BONUS SHOW: Hotel WiFi Strategies for a Data Dominant World
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
Release Date: 01/26/2017
Why Hotel Investors Keep Choosing Conversions
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
During LendingCon 2026, Glenn Haussman asks Red Roof’s Lina Patel why conversions now account for roughly 80% of the company’s hotels this year. Lina also explains how Red Roof’s RIDE initiative has helped 40 people become hotel owners and why the company sees more room to grow that number. Watch the conversation to hear what Red Roof sees happening in the hotel deal market right now. #NoVacancyNews #RedRoof #LendingCon Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might’ve missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.
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Why LivAway Makes Extended-Stay Rooms 20% Bigger
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
LivAway Suites made a bold choice: give long-term guests more room and still protect the economics behind the hotel. The company builds rooms about 20% larger than typical economy extended-stay rooms, places the kitchen at the center of the space and adds features that matter when someone lives in a hotel for weeks at a time. Fast Wi-Fi, better sound control, package lockers, useful storage and stronger ventilation all play a role. I spoke with LivAway Suites CEO Mike Nielson with Dr. Producer Suzanne Bagnera about how LivAway makes that model work. Mike explains how the company controls...
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Inside the Embassy Suites Reinventing the Brand
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
A Michelin-recommended restaurant on top of an Embassy Suites changes the conversation pretty quickly. I spoke with Bonnie Campagnolo, Global Head of Embassy Suites, from the rooftop of the brand’s Asheville hotel, where the restaurant draws customers seven nights a week. The property combines two-room suites, breakfast and the evening reception with meeting space, serious food and beverage, and a rooftop experience befitting the Asheville market. Bonnie explains how Embassy Suites gives developers more flexibility to shape each hotel around local demand while protecting the elements that...
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How Independent Hotels Grow Without Losing Their Identity
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
Curator Hotel & Resort Collection brings together some seriously cool independent hotels without sanding away the qualities that make them interesting. New Waterloo offers a great example. The company creates distinctive hotels inside historic buildings, connecting each property to its surrounding community. Curator gives the team greater buying power, stronger vendor relationships, broader marketing support and tools that help each hotel compete—while New Waterloo protects the identity and guest experience. I spoke with Jennifer Barnwell, President of Curator Hotel & Resort...
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How This Hotel Owner Keeps Employees for 20 Years
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
Anthony Klok keeps 80% of his hotel staff for more than 20 years, and he doesn’t credit software, surveys or another employee engagement program. I visited Anthony, Principal of Rebel Hospitality, at the Best Western Plus Hawthorne Terrace in Chicago while he cooked for his staff and handed out appreciation bonuses. He explained why people stay, why so many hotel companies still get this wrong and how owners directly shape the culture inside their properties. Anthony also connects that loyalty to stronger guest service and better business performance. His hotel just recorded its best summer...
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Why Your Hotel's Brand Promise Breaks At the Front Desk
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
Every hotel brand makes a promise on a slide deck somewhere. There's a real gap between what a hotel brand promises and what actually happens at the front desk. I got brand strategist Philipp Mirow, CEO of Meridian Thinking, on the show with Dr. Producer Suzanne to figure out exactly where that promise falls apart. Philipp ran the Radisson brand while at Choice Hotels, then founded Meridian Thinking, the consultancy behind brand work for Hilton, Starwood, and 1 Hotels, among others. He's also got an unusual detour on his resume that shapes how he thinks about all of it. This conversation gets...
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Hotels Are One Bad Laundry Day From Disaster
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
Picture 100% occupancy on your busiest weekend of the year — then picture running out of towels. Rooms sit unsellable, guests grow furious, and the hotel writes refunds and credits just to get through the night. Bart Begley built Integrity Laundry Services so no hotel has to live through that scenario, and I went to Destin, Florida to see how. Under Bart's model, hotels don't own a single towel or sheet anymore — Integrity owns every piece of linen outright and delivers a fresh set the night before a hotel even needs it. His proprietary system pulls reservation data straight from a...
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Why the Hotel Market Keeps Defying Expectations
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
The hotel business apparently didn’t get the memo that everything is supposed to be terrible. Consumers feel squeezed. Credit-card debt keeps climbing. Business travel remains soft. Hotel construction faces the same cost and financing challenges we’ve discussed for years. Yet hotels keep performing, people keep traveling and owners keep making deals. So what’s actually holding this market together? I asked Bruce Ford, SVP at Lodging Econometrics, to help me make sense of it. We talked about why event travel continues to deliver, how hotels can offer deals without destroying their rates...
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She Runs a Hotel Management Company. She Grew Up Unable to Stay in One
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
Jamie Caraher was recently recognized as one of Utah's CEOs of the Year. She runs Lodging Dynamics. Owners trust her with their #hotels. And she told me, on camera, that the moment she got the call, her first thought was: do I even deserve this? If you've ever sat in a leadership role and quietly waited for someone to figure out you don't belong there, this conversation is going to hit different. Jamie grew up in a family that couldn't afford to stay in the hotels she now runs, and she built her way up through jobs most people never think twice about. That climb left a mark on her that success...
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Hotels Finally Fixing Decades-Old Data Problem
No Vacancy Live and No Vacancy News
Hotels keep sending me golf deals. I don't play golf. I've never played golf. Dana Cariss, SVP of Revenue Strategy at CoralTree Hospitality, showed me exactly how close the industry now stands to fixing that problem. Disconnected systems used to trap hotel data in silos that couldn't talk to each other — point of sale here, property management there, sales and catering somewhere else entirely. Dana's team spent the last couple of years pulling all of it into one place, and the result changes what a hotel can actually know about you. This conversation covers: The specific systems that once...
info_outlineDuring this in-depth show you'll learn all about:
- Tips for hotels and other venues to maximize their bandwidth and keep up with the increasing demands being placed on guest Wi-Fi networks
- Addressing data privacy concerns for guests when using guest Wi-Fi networks
- Up-and-coming trends such as data analytics, online search using voice as an interface, etc.