A brief Coffee Table Chat: beyond trends
One-on-One with Jesús Parrilla
In a world where hospitality often follows fleeting trends, Jesús Parrilla invites us to pause and rethink. Through this insightful conversation, he challenges the industry to move beyond rebranding old ideas and embrace bold, transformative initiatives that prioritize sustainability, cultural preservation, and community empowerment. Join us as he explores how courage, responsibility, and regeneration can redefine the future of travel, creating a genuine force for good.
1. Every January, the industry predicts trends for the year ahead, often rebranding familiar ideas. How do you believe the hospitality world can move beyond recycled concepts to embrace truly innovative ideas that drive meaningful social and environmental change?
The industry must stop chasing the ephemeral allure of what’s marketable and instead embrace the timeless call of what is necessary. Innovation doesn’t arise from recycling the comfortable but from confronting the uncomfortable truths about our impact on the world. To move forward, we must look inward and question the habits we’ve normalized, the stories we’ve commodified, and the spaces we’ve altered. Actual progress lies in creating ideas that don’t merely align with trends but challenge them, that don’t bend to demand but build toward a more profound and more conscientious harmony with the earth and its people. Real change whispers; it doesn’t shout.
2. What would it take for the industry to shift its focus from forecasting consumer desires to setting an agenda for progress—one that prioritizes sustainability, cultural preservation, and community empowerment over superficial trends?
It would take courage—tons of courage to lead, not follow; to educate, not just entertain; to illuminate paths that may be less traveled but infinitely more meaningful.
The agenda we need cannot be written in the language of convenience or only profit but in the dialect of responsibility and reverence. It’s about turning our gaze from the fleeting to the enduring, from the surface to the roots. When we prioritize the stories of the land and the hands that nurture it, when we empower voices that have been overlooked, we not only set a new agenda but inspire a movement that redefines the essence of travel.
3. If we used this time of year not to project trends but to spark a movement, what bold initiatives or disruptive ideas would you introduce to challenge the status quo and make the industry a genuine force for good?
I would propose a year where we silence the noise of consumerism and amplify the song of regeneration—a collective effort to restore what has been taken, to heal what has been hurt. Imagine an industry-wide pledge: for every room built, a forest planted; for every meal served, a culture celebrated; for every footprint left, a legacy of care engraved. The challenge is not to be louder but to be clearer, more intentional, and more daring. A true movement is not an announcement; it’s a quiet, unstoppable wave that reshapes the shoreline, leaving it stronger than it was before.
