How do you feel when you first step into a hotel or a restaurant? The excitement in the air, the feeling that you have found some place that is truly unique is part of the allure of the hospitality industry.

Dan is joined by a renowned designer, innovative thinker and creative Entrepreneur, Marquise Stillwell. Marquise is also the founder of Deem Journal, ArtMatr, Openbox, Opendox, and Urban Ocean Lab. Listen to this week’s episode as he shares #hospitality insights with Dan Ryan today!

Takeaways: 

• Hospitalities, especially hotels, are like tiny little cities. They are open 24 hours, they never stop and there are 24 hours of activity going on. 
• Hotels serve the purpose to be surprised, meaning each time you walk in, you should feel it is a unique experience.  This is also known as Creating the Conditions to be Surprised.
• Sometimes luck plays a big role. The proximity of luck is when you go out to a restaurant or a hotel and you begin to talk to someone near you, that person could be your next connection.
• Restaurants and hotels that reflect the community are the ones of the future. 
• When you meet people who are in close proximity to you (ie a hotel) that is called Density of Network.
• The younger generation is going to get tired quickly of the rapid change in employment and treating employees like they are on a conveyor belt.

Quote of the Show:

24:31 “Hospitality right now is in a place where we need to rethink our model. Restaurants were already struggling. We need to rethink that model, we need to make it more human and people centered. We need to make sure people can afford to  live and work off their salary. We need to do the same thing in hotels. We need to make sure the front staff is just as respected as the office staff and that they have a livable wage. That’s a larger conversation but it goes to every aspect of what it means to serve. If you're in the service industry, and you’re providing food and you’re serving food and you can’t even afford the food you’re serving, that’s a problem.”

Links: 

• Marquise’s Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/quise/
• Websites
  • https://www.opnbx.com/team/marquise-stillwell
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• Twitter
  • https://twitter.com/quise7?lang=en
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Shout Outs: 

3:54 Ramada Inn and Hotel

12:38 Ramada Inn University and Hotel in Columbus, Ohio

31:15 Westin Hotels

31:30 Equinox Hotels

32:38 Scent Dawn and Samantha Goldworm

49:19 Hoffman Process

Ways to Tune In: 

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386
• Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVmaW5pbmdob3NwaXRhbGl0eS5saXZlL2ZlZWQueG1s