Hotel Moment

What makes a guest feel genuinely cared for? It might not be a grand gesture or an elaborate welcome. Sometimes, it’s a room quietly set to the temperature they prefer before they even arrive.


In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens speaks with Angela Berkey, Vice President of Guest Engagement at CoralTree Hospitality, to discuss how hotels can build meaningful guest relationships across reservations, CRM, revenue strategy and operations. Drawing on her experience across more than 45 hotels, resorts and residences at Coral Tree, Angela explains how thoughtful personalization, connected teams and technology can improve the guest experience while supporting business growth.


What you’ll learn

• Build relationships before making the sale: Why reservations teams should understand what guests want from their trips before recommending rooms, packages or experiences.
• Make personalization feel natural: How to use guest preferences to anticipate needs without making people feel tracked or uncomfortable.
• Grow ancillary revenue by solving guest needs: Why recommending a spa appointment or arranging a dinner reservation works better when it addresses something the guest actually wants.
• Connect every department around the guest: How bringing reservations, CRM, sales and marketing together creates a more consistent experience from the first inquiry to post-stay communication.
• Use AI to remove operational friction: Why automation should take care of repetitive tasks while giving employees more time for genuine guest interactions.
• Think beyond your current role: Why taking on unfamiliar opportunities and understanding the wider business can help hospitality professionals grow into strategic leaders.
  
  

Guests don't see separate departments. They see one hotel. Angela explains why hospitality teams need to work together to make that relationship feel genuine and personal.


If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.


Connect with Angela Berkey here:

• LinkedIn

Connect with Karen here:

• LinkedIn

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights
[00:06:13] Make personalization invisible, not obvious


The best personalization doesn’t need to announce itself. Angela explains why hotels should use guest preferences quietly behind the scenes rather than making guests feel as though they’re being monitored. She shares how small details, when handled thoughtfully, can make someone feel understood without requiring an explanation. The goal is for guests to experience the benefit of personalization without feeling uncomfortable about how the hotel knows what they like.


[00:07:31] The 64-degree room: A small detail that made a big impression


Angela shares a memorable example involving a VIP speaker attending a conference. Her team had learned that he preferred his room at a particular temperature, so they quietly set it to 64 degrees before his arrival. The guest later mentioned the thoughtful detail on stage. For Angela, the story demonstrates how a seemingly minor preference can become a memorable hospitality moment when teams pay attention and act on what they know.


[00:09:07] Grow ancillary revenue by anticipating guest needs


Angela explains why hotels should approach spa, dining and experience recommendations as ways to solve guest needs rather than opportunities to push additional sales. By understanding what guests want from their trips, teams can suggest relevant experiences before guests have to ask. This could mean helping someone secure a spa appointment or arranging dinner before availability becomes an issue. When the recommendation genuinely improves the stay, revenue becomes a natural part of the experience.


[00:18:03] Bring reservations, CRM and marketing together


Guests don’t see internal departments. They see one hotel and one experience. Angela explains why reservations, sales, CRM and marketing need to work together instead of operating as disconnected functions. When teams share a clearer understanding of the guest journey, communication becomes more consistent and the relationship can continue beyond the initial booking or stay.


[00:19:19] Use AI to remove friction, not human connection


Angela sees AI as an opportunity to automate repetitive and transactional work so employees can spend more time on the parts of hospitality that require human interaction. Rather than removing the personal side of service, technology should make it easier for teams to deliver it. She also considers how the traditional front desk could evolve as routine processes become more automated.


[00:26:08] Say yes to opportunities and think beyond your role


Angela reflects on the career decisions that took her from teaching into hospitality leadership. She encourages professionals to remain open to unfamiliar roles and opportunities because they can provide valuable experience and a broader understanding of the business. The shift from focusing only on making your own function successful to understanding how it contributes to the wider organization is an important step towards strategic leadership.






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Bailey Yeats, and Sara Green from Revinate share practical strategies for unpacking the email marketing, segmentation and voice channel strategies behind stronger Black Friday Cyber Monday performance. Drawing on 2025 campaign results and secret shopper research, they explain how hotels can protect email deliverability, target the right guests, recover abandoned bookings and capture valuable phone leads.


What you’ll learn

• Prepare email campaigns before the rush:

 Why scheduling campaigns at least three days in advance and gradually increasing send volume can help hotels prepare for peak inbox competition.

• Build more relevant guest segments:
  
  

How to segment guest databases: Use stay recency, engagement, NPS scores and booking history to make campaigns more relevant.

• Check your lists before sending:
  
  

 Exclude unsuitable OTA email addresses and guests with upcoming stays, and check frequency caps before launching campaigns.

• Don't overlook unbooked leads:

Combine automated email nurture with timely agent follow-ups to turn abandoned bookings and unbooked calls into future revenue.

• Ask better questions during reservations calls:
  Revinate’s secret shopper research found that 92% of unbooked calls captured no contact details.
  
  
• Make campaigns more engaging:
  Learn from real examples involving countdown timers, GIFs, geotargeting and A/B-tested subject lines.
  
  
• Learn from real hotel campaigns:
  Connect guest information, campaign timing and personalized offers to create a more effective BFCM strategy.
  
  

The common thread? Reaching more people doesn't necessarily mean generating more bookings. Bailey and Sara explain why preparation, relevant offers, and consistent follow-up can make a difference to hotel revenue.



If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.


Connect with Bailey Yeats here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Connect with Sara Green here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights
[07:12] The three-day rule for campaign scheduling


Sara Green recommends finalizing and scheduling Black Friday Cyber Monday campaigns at least three days ahead of launch. During peak sending periods, hotels compete with retailers and businesses across every industry for space in crowded inboxes. Preparing campaigns early gives teams time to finalize their audience segments and avoid last-minute decisions during the busiest part of the season.


[16:12] Build smart segments instead of blasting your entire database


Bailey and Sara challenge the idea that a larger audience automatically produces better results. By segmenting guests according to stay recency, engagement, NPS scores and booking history, hotels can send more relevant offers to the people most likely to respond. They also explain how dynamic segments reduce manual work and help marketing teams keep their targeting current.


[19:40] Exclude OTA domains and guests with upcoming stays


Sara highlights two important list hygiene practices: filtering out unsuitable online travel agency email addresses and excluding guests who already have future reservations. These checks can help reduce avoidable bounces and prevent awkward situations in which guests receive promotional offers after already booking a stay.


[30:35] Train reservations agents to ask discovery questions


Revinate’s secret shopper research highlights a significant opportunity to improve phone lead capture. Sara and Bailey explain why reservations teams need to go beyond quoting room rates by asking about travel purpose, guest preferences and intended experiences. Capturing contact information when a caller does not book immediately creates an opportunity for relevant follow-up rather than allowing the lead to disappear.


[34:09] Use countdown timers, GIFs and A/B testing to boost engagement


Bailey and Sara  review examples of hotel campaigns that use visual urgency, animated creative and tested subject lines to stand out during BFCM. They explain how hotels can learn from successful campaigns, adapt ideas to their own audiences and combine creative decisions with strong segmentation instead of relying on discounts alone.






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, CMO Revinate, looks back on conversations with featured industry leaders across more than 201 episodes of the show. Reaching over one million listeners, this episode draws together insights from executive leaders including Geoffrey Toffetti, Sims Foster, Shannon Knapp, and Dimple Jethani to explore how technology and operational strategy shape guest satisfaction.
What you'll learn: 

• 
  The empty house trap: Why Sims Foster believes a human greeting from staff matters more to hotel guests than even the most stylish short-term rental design.
• Death by a thousand cuts: Stuart Greif warns that trimming small operational expenses can quietly erode guest memories, repeat visits, and long-term hotel asset value.
• Luxury as an n of 1: Shannon Knapp sees modern luxury shifting away from traditional five-star checklists toward personal preferences like destination authenticity and intimate spaces.
• Beyond the campaign calendar: Why Bashar Wali insists CRM must be an ongoing dialogue rather than an automated email triggered by a slow booking period.
• Personalization at check-in: How Chris Koehler's tenth hotel stay revealed a disconnect between stored guest data and front-desk execution.
• Master data foundations: Why Dimple Jethani warns that disconnected systems weaken data quality and make it harder for hotels to benefit from AI and predictive tools.
• Community-driven loyalty: How Diego Calvo is developing loyalty tiers like The Local in Ibiza to recognize residents who attend cultural events and concerts without booking a room.
• Reducing OTA reliance: How Marc Winchell's approach to gradually turning off the OTA faucet encourages more direct bookings 
• Extractive versus regenerative travel: Why Aradhana Khowala believes tourism should back more than it takes to support hospitality on a global scale 
• Mentoring the next generation: How Emily Goldfischer sees mentorship and reverse mentoring creating new opportunities for women in hospitality leadership.
  
  

If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.
Connect with Karen Stephens here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights 

(03:59) Evaluating service across the entire property - Geoffrey Tofetti challenges the belief that guest satisfaction rests solely on front-line employees, explaining why every department contributes to the overall guest experience. "There's misconceptions and inconsistencies around what is service. A lot of people, and we've encountered them, they believe that the people talking to the guests directly are responsible for service. And I say it goes way beyond that. It's every single person that affects their experience."


(05:47) The human differentiator - Sims Foster explains why thoughtful design and seamless check-ins cannot replace the personal connections that set hotels apart from short-term rentals. "The biggest thing is just that human connection that when somebody comes in and they meet Will or Saudi or Anastasia, any one of our people, and they connect with that human being that reminds them of the real power and joy and specialness of staying in a hotel, right?"


(07:02) Protecting core brand value - Stuart Greif warns hotel leaders that cutting costs without considering the guest experience can gradually weaken what makes their properties distinctive and worth returning to. "As a leader, you can always find a way to cut a little cost. But the question is, are you death by a thousand cuts denigrating the guest experience so much that especially for a lot of your hotels that are independent or lifestyle, that essentially you're taking away what makes you unique and differentiated in the guest experience that creates memories or wants them to stay."


(09:11) Building wellness experiences with meaning - Sky Mitchel shares how the development of Everwild Nordic Spa evolved from a hotel expansion idea into a wellness concept shaped by the history, traditions, and rituals behind the experience. "We just went from there, and since that moment, which was a few years ago, have developed not only a spa design, a brand and all that, but developed a deeper understanding of, like, rituals and why people do this and what's the history of song."


(10:41) Entertainment with a room - Jordi Solé explains how UMusic Hospitality makes music central to the hotel experience, combining accommodation with concert tickets, artist interactions, and exclusive access that appeals to guests' personal interests. "We sell, of course, the room, but with a ticket at our theater, also with more curated and crafted experience for the fans, like a meet and greet with the artist, like a backstage spa."


(12:16) Redefining luxury through personalization - Shannon Knapp explains how luxury hospitality has moved beyond traditional five-star standards, with travelers increasingly defining a premium experience according to their own preferences and priorities. "But what has evolved and changed so significantly is that luxury now is such a personal experience. It really is about what is important to me as a traveler, as a person. And what is luxury to me might be completely not luxury to you."


(15:14) Building relationships beyond transactional marketing - Bashar Wali challenges hotels to rethink CRM as an ongoing effort to build meaningful guest relationships rather than simply sending promotional emails to encourage repeat bookings. "CRM isn't sending a guest an email to have them come back and stay. It's a complex journey from beginning to end to build customer relationship management. We think about it transactionally."


(16:33) Fixing fragmented guest recognition - Chris Koehler highlights the gap between collecting guest information and using it effectively, recalling how a hotel failed to recognize him despite at least 10 previous stays. "Last night, checked into a hotel, smaller boutique hotel. I've been there 10 times, at least. And the person at the front desk says, have you ever stayed here before? And you're like, yep, I have. And it was like, my goodness, it's just such an opportunity to say welcome back."


(18:24) Turning guest preferences into personalized experiences - Andrew Ladd explains how information gathered across hotel restaurants, spas, and other touchpoints can help teams anticipate returning guests' preferences and deliver more thoughtful service. "They show up and you've got a Diet Coke or you've got a Gatorade waiting for them because that's what they had last time. I mean, those little touch points I think in surprise and delight is a big term as of late. Just provide that next level of service."


(20:13) Establishing core data foundations - Dimple Jethani emphasizes the importance of connected systems and consistent data management, warning that introducing new technology without proper integration can make valuable guest information harder to access and use. "Master data management matters. How I track it. If I decide to implement a system and I let it be standard all and I don't integrate it, my master data has just been ruined. I may have captured the data, but it's not as meaningful anymore."


(22:14) Using hotel technology to combat human trafficking - Georgine Muntz explains how Visual Matrix is exploring ways for hotel employees to safely document suspicious activity and contribute information that could help identify potential human trafficking without putting staff in danger. "But if we add these other benefits, not only will we bring in technology solutions, but maybe we can help solve a massive crime problem that's going on right under our noses."


(25:04) Building loyalty beyond hotel stays - Diego Calvo shares how Concept Hotel Group is developing a loyalty program that recognizes more than room bookings, including local residents who engage with the brand through music, art, and cultural events. "Because we do a lot of cultural events into the hotels and it's people coming to our places that are not staying with us. They just from Ibiza and they come to our live music events or to our arts exhibitions."


(27:58) Rethinking hotel loyalty through paid subscriptions - Casper Overbeek explains how citizenM's paid membership model offers immediate benefits in exchange for a subscription, creating a different approach to guest loyalty while allowing the hotel to manage room availability and demand. "That is we ask for a commitment, but you get instant access. And we are not the only one with some kind of guaranteed or semi guaranteed formula. But we say if you're willing to pay, we will give it to you."


(30:18) Shifting bookings from OTAs to direct channels - Marc Winchell describes how Pacific Hospitality Group is gradually reducing its reliance on online travel agencies by giving guests more reasons to book directly, rather than removing third-party distribution altogether. "It was like turning that faucet off for OTAs. It's easy just to dial it up. We're slowly turning that faucet off and we're incentivizing guests to book direct."


(31:51) Giving back more than you take - Aradhana Khowala challenges hospitality businesses to look beyond traditional sustainability goals and adopt regenerative practices that contribute more to destinations and local communities than they take away. "Regenerative growth and it's not just in tourism, it's in all kinds of businesses is where you add back to a place more than you take."


(34:16) Developing future industry talent - Emily Goldfischer highlights how women in hospitality leadership are creating more opportunities for the next generation through mentorship, career development, and a willingness to learn from younger colleagues. "I mean, one of the heartening things I see is that women who are at this kind of upper levels or even BP mid level managers, they're very intentional about making sure women who are in the early stages of their careers have a different experience than they've had."


Chapters 

[0:00] Introduction
[3:59]  Redefining service across every touchpoint
[7:02] Protecting the guest experience when cutting costs
[12:16] Redefining luxury and personalization
[20:13] Data, technology, and responsible innovation
[25:04] Rethinking loyalty and direct guest relationships
[31:51]  Shifting from sustainable to regenerative tourism






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, sits down with Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate. Karen and Dylan mark the passing of the 200th episode of Hotel Moment and look at the technical evolution of hotel marketing software. They discuss why collecting guest data is no longer the main barrier for hoteliers, focusing instead on how properties can synthesize PMS records, Folio spending, spa bookings, and dining profiles into actionable omnichannel communication.


What you'll learn: 


● The guest data evolution: How hotel tech moved from CRM interaction records to CDP identity resolution and real-time data activation.


● The cost of repeat OTA bookings: Why paying a 20% commission to re-acquire former guests drains hotel profit margins.


● Omnichannel communication channels: How coordinating email, SMS, WhatsApp, and voice channels reaches guests at their preferred touchpoint.


● Pathways automation: How Revinate Pathways uses booking windows and guest behavior to trigger automated digital messaging.


● Journey mapping vs single campaigns: Why designing an overarching guest pathway outperforms building isolated email marketing blasts.


● Hospitality-specific data fields: Why hotel marketing tools must natively parse stay nights, Folio data, room types, and cancellation history.


● Connecting PMS and ancillary records: How stitching together PMS stay history and spa preferences enables targeted pre-arrival offers.


● Contextual on-property AI chat: How Revinate Chat leverages rich guest profiles, property image assets, and brand voice to manage guest queries during stays.


Karen and Dylan also talk about how marketing teams facing workload pressures benefit from unified platforms rather than adding extra disconnected software. They discuss the mechanics of identity resolution across restaurant, golf, and Folio data, and explain how automated campaigns instantly cease the moment a guest completes a new booking.


If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Connect with Karen Stephens here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Connect with Dylan Cole here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights:
[02:37] Meeting changing guest expectations requires delivering clear personal preferences. "When people expect brands to understand what their preferences are and deliver on those... if it's e-commerce, you know, you get the right pair of shoes in the mail. But if it's your holiday, it's like everything, right?"


[05:13] Transitioning from basic records to actionable data requires a third step in hospitality software. "CRM, what is that? It is, who are my guests? That was the first step in evolution. Then you got CDP: what do I know about them? And now this third point that I just mentioned is the data activation platform, and it's basically, how can I use that information?"


[08:16] Re-acquiring international travelers through third-party channels becomes costly when repeated over multiple visits. "I always think about this person who referenced that their little hotel here in the Netherlands was getting guests from Japan to visit them, and you know, they were paying 20% to the OTAs to get that. That's great. You would never get that at that price. But the shame is when it continues to happen over and over and over again."


[12:21] Designing end-to-end guest pathways replaces the traditional focus on isolated marketing blasts. "The focus was always about building the individual campaign or that individual touchpoint... But now when you engage with Pathways, you actually look at it as this overarching, 'What does this full journey look like for this guest type?'"


[16:27] Deploying artificial intelligence effectively on property depends directly on deep context from hotel operational data. "Revinate Chat is how we carry on the conversation with the guest once they get on property... this is advanced AI, and the context that the AI is picking up is actually built off of the property data."


Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:48 - Solving the hotel guest data value gap


04:18 - Moving from CRM and CDP to data activation


07:36 - The true cost of repeated OTA guest re-acquisition


09:21 - Introducing Pathways and hotel omnichannel automation


12:21 - Shifting from single campaigns to complete guest journeys


16:27 - Using AI for contextual on-property guest messaging






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, sits down with Mickey Stout, Director of Marketing at Claremont Resort & Club, to commemorate the podcast's 200th episode. With more than 20 years of experience spanning marketing, PR, brand development, and frontline hotel operations, Mickey brings an insider perspective on driving guest demand for a century-old resort spanning Berkeley and Oakland, California.


Mickey details how the Claremont shifted from keeping paranormal rumors quiet to building high-demand October activations like Witching Hour evening tea and luxury haunted tours. She also breaks down how historic properties can gather authentic stories from long-tenured employees and leverage unified CRM data to extend guest lifetime value across dining, wellness, and membership.


What you'll learn: 


● Embracing historical lore: Why moving away from treating ghost stories as taboo allowed the Claremont to build an October program that sells out in six days.


● The influencer FAM model: How hosting targeted creators for an overnight stay generated a 200-person waitlist and drove regional travel from Sacramento and Fresno.


● Lifestyle over room nights: How managing a resort with 276 rooms, three pools, and 70 weekly fitness classes requires marketing an ongoing membership lifestyle.


● Cross-selling through CRM data: Why tracking the guest journey in a CRM prevents hotels from boxing seasonal event attendees into a single category.


● Mining employee memories: How interviewing staff members who have been at the hotel for over 40 years reveals unscripted, bookable historical narratives.


● Strict seasonal boundaries: Why keeping haunted tours exclusively contained to October preserves brand prestige and creates annual booking urgency.


● Packaging F&B activations: How pairing guided resort tours with craft cocktails and evening tea boosts food and beverage spend per guest.


● Social video proof: How capturing authentic, unexpected moments on social clips, like moving carpet indents, fuels organic audience engagement.


Karen and Mickey also discuss the Claremont's origins in 1915 following a high-stakes checkers match in a local bar and ghost encounters reported on ESPN by NBA star Tim Duncan.


If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Connect with Mickey Stout here:

• LinkedIn
• Claremont Resort and Club

Connect with Karen Stephens here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights:
[00:02:35)] A childhood goal comes full circle. Mickey Stout shares her personal connection to the property, having set her sights on the Claremont as a child before returning as Director of Marketing. "I told my mom that one day I was going to work at the 'White Castle on the Hill,' which was the Claremont. I think I was five years old when I first said that."


[00:04:27] A high-stakes wager creates an iconic resort. Mickey details how two investors settled the property's fate following a fire on the original residence. "On a drunken day at a local bar, they were playing checkers and decided they were going to bet the property in a checkers match. So they played checkers, whoever won got full ownership of the property, and he decided he was going to turn it into a resort."


[00:08:32] Catching unexpected evidence on social video. While filming promotional clips during a guided tour, the marketing team noticed something unusual in the final footage. "Sure enough, you see footsteps trailing the tour and you could see like the carpet moving. I think that's the first time I really saw something that kind of gave me the creeps a little bit, but it was kind of cool. Like as a marketer, I was like, 'Whoa, we really caught something that we can put on our socials.'"


[00:11:00] Generating demand through familiarization trips. Hosting local creators and media transformed a single spooky night into a major regional attraction. "Once all the posting started happening, it just blew up. It became this thing where it's like, 'This is something you have to do in the Bay Area.' People were coming from like Sacramento, from Fresno, just to come check out these tours... I think we had a waitlist of 200 by the time the season was over."


[00:16:07] Moving guests out of single booking categories. Effective CRM strategy relies on understanding broader guest interests across the entire property portfolio. "I think having a CRM and finding out what that journey is is very important. A lot of times we might get stuck in like, 'They came here for a haunted tour,' and we check that box, but we don't want to keep them in that box. We want to see what else they're interested in."


Chapters:
00:00 - Intro


00:02:35 - Returning to the White Castle on the Hill


00:04:27 - The 1915 checkers match and resort features


00:06:16 - Famous ghost sightings from Tim Duncan to Mrs. Thornburg


00:09:59 - How an influencer FAM created a six-day sellout


00:14:51 - Marketing resort lifestyle beyond hotel rooms


00:17:09 - Uncovering bookable history through veteran hotel staff






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, sits down with Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of TripTease, for a far-ranging conversation on the state of hotel data, the AI booking journey, and why the industry's biggest competitive threat may not be ChatGPT, but dirty data. With more than twelve years building technology at the intersection of behavioral psychology and the direct booking channel, Charlie brings a uniquely grounded perspective to the hype surrounding AI. His core message is urgent: the hotels and vendors that get their data right now will compound that advantage exponentially as AI capabilities accelerate.


What you'll learn:
● AI as a booking middleman: How AI search agents are collapsing discovery and booking into a single flow, requiring hotels to optimize for machine recommendations.● The impact of dirty data: Why feeding unorganized CRM and PMS data into AI models leads to poor marketing decisions and wasteful ad spend.● Defining ideal guest personas: How identifying five to ten core guest types allows hoteliers to clearly articulate property value to AI discovery tools.● Pricing parity on metasearch: Why knowing whether Booking.com is undercutting a hotel price by a single dollar completely changes ad bidding strategy.● Legacy software and closed APIs: How high integration fees and locked PMS data slow down hospitality technology innovation.
● Measuring personalization ROI: Why segmenting email lists and website messaging by guest preferences consistently outperforms generic broadcast campaigns.
● Cutting through AI search hype: Why fewer than 2% of bookings will originate from ChatGPT in 2026, making core marketing fundamentals essential.
● Scaling human hospitality online: How digital personalization tools replicate the front desk instinct of reading guest signals in the lobby.

Dylan and Charlie also talk about Charlie's experience running marathons in remote locations like North Korea and Kazakhstan, the practical capabilities of WebMCP for web agents, and how open technology partners like Mews are reshaping software ecosystem connectivity.


If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Connect with Charlie Osmond here:

• LinkedIn
• TripTease

Connect with Dylan Cole here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights:[00:00] Data quality determines strategy - Setting the foundation for modern hotel analytics starts with clean inputs. "Either you've got your data sorted and it's really high quality and you're going to be driving outstanding decisions, or you've got a data mess and you're just driving the wrong decisions consistently all the time."


[06:15] Capturing unexploited guest signals - Emerging web interactions offer hoteliers new opportunities to gather guest intelligence. "I think there are loads of ways in which there's a risk that the hotelier loses insight, information, data about guests who are doing things on their website, but I think most hoteliers aren't actually using those signals very well at all."


[12:15] The danger of vague targeting - Failing to define specific target personas renders marketing campaigns ineffective. "If you are not clear, and precise, and accurate with your data, then either you're going to be telling agents who are out there looking for hotels that your hotel's right for everyone, which then means it's not right for anyone and that's kind of useless. Or you're going to define the wrong ICP, and the wrong personas are going to be targeted."


[20:10] Prioritizing marketing fundamentals - Charlie advises hoteliers not to lose sight of foundational website performance amidst AI market hype. "If it's about wanting to have great performance the next 12 to 18 months, a lot of that comes down to doing the basics well."


[23:15] Long-term AI readiness - Data cleanup remains the single highest-return investment a hotel can make today. "The one thing that is coming back to where we started that you absolutely will get value from year after year after year in AI, if you start with it now, is improving the quality of your data."


Chapters:00:00 - Intro
05:20 - Protecting direct bookings against AI middlemen


08:30 - Defining ideal guest personas for AI search


10:54 - What dirty data breaks in hotel marketing


14:10 - Overcoming legacy software and closed APIs


18:26 - Measuring ROI on personalization and data


19:58 - Practical steps to protect direct revenue






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this episode of Hotel Moment, we bring you another special installment featuring a fully AI-generated conversation examining one of the defining questions facing hospitality leaders during budget season: if AI can answer the phone around the clock, why continue investing in human reservation agents?


The discussion uses findings from Revinate’s 2026 Secret Shopped Call Report, built from more than 300 mystery shopper calls across luxury and upscale hotels, as a starting point. The results reveal serious weaknesses across hotel voice operations, including limited contact capture, minimal guest discovery and low rates of proactive booking asks.


At first glance, those failures could strengthen the case for replacing human agents with automation. But the conversation argues that the underlying problem is often structural rather than human. Front desk teams answering reservation calls are frequently managing check-ins, guest complaints, key cards and lobby operations simultaneously. Dedicated reservation teams, by contrast, operate in an environment designed for sales and guest consultation.


The episode asks hotels to think beyond a simple choice between people and machines.


What you’ll learn:


● The structural failure behind poor phone performance: Why routing high-intent reservation calls to an overloaded front desk creates an environment where even talented employees struggle to sell effectively.


● Where AI genuinely excels: How automated agents can efficiently handle repetitive informational queries such as Wi-Fi details, parking policies, checkout times and other predictable requests.


● The handoff problem: Why a straightforward availability enquiry can suddenly become an emotionally significant, high-value booking involving accessibility requirements, celebrations, room preferences and premium add-ons.


● Why the happy path is misleading: How AI vendor demonstrations can underrepresent the messy, nonlinear and highly contextual conversations that make up many valuable hospitality interactions.


● The silent loyalty bleed: Why a failed automated interaction may not appear in a hotel's technical reporting but can still cause guests to quietly abandon the booking or associate poor service with the hotel brand.


● The visibility gap: Why hotels cannot intelligently automate, coach or optimize a voice channel they cannot consistently record and analyze.


● Revenue inventory: How reservation-agent capacity can be viewed as a finite number of opportunities to convert high-intent guests rather than simply an hourly payroll expense.


● The double acquisition cost: Why losing a caller after spending marketing dollars to generate the lead can become even more expensive if the same guest later books through an OTA.


● Split the work, not the team: Why hotels can use AI to remove low-value repetitive work while deploying skilled humans where empathy, context and commercial judgment create the greatest return.


● The next workforce challenge: How successful automation could remove the easiest calls from human workloads and leave reservation specialists managing a much higher concentration of emotionally demanding and complex interactions.


Ultimately, the episode argues that the strongest hotel voice strategy is not about defending humans from technology. It is about designing a system where technology provides context, automation and efficiency while trained people deliver the consultative service required to convert high-value hospitality demand.


If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Download the secret shopped call report here
Connect with Dylan Cole here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Connect with Karen Stephens here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights
[04:27] Uncaptured direct leads - A staggering metric from 308 secret-shopped calls highlights how luxury properties miss basic contact details during sales conversations. "92% of connected calls ended with absolutely no contact details captured. No name, no phone number, nothing."


[07:35] Front desk operational reality - Routing phone calls to front desk staff creates a severe structural bottleneck during peak operational hours. "You are punishing the reservation's budget line for what is actually a staffing and routing bottleneck. The front desk isn't failing at sales. They were never resourced or positioned to sell in the first place. Their primary function is crisis management and logistics. It's not consultative revenue generation."


[10:45] High-value reservations and margin - Profit margin in luxury hospitality relies on handling complex, emotional booking details rather than standard date checks. "Your profit margin isn't in the predictable call. Your margin is in the awkward, complex, highly emotional reservation."


[16:03] Viewing voice capacity as inventory - Treating reservation agents as revenue-generating slots changes how hotel leadership views payroll costs. "If you want to save your human team, you have to adopt a revenue inventory strategy. You must force the room to stop treating the voice channel as an operating or payroll cost and start treating it as inventory."


[17:19] The double-payment trap - Failing to secure direct caller details drives prospective guests to online travel agencies where properties pay high commission rates. "IF the caller hangs up without giving you a way to follow up, they're going straight to an OTA to compare prices, and if they end up booking your hotel through that OTA platform? You have just paid twice for the exact same guest."



Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:34 - The reality of luxury hotel call handling


06:03 - Front desk bottlenecks vs dedicated CRO routing


08:53 - Handling complex requests and the AI handoff


11:00 - Why AI deployments fail on the P&L


15:14 - Framing voice capacity as revenue inventory


22:16 - Preparing human teams for complex conversations






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

Recast: Building relationships through reservations: Insights from The Broadmoor


In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, sits down with Sarah Stephens, Room Reservations Manager at The Broadmoor Hotel, the world's longest-running Forbes Five-Star property. Managing a team of up to 15 reservation agents at the 65-year Five-Star resort in Colorado Springs, Sarah brings 14 years of leadership experience shaping the guest journey long before arrival.


What you'll learn:
● The voice channel advantage: Why phone conversations enable special touches and memory-making moments that email and online bookings cannot replicate, illustrated through heartwarming guest stories
● Technology evolution in reservations: How Sarah's team transitioned from manual Excel tracking to real-time dashboards that empower agents to see their impact on revenue and conversions
● Training for five-star service: The month-long training process that includes dining experiences and property tours to ensure agents authentically share The Broadmoor's offerings
● Outbound call strategy success: How Sarah's team generates nearly $1 million in revenue over three months through strategic follow-up calls, turning conversations into bookings
● Listening as a superpower: Real examples of how agents pick up on guest comments (like Doritos or Melissa Manchester) and create personalized surprises that cost little but mean everything
● Quality assurance practices: How self-scoring, monthly coaching sessions, and call reviews maintain Forbes Five-Star standards while building team accountability
● AI and luxury hospitality: Sarah's perspective on why five-star properties may be among the last to fully embrace AI due to the irreplaceable value of human connection
● Career inspiration: Sarah's journey from a family Disney trip to studying in Croatia, discovering The Broadmoor, and building a 19-year career in luxury hospitality


Sarah also discusses The Broadmoor's 65-year Forbes Five-Star history, training agents to upsell ancillary services authentically, and why service excellence will remain the competitive differentiator as guests become increasingly price-conscious.


If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Connect with Sarah Stephens here:

• LinkedIn
• The Broadmoor

Connect with Karen Stephens here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights:
[02:42] Uncovering guest preferences - Maintaining a 65-year Forbes Five-Star rating requires reservation agents to tune into every conversation for subtle details that elevate the stay. "Something that we always have top of mind are guest interactions. How can we make it special for our guests? What little clues can we pick up on that they're sharing with us in the calls to go above and beyond for our guests?"


[07:18] Empowering agents with data - Giving reservation agents real-time visibility into their call metrics and revenue generation builds genuine team investment. "The buy-in from that really allows a team to feel like they're a part of something, they're actually making a difference. And prior to that, they just came in and took calls, and they never had any knowledge of who or what they were really doing at the end of their shifts."


[11:26] Authenticity over digital booking - Taking agents to dine at resort restaurants enables them to describe property amenities with firsthand enthusiasm. "You're getting a special experience by talking to an agent versus going online or doing it via email, where those additional little things may be left out."


[16:39] Turning unbooked calls into revenue - Following up with callers who did not commit on the initial inquiry turns missed opportunities into substantial commission-free revenue. "It's been a huge tool that's really come back tenfold, and I think in the last three months we were almost close to a million dollars in revenue just in outbound with the team and them making those calls following up."


[21:30] Service as the primary growth driver - Personalization remains the single most powerful factor in guest retention for luxury properties. "Service is going to be the way forward, and if you want to be the best, you have to have that personalized service with each and every guest."


Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:01:46 - Maintaining a 65-year Five-Star legacy


00:06:27 - Evolving reservations from spreadsheets to live data


00:08:06 - Turning phone conversations into memorable guest touches


00:13:23 - Coaching reservation agents with call self-scoring


00:15:10 - Generating $1M in outbound call revenue


00:20:39 - The future of service-driven hotel reservations






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this webinar episode of Hotel Moment, Brent Sanders, Sr. Customer Education Specialist at Revinate, is joined by Colton Bean, Director of Reservations at Suncadia Resort, to break down Revinate's Secret Shopper Call Report, original research on what actually happens when guests call luxury and upscale hotel reservation lines. Drawing on 308 secret-shopped calls to 135 unique properties, Brent and Colton expose three operational gaps quietly draining revenue: missed contact capture, skipped discovery, and weak infrastructure. Along the way, Colton shares the specific coaching, role-play, and follow-up tactics that have made Suncadia's reservations team a model for the industry.


What you'll learn:


● The contact capture gap: Why 92% of unbooked luxury calls end with zero contact details collected, and how a simple opening script (name, reason for stay, phone number) captures all three in under ten seconds.


● Reframing the ask: How positioning contact capture as a personal favor rather than a marketing opt-in makes agents, and guests, more comfortable sharing information.


● The discovery and engagement gap: Why 56.6% of calls skip discovery questions altogether, rising to 74% at the front desk, and what that means for guest experience.


● Verify then trust: How the rise of AI research changes the reservation call itself, since guests now arrive already armed with facts and expect a conversation, not a recitation.


● The three-recommendation rule: How Suncadia requires agents to offer at least three personalized recommendations per call, drawn directly from what the guest shares.


● Securing the booking without pressure: Why a simple credit card hold, with no deposit required, converts roughly 75% of undecided callers into confirmed bookings.


● The infrastructure gap: How 26% of after-hours calls land in voicemail and 59% of calls go unrecorded, and why both quietly cost hotels revenue.


● Coaching without call recordings: Why Colton says managing a fully remote team without recorded calls is like "not having a right arm."


● Extending coverage with RezForce: How outsourced, trained agents fill after-hours and overflow gaps without losing the personal touch.


Brent and Colton also touch on automated call scoring, cross-training through fam stays, and how a strong lead form keeps every follow-up organized and personal. Their conversation is a reminder that in a world where AI can answer any factual question, the human conversation is still what converts a caller into a guest.


If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Download the secret shopped call report here
Connect with Brent Sanders here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Connect with Colton Bean here:

• LinkedIn
• Suncadia

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights
[00:07] Getting the data is only half the battle - Colton explains why capturing a contact detail means nothing if it never makes it into a usable system. "Getting the data was just half the battle, and then getting it into the CRM to be able to be used later is the other half." It's a distinction that separates a nice conversation from a real, working lead.


[00:09] Why people buy from people they like - Colton unpacks the philosophy behind Suncadia's approach to non-booked calls. "At the end of the day, people buy from people they like. So if you just say, 'I got an in for you, I made this a personalized experience that nobody else got today,' they're gonna be like, 'Wow, that's really cool.'" Even a caller who doesn't book that day remembers being taken care of.


[00:25] Verify then trust: what AI means for reservation calls - Colton shares a takeaway from a recent industry keynote on how guest behavior has shifted. "People don't trust anymore, so they're verifying, and then they're trusting." Because callers now arrive pre-armed with facts from AI, he says, the agent's job is no longer to recite information but to personalize it.


[00:37] The card hold that clinches the booking - Colton describes a low-pressure tactic Suncadia's hotel agents use to keep a hesitant caller from walking away empty-handed. "Let's go ahead and get it held just because I only have a few of these left." He notes that 75% of the time, guests take the offer rather than risk losing the room.


[00:43] Flying blind without call recordings - Colton reflects on managing a fully remote reservations team without the ability to review calls. "It's kind of mind-boggling at this point... it's like not having a right arm." Call recordings, he explains, are the only way to coach behavior and catch guest service issues before they escalate.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
05:03 - Closing the contact capture gap


16:28 - Simple tactics to gather guest data


24:00 - Moving beyond robotic rate quoting


36:40 - Securing holds and mastering follow up


42:15 - Fixing infrastructure leaks and voicemails


52:10 - Scaling agent coaching with AI






If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill
  
  

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Sky Mitchell, Founder and CEO of Basecamp Resorts, to discuss her remarkable journey from being fired to building a thriving modern hospitality enterprise in Western Canada.


Sky shares the story of how getting fired after just 27 days at her "dream job" led her to make a bold decision never to work for anyone else again. Using an unexpected $38,000 from a BMW financing deal, she purchased her first piece of land in Canmore, Alberta — the future site of the first Basecamp Resort. Through determination and creative financing, she transformed that initial investment into what is now a $600 million hospitality company.


Throughout the conversation, Sky offers insights into her business philosophy, from hiring "people smarter than you" to her approach to sustainability and the development of the Everwild Nordic spa concept. She also shares candid advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing that starting a business requires total commitment and cannot be treated as a "side hobby."


What you'll learn:

• 
  How adversity can spark entrepreneurship and lead to unexpected opportunities
• Creative approaches to raising capital when traditional financing isn't available
• The importance of hiring people smarter than yourself in areas where you lack expertise
• How to develop new hospitality concepts like the Everwild Nordic spa to enhance guest experiences
• Practical ways to incorporate sustainability into both construction and operations
• Why entrepreneurship requires complete commitment and "jumping off the cliff"
• How to match team members' skills and desires with business needs for optimal results
  
  

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Instructions on how to do this are here.


Connect with Sky here:

• LinkedIn
• Basecamp Resorts

Connect with Karen here:

• LinkedIn
• Revinate

Follow the podcast here:

• LinkedIn

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] The $38,000 gamble - The episode opens on the moment that started it all: a BMW dealership buyback offer Sky turned into seed capital. "I end up with a check for $38,000 from Bimmer. And I'm like, done, sold, give me the loan, I'll take the check... and I'm gonna take that check and buy a piece of dirt in Canmore, which is the land where the first Basecamp Resorts now sits."


[04:03] The origin story - Sky recounts how getting fired after just 27 days at her "dream job" led her to vow never to work for someone else again. "I got walked out of that office with one of those brown boxes, and see ya later... I went home that day and I was like, absolutely never on the face of this earth am I going to work for someone again." That land purchase became an $8 million project, now grown into a $600 million enterprise.


[09:10] The Everwild renaming lesson - Sky shares why Basecamp's Nordic spa concept isn't called Wildwood, its original name: the trademark wasn't available in the US. "If you're ever starting a business, check the name, check the name again, get a lawyer, it's worth the money." A practical lesson wrapped inside the story of how Everwild's thermal-cycle spa concept came to life.


[13:52] Commitment to sustainability - From land acquisition through construction and operations, Sky details Basecamp's approach to environmental responsibility. "We always endeavor to replace what we've taken out, if not more. So in the case of this spa here, there's actually gonna be a lot more trees than we took out." The company also pursues Built Green certification, sources sustainable materials, and partners with Protect Our Winters.


[17:46] Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs - Sky offers candid advice to aspiring hospitality entrepreneurs: "There's no right time. So just do it." She emphasizes that entrepreneurship requires complete commitment: "It's not a side hobby. There's no side hobby if you're starting a business." Sky acknowledges entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, but for those who know it in their soul, she encourages them to take the leap.


Chapters:
00:00 - The $38,000 gamble that started Basecamp 
02:54 - Introducing Basecamp Resorts and its brands 
04:03 - Getting fired and buying land in Canmore 
08:02 - Hiring philosophy: building a 300-person team 
09:10 - The Everwild Nordic spa story 
13:52 - Building sustainability into every project 
17:46 - Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs




If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here and follow us on LinkedIn so you never miss a moment! 
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so


Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.


Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

• Innovation in hospitality technology
• Guest experience transformation
• Revenue optimization strategies
• Emerging industry trends

Express your interest in being a guest →
Check out the three most downloaded episodes:

• Revinate’s new CEO — on a mission to empower hoteliers with data-driven technology | with Bryson Koehler 
• Guests define what luxury means today | with Shannon Knapp
• Your commercial strategy as an evolution and not a revolution | with Jennifer Hill