GMH Hotels: Harry Styles Is Moving Hotel Markets.

0:23Sarah Dandashy: Good morning. Good morning, Sarah. how you doing Sarah good I have a coffee here I feel like we can do like a proper proper like coffee chat hold on let me get mine ready then I've got my uh Biscayne coffee we're ready to go nice little plug right there um well where are you coming from that looks like a very fancy room Yeah, right? It's kind of nice here. I am at the Encore Boston. I spoke at the Triple Seat events. Our friends over at Triple Seat, they do event software and it's been a great time so far. I spoke yesterday, Danny Meyer speaking today. So it's a really exciting room. Yeah, full of lots of cool hospitality people.

1:19Sarah Dandashy: But I'm so lucky that I get to stay in this beautiful suite. I have to say the encore, I mean, that shouldn't be a surprise, but it's so wild because you walk in and it feels like you're in Las Vegas. Like it's so even the size, the size and the lay, I walk in this room and I was like, wait, I feel like I've been in this room before. And I was like, oh yeah, in Las Vegas. So yeah. I love the space. Like I'm looking at the lighting, just the attention to detail of the recess. The ambient lighting, the glow of it. This is just the living room area. The bathroom is like, oh my gosh. I'm a big fan of Steve Wynn.

1:56All of a sudden he starts showing up on my feeds. Me too. And I've been like, man, that's great advice.

2:01Sarah Dandashy: We must be on the same algorithm. I think so. They know that we've been talking about Steve Wynn and all his hotels. It's always listening. Yes, it is. That's very nice. And then you get to come down to Miami, which is going to be exciting. Hello, Lou from Charleston. Hello. Vacation viewing. Nice. Paul, where are you vacationing? I'd love to see you. Anywhere from. I know. Tell us. But I'm hosting my first ever hospitality power breakfast. So I'm curious to see how it goes. Sarah is one of the guests there. We have eight people around a great table at the Moore Membership Club. So a beautiful location.

2:36We have chef, hoteliers, entrepreneurs, developers, designers, myself and Sarah somehow at the same table with all these great people.

2:45Sarah Dandashy: Somehow. But it will be a lot of fun. I'm excited to see where it goes. And if you're interested in being a part of it, we may take this around. Who knows? We'll see where this goes. I'm so excited I'm going to come down and be there. This is exciting. It worked out. I might have to make you the moderator. We'll see what happens. At the last minute. Hey, by the way, could you help? Yeah, whatever. You're going to have to keep the conversation going. Yes, it's going to be a fun time. A lot of fun stuff going on. But, you know, I guess we should get into our show. We have a lot of topics today to cover.

3:16Sarah Dandashy: We do, but do you want to, you know, do you have something to tell us before we get started? I do, because this episode, honestly, is brought to you by StayFi. And StayFi helps short-term rental operators build direct guest relationships through branded Wi-Fi portals, email marketing, and guest data tools that turn one-time bookers into repeat guests. So start growing your direct booking revenue today at stayfi.com backslash good morning hospitality and that's stayfi.com backslash good morning hospitality. Nice. I'm going to make a hat that says the ad king. Well, yes, you can, you, that is all you, sir.

3:59Sarah Dandashy: Um, my ads are a little bit different anyway. Oh, well, yeah, let's go ahead and do this first topic here. So Labor Day travel is K-shaped. I love this. We're learning all about the alphabet. Oh, I've actually been there with that photo. And the middle is struggling. So what's going on? What does this mean beyond the headline? So 77 % of Americans plan to travel this summer, which is up from 74 % last year. Now, Bank of America is actually saying that K-shaped travel spending has, the gap has narrowed since May. So lower and middle income, I love this, households are actually increasing travel spending.

4:42Sarah Dandashy: But the interesting exception is lodging. So higher income households have pulled back somewhat on lodging spending growth. What do you think? I mean, there's a little bit more. Look, it just shows again, people still want to travel. The middle is getting squeezed. That mid tier, the middle class family isn't traveling as much, but it's saying lower income is looking for places that have good deals the higher income is spending um but triple a put out a report this monday of the top destinations for the three-day weekend any guesses on the top three for the u.s i mean don't make me guess because we're looking at the same how about listeners do you want to guess the top three locations as i read them off and they're interesting one of them is very interesting that you may not expect which is number one domestic seattle washington him is most important too number two orlando florida of course we get all the theme parks there and then number three where you're at is boston massachusetts that's the top three for the u.s and internationals rome vancouver and london uh for the international and now two of them i want to point out something unique lou good guesses new york's on there at number five and las vegas is number eight but deattle being number one and vancouver number two international the reason is a lot of people are going on cruises!

6:02Alaskan cruises. Yes. So you can see more and more people are finding those deals on those cruises. They're looking for some adventure. They're looking for unique experience and heading up to the northwest to go on cruises to Alaska which I have not done and I really want to do.

6:18Sarah Dandashy: This is, I mean, this is the time of year I mean, I was on a cruise in Alaska last year. Actually, right around this time. and a couple, maybe two years prior to that, also went to Alaska. So it's fantastic. This is definitely the time of year to do it. It's a great way for people to, quote unquote, sneak in that last minute travel. But there's also, again, as we've been talking about, generally with the idea of cruises, you know how much you're paying before you get there. And especially in this economy, you've got people that don't necessarily want to have all of these extra expenses. after they've already booked their trip.

6:57Sarah Dandashy: So it makes sense. It's a bucket list destination as it should be because it truly is like waking up in a postcard. And like, we are so lucky that we get to call that, you know, part of the United States. So it's cool. It's great. I love it. Sorry. I got a little, what? No, I love it. You got married. So I've been on a lot of crews, but only like, you know, in the Caribbean. Yeah. Why is it so much different for someone? Um, so, well, a lot, a lot of, so, I mean, definitely it's like, it's the ports. So, and you're doing different things in the ports. It's cooler weather. So you might be doing more like hikes and you get to see cool things like, you know, salmon farms and, and then there are scenic cruising days, which you don't have in the Caribbean.

7:46Sarah Dandashy: So there might be a day that you're going through like Tracy arm, you're going through Glacier Bay National Park and that area. And you're you you don't get the whole day is just spent like cruising so slowly. But you just go out either on your balcony or, you know, on different parts of the ship and you just like get to take in the wonder. And they'll just kind of stop a ship, like have a turnaround. I mean, it's absolutely gorgeous. All right. So I have to start saving up now. I'm going to make it happen. And you get that hot chocolate, like you get hot chocolate. You might have like a blanket.

8:23Sarah Dandashy: You can like hang out on your balcony and just, I mean, it really is unlike anything else. And it's cool without being, you know, like freezing. Yeah, exactly. I love it. Well, the K shape, they're heading up to the cruises. So if you're going up there, if you're one of them, send us some pictures. I'd love to see where you're going and, and get some inspiration for those trips. And Lou saying only Norwegian fjords cruises are more awesome than Alaska. I haven't done either. I did that too. Also last summer, I did Norway first and then Alaska. I would say it's different because I wouldn't say to do one or the other.

9:05Sarah Dandashy: But yes, exactly. Lou is saying seeing the deep blue color of a glacier calving. that blue is unlike anything i've ever seen i mean it really is stunning so yeah all right i'm excited now now i'm gonna start putting them away to make yeah we got will in the back he's like i'm thinking about doing one next year you should will you absolutely should so yeah but again it's interesting to see what people are choosing understandably so you know with with limited budgets. People are being very specific in what they're choosing and how they're selecting their vacations. One thing that kind of stood out is costs are climbing across the board for people.

9:50Gas is up 30 % year over year. Domestic round trip fares are up 2 % overall and 20 % to the top destinations. It's a lot. People are looking for unique places to travel to and cruises make sense. You know what you're going to pay and you get to enjoy the deep blue of those glaciers.

10:07Sarah Dandashy: Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, definitely cool. Should we move on? Yes. I would love for you to take this too. Before we move on, Sarah, a quick shout out to our sponsor built. They're helping restaurants and hotel food and beverage teams better understand their guests and create more personalized experiences that drive repeat visits. If you care about loyalty and guest experience, it's worth, it's worth checking out head to join built.com backslash GMH. and that's joinbuilt.com backslash gmh got tongue tied on that one not the ad king gotta get back in the studio practice oh my gosh gotta get those reps in uh anyway i know you're excited about this one sarah you've been telling me yeah what about the sugar watermelon sugar high coming in nyc yeah a lot of things going on so the harry styles effect events are becoming travel products pretty much.

11:07Sarah Dandashy: I mean, Harry Styles moving hotel markets in New York. This is kind of cool. So basically Harry Styles, he's got a New York residency and it's driving hotel demand spikes in Manhattan that are comparable in scale to major sporting events. This is interesting. The demand pattern is actually what's unique about this. Fans aren't just booking the night of the show, understanding so, but they're booking two or three nights around it. by the way isn't that what everybody was expecting to happen with fifa but because they made the prices so high people were like we're just going to go in for one night whatever anyway so thank you harry styles for showing uh the sporting world how it's done i will step off my little soapbox right here well what was amazing is i think you know i think bad bunny said something very big for all these artists like they're doing residencies now and so yeah did you read how many shows he's doing?

11:58He's doing 30 shows in New York City. I had to reread that. I thought it was 30 shows for his whole tour. He's doing 30 shows.

12:04Sarah Dandashy: 30 shows over two months. So basically almost every other night. Yeah. So he's going to be there putting on a show in New York City. And I'm excited to see if he can sell out at Madison Square Garden every single night. That's amazing. And I will say this, because I've been traveling quite frequently to New York and I scored the last two trips, I scored some pretty awesome deals. Like I was actually able to get decent hotels within, this is insane, within the$200 to$300 a night range. You know, I mean, again, not necessarily a super luxury, but perfectly fine, great elevated hotels. These same hotels, even in the middle of September and also October, those hotel rooms are easily starting at$600,$700, even$1 ,000 a night.

12:56Sarah Dandashy: um so whether it's all harry styles i mean it is also uh now for new york city the busiest time of year you know it's their busiest tourist season they've got a lot of conferences um so yeah it's a big time listen i'm a fan of harry styles i'm not sure uh what your favorite song is sarah do you have a favorite harry styles song are you more of a one direction harry styles like I am. Oh, I mean, I don't, I, I like, I like both. I definitely appreciate him. Um, what is it? Uh, what is it? The sushi restaurant? What is it? That song? Oh my gosh. Don't make me like, look at my fricking Spotify right here.

13:37Yeah, yeah, yeah.

13:38Sarah Dandashy: You did. Wait, what's your favorite song? Well, I like it. You know, I like the one direction. The best song ever was filmed in Miami beach at one of my friends places. So that one, it's called the best song ever. Oh, Oh, okay. Oh, I mean, I apparently have eight of his songs in my Spotify. True Harry Styles fan. As it was. As it was a good song. Good one. Adore You is good. Oh, okay. Okay, I forgot. He was everywhere for like all of 2024 and then it's been quiet. Cinema, Daylight, Late Night Talking, Saddle. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not a big concert girl, So it would be rare for me to be like, oh, let's go.

14:23Sarah Dandashy: For me, I'm like, oh, let's go when it's an aging band. And I'm like, yo, we got to go see Elton John before we can't see Elton John anymore. We got to see Hall and Oates before. That's like what drives me. That being said, coming and experiencing this, like if it like fell in my lap, I'd be like, yeah, I'm down. And I would really enjoy it. The concert prices are crazy. Like there's certain people I would go see. I'm bummed out. I didn't get to see, like, you know, I saw some Guns N' Roses touring. I was like, man, that voice is not good for Axl anymore. Like, these guys have aged out. They partied too hard.

14:56But Coldplay was really cool to see. I got to see Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake when they went on their thing. Like, it's hard for me to spend$1 ,000 on a ticket for a concert. I'm not that person yet. But there's a lot of people that are. They're shows. They're doing 30 shows in New York City.

15:09Sarah Dandashy: It's impressive. And, you know, actually thinking about this reminds me actually what we talked about yesterday. So I'm here and it's, you know, it's, we're talking obviously about events and experiences, right? That's like a lot of what this, this conference is about, obviously from the tech side, but then, you know, I'm, I'm coming in with the actual experience side of things. And it, there's been a lot of talk about people are spending more money on premium experiences. And what I was talking about, what I specifically said yesterday, it's like, you have to remember, it's not just the event.

15:40Sarah Dandashy: People aren't just paying for the event. They're paying for the anticipation of the event ahead of time. They're paying for the connection and what they're actually having during the experience. And then the memories and the story that they get to take away from it afterwards. And so people are willing to spend that sort of money. And in this particular case, they kind of hit it right at the right price point. That's going to drive traffic. People are going to come there. and they still feel comfortable that they can stay in New York City for a couple nights and go do all the other things. So I love this.

16:16Yeah. So listeners, viewers, what band would you pay to go see if they were a residency at NYC? I'm curious to see the taste of music out there. You know, Sarah and I come from the generation of TRL on MTV where there's a big mix of music.

16:29Sarah Dandashy: There it is. So I'm curious to see what you all would go see. But yeah, but listen, if you're going and you want to have some value to where you're staying, you could stay at a generator hotel that is our next story how about you kick us off here oh my gosh so generators new ceo says premium at 40 pounds yeah pounds a bunk is not a contradiction so generators new ceo is making a very specific case that um the hostile segment not hostile but the hostel segment is not a budget category, but a design forward experience, rich, it could be experience rich alternative to expansive hotels for a specific traveler.

17:16So, um, yeah.

17:18Sarah Dandashy: And like his specific, yeah. Right. Yeah. They're doing is they're taking over like these mid tier hotels. Like he brought it up. Like there was like a Nova hotel and some others in this, you know, article, we have one Nova hotel here, Miami, but it's interesting. They take over like these mid-scale hotels that are like fully built up for upscale but then they flip the model where instead of having one bed in a room they're putting multiple bunk beds in the room and they're charging you know 40 per bed and they're able to get more people in those rooms so it makes the hotel more profitable and drive them to the fmb space and turn the pool deck into more of a fun experience but you know he's targeting i was like i don't know if i would ever stay in that but they're targeting 18 to 25 year olds which makes sense you know if i was with my fraternity brothers in college and we could find a nice place yeah i go well and but it's interesting because of bless you because of the experience to kind of give you guys an idea that like real life um like competitive comp set is basically those sort of like mid-scale hotels that are like in really well look that have like great locations so with like a strong bar program community events So think places like Moxie, Motto, Hoxton.

18:33And it's basically similar, but for half the price. So they're trying to do it more or less than half, right? Because if you can go and get yourself a bed for 40 bucks, like you're a tenth of the price of some of these places. So it'll be interesting. But they're, you know, they have something unique where they're looking at this train that's going through Europe and they want to make sure they have a generator at every single stop is their goal. and so they're really looking to have a place that feels high-end when you walk in right they even said like the design why am i going to put these giant numbers on a door like they do in hostels if a hotel that's upscale doesn't have that let's look at all the things that an upscale hotel has but we're just packing more people into a room to give them that experience and a taste for it and hopefully they grow with the brand but well i'm past that space but i don't know i don't know about you have you ever stayed in a hostel by the way i have not but i lived in a fraternity house which i'm pretty sure is uh similar-ish but my room was like big time like so yeah the house was

19:31Sarah Dandashy: of course and we got big time steve here like president of the largest fraternity at florida state university i had to make sure right uh gotta bring all those girls back to somewhere exactly right and it had to be upscale sarah uh but we would travel together and we would all share rooms and it would be you know people packing into a room so if i could get a nice hostel and get my own bed into a nice place i would rather travel like that instead of some of the motels in panama city that we stayed in i want to go back and look at what those were oh my gosh because i did spring break in panama city beach too so i remember you were out of control well i wait you remember club la villa do you remember club la villa oh my god we're That place is gigantic.

20:17That place is gigantic.

20:18Sarah Dandashy: Well, I think I went there when I was 15. We don't need to talk about that. Anyway, but yeah, again, it's interesting because obviously they're talking about this as making it premium. I think it's a smart move because again, we may not be the actual demographic to go stay in a hostel, but to be able to provide something that's a little bit more elevated. And it's almost like bridging that gap between those that are going to pay for a full hotel room and but who those who went something a little bit more than the basic hostel so yeah i think they're gonna do well with that market when i understood that i was like yeah i would have been someone doing that yeah 100 friends if we were going and paul manzi saying the 80s had hostels which turned into shared spaces airbnb coming full circle back to the hotel side of things yeah speaking of it's like he knew what our next topic was paul was looking at our show notes.

21:11Sarah Dandashy: Yeah. You ready? Let's go. Should we go into it? All right. So speaking of, thanks Paul for that lovely transition for us. Wall Street is starting to believe Airbnb's hotel growth story. So this is kind of interesting. So they're kind of thinking like this acceleration is here to stay. There's been a lot of back and forth, you know, with Airbnb going into the hotel space and it's like, is it going to work? Is it not going to work? Like what, what's happening here? What's going on? Um, but now they're kind of seeing that the current sort of revenue growth is, is actually kind of conservative. Um, and like the, yeah, they're pushing, they're pushing through.

21:58I mean, they grew a lot this quarter. And so if you own the Airbnb stock, like I do, which I've owned now for a couple of years, it's now just skyrocketing because Brian Chesky went on and said with the use of AI, they're now really driving more revenue than they ever have. The experience is becoming more unique for the users. Not only is it homes, now they're adding hotels. And if you book a hotel, then you get 15 % discount to your next homestay. So it's going back and forth and feeding both channels. As some of you know that watch this, I have a management company. Airbnb is one of the channels we use.

22:32And I can tell you that their customer service has gotten much better for hosts, at least in my point of view, when we have issues and people We'll trash the home with parties. We show them evidence. They do pay us back in a timely fashion the majority of times. They made things easier for the guests. This is what's really driving their growth is you can reserve now and pay later, which is soon a giant growth. So you can book things and not have to pay all up front at once. Which is good. Like you used to have to. And then they added experiences, which I haven't used any of them, but now they're looking really good.

23:03I may just use Airbnb to book an experience, whether it is a massage or a private chef or a tour or a photo shoot or all these things that are on there.

23:12Sarah Dandashy: Do you know I was part of that launch program? I did not know that. Yeah, yeah. Tell me. Back in 2016, actually. So I was still working in hotels, but absolutely saw the big – and this was obviously when Airbnb was first really kind of like blowing up. And you had all the hoteliers that were freaking out. It's like, oh, what's going to happen? And it was, I was always on the side. I'm like, dude, it's just a bigger part of the pie. Like people, it just, it's another way for people to stay in a city, but just because you're a hotel doesn't mean that you need to be worried because you can also get revenue from other things.

23:45Sarah Dandashy: Maybe the guest doesn't stay with you, but they come to you for high tea or cocktails or whatever it is anyway. Um, but when they were launching experiences, they actually, um, yeah, I was one of the first, I don't know, maybe 50 or less, uh, less than that in Los Angeles and we had a whole, like they based, we, we kind of built out the program as far as like what the experience looks like. And is there, we tried a little bit, we tried to see, okay, could it be a three-day experience? And they pay a little bit more than do we try a two-day experience? Do they just want to do a one-off? So it was actually really cool to be part of it because like we were testing in real time, what was actually working for guests.

24:28Sarah Dandashy: And as you might I suspect committing to three days, like on one experience was a little bit much, even two days. So that's how you kind of have like the one day, one experience model, which is pretty understandable, but it was nice that they actually had that flexibility to test it out and see, like maybe people were interested in these longer term or longer options of doing things. So it was a very cool experience. And, you know. That's very cool that you're a part of it. And I think for listeners, if you haven't been on their site in a while, I would encourage you to check it out. Yeah, great job.

25:02Because the way they set things up now and they break things down and how they present it, you know, they're making updates almost like weekly on how they are testing things. I'm getting things shown to me that are different. The backend, they're going to start adding more and more tech for hosts, which if you're a professional host like we are, we have a lot of those tools already, but they're trying to give individual hosts more of these things like pricing. That's not just flat rate. Like still are so many people that just keep a same flat rate all the way across their entire year versus having what hotels do, which is, you know, the dynamic pricing.

25:33Sarah Dandashy: Yeah. Every single day. So listen, I'm not telling you what to do with your money, but if you had bought some stock two weeks ago or three weeks ago, you made some good money in Airbnb. But keep an eye on them because I think they're going to continue to grow. I think their costs will continue to go down with technology and AI and more and more people are going to be using them. So keep an eye out for Airbnb. beef very cool all right what do you want to do next here we can go one of two ways sir i think we jump right into whose brand is it anyway favorite part of our entire show let me just be very clear steve's favorite part sarah waits for this every single week for us to play this game of whose brand is it anyway where we have the sub brand and we have to guess what parent brand owns this sub brand are you already because i know you have to wait a whole other week for this so get your get your mind right what is the sub brand this week city express what the heck it looks like half of it's cut off i think so they cut the logo off at the bottom city express by sesame street um that's what it looks like to me.

26:48I'm going, I don't know the parent brand that would have that city express by. All right, people put it in here. I'm going IHG. Cause I feel like it's a holiday and type brand. I'm going IHG on this one. Oh, man. He's with me.

27:07Sarah Dandashy: What do you got? Lou's got Hilton. Yeah. What do I think is going on with this one? I'll say best Western. Best Western. All right, ladies and gentlemen, you have five seconds. Five, four, three, two, one. And now, let's see. Drum roll and the brand.

27:30Marriott.

27:31Sarah Dandashy: We were way out. Wait, what? Marriott City Express. Pull this website up. What? I'm learning new things every single week, everybody. Same.

27:47blue paul all of our loyal listeners city express by marriott wow places you in the heart of major cities in mexico colombia chile brazil and the u.s um so yes in unique stays very cool looks again kind of like the model we were talking about you can stay in nice places at a lower price and be right in the middle of it all with City Express by Marriott wow

28:18Sarah Dandashy: very cool very cool fascinating well we learned a lot here today Sarah we did what did you take away here most important from our show that we learned that I gotta go see Harry Styles in the next two months I mean, I'm just being, that's really what matters to me. And Pierre Jose says city by Marriott. He's Jose got it. It's their new brand. Everyone's on it. I didn't know. I apparently did not get that memo and I work with Marriott. They didn't send it to us. I know you better call your people over there. They don't have me promoting it on TV. Yeah. Pierre said lesser than select services. So not much, but it's like almost like that hostile vibe.

29:04So get in there. but I want to go see this very beautiful deep blue color of the glaciers at some point in the next 12 to 24 months I got to figure that out on my sketch but we're going to make that happen so Sarah it was a great show we talked about a lot of things listeners and viewers we always appreciate you watching if you haven't yet make sure to subscribe so you're always on point with what we have going on and if you haven't yet make sure to send this episode to one of your friends let them know all the fun comments you've been putting on here and they can join the conversation as well.

29:35So until next week, Sarah.

29:38Sarah Dandashy: What you gonna do? Stay hospitable.

30:09Subtitled by RupiRama