Human Connection Will Always Be at the Center of Hospitality

You're listening to say yes to travel with your host, Sarah dandachi. All right, welcome back to another episode of say yes to travel, where we have been interviewing all sorts of industry professionals and thought leaders within the hospitality industry. And I'm so excited for this episode because we are kicking off a new year. And with this new year, I think we have this new sense of renewed sense of optimism. And certainly that's what I'm coming at it with. And I think who better to start off the year with than my current guest for today? So I have got bushar Wally, who is the CEO and founder of this assembly. And I'm so excited to get into today's conversation because I know we're just going to talk about everything hospitality related. So without further ado, you don't want to hear from me. We want to hear from wistar so bushar, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. Delighted and excited. And don't limit it to hospitality. We make it into politics and religions and some taboo subjects. Leave the door open. We'll see how it goes. Oh, perfect. I love the way that you think, because, quite frankly, all of it is interconnected. And I think all too often you actually bring up a great point, because all too often, we kind of maybe tiptoe around certain topics. But it's just so connected that sometimes you just have to address them. So fine. We'll keep the door open for that, though. So for everybody that's just tuning in and for I mean, obviously, a lot of people have heard quite a bit from you, but would love to just sort of set the stage and give a bit of background. So for an introduction, could you share a bit of your background? For those that don't know? You and I actually have some similar roots, so I would love to hear about your background and how it shapes into the hotelier that you are today. Sure thank you. So I was born in the middle east, in Damascus, Syria, and my dad had been here in the 60s as a student and loved the US and wanted to live the American dream and true to his sort of desire, went back home, got married, had kids and essentially shipped us off one at a time. And now they all live here in the US. And it's funny, I think, as I think long and hard, I kind of fell into hospitality. I didn't intentionally seek it out with sort of a means to an end on its come to the US needed a visa. I knew somebody who knew somebody. I went to Johnson and Wales University where I got accepted because I wasn't that smart. So I got accepted. And literally the minute. I touched it, I was infected. And it was beyond any vaccination or repair. I was infected for life. And as people often ask me, how and why. And as I far back on sort of upbringing and cultural influences and you, your family will appreciate this. There's a great quote that I love that goes the Arabs used to say, when a stranger shows up at your door, don't ask them who he is, where he's from or where he's going to feed them and nurture them and host them for three days, because by then he'll either be rested enough to tell you or you'll be such good friends. It won't matter. And there's always this idea of hospitality. And really, I think hospitality as a concept is innate to us as human beings. And I think culturally from cultural varies. Some are louder about it and want to stuff your mouth with food. Others are sort of standoffish with you. But I think ultimately, we to not go Darwinian on you. We all are in this together. We need each other. We need each other as a species to survive. So I think this idea of being open to host and welcome people really, truly is innate to us as humans. And I think ultimately, it's only further emphasised by nurture, by the culture you live in. And there are many cultures, you know, the Italians we talk a lot about and the greeks, this whole you cannot leave until you've been Fed so much. It's coming out of your ears, et cetera. So I think those are all symbols of the idea of we want to take care of each other. And I love that about it. And I love that as influenced how I think about the business, sort of my upbringing. Yeah, no. And you bring up a really good point, because as you're saying that, I'm thinking of, you know, just even my nature and actually, because I haven't talked about this, but for those that are listening. So my dad was actually born in Damascus. And so that's where I talked about why we have the similar upbringing, even though I was actually, I was born in the states, but I grew up in the Middle East. I actually lived in Saudi Arabia until I was six. So even though that's a very different culture than a Syrian or Lebanese culture, but very much understanding that. But you bring up a great point that there is this. There is this thing in us that we want to be hospitable, we want to sort of take care and nurture others, and I'm always sort of impressed with that when I'm traveling and maybe going to a place where I don't speak the language, how, you know, we're kind of taken care of in a way. And it is really always beautiful that you're reminded of that when you travel. I know that you obviously travel quite a bit as well. And honestly, it's Bourdain. Bourdain sort of embodies that for me, the idea of how hospitality his show became nothing to do with food and more to do with sort of interacting with other humans through the medium of food. And we interact with other humans through the medium of offering them shelter. So you think about it, we really are ultimately finding a way, I hope, and I'm going to preach this often and a lot, and I'm going to drive you crazy even on this show, the idea that we keep thinking that the future of hospitality is robots and apps and in fact, that's the future of service, not the future of hospitality. Hospitality fundamentally is, has been and will always be the epicenter of hospitality is emotion and emotion for the time being until we invent robots that can actually feel it truly is about human interactions, period. And I've been preaching the gospel for the last decade. I agree with you. And it's interesting because certainly with my background as far as being a concierge, the concierge is always arguably and maybe this is just coming from that background is very much the heart and soul of a property. And if you have a good one, and it's that emotional connection that they are able to have with the guests again. And what is it? I mean, how many times, not only myself, but I've heard countless of other hoteliers, specifically concierge, that we've had guests come to them and say, I come back here not for the hotel, but I come back here because of you. And I think the essence really ties into what you're saying is that it really is the human aspect. And you make that distinction. Indeed indeed. I've done a Ted talk on the subject and the idea of human connection. And one of the things I talk about is you think about Airbnb and it's such a subtle nuance. But I think it goes a long way when you go to book reservations with the hotel. For all you know, you're entering this deep, dark black hole of corporate America. Right you're going to be thrown into some booking machine with some bedding. The boss, who is not actually a human, who's trying to talk to you. And it's so cold. It's so transactional. When you decide to go with Airbnb the minute you decide to go to that direction. Sara, your host is now communicating with you. And even though it may be automated and even though it may be whatever, that word host has such a warmth and underlying comfort with it that. I think it's genius using the word host. Right so so I think that example alone and, you know, Airbnb spent gazillions of dollars on deciding what to call their people, that their landlords for the lack of a better term. So that word host has such warmth that comes with it that I think is lost when you're diving into that black hole. That's the booking machine, whether it's Expedia or any of the big brands, et cetera. So somehow we have to focus the experience on that in our personal experience and try to drive it home when they come into our door. Because until then, they're dealing largely with machines. Right, whether it's apps or booking agents. And and you bring up a great point, and I've actually said this quite a bit, because when Airbnb and I've always been a fan of Airbnb in the sense that as hoteliers and as a hospitality professional, we can learn a lot from them because they were always far more nimble and the things that they could do and, you know, even when they were going out and starting their experiences, I actually worked with them when they were starting their experiences. And at that time, you know, we're talking about four years ago, this was still all these hoteliers like shaking in their boots, oh, my gosh, Airbnb. And it's like, whoa, wait a second, hold on. Look at what they can bring to the table. Yes, they might take some heads in beds. OK, fine. But they're basically, they're making travel more accessible to people that maybe they couldn't stay at a hotel or maybe they didn't want to stay at a hotel. It didn't make sense for them, whatever that is. And then I was always calling hoteliers like, you offer more than a bed, you offer more than a bed in a room. Now, you can still bring in those people. Maybe they come to you at your property, maybe they come to your rooftop bar. And how can you still tie-in to these travelers without just focusing on the bed experience? So you know what I mean? It's the full experience of the property. But as you can see, I get very excited about. Sure and look at one of the broken records that, again, I've been preaching again and again and again, is the clear distinction between two words. People often ask me what business. I'm in and they say the service industry. And I say, I go to my dentist. They're in the service industry where I get my oil changed. For my car, they're in the service industry, we hotels deliver a service that is absolutely not the business that we're in because truthfully, service can be delivered by robots and machines and apps in the business that we're in. His hospitality in the clear distinction as service is what you deliver. Hospitality is how you make people feel. And fundamentally, the design, the scent, the lighting, the fabric, the touch, the feel, the music, the literally every component matters. But ultimately, all those components are things. And we humans gather emotions and feelings from other humans. Maya angelou, people will forget what you said and what we can forget what you did and what you said, et cetera. But they'll never forget how you made them feel. And think about how deep that statement is. So fundamentally, how you make someone feel is purely a function of you, other human interaction with them, complimented and improved by the environment that surrounds you. But without that piece, the centerpiece that is the human. It's like a gallery, right? Like I don't go to a gallery to admire the building. I go to a gallery with my heart. I don't go to a hotel to admire the building. I go to a hotel to feel warm and welcome. And I jokingly say, my best gauge of a good hotel is I want to walk into your lobby blindfolded and feel the warmth of your hospitality. I like that. This idea of this cocooning effect, I like when you walk into your parents home, there's something magical about the atmosphere, not the smell, not the sound, but it just this warmth feeling that you get. And I think hotels that get it, they get it, and they accomplish it well. And those who don't become these monolith, soulless, big, massive buildings that have nothing to offer but a great marble and gold and platinum and whatever, I guess it's here that is it is this human element, and it is the way that you. And by the way, that's one of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes, because it is so much the essence of what we do. And you make that very clear distinction between hospitality and service. And it's something that there is an art to it. I agree to it. And people really have to really tap into being authentic and genuinely showing up in the present. And if you do that, it's amazing the connections that you can make. And again, for those who follow me, I'll give you another analogy that I got. I've been beating like a broken record, and I hope I practice what I preach first, but hopefully it'll inspire someone to think about things differently. So I often say I'm in the theater business. Right and here's the analogy I get. I can go to Times Square by the best piece of real estate on the corner of man and man build a $5 billion theater dripping with gold and platinum and art and carved this and that. And all of the above. No one cares. "The New York Times doesn't come to a theater to admire the building, they come to a theater to look at the play. So alternatively, I say I'll go 10 blocks of Times Square by a good enough piece of dirt, build a good enough building on it, focus my time, energy and effort on finding, recruiting, hiring and training the best in class, building them a set that's conducive to the story they're trying to tell and whether set was made of garbage cans and found objects or gold and platinum. Because that's what's accretive to that story then, be it. But really focus on the story that you tell and the people that tell your story and people will be lined up out the door. People don't go to the theater for the building. People don't go to a hotel for the building. And we've learned now. Right, that ultimately, yes, sure, you could steal a couple of towels, but what are you bringing home with you when you've spent $1,000 or $500 or $200 on the doll? I think we win. If you go home. After you say stay in my hotels and tell one person about one thing, not the whole experience, one person, one thing, that's how I win. But if you're going to like the building was nice. That was. What's the point? That's a commodity. We're not in the commodity. Yeah, and that's a great point. And it reminds me of, you know, all too often in speaking with fellow hoteliers and specifically within the concierge community. Obviously, that's much a lot of my background. But this was like, how do we stay relevant? How do we stay relevant? And it's that taking that ownership as far as your experience that you are able to provide a guest, not only if they have a positive experience, it not only reflects well on the hotel, it reflects on you, reflects on the profession. And so you're now telling people like, oh, this. People want to share the story. You want to get the part of hospitality is the story that you can help create for somebody, because that's where they're not going to be like, oh, you know, cool. The thread count was amazing. Sure well, I'm part of my new venture. The first word that we've been tinkering with that, I'm working on trademarking, I hope, is give us the ability. Let me tell you what that means. What if you're a guest? You have the pick of the litter, right? There's so many great hotels out there. I can name hundreds of them for you right now. Fantastic offerings. But I need more than just I need more of a reason than just a beautiful building with beautiful art and fabulous coffee and fabulous this an incredible that I need more. And in the post covid era, we've all learned that we really do need more of this. I think travel will become hopefully, God willing, will become more meaningful, because, as you know, historically, people with literally book that fabulous trip to Taos because there's some incredible Instagram shot that they have today. They have zero reason or desire to go there. They're literally going there for that reason only. And fundamentally, that seems so shallow. And so empty. Now, in hindsight, really, that's what our lives have become. We are chasing likes from people we don't care about. And I think hopefully we've learned that our time is short and we need to put it to good use. So damn those fake likes. I'd rather go to a place where I have a reason to go where I can create a memory for myself. So this idea of more meaning in life. And it doesn't have to be heavy or light a chore. I mean, travel is fun, obviously. And sure, I want that Instagram shot, that street cred as much as you do. But I want that to be secondary to why I'm doing what I'm doing, not central to it. So they give us should have been free, I think on one hand comes from a guest, but also fundamentally, more importantly from an employee. Why should I come work for you when I can work for this next offering down the street, which arguably may have better things than you do? You've got to give me more of a reason to be with you. And I think ultimately, that truly comes to backed-up. Back to that, to the nucleus, to the center point, we're talking about. If you treat me better than that group or consider me view me as an equal human to you, because I am, whether I speak English or not, whether I'm educated or not, you are not any better than me. We are equal humans. I think if you create that the idea of we're all in this together again, an overused sentence from covid, I think you truly will win, particularly on the gas and on the employee side. And this idea of we're all in this together becomes far more relevant to the port. And again, not in a heavy sense. This isn't about, you know, making the travel. You could still go wild and go nuts and go crazy and have a lot of fun. But it's got to be the purpose for your trip has to be far more than an Instagram shop, I think. Oh, definitely a death. And it's and it. It's the purpose for think the internal journey as opposed to the end result. As far as what you can share. Oh, look at this is what I did. And so hopefully, even if maybe. OK, fine. So maybe there is the driving factor that, OK, I chose a destination because I can take a pretty shot there, but hopefully that once you're there, you're able to kind of melt. Away those original barriers and connect a little bit locally and grounded, so little question. So what do you want to talk about this? So can you share a little bit more about your current role as far as that Providence hotel's practice, hospitality, as well as this assembly. So that we all know what you're doing? Sure so Providence hotels was where I was at for 15 years, kind of helped grow the company or remain in part a partner in that company. But I started feeling that I wasn't walking the talk right. I was starting to sound righteous, but I was afraid that if somebody called me out on it, am I truly living up to all my lecturing, as it were, and pontification? And I felt that in this round, as it were, sort of the post covid around, there's a lot of opportunity to have learned a lot of good lessons, introspectively mostly, by the way, to your earlier point, being very introspective, because, as you know, we've become a bunch of lemmings, hotelier's. We scoby each other, we jump off the cliff and everybody else jumps off the cliff. So the idea is, can we think about how we do business differently? Can we really? And look, the word disruption has become, again, so meaningless because everybody wants to disrupt everything. And like, listen, I don't want to go to the bathroom in a disruptive way. I want to go to the bathroom. So the idea is, can we and really centered around this idea of give us an ability, can if success means I have to crush everyone along the way, I'm not interested in being successful. So I'm trying that we're trying as a team to think of ways to do things differently, to find that magic, give us the ability, reason to share with guests and employees and partners. And by the way, we often talk about our customers, internal, external, all these nonsense words that try to make us feel better. Ultimately, I'm really doing this on a sort of human level because my employees, as important as my guest is, as important as my vendor is, as important as the police officer down the street. I mean, we are all in this together. And if you're such an important part in a community hotel, you've got to work. You've you've got to deliver on that promise. And really be treat everyone that way. And give everyone a reason to be your biggest fan and to be your brand evangelist and to be your champion out there. So this is somebody essentially is a group of my partners that I brought along that we are together trying to work on a couple of things. One is think about is there room for a brand hotel brand lifestyle brand, obviously taking advantage of the next Real estate cycle that could not invent a flying car. But it seems like there's a better way to design a car. Now than we have been historically, whether it's hybrid or electric or whether it's smaller, because that's how we travel now and whether it's shared, because that's the model. Now, there's a different way to do a hotel business than we've done historically. No one in the interim, while that's a lofty goal, we want it to be pragmatic. Also, obviously, keep everyone in the game and pay the bills. So we started practice hospitality and practice hospitality is a hotel management company. But truth be told, I struggle with that term. Manish and I love analogies. So, Sara, when you give your first born to someone to watch, do you want to manage your first band or do you want them to love and care and nurture and be an extension of who you are as a parent? So all of a sudden we're starting to scratch our heads and go hotel management company. You as an owner have agonized. You've lost sleep over what size the doorknob should be. And what color the light switch should be for you to hand it to. A bunch of people are going to manage it. What I it seems so, Yeah. Counterintuitive, right? So we're like, are we a hotel nurture company? Are we a hotel care company? Are we. Well what company. So we're really starting to think about it from that vernacular as well. But practice hospitality is on top management company for the lack of a better term for now. And we'd like to say, if you want your baby managed, give it someone to manage. If you your baby nurtured with your guys. So give us baby and we'll make sure it's nurtured and we'll treat it. We adopt it. We don't babysit. We we will become cool parents. Well, and that also it's interesting because just in recent conversations that I've been having, we're seeing that there. And I love that you're going in this direction because I think this is, first of all, we can see this in other industries. You can even look at retail and other businesses. And what are the businesses that are doing that are doing? Well, it's that they have this give a shit ability, you know, that they do that, they give back in a way. And that's what consumers, modern consumers want, you know? And so and that also applies to hotels. So it is. And it starts from as starts from the management. So, again, that's slight, even if it's a changing of a word and using a different word changes. Verbiage that you can it has it will have this trickle down effect because are managing, but it's again five next day and suffice it to say, empty words. I often say execution eats strategy for breakfast. Fundamentally, it's a mindset, right? If you know this, I'm just here for a paycheck. Right that's ultimately failure for all involved. You've got to give most importantly, your teammates a reason beyond the Paycheck. You have to be invested in their lives and their well-being. They can be employee number 27. They have to be Joe or Rosa or whoever they are for it to really matter. Because ultimately, no matter how fabulous. I may be, I'm not dealing with every guest, every moment of the day. And I've always learned that you are as good as your worst employee. So somehow we have to make sure we create a workforce that is going to be representative of what it is that we're trying to do. So when you're an owner and you call and you want someone to quote unquote manage your hotel, I want to be able to deliver on that promise. And not only deliver with the touchy Feely and the employees love us. Some guests are writing rave reviews. Ultimately, the results have to show up on the ibbett our line on the revenue line. And then the market penetration line. So it's all equally important. But I think and I'm a huge fan of Simon sinek, I'm sure you know the discovery or why does he think Apple doesn't say we're in the business to make money. They say we're in the business to change the world. And by virtue of what we do, we make money. I want to be able to say, look, we are in the business of creating an incredible place for people to work, an incredible place for people to call home away from home. And if we do both those things well, we're going to make. So much money. It's not even going to be important because ultimately, that's long term thinking. That's not flash in the pan, kill everyone, work them to death, make money and then sell it and let the next guy suffer with the consequences. Yeah and you bring up this interesting point is that there is this disconnect, which is so. Ironic to the hospitality industry is that there is. It's about the feeling that you can help create, but then there's, you know, if you have too many individuals, whether it is management or ownership, let's just focus on the bottom line and the profitability, that there is a disconnect there. And that is absolutely felt. It felt certainly as an employee, but definitely felt as a guest. I mean, the number of guests that have come in, I think we've all heard this over the course of our careers that guests have come in. Has something changed with, like management or has the ownership changed because it feels different to them, like you're in the lobby? What do you mean? It feels different, but they the interesting, isn't it, that they feel it? They truly feel it, right. We don't give human intuition enough credit, human intuition usually valuable. And again, I've talked before about what we've done historically with the mystery shops. We do the transactional mystery shops that they use your name three times, that they offer you luggage, that they did that. And I felt that was. So again. Robotech right. So we decided to intermingle those with emotional based job. How do they make you feel when you had a problem? Did they seem to genuinely care? And to me, that's the future. Do I really care if you use my name three times or does that really make a difference? Now you want to blow me away? Remember my name without looking down the second time I walk through the lobby, then you'll blow me away. You're reading my name off of a screen. I already know my name. You don't need to tell me what it is, right? So we've lost sight of what's important. Because we became too focused on service and not enough on hospitality. And it's interesting, as speaking as somebody who know, I've worked at a series of five star five diamond hotels and knowing that I had to hit those marks. And for me, I've always been one that I want to connect with somebody genuinely. That's just how it is. And as a hot as a hospitality professional, it would kill me that I'm having this conversation. And I'm trying. And connecting. But in my mind, I'm like, how many times have I said, their name? I'm actually going through the checklist in my head as I'm having a conversation that is hot. I was it was bursley was a miserable experience. I will tell you a really funny story about that very topic. I am on the desk working the desk. Armatrading sort of got to a story outside of Boston and my manager is standing there and Mr P and I. S comes on. And I'm literally looking at the resignations, looking at his I'd be looking at the reservations, looking at as I'd be looking at my manager about three times and the guy says it's kind of like, OK, thank you, Mr. So this idea of why I like what's the point here is you're reading off the screen, I'm not going to give you any extra credit because you use my name three times because you read it on the screen. What's the point again and again? It goes. So much deeper than that. You know, it's more than just saying like, oh, saying the name. But it's like whether you reference what happened in your last interaction and it's like, oh, How's that? How's the dog doing? Or, you know, I remember that you had an amazing time at this Japanese restaurant. By the way, there's a new one. If you have time, you should absolutely go to this place and you're going to love it. If you love this place, you know, you just basically dive right in and you pick off a pick up where you left off that. That's usually you, because now I feel that you are invested in me. You're not just transactionally, yet another guest. You are truly invested in luck. We all want to be vip, no matter how poor, rich, how significant or insignificant. We all want to matter. Nobody says, I don't want to matter. I want to be a nobody, even though they may tell you that not true. We all want to be somebody. And that's where you come. You know, it's the Maslow's hierarchy thing where self actualization is on the very top. Like, I want to know I'm somebody I matter. It's again, an innate need for us as humans. We have egos. We all want our ego stroked. We want to feel important. And that's why you accomplish by doing that rather than reading my name three times. Definitely definitely. So you touched on a bit, you know, in regards to this year to being a little bit more weather introspective. So how kind of a couple of questions molded into one here. So I'm just I mean, we look, we all lived through this pandemic, like you all have seen the impact. So not necessarily like the day to day changes, but what were the changes that you made you maybe experience with their businesses and more. So maybe like what are the lessons that you learned or relearn or emphasized in the past year? Look, I look at this thing with a silver lining. And I say. This whole sanitation business, we'll call it for the lack of a better term, this is temporary. It will go away, right? I never leave my house in the morning thinking, oh, man, I better be careful. I don't want to catch polio. Once the vaccine is out, and we all have at it, this will be it. Look, I don't want to underestimate what's happened. Lives have been decimated. Our friends in the industry that we all know someone has been decimated. And it's terrible. And we feel awful for all of them. And pray for all of them. I think a lot of this that the sort of sanitation part, I put that as a temporary block, all this wiping and cleansing and spraying and it'll all be gone and we'll all forget about it won't be part of our conversation, hopefully. By the way, the only thing I hope we don't forget about is, you know, you travel. I can't tell you how many fabulous looking businessmen in airport bathrooms that are really raining. Cuccinelli $20,000 suits come out of the stall. And walk right out. I'm like, dude, you might be sitting next to me on the plane. I want to call you out. You don't wash your hands. So hopefully the hand washing remains. Suffice it to say, I think what we've learned out of this, again, I hope is no. One, kindness. We all have to be kind to each other. We've all learned to think about someone's day before we react to the way they're treating us or talking to us. We've all, I think, learned to be more emotionally intelligent, which is to me, one of the most valuable skills in our industry. So I think I hope these soft skills we've all have learned to be more patient with each other, to be more respectful of each other, and again, introspectively thought about our own faults at the same time. The other thing that I've looked at is if we assume the sanitation thing is a temporary thing. I've always been a big fan of human behavior versus trends. Trends have a shelf life by definition, and usually it's particularly where you are. It's five minutes, right. And the La trend, it's literally five minutes on the Las Vegas nightclub. That's a three way out of style. And human behavior takes much longer, often years, often decades. So how we as humans now, how we travel, how we interact with the spaces, what's important in a space for us is it really about forgetting sanitation for a minute? But the idea of I want to look at my room and feel that every surface could easily be approached and cleaned. Right let's sanitation more functionality. And I'm not suggesting prisonlike functionality, stainless wall, concrete floor. We still can do high design, but I think our view of how to value things in life has changed. And I think that's a human behavior. I think, obviously, office space, how you use office space in the future, like what happens to business travel, what percentage of business travel comes back? Is it forever changed? How do we as hotels deal with that? How do we mitigate that loss? How do we find different ways? Like one of the things that we've talked about a lot is the idea of leisure. Right so if you're a business person, Sarah, you're going on a trip. Why should you go to Chicago 20 times, but never really stop to smell the roses and see chicago? How can we help you come to our city, do your business and, you know, stay an extra day, coming earlier day earlier and really get to explore the city. So we're all thinking about by virtue of human behavior modifications, how do we take advantage of it and become a vessel to help you accomplish those goals? Like think about like room service and food in hotels. Right This is actually an interesting one, a bigger one. We used to leave our homes to go to hotels because they had room service and they had internet and they had peer review movies. And they had and they had. And now we all at home, by and large, if not everyone, I could almost say with certainty, almost everyone has better offerings at home than they do in the hotel. So what you went to the hotel for now, you have better home, your internet faster. Your streaming is easier. You can post anything you want. Check, check, check, check, check this on demand culture. So how does a hotel. Now play a different role? Do we have to up the ante and keep fighting in this rat race or do we have a different offering altogether? So again, we're thinking a lot about human behavior and how humans will interact with office, how humans will travel, how they will interact with spaces. And it's informing a lot of what we do now. Look, this has forced us to all be more efficient for the sake of the bottom line, which is not anything to be shrugged about. People are starting to think about technology. And we as an industry have been so behind in technology. They're thinking about it. As I said earlier, as a human eliminator, let's people. Let's eliminate all people kind of the way the airlines went. And I look at technology. And I say, look, let's use technology to remove friction. Do you really need me to sign the reg card and show you my credit card, do all that junk instead of all of that, maybe have less people at the desk, but have more quality people. And now be invested in me? So when I come up to you, find out why I'm here. And what I'm doing here. And how you could make my stay better, more enjoyable, et cetera. So I want to remove. The friction by using technology, because that's the smart thing to do, but I don't want to remove the human, I want to re-emphasize the human, but change their usage from robots are getting signatures and credit card swipes to actually humans to interact with the guests. Yeah and it you you mentioned something that I know has been on the tip of everybody's tongue, especially in hospitality, for quite some time. And I think this year is certainly accelerated. It it has been we hospitality in general has been behind the eight ball when it comes to technology and it's again, how to use it while you still maintain the human connection. And you tapped into a really solid point, this to take away the friction. And so if people look at it more like as a tool versus as a replacement, and then I always sort of viewed it as it's like it can help take maybe help handle some of the mundane tasks, the easy tasks. Then you have more room to have those more in-depth interactions, because that's what people are there for. They're not there for how quickly wipe the card. Exactly and allow your teammates, the opportunity to utilize their emotional intelligence to better read their guests because they're not trying to answer the phone or make reservations and dispatch an engineer. And while checking you in, if you could use technology to remove that friction and allow the space to engage on a human personal level, everyone wins because your employees feel better, your teammates feel better, and the guests feels better. Now, this idea, again, of everybody is a somebody. Dear, dear teammates, we know your opinions matter and your thoughts matter. So we want to give you the space to interact with the guests. And now the guest feels that they're getting that personalized service. So the idea of technology and again, look, I can't tell you how many swear words I use when I go to website, and I'm on the zip code field on an app or on a web site, and I have to choose my own keyboard, for God's sake, change the keyboard for me. You know, I am in your zip code. Field the damn keyboard for me. Wow I'm only now like we ask for all this information and hotels. Are you really using it? If you're not using it, why are you asking for it. Just ask for my name and my email and my zip code. If you want to. If you want to target, go target me. Fine why do you want my street address. What good is that why you're making me do the extra work unnecessary like I look, we're actually, as we think about our new venture, we're looking at retail far more than hospitality for inspiration, inspiration, because retail nailed it like they know how to get you to transact. I mean, I can't tell you how many things within three clicks on Instagram without even ever leaving Instagram. I'm finding learning about and buying clicks away. Yeah think about hotel booking experience. Good God. But you need a PhD and you're running around wasting hours. So but it's an interesting point, because of back story for another day. How? because I've looked at retail a lot as well too, as far as moving forward, because it is, you know, and we've even seen what like to own it or whatever these different brands that you can as a female, you could be like, oh, wow, this is great. I like the sweater. Click, click, boom. And next thing you know, you bought it. Now a sweater is a far different investment than, say, a hotel, a trip, a vacation, something like that. So how much do I mean, does the price of it or the investment of it also play into that? For sure? It does. And I think obviously making a decision to travel is a lot harder than make a decision to buy a sweater. Suffice it to say, I will say people that the quote we've been hearing for years now by experience is not things. And I think, again, this pandemic has further emphasized that point. Would you rather have 20 sweaters in your closet that you're not going to wear because you're only going to wear the two that you love anyway? Or take all that money and go up to Santa Barbara for the weekend or go to Cabo for the weekend. So I think fundamentally, we have to make the process better. Our pricing strategy has to be better. We need better collaboration with other travel partners to make the process seamless. Again, it's a tall order. What I'm asking for, but I think fundamentally, we can further induce people into going that route instead of the sweater by reducing the friction again. Right I mean, look, I say again, part of our premise with the new venture is we sort of wanted to find problems to fix because ultimately, that's how you make money, find the niche and follow or find problems and fix it. And one of the problems we zeroed in on is hoteliers are terrible retailers because again, back to that. What business are we're in the service business. No, dumdum, you are in the retail business. You have perishable inventory. That room that doesn't sell tonight is gone forever. And no matter how fabulous and service you are, you are a retailer. First, second and third. Move that inventory. How to. How do we better move the inventory and how do we better create more skewes, right? Like you go to retail, there's 10,000 schools in a store. You could buy a hotel. There's two kinds of rooms, you can buy, can recreate different ways, like there's a lot of companies out there and using tech to do hourly rate, not that kind of hourly rate, but the different hourly rate. Or have they use our day use or work from hotel or you know, you go on a business trip and you're done at 10 AM and your flight is at 10 p.m., you want something to do? You want to play, stick an object, shower, whatever. There are different ways to try to create different pricing points. And there's also the idea. And this is now a tall order. And this is really central to my new venture. I often look like. I'll use an example that you would know goup. What is good? People say group is a high end brand. They sell body care stuff. They sell this. And I said goup is a lifestyle. If goup in the hotel tomorrow, literally, you don't need to know what it is, what quality. It is, where it is you're going there. Right, because you truly believe in that brand kind of hotel brand. Be a lifestyle brand first that has hotels. How do you take the content that we inherently have in hotels and become a quasi media company? Push that content beyond the four walls of a hotel and become a brand that happens to have hotels like I think about monarchal. I love the brand monarchal. Right? I can't tell you what they do. They do leather goods and they do tee shirts and they do magazines and they do city guides. So it's sort of a lifestyle. I view monarchal as a lifestyle. I group as a lifestyle kind of hotel company, cross that threshold and go out of being a bed and shower provider and become more of a lifestyle company. And I think there's a way. It takes, obviously a lot of runway to get there, and a lot of loyalty to build and create. But I mean, ultimately, like, listen, I go to Amman, Gary. I want to buy their hat. And I want to buy the t-shirt or whatever. But somebody who doesn't go want to buy it, too, they don't make it easy to buy. Right like make it easy to buy because it's not about the profit, you're going to make on the hat. You're building a bad example, because if you don't like mcgeary, you don't need a hat. It doesn't matter. You don't know we're talking about should love it anyway. My point is, could you create a different point for a consumer to transact with you? That's not just the hotel. And I think the answer is it's. Yeah, invariant. Oh, my gosh. My my ears are turning, as you're saying this, because I'm trying to think I'm like, OK, how does one actually, you know, put that into motion? You said an Airbnb with experiences right there, maybe with a piece of software right. There are selling you someone's home. Another like and that we have this captive audience. Let's not sell them experiences. And that's now let's go buy a hotel tonight and become an OK on our own. So there are different ways that we could arguably become the single one, stop shopping, go for travel, including hotels and motels on Airbnb. Oh, and they and they have I mean, that's definitely been their direction in which they're wanting to go. And then interestingly enough, then we can go ahead and look at other brands and how they have then responded so that you are seeing that there are a lot more experiences that you can look at the bigger brands like the Marriott, I mean, even Jetblue, for example, and an airline like we're going back back in time. But they're now because obviously airlines and their relationship to hotels at the beginning. And the beginning of otas now understanding that you've got Jetblue, JetBlue vacations and this. And it's like, whoa, what's happening? But it is, I think, a lot of people that are buying in essence for this, whether it's a digital real estate or just their offerings, is that they want to make sure that it's OK. If we've got you here, we can also help you do x, y, z, because it's again, tapping into the friction. Again, I think removing the friction literally, because as I travel, I'm a product traveler. There's so much friction. There is so much friction along the way. And you think about the bar and a friend of mine, our benchmark hotels, Alex, I'll give him the credit, the CEO benchmark. He talks about the bar. When you leave your house, you're waking up at the crack of dawn, you're stepping on your kids legos, you're waking up your family, you're trying to hustle to get into over with the smelly guy who wants to talk to you at 4:00 AM you're at the airport getting shoved on the airplane by someone is kicking you from behind you land. You deal with the same thing again. You arrive at the desk. The bar is beyond low. Like all you need is someone to look at you and genuinely smile and say welcome back. That's all you need. And you've won me. Yet we fail to do that because what we say to the person checking in. Yeah, yeah, yes. So, yeah, exactly. Well because. Because then it becomes all part of the machine, then it's like I have to do it. Yeah like, let's just get straight, remove the friction. I think fundamentally as hotelier's, if we can give anyone a piece of advice and self, I'm giving myself the advice, I think remove the friction, focus on what matters most. Remember that you are in the feelings business. That's the only business you're in. Because if you think any other thing fail, because then you're a commodity and if you're a commodity, then I'm just buying you for price and convenience. How do I pick you over someone else? Remove the friction, focus on the humans. And I can't say enough people want a reason to care. And, you know, we talk about the cancel culture. There's the opposite of the cancel culture. Now instead of worried about being canceled. Why don't you think about, how do I become the opposite of cancel culture. Culture and make people flock to want to do business? What is it that I have to do again? Walk the talk. Right because sure, you can feed the homeless one day and go buy a billboard that says be alive on it. No, no, no, no. You have to walk the talk. You have to be central to what you do. And you have to believe because if you don't believe and you're at the top, it'll never happen. You have to truly believe. Otherwise you're wasting your time and your money. Consultants can help you there, you have to do it, yeah, and that is all incredible advice. That was actually what I was about to ask you if you had advice and you just went right into it. So, I mean, for all the hoteliers that are listening, I think definitely play that part back over again. And listen to that, because there was really some solid advice and just outlooks on things that we should really consider and look at things moving forward. So, of course, now I feel like I'm never going to be able to say the word trend again. Thanks I have a list of my office of words that are bad, but that is one of those authentic, curated, handcrafted, whatever, artisanal, disruptive. What the hell does any of that. I mean? By the way, I will tell you my opinion of the word authentic, because until we find a better word, I don't want to use it because it's overused. But it's such an important word. Authentic to me is you have to have an unapologetic point of view and own it. Hell or high water on it. Whether people like it or not, it doesn't matter. It's who you are. It's what you believe in. Because if that's what you do, then you're authentic. Anything else you do, you're trying to be someone you're not. And it's going to come through. Yeah, Yeah. That that that's a great line. But but it's true because it is that is, I think, what we're all vying for. It's this weird paradigm. But we're in this dynamic that it's you know, we want to be. So authentic, but so much of what we do might not be that authentic. I don't want to say, well, how do I get one of my favorite quotes is we buy things. We don't need with money. We don't have to impress people we don't like. I mean, that's our culture, right? 100 percent, yeah, the other one's dad lives happy photos of us. And what I said, what a terrible life to live. So if you want to be if you want to be authentic, be yourself. Have a strong point of now, respectfully. Right don't you want to do a hotel? You want to do a nautical hotel, do a nautical hotel and be all in and own it. You're not going to be for everybody. And that's OK. But that's what authenticity is. The problem is I decide I want to be an article hotel and then I say, well, what will this person thing. And what will that person think? And I'm going to modify this. And this is too much. And that's too little. And before you know it, you have a deluded concept that means nothing to anyone. You might as well, not have done it. Yeah, it's like you go all in, you go and fully commit to it. Yeah and that's a great point because it is so easy that things can become diluted, as you said. So we won't use the word trends. But moving forward, what, what changes in human behavior would you say would be here to stay on the other side of this. And then moving ahead? I think sadly for us, hotelier's, I think business travel is forever changed for multiple reasons. Again, covid is over. It's done. It's not even in our lexicon anymore. It's over. So now I want to travel because I'm on the road often and I go to my boss and I say, boss, I'm going to go to the strip. I'm doing a sales call on Sara in La, and my boss is going to say, well, how much is this going to cost? Well, $3,000. Well, you've done it remotely for a year. How about instead of traveling 10 times this year, you do it three times. So I'm very concerned about business travel, particularly for the kind of hotels. I do sort of these urban city center business centric, mostly hotels. So that's one concern that I have for us. And I think that's a human behavior change because it's not only the boss's desire to save money, but me now who has gotten used to being at home and knowing what school. My kids go to and being part of their lives, all of a sudden, this badge of Honor. We all carried with how many miles. And what status and all of that has truly now become a badge of shame. And the question is, if I don't need to go, I'm not going. If I need to go, I'm going to go. But if I don't need to go, it's not good for my health. It's not good for my family. It's not good for my interpersonal relationships. My friends don't see me, et cetera. All of a sudden, I'm going to be thinking about it twice. So I worry about business travel as a trend. And I think we as hoteliers, again, have to be smart and quick to think about how do we mitigate it, how do we find different ways to replace the business or encourage the business to happen, be easier to do business with, et cetera. Now, the work from office business, I think there's always going to be offices because you lose this camaraderie. If not, but I imagine, a lot of companies will start doing three days in the office, two days from home if you aren't, or vice versa. So that's going to have an impact on hotels. Now, if a lot of companies that have done all remote work, I view those as positive, because if you're in a city, if you're in Milwaukee and Northwestern, mutual life is there and they're telling people to work from home, all of a sudden people will travel to HQ more often and need hotels. So I kind of think about that as a silver lining. But I'm watching this business travel because it's core to what we do very, very carefully and paying attention to it carefully. The other thing is, I think that we've learned from the quarantine is this on demand culture, like everything's delivered, everything's curbside, everything is even more real time in the media. So how do we, again, focus on the removing and removing the friction from our offerings? And I think your hotel that you worked at the peninsula, I think one of the things they talked about, always the biggest loyalty creator was no check, check in our checkout times and come on, you won't leave when you want. We're really starting to think long and hard about this because it seemed like such a non hospitable thing to do. Now it requires more planning on our part. So people are trying to organize their lives, and they don't want to show up and be turned away. So those are the things that I'm watching change a lot. F&B is changing. Obviously, a lot of the offerings are getting simpler, more healthier. And clearly the focus on wellness and wellness now is so much more than fitness. It's mental health. It's physical health. It's eating what you eat, what you breathe. It's the sleep. Those those windows that we used to get away with that, let life bleed in. Those should not be acceptable anymore. We put so much value on sleep in that sleep experience. So I think, again, human centric, remove the friction, focus on the well-being of our guests. Enough shock and awe. Yeah, sure. The arts is important, but that's not what you're selling. Focus on the arrest and well-being first. Then we're done with the art. Yeah Yeah. And it is I mean, I have to say check, check, check. I agree with absolutely. Every single one of those that you said, because we are and maybe. This might be a word that might go up on your board sometime soon, but this conscious people are becoming more conscious as far as all of their decisions, again, whether it's they're eating, what they're doing, how they're sleeping, where they're traveling to, what they're consuming, whether it's physically consuming or intellectually consuming. So, I mean, that's there is this conscious two words in line with what you said that we use often here is thoughtful and intentional, like don't put don't do anything in life, literally anything unless it's thoughtful and intentional. Like, why is that piece of art on the wall? Why are you making me do this? Why does the door open this way? Not that way. So I think the more we pay attention to this, guests are now very in tune with how we design spaces for them and how we interact with them. And I think your intentionality and thoughtfulness will not be lost. People will appreciate meaning often. Sometimes the smallest things make the biggest difference, like, Oh my god, so thoughtful that they thought of this and put the extra charge charger here for me or whatever year for me, or put the switch where it belongs. I have to get out of bed to do what I need to do. So I think we need to all be more thoughtful, more intentional with ourselves, with our well-being, with our co-workers, with our guests, with our community at large. Again, back to that. We really are all in this together, right? Like we're going to sink together. We're going to swim together. It's ultimately up to us. Exactly exactly. And I even saying that just a couple of weeks ago, that we are all in this together. And yes. you have people that are coming back little, but some people are injured, some are in canoe somewhere in left. And it's like, OK, yes. But as far as looking at the bigger picture, you know, we're all kind of we're all shifting. It doesn't matter about the boat that you're in. That's something that you have to worry about. But it's we are looking at the bigger picture because, again, we are all in it together. And understanding that. And I think it's the idea of focusing more on the collective than maybe just the I or me all the time. And again, this is not designed to be socialistic or communist in any way. That's because I am a copper. I am a capitalist pig heart. But I will say again, words, words that are ringing in our halls are conscious capitalism. Again, like I said, if success means crushing everyone along the way, I have zero interest in being successful. I think there's a way to do it. Well where you raise people up along the way, including, by the way, and again, back to treating people with respect our investors, we need to treat with respect. They're not giving us their money because charity, they can do charity on their own. They're trusting us with their money or their assets to deliver the results for them. So that's our job. Otherwise, we're not interested. We shouldn't be doing it. So I think fundamentally raising people up along the way will make us all win. And again, back to the point that we're all in this together. Right what's the point of crushing everyone and ending up alone of greed? Wow, that is you. That's the way to end this. Why should we just leave politics now is just politics. No, I know we were we touched on it a little bit, but but no, I mean, again, that's all that's all a great point. And I think if anything that's come to the forefront of all of our minds in this year, because we have been forced to be, quote unquote, alone, or at least alone in different ways, introspective, introspective. That's like really, really, truly. At the end of the day, we all have to look inside and say, what would we want and why do we give people other things? We are all again, you know what you want? You want to be treated with respect, treat everyone with respect. If you want to be disregarded. And disrespected, then OK, fine. I bet you no one ever says, I want to be disregarded. And disrespected. No, of course not, of course. But why do we feel it's OK to do it to others? The mind boggling. Mind boggling. Anyway, that's a story for another day. So let's wrap this up. That's a little like seven, seven, seven episodes. We'll just do them in one sitting and you can roll them over next year. Well, that was about to say. That's a story for somebody. A therapist is what I know. So to wrap this up. So what's next for you? Business developments. I'm actually sitting in the old w Buckhead, Atlanta, that we just converted to an autograph collection. That's part of practice hospitalities, first hotel. And we have two more in the pipeline. So it's been great. I love Atlanta. I love these cities. I start sort of peeling the layers and, you know, people usually barely scratched the surface of a city. There's so much culture and history and incredible people. And then and then and typically what we do. That's really been our Mo is digging in and digging deeper and really getting to know the market. So I'm excited about spending more time here. And we have a couple more in the pipeline coming up here. So we're all in, right? We're like my entire team is here. We've been here for 10 days. And yesterday. So we're not slave drivers working night and day. I took the entire team to. Montgomery to look at the Justice. Oh, my god, that museum, they're so incredible. And again, it shows you when we don't pay attention as a collective, what happens. Right we've seen what happened in Nazi Germany. We've seen what happened during slavery here in the US. And we really have to again, as humans, we always say we'll never let this happen again. And we find ourselves doing the same thing again. So I think this idea of kindness resonating across all of us is something that we need to teach our future generations. And make sure we really, truly don't allow these atrocities to happen again. I agree wholeheartedly. And I been through travel and taking the time to discover more of history. And I think even maybe firsthand, even how you're saying that you ended up going to Montgomery, by the way, actually lived in Atlanta through my teenage years, and that's actually where I went to high school. So I have a very strong affinity for it. But, you know, that is really important to take the time to uncover a little bit more about these places and these locations and hopefully just make us more well-rounded individuals. Exactly and we're always I'm always learning. And this is not for, again, the Instagram shot, although I probably will post about it on Instagram to encourage others to go see this incredible venue. But ultimately, if you stop learning, then who you are. I'm always learning. I'm always, always be learning, agreed. And be curious to me because I'm curious, like how exactly life. We have life. Like, you can be curious, like in your own block, like, you know, you never know. But I mean, that's I think that's a good way to live. So well, we could talk for hours. Everyone agreed. This is fantastic. And I thank you, by the way, so much for taking the time to talk with us today. For those that are tuning in, where can they find you on social media or how can they connect with you? Prolific social media user on all outlets, including those that I will admit to publicly. It's my full name as the user handle on all of them. Instagram, usually if you want to travel with me. And then otherwise LinkedIn because I am an over post started there you with hotel and travel information. But otherwise I'm open book. And I welcome all to come and join along the trip and learn from each other. Ultimately write the agreed. I mean, this is the key to human nature. I have to say. So Thank you. Well thank you again. So much for your time today and for all of you that have been tuning in, I hope that you enjoyed this podcast as much as I did having this conversation. Bishar, you are totally wonderful and definitely stay tuned as we will have a lot of wonderful episodes coming up. But listen to this, Breathe. Listen to this podcast, because there are a lot of Nuggets in here that I think that you can really take with you moving ahead, especially into twenty, 21 in this new year. So, as always, thank you all for tuning in. And don't forget to continue to say yes to travel.