For historic hotels, the past can be more than something to preserve. Used carefully, it can become a source of differentiation, shaping brand positioning, design, food and beverage, programming and the wider guest experience.
A landmark building, famous former guest, connection to a significant cultural event or long-running local story can give a hotel an identity that competitors cannot easily reproduce.
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The opportunity for hotel operators is to translate that heritage into experiences relevant to today’s guest. Tours, events, restaurant concepts, exhibitions and digital content can bring a property’s history to life while strengthening its connection with its destination.
The challenge is to do so without trivialising the past. Successful heritage branding depends on understanding what makes a property distinctive, establishing what is documented and what belongs to folklore, and deciding which elements of that history still have meaning for contemporary guests.
Heritage can create competitive differentiation
Hotels compete in a market where properties can offer increasingly similar facilities, from restaurants and spas to meeting spaces, technology and service concepts.
History provides a different form of competitive advantage.
A hotel that has occupied the same building or site for decades can draw on its architecture, former guests, local events and relationship with the surrounding community to create an identity specific to that property.
Unlike a design trend or service concept, genuine history cannot simply be copied by a competing hotel.
Research supports the potential value of storytelling in hotel branding. A 2018 study in the International Journal of Hospitality Management found that brand storytelling can help luxury hotels build identity and create a stronger connection between the brand story and the physical hotel environment.
A 2019 study in Tourism Management found that well-structured hotel brand stories, particularly those with strong historical connections, can improve consumers’ perceptions of a luxury hotel brand.
More recent research published in 2025 has also examined the relationship between luxury hotel storytelling, brand history and booking intentions.
The commercial opportunity lies in making that narrative part of the experience rather than leaving it on the history page of a hotel website.
The Stanley: turning a story into a guest product
The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, provides a clear example of how a historical association can become part of a hotel’s contemporary proposition.
Opened in 1909 by inventor Freelan Oscar Stanley, the property was conceived as a grand resort in the Rocky Mountains. Its cultural identity later acquired another dimension through its association with author Stephen King.
King stayed at the Stanley in 1974. Room 217, where he stayed, is now presented by the hotel as the place where he gained the inspiration for The Shining.
The Stanley has built on that association through guest experiences exploring the property’s history, architecture and connections with The Shining, alongside the ghost stories associated with the hotel.
Its significance as a case study is not simply that the property has a famous story. The Stanley has turned an intangible piece of cultural heritage into a tangible guest product.
Tours and other programming give visitors additional ways to engage with the property while reinforcing an identity that differentiates the Stanley from competing hotels.
The model has applications beyond literary landmarks. A distinctive element of a hotel’s past can support programming and experiences that complement its core accommodation, food and beverage and events businesses.
Hotels need to distinguish heritage from folklore
Not every story associated with a historic hotel can be documented, but that does not necessarily make folklore irrelevant to a hotel brand.
Legends can contribute to a property’s identity when operators are transparent about the difference between documented history and stories that have developed over time.
Fairmont Banff Springs in Alberta, Canada, demonstrates the distinction.
The hotel has become associated with several longstanding stories, including the Ghost Bride, a mysterious missing room and the ghost of a bellman known as Sam.
Fairmont’s own account distinguishes between legend and documented history. It says there is no written record confirming the Ghost Bride story, while explaining the architectural changes that helped create the legend of the hotel’s so-called missing room. Sam, by contrast, was based on a real bellman who worked at the hotel.
For hotel marketers, the distinction matters. A legend does not need to be presented as historical fact to have storytelling value.
Folklore can become part of a property’s character when its origins and uncertainties are communicated clearly. Presenting disputed stories as established fact, however, risks undermining the credibility on which authentic heritage branding depends.
Heritage needs to work for today’s guest
The commercial value of hotel history does not depend on preserving a property exactly as it once existed.
Historic hotels still have to meet contemporary expectations around comfort, technology, accessibility, service and convenience. Owners and operators therefore have to decide what should be preserved, what should be restored and what can be reinterpreted.
That challenge becomes particularly visible when landmark hotels undergo major renovations.
The Waldorf Astoria New York reopened in 2025 following an extensive restoration. Hilton says the project preserved landmark spaces and elements of the hotel’s historic architecture while introducing contemporary rooms, dining and event facilities. The property now combines restored heritage spaces with a modern luxury proposition.
The objective is not to recreate the past in its entirety. Historic features and associations instead become part of a continuing identity that can be interpreted for a new generation of guests.
For owners undertaking major renovations, that makes heritage a development and design consideration as much as a marketing one. Decisions about which spaces, architectural elements and cultural references to retain can influence how successfully a renovated property remains connected to its original identity.
Turning heritage into a guest experience
A hotel can have a compelling story without the guest ever meaningfully encountering it.
A property might devote substantial space on its website to its history while providing little indication of that history once visitors arrive. The result is a gap between the brand narrative and the physical experience.
Architecture and original objects provide one opportunity to close that gap. Historically significant features can be interpreted rather than simply displayed, helping guests understand why they matter.
Food and beverage can provide another. Restaurant and bar names, recipes and concepts can draw on the property’s or destination’s past where there is a genuine historical connection.
Tours, exhibitions, anniversary programmes and cultural events can extend the story further and give guests and local residents reasons to engage with a hotel beyond an overnight stay.
Staff also play a role. Well-researched stories that employees can share naturally can make heritage part of service without turning guest interactions into scripted history lessons.
Digital touchpoints can introduce the narrative before arrival, while signage, in-room material and exhibitions can continue it during the stay.
Heritage becomes more valuable when guests encounter it across the experience rather than only in marketing material. Research into luxury hotel storytelling similarly points to the importance of connecting a brand story with the physical environment and the overall guest experience.
Research should come before storytelling
Before hotels commercialise their heritage, they need to establish what that heritage actually is.
Property archives, architectural plans, historic photographs, newspaper records and local archives can help distinguish documented history from anecdotes that have accumulated over decades.
Former employees and surrounding communities can also provide valuable oral histories, although accounts that cannot be independently verified need to be presented accordingly.
The research process can reveal stories that are more meaningful than the familiar list of celebrities who once stayed at a property. The people who designed, built and operated a hotel, the communities around it and the ways the property changed over time can provide material for a richer narrative.
It can also establish the hotel’s relationship with its destination.
Hotels do not exist in isolation. Their architecture, neighbourhoods, local industries and surrounding cultures can all contribute to their identity. For international hotel groups, those connections can help individual properties retain a distinctive sense of place within a larger portfolio.
Restaurants might draw on regional culinary history, for example, while design and public spaces can reference local architecture, art or culture. Partnerships with museums, archives, historians and cultural organisations can provide further opportunities to interpret the relationship between a property and its surroundings.
Some histories will be more difficult to address.
Hotels can have associations with periods of social exclusion, political upheaval, colonial history, labour disputes or changes that affected surrounding communities. Authentic heritage storytelling may sometimes require acknowledging those aspects of a property’s past rather than selecting only picturesque anecdotes.
Ignoring uncomfortable elements can also create reputational risks if a carefully curated brand narrative conflicts with the historical record.
Heritage interpretation is therefore partly an exercise in judgement. The aim is not to turn every historical event into marketing material, but to understand a property well enough to decide which stories should be told, how they should be presented and why they remain relevant.
Authenticity matters more than nostalgia
Old photographs, antique furniture and famous names can create atmosphere, but they do not automatically create a convincing heritage brand.
The strongest approaches establish a connection between a property’s history, its location and what the hotel represents today.
That might mean retaining an architectural feature because it reflects the origins of the building, reinterpreting a historic dish for a contemporary restaurant, displaying original objects or explaining the contribution of the people who shaped the property.
For larger hotel groups, locally meaningful stories can also provide a counterweight to standardisation. A common brand identity can coexist with property-level storytelling rooted in the architecture, culture and history of a particular destination.
The result should not simply make a hotel appear old. It should help explain why that particular property could only exist where it does.
A source of differentiation competitors cannot copy
History alone will not create a successful hotel brand. Its value depends on what operators do with it.
Heritage can influence design and renovation decisions, create material for food and beverage concepts, support tours and cultural programming and give individual properties a stronger connection with their destinations.
But its credibility depends on research and interpretation. Operators need to know which stories are documented, which belong to folklore and which aspects of the past require more careful treatment.
A competitor can reproduce a room concept, follow the same design trend or introduce a similar service. It cannot reproduce another hotel’s past.
The task for hotel operators is to identify that history, verify it and translate the most relevant elements into experiences for today’s guest.
Done well, the past becomes more than something to put on a plaque in the lobby. It becomes a genuine brand asset — and a source of differentiation that is difficult to copy.
