No Vacancy Live!

Hotel operating costs keep climbing, but revenue isn't keeping pace. That's forcing operators to rethink where the money comes from.

Rhiannon Reynolds, VP of Operations with Innisfree Hotels, joins me on No Vacancy from Pensacola, Florida, where we talk about how essential it is to shift from an ADR mindset to thinking about the total value of every guest. Once someone arrives, the opportunity extends well beyond the room rate. Food, drinks and other on-property experiences add revenue while giving guests more reasons to enjoy the hotel itself.

That's the real opportunity: generate more #Hotel profitability while increasing guest happiness at the same time. Better experiences create more value for the guest and more value for the hotel.

Hear how Innisfree approaches that win-win strategy and why the #GuestExperience plays such a big role in total revenue.

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Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

A beachfront resort in peak season puts plenty of pressure on a hotel team. The GM of the Holiday Inn Resort Fort Walton Beach found a way to keep hers.

Sandy Beebe-Osipov joins me on No Vacancy and tells me she went more than a year without hiring a housekeeper because not a single team member quit. That's a remarkable #HotelLeadership stat in a business that constantly wrestles with turnover.

Her approach isn't complicated. Sandy connects with employees, runs daily huddles, sets expectations and keeps her team focused on the guests enjoying everything from the beach and lazy river to face painting and mermaid classes. Great #Hospitality starts with people who actually want to stay and deliver it.

Hear why Sandy's housekeeping team stayed when so many hotel teams struggle with turnover.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

Putting my wife on Friday Night Audit seemed like a good idea.

It was not.

Helene Stein joins Craig Sullivan, Dr. Producer Suzanne Bagnera and me, and very quickly discovers the real purpose of the show: publicly correcting me while drinking.

She gets into my travel habits, my complete lack of home-repair skills and hotel pet peeves, right as our Worst Hotel Pet Peeve bracket hits a semifinal showdown: Water Pressure Roulette vs. Constantly Hidden Lamp Switches.

See which hotel annoyance wins — and how much damage Helene does to my reputation along the way.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

A coffee shop knows your name, loyalty status, order and how you paid — then calls out, "Whoever ordered the Americano."

That pretty much sums up where service goes wrong.

Bart Berkey, keynote speaker, author of Most People Don't and former Ritz-Carlton sales leader, joins Dr. Producer Suzanne Bagnera and me on No Vacancy to talk about Humanality: using #Technology without forgetting to see the human being standing in front of us.

Hotels spend fortunes on systems and personalization, yet saying someone's name, looking them in the eye and making them feel noticed costs nothing. Bart argues those small acts create a real #Hospitality advantage.

Hear why more technology makes genuine human connection more valuable, not less.

Thanks to our friends at Actabl for supporting No Vacancy. Actabl gives you the power to profit. Visit Actabl.com.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

Some of Australia's strongest extended-stay demand sits in places most travelers would never think about.

Damien Gallace, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Extended Stay Australasia, joins me on No Vacancy with a very different way to look at the #HotelDevelopment map. His team follows demand from steel, mining, ports, defence, hospitals and universities, then looks for places where people need to stay for weeks or months and the right accommodations don't exist yet.

That gets even more compelling when Damien says Australia's #ExtendedStay market trails the U.S. by roughly 15 to 20 years. His team already identifies more than 50 locations where the model fits.Sometimes the biggest #Hospitality opportunities aren't where people want to vacation. They're where people need to be.

Listen to this one and you'll look at Australia's hotel map very differently.

Thanks to our friends at Actabl for supporting No Vacancy. Actabl gives you the power to profit. Visit Actabl.com.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

Westgate Las Vegas is betting on something Vegas can't manufacture: history.

Dawn Rawle, SVP of Marketing, Advertising and Guest Experience, joins me on No Vacancy from the very stage where Elvis performed, standing on the original planking he walked across decades ago. Westgate doesn't treat that #LasVegas history like something trapped in a display case. The team uses it to shape what guests experience right now.

That means Barry Manilow today, memories of Elvis and Liberace everywhere, and team members who've spent decades creating the kind of personal service guests remember. Westgate takes all of that heritage and turns it into a very current #GuestExperience rather than chasing whatever happens to look newest.

There's a reason this place still feels connected to the Vegas people fell in love with in the first place.

See how Westgate turns its #Hospitality history into something guests still want to experience today.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

The Peabody just opened a luxury hotel inside The Peabody.

Doug Browne, President of Peabody Hotels & Resorts, joins me on No Vacancy to explain the thinking behind the new Pembroke Club. The hotel takes an already premium experience, creates an even higher #Luxury tier and gives guests who want more service a reason to pay for it.

The Pembroke Club team starts working with guests before they arrive, coordinates their arrival and stays involved through departure. The Peabody doesn't simply charge more — it adds enough value to justify the rate. That's a smart #Hotel business idea, especially for established luxury properties looking for new revenue without changing the entire operation.

And yes, because this is The Peabody, Doug and I also end up talking ducks and expensive booze.

See why this hotel-within-a-hotel strategy gives #Hospitality leaders something worth thinking about.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

Glenn Haussman, Craig Sullivan and Dr. Producer Suzanne Bagnera finally did Friday Night Audit together in the same room, and Memphis got the honor of dealing with all three of them.

They broadcast from Kooky Canuck, right across the street from the famed Peabody Hotel, with giant drinks on the table and friends from the Southern Lodging Summit dropping in throughout the show.

Producer Dave joined remotely, the conversation went wherever it wanted to go, and the original live audio decided it wanted its own starring role. Good news: this rebroadcast fixes the audio, so now everyone can actually hear the nonsense properly.

This is Friday Night Audit exactly where it belongs: friends around a table, cocktails in hand, hotel people wandering into the conversation and absolutely no commitment to staying on topic.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

A major hotel brand doesn't need to make every property feel the same.

I toured the Embassy Suites Downtown Asheville with Jack Benton, Area Director of Sales & Marketing, and this hotel takes plenty of inspiration from its surroundings. Appalachian textures, mountain-inspired design, open public spaces, meeting areas that connect naturally with the rest of the hotel and guest rooms with unobstructed views give the property a strong sense of #Asheville.

The hotel also packs in more than you might expect. Its 188 suites include flexible connecting-room configurations, its meeting spaces handle groups of up to 300 people, and the Michelin Guide recommends its rooftop restaurant.

What I really wanted to understand was how a major #HotelBrand creates this much individuality within a familiar flag. Jack explains how the hotel team worked with the brand to develop an experience that connects directly to Asheville and the surrounding mountains.

Take the tour and see how this #EmbassySuites uses design, location and the Asheville experience to give guests something much more specific than a standard branded hotel.

Subscribe to No Vacancy for more hotel tours, conversations and behind-the-scenes looks at the people and properties shaping hospitality.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

A popular band you've never heard of announces a tour, demand suddenly takes off in a market, and a short-term rental owner misses the signal and leaves money on the table.

That's one of the examples Anurag Verma, co-founder of PriceLabs, and I get into while walking along the Chicago River. PriceLabs watches what's happening across individual markets and combines those signals with an operator's own data, giving #ShortTermRental owners a much broader view of demand than one property alone provides.

And the scale gets pretty wild. PriceLabs works across 600,000 listings and prices inventory 18 months to two years into the future. Anurag explains how that data gives smaller operators access to sophisticated #RevenueManagement tools without forcing them to become professional revenue managers themselves.

We get into demand signals, last-minute pricing, when discounting makes sense and when it doesn't, and how technology gives operators more confidence in the rates they choose.

Plus, we do all of this while walking the #ChicagoRiver on a day when Chicago apparently decides to impersonate the surface of the sun.

Listen to this one and see how much smarter pricing gets when you stop relying on one property's data and start looking at what the entire market tells you.

Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.