Kevin Aucello is the Principal at Powell & Aucello, a Honolulu-based hotel brokerage and advisory firm specializing in hotel investment, transactions, and development across Hawaii, Micronesia, and the South Pacific. With over 30 years of experience in Hawaii's hotel investment market, he has been involved in more than $1.5 billion in hotel real estate projects and is recognized for his deep market expertise and industry connections. Prior to Powell & Aucello, Kevin held senior roles with Marriott International, Outrigger Resorts, and CBRE Hotels, building a collaborative approach and deep insight into Hawaii's complex, supply-constrained hotel landscape.

What actually drives a Hawaii hotel's value? Broker Kevin Aucello points to scarcity. New hotels are nearly impossible to build, so cap rates run about 150 basis points below mainland primary markets, even after rising interest rates pushed them up. Kin Sio sits down with Kevin on The Lights On Podcast to talk through how owners should price, position, and time a sale.

Kevin has spent more than 30 years in Hawaii's hotel investment market, first as a broker at CBRE, then leading development for Marriott and Outrigger, before co-founding Powell & Aucello in 2020. That dual seat, owner side and brand side, shapes how he reads a deal. Higher interest rates have pushed going-in cap rates 100 to 150 basis points above the 2019 peak, when prime Waikiki assets traded near a five cap. But because almost no new supply can come online, demand for well-priced assets stays strong, and owners who price realistically still find serious buyers.

The conversation gets specific on where owners lose money. Chasing an unsolicited offer or running a quiet sale alone can stamp a property as "damaged goods" once it sits too long, and a broker's 3 to 5% fee is small next to that risk. On the brand side, Kevin describes one owner who left an estimated $5 to $8 million in key money on the table by negotiating a franchise deal without help. He also explains why soft brands have become a practical middle path for boutique hotels, and what the Ko Olina land deal signals about appetite for major new development in Hawaii.

One theme repeats throughout: get professional help. Whether it is revenue management, distribution, or the sale itself, Kevin's view is that the right expert moves the top line and the exit price by more than the fee ever costs.

Josh Graham is the Head of Market Development for North America at Cloudbeds, a leading hospitality technology company that provides unified, cloud-based solutions for hotels and other lodging businesses. In his role, he drives market awareness and helps hoteliers adopt unified, data-driven solutions to modernize their tech stacks and improve performance. Before Cloudbeds, Josh spent over a decade in hotel operations and held senior roles at TravelClick, Amadeus, Revenue Analytics, Salesforce Travel, and FLYR for Hospitality. His combination of operational experience and tech expertise allows him to bridge hotelier needs and the adoption of innovative technology.

Real hotel AI and expensive guesswork can look identical in a demo. The difference shows up in production, and it comes down to data: AI built on fragmented systems can only guess, while AI connected to one source of truth can actually make decisions. On this episode, Kin Sio sits down with Josh Graham, Head of Market Development for North America at Cloudbeds, on The Lights On Podcast to explain how independent hotels turn unified data into a real AI advantage.

Josh's core argument flips the last 20 years of hotel tech on its head. Every major shift rewarded scale: the internet handed bookings to the OTAs, mobile rewarded the smoothest app, the cloud favored the big brands. AI breaks that pattern. It rewards context, and context lives at the property, not with Marriott, Hilton, or Booking.com. The independent hotel knows what happens after a guest walks through the door. The brands and the OTAs don't.

That advantage only pays off if the data lives in one place. A hotel in 2026 is managing distribution across 30-plus channels and competing against OTAs that spend $20 billion a year on marketing, yet most properties still run ten separate tools, ten logins, and ten versions of the truth about what's happening in the building. That fragmentation was annoying ten years ago and expensive five years ago; this year it's the thing holding AI back. Josh walks through how to audit the stack, the five questions that reveal whether a vendor's AI can act or only suggest, and why the PMS has to grow beyond the 1990s records database it was built to be.

Jessie Fischer is the Founder and CEO of GuestOS, an AI-native communications platform that powers real-time, multilingual guest engagement across hotels, destinations, and global events. Under her leadership, GuestOS has gained rapid traction through industry referrals, with its AI teammates handling up to 30% of hotel calls and freeing staff to focus on in-person guest experiences. Drawing on her early experience working in her family's hotel near Yosemite National Park and as an Airbnb superhost, Jessie brings a unique blend of hospitality insight and tech startup expertise to solving operational challenges in the hotel industry.

Most hotel front desks lose hours every day to the same handful of questions: check-in times, pet policies, directions. Jessie Fischer, founder and CEO of GuestOS, builds AI voice agents that answer those calls so staff can give their attention to the guests in front of them. Kin Sio sits down with Jessie on The Lights On Podcast to talk about AI that protects hospitality instead of replacing it.

Jessie grew up answering guest questions at her family's hotels near Yosemite, starting at age 12. The questions then are the questions now: roughly 70% of what a front desk handles is repetitive. After a decade in tech startups across food robotics, education, and fitness, she came back to hospitality and saw the gap clearly. When ChatGPT arrived, she built GuestOS to handle those FAQs in a way hoteliers would actually trust, instead of adding a tenth or fifteenth platform to a team that already has no time to use the ones they have.

What sets her approach apart is who she builds for. GuestOS is designed around the front desk staff who use it every day, not just the owners and GMs who sign the contract. Within the first 10 days at a property like Luma Hotel in San Francisco, the AI teammate handles about 30% of calls. The product has grown entirely through industry referrals, with no cold outreach, because the operators who use it become its advocates.

Susan (Sue) Graves is the Founder and CEO of Experience Alive, a hospitality technology consultancy that helps hotels, restaurants, and convention centers implement sustainable tech solutions to optimize operations and guest experiences. Under her leadership, the company has achieved measurable outcomes, including a 30% increase in sales revenue and a $140 million renovation for a major convention center.

Before founding Experience Alive, Sue held executive roles at Marriott International and directed operational enhancements at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. She is recognized for innovative problem-solving during crises and her practical expertise at every tier of the hospitality industry.

Small operational savings can do more than protect a hotel's margins. When the right costs come down, they can create room for smarter investments in technology, guest experience, and revenue growth, but where should hoteliers start?

For Sue Graves, the key lies in finding savings that can fund the next layer of improvement. She explains that something as simple as switching to ozonated water can cut chemical costs by 30-40%, reduce slip-and-fall risk, and free up labor that is often wasted on repetitive cleaning routines. Those savings can then be redirected into tools such as AI-powered phone support, direct booking technology, and other solutions that enhance service while protecting profitability.

In this episode of The Lights On Podcast, Kin Sio is joined by Sue Graves, Founder and CEO of Experience Alive, to discuss how chemical cost savings can fund revenue technology investments. They discuss reducing operating costs, utilizing AI to recover missed calls, enhancing direct bookings, and creating a flywheel for improved margins. Sue also shares advice on vetting hotel tech vendors.

Rodger Wada is the Senior Regional Director of Revenue Management at Springboard Hospitality, a leading third-party hotel management company that specializes in driving revenue and operational success for independent and branded hotels across the US. With nearly two decades of experience in hospitality, he has built a strong reputation in the Hawaii market, leading revenue strategy across prominent Waikiki properties.

Rodger has held leadership roles with companies such as Highgate, Kokua Hospitality, and Outrigger Resorts, working across both branded and independent assets. His expertise spans pricing, distribution, and commercial strategy, with a focus on aligning revenue decisions with operations to drive sustainable performance.

What separates a hotel revenue manager who runs the numbers from one who actually moves the bottom line? For Rodger Wada, the answer comes back to the same place every time: operations.

Rodger Wada is Senior Regional Director of Revenue Management at Springboard Hospitality, a third-party hotel management company that runs independent and lifestyle properties across the US. He started as a concierge at Sheraton in Waikiki, moved through front desk and guest service at Outrigger, and got pulled into revenue management almost by accident when his assistant general manager noticed his civil-engineering background and said, "You must be good at math." Today he leads commercial strategy across some of Waikiki's most prominent hotels, and that operations background still shapes how he reads a P&L.

In this episode of The Lights On Podcast, Kin Sio talks with Rodger about the practical side of hotel revenue management: how to rebuild ADR after a renovation without breaking rate integrity, why guest service scores (not occupancy) should trigger your next rate push, and where GDS costs hide inside branded P&Ls. They walk through the three-step playbook Rodger uses when he steps into an underperforming hotel, dig into why "every channel has a cost, including direct," and make the case that finance needs a seat at the commercial table alongside revenue, marketing, and sales.

Dan Wacksman is the Founder and CEO of Sassato LLC and Hawaii Hotel Hui, where he leverages decades of expertise to help hotel clients make strategic decisions and execute on marketing, distribution, and technology projects. Under his leadership, Hawaii Hotel Hui has grown into a key industry platform, reaching over 4,000 hospitality professionals across the Hawaiian Islands. With over 20 years of global experience spanning the US and Asia, Dan is recognized for his in-depth knowledge of hotel commercial strategy, tech stacks, and fostering local industry communities.

Most hotels lose margin in the same places: OTA rate discipline, tech stack bloat, misaligned KPIs, and weak direct booking conversion. Dan Wacksman has worked both sides — 20 years in travel distribution, then 12 as SVP of Marketing and Distribution at Outrigger Hotels and Resorts, and now running Sassato LLC out of Honolulu. Kin Sio sits down with Dan on The Lights On Podcast to break down what independent hotels consistently get wrong — and what it takes to fix it.

Dan's OTA position is direct: the relationship works when managed with rate discipline. His rule — never give an OTA a better rate than your direct channels — sounds obvious, but he still walks into properties that violate it. The fix starts at the front desk. When an OTA guest checks in, that's the moment to collect contact information, build a direct relationship, and make sure the next booking doesn't go back through Expedia or Booking.com. As Dan puts it: "I am happy to get OTA bookings as long as the second time they book me, it's direct."

The ROAS trap catches a lot of hotel marketing teams. A campaign with 20-to-1 return on ad spend looks like the obvious winner — until you realize it's brand search, capturing demand that already exists. The 5-to-1 campaign might be more valuable: a net-new customer who wasn't in your consideration set until you bought that ad. Incremental reach, not recapture. On the tech side, Dan has audited dozens of commercial tech stacks and has never left without finding enough savings to cover his fees — unused contracts, overlapping tools, and auto-renewing agreements with 90-day notice windows that operators didn't know were rolling into three-year terms.

Hawaii Hotel Hui started as a lead gen experiment. Dan expected 300 subscribers — a way to stay visible to his consulting network. Within months it had grown to a few thousand. It now reaches over 4,000 hospitality professionals across the islands, with vendors actively competing for sponsorship spots. He closes with a candid take on Hawaii's market: 79% occupancy and $322 ADR would make most mainland operators envious, but RevPAR growth is roughly 2.5% while costs keep rising faster. Direct revenue and cost control are where independent operators need to focus over the next two years.

Geoff Graf is the Vice President of Business Development at Hogan Hospitality Group, a hotel management company that operates and develops hospitality assets for property owners. He leads efforts to identify opportunities and build strategic partnerships to support portfolio growth. With decades of experience, he has held leadership roles across operations, asset management, and business development. His career includes working with major hotel groups and driving expansion through acquisitions, development, and long-term owner relationships.

Geoff Graf is VP of Business Development at Hogan Hospitality Group, a family-owned hotel management company with roughly 3,400 rooms across Hawaii and the US mainland. His 43-year career spans Colony Hotels, Aston, Outrigger, and Aqua — where he doubled the portfolio from 14 to 29 hotels and helped engineer the Aqua-Aston merger, which created the largest hotel management company in Hawaii at the time. Kin Sio sits down with Geoff on The Lights On Podcast to dig into what separates companies that grow to be acquired from those built to stay.

Geoff's path wasn't linear. He started as a houseman in 1983 at a 60-room boutique at the foot of Diamond Head — recruited off the rugby pitch by his coach, who happened to manage the property. At 30, he left the industry for three years to compete internationally in outrigger canoe and surf ski racing, placing in the world rankings. When he came back, Colony Hotels sent him to Molokai to manage Kaluakoi Resort and Golf Club: a former Sheraton with a golf course, struggling occupancy, ownership under financial strain, limited air lift to the island, and buildings with TVs and phones stripped out. His answer was the "Pakeli" package — pakeli means "escape" in Hawaiian — which marketed those bare rooms as a deliberate unplugged experience, borrowing from Kona Village's model. It filled rooms, drove restaurant revenue, and worked. He notes it predated the unplugged travel trend by about 30 years.

The conversation sharpens when Geoff draws the line between Aqua's growth strategy — explicitly designed for acquisition, which is exactly what happened when Aston's parent company absorbed them — and Hogan's: long-term owner relationships, no management agreements structured around an exit date, a deliberate consolidation from five states down to California and Arizona when remote properties were pulling more resources than they returned. For small independent operators who aren't ready for a full management agreement, Geoff's advice is direct: outsource revenue management and digital marketing first, get hospitality-specific accounting in place now if you ever plan to sell, and stop relying exclusively on OTAs — most small operators take that route, Geoff says, and it cuts directly into their margins. The right management partner, he says, pays for itself 99.5% of the time — and means you stop getting the 1 AM call.

Emanuel Moura is the Director of Growth at Lights On, where he leads a holistic approach to hotel marketing that blends paid acquisition, lifecycle email, organic traffic, and data infrastructure into one connected system. Based in Honolulu, he built his career in growth out of college at a Bay Area drone startup before moving into hospitality, and now works across independent and boutique hotels from Hawaii to the mainland. He's an operator-minded marketer who treats growth as a compounding cross-functional effort tied directly to revenue.

Hotel growth in 2026 doesn't come from one channel. It comes from building a connected system where paid ads, organic traffic, lifecycle email, and clean data all feed each other — and then keeping that system aligned with revenue management as the market shifts. That's the case Emanuel Moura, Director of Growth at Lights On, makes in this episode when Chad Franzen of Rise25 flips the script and interviews him.

Emanuel walks through how he thinks about growth across a hotel's full digital footprint: Google and Meta for reach, email automations for returning guests, organic search as properties mature, and a data stack (Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Meta Pixel, plus booking-engine integrations with platforms like SynXis and Skipper) that lets the team see what's actually working. He explains why the current down market is separating buttoned-up properties from ones that coasted on OTA distribution, and why luxury is the one segment still gaining share.

He also gets practical about AI. Claude is his daily tool — not to automate away strategy, but to compress the time between data and decision. And for hotels just starting to build direct bookings, he gives a clear sequence: understand your property story first, start with Google and Meta plus a returning-guest email program, stand up the data infrastructure, tie marketing to revenue, and expect compounding — not instant — results. By month three you'll see traction; by month six the volume steps up; by year one, year-over-year growth is meaningful.

Brent Shiratori is the Founder and CEO of Aidia Marketing, a branding and strategic marketing firm that helps organizations build brands that drive growth. With more than 25 years of experience, he has led brand and marketing initiatives across multiple industries, including hospitality, tourism, and technology. Brent previously served as Vice President of Global Brand at Outrigger Resorts & Hotels, where he oversaw brand strategy and marketing for a global portfolio of properties. A triple major in marketing, accounting, and management information systems, he holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and has received multiple industry awards.

In the competitive world of hospitality, finding a unique voice can be a game-changer. With so many options available, why do some hotels effortlessly capture attention while others blend in? Is it simply the quality of the amenities, or is there something deeper that draws guests in and makes them loyal fans?

For Brent Shiratori, a seasoned expert in marketing and branding, the answer lies in storytelling. He believes that every hotel has a unique narrative, and it's this story that sets them apart in a crowded market. This story can be as simple as showcasing a special feature of the hotel or a unique historical element tied to the property's location. By embracing their own distinct story, independent hotels can transform themselves from just another place to stay into a destination guests won't forget.

In this episode of The Lights On Podcast, Kin Sio is joined by Brent Shiratori, Founder and CEO of Aidia Marketing, to discuss brand differentiation and storytelling for independent hotels. Brent explains how uncovering a property's unique narrative can strengthen its brand and help smaller hotels compete with larger chains. He also shares practical insights on building memorable guest experiences and developing brand strategies that don't require massive marketing budgets.

Jesse Stein is the Global Head of Real Estate at Airbnb, a global travel platform that connects guests with unique places to stay and experiences worldwide. He joined Airbnb in 2020 and has played a key role in building partnerships that expand supply, from multifamily housing initiatives to hotel collaborations. Prior to Airbnb, Jesse was a Principal at KHP Capital Partners, where he invested in boutique and independent hotels. He also held senior roles at leading hospitality companies, including Kimpton Hotels, Wyndham Hotel Group, and Starwood Vacation Ownership.

Boutique hotels have always had personality, but getting that personality in front of the right traveler has been the real challenge. In a world dominated by massive brands and OTAs, how can independent properties compete without losing what makes them unique?

For Jesse Stein, a longtime hospitality investor and operator, the answer lies in rethinking distribution entirely. He believes independent hotels don't need to outscale big brands. Instead, they need to lean into their strengths and meet guests where they already are. Jesse points out that success isn't about one channel or tactic, but about combining data, storytelling, and access to demand in a way that unlocks hidden value. Ultimately, it's about shifting from trying to compete like everyone else to competing in a way that actually fits the property.

In this episode of The Lights On Podcast, Kin Sio and Keri Brown are joined by Jesse Stein, Global Head of Real Estate at Airbnb, to discuss redefining hotel distribution for independent and boutique properties. They explore how Airbnb is evolving beyond homes, what independent hotels can learn about competing at scale, and how storytelling impacts conversion. Jesse also discusses the future of hotel partnerships and distribution strategies.