Check-In with Bryan

At twelve years old, Daniel Lesser had a leaf-raking business in Queens. Then he noticed something: he had the clients. His friends had the free time. So he put them to work, paid them a little less than he collected, and kept the difference. He called it “the vig.”

Six years later, in his first finance class, he learned the real word for it. Leverage. He’d been doing it since middle school.

He found this industry in a book in 10th grade — Your Career in Hotels and Motels, with ten pages of black-and-white hotel photographs in the middle — and decided that was the whole plan. Cornell rejected him. Twice. He went to Lausanne instead, reapplied a third time, and got in. He now calls the rejection the best thing that ever happened to him, because it meant he got both.

What followed was two years at the 2,000-room New York Hilton learning every sub-department of front office and F&B, the realization that he loved hotels but didn’t want a career in them, and then a phone call in 1981 that made him the first hire at a brand-new firm founded by Steve Rushmore — the company that became HVS. Thirteen years there. Eleven at Cushman & Wakefield. Four at CBRE. And then, in mid-December 2010, a decision that became LW Hospitality Advisors three weeks later with no business plan, no models, and nothing to work with except a phone that was already ringing.

“We’re not hiring CBRE. We’re hiring Dan Lesser.”

Fifteen years on it’s 45 professionals, headquartered in New York with boots on the ground in every major market, across three lines of business — valuation and litigation, asset management and receivership, and LARC, the predictive analytics platform that backtests at close to 80% when most forecasters struggle to clear 15.

Then Bryan gets him onto the part that costs people money. Why you make it on the buy and never on the sale. The newbie who proudly bought a hotel at $50,000 a key and didn’t understand that the brand management contract he couldn’t escape had made the brand his partner at 5% of gross and 20% of GOP — before the PIP nobody mentioned added another three or four million. The owners who’ll spend $40 million on an asset and refuse to pay for an environmental inspection. DocuSign, and what happens when you click sign, sign, sign. The ego buyer who’s “stayed in a lot of hotels.” Where 2026 actually landed versus where everyone thought it was going in January.

And the line Bryan hasn’t stopped thinking about since they sat down: there’s no roof rack on the casket.

IN THIS EPISODE

• The leaf-raking arbitrage at 12 — and finding out in finance class it had a name
• A 10th-grade library book, ten pages of hotel photos, and a career decided
• Rejected by Cornell twice, Lausanne instead, and why he’s grateful for it
• Two years at the New York Hilton, and why he walked away from operations
• Being employee number one at the firm that became HVS — and how VisiCalc changed hotel valuation forever
• Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE, and building the same practice three times
• Launching LWHA in three weeks with no plan — “we’re not hiring CBRE, we’re hiring Dan Lesser”
• The three silos: non-advocacy valuation, asset management, and LARC
• Court-appointed receiver over 45 assets during COVID
• Why you make your money on the buy and never on the sale
• The $50,000-a-key “bargain” that was anything but
• Why hotels are nothing like a 10-story office building with 10 creditworthy tenants
• Ego buyers, auction fever, and the people who skip the inspection on a $40M asset
• What newbies get wrong — and why Daniel is glad they keep coming
• Reserves, PIPs, and the conversations that make Bryan want to pull his hair out
• How to actually negotiate with a brand (hint: don’t lead with your own problem)
• Expert testimony 40+ times, and why it all comes down to credibility
• Where 2026 really landed: operations, distressed capital stacks, and who’s buying
• The rapid-fire round — and “there’s no roof rack on the casket”
  
  

ABOUT CHECK-IN WITH BRYAN:
Subscribe →    / @check-inwithbryan 

For more - check out our website at: checkinwithbryan.com

Season 6 presented by Immedia.
Produced by RH Media Productions.

Special thanks to our supporting sponsors: Regency Group, Avalon Risk Management, Arcstone Insurance Advisors, and Achilles HR.

Most people start a side hustle to make a little extra on the weekends. Barbie Patel turned hers into a company.

It started about eighteen years ago, for the least glamorous reason imaginable: she was getting married and couldn't find a makeup artist who could match her skin tone. So she learned to do it herself — and then for everyone else. Cinderella Brides was born out of a gap in the market nobody was serving.

What she did next is the part most founders skip. She didn't quit. She kept the corporate job and banked her entire salary for three years, living off the side business until the math made leaving a decision instead of a gamble. She walked away from corporate in 2018. When COVID took her husband's food businesses, the plan they'd built held.

Today Lux Escapes is three divisions and three and a half years old — and Barbie joins Bryan to talk about what the job actually looks like when you're the person clients call at 2am from another time zone. Why AI can plan an itinerary but can't tell you that not everybody's your client. The décor budget that's in a dumpster by 8pm. What she looks for on a site visit that no brochure will ever show you — including the renovated closets too shallow to hang a garment bag, and the one hotel that got the hair dryer right. Plus the Instagram destinations that don't survive contact with reality, and the lemonade stand in Flushing Meadow Park that taught her everything about work ethic before she turned fourteen.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why Cinderella Brides started with a problem she couldn't solve for herself
• The three-year runway: banking a full salary while building the business on nights and weekends
• Leaving corporate in 2018 — and what happened when COVID hit the family's other businesses
• Buying a travel franchise, abandoning it, and getting their own IATA instead
• "Think of yourself as the nucleus" — the mentor advice that reorganized how she builds
• Iceland, a New Jersey wedding, and the photo shoot that shouldn't have worked
• AI versus the human travel advisor — and why "not everybody's your client" is the real skill
• Décor budgets in the trash by 8pm, welcome bags, and what guests actually keep
• What earns her trust on a site visit: closets, drawers, and the details that reveal the whole property
• Bryan's check-in police rant, straight from the rooms division
• Overhyped on camera, underwhelming in person — the destinations and restaurants that don't hold up
• Inside the Lux Travel Advisor Program and the Wedding Planner Partner Program
• Immigrant parents, a lemonade stand at 13, and Claire's Accessories
• "You can always tell the character of a person by the way they treat a service staff person"
• Workcations, balance, and buying your weekends back — the oxygen mask rule

ABOUT CHECK-IN WITH BRYAN

Hosted by Bryan Fish, CEO of Reliance Hospitality. On your side of the table.

Season 6, Episode 5

Subscribe → https://www.youtube.com/@Check-InwithBryan

Season 6 presenting partner: Immedia.
Produced by RH Media Productions.

#CheckInWithBryan #LuxuryTravel #TravelAdvisor #Hospitality #DestinationWeddings #LuxEscapes #Entrepreneurship #SideHustle #HotelIndustry #TravelIndustry #WeddingPlanner #Podcast

At 27, Russ Flicker walked into Trump Tower expecting an introduction. He walked out having negotiated his own salary — in the room, on the spot, with no idea the meeting was an interview.

He'll tell you he negotiated it badly. He also started two weeks later, spent five years there, and eventually inherited the office of the man who ran development.

From there: the hospitality development team at Blackstone, then chief investment officer at the Ian Schrager Company. Then, in 2010 — with a 35% RevPAR decline behind the industry and two young children at home — he and two partners launched AWH Partners with no cycle to lean on and everything to prove. More than $2 billion into hotel real estate later, plus a management company of their own, he calls himself the Forrest Gump of real estate: somewhere in the corner of a lot of important photographs.

This conversation goes where most investment interviews don't. He says the thing nobody says on a panel about select service. He explains why owning the management company means there's nobody left to blame. And he gives the single best piece of acquisitions advice in the season, which is essentially permission to not buy anything.

IN THIS EPISODE

• The Trump Tower meeting he didn't know was an interview — and walking in the next week to "who the hell are you, and why did he hire you?"
• The dot-com venture that failed at 25, and the business partner he's now been married to for 25 years
• What Blackstone taught him about rigor, and what Ian Schrager taught him about starting from a white sheet of paper
• Why 2010 — the worst moment in a century to raise money for hotels — turned out to be the right one
• Brand proliferation: "they have undergraduate now. When is middle school coming out?"
• The honest answer nobody gives on stage — select service absolutely competes with full service, same brand family included
• Marriott–Starwood, the most generous loyalty program ever built, and the college essay written about gaming it
• Why Hyatt has the opposite problem from Hilton right now
• Points-night economics, and why dropping rate at 1pm can make you more money by midnight
• Why they bought their own management company — "if there's a problem, I can't blame anyone. Ask Russ. I'm at fault."
• When AWH is deliberately not the right buyer, and why they won't bid
• Trophy assets, older supply that should come out of the market, and the proliferation of debt letting people hang on
• "You're not paid to acquire. You're paid to run through our process. If the process says red light, you've done your job."
• Why the story is what makes anyone believe the numbers — and what his sister, who works in lending, says about the decks she receives
• GAME — Buy, Sell or Hold: 60 seconds, 12 prompts, no hedging

CONNECT WITH RUSS FLICKER
AWH Partners → https://awhpartners.com

ABOUT CHECK-IN WITH BRYAN
Hosted by Bryan Fish, CEO of Reliance Hospitality — conversations with the owners, operators and creators shaping hospitality. On your side of the table.

Subscribe → https://www.youtube.com/@Check-InwithBryan
Check out our website for more: checkinwithbryan.com

Season 6 presenting partner: Immedia.
Produced by RH Media Productions.

Special thanks to our sponsors: Immedia, Regency Group, Avalon Risk Management, Arcstone Insurance Advisors, and Achilles HR.

#HotelInvestment #Hospitality #CommercialRealEstate #HotelRealEstate #AssetManagement #HotelBrands #PrivateEquity #HotelDevelopment #CheckInWithBryan

Will Dasco got demoted the summer he was a bartender on Cape Cod. Bartender down to server — a punishment, on paper.

He made more money, he was better at it, and it set the direction for the next decade.

A few years later he finished an accounting degree at Suffolk and had two comparable offers in hand: JP Morgan Chase and Hillstone Restaurant Group. He took the restaurant job. His family hated it. "I got a lot of stern talking-tos" — but finance didn't feel right in his core, and hospitality did.

What followed was ten years of saying yes to everything: Boston to Beverly Hills to San Francisco to Boca Raton to Orlando to Pompano Beach, where he was promoted to general manager a week after his 24th birthday. Then Miami, then Atlanta six weeks before the pandemic, then Denver. He saw more of the country in his twenties than most people see in a lifetime, one transfer at a time.

And then, just before 30, he hit the question that ends a lot of good runs: is this it?

IN THIS EPISODE

• The demotion that changed his trajectory, and why serving paid better than the bar anyway
• Turning down JP Morgan for Hillstone, and the conversations with family that followed
• Why saying yes to every transfer is the whole game in your twenties — "if you don't say yes, they'll move on to the next person"
• Becoming a GM at 24 and feeling the weight of it immediately
• Moving to Atlanta six weeks before the pandemic, and what that kind of isolation does to you
• The manager who gifted him a snowboard as a parting shot — and how falling down a mountain taught him to adjust in public
• The night he wrote a resignation letter, made himself a Negroni, drank it, and hit send with nothing lined up
• "I couldn't decide what was next until I decided that this wasn't it"
• Getting walked out ten days into a three-month notice, and how he thinks about that now
• Why he started Hospitality by Will, and the video about needing an hour of silence after a shift that went everywhere
• Chasing a viral moment and catching yourself doing it
• What AI genuinely can't replace — and the moment every one of us starts shouting "agent, agent, agent" into a phone tree
• Reader stories from the industry, including a guest locked out of their room at 3am with no clothes on

CONNECT WITH WILL DASCO
Instagram → https://instagram.com/hospitalitybywill

ABOUT CHECK-IN WITH BRYAN
Hosted by Bryan Fish, CEO of Reliance Hospitality — conversations with the owners, operators and creators shaping hospitality. On your side of the table.
Subscribe → https://www.youtube.com/@Check-InwithBryan
check out more at checkinwithbryan.com

Special thanks to our sponsors: Immedia, Regency Group, Avalon Risk Management, Arcstone Insurance Advisors, and Achilles HR.

Season 6 presenting partner: Immedia

Produced by RH Media Productions.

#Hospitality #FoodAndBeverage #HospitalityByWill #RestaurantIndustry #CareerChange #ContentCreator #HotelIndustry #CheckInWithBryan

Sarah Dandashy of Ask a Concierge got a flat "no" from a major brand two weeks before we taped this. Her response: build something they can't turn down.

In her third visit to Check-In with Bryan, Sarah opens up about the rejections behind a career that looks effortless from the outside — the year-long TV development deal that died, the brands that passed, and the mindset that carried her through all of it: "It's not rejection, it's redirection."

Sarah made her professional debut at 14 as a fairy sprite at the Georgia Renaissance Festival — eight hours a day on her feet, inventing a character and pulling strangers into a world that didn't exist. She still calls it the best hospitality training she ever got. From Jeddah to London to Atlanta to Washington D.C., she trained at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service pointed squarely at diplomacy, and landed in hospitality instead.

In 2012, working the concierge desk in Beverly Hills, she started filming what-to-see-and-do videos in Los Angeles and took her advice off the desk and onto the internet — years before anyone called it a content strategy. "I was creating reels before other people were creating reels." In 2015, Les Clefs d'Or International named her Best Young Concierge in the world. She has since written the bestselling HOSPITALITY FROM WITHIN, spoken on the TEDx stage, and now spends more than 200 nights a year on the road.

IN THIS CONVERSATION

• Why rejection is a redirect, not a verdict — and why "the rent is too expensive" to keep living in that feeling
• The passage from HOSPITALITY FROM WITHIN that stopped Bryan cold: "Follow the yeses."
• Turning concierge tenacity on your own career — if you'd find a guest a Plan B, C and D, do it for yourself
• The year-long TV development deal that ended in a no, and what she built so it couldn't happen again
• Why she turns down content ideas that would probably perform well
• Telling a brand their idea will fall flat without making anyone feel stupid — and having no ego about whose idea wins
• Content creation as a legitimate small business, and why the "influencer" eye-roll is about a decade out of date
• Filming since age seven on her grandfather's camera, including interviews with rocks
• The audience she never expected to find: not tourists, locals looking for a date night idea
• Bryan's own first stage role, which involved an elf costume and tights

Then we close the way every episode this season closes — with a game. Tyler reads real hotel guest reviews and Sarah and Bryan guess how the guest actually rated the stay. Black mold, a cockroach in the bed... and a two out of five.

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CONNECT WITH SARAH DANDASHY
Ask a Concierge → https://askaconcierge.tv
Instagram → https://instagram.com/askaconcierge

ABOUT CHECK-IN WITH BRYAN
Hosted by Bryan Fish, CEO of Reliance Hospitality — conversations with the owners, operators and creators shaping hospitality. On your side of the table.

For more - check out our website at: checkinwithbryan.com

Season 6 presented by Immedia.
Produced by RH Media Productions.

Special thanks to our supporting sponsors: Regency Group, Avalon Risk Management, Arcstone Insurance Advisors, and Achilles HR.

#Hospitality #ContentCreator #AskAConcierge #Concierge #HospitalityFromWithin #GuestExperience #CheckInWithBryan

Hotel press releases mostly get deleted, and the reason is almost never the writing. CJ Arlotta spent his career on the other side of the desk - a journalist covering hospitality, healthcare, politics and government tech, and senior editor at Hotel Business before he opened his own B2B hospitality PR agency in 2019, about three months before the industry stopped moving.

So when he tells you what happens to your announcement when it hits an editor's inbox, he's not guessing. This is the season premiere, and it's the conversation you'd normally only get after the recorder goes off.

IN THIS EPISODE

• From journalist to agency owner — and launching a PR firm right before COVID

• Why keeping roughly 30% of the portfolio outside hospitality kept the lights on

• "Everybody thinks their news is news" — how to tie an announcement to something the industry actually cares about

• PR is 50/50: what owners think they're buying versus what they're signing up for

• Proving ROI on a service with no physical product

• Overexposure is real, and sometimes the right advice is to sit down for a month

• GM appointments, recycled awards, and the case for paying for real headshots and high-res photography

• Conference panels: why 80% of the work happens before you walk into the room

• Crisis: an attorney AND a PR firm on retainer, prepared holding statements, and the GM whose answer became the

headline

• GAME — No Comment: five questions, one card, never played

CHECK IN WITH BRYAN - new episodes weekly.

Visit: checkinwithbryan.com for more!

Produced by RH Media Productions

Special thanks to our sponsors: Immedia, Regency Group, Avalon Risk Management, Arcstone Insurance Advisors, and Achilles HR.

Visit: checkinwithbryan.com for more!

#HospitalityPodcast #HotelIndustry #PublicRelations #HotelMarketing #CrisisCommunications #HospitalityPR #HotelBusiness #B2BMarketing #CheckInWithBryan

In this episode of Check-In with Bryan, Bryan sits down in person with returning guest Cody Adent, President and Chief Financial Officer of Vibrant Management, a forward-thinking hospitality management company specializing in boutique hotels, independent properties, and unique hospitality experiences.

Cody shares how Vibrant Management is expanding into markets like South Lake Tahoe, why their “Virtual GM” model works so well for smaller independent hotels, and how AI, automation, guest messaging, smart locks, revenue tools, and remote operations are reshaping the way boutique properties are managed.

The conversation also dives into hotel tech adoption, why hospitality is such a difficult industry for new software companies to break into, the role of AI in improving—not replacing—hotel operations, and why independent hotels need partners who understand their specific challenges.

Bryan and Cody also talk about BITAC, casino hospitality, guest data, OTA challenges, conference networking, hotel reviews, barn door disasters, family travel, and the realities of building long-term relationships in the hospitality industry.

In This Episode

• What a Virtual GM is and how it works
• Why smaller boutique hotels can benefit from remote operations
• How AI is being used in guest communication and revenue management
• Why hospitality tech companies need to play the long game
• The challenge of switching PMS, booking engines, and software systems
• Why independent hotels are often underserved by major conferences
• How Vibrant Management finds its niche with unique properties
• Cody’s path into hospitality through finance and hotel ownership
• What casino hotels can teach the rest of hospitality about data
• Why great hotel operations still come down to common sense
  
  
  #Hospitality #HotelManagement #BoutiqueHotels #IndependentHotels #HotelOperations #HospitalityIndustry #HotelTech #AIHospitality #RevenueManagement #HotelOwners #HotelDevelopment #VibrantManagement #CheckInWithBryan #BryanFish #HospitalityPodcast

In this episode of Check-In with Bryan, Bryan Fish sits down with Jason Ballard, SVP and Global Brand Leader for the Essentials Portfolio at Hyatt Hotels Corporation.

Jason shares how Hyatt is expanding into new markets through brands like Hyatt Studios, Hyatt Select, Caption by Hyatt, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Unscripted by Hyatt, and UrCove. The conversation dives into Hyatt’s approach to midscale and upper-midscale growth, owner-focused development, conversion strategy, brand discipline, guest experience, and what it takes to build hotel brands that actually work in the real world.

They also discuss Jason’s 20+ year career at Hyatt, how hospitality creates long-term opportunity, why travel changes people, and the leadership lessons he has learned from working across revenue management, operations, analytics, brand development, and global hotel strategy.

Topics covered:

* Hyatt’s growth in the essentials and midscale hotel space
* The strategy behind Hyatt Studios and Hyatt Select
* Why conversion brands are becoming more important
* How Hyatt thinks about owners, operators, and development costs
* Building hotels around real operational feedback
* The future of hotel loyalty and guest experience
* What makes Hyatt’s brand approach different
* Career lessons from 20+ years in hospitality
* Why travel and hospitality still matter

If you’re a hotel owner, developer, operator, investor, or hospitality professional, this conversation offers a deep look into where the hotel industry is heading and how one of the world’s most respected hospitality brands is thinking about growth.

Subscribe for more conversations with leaders across hospitality, hotel ownership, operations, development, branding, and business strategy.

#hoteldevelopment #hotelownership #hotelbrands #hospitalityleadership, #hotelconversions #midscale#hotels #HyattEssentials 

What if the future of hospitality starts with better spaces?

In this episode of Check-In with Bryan, Bryan Fish sits down with Jeff Emmons, CEO of Immedia, to talk about how NextSpace became more than a showroom — it became an immersive experience center where clients can see, touch, test, and understand technology before making major investments.

Jeff breaks down how Immedia built a multi-million-dollar ecosystem around AV integration, workplace technology, smart meeting rooms, event rentals, hospitality tech, and podcast production — and why physical experience still matters in a digital world.

Bryan and Jeff also dig into what hotels can learn from this model, including built-in AV, smarter meeting spaces, guestroom automation, occupancy sensors, leak detection, energy savings, ROI, and the operational value of better data.

In this episode:

• How NextSpace became a sales and experience engine
• Why clients need to experience technology before buying it
• How built-in AV can improve hotel meeting spaces
• Why smart guestrooms can reduce costs and improve operations
• The ROI behind occupancy sensors, leak detection, and automation
• How podcast studios and content spaces are becoming business assets
• Why hospitality needs better technology infrastructure

Subscribe to Check-In with Bryan for more conversations on hospitality, hotel operations, technology, leadership, travel, business, and the future of guest experience.

#HospitalityTechnology
#HotelTechnology
#AVIntegration
#SmartHotels
#CheckInWithBryan

What happens when a longtime hotel operator moves into the world of hospitality technology?

In this episode of Check-In with Bryan, Bryan Fish sits down with Nick Knight of Duetto to talk about the evolution of hotel tech, revenue management, AI, personalization, and why the future of hospitality still depends on human connection.

From old-school PMS systems and wake-up call printers to cloud-based platforms, machine learning, generative AI, and profit optimization, Nick breaks down how technology is reshaping hotel operations — and where the industry still needs to be careful.

They also discuss the disappearing role of the traditional concierge and maître d’, the importance of training, the rise of revenue and profit operating systems, and why hoteliers need to stay curious as the industry changes faster than ever.

In this episode:

• How hotel technology has changed over the last 20 years
• Why AI should support hoteliers, not replace them
• The future of revenue management and profit optimization
• How Duetto is approaching AI and machine learning
• Why hospitality still needs human connection
• The importance of training the next generation of hotel leaders

Subscribe to Check-In with Bryan for more conversations on hospitality, hotels, travel, technology, operations, and the future of the industry.

#HospitalityTechnology
#HotelIndustry
#RevenueManagement
#HospitalityPodcast
#HotelTech