Luxury Unfiltered: Why aesthetic obsession is breaking luxury hospitality

January 28, 2026

Daniel Langer is the founder and CEO of consulting firm Équité

Many players in the luxury industry are currently obsessed with the visual at the expense of the experiential.

This creates a dangerous situation where a brand looks world-class on a smartphone screen but feels amateur during a physical encounter. As someone who navigates the highest levels of this industry, I see this as a fundamental erosion of trust and excellence.

Luxury must provide effortlessness; yet modern properties often impose a cognitive load on the guest that feels more like a chore than a retreat.

Neglecting client needs
Recently, Stuart Greif, the chief strategy and innovation officer at Forbes Travel Guide, shared an article from The Wall Street Journal regarding the trend of doorless hotel bathrooms.

His reflections on the decay of functional luxury highlight a systemic crisis: many luxury hotels are confusing the wrong aspects with sophistication. Hence, the decay of hospitality begins when the focus shifts from the guest's comfort to the photographer's angle.

This trend of form over function is not a minor annoyance. It is a total collapse of the value proposition.

The shift toward Instagrammable stage sets reflects a broader issue where brands design for photographers rather than for the humans who actually pay for the rooms.

When a brand optimizes for a social media post, it neglects the loyal, high-net-worth individual who values discretion and functional comfort above all else. These individuals seek a sanctuary that functions without friction.

I stay in more than 50 luxury hotels every year, all around the world. Two weeks ago, I was in a property in Toronto where I encountered the ultimate recipe for disaster: light switches that look fancy but are completely unintuitive, creating a floodlight experience in the middle of the night.

I have seen this more and more, ranging from air conditioning controls that are impossible to read to light switches that confuse guests despite offering advanced functionalities. If a brand can’t master the basics of a light switch, the guest will naturally question the integrity of the entire service model.

The trend of open-plan bathrooms and doorless toilets is perhaps the most egregious example of cost-cutting disguised as modern design, sacrificing the core luxury pillar of privacy for a minimal, trendy aesthetic. This design choice ignores the reality of how people travel.

Whether it is a business trip or a romantic getaway, the lack of physical boundaries creates an environment of discomfort. Importantly, these architectural choices destroy both acoustic and olfactory privacy, features that were once considered non-negotiable in the premium segment.

Recently, in Singapore, it took me almost 20 minutes just to figure out how to start the shower. These are not isolated incidents.

They are the result of a design philosophy that has lost its way. Rooms now are often designed to look good in pictures, but then you sit in a Zoom meeting and find awkward lighting and no power outlet next to the desk.

Strategic oversights

The modern traveler is often a digital nomad by necessity, yet finding a room with a beautiful backdrop but no functional infrastructure is a frequent frustration. These are strategic oversights that signal a lack of empathy for the client's lifestyle.

If a luxury property fails to provide a desk that actually works for a professional, they are signaling that they are out of touch with the modern elite. This creates a massive disconnect between the brand promise and the reality of the stay.

Beneath the fancy finishes, there is often a hollow core where service used to reside.

In another recent luxury hotel experience, where I stayed at a suite in Paris, I discovered that there was no way to order anything via phone. I had to use a QR code.

The website took forever to load, and the menu options were scarce. The water options were greyed out, so I called the concierge and asked for water, just to be told that the only way to order water other than through the app was to go downstairs to the restaurant and get a bottle.

Suffice it to say, the hotel charged a luxury price point. This is not just a technology choice; it is a removal of the human dignity that defines high-end service.

Luxury is the ultimate human-to-human interaction, and when that is replaced by a slow-loading website, the brand has essentially resigned from the category. Brands frequently use technology or minimalist design as a shield to hide a reduction in headcount or training.

Fundamental shifts

True luxury is an anticipatory service that feels seamless, but when a hotel relies on a confusing app to replace a concierge, the illusion of luxury shatters.

A guest might forgive a single bad meal, but they will never forgive a property that makes their life more difficult while charging a premium for the privilege. This is exactly where the loss of loyalty begins.

Many brands forget that these aspects may be designed to save costs, but they destroy the client experience. At some point, this reaches a tipping point where the brand loses its best clients permanently.

In my book Luxury Marketing & Management, I discuss how cutting corners and increasing prices without added value eventually causes sales numbers and per-unit profitability to crash. We are seeing this tipping point in real-time.

The luxury hospitality industry must decide if it is in the business of creating stage sets or providing actual luxury.

The mandate for leadership is to audit every physical and digital touchpoint of the guest journey with a ruthless focus on friction. Stop asking if it looks good on Instagram and start asking if a guest can turn off the lights in the middle of the night without a manual.

I often wonder whether some luxury hotel brand leadership teams even stay at their own properties. If you want to remain relevant to the world’s most discerning travelers, you must return to the fundamentals of intuitive, effortless and private service.

It is time for brands to stop chasing the lens and start serving the guest.

Luxury Unfiltered is a weekly column by Daniel Langer. He is the CEO of Équité, a global luxury strategy and creative brand activation firm, where he is the advisor to some of the most iconic luxury brands. He is recognized as a global top-five luxury key opinion leader. He serves as the executive professor of luxury strategy and pricing at Pepperdine University in Malibu and as a professor of luxury at New York University, New York. Dr. Langer has authored best-selling books on luxury management in English and Chinese and is a respected global keynote speaker.

Dr. Langer conducts masterclass management training on various luxury topics around the world. As a luxury expert featured on Bloomberg TV, Financial Times, The New York Times, Forbes, The Economist and others, Mr. Langer holds an MBA and a Ph.D. in luxury management and has received education from Harvard Business School. Follow him on LinkedIn and Instagram, and listen to his Future of Luxury Podcast.

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