Ken Patel has been in the Hospitality Business for over 20 years. Previously held senior level positions nationally, and built reputation on leading each market worked in, by building REVPAR Index growth year-over-year and GOP. As he has learned from my experiences in Dubai where he obtained my MBA in hospitality that operations and service are undervalued and can be overachieved. His experience encompasses all Brand-Types of hotels.

Ken has held Executive Positions from 2011 to 2018 before my relocation to Georgia from the NYC area and also has been voted under 40 to exceed expectations and made the cover of a travel magazine on a piece for resorts. The hospitality industry is all about giving and that is what Ken wants to demonstrate. Ken graduated high school in 1999 and have been in Hospitality ever since.

Episode transcription:

Thank you for listening to Ivy Podcast, where we feature weekly leadership conversations with thought leaders and industry experts. Now, here is your host Priscilla Torres.

[00:00:27] Priscilla Torres: [00:00:27] Welcome to Ivy Podcast. My name is Priscilla Torres, and today we will be sitting down with Ken Patel who will be talking about his experiences with his personal resiliency, through his leadership and all of the changes that have transpired in 2020 within the hospitality industry. Ken, welcome to Ivy Podcast. How are you?

[00:00:48] Ken Patel: [00:00:48] Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:51] Priscilla Torres: [00:00:51] Absolutely. It's a pleasure. So, Ken, can you go ahead and start us off with an introduction on yourself?

[00:00:58] Ken Patel: [00:00:58] Of course, of course. So, Ken Patel has been in the hospitality industry for about 23 years now. I pursued my MBA in hospitality from Emirates academy and I've worked in big markets, such as New York City. I'm originally from New York City, and was there for about 32 years. Now I reside down here in Elena currently the CEO of Evie Hotels group. We're based out of in a bucket area of Atlanta, and we're looking for a successful 2021.

[00:01:39] Priscilla Torres: [00:01:39] I love it. And certainly the hospitality business has unfortunately been greatly affected in 2020 due to COVID-19. What can you say in your experience has been the most impactful lesson that you learned in 2020?

[00:01:56] Ken Patel: [00:01:56] Resilience. I believe that we can be put down below ground. And the only way to look up is to dig ourselves out of it. And I feel that we are all going to take it out of it. We are going to get back to normalcy. It might not be as impactful as it was pre-COVID, but we were able to learn a lot. We were able to find out with our inner selves what we're capable of. And the capabilities that we'll be able to do moving forward are going to be a lot more than we knew pre-COVID. So, as we find out what is going to happen here in 2021, it's a big question. But now we understand that we are not only capable of doing one thing. We can do two different things. So it's going to be a big change. And 2020 brought us and kind of gave us a wake-up call. And that's kind of how I look at it is we were able to now know that there were certain things that we were doing more right now. Let's make it right. And moving forward, we can create a better atmosphere.

[00:03:27] Priscilla Torres: [00:03:27] I think that's such a great response because obviously looking at the operations of hospitality and that industry, we've had to pivot and look at different ways that we can serve our customers and different ways that we can make our customers feel safe and welcomed back into the hotels. In your experience, how do you feel that this has been a pivoting moment for the hospitality industry and helping folks get back to traveling and feel more comfortable with going, staying at hotels?

[00:04:02] Ken Patel: [00:04:02] Yeah. That's a great question. So it's almost like this, right? We can't force people to stay at hotels. We can't fo