What Makes Places Matter?

I recently visited the Grotte Chauvet in France’s Ardèche region.

Discovered in 1994 and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, this large cave contains some of the oldest known figurative cave paintings in the world; ranging between 30 - 36,000 years old.

You don’t enter the original cave - it’s been closed for preservation - but even the replica is enough to really stop you in your tracks.

Lions, horses and rhinos - layered, moving, unexpectedly alive - stretch across the cave walls. It’s clear that artists were at work here, with intent and composition.

What stayed with me wasn’t just what I saw, but the feeling of it - the sense of standing in (almost) the same place that humans had stood tens of thousands of years ago, looking at something they made that still exists.

An unbroken line of continuation.

At the time of my visit I was reading The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton.

He argues that we don’t travel simply to see places, but go in search of particular feelings.

And that those feelings depend on us - what we know and how we think about places before we go to them.

This has come up in many different conversations I’ve had over the past month - with founders, marketing directors, consultants, industry bodies, and those working more closely with travel policy and media.

What makes a place, destination or hotel actually matter to someone

One of the most useful ways I’ve heard this framed recently came from work by Edmund Morris shared via the The Conscious Travel Foundation.

Essentially, the more specific and distinctive a place or property is, the more resilient it tends to be in times of uncertainty. The less interchangeable it is, the more people are willing to seek it out again - and sooner. Read more here.

Which brings it back to that feeling in the cave. It isn’t just powerful because it is old. It’s powerful because it is singular.

The same applies more broadly - to destinations, hotels, and the businesses and teams behind them.

What makes you 'you' is ultimately what people are choosing - yet it’s often the part that gets diluted along the way.

The travel world has felt a little more uncertain recently.

In moments like this, what you’re offering, and how clearly it’s understood, tends to matter more than anything else.

As things shift, I’ve been having a number of strategy sessions and clarity conversations.

If it would be useful to talk it through, just drop me a note at ellie@chironhotelconsulting.com