Hotels tend to accumulate. A gym is added because competitors have one. A pillow menu appears. A rooftop bar opens. Each addition is reasonable on its own, and each one comes with staff, maintenance, space and attention that must be paid for every day it exists.
The industry sometimes calls this amenity creep. The question underneath it is simple and often left unasked: which of these things actually change whether a guest is satisfied, and whether they return? The research offers more guidance than one might expect, and most of it points in the same direction.
Guests are clear about what matters most
A study from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, by Jie Zhang and Rohit Verma, examined more than 95,000 online reviews and ratings for 99 independent, high-end hotels and resorts across TripAdvisor, Expedia and Booking.com 1. Its conclusion was direct. Service and rooms were overwhelmingly the most important aspects of these properties. Facilities, location and amenities had considerably less impact on satisfaction 1.
In Cornell’s summary of the work, the core of the hotel business remains a memorable stay built on consistent, exceptional service and comfortable, well-appointed rooms 2. Highly rated hotels were described with words like friendly, helpful and excellent. Low ratings clustered around specific problem areas such as the bathroom, the front desk and price 2.
That is not an argument against amenities. It is an argument about order. A spa cannot compensate for a front desk that leaves a guest waiting, or a bathroom that does not work.
Every additional outlet, venue and service is another place for something to break.
What guests say they want is not what they use
A second Cornell study looks at the economics of individual amenities. Chekitan Dev, Rebecca Hamilton and Roland Rust analyzed guest surveys and archived data from a global multi-brand hotel company, covering 33 upscale and luxury hotels over 12 months, and examined three common complimentary offerings: bottled water, internet access and fitness center use 3.
The results did not follow the intuitive ranking. Internet access was most effective at attracting first-time guests. Complimentary bottled water produced the best return on investment among returning guests. The fitness center showed a negative return for both groups 3.
One finding from the work is especially useful for anyone planning a property. Guests generally overestimate how likely they are to use various amenities 4. A survey asking whether guests want a feature will tend to say yes. Actual behavior is more selective. The researchers recommended judging an amenity by its effect on customer lifetime value, and testing it in the market before a broad rollout 34.
Large-sample surveys reinforce the point. In J.D. Power’s 2026 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study, based on 44,787 responses from guests of branded hotels, 46% of guests called daily housekeeping a need to have, 30% said the same of filtered water stations, and 21% said so of fitness centers 5. Housekeeping, the least glamorous item on that list, was the one most often described as essential.
Problems cost more than features earn
The other side of the ledger is failure. In J.D. Power’s 2025 study, 12% of guests reported a problem during their stay, and their satisfaction fell by 217 points on a 1,000-point scale 6. The problems listed were ordinary ones: odd odors, housekeeping issues, excessive noise and disputes at check-in 6.
This is where focus pays. Every additional outlet, venue and service is another place for something to break. A property that does fewer things has fewer places to fail, and more of its people and budget available to make the remaining things reliable.
Why reliability compounds
Satisfaction matters because of what it does over time. Bain & Company has long argued that increasing customer retention by as little as 5% can raise profits by as much as 95% 7. The exact figure will vary by business, but the direction is well established: a returning guest is worth more than a first stay suggests.
Research on hotel loyalty programs points the same way. A Cornell study by Clay Voorhees, Michael McCall and Bill Carroll found that annual revenue from customers increased an average of 50% after they joined a loyalty program, almost entirely through more stays, while average daily rates rose only modestly 8. The gain came from guests coming back more often, not from paying more per night.
Return visits depend on trust that the next stay will be as good as the last. That trust is built on consistency in the fundamentals, not on the breadth of the amenity list.
Focus as a strategy
Doing less, better, is not austerity. It is a choice about where to concentrate. In practice, we think it comes down to a few disciplines.
Start from the core. Sleep, cleanliness, water pressure, quiet, a warm and capable team. These are the things the research keeps returning to, and they deserve first claim on budget and attention.
Judge each addition by what guests do, not what they say. If an amenity is used rarely and maintained expensively, it is worth asking whether the same money would be better spent on staffing or upkeep.
Count the failure points. Every new service should come with an honest view of how it will be maintained on a busy Saturday, not only how it will look in a photograph.
Spend generously where it shows. Focus frees resources for the details guests do notice: a better mattress, faster response to a maintenance call, a team with time to be helpful.
What this means for you
For guests, the practical takeaway is to look past the amenity list when choosing where to stay. Read reviews for what they say about service, rooms and how problems were handled. Those signals predict a good stay more reliably than the number of restaurants on site.
For owners considering how to position a property, the evidence suggests that a narrower, well-executed offer can be the stronger one. It is the approach we take across our hotels and residences, and it shapes how we work with owners in the Aukeo Partner Program.