My favorite person on earth, AKA my mom, experienced something eerily similar while traveling to Chicago for work last week. She had already booked and paid for her hotel room before arriving, but when she reached the property, she was told she needed to pay an additional $450 “resort fee” before she could receive her room key. The fee was not something she expected to encounter when she booked the stay, and instead of beginning her trip by settling into her hotel room, she found herself standing at the front desk trying to understand why another charge was suddenly required before she could access the room she had already paid for.

What made the situation even more telling was that she was not the only guest experiencing this confusion. While she was dealing with the unexpected charge, she watched two other travelers go through the exact same conversation in the lobby. Behind them, a line of roughly 10 guests waited at the front desk, likely about to face the same surprise. And that is when it became clear this was not just an isolated frustration. It was part of a much larger issue happening across the hotel experience.

The funny thing about moments like these is that the frustration is rarely about the money itself. Most travelers understand that hotels are businesses, and nobody expects a beautiful property in a desirable location, especially in a major city or during a busy travel period, to operate without costs attached. But there is a major difference between seeing the full cost of an experience upfront and making the decision to spend that money versus arriving at a hotel you selected, paid for, and traveled to, only to learn there is another financial conversation waiting for you at the front desk. At that point, it’s about the feeling that the experience changed after the decision was already made.

And that feeling can completely shift the way a guest views an entire brand.

Because a hotel has never been just a room. When people book a stay, they are not simply purchasing a place to sleep for the night. They are purchasing the feeling that comes with arriving somewhere new. The room is where the experience happens, but it is rarely the entire reason someone books.

The reason travelers spend hours comparing hotels, scrolling through photos, reading reviews, and imagining themselves walking through the lobby is because hospitality is emotional. A hotel becomes part of the memory being created. It is the first drink after checking in, the view from the window in the morning, the excitement of getting ready for dinner in a new city, and the feeling of opening the door at the end of a long day knowing you have somewhere clean, warm and comfortable waiting for you.

That is exactly why transparency matters so much. When a guest feels blindsided by a fee like my mom and I did, the frustration goes beyond the transaction. It creates a feeling that the brand did not fully respect the guest’s decision-making process. Instead of feeling welcomed, we felt lied to and like we now have to question what else we may not know about our stay. And once that feeling appears, it is almost impossible to undo.

Over the last several years, travelers have become much more vocal about unexpected resort fees, destination charges, security deposits, and additional costs that appear throughout the booking and check-in process. But the conversation is not really about travelers wanting everything to be cheaper. In fact, many people are willing to spend more than ever on experiences that feel special, memorable, and worth the investment.

Travelers will pay for incredible design, exceptional service, unforgettable dining, and the feeling of staying somewhere they could not recreate anywhere else. What they do not want is uncertainty or the feeling of deception; a bait and switch.