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Essay on Resort Hotels

Introduction

The hotel and hospitality industry is an essential sector that contributes largely to the GDP of many countries across the world. The high number of customers in the industry has attracted many investors from different parts (Lee & Yuan, 2017). The hospitality industry is primarily characterized by services such as lodging, food, and drinks. The industry is broad with categories such as resort hotels, suburban hotels, airport hotels, and full services hotels, among others. An analysis of the industry is vital to understand various issues within the hospitality industry (Ibrahim, 2018). The paper seeks to examine resort hotels and relevant information that encompass the specific category in the hospitality industry.

Resort Hotels Description

A resort hotel is a full-service facility meant to provide the needs of vacationers, including drinks, food, and lodging services. Most hotel resorts are located in places that are frequently visited for their unique environment (Lee & Yuan, 2017). Resort hotels provide recreational facilities and other amenities, which are usually a need for many vacationers. In essence, the market segment targeted by resort hotels is primarily composed of tourists from different parts of the world. Local tourists within the resort facility also contribute significantly to the market segment that is targeted by the category (Ibrahim, 2018). The market segment is characterized by high profits, especially from foreign tourists. Equally, vacationers spend a specified time at the resort facility, which makes it necessary to have rooms for lodging services. Customer needs in the market segment are different but well known to all operators in the market. It is important to note that the market segment requires a high level of ethical standards and professionalism (Köşker, Unur & Gursoy, 2019). As such, resort hotels offer self-contained facilities to vacationers from different parts of the world.

Information on Resort Hotels in Canada

Business in the Canadian hospitality industry has been increasing in the last few years, indicating success in the market. In the year 2014, the hotel industry was valued at approximately 17 billion Canadian dollars. In the previous five years, resort hotel revenue in the industry has been increasing majorly due to the high level of international tourism (Lee & Yuan, 2017). By then, there were over 8000 hotel facilities spread in Canada. The level of occupancy in the facilities is approximately 63%, which is indicative of the increased business activity as compared to a decade ago. The industry has the potential to do better, given that international tourism activities have been increasing lately. The Canadian hospitality industry has employed over 100000 people, especially in the resort hotel category. Most operators in the market are equipped with high-end facilities that can attract many people. By the end of 2020, the number of rooms available for lodging is expected to rise, given the high investment rates being witnessed in the industry (Altin, Memili & Sönmez, 2017). The occupancy rate in the resort hotels is expected to increase, given the strategies that many operators have put in place.

Resort Hotels in Ontario

There are many resorts in Ontario that meet the needs of vacationers at different prices. It is important to note that pricing strategy in the industry is based on services provided in the event. It is vital to find out the room categories available for each and their respective rates (Köşker, Unur & Gursoy, 2019). Resorts all over the world are recognized with sports and entertainment activities for vacationers. It is vital to understand recreational facilities that each of the ten hotels provides for clients.

Worry about your grades? See how we can help you with our essay writing service. LEARN MORE The listed resort hotels offer sports and entertainment facilities to their customers. Pool games and television sets are the primary source of entertainment for vacationers. Equally, some resorts listed have golf as a common sport.

The role of a hotel manager excites me due to the responsibilities that are attached. I have a strong passion for leading by example, as a professional in the industry. In the future, I would like to work as a manager in a bid to ensure that issues that affect customers are handled in the right manner. The desire to serve with honesty and diligence drives me to work hard with the hope of making it.

In conclusion, the hospitality industry is growing at a faster rate, especially within the Canadian market. Resort hotels are self-contained with facilities that can meet the needs of most vacationers. However, the increased levels of international tourism provide a chance for the industry to develop even more.

Altin, M., Memili, E., & Sönmez, S. (2017). Institutional economics and firm creation in the hospitality and tourism industry: A comparative analysis of developing and developed economies.  Tourism Economics ,  23 (7), 1381-1397.

Ibrahim, Y. (2018). Addressing Skills Shortages and Hard-to-Fill Vacancies in the Hospitality Sector by Creating Job Opportunities for Youth-Case Study of Red Sea Resort Hotels.  Journal of the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels-University of Sadat City Vol ,  2 (1).

Köşker, H., Unur, K., & Gursoy, D. (2019). The effect of basic personality traits on service orientation and tendency to work in the hospitality and tourism industry.  Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism ,  19 (2), 140-162.

Lee, K. W., & Yuan, J. J. (2017). Hospitality and Tourism Industry Segments: Toward a New Taxonomy.  E-review of Tourism Research ,  14 .

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A personal Kuwait-based blogazine. I'm a storyteller writing about my travels, experiences, curiosities, and things I'm passionate about!

My experience working in a hotel and why I loved it.

Everyday would feel like a vacation. These were my first thoughts when I first considered a career in the hospitality and tourism sector, especially in a beautiful resort situated on the coast of Kuwait’s Arabian Gulf Sea. I remember walking into the gorgeous lobby of the multinational world-class hotel and wondering what it would be like to actually work there — great atmosphere, great perks!

As a Kuwaiti female, it’s pretty uncommon if not common at all to work in a hotel in Kuwait. The tourism industry is not as advanced and progressive in the country making it an unpopular career choice. People also have this misconception that if you do work in a hotel then you’re either a receptionist, doorman or a housekeeping attendant which are all absolutely false assumptions and merely stereotypes.

Being in the PR & Marketing field, I was eager to start off my career promoting a hotel. If people were opting for the banks and oil companies, I was heading the opposite direction. The deciding factor mostly had to do with my interest in the trade itself and to avoid a mundane job that I would dread waking up to every day. After some persistence, I managed to land a position in the PR & Marketing department in Kuwait’s luxury resort and I was thrilled!

Knowing I had to sacrifice some of my work-life balance, I still willingly accepted the offer to start my journey in an industry completely new to me and I couldn’t wait to discover it.

First and foremost, working an 8-6 job wasn’t easy after all. Being a 24-hour based business, the long hours with a few quiet breaks between the rush all come with the package of working as a hotelier.

In hotel life, there is constantly something happening somewhere to someone at sometime, whether a colleague or a guest. It’s full of life, action, stories and involves a great deal of variety. It’s never-ending drama. I was always expecting the unexpected. At some point, it gets exhausting but almost in a good way.

There is so much that goes on behind-the-scenes. The beautiful surroundings, content guests, smiling staff and impeccable service are merely the surface of what really happens. There is more than meets the eyes. Everything extends far beyond what the customer sees. The amount of intricacies that go into effectively running the complex operations of a huge resort was challenging, but being part of each layer of communication to make something happen was rewarding and satisfying. To the guest, it’s merely like waving a magic wand!

There is always a new experience to promote; whether a product, service or event. Behind creating that perfect instagrammable 5-course set menu to upload on Instagram, for instance, there is a team of passionate culinary experts mastering the plating and presentation, keeping the food “alive on set” by stroking it with a brush of oil to maintain a “just-cooked” look, while service colleagues arrange the table and adjust the lighting at the venue and the restaurant manager ensures that everything else looks flawless. Over at housekeeping, the team add their own personal touches in the rooms ahead of a guest’s arrival, who is delighted to find an origami towel creation of an animal on their immaculately-tucked bed. Then somewhere on the beach there’s an energetic Zumba class or yoga session taking place, a romantic candle-lit dinner to impress, a team of chefs getting read to cook up tonight’s beachside barbecue, or an embassy prepping to celebrate their national day with festive activities.

The hotel is made up of a giant team all of which are interconnected in one way or the other in a chain reaction – if a detail goes wrong, everything else tumbles down. Ultimately, the goal is to serve up memorable moments to guests meticulously, be it an elaborate wedding, VIP arrangement, media welcoming, or celebrity hosting. Some of my colleagues are so dedicated with this, that I wonder how they are able to maintain their positive demeanor at all times even in the face of stress and chaos, which is something I myself have picked up on and gotten used to. Handling the image of every aspect of a hotel required being a perfectionist in every sense of the word to ensure that everything was up to the highest standard of luxury. Everything is detail-oriented.

As a PR & Marketing practitioner, I wasn’t dealing directly with guests the majority of the time. However, from time to time, I did face some of the dozens of guest interactions that took place on a daily basis, especially when it came to celebrity visits, media, and commercial photo-shooting. There’s ample of networking opportunities, as I got to meet with people from all walks of life. Hospitality simply thrives on interaction with all types of people.

Overtime, the hotel culture becomes part of you, a lifestyle. I befriended multi-cultural chefs, foreign journalists, local personalities and socialites and industry experts. There were a couple of times when I met well-known travelers visiting Kuwait for the first time to enjoy both the culture and hospitality and I was tasked with planning their entire itinerary in Kuwait along with a tour throughout the hotel, having a moment to act as an ambassador to my own country.

There are vast avenues to explore within the hospitality world. This meant that I could get as creative as I wanted in tackling unique challenges. I could tell the chef exactly what personalized pastry I envisioned to place in the rooms for the guest, which specific dinner set up I wanted for that sumptuous magazine photo shoot, which prestigious new publication to approach for an advertising campaign, which interesting local associations to partner with to add value to the brand, which influencers to collaborate with in creative aways to tell the story of the hotel experience, which top travel and hospitality publications to write for and much more. There was also the excitement of ongoing seasonal events throughout the year. And of course, being spoiled with the perks of traveling and experiencing the brand’s distinct properties in other countries, which have their own signature culturally-connected characters and it was interesting to observe the variety and differences in their type of services.

Even when I tried to unplug and de-focus from the chaotic and frenzied time at the hotel I simply couldn’t. If I wasn’t at the premises itself, I was engaging with our online guests on Facebook or Instagram, answering their inquiries and producing fresh content. There’s not a moment of calm. Each day is unique which kept my job stimulating at all times. All I can say now is that it was an eye-opening experience! As fun as it was, an industry so fast-paced and demanding of my time and energy eventually meant it really was time for me to take a breather.

I gathered all the experience I needed, and it was only a matter of time before I took that experience with me to new ventures. At the end of the day, being part of a hotel was indeed a unique encounter from which I gained new insights and perspectives.

The fun part of it all is that in between all these experiences and encounters, I constantly raised the bar in accelerating my own learning curve. I didn’t just grow professionally, but even personally by learning so much through a journey I had been crafting for myself along the way, and most importantly one that I had initiated and believed in pursuing. My family and loved ones always encourage me and provide me with remarkable support in anything I’m passionate about, no matter how much of that thing may be a departure from “the norm”. And I am so grateful for it!

Share this:

11 comments.

• June 4, 2020

Very well explained.

• March 30, 2021

Thank you for reading! And apologies for the very late response to the comment hehe.

• November 30, 2021

• October 10, 2021

3 years later and this post is still so relevant and relatable to read–from one hotel worker to another, I found this comforting!

Thank you for reading 🙂 Glad you liked it!

• May 21, 2022

As a Kuwaitia Hotelier, I know how shocked people can get when we apply for hotel jobs, and especially ones in operations facing guests daily. I hope to see this change in the near future and would see more of us on the floor continuously challenging the norm and not waste the chance to represent what Kuwaiti hospitality to our guests.

• June 3, 2022

Yes, very true. Thank you for your comment and stumbling upon this post! Being a hotelier is something to be proud of as a national. It’s hospitality at the end of the day. One must be proud to represent their country to tourists and visitors from abroad. Not only that, but it’s the most interesting and rewarding job to have in Kuwait, but one must be ready to put in the effort.

• February 7, 2023

That was awesome. I’m now working at the hotel but still get struggle in F&B department. Do you have any trick for improving the career at this field?

• February 9, 2023

Hello Yuda, Thank you for reading my blog post! Every department in the hotel is different to the next. I worked mostly back of the house, so it depends if you are back (in the kitchen) or front (interacting with customers). Either way, professionalism is key. It’s not easy but you learn a lot. What do you struggle with in F&B if I may ask?

• August 31, 2023

Thank you for sharing your experience, I am currently in the process of having a costumer service type of job in a hotel, and reading this helped me get an insight of what may be on my way.

• September 17, 2023

Thank you for reading! And good luck on your hotel journey!

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How the world’s best hotels deliver exceptional customer experience

Luxury hospitality begins with a signature property, but a well-situated, beautifully designed hotel is only a start. Stellar service, driven by devoted hotel staff, is what makes a great property come alive. As one general manager (GM) of a luxury hotel told us in an interview, “Our facility is our stage, and guests are paying for a performance.”

Distinctive, superior service is more important now than ever. The luxury segment is projected to grow at 6 percent per year through 2025 1 McKinsey analysis based on STR data. —faster than any other chain-scale hotel class—and competition for customers is intensifying, as luxury hotels proliferate and alternative options (such as stylish rental villas equipped with chefs and staff) enter the marketplace. Nonluxury properties have also closed the gap on some of the physical details that indicate luxury, such as sumptuous mattress tops and rainfall showerheads.

Meanwhile, across the entire service landscape, the meaning of luxury is shifting. Affluent customers increasingly value unique experiences —not just the tangible product—and vibrant atmospheres over opulent formality. Data on consumer spending substantiates the notion that interest in recreational experiences is generally rising while interest in nonessential goods is generally subsiding (exhibit).

Today, the most powerful differentiator in the service sector is a culture of excellence—powered by staff that can anticipate customers’ needs, exceed expectations, create cherished memories, and make it all feel seamless. Luxury properties may potentially see more return from investing in this type of culture than from coating the hotel with marble and gold plating the bath fixtures.

To learn how the GMs of the world’s best hotels create healthy, supportive, and winning service cultures, McKinsey interviewed a dozen current and former GMs who have worked at iconic hotels across five continents (including properties from luxury and ultra-luxury brands such as Aman, Four Seasons, InterContinental, Jumeirah, Mandarin Oriental, Raffles, Shangri La, and Six Senses, as well as independent luxury properties). Their strategies were developed with luxury hospitality in mind, but the lessons they impart can be applied across many other service contexts and price points: McKinsey research shows  that the primary reason consumers cite when asked how they’ll choose a travel brand in the future is not value, quality, or convenience but “positive past experiences with the brand.” 2 McKinsey Travel Loyalty Survey, July 2023; n = 3,200.

Create a culture of excellence

Great service flows from a culture that values quality and dedication. Establishing this culture begins with exemplary leadership. “Culture is not a sign on a wall or a saying in a textbook,” said one luxury hotel GM. “It has to be driven by a leader, 24/7, on good days and bad.”

Assume the role of chief culture officer

To build a winning culture, leaders should instill foundational principles on day one. “I attend every new-hire orientation and share my expectations,” said one GM. “I make it clear that I expect us to greet guests by name, anticipate their needs, constantly seek to learn more about who they are and why they’re here, and never let them leave an interaction feeling unhappy.”

Leading by example can help a healthy staff culture thrive. “You can’t just be buried in paperwork in your office,” said one hotel GM we spoke with. “You need to be there yourself and show your staff what five-star hospitality is all about.” For hotel GMs, this can mean getting out and about on regular facility walks, or making sure to locate the GM’s office close to the lobby so that getting directly involved in service becomes more natural. It’s important for staff to see leaders modeling excellence on a day-to-day basis.

Staff are also more likely to view a leader as a chief culture officer—and someone worth emulating—when the leader listens to employee concerns and demonstrates that they’ve been heard. “If you listen to your staff and you act on their feedback,” said one hotel GM, “your staff turnover will go down considerably.” Luxury-service leaders should foster an inclusive environment, solicit input from staff on the floor, and schedule regular one-on-ones with key employees.

Building shared values can become easier when departments are brought together by shared activities. “You need happy staff to have happy guests,” said one hotel GM. “I try to find opportunities to make the workplace fun. For example, each month a different department decorates the colleague cafeteria and picks the menu.”

Hire for personalities, not resumes

“Having the right china is of no value if the person handing it to the guest doesn’t smile or engage,” said one hotel GM. Outgoing, friendly personalities are an absolute must for staff in roles with high visibility. “I’m fanatical about doormen,” said one hotel GM, “because they are the first people guests interact with when they arrive and the last people they interact with as they depart.” When hiring based on personality, it’s important to remember that skills can always be taught. “You can teach someone how to set a table,” said one GM, “but you can’t teach a positive disposition.”

I’m fanatical about doormen because they are the first people guests interact with when they arrive and the last people they interact with as they depart. Hotel general manager

Natural personality tendencies can be observed during the hiring process. For instance, one hotel GM makes sure to do a hotel walk-around with all job applicants. Before strolling around the property with a prospective staffer, this GM strategically places a pen on the ground in a prominent spot—essentially littering. Only an applicant who has the instinct to pick up the pen can get hired. Bonus points are awarded for interviewees who greet guests along the way.

Invest in celebrating and rewarding employees

Best-in-class service is about treating customers with generosity and care. Leaders in the service sector can model this behavior by treating employees similarly.

Ceremonies can be conducted, replete with a bit of pomp, to officially welcome new hires aboard after their probationary periods are completed. Some hotel GMs we spoke with said they also invite new staff to spend a complimentary night in the hotel with a loved one, dine at a hotel restaurant, and enjoy room service in the morning. Marking the occasion with special perks like these can help instill pride and strengthen commitment.

Many hotel GMs described “points” systems they’ve established to recognize employees who excel. Staff might receive points when customers mention them specifically in positive reviews on websites. Staff might also earn points after receiving positive quarterly reviews from supervisors. These points can then be redeemed for the same kinds of services that customers would receive, such as (in the case of a luxury hotel) an overnight stay or a meal at the restaurant. Alternatively, points might equate to a cash bonus. Group or department incentives, such as movie tickets awarded in exchange for hitting targets, can help improve both performance and cohesion.

Enable a distinctive customer experience

Giving staff the proper tools and then trusting them to deploy those tools correctly goes a long way toward cultivating a top-tier service environment. Regularly updating the customer experience can help it stay fresh. Making the effort to deliver experiences that go above and beyond can be a powerful investment in the lifetime value of a customer.

McKinsey research has shown that the top factor influencing customer loyalty in the lodging sector is “an experience worth paying more for.” 3 McKinsey Travel Loyalty Survey, July 2023; n = 3,200. And every hotel GM we spoke with agreed that ultimately, it is experience, not product, that differentiates the luxury segment.

Empower staff to gain knowledge of customer preferences

Customers feel pampered when staff addresses needs before those needs are expressed. This kind of anticipation only happens when the staff deeply understands who they’re serving. Customer relationship management systems and processes can help track repeat customers’ preferences and then distribute this information to staff in a timely and efficient manner. The result is personalized service: “Your favorite table is ready, Mrs. Jones.”

To provide even more personalized customer experience , some luxury hotel GMs we spoke with direct their staff to conduct additional research to become familiar with guests’ preferences prior to arrival. “Nowadays, between social media and search engines,” said one GM, “there are so many opportunities to learn about your guests, their backgrounds, and what they like.” It’s important that deploying this research never feels intrusive to customers, who will of course value their privacy. But, when executed with care, knowledge flowing from this research can be used to generate tiny delights (such as highly personalized welcome cards) or to anticipate major needs (such as gluten-free food options for a customer with celiac disease). In general, staff should always be looking for “tiny details” and use those clues to provide individually tailored service.

Younger consumers, especially, crave personalization and have come to expect it. McKinsey research shows that personalized service is valued 2.5 times more by Gen Zers than by baby boomers 4 McKinsey Travel Loyalty Survey, July 2023; n = 3,200. —suggesting that personalization will become increasingly important in the future.

Trust staff with budget, especially when rectifying missteps

Staff should be empowered to surprise and delight customers without always having to obtain prior approval. This could mean something as small as offering a free drink or as significant as offering free tickets to a show. The key is to give staff freedom to use their judgment and to spend as necessary—within reason—instead of forcing them into a one-size-fits-all approach (for example, giving every hotel guest the same complimentary fruit plate). “In the luxury space especially, you’re better off with guidelines than policies,” said one hotel GM. “You want to give the staff guidance without locking them into a straitjacket.” Granting staff this freedom also makes the process more rewarding for them.

Staff should also feel enabled to execute recoveries swiftly and fully after a misstep or misunderstanding. “If a service recovery must be executed, regardless of who is at fault, it needs to be executed immediately,” said one GM. “It’s very important not to give guests time to stew. And we don’t just ‘fix’ the situation but try to go a step beyond.” For example, at one luxury hotel, a customer ordered chocolate chip pancakes at breakfast but received plain pancakes instead. The server realized and remedied the mistake, apologized profusely, and brought a plate of macaroons designed in the colors of the customer’s favorite sports team (which the customer had mentioned earlier in the meal).

Regularly reinvent the customer experience to avoid stagnancy

Recurring reinventions of customer experience  can happen over the course of a few days. “Midweek, we attract business travelers who mostly want peace and quiet,” said one hotel GM. “On weekends, we set a more festive tone for leisure travelers with DJs, social events, and more casual staff uniforms.” Pop-up stalls, such as a surprise gelato cart in a lobby, can provide quick new experiences without a big footprint.

Broader reinventions can take place over the course of a year. “Each quarter, I ask every department to submit three reinvention ideas,” said one hotel GM. These can take the form of, for example, facilities improvements, special holiday events, or tie-ins with local businesses. “Not only does it help brainstorm, but it also builds staff ownership.”

Go to extra lengths to create unique memories

Going above and beyond can create moments a customer will remember forever. A few examples from the hotel world:

• When a guest lost her wedding ring while swimming, the GM hired a metal detector service to look for it. They found it, and the GM surprised the guest by returning the ring to her at dinner.
• An executive staying at a hotel was scheduled to close an important deal the next morning, but he’d forgotten to pack his dress shoes. The concierge happened to wear the same size and graciously offered his shoes to the guest. The guest closed the deal.
• A little girl with an illness was staying with her family at a luxury desert ranch hotel. The girl dreamed of riding a unicorn, so the hotel put one of its horses in a unicorn costume (complete with horn) and made the girl’s dreams come true. The family now comes back every year.

Manage performance without skimping on quality

While striving to create spellbinding service environments, it’s important to keep track of performance outcomes. Monitoring financial metrics carefully can be balanced with the recognition that investing in customers’ lifetime value outweighs making shortsighted budget cuts.

Identifying financial levers that don’t erode the luxury experience or undercut a brand’s unique value proposition can sometimes provide a solution. One hotel GM was able to trim operational expenditures by 10 percent through actions such as consolidating which floors were in use, reducing the hotel’s linen volume, and working with the hotel owner to invest in sensor lighting, LED lighting, and water-saving showerheads.

It’s always crucial to see the bigger picture. The focus should be on boosting revenue and building customer relationships, not just on costs. “Where the service industry sometimes fails,” said one hotel GM, “is when it creates cookie-cutter leaders who make shortsighted cost-benefit trade-offs.”

What can service industry leaders learn from the best hotels in the world?

Anyone looking to build a great customer experience—for a restaurant, retail store, airline, or any other context in which service matters—can take some lessons from top-tier luxury hotels:

• True luxury is less about lofty price points and fancy finishes and more about exquisite service that is executed with thought and care.
• A culture of excellence among staff is what creates a luxury experience (and can create great customer experience in more affordable contexts, as well).
• It’s critical that people leading service staffs imagine themselves as chief culture officers, fostering cultures of excellence by instilling shared values, celebrating great performance, being highly visible, and leading by example.
• The best leaders model the behavior they want to see from employees. They treat staff with care and generosity so that staff will treat customers with care and generosity. They listen intently to staff so staff will listen intently to customers.
• People make all the difference in service industries. Hire employees with naturally wonderful personalities, invest in them, and empower them with the tools and freedom to be excellent.
• Don’t be afraid to go above and beyond. It’s possible to be mindful of ROI—understanding where to spend and where to look for savings—while still finding ways to offer personalized service that surprises and delights customers.

A culture of excellence is the differentiating factor in the service industry. Leadership that can create a healthy, supportive atmosphere for staff—instilling a devotion to great service while providing staff with the tools, skills, and freedom to make customers feel special—excel at building a best-in-class customer experience.

Ryan Mann is a partner in McKinsey’s Chicago office, Ellen Scully is a consultant in the Seattle office, Matthew Straus is an associate partner in the Carolinas office, and Jillian Tellez Holub is a partner in the Atlanta office.

The authors wish to thank Filipa Douma, Mandar Harshe, Anthony Holguin, Alex Lapides, and Allison Lu for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Seth Stevenson, a senior editor in the New York office.

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Life in a Luxury Hotel for New Moms and Babies

My month of rest, relaxation, and regret at a Taiwanese postpartum-care center.

By Clarissa Wei

A week after I gave birth to my son, I lay face up on a heated massage table so that another woman could milk me. Spa music twinkled in the background as she squeezed a few drops into a glass bottle. I was trying not to feel embarrassed for producing so little—was my emergency C-section to blame?—when the awkward small talk began.

“How long is your stay in Taiwan?” she asked me. Her bobbed hair bounced a little as her bare hands pressed down on my boobs.

“I live here.”

“You have an accent.”

“I was born and raised in America, but I’m also Taiwanese.”

I stared at a baby-blue flower motif on the wall, which reminded me of areolae. Relax, she told me. Maybe I should try sleeping through the night. My baby was mostly formula-fed anyway, she said, as though I needed reminding of my low supply. “Getting up every two hours to pump is exhausting. You’re just tied to the baby.”

The massage therapist’s advice seemed like the opposite of what I’ve been taught as an American. In the U.S., the first month of motherhood is often seen as painful and difficult by design. After my friend Laura gave birth, in Los Angeles, her back hurt so much that she had to go to physical therapy. “I had coffee ice cream for breakfast every morning as a survival mechanism,” she texted me. My college roommate, Emily, told me that her newborn son clamped onto her breasts for a week straight. “For better or worse, I’ve built up calluses,” she said.

I, on the other hand, was lounging at a luxury postpartum hotel in Taipei, leaving much of the hard work to an army of nurses. I could sleep in a fluffy queen bed, wake up to a floor-to-ceiling view of the city, and eat a hot breakfast of rice porridge, poached greens, and herbal tea. The experience was so indulgent that it felt wrong.

At the end of the milking session, the massage therapist handed me the result: less than a teaspoon of custardy-yellow breast milk. She didn’t want me to feel bad about it, though. “The postpartum period is a time to rebalance your qi,” she said. “You have time here.”

In Taiwan, an old folk saying sums up this attitude: “During pregnancy, nurture the baby. After pregnancy, nurture your body.” Giving birth is believed to disturb the body’s equilibrium, so new mothers traditionally engage in zuo yue zi , or thirty to forty days of rest at home, pampered by family. Literally, the phrase means “sitting the month,” but it is often translated as postpartum confinement, away from the stress and sickness and cold of the outside world. My mom always emphasized the role of food: some dishes, like pork trotters with peanuts or ginger chicken drenched in sesame oil, are said to repair the uterus.

These days, Taiwan tends to leave the postpartum month to professionals. New mothers can stay in one of approximately two hundred and eighty specialized hotels, where they will receive food, round-the-clock child care, doctor visits, and miscellaneous perks such as yoga classes and milk pumping. According to Gary Lee, the founder of MamiGuide, a Web site that books postpartum-hotel stays, they cost an average of two hundred and twenty U.S. dollars per night. For Americans, this can seem like an unbelievable deal. But here, where the average salary is slightly more than twenty-two thousand U.S. dollars, a monthlong stay can consume between twenty to thirty per cent of one’s annual income. Still, according to Lee, sixty-five per cent of postpartum parents check into one of these hotels, even if that means saving up for years. “It’s like buying a diamond ring,” Lee told me over the phone. Similar accommodations are available in China and South Korea .

Milk in hand, I exited the spa, shuffled down the hallway, and pressed a button in the wall. A door slid open, revealing a small, closet-like room decorated with baby photos and thank-you letters. A masked nurse in green scrubs greeted me brightly: “Hello, Mommy!” I gave her the milk along with my room number, eight. My son was somewhere in a nursery behind her; so were dozens of other wailing newborns.

As I handed over my breast milk, it hit me that I was outsourcing a cherished ritual, breast-feeding my newborn, to strangers. But the hotel existed so that I could focus on my needs, I told myself. I went back to my room, plopped onto a cerulean-colored velvet couch, and opened an app on my phone. A live video of my snoozing baby, his blue pacifier hanging limply out of his mouth, filled the screen. A sticker on his swaddle showed the number eight. We would have plenty of time together later, I thought, trying to suppress a sudden wave of guilt. Right now, it was time for my nap.

When I was born, three decades ago, in Los Angeles, my grandmother flew over from Taiwan with a suitcase full of Chinese herbs, intending to oversee my mother’s zuo yue zi . She quickly tired of babysitting, however. “She just wanted to go to San Diego and see our relatives,” my mother told me. In the weeks after my birth, my mom remembers developing chronic fatigue. In her view, the postpartum period sets a precedent for future health. I assumed, therefore, that she would want to supervise my zuo yue zi . But when I asked her at the start of my pregnancy, over dinner in Taipei, she only laughed.

“Do you want me to die early?” she said. “Newborns are exhausting.”

And so I started touring Taipei’s postpartum hotels. I learned that, instead of enforcing taboos associated with a traditional postpartum month (don’t wash your hair, avoid ice water), they offered amenities with a similar vibe, such as heaters, warm foot baths, and hot herbal tea. But there was something condescending about the hotels. Staff members kept calling me Mommy. Although dads and employees could come and go freely, moms had to check in and out. Visitors weren’t allowed in hotel rooms, and could see newborns only through a glass window. We weren’t allowed to take our own babies outside unless they had a doctor’s appointment.

During one of my tours, I asked a nurse if I could go for daily walks. “Yes,” she replied, and then hesitated. “Most people don’t, though. You’re supposed to rest.”

Eventually I settled on Whole Love, which was built in my neighborhood a few years ago. Whole Love, which has twenty-three rooms, describes itself as a care center, while moms tend to call it a hotel. Although it didn’t have a partnership with a Michelin-recommended restaurant, like some postpartum hotels, my room would have its own massage chair, bottle sterilizer, and breast pumps. I could schedule a manicure or learn to make soap out of breast milk (not that I would have much to spare). I chose Whole Love mostly because it was close to home.

My husband worried that I was signing up for a kind of quarantine center for mothers. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. Wouldn’t I be more comfortable in our apartment, where he could cook and I could go outside?

I was grateful for the offer, but it struck me as naïve. My husband’s excellent cooking had never included bone broths infused with Chinese medicine. My family didn’t want to look after us, and his was thousands of miles away. We lived in a rare place where postpartum care was a norm; some of our friends had cried when their hotel stays came to an end. Shouldn’t we jump at this opportunity?

When my delivery date arrived, my doctors tried and failed to induce me. Two days later, they resorted to an emergency C-section. Afterward, I felt like a deflated sack; I could barely lift my head. It seemed unfathomable that in the U.S., where caregivers joke about “drive-through deliveries,” the average new mother who has had a C-section stays in a hospital for only two to four days. I stayed for five. Then my parents drove us to the hotel.

As our newborn snored in his car seat, my body tingled with anxiety. What if he woke up and started crying? What if we got stuck in traffic and he soiled his diapers? I had spent most of the time in the hospital bedridden, and my husband had spent most of that time caring for me. Our beloved child was still an enigma to us.

“Aren’t you glad we’re going to the hotel now?” I asked my husband.

He nodded. “We’ll use this opportunity to learn from the nurses.”

We rode an elevator to the fifth floor and waited in a dark lobby. I felt as if I were at a zoo: on the other side of a glass wall, we could see a brightly lit nursery, where nurses matter-of-factly lifted and lowered babies, as though they were dolls. Then a nurse came into the lobby and plucked our baby out of his stroller. For the next thirty days, the hotel would monitor his needs and control his movements. I only needed to look after him when I wanted to.

In Room 8, a collection of dainty white bowls waited on a platter: clam soup, steamed fish, crunchy okra with beef slices, bright greens sprinkled with goji berries. I felt a surge of optimism. I was going to treat the hotel like school, and graduate into the best mother I could be.

The food was meant for me, so my husband left to find some lunch. A receptionist handed me onboarding materials, bath-product samples, and information about a service that preserves umbilical cords. Next, a nurse showed me how to label breast milk. Once a day, she would take my temperature and blood pressure; twice a week, she would help me change my C-section bandage.

The telephone by the bed rang. My baby was hungry. Did I want to feed him, or did I prefer to rest? I chose the former, as though I were ordering room service.

A couple of minutes later, he was wheeled in on a cart, which contained a perfectly warmed bottle of formula and a drawer of fresh diapers. Newly washed, with his hair neatly parted, he looked like a present for me. The nurse told me to sit on the sofa and gently pressed my baby into my arms. “Make sure to burp him frequently,” she said. If I needed any help, I could call the nursing station. Then she closed the door, and for the first time in my life I was alone with my son.

My baby came with detailed instructions. I was to feed him every four hours, fill out a chart with how much he ate and when, and mark any diaper changes. This sounded easy enough; I imagined myself lounging in bed, sipping tea as the baby cooed. But with me he often cried until he was purple. He had spent the past nine months curled up peacefully inside of me, with no complications. Now that he was out in the world, why couldn’t I soothe him?

Many times, a nurse took my son from my arms and bounced him to peace. Then, when he landed in my arms again, he would erupt in anger. She would try to reassure me, but eventually she had to return to the nursery. “You can just wheel him back to us if you need a break,” she would say. I was overwhelmed, and I started sending him back after every feeding.

For weeks, I spent no more than four hours at a time with my son. I felt terrible about it—I seemed to be trading intimacy for tranquillity—but I told myself that he appeared happier with the nurses. Maybe the instinct to suffer through discomfort was too American. I kept thinking back to the massage therapist who’d milked me. “You have time here,” she had said.

The first time my son pooped at the hotel, I called a nurse over in panic. At the hospital, my husband had handled diaper changes.

“Do you know how to change a diaper?” she asked, without judgment. When I nodded hesitantly, she demonstrated, propping his body on her left arm while gripping his thigh like a drumstick. At the sink, she peeled off his diaper and used the faucet as a bidet, before cleaning him with wipes. My baby was delighted.

“Can’t we just use wet wipes?” I asked.

He was less likely to develop diaper rash this way, she said gently.

Some of the activities were genuinely sweet. During a baby-swimming session, my husband and I clapped in encouragement as we watched our son, ensconced in an inflatable ring and surrounded by rubber duckies, confidently kick around in a full-sized bathtub.

On another evening, a photographer and his assistant came into my room. After setting up some backdrops on my bed, the assistant stared my son in the eyes and began to hum, low and melodic. Immediately, the baby fell into a trance. They managed to dress him as a newspaper boy, as a bunny rabbit, and in beach clothes. When they wrapped him in a green pear costume, he fell asleep.

As adorable as the photo session was, it made me feel useless. I was learning a few tricks from the staff, but they did everything for me, and they were better at it. About three weeks in, I began to feel claustrophobic. In the long, dark hallway between rooms, my fellow-moms didn’t make eye contact. Occasionally, I overheard bits of people’s lives. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” one mother pleaded in the room next door.

Another time, I was holding my baby in my room when I heard a man’s angry voice in the hall. “This place is like a jail,” he shouted. “My wife is in her room, crying. I will sue you!”

My son glanced up at me, puzzled by the commotion. “Sh-h-h,” I told him. Through the door, I could hear stomping feet and the low voices of staff.

Although the hotel advertised itself as a modern and flexible take on postpartum traditions, it wasn’t wrong to call it a place of confinement. I couldn’t have my girlfriends or parents in my room, or take my son out for a stroll. Everyone had a uniform: mothers wore white pajamas with pink and green circles; nurses, who were exclusively women, wore green scrubs; and babies wore off-white kimonos. Only dads wore street clothes and had no official role—a reflection of a traditional society in which mothers are expected to be married to fathers and tend to be the primary caregivers. The few times I did step out—for a snack, a quick coffee with a friend, and a much-needed date with my husband—the nurses asked me where I was going. I always felt ashamed. “Errands,” I’d lie.

During my last week, I finally made a friend. Mariah, a Taiwanese Canadian woman, had just given birth to her second child, a baby boy. One afternoon, after our morning feedings, we grabbed bubble tea and sat on the roof. The nurses literally gasped when they saw us together.

“When I had my first kid, I was just grunting,” Mariah told me. Because she hadn’t trusted her live-in nanny, she’d done night shifts by herself, and grew so tired that she could barely speak. So, the second time that she was pregnant, she immediately put down a deposit for a hotel.

I confided that I was having a difficult time being alone with my son. My American friends probably envied me, but I was starting to wish I could trade places with them; for all their sleepless nights, they seemed to have bonded with their newborns immediately. With a week left in my stay, I felt about the same as I had in the car: anxious, inadequate, confused.

The point of the postpartum period was not to learn skills, Mariah reminded me, but to recover physically and mentally from the rigors of pregnancy. On her phone, she toggled through parenting apps that she wanted me to try.

“How long do you have your baby with you in your room?” I asked.

“Eight in the morning to eleven at night.”

The shock must have shown on my face. “The point is that I can sleep through the night,” she said.

“How do you eat?”

Paradoxically, she gave me a guilty look. “My friends say I should rest more,” she said. I was feeling bad for spending too little time with my son; she was feeling bad for spending too much. Our desires to take care of our sons and ourselves seemed mutually exclusive.

On the day we checked out, my baby was given a “diploma” to commemorate his first month of life. But, as a mother, I felt as if I had failed. My first three days at home washed over me like ice water. After thirty days of relative calm, I was bewildered by the total lack of personal time. “It’s like hazing, except you delayed it by a month,” Laura texted me from Los Angeles. The only time I felt relief was when I took a warm shower, which drowned out my newborn’s cries across the hall.

Almost immediately, though, I felt the flood of intimacy I had been craving, followed by a quiet understanding. It was simple: I didn’t know my child because I hadn’t spent enough time with him. He threw tantrums when he was overtired, I discovered. He enjoyed contact naps, his dad’s soft chest, and leaning back against the slope of our thighs. He preferred long walks in his stroller to being swaddled in his bassinet. The hotel had absolved me of responsibility for my son, which created an emotional chasm; its rigid routines had stopped us from learning about him as an individual.

Though I didn’t fully understand it at the time, staying at a postpartum center gave me a chance to catch my breath between transitions, before diving into the marathon of parenthood. I had approached it all wrong. In retrospect, if I wanted to connect with my son right off the bat, I should have kept him with me all day, like Mariah did. Or I should have just enjoyed my month off completely, gone out with wild abandon—nurses be damned—and trusted that I would eventually figure it all out.

Now that my husband and I have both gone back to work, we’ve been trying out a couple of part-time nannies who can watch our son for a few hours a week. Our favorite is a woman named Connie, who showed up for her first day in a surgical mask and pink scrubs. At the end of the session, she texted me a detailed breakdown of how much the baby ate and at what time.

Recently, I walked in on Connie giving my son a massage, by stretching out his arms and rubbing his little feet. He broke into a gummy smile. The scene felt familiar. It turned out that, before she became a private nanny, Connie had worked as a nurse supervisor at a postpartum hotel.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and began to prepare lunch. The days when food arrived at my hotel room on a platter seemed like a hallucination. But the anxiety and the feeling of inadequacy were gone. After many delirious weeks, and many hours of bouncing my crying son to sleep, I felt fully inducted as his mother. This time around, I knew my kid better than the woman who was helping me care for him. And, after lunch, my husband and I were going to take him for a long walk. ♦

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