In life, it’s often the little things that leave a lasting impression. In hospitality, they’re often the things that bring customers back—and today there’s a specific type of customer most hotels are hoping to bring back again and again.
It’s not the leisure traveler. It’s not the business traveler. It’s … the next-door neighbor.
“We treat locals like the core customer segment they are,” said Stefan Merriweather, head of creative at the LINE Hotel. “We see the local customer becoming an even more meaningful part of the LINE’s revenue mix not as a nice-to-have, but as a stabilizing force as travel patterns continue to shift. Locals help smooth volatility and create consistency when demand is uneven, which makes them a strategic priority, not just a cultural one.”
Sonny Kerstiens, vice president of sales at Aspen Hospitality, agrees.
“The local and regional audience is one of our most valuable and durable demand segments,” he added, noting that this cohort isn’t simply a feeder for overnight stays, but as repeat customers across food and beverage, amenities, programming and experiences.
Here’s the rub, though. Locals don’t show up simply because your hotel happens to be in their neighborhood. You have to earn their business, often in ways that are harder than attracting the leisure or business traveler.
“In many ways, locals are the most discerning guests we serve,” Kerstiens said. “They know the destination, they have choices, and they come back only if the experience feels authentic and relevant.”
And you want them coming back. Hotels that are rooted in the destination and integrated into the community become gathering places. Gathering places drive frequency. Frequency drives non-room revenue.
“And non-room revenue, particularly in today’s environment, is critical to margin resilience,” Kerstiens added.
The Fastest Path to Frequency? Food & Beverage
The quickest way to a person’s heart truly is through their stomach if you’re a hotel operator looking to appeal to locals.
“The most effective drivers of sustained local engagement are food and beverage concepts that function as standalone neighborhood destinations,” said Kishan Gohel, senior vice president at NewGen Advisory.
Merriweather recommends positioning hotel restaurants and bars not as hotel offerings, but as neighborhood institutions that can stand on their own. He points to in-house restaurant Arlo Grey, rooftop bar P6 and Alfred coffee shop at the LINE Austin as examples of this.
“They drive ongoing traffic because they’re rooted in strong product, service and cultural relevance, not novelty,” he said. “They give locals a reason to come back again and again, not just show up for special occasions.”
Speaking of special events, they don’t typically convert locals into loyal customers.
“What consistently gets overvalued are high-cost, high-production activations lacking repeatability,” Gohel said. “Large one-off events, overly curated ‘Instagram moments’ and novelty programming generate buzz but rarely sustain long-term loyalty.” Instead, Gohel argues that locals return for consistency, familiarity and relevance, not spectacle.
“The key is understanding that what drives repeat behavior is fundamentally different from what creates initial interest,” he said.
Also, interest is easy. Habit is hard.
Then there’s price point, another influencing factor when driving repeat behavior, said Gabriel Perez, COO of Lodging at the Indigo Road Hospitality Group.
“The experience of the hotel, restaurant and some of its facilities should be affordable for the general local public for the hotel to become an integral part of their weekly or monthly life experiences,” he said. “The restaurant should entice a sense of invitation, not stiffness or extreme luxury, which risks it being perceived as a venue exclusively for special events.”
Creating Rituals, Not Events
Perez cautions that when it comes to locals, flashy novelty can backfire.
“Gadgets, artificial elements or experiences that are perceived as one-time events, such as 3-D yoga or meditation with 3-D goggles every evening at the hotel lawn, are often considered gimmicks that lack authenticity and fail to resonate with guests,” he said. “While the industry should remain open to innovation, simplicity and intentionality often yield better results than technology when it comes to fostering human connection and creating memorable sensorial experiences.”
Gohel agrees that one-off events and ticketed activations can function as a marketing tool, but rarely deliver predictable cash flow. Instead, events should act as top-of-funnel engagement, not core revenue drivers.
“The distinction matters,” he said. “Sustainable monetization comes from habitual use, not occasional attendance.”
With that in mind, Gohel prefers recurring and utility-driven revenue streams that consistently outperform one-time activations. These include wellness offerings that are integrated into daily routines as opposed to positioned as luxury add-ons, membership or subscription-based access structured around tangible value rather than status and brand partnerships that feel organic to the property's identity.
Separating the glitz from the gross revenue isn’t always easy, Merriweather said, but it’s necessary if hotels want to successfully bolster their bottom line through local loyalty.
“We’ve become more disciplined about separating buzz from business impact,” he said. “We’re now much sharper about asking whether something drives repeat behavior, grows our database or consistently lifts a specific time of day. If it doesn’t, it may still have value from a brand standpoint, but we’re careful not to confuse cultural relevance with a reliable revenue engine.”
Inviting Them In
There is an area where cultural relevance does matter, especially to locals. It’s in the design.
“You can create meaningful connection through thoughtful design that mirrors local architecture and cultural cues, programming that reflects how locals actually live and gather and familiarity that invites repeat visits,” Gohel said. “Premium hospitality experiences are evolving toward open ecosystems where locals feel comfortable returning weekly, thereby creating steadier demand and diversifying revenue beyond nightly room rates.”
This type of design must also balance the needs of the overnight guests with those of the locals. For Merriweather, that starts with designing a building that flexes throughout the day.
“That requires clear zoning, smart pacing and an understanding of how different audiences use the space at different times,” he said.
For example, as local demand grows, so, too, do the demands on hotel resources like staff and lobbies.
“We’ve tightened our systems around reservations, access and flow during peak moments to make sure energy doesn’t turn into disorder,” Merriweather said. “Staffing models have evolved as well because in a hotel like the LINE Austin, the front door isn’t just the front desk, it’s the lobby, coffee shop and social space.”
The Austin outpost has also increased coverage during high-volume social windows and strengthened door presence to manage volume thoughtfully. Service standards have been further sharpened to reflect a mixed audience, including locals who have endless options and hotel guests who expect to feel taken care of.
“The goal is simple: locals should feel genuinely welcomed and guests should always feel prioritized,” Merriweather said. “When the building is run with intention, those two things coexist without compromise.”
Gohel added that the brands gaining long-term appeal with locals all share three characteristics. This includes a clear sense of place that cannot be easily replicated, operational rigor supporting repeat use without sacrificing margins and authentic community integration where locals feel ownership rather than being “targeted.”
“Concepts that simply ride the ‘local’ narrative without aligning design, operations and economics often struggle to scale or sustain relevance,” he said. “As demand patterns remain uneven across markets, next-generation brands will be tested on their ability to integrate local relevance into their DNA. The concepts that endure will understand that one of the most valuable guests is often the one who lives down the street and keeps coming back.”
This article was originally published in the February/March edition of Hotel Management magazine. Subscribe here.