Hotel Operations

🏨 Apex Hotels, awarded Hospitality Health Employer of the Year at the 2025 Scottish Bar and Pub Awards, held on August 26 at DoubleTree by Hilton in Glasgow. Celebrating its 30th year, the event saw 100+ Scottish venues shortlisted. Apex Hotels was recognized for prioritizing staff wellbeing, workplace culture, and career development. Managing Director Averil Wilson highlighted the importance of supporting employees.

📋 Josiah visited Brett and Casey's renovated motel in Vermont, noting its transformation from a rundown state. Over the past year, thousands of guests have experienced their hospitality firsthand, with average nightly rates rising from $100–$150 to $200–$250. Despite seasonal challenges in Killington, Vermont, technology like Cloudbeds and Schlage Encode locks streamline operations. Brett and Casey also manage a 42-room inn, highlighting opportunities for boutique properties in New England. Their approach blends financial savvy with personal guest experiences.

📍 Family arrives late at hotel; son's diabetic needs met with thoughtful gestures. Found in room: chocolate almond milk, fresh grapes, and a welcoming note, "We were expecting you." This exemplifies true hospitality, beyond revenue metrics. ????

📍 Ryan Magnon, COO of Ithaka Hospitality Partners, shared insights from his Chick-fil-A drive-thru training experience, emphasizing the role of hospitality. At Chick-fil-A, employees, often aged 17-18, are trained to connect with guests in 60 seconds, seeing them as individuals with unique needs. This human-centric approach turns transactions into meaningful interactions, highlighting the importance of personal connection in hospitality.

🍞 Hotel Praktik Bakery leverages its in-house bakery to boost business with incremental revenue from high-margin pastry, coffee, and bread sales daily. The bakery attracts a new customer base of locals, increasing brand awareness with lines outside doubling as marketing. By partnering with an established bakery, hotels can implement an alternative business model that offers a profit split and reduces operational risk, while strengthening their core product: rooms.

📌 Business travelers, families, digital nomads, and slow travelers choose extended stay hotels for weeks or months due to home-like amenities and cost-effective weekly/monthly rates. These hotels provide kitchens, laundry, and workspaces, often requiring flexible pricing and booking management. With rising remote work trends, extended stays gain popularity, supporting guest independence through self-service. Challenges include complex billing and maintaining guest satisfaction. Mews PMS offers solutions like automated billing and flexible pricing to enhance operations.

📈 Model 1 unites Marketing, Sales, and Revenue Management under a Commercial Director, aligning goals and fostering collaboration. It delivers quick financial gains like immediate RevPAR improvements but risks creating new silos and overlooking guest experiences. Model 2 centers on guest journeys, enhancing loyalty and lifetime value, but requires a versatile leader and may dilute expertise. Both models rely on Hotel Business Intelligence systems for data-driven decisions. Choose based on your hotel's size and focus.

📈 Budget planning focuses on storytelling alongside financials. For 2026, ownership seeks answers to changes, assumptions, risk management, and growth plans. Instead of only presenting forecasts, RevPAR, and EBITDA, teams should illustrate guest behavior shifts, booking trends, and competitive insights. The aim is to develop a strategic narrative that aligns numbers with a long-term vision, transforming data into actionable strategy.

💰 STR operators often lose out to OTAs due to a misperception of price competition. Booking direct isn't always cheaper, as OTAs might offer lower prices but not necessarily for your listing. Trust is the key factor—89% of guests book directly because of it. Offering small discounts or perks like early check-in often appears desperate. Instead, focus on building trust as a central strategy, not merely as an afterthought.

🏨 Scott Rohm and Ryan Magnon, former Ritz-Carlton leaders, now helm Ithaka Hospitality Partners. They emphasize leadership as crucial for hotel success, advocating for selecting and developing capable leaders. Insights include daily leadership duties, fostering thriving environments, and transformative impacts of small shifts in culture. A Shanghai dining room anecdote highlights leadership's power. Hospitality leaders gain strategic insights and practical tips for enhancing organizations and guest experiences.