An Answer I Didn't Have

Someone recently asked me what I love about marketing. More specifically: why do I often choose to work in hospitality?

On the surface, it's a simple enough question. My instinctive response is that I naturally gravitate towards that world. I love food. I love people. I love beautifully designed spaces.

But… it's not just that. Honestly, I've been ruminating on the question ever since. What is it about hospitality that keeps pulling me back?

I've come to the conclusion that it's difficult to explain because it isn't just one thing.

It's a table scattered with empty plates because everyone wanted to try everything. It's walking into a place that somehow makes you feel comfortable before you've even taken your coat off. It's the first bite of the meal you've been looking forward to all day. It's the flavour that follows you home - like the aubergine dish we once had in Croatia. It was melt-in-your-mouth, the kind you go quiet over. We asked the waiter for the recipe and all he'd tell us was that it had marinated for three days; the sauce was a secret. Ten years later, we still haven't cracked it, but not for want of trying.

It's where birthdays are celebrated and first dates unfold. It's the bar you went to for a work event, where the cocktails were so good you had one too many and ended up crashing said first date at the next table. Where old friends finally catch up. It's the café you escape to for an hour when you just need a book, a chance to breathe and reset. The restaurant you always take visiting family to.

Hospitality is funny like that; it's rarely one big moment. It's a hundred tiny ones that somehow linger.

In a world increasingly shaped by AI and digital interactions, hospitality remains one of the few things you can't fake. You can automate a booking. You can optimise a reservation system. But you can't manufacture how a place makes someone feel.

That's why I love marketing it.

Because you're not really marketing food or drinks. You're giving people a reason to imagine themselves there. You're capturing the atmosphere before they've walked through the door. You're selling the promise of how they'll feel when they do.

Then there are the people. Every chef has an obsession. Every founder has a reason they started. Every café, hotel, restaurant and bar has its own personality, shaped by the people behind - and in - it.

For a marketer, that's visceral inspiration.

So yes, it's about the food. It's about the drink. But what I'm actually selling is what happens around them - and that's the part I never get tired of.