The Day Guests Stop Trusting You for Answers
It happens faster than you think—and it’s almost never intentional.
Day one, they ask everything. Where’s good for dinner? Is the parking tricky?
Day two, they stop. Not because they figured it out. Because they gave up. And once they stop asking you, they stop associating answers with you.
They decided it was easier to ask Google. Or to pick the safe option. The place with the most reviews. The thing closest to the door.
You’ll never know what they didn’t ask.
What usually happens
You assume silence means they’re settled. Comfortable. Independent.
Sometimes it does.
But sometimes silence means they’ve stopped expecting you to be useful for that kind of thing. They tried once, got a busy nod or a generic answer, and mentally filed you under “place to sleep.” Their curiosity went somewhere else.
By day two, they’re tired of choosing. Of asking. Of being “new” in a place that isn’t theirs.
The hidden cost is quiet. They eat somewhere fine. They choose the obvious thing. They leave without the story you could’ve handed them. The spot where the light hits the water at 6pm, the place your friend runs, the thing that doesn’t show up on the first page of results.
They had questions. You had answers. The handoff never happened.
They leave with the Google version of your destination, not yours. And Google doesn’t send them back to you.
Three ways to catch this — pick the one that fits your week
1. Mid-shift (2 minutes)
At your next check-in, before you hand over the key, ask:
“What’s the one thing you’re most hoping to do while you’re here?”
One question. You’ll learn more from their answer than from their five-star review—because this is about intent, not satisfaction.
Listen for the difference between a clear answer (”We want to find a good seafood place”) and a vague one (”Just... relax, I guess”).
Vague usually means they haven’t figured out what’s possible yet. When you hear a vague answer, don’t probe. Offer one option they didn’t know existed.
2. Quiet 30 minutes (Sunday morning, coffee in hand)
Two columns.
Left side: what guests ask on day one.
Right side: what you wish they’d ask.
Fill in three rows. Be specific. Not “good restaurants,” the actual place you’d send your sister.
Now look at the right column. That’s your local knowledge. The stuff that makes a stay feel like more than a transaction.
Pick one thing from that column and decide where it belongs. In your check-in conversation? Your pre-arrival message? A card in the room? Or nowhere yet. Which is why guests never hear it.
You’re not fixing the whole list. One is enough.
3. Team version (10 minutes at standup)
Ask your team:
“What do you know about this place that guests almost never hear from us?”
Write down what they say. Pick one thing from the list. Make it the team’s unprompted recommendation for the next two weeks.
Not a script. Just permission: if there’s a natural opening, mention this. See what happens.
If you want AI to help:
Paste this into ChatGPT or Claude:
“I run a [PROPERTY TYPE] in [LOCATION].
Here are 3 questions guests usually ask when they arrive: [LIST]
Here’s what I wish they’d ask: [LIST]
Help me understand:
Why do guests stop asking by day two?
What’s one specific moment: check-in, pre-arrival message, or in-room—where I could offer one of these answers before they stop asking?
Keep it practical. No new tools. Something I can try this week in under 30 minutes.”
What feels different in 7 days
Mid-shift: You’ll hear what guests actually came for.
30 minutes: One piece of local knowledge will be out of your head and somewhere guests can find it.
Team: Your staff will recommend something without being asked.
You haven’t rebuilt anything. You’ve just reopened a window that was closing by day two.
That’s one guest who felt seen instead of sorted.
What’s one thing guests rarely ask you about but you wish they would?
If guests are defaulting to the safe option after they arrive, they might be doing it before they book too. The 3 Touchpoints That Make or Break the Booking shows where that pattern starts—and how to fix it in under an hour.
This hit, and it also raises the hard truth: we’re putting huge “trust work” expectations on front desk teams who are often underpaid, understaffed, and not truly empowered.
If we want guests to trust hotels again, we have to invest where trust is built: fair pay and staffing, better tools that remove busywork, consistent messaging across channels, and real authority to fix issues in the moment. Otherwise we’re asking frontline teams to carry a brand promise they didn’t create.
When you see it in black and white it's so obvious but yet it's not something hotels probably think about as they're so busy with so many different tasks. And the one they should be focussing on, really looking after the guest, gets ignored.
This is a powerful piece you've written.