The businesses that cannot listen

A shorter industry-focused version of this piece was originally published in Hotel & Catering News Middle East. You can read the article [HERE] (tab:https://issuu.com/hotelnewsme/docs/hotel_catering_june_2026_issue/26). We live in a world obsessed with visibility. Businesses track engagement, monitor behaviour, measure sentiment, optimise journeys, and analyse performance in extraordinary detail. Every click, booking, review, purchase, and interaction becomes another data point feeding another dashboard. Yet many businesses seem less capable of truly listening than ever before. I don't mean surveys, feedback forms, or post-purchase questionnaires. I mean actual listening: the kind that requires attention, observation, patience, and silence. Hospitality makes this contradiction especially visible. Hotels and restaurants now know enormous amounts about their guests. They know what people order, when they arrive, how long they stay, what they spend, what they click, and what they rate.…