Adding Flexibility to an Archaic Real Estate Landscape
On this episode of Say Yes To Travel, Host Sarah Dandashy talked with Jason Fudin, Co-Founder and CEO of WhyHotel, a hospitality platform, and operator focusing on multifamily buildings. It operates pop-up hotels out of the vacancy of newly built luxury apartments during the initial lease-up process. They talked about Fudin’s career, his time at Vornado Realty, and WhyHotel.
Fudin’s background is in high-rise institutional real estate development. He worked on large real estate developments for Vornado Realty that at times were worth more than $2 billion. Focusing on innovation realty, he tended to work with companies such as WeWork and how they could make space more efficient and better utilize it. While he was at Vornado, he piloted WhyHotel, and they spun it out to become its own independent, venture-backed company in 2017.
“The real estate world is kind of archaic in that highly siloed, and it has no flexibility,” Fudin said. “I was in the unique position of spending those 100s of millions and billions to build products while seeing a changing set of consumer preferences so spaces could be more flexible.”
WhyHotel brings a hospitality-style product into apartments, according to Fudin. Their first business line is a pop-up hotel. In some ways, it was the right place at the right time, as Vornado gave Fudin the freedom to build this new platform.
“If you’re a guest of ours or resident, you get to stay in high-quality apartment homes in great neighborhoods, but you get hospitality services,” Fudin said. “You get that hospitality experience.”
Recent Posts
The extended stay hotel market, once riding high on unprecedented growth, has recently faced a dip in occupancy rates. This downturn marks a significant shift from the robust expansion observed over the past years, driven by a surge in guests who preferred longer stays due to various economic and lifestyle factors. Despite this, the […]
How are hotels and resorts responding to the adoption of EVs, which hit roughly 10% of the global market in 2022? There is a lot of opportunity for the hospitality industry to increase EV charging at hotels and resorts, and give travelers another reason to seek their establishment out over the competition. Business and […]
Calls for adults-only flights are ramping up. A recent survey conducted by Photo Aid revealed that more plane travelers would prefer the option of a flight only for adults. The case for adults-only flights has been ongoing for over a decade now, per ABC News, but continued online discussion is reigniting significant interest in the […]