The EX is Employee Experience and CX is Customer Experience. This conversation centers much more on the employee experience and how focusing efforts here will almost certainly take care of the CX part of your business.

The job of a hotel GM is demanding, in many cases all-consuming and constantly changing. But never before has there been a time where those demands feel like they compete, yet sometimes align and at the same time stretch your boundaries to new places. 

Well, we’re trying to create some clarity on this episode. Mike shares some great insight into the current booking ecosystem, a new entrant to be aware of, how to drive more direct bookings, using OTAs to your advantage, the lifetime value of a guest and much more.

This episode is heavy on strategy and action. On several occasions throughout our conversation he takes difficult to understand concepts and makes them not just easy to understand, but shares what to do and how to do it.

This episode is all about contracts and negotiations. We discuss the prospecting and qualifying process, getting to the contract phase, negotiation, myths about hotel sales and much much more. 

This episode tries to uncover - how do you improve customer service with an eye on empowerment, training and meaningful data collection.

Opening a hotel is never easy. Between operational, administrative and project management needs, it requires organization, focus, a great team and a clear set of guiding principles so that people have a leader they can trust. 

The retreat was inspired by her own struggles with balancing work demands and her own wellbeing - something that those working in the hospitality industry know all too well.

David is the COO of Humanist Hospitality, a hotel management company born during the pandemic that has been working hard to infuse new thinking into the human connections at the heart of the hotel industry.

This isn’t a typical episode of the show, instead, this week I’m talking with someone with different needs who travels a lot, in the hopes of doing more than simply shedding light on what we can to better prepare our teams.

Sextant isn’t a one off manager of Airbnb homes, they take over entire buildings, permitting them as hotels, staffing them with Valets and Housekeepers, acquiring liquor licenses and use telepresence front desk agents. If you wanted to get a look at what many hotels of the future will look like, this is very likely it.

In times of crisis, having the presence of mind to think about the future feels like a luxury that many business owners can’t afford. But one day the crisis will end and what might be worse is finding your business firmly planted behind where everyone else moved.

Glenn shares great insight into the mechanics of how Wellengood Partners came to be, the pivot they made when they saw an opportunity to grow, how they went about financing their hotel and the lay of the land today as we emerge from this last downturn.

Much like hotels and restaurants, Spas and wellness facilities were disproportionately impacted over the past 18 months and even though things are slowly returning to normal, the highly interactive nature of the spa experience is still subject to the customers comfort level in that type of environment.

Four months ago Kyle was offered his first GM role at the worst hotel in the Embassy Suites brand. Forget about just taking on your first GM posting, taking on this type of hotel during the pandemic is something that would stretch the most seasoned of GM’s.

Oaky is a company on a mission to change the hotel upselling paradigm by using information you already have about your guest to engage them in a personalized and ultimately more effective way. 

We’re diving in to some of Colin’s best practices and principles that have not only filled the pages of his new book, The Gold Standard: Giving Your Customers What They Didn’t Know They Wanted, but truly actionable, and fundamentally simple but effective actions that can foster personalized proactive customer service.

The last 18 months has demanded re-thinking and re-evaluation of every aspect of the hospitality industry - and your hotel restaurant is certainly in that bucket. But with limited resources and in many cases, lack of desire, knowing where to start can be so difficult that it actually limits any forward progress.

One of the biggest lessons many hotels have learned the hard way over the past 18 month is the importance of cash flow. And not just how much cash is coming in now, but how much is expected to come in throughout the year.

On this episode Anthony shares a ton of great information about the state of travel and some of the best practices that you can put in place today to not only compete but to use OTAs to your advantage.