From a Paw Towel to a Pet Lovers Concept. How Guest Ideas Transform a Hotel.
2 minutes
Sometimes the biggest changes start with the smallest details. That’s exactly what happened at Ribas Hotels: one little towel for wiping dogs’ paws evolved into a full network-wide pet lovers concept. All because someone on the team decided not just to accept a guest’s feedback, but to actually listen to it.
Service and experience are not the same thing
Yuliia Kosenko, CEO of Ribas Hotels Management, draws a clear line between these two concepts: “Service is what we do. Guest experience is what guests feel.” Service is processes, standards, checklists. Experience is how a person felt, what they remembered, whether they wanted to come back. And these two things don’t always equal each other. That’s why at Ribas Hotels the focus is not only on what was done, but on what the guest ultimately felt.
Feedback is not a complaint. It’s a hint.
Ribas Hotels has a dedicated guest care department, and its job is not to manage negative reviews. Yuliia explains: “We don’t just handle negative feedback — we look for things we can actually implement based on what our guests experience.” Every comment, every suggestion is a potential idea for improving the product. It sounds logical, but in reality very few companies actually work this way.
The towel that changed everything
One day, guests who traveled with a dog left a simple request: it would be nice to have a towel for wiping paws after a walk. A small detail, easy to ignore. But at Ribas Hotels it was heard, the towel appeared, and then the team started thinking further: if a guest traveling with a dog needs this, what else do they need?
That’s how the pet lovers concept took shape. Today it’s not just “we accept dogs” — it’s a thoughtful experience for guests with animals: treats, a special door hanger for when a dog is left alone in the room so it doesn’t get scared by housekeeping or run out, and many other details.
Another story. About tea at 11 PM.
A guest said: “You don’t have any tea you can drink at night — you have green and black, but both contain caffeine.” After that conversation, herbal tea appeared in the hotels across the network. Yuliia Kosenko recalls this as an example of what real guest attention looks like: “These small ideas and details that guests share, which we actually hear — they help make the guest experience more cohesive.”
The magic you don’t see
Yuliia says that a hotel is magic, and it should stay that way for guests. But the real difficulty is not in launching a hotel or setting up processes. “The hardest work is keeping the hotel running smoothly every single day, so that no external challenges ever reach the guest.” The paw towel, the herbal tea, the door hanger — all of these are parts of that daily work that a guest never sees, but always feels.
Why it works
At the core of this approach is one simple thing: the guest’s interests at the center of every decision. Not trends, not assumptions about “how things should be,” but the guest. And this requires a system — people who collect feedback and a team ready to act on it. Sometimes one small towel is all it takes to start building something much bigger.
