1,100+ hotels across the Asia-Pacific region

13 countries of operation

22 languages spoken

19 brands under management

The challenge? How to build a consistent, memorable and differentiated guest experience at scale!

In hospitality, products and processes matter, but as you know, it’s your people that make the difference.

Whether it’s a warm greeting, an empathetic response to a complaint, the subtle anticipation of a guest’s needs, or doing something incredibly thoughtful that your guest wouldn’t even have thought of, these human touches are often what guests remember most.

Everyone knows human skills matter. It’s not a lack of awareness. The real challenge is practical:

1. How do you teach empathy or active listening to thousands of employees, many of whom are new to the industry?
2. How do you make new knowledge stick when training time is limited and turnover is high?
3. How do you maintain consistency across locations, roles, and cultures?

The answer isn’t more theory. It’s more practice! Delivered in smarter, more scalable ways.

Human interaction is your brand differentiator

As automation takes over routine tasks, it’s human interaction that becomes your brand differentiator. The ability of frontline teams to connect, respond, and problem-solve in real time directly impacts guest satisfaction, occupancy rates, and brand loyalty.

Yet human skills are notoriously difficult to teach using traditional methods. Slide decks and manuals, workshops and e-learning can explain what to do, but they don’t help people feel what great service feels like. And they rarely translate into real behaviour change.

How leading brands are building human skills at scale

The most forward-thinking hospitality leaders we’ve been talking to are now using a mix of immersive technology, peer learning, and micro-coaching to develop human capabilities that drive guest satisfaction.

Here’s what’s working for them:

• Immersive VR experiences: Platforms like Cornerstone Immerse and Uptale allow employees to step into real-world scenarios, like managing a difficult guest or coaching a team member. Practicing human skills in these immersive experiences builds confidence and empathy in a way that traditional methods can’t.

• Bite-sized reinforcement in the flow of work: Learning platforms, like Axonify, allow you to push daily nudges and scenario-based questions that reinforce core knowledge and behaviours to every employee. This approach turns learning into a daily habit (a few minutes per day) and keeps the learning fresh, practical, and relevant.

• What gets measured, gets embedded: When human skills training is connected to measurable outcomes, (like Net Promoter Score (NPS), guest reviews, occupancy rates, Manager confidence in team readiness), it stops being a “nice-to-have” and becomes a business-critical priority.

The Ripple Effect

Memorable guest experiences aren’t built on process alone. They’re built on people who feel empowered to show up with empathy, confidence, and care - every day.

With the right tools, the right design, and the right intent, human skills can be developed at scale, and when they are, the ripple effects across guest satisfaction and team culture are game-changing.

📩 Want to explore how immersive learning can bring soft skills to life in your organisation? Let’s talk.

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