Horwath HTL’s Matt Gebbie: Hospitality must put people and substance ahead of the hype

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He sees robust ideas, real experiences, and sensible execution shaping tourism’s future.

Asia Pacific’s hospitality sector is getting into a extra demanding part. Investors have gotten extra selective, improvement prices proceed to rise, and travellers have extra locations and experiences to select from. For accommodations and tourism tasks, merely having a robust idea on paper is not sufficient.

Matt Gebbie, Managing Director, Pacific Asia at Horwath HTL, has seen these adjustments unfold throughout greater than 20 years in the business. Since becoming a member of the agency in 2004, he has been concerned in the planning, feasibility, and strategic advisory of greater than 300 hospitality and tourism tasks throughout Asia Pacific, spanning markets together with Indonesia, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Maldives, South Korea, and Singapore.

His work covers resort improvement, tourism grasp planning, market feasibility, and asset technique, with buyers, builders, and monetary establishments amongst these he advises. Before becoming a member of Horwath HTL, Gebbie spent greater than a decade in hospitality roles throughout Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, alongside 5 years as a solicitor specialising in business litigation and industrial relations.

This mixture of operational, authorized, and advisory expertise offers him a broad perspective on what makes hospitality tasks commercially viable and sustainable over the long run.

As a choose for the TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2026 – Asia, Gebbie shared his views on the altering hospitality panorama, evolving traveller expectations, know-how, expertise, and what separates genuinely robust business initiatives from those who merely sound good.

Having labored on greater than 300 hospitality and tourism tasks, what are some of the largest shifts you’re seeing in how accommodations and locations are being developed at this time?

Owners are extra subtle and extra selective. Whether it’s feasibility, renovation, repositioning, or valuation tasks, we’re being pushed to check our demand forecasts, examine our knowledge sources, and ensure that our services suggestions and money circulation forecasts maintain up.

Capital is tougher to supply, and development prices preserve rising, so elevating capital by branded residences has boomed. Mixed-use and lifestyle-led tasks continue to grow in each resort markets and cities.

Populations are rising, incomes are rising, and people take extra journeys every year. As main markets refill, secondary locations are attracting consideration, each for variety and for experiential travellers. Access and infrastructure nonetheless resolve whether or not these tasks work, notably once they want each home and worldwide guests. Operators and homeowners additionally negotiate tougher on phrases.

How have traveller expectations modified the method accommodations and tourism locations method improvement and visitor expertise?

For company highway warriors and mass leisure travellers, little or no has modified — good entry, good transport, good beds, good showers, and good meals.

The change is in the center. More travellers have more cash, extra time, and extra curiosity in mixing it up, which is why secondary locations are gaining floor. These travellers need one thing actual. They search for native character, wellness, privateness, and area, and they pay for it. They count on creativity, a way of place and significant service. Developers now design round the visitor expertise from day one, moderately than including it at the finish. Generic merchandise lose out, and not simply at the excessive finish; add some creativity to merchandise in any respect value factors.

What makes a vacation spot enticing and sustainable in the long run?

Great query, and many mature resort and metropolis locations are testing it proper now. How will we preserve people coming again?

In my opinion, a vacation spot lasts when it protects what drew guests in the first place. That might be one factor, like nature, or a number of: tradition, group, and a variety of sights. It is determined by the visitor the vacation spot desires to draw.

Good governance is crucial. Regulation and enforcement let a vacation spot preserve management of its soul and its enchantment. Be true. Manage the infrastructure, management the provide and take care of the area people, so visitors are greeted with smiles. It’s actually not rocket science.

How essential is know-how changing into in bettering resort operations and the visitor expertise?

Very essential, however hospitality is a people enterprise, so the use of AI and know-how ought to keep out of sight. It helps with income administration, power use, staffing, and personalisation of the visitors’ reserving and pre/submit keep expertise. Guests welcome it when it makes their lives simpler. They dislike it when it replaces hospitality.

The objective for each operator now could be easy methods to greatest use tech to unlock their groups to spend extra time with visitors. 

What do you suppose the hospitality business wants to start out doing at this time to organize for the challenges of the subsequent decade?

Without eager to repeat myself, hospitality is a people enterprise, and the hospitality business must guarantee they appeal to and retain nice people. The business must prepare and pay people higher.

It additionally must take local weather threat and power prices critically in design and operations. Yesterday!

Owners and resort operators ought to align their pursuits earlier by sincere, open dialogue, setting expectations, and working collectively. Franchise progress in Southeast Asia can solely occur if homeowners are expert sufficient. Operators will help by teaching them, and homeowners ought to select the proper operator and negotiate the administration settlement with that handover in thoughts.

As a choose for the TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2026 – Asia, what qualities would make a hospitality or tourism initiative stand out to you?

Substance over speak. Be real, comply with by on the idea and don’t minimize corners. Spend that last 5-10%, as a result of it actually does matter. Create one thing unique – at all times.

Listen to your consulting group. Don’t get caught in your preconceived notions of what’s going to work, since you will not be the visitor your property is hoping to draw. A robust group and a transparent idea matter. Did I say don’t minimize corners?

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