What I Learned About Brand from Growing Up in the Tourism Industry
Illustration of me at the beach
Before pixels, there were people , and the lessons translate exactly
Before I was a brand designer, I was in the business of experiences.
I grew up in the tourism industry — the world of making people feel something deliberately, of engineering delight, of understanding that every detail of a guest's experience was a brand decision whether you called it that or not. The lobby. The music. The scent. The way a staff member says good morning. All of it communicating something about what kind of place this is and whether you belong here.
When I moved into digital design — first through fabric illustration, then into brand and product work — I kept waiting for the big difference. The thing that made this world different from that one.
I'm still waiting.
Every touchpoint is a brand decision
In hospitality, everyone understands intuitively that experience is the product. The hotel isn't selling a bed — it's selling a feeling. Every element of the guest experience is understood to be part of that product.
In digital business, this is somehow less obvious. Founders understand that their website is a brand touchpoint. They understand that their product is. But the invoice? The error message? The onboarding email? The way the customer service team responds to a complaint?
All of it is the brand. All of it communicates something. The brands that understand this — that every interaction is an opportunity to reinforce what they stand for — are the ones that build real loyalty.
The ones that don't treat customer touchpoints as transactional end up with customers who are satisfied but not attached. Satisfied customers leave when a competitor is cheaper. Attached customers don't.
The feeling is the point
Nobody in hospitality asks "what features does this resort have?" They ask "what is it like to be there?" They want to know how it will feel.
The best brand strategy question I know is also the simplest one: when someone encounters your brand — your website, your product, your Instagram, your email — what do you want them to feel?
Not think. Feel. Confident. Relieved. Excited. Understood. Inspired. Belonging.
Pick one. Design everything toward it. That's what experience design is — whether you're designing a hotel lobby or a homepage.
Details are not details
In a well-run hotel, nothing is accidental. The flowers in the lobby are a brand decision. The weight of the menu is a brand decision. The exact wording of the turndown card is a brand decision.
In brand design, the same principle applies and is just as rarely executed. The microcopy on your error message. The specific word choice in your CTA. The spacing between your logo and the edge of a business card. Details that seem trivial individually and enormous collectively.
Nobody notices when the details are right. Everybody feels it.
Bold choices are remembered
The tourism experiences that stay with you aren't the ones that did everything correctly. They're the ones that made a bold choice — the unexpected design element, the moment of genuine surprise, the thing you didn't expect but will never forget.
Brand works the same way. A brand that optimizes for not-offending-anyone ends up being memorable to no one. Bold choices — a distinctive color, a strong point of view, a refusal to sound like everyone else in your industry — are what make a brand stick.
Safe is forgettable. Specific is memorable. Be bold if you can.
