Marketing Destinations, Not Products: Hospitality Playbook

0:00Guests aren't searching for our hotel and then deciding they want to come to Durango or Manitou Springs. They're deciding they want to go to Durango or to Manitou Springs, Colorado, and then they're looking for a place to stay. What has been the narrative that you've created for these hotels in order to be able to market them properly and get a higher volume of guests? A lot of our demographic and target market in terms of marketing has just been focused on who we are as people. We definitely leaned into this clean, modern aesthetic, but something that feels true to Colorado, true to the roots of the area.

0:29What have been the channels that you've decided to use? And do you have any example of a certain campaign that you applied that worked really well? What we've found to be the most effective tends to be user-generated content. So people don't want these stale images of a clean room, right? Like it doesn't evoke emotion in them when you're trying to market that to people. When we have people actually using the space, those types of things are where they're going to draw guests in.

0:56Hey, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Andres Figuera, and I'm going to be your host for the day. This show is brought to you by The Global Talent Company, helping fast-growing teams hire exceptional remote talent from Argentina, South Africa, and beyond. We connect companies with world-class professionals who bring skill, reliability, and a global perspective to every role. And just for our listeners, we're offering an exclusive 10 % discount on your first hire. All you need to do is visit theglobaltalent.co, click Start Hiring, and mention the podcast listener discount when we reach out.

1:28And today with me here, I am speaking with Jordan Malara, owner of Adventure Inn Durango and The Ridge Hotel, both some pretty new boutique hotels located in Colorado that were founded in about 2024 and 2025. Would that be correct, Jordan? Yeah, that's right. And thanks for having me. And thank you, Jordan, for hopping on a show with us. Welcome to Future of Consumer Marketing. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Yeah, stoked to be here. And Jordan, just so that we can get the audience a bit more in context and us to understand a bit better about your background, your story, and how you became the owner of these hotels.

2:06I'll keep it short as short as I can, but it's kind of a roundabout way. I started out in the military. So I served in the military for five years and kind of always had this desire to get into real estate. So kind of jumped into real estate on the residential side and bought some properties, ended up kind of getting more involved on the short-term rental side. So Airbnbs, VRBOs, bookings, things like that. And so bought those properties and all of a sudden I kind of found this renewed love for, maybe not renewed love, but like this love for hospitality. So it was a good blend of real estate and hospitality.

2:39Ended up kind of leaving the military, jumped in a management role, an operations role for a large short-term rental management company. And it was kind of an eye-opening experience of how large hospitality works and also why hotels maybe operate the way they do. It's really hard to have efficiencies and to scale when you have properties all over the place, but hotels, pretty basic model. You have one building, a bunch of rooms in that one building. And then kind of the marketing side kind of started to kick into short-term rentals. They're hard to market. You can't really market an individual property, but hotels give you an opportunity to tell a story and to grow something bigger.

3:14so that's kind of a quick overview of how I got to where I am today just me and a buddy decided we wanted to buy a hotel so we we did it wow that is amazing but I love the fact that you noticed that like yeah marketing like individual properties and having Airbnb listings it's a bit more complex than what you just mentioned that it's now that hotels are a bit easier to manage and I don't mean easier in that it's less work but in the fact that it's all localized in one place so you could just make sure you're attending to everything properly exactly and which which hotel came first um jordan the the ridge hotel or the adventure in so it was the adventure in first um that was in durango colorado so it's about five hours from where we're based out of which is colorado springs um and then as we were kind of looking for you know the first hotel you talk to a lot of brokers you try to find deals and this one kind of came from one of those connections we had made so we didn't plan to purchase the second one as soon as we did but the second one eventually came along shortly after.

4:16Wow. And did you, in terms of the, you said that hotels, you're able to create a story and that the marketing side kicked in at one point. What has been the narrative that you've created for these hotels in order to be able to market them properly and get a higher volume of guests? Yeah. So we definitely always wanted to feed into the local area. The biggest thing that we've realized is that guests aren't searching for our hotel and then deciding they want to come to Durango or Manitou Springs. They're deciding they want to go to Durango or to Manitou Springs, Colorado, and then they're looking for a place to stay.

4:48And so we wanted to appeal to the traveler that was already naturally coming in, right? Like the natural demand from, you know, the adventure side of things from whether it be fishing or mountain biking or skiing or whatever people are doing in the area. We wanted that to appeal to those types of people. And also I think we, a lot of our demographic and target market in terms of marketing has just been focused on who we are as people. What resonates with us? What are the places we want to go? And I think what we find as appealing, we as in me and my business partner and our wives, what we find is appealing is also appealing to a lot of other younger people between the age of 20 and 40.

5:24Maybe they have kids, maybe they don't. Usually, maybe they're traveling solo, but something that really like resonates deep inside. And so we definitely leaned into this, you know, clean, modern aesthetic, but something that feels, you know, know true to colorado true to the roots of the area um and it kind of fits the the modern traveler and i meant i'm imagining it very like a what's it called like a lodge i imagine a lot of lumber wood just is it kind of like that vibe i'm when you said fishing of skiing and all that i just started to imagine that type of vibe it's similar right like yeah you're looking at like kind of a muted color palette um for the most part um something that kind of resonates with like the greens in the mountains and, you know, the red of the rocks.

6:08Um, so kind of those things, natural woods, leather, um, stuff that kind of feels worn in. Um, but this is part of the process we're going through with our new hotel. So we bought the Ridge hotel and we're actually, um, changing it to what's going to be known as the Outrider hotel. Um, and through that we're, you know, we have an interior designer coming in and helping us select all these materials for this large renovation we're doing. And so we're going through that process of what does it look like to redefine this existing hotel with the material selections we choose? Do we go with darkwood, lightwood, maybe a mix?

6:40Do we go with, you know, leathers or, you know, furs or, you know, we're like discovering a lot of that stuff right now to make sure it's true to the brand and true to the people we want to bring in. When it comes to terms of marketing your hotels, what have been the channels that you've decided to use? And do you have any example of a certain campaign that you applied that worked really well or something that you're thinking of doing? Yeah, it's certainly not something that we've like nailed down quite yet. Like we're, we're kind of, we're working through the process right now. And I think we have a really good kind of plan ahead of what that marketing is going to look like.

7:10Um, I, what we've found to be the most effective tends to be user-generated content. And so bringing people in, bringing these influencers in, and, you know, they're actually showing what it's like to stay there. So people don't want these stale images of a clean room, right? Like it, it doesn't help them. It doesn't evoke emotion in them when you're trying to market that to people. And so when we have people actually using the space, you know, they're sitting in our hot tub and they're recording themselves in there, you know, they're showing, hey, this is a really relaxing, nice place to stay.

7:42It's got this large, you know, cedar hot tub that's private. Those types of things are where they're going to draw guests in. And so really trying to get a long list of, you know, influencers on social media to come in, film their content, use some of that content to then market out further to even more guests. So that's something that we're working on and that we've seen some success with already, but certainly not there yet. It's a work in progress for us as we kind of discover what's working and what's not. Of course. Now, and I imagine that with user generated content, it's also looking for the appropriate type of user that is going to be able to appreciate and properly sell what you're inviting them to do and show your hotel in the most appropriate way.

8:25I know it's not like the, what's it called? It's not the simplest process to find people that match what you're selling. But yeah, due to generated content, I do agree with the fact that showing people having a good time from a first person point of view is a lot more valuable to somebody looking to stay somewhere than just a bland and perfectly clean room that you see the beds and the windows. And it's like, is it real though? Could it be AI? Well, and the problem is it doesn't tell a story. it doesn't resonate with somebody because they're not picturing themselves in place of someone else there.

9:03And so even another thing we focused a lot on, and we just spent three or four days out in Durango doing a long film shoot. So we like to use a journey content, but let's film some other stuff. So we went out and we brought our mountain bikes. We brought hiking gear. And we had like a two or three crew, film crew that kind of followed us around with drones in the mountains and tried to capture a lot of this footage. And then we also got footage of the hotel and us spending time in the hotel. But the content that really sells is helping people realize like our hotel is an extension of the area.

9:36And so we're selling the area as well as our hotel now, because without the area, our hotel is nothing, right? Like no one's going to choose to come there just to come there. I mean, most people wouldn't. And so I think that's a really big kind of thing that we're focusing on as well. Jordan, do you have a specific season that you've noticed that it brings a higher volume of guests to the hotel? Or is this something that's year round being properly utilized and getting the amount of people that you would expect? Yeah, we definitely. So we're a seasonal business. So most of our business is coming in the summertime.

10:12time. But our goal with social media is to try to balance that out as much as possible and show people, hey, there's a bunch of stuff to do in Durango in the wintertime. There's a ski slope that's 30 minutes away. There's these awesome hot springs. And so what we're trying to do is use this marketing to bolster our slow season more than we can in our busy season, because no matter what, people are going to find their place in the busy season. So we really see the greatest potential in our marketing in that slow season and in the shoulder seasons. Okay. And have you tailored the campaigns or the marketing you use according to the season you're in?

10:43Is that something that you're also doing? Just like wondering how it works for hotels? Yeah. So this is our first slow season where we'll actually be open. The last slow season, we were closed for renovations. So we haven't had a chance to do this yet, but yes, that is the intent to basically redo our marketing for each season. So that again, someone is feeling like, what is it going to be like? And we're even playing with this idea of on our website, you can toggle between like a summer mode and a winter mode. So say you're saying, I'm going to come in the winter time. And then it kind of read, like kind of switches the website over into kind of a more winter feel, maybe like cozy by the fireplace feel, hot tub, focusing on things like that.

11:22And in the summertime, it's mountain biking, it's hiking, it's all these different things. Of course. Now, I hadn't realized that it's December 5th and up there, it must be like white and snowy and it must be perfect snow right now, right? Because I'm down here in Argentina, Buenos Aires, and we're smack dab in the middle of summer. So I would love to be in the snow right now because it's it's you have no idea how smoldering hot it is outside yeah we're definitely getting some snow this past week we probably you know got got a maybe five or six inches out there um it doesn't really tend to pick up until january february though and and you mentioned that you're 30 minutes away from a mountain that is skiable sort of like from a ski complex that that people can go to is is is it is there any way or have you ever thought about partnerships with those ski resorts or maybe just being able to provide a discount and that way bringing more people for the slow season yeah yeah no that's like that's a great point and it's something that we're kind of working on i say kind of because uh the mountain close by is called purgatory and they actually have some like lodging they're trying to get into like the lodging space and so they've bought like and renovated a hotel kind of not too far from ours and they've done a poor job of that if i'm being honest but it's hard to build partnerships directly with the mountain from what we found just because they're like trying to like compete.

12:42So they don't want to take market away from themselves. Um, but we have started working towards like, we're working with a transportation company that can bring people up to the mountain and back, um, regardless of the weather, which is really important. So whether it's rain or shine, like, you know, some people will try to take an Uber to the mountain and they can get there, but by the time they get up there and are headed back, it's snowing and the Ubers can't pick them up. So we're trying to build like, um, some connections with local, um, local shuttle companies, uh, which has kind of been in the works and it seems to be working well.

13:11And then we're kind of going to try to focus on the relaxation element of things or kind of like the wellness. And so there's a large hot spring that I mentioned before. And so trying to partner with them as well, you know, you get it if you stay with us and you get a pass with them, maybe there's a discount on both ends or one end. So things like that is kind of what we're looking at. Definitely want to, I think I love the idea of like just small business supporting small business, right? We're local owners in a way, because we're based in Colorado, and we want to help other people in the area be just as successful as us.

13:43And so I love the idea of finding ways to kind of partner, whether it be like through the Chamber of Commerce, our local Chamber of Commerce, or, you know, through just direct connections with local businesses. No, yeah. And I do think it's beautiful. And more so in those places that I'm not sure how big or how much how much people Durango has, but I imagine it more of like a a natural experience where you go to live the outdoors. So it's not that it doesn't have that many people. And therefore you need to help out the locals and these cottage industries from the place to be able to keep preserving the essence of what makes Durango Durango, where the rich hotel is, what it makes it that.

14:22So I do understand the value in keeping it local and keeping it like in between yourselves because it really helps like demonstrate the essence of the place. So that's really cool. and um jordan have you noticed in the creation of the adventure in and also with the rich hotel and how you're renovating it to change it um have you noticed any similarities and standards in the procedures about keeping up for the upkeep of a hotel that you would say like yeah this is a something i could open two i could open three i could create and and and create a whole hotel chain from what i've understood now um but just wondering if you have any insight in that regard Yeah, definitely a lot of things.

15:02I think what we're realizing is that some of the things that a lot of hotels focus on, let's say just clean rooms, that's not something you offer. That's just basic necessity, right? That's the bare minimum of what you should provide. And so what a lot of our focus has gone into, and this has been hard in a seasonal market, and I'll explain why, is, but your employees need to really understand the ethos and the culture you're trying to build within the hotel. And that even needs to align with the brand that you're building. So if your brand is built off this, like our new brand for the Outrider slash Ridge Hotel, is built off this idea of locals kind of meeting with travelers.

15:44And so you have this local experience that is shared with these travelers. And so someone walks in the hotel and they want to know the best thing to do. They don't Google it and they say, oh, we got to go over here because that's where all the other tourists are going. They get like the nitty gritty, like, no, this is actually the best place to go hiking. You need to try this out. And so you're getting kind of like this local feel and like this local connection and really trying to force interactions between guests. And so what we've tried to focus on in an operational way of sorts is how do we train our employees, every employee across the board to really emphasize or kind of share that same company culture and share that with the guests.

16:26so that no matter who a guest interacts with throughout the day, they're getting that same sense of culture that our brand, what we want our brand to kind of emphasize. And we've realized that what this does is it creates a great experience for guests, but it also really helps our hotel succeed. When people know that they're getting more than a clean room, they're going to, a real person at the front desk is going to talk to them. Everything is going digital. Everything's going towards the age of a gentic AI. and we're not, you know, we're leaning into that on backend processes. And that's, you know, another system to your point of kind of how we're, we're trying to standardize things across our hotels, but we want there to be a person at the front desk.

17:05We want when something goes wrong, that person to come down and have a face-to-face conversation with our front desk, um, and, you know, have, you know, find ways to resolve that issue, not have to go through a phone tree and, you know, talk to somebody that is not even there. So, um, I think that's been some of our focus as we've thought about how do we scale these properties? How do we build a brand that, you know, doesn't just last for one hotel or two hotels, but can, you know, stand the test of time in, you know, I'm big on legacy assets. I don't want to turn this, this hotel around and just get rid of it.

17:35I want this to be a long-term investment. No. And, and I do understand in the fact that, yeah, when you're creating a brand and if you want to make a legacy, you need to have that narrative and that lore around what you represent. And, and I believe that the insider scoop and if you stay at your hotel then i'll be able to talk to the people that work there that are locals and get like the real the really good advice that is honest that a local would go to that place to hike or go to this creek and not that one that is the most touristy because i have felt the tourist side of things and i've always felt kind of played when i arrive and it's just like 50 million people in the same place and i'm like well how did i come here but okay yeah exactly another another thing i'd love to know as well is seeing as you have the adventure in and it's the outrider the ridge hotel is going to become the outrider right that's right yeah and and the outrider how many people do you have hired working for you at these hotels at the moment because i understand that the team must be expanding but just just questioning how many people you have helping you out because it's a it's a hell of an endeavor yeah so our um so it's me and my business partner, they kind of run things at the higher level.

18:45And so we're pretty involved, but it's not, I mean, for me, I do this full-time, but he's got another job. And so he does it kind of part-time. But the basic employee structure inside our hotel is, or inside each hotel is we have a manager, like a general manager, and then we usually have an assistant general manager. Depending on the size of the hotel, we might have a head of housekeeper. So at the Yachtrider, it's about twice the size of the adventure. And so we have a head housekeeper and then we have, you know, a staff of roughly two to four housekeepers. And then on the back end of things, that's like in property staff.

19:22Back end, we have someone that runs marketing, we have, which was a new hire for us. And then we have a revenue manager and these are global talent. So these are people, you know, that we've just either known from the different industries, but they're based elsewhere, not here in Colorado. So revenue manager, marketing, and then sometimes we bring in some like backend like admin support. And then we have bookkeepers. So people that help with our accounting and keeping the book straight, usually like two people on the backend of that. So that's for the most part kind of, so we're talking like four global talent, four or five global talent throughout the year that kind of can oversee both properties and then a staff of five to 10 in each property.

20:05And for the time being, you don't think that you need any more help, but if you were to acquire a third hotel, then it would mean adding a bit more people to the roster that you have working for you, right? Yeah. So what we've done though, is we want to create, we've created a management company and that management company allows us to share some of the costs. So we don't need two revenue managers, right? We need one revenue manager that can run multiple hotels. And eventually, you know, that, that scales where say we have five hotels. Well, now maybe we need, you know, a revenue director and then a revenue manager underneath them or a revenue specialist beneath them.

20:39And so the team could definitely grow. Thankfully on property, we run as lean as possible. And so hopefully our staff doesn't grow on the ground. And even better, if we could acquire a second hotel, let's say the Outrider Hotel, which is in Manitou Springs, let's say we acquire another one down the road. Well, now we have greater operational efficiency, so we can use that general manager for both properties. So now instead of having one for each property, we can have one or two that oversee two different ones with housekeepers that maybe do both as well. So that's something that we've looked at as well to kind of greater increase our lean efficiency.

21:14Of course. And the more you keep at it, the more you'll be able to optimize and make the processes more efficient. And therefore, if a third hotel, a second hotel comes on, you'll be like, I can take this. And you already know how it works. And in the chat, I just feel it just goes hand in hand when I'm doing these podcasts. But when I start to talk about the team and how it's being built and what you have helping you out in terms of people, I also love to then link it to AI because it's something that is being so talked about nowadays. And it's just being compared like the workforce or if you're using AI.

21:47So then I love because I heard you mention AI and learn how you guys are using it to help you in the back end. Yeah. So I would say like where the future or what we're currently doing right now is a lot of guest messaging, basic guest messaging can go out through AI. So I guess ask a simple question, Hey, what time does the hot tub open and close? We don't need someone. We don't need someone on our team answering that, that AI can answer that stuff. So like basic questions can all kind of be messaged with guests. Oftentimes that's just over text messages. and then the other area that I think we'll eventually move to is bookkeeping.

22:20We'll move more and more towards less people looking through every transaction and more AI kind of overseeing some of that stuff and then someone kind of overseeing the AI on that side of things. And then we use it for a ton of miscellaneous backend stuff. So if we want to put together an article for our website for SEO purposes, if we want to put together collateral that kind of matches our brand to put on our website, if we want to put together standard operating procedures, all that stuff we're throwing through usually multiple models. So I tend to jump through Grok, ChatGBT, and Gemini. They all give kind of different things.

22:55And so trying to get different things like that. And then for underwriting these properties too, we've done some underwriting through some of these AI models as well. And that's been really effective. Helps us kind of get a baseline understanding of, you know, what does the market look like? Is the market going up? Is it going down? Is travel going up or going down? And so it can, you know, through deep research, do some pretty in-depth analysis of each market that we're looking at going into. And Jordan, in terms of priorities that you would have for the Adventure Inn, the Outrider, maybe for both as a whole.

23:35In 2026, what are the top three, if you want to list them, or maybe just give me one, what are the top three priorities you have for these hotels, and what do you want to accomplish? I think the first and the largest is we have the ridge closed down to convert it into the Outrider. So we're going through a$2 million renovation kind of inside and out. And so the first priority is get this property cleaned up, fixed up, looking good, and then back live. So that it should be, it should be opening up sometime around like May 1st of this next year. But the second biggest thing is really honing in what is our marketing strategy going to be?

24:11You know, if you go and look at our social medias right now for our hotels, one, you know, we're formulating them right now. And I think we have a lot of work to do, but I'm really excited about kind of the direction we're going with things and how it's going to turnout. And so the, I think the second priority is, you know, really establishing what are we, what is going to be the look and feel of how we market on social media, because I think that is the future of boutique hotels. And so I really want to make sure that we do that right. And so we have a, we have a great opportunity with this new hotel to be able to start off on a fresh foot and really just hit it hard.

24:45And so I'm, that's, that's like, you know, so top priority, renovation, second priority, marketing. And then third priority, make our investors money, I guess. I know that should always be a priority. So if your investors listen to it, they'll be happy. If we do the first two, the third will come, right? I have no doubt. I have no doubt. And I imagine, Jordan, that these timelines for what you want to accomplish are hopefully to be done by the busy season of next year so that you can take full advantage of the Outrider when it's like the full out season. Yeah, that's exactly right. Of course. Now, I would I would imagine I would imagine I really well, I'm noticing that we're almost at time, Jordan.