Hospitality Beyond the Tangible: Rethinking Value Creation

In this podcast, we speak to Mouna Ennour, the Managing Director of YALTEN, a consulting firm specializing in brand equity, intangible capital, and experience governance across hospitality, tourism, and real estate.  Mouna describes her Hospitality Management studies in Switzerland and answers my questions about hospitality education today. 

Mouna goes on to describe what motivated her to create her own company and she gives our listeners her perspective on tourism, destination development and guest governance development. We discuss why operational excellence is no longer the main driver behind guest loyalty and how intangible value must be cultivated if hospitality and tourism businesses want to thrive.

The discussion continues with the importance of family travel and the opportunities it can create for the hospitality and tourism fields.  Children who travel with their families will most likely become future clients and hotels and resorts that prioritise family travel experiences benefit from their engagement.

Finally, Mouna shares her thoughts on the future of hospitality and travel in an era of increasing personalization, technology, and changing traveler expectations.

Mouna Ennour is the Managing Director of YALTEN, a consulting firm specializing in guest experience, place attractiveness, and hospitality governance. Her work focuses on the intersection of hospitality, tourism, destination development, and service ecosystems. She advises hospitality organizations, destinations, and stakeholders on how to transform infrastructure, services, and visitor journeys into drivers of performance, reputation, and long-term intangible value.

Mouna is also the creator of Adam & Mia, an experiential brand developed at the intersection of hospitality, tourism, and family engagement.

Her areas of research and interest include the Experience Economy, intangible capital, tourism development, hospitality strategy, and emerging approaches to territorial structuring and destination attractiveness.

She is the author of two papers, “Tourism Through the Lens of Lived Experience” and “From Contemplative Hospitality to Structuring Hospitality,” which explore contemporary shifts in experience design, hospitality, and place development through the lens of sustainable value creation.

Transcript

Speaker 4 0:12

Good afternoon and welcome to Fifty Shades of Hospitality. This is Crystal Cavan, your host. Today we are happy to welcome Mouna Ennour. Mouna, it's a pleasure to have you on our podcast today.

Speaker 0:22

Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Well, uh, good afternoon and thank you, Crystal. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm Mouna Ennour and my uh professional background is uh mainly rooted in hospitality. But over the years, my work has expanded into destination development strategies and the experience strategy. And more recently, the study of value creation through intangible assets. I've always been fascinated by a simple question, which is why do some places stay with us long after we leave while others are almost, let's say, immediately forgotten. And the more I worked across hospitality and tourism, the more I became interested in those invisible mechanisms that shape memory, emotional connection, and ultimately the way people experience places. That curiosity led me to found Yalten, which is a consulting firm focused on uh experience governance and uh with a mission which is uh helping organizations better understand how experiences create value and how intangible assets increasingly uh influence the competitiveness in the industry?

Speaker 4 1:42

So I'm gonna start with this question, Mouna. As someone who studied hospitality in a prestigious Swiss hospitality school, do you think that hospitality education is meeting the reality of today's industry? And if not, what advice would you give?

Speaker 1:58

Well, I honestly think that institutions such as Glion provide an exceptional strong foundation when it comes to hospitality. And what I appreciated most about my education was that it went far beyond learning how to operate a hotel. It taught us attention to detail, service excellence, and most importantly how to understand people through living with multinational students. And the challenge is that the industry has evolved. And today hospitality really intersects with uh tourism, psychology, technology, maybe even territorial development and many other fields that I think weren't always part of the traditional conversation. One of the biggest shifts I've observed is that we are no longer simply managing services, but we are shaping experiences and perceptions for the modern traveler and sometimes even the way people relate to places.

Speaker 4 3:02

So, Mouna, tell us a little bit more about the company that you created, Yalten, and the entrepreneur path that you have created for yourself.

Speaker 3:11

Entrepreneur path has never been an easy one.

Speaker 4 3:15

I imagine. I can imagine that.

Speaker 3:18

And Yalten was born from a fundamental question that has followed me throughout my entire career. How can we help organizations create lasting attachment and loyalty? Uh, why is there some organizations that even if delivering excellent services are still struggling and remain interchangeable? So I've always wanted to understand how this performance gap happens. And honestly, I realized that many organizations were investing heavily in infrastructures, operations, service delivery, which are essential by the way. But those same organizations are often paying less attention to those intangible dimensions that truly participate to shaping the memory and perception and ultimately the value creation. Those observations became the real foundation of Yelten. And today our work really sits at the intersection of tourism and this strategical value creation. Being an entrepreneur is very enriching, for sure. And it forced me to test my ideas in the real world with all the challenges that our destination and tourism stakeholders uh facing. I think those lessons learned me that experience should never be viewed as something purely emotional. It's really a real economic asset that influences a lot the loyalty, price, and price in power.

Speaker 4 4:52

So let's talk a little bit more about the evolving role of guest experience governance in hospitality and tourism. What kind of changes have you seen over the past few years?

Speaker 5:03

I would say that one of the most significant changes I've observed is that hospitality is no longer being evaluated solely uh within the boundaries of a hotel. And for a long time, guest experience was understood through the quality of the accommodation, the service, and the interactions taking place within the property itself. But I think that perspective has become too narrow. And for a simple reason, travelers don't experience their journey as a series of disconnected micro moments, but they just don't separate from the airport experience or the hotel from the destination itself. It's it's a whole experience that they are living. So this continuous narrative, I think it's important to better understand it and to not manage it in silos, but to change this dynamic, which is hotels are managing hotels and airports are managing airports, and to really have those independent elements create a coherence in the overall journey. So historically, hospitality has a primary function, which was to accommodate travelers and provide comfort in unfamiliar environments. But and for sure, in many ways, it helps to reduce uncertainty and recreate familiar points of reference. But today the industry has evolved and people travel to to discover intentionally and they want to learn to immerse themselves in different cultures and access forms of value that they can't find at home. So as the purpose of travel itself has changed, I think the role of hospitality changed as well. And the primary function is not to simply support the journey, but really shaping meaning and uh the real attractiveness of places and culture. So I think this evolution has transformed guest experience into something that needs to be governed with um the the same rigor as the uh the other disciplines of hospitality.

Speaker 4 7:20

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you've just said is so true. People today who are traveling, they are looking for more a story, an adventure. They want to learn about the culture. As you said, it's not just going someplace and going to the hotel and staying by the pool all day. That kind of traveler. I mean, there there will always be those kinds of travelers, but I think more and more people are traveling, as you said, to have these unforgettable experiences where they come back and they're just like, wow, I'll always remember that experience.

Speaker 7:55

And when at the at the end of the journey we have that reaction, it will always be remembered. It's because the the traveler felt understood and he felt seen. Which is very different from the standardization of the hospitality industry that we knew for for decades.

Speaker 4 8:16

Absolutely. Why do you think that operational excellence alone is no longer sufficient to create long-term loyalty?

Speaker 1 8:25

Well, operational excellence is absolutely essential. And that is a question I heard a lot through my career, in especially when I talk about intangible capital.

Speaker 8:36

And it has never been more important than it is today. But we need to understand that this operational excellence has become a prerequisite rather than a differentiator for brands. So I think that a guest can be perfectly satisfied with the stay and acknowledge that everything worked well and still feel no particular reason to return to the destination or the hotel. So that's why creating and understanding long-term loyalty is uh something uh deeper and the feeling of being understood. So that's what we said before. And it requires us to move beyond traditional segmentation. For example, when I see the traveler archetypes that are mostly used in hospitality, we speak about business traveler, we often describe this category of guests. Um, but behind this category are very different human uh aspirations. Uh, one traveler may be seeking for efficiency in the same segment, I mean. Another one for recognition or personal growth in his uh demanding uh professional life, and all those different aspirations make the classic archetypes not sufficient enough, I would say. So the the same room, the same service, and maybe the same operational standards, I would say, may satisfy all of them. What's the next step? What's the next layer to make it memorable and go uh beyond the classic personalization of state and that remains partly superficial, not in the negative understanding of the word, but having options for preferred pillows or room temperature or dining preference, those elements still matter, but they only address a small part of the human experience, actually. And I truly believe that the next frontier is understanding the people behind the traveler and the aspirations behind the booking of the stay and make people become loyal not to room or process, but really loyal to brands and places they visit. And I think that level of understanding of mature relationship can truly make a big difference in the industry.

Speaker 4 11:05

Yeah, absolutely. And in your opinion, how can hotels, destinations, and tourism organizations create these memorable experiences rather than just simply deliver services?

Speaker 11:17

Say that at first we need to clarify what our experience is about. And memorable experiences are very rarely engineered through isolated moments or of surprise or entertainment or over experience proposed through the hotel journey. More often they emerge as uh the result of a coherent system when every element of the experience works together toward a common intention, I would say. And the first phase is to understand what guests are truly seeking beyond their functional needs, what they aspire to experience or to become through this stay. We all experience some stays that change us uh forever, and we are keen to do anything to have those experiences again. So the challenge becomes operationalizing it in a consistent way across the entire organization, and this is where governance becomes really critical in every team and service, physical space in a hotel or a destination, because both of them are in the modern hospitality landscape very linked. A destination and a hotel have a big impact on each other. So all those different factors should contribute to the same narrative and the same experience vision. And I love to say that hospitality is a stage. And on a stage, there shouldn't be no hesitation about the story that is being told to the guest. And when people and services are aligned around a common vision, something really remarkable happens. The experience starts feeling natural, and that's when it becomes memorable in my opinion.

Speaker 4 13:10

Yeah. Yeah, and I love that metaphor that you just used. Of it being stage, and everything has to be uh staged perfectly so that people can have this experience of being in a different place outside of their normal existence and reality. Let's continue these ideas with this topic. How can you explain the growing importance of intangible value in hospitality, tourism, and destination development?

Speaker 13:38

Well, uh just to get back to what you said before, I think that in hospitality uh actors are not anymore just delivering a service, but we are orchestrating something that is memorable, and that's a very important shift in the industry. And to answer your question about the importance of this uh intangible value, first and foremost, uh I would say that for a very long time, hospitality created value primarily through tangible assets, like the infrastructure, uh standardization and operational reliability. In fact, for uh long periods that was uh very efficient to reproduce highly standardized environment across the world, finding the same Hilton rooms across the world was the real standard of the industry. And the objective was clear to reduce uncertainty and provide travelers with uh familiar uh points of reference wherever they went.

Speaker 2 14:41

Right.

Speaker 14:42

And I think this model actually worked remarkably well. But as we said before, uh travel has evolved a lot, so did expectations. And people are not simply looking for a place to sleep, they are looking to discover something they can find at home, and uh this sense of place or uh even a different perspective of the world that can emerge from a travel and a new destination. And at the same time, we're living in an era of unprecedented cognitive overload, and we are constantly exposed to stimulations and complexity, and tourism has sometimes ironically responded by adding even more experiences and stimulations. So, what many people increasingly seek for a sense of belonging and authenticity rather than just having uh a series of experiences, destinations they meet with. We are speaking about culture or collective memory, social connection or emotional resonance uh to the mother and the traveler. I think those elements really help transform a visit into something personally meaningful. And we can see it through different industries like FB or wellness, retail. People choose more uh intentionally how they live, how uh they're consuming habits, and there is a growing desire to reconnect with what really feels authentic and more human.

Speaker 2 16:15

Yeah.

Speaker 16:15

I truly believe that uh the future of hospitality and destination development uh will not be defined by who can build the most impressive infrastructure, let's say, but by who can create the greatest sense of meaning around it.

Speaker 4 16:31

Yeah. Can you tell our listeners, Mouna, about experience governance and the importance of aligning people, services, infrastructure, and culture around a common guest vision?

Speaker 16:45

That's a very interesting question because it stands at the intersection of those both uh POVs we have in hospitality, the guest one and the professional actors one. I would say that experience governance as the act, the discipline that ensures experience remains coherent from the moment it's imagined at the executive level of the brand to the moment its value is ultimately captured at the end of the value chain. And experience doesn't exist just in strategy documents or brand guidelines. I think experiences emerge through people and processes, and there is thousands of decisions made every single day throughout the organizations that can help or erode uh the translation into operational practices in service rituals and employee behaviors and the connection with the physical environment in hospitality. And the the experience organization really intends to create a rarely identical to the one uh ultimately perceived by the guest. And at the end, again, what is captured in the business. And even just from the the guest perspective, we have what is truly delivered to the guest and the cognitive bias that will make the guest feel the experience and understand it in a different way. And then the third phase, I would say that it's uh how do the guests translate it into industry signals like feedbacks and reviews or recognition. So this experience is uh constantly exposed to degradation, actually. And there is so many factors that can make it go better or worse. And so to say it in few words, I would say that experience governance is about reducing those gaps and preserving the coherence throughout the entire experience chain and to make it more uh consistent and valuable for both guests and organizations.

Speaker 4 18:56

Yeah. Mouna, how do you see the relationship between hospitality, place attractiveness, and territorial development?

Speaker 19:05

Honestly, I think that all those dimensions are deeply interconnected. And they ultimately uh revolved around one fundamental question. How do we create uh attachment to a place? They all have the same role at the end of the journey. And people ultimately remember cultural expressions and the feeling of having connected with something. I want to say exotic, but I will use the word authentic to describe it. This is why I believe hospitality really plays a much broader role than simply serving visitors. Hospitality for me, and from the the definition I have about it, is uh is a vehicle for transmitting identity and it truly helps carry the history and the unique character of a place. This responsibility shouldn't belong solely to tourism authorities or hospitality operators. Every layer of the destination ecosystem contributes to shaping how a place is perceived. Like we have uh the hotel, the restaurants, the museums, local businesses, even the residents of the destination themselves become part of the ecosystem. And every interaction becomes part of this destination narrative. By the way, personally truly believe that understanding the history and richness of one's own territory is so important that it should be taught much earlier in life. Just as we teach, for example, civic education, perhaps we should also place greater emphasis on understanding the cultural and human heritage of the places we call home.

Speaker 4 20:50

Yeah, I agree with that. Let's talk a little bit about family travel. What kind of opportunities can it create for hotels, destinations, and tourism stakeholders? And then maybe tell us a little bit about your project, Adam and Mia.

Speaker 21:05

Well, you are talking about one of my favorite segments in hospitality, not only as a market segment, but as a powerful driver of long-term value creation. When we think about travel, we tend to focus on adults and the ones making the booking decisions. Yet children are very often experiences those places, sometimes even more intensely than their parents. And let's say that adults travel with references and the context. They are used to understand the existing experiences in the world. But children are often discovering entirely those environments, and same for cultures and situations. So I think uh it creates a tremendous opportunity to help them understand and develop uh an emotional relationship with places. In many ways, storytelling becomes Becomes a bridge between an unfamiliar world and a world that feels accessible and meaningful to children. So this reflection is actually what inspired the creation of Adam and Mia, which are, by the way, the names of my kids. And the idea was never to create children products or activities, but to really create a storytelling ecosystem capable of helping those young travelers explore and engage with the world around them through narratives designed specifically for them. And from a business perspective, because it's important to understand the economical value of this segment also, I would say that creating uh opportunities for loyalty and destination attachment is very important and it goes beyond just having a short-term relationship with the place. Uh it's it's really a moment where we allow the children to become active participants and transmission, I think. And if I had to resume uh Adam and Mia in one sentence, I would say that I truly believe that those who hold children trust hold the future.

Speaker 4 23:20

So, what are some of the lessons that you've learned from working across hospitality, tourism, experience strategy, and destination development?

Speaker 1 23:30

There would be so many to I'm sure. Uh honestly, yeah, I'm always learning, maybe every day, new lessons in this industry.

Speaker 23:42

Especially because uh it's a human-centered one. But uh still believe that human-centered doesn't mean that we need to be staff dependent. And I've seen so many uh organizations uh confuse those two ideas, relying on exceptional individuals to compensate weak systems or even uh unclear processes, especially when we talk about uh complex portfolios with multi-brand and multi-assets. So, for in my opinion, the most resilient organizations are the ones that create environments where effectively people can uh succeed, and the role of leadership is uh at the end of the day to create systems that allow this human uh talent to flourish. That's not sufficient because we can't just be dependent on uh on uh human capital. If I had to keep uh another lesson, I would say uh that organizations often overestimate the value of what they can easily measure and underestimate the value of what is less visible. We tend to invest heavily in physical assets because they are tangible and easy to quantify. Yet some of the most powerful drivers of performance are intangible, like uh reputation, social capital, and the quality of relationships that exist within and around an organization.

Speaker 4 25:17

So before we sign off, Mouna, how do you see the future of hospitality in an era of increasing personalization, technology, and as we mentioned, changing traveler expectations?

Speaker 25:31

Well, I know that it can be an unpopular opinion, but despite all the conversations around technology, AI, and personalization, the industry is ultimately becoming more human, not less. And with no doubt, uh technology continue to transform the way we operate, and its main role is to help us anticipate needs. And for me, the most important part is uh removing frictions in the guest journeys. I believe the future increasingly be about uh understanding the person behind the traveler, and this evolution must extend far beyond hotels. By the way, we already see it in some environments like mixed-use developments and residential communities and many other environments where hospitality principles are becoming a part of everyday life. But I I see it as the main shift maybe in the future of the industry. And perhaps the most exciting opportunity ahead is that hospitality can play a greater role in helping people connect not only with the brands and places, but also with one another in a real philosophy of social experience orchestration. And so if I had to summarize it, I would say the future of hospitality will be defined by how deeply we understand the modern traveler and truly believe that's where the next great chapter of our industry begins.

Speaker 4 27:08

Finally, Mouna, what advice would you give to young people who are entering the hospitality field or are considering perhaps a hospitality education?

Speaker 27:18

You're giving me a big responsibility here.

Speaker 4 27:20

Oh yeah, I know, I know.

Speaker 27:22

Uh I'll try to be uh honest and to really give the advice I would have loved to hear years ago. I would say don't be afraid to shake up conventions. Hospitality is uh truly an extraordinary uh industry, but like any mature industry, it can sometimes become attached to its own assumptions. And throughout my own journey, some of the most valuable opportunities emerged when I started looking beyond those traditional boundaries of hospitality and exploring ideas from a different spectrum. So my advice would be to master the fundamentals, of course. I said it uh at the beginning of this uh exchange with you. Glion has had a wonderful role helping me on that mission, but never allow those uh fundamentals to limit your imagination. That would be my advice. And we truly need to challenge those existing models and explore ideas that may initially seem unconventional. Some of the most transformative innovations in hospitality began as ideas that uh did not fit uh comfortably in industry rooms, I would say.

Speaker 4 28:40

Thank you, Mouna, for being our guest today on Fifty Shades of Hospitality and for giving our listeners some very valuable insights. Thank you so much.

Speaker 28:49

Thank you, Crystal. It was a pleasure to exchange with you, and thank you for having me. I truly enjoyed your hour conversation and the opportunity to explore those ideas together. And I hope this conversation uh reflects something that has always been a part of the Glion spirit, which is a curiosity that extends well beyond hospitality itself. Thank you, Mouna.