Fluff!

What makes you stare in awe at the blue sky on a warm and sunny summer day?

What makes a warm mug of hot chocolate on Christmas morning create such contentment?

Likewise, what causes your guests to come back next time? Not the accommodations, not the amenities, nor simply the location or a competitive price; it’s the fluff!

What makes your vendors come through during extreme emergencies? Not the checks you write them, it’s the fluff. What makes your staff committed to their roles, to one another, and to their leadership? It’s not the paycheck, which they can get elsewhere. Once again, it’s fluff.

Indeed, hospitality is the fluff! Best of all, fluff is made with very “cheap” ingredients and is easy to spread around.

To make fluff, help your staff better understand the experiences being lived out every day on the other side of the doors of your accommodations, the phone calls they receive, the email and text exchanges they have. Get them thinking about how the frustrations of travel often slam hard against the high expectations of the perfect trip. Encourage them to imagine the diversity of stories behind the guests you encounter. Remind them that they actually work in a memory factory, manufacturing the most important “thing” anyone buys each year: our annual vacations with loved ones, family, and friends.

Spreading the fluff is as easy as making it. Hold eye contact a little bit longer—long enough for a genuine smile to break out. Be present. If you ask how someone’s day is going, wait long enough for them to truly respond. Use “loop-it-back” listening. Pause, paraphrase, and probe for additional details to get to the heart of their story and truly make a connection. Greet their baby, dog, or the elderly person they are traveling with. Offer sincere, appropriate compliments. Share a spontaneous laugh.

Yes, indeed! After struggling for so many years to explain and validate my chosen career to the strangers I encounter, I’m now just going to go with my simplified definition and proudly exclaim, “Well, basically, I get paid to travel the world teaching fluff!”

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