Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Chris Nassetta

Transcript

Chris Nassetta · The David Rubenstein Show

0:02
Speaker 1: Before COVID, I used to travel about two hundred days
0:05
Speaker 1: a year and stayed in a lot of hotels. Now
0:07
Speaker 1: beginning to travel again, So I'm always interested in what's
0:10
Speaker 1: going on in the hotel industry. And I had a
0:12
Speaker 1: chance to talk to the head of Hilton Hotels, Christmas
0:15
Speaker 1: set about how the industry was suffering during COVID, is
0:17
Speaker 1: coming back now and how the industry is really changing
0:20
Speaker 1: itself to accommodate new demands from its customers. So, of
0:25
Speaker 1: all the industries in the United States, probably the lodging
0:28
Speaker 1: industry has been the most heavily impacted by COVID. Uh,
0:32
Speaker 1: you think that's a fair statement. You and the airline
0:34
Speaker 1: industry probably, Yeah, I think so. Maybe the cruise industry
0:37
Speaker 1: would it would probably top the list, but I think
0:40
Speaker 1: we'd be near the top of the list. Yeah, it's
0:43
Speaker 1: it's been a difficult couple of years, but things things
0:45
Speaker 1: are have improved by by by significant margin from where
0:50
Speaker 1: we were we we started out, you know, in the
0:52
Speaker 1: first quarter of at you know, eight or ten percent occupancy,
0:58
Speaker 1: which we've never you know, I've never never experienced that
1:01
Speaker 1: kind of down draft. Um certainly in the foremost forty
1:04
Speaker 1: years I've been doing this, but at this point we
1:06
Speaker 1: are while we're not through COVID, we're not back to
1:09
Speaker 1: where we were at the peaks of two thousand nineteen.
1:13
Speaker 1: We're sort of like still fifteen down and generally trending
1:17
Speaker 1: in a positive direction. My guess is when we get
1:22
Speaker 1: to the second third quarter of next year, we will
1:25
Speaker 1: be back to peak levels of of demand similar to nineteen.
1:30
Speaker 1: What's been really interesting and been well documented I guess
1:34
Speaker 1: at this at this point is the leisure business has
1:36
Speaker 1: been off the charts. Um. If you look at demand
1:40
Speaker 1: for leisure broadly, the rates on leisure, they're already significantly
1:46
Speaker 1: higher than the peaks of two thousand nineteen, the business
1:49
Speaker 1: segment and the group and the meetings and events segment.
1:53
Speaker 1: You know, it was on a you know, on a
1:55
Speaker 1: slower recovery, which you'd expect, but but but you know,
2:00
Speaker 1: building building up some momentum, So you think the worst
2:02
Speaker 1: is behind us for the time being. I think the
2:04
Speaker 1: worst is definitely behind us. So it's not a straight
2:07
Speaker 1: line up, but I think the worst is definitely As
2:10
Speaker 1: COVID was hitting the industry, you had to close hotels
2:13
Speaker 1: and lay people off. I assume that was extremely difficult.
2:16
Speaker 1: It was. You know, it's interesting that, you know, having
2:19
Speaker 1: done this for almost forty years, that we open hotels
2:23
Speaker 1: all the time. In fact, at this point we're opening
2:25
Speaker 1: more than a hotel a day in the world. Still,
2:27
Speaker 1: even during COVID, we've been opening more than a hotel
2:30
Speaker 1: a day around the world. But we very rarely close hotels.
2:33
Speaker 1: So it's something people don't focus on. You know, when
2:35
Speaker 1: a hotel opens, it's open most of them forever. Like
2:38
Speaker 1: you open them up, they hope, but they're open their doors.
2:41
Speaker 1: They're open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. There.
2:45
Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of an epicenter of activity, and
2:47
Speaker 1: you rarely close them. You close them pretty much when
2:49
Speaker 1: you're gonna tear them down for another use or build
2:52
Speaker 1: another hotel. So we are not very experienced at closing hotels,
2:56
Speaker 1: but we gained the experience. But the hard part, uh,
2:59
Speaker 1: did you did close hotels? Actually we closed a significant
3:03
Speaker 1: percentage of the system at some point in time. You know,
3:07
Speaker 1: we had probably fifteen hundred of circus seven thousand hotels
3:12
Speaker 1: that were closed. But the difficult part sort of you
3:15
Speaker 1: asked it. The question was the people um hotels were
3:19
Speaker 1: closing there. You know, it had a huge impact on
3:22
Speaker 1: our frontline team members in the sense of, you know,
3:25
Speaker 1: necessitating furloughs, reductions and force you know, both both in
3:29
Speaker 1: the field and corporately. And so as hard as it
3:32
Speaker 1: is to close the hotels, it was really the people's
3:34
Speaker 1: side of it in the early stages of COVID where
3:37
Speaker 1: was heart wrenching. So now that you're coming back, you
3:40
Speaker 1: have the opposite challenge. You have to open hotels and
3:42
Speaker 1: hire employees back. And it's been reported that it's hard
3:46
Speaker 1: to get employees to come back for the previous jobs
3:49
Speaker 1: were to hire new people you have to pay much more.
3:51
Speaker 1: So is that a big challenge for you in reopening hotels?
3:54
Speaker 1: It is. At this point almost all our hotels are
3:57
Speaker 1: open um, but they're not fully staffed. The the the
4:01
Speaker 1: single biggest issue that we have is getting labor back
4:04
Speaker 1: into the hotels broadly, but particularly in certain roles like
4:08
Speaker 1: housekeeping in the culinary areas. And while um we've seen
4:13
Speaker 1: some easing of that, you know over the last few months,
4:15
Speaker 1: we still have a ways to go, and so it's
4:18
Speaker 1: something we're working very hard on. It's it's a complicated issue,
4:21
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's part. You know, throughout throughout this
4:25
Speaker 1: has been health concerns. People don't want to go to
4:27
Speaker 1: places where other people are congregating. It's been significant issues
4:32
Speaker 1: on child care, particularly when schools weren't open, people had
4:35
Speaker 1: nobody to take care of their children. Um, there have
4:37
Speaker 1: been government policies that have obviously, you know, compensated people,
4:42
Speaker 1: you know that we're unemployed in ways that provided some
4:45
Speaker 1: some distancentives and you you put and then there. To
4:48
Speaker 1: be honest, there's some people that just have been reevaluating
4:52
Speaker 1: you know, life and what they want to do, and
4:54
Speaker 1: some of the you know, some of some of those
4:56
Speaker 1: folks have said, you know, I'd rather go work and
4:59
Speaker 1: where else rather than you know, clean rooms and other things.
5:02
Speaker 1: So it's a complex equation that's going to take a
5:06
Speaker 1: significant amount of time to sort of work through. We're
5:09
Speaker 1: a lot better off than we were even three months ago,
5:12
Speaker 1: and I think when we wake up over the next year,
5:14
Speaker 1: we'll be able to get I'm hopeful labor back, you know,
5:18
Speaker 1: to to be able to do what we did. So
5:20
Speaker 1: one of the biggest concerns I assume the industry has
5:22
Speaker 1: is that people like me have gotten used to using
5:25
Speaker 1: zoom and Therefore, instead of traveling across the country around
5:29
Speaker 1: the world, I can zoom. Is that a big concern
5:31
Speaker 1: that people will say, Look, the Zoom experience is actually
5:34
Speaker 1: pretty good, and I don't need to travel. It's not
5:36
Speaker 1: a big concern for me. I think, you know, and
5:40
Speaker 1: I think the world's figuring this out. I mean a
5:42
Speaker 1: year ago, Um, you know, I think people were saying, gosh,
5:46
Speaker 1: this works, it's so efficient. Maybe I don't need to
5:49
Speaker 1: do the things that I was doing. I think a
5:51
Speaker 1: year later, as at least everybody I'm talking to is
5:54
Speaker 1: realize there are real limits to it. I mean, don't
5:56
Speaker 1: even wrong. It's great technology. We use it and it
6:00
Speaker 1: has facilitated our ability to continue to communicate during this crisis.
6:04
Speaker 1: But there is a a unstoppable force that exists with humans,
6:11
Speaker 1: which is humans want to interact with humans, and that
6:15
Speaker 1: isn't just for a vacation. Humans need and want to
6:18
Speaker 1: interact on business, to build partnerships, to innovate, to build culture,
6:23
Speaker 1: and they want to congregate the meetings and events business.
6:26
Speaker 1: They want a network. They want to you know, to
6:28
Speaker 1: grow their business, to build relationships, and so I have
6:32
Speaker 1: no real worries. I mean, every time you know, we've
6:34
Speaker 1: sort of as we've been recovering. If you look at
6:36
Speaker 1: you know, the minute people start to feel like we're
6:40
Speaker 1: through the crisis, the demand for meetings and events, which
6:44
Speaker 1: is the longest lead, skyrockets. People are people are dying
6:47
Speaker 1: to get out. Okay, let's talk about your own background.
6:50
Speaker 1: How you came to be the president CEO. UM. Where
6:52
Speaker 1: did you grow up? I grew up right nearby here, Arlington, Virginia.
6:56
Speaker 1: And you went to school and high school, to high
6:59
Speaker 1: public high school in Arlington, Yorktown high school, went to
7:02
Speaker 1: u v A. I ended up at the McIntyre School
7:05
Speaker 1: of Commerce, undergraduate business school. Uh. Got out and decided
7:09
Speaker 1: I wanted to follow my father and uncle's footsteps and
7:13
Speaker 1: being the real estate development business. And ended up working
7:17
Speaker 1: for one of the biggest developers and and still a
7:20
Speaker 1: good friend UH today in the d C. E. R.
7:23
Speaker 1: Oliver Carr, and my first job was actually ended up
7:26
Speaker 1: being a hotel, which was the Willard Hotel and Office complex,
7:31
Speaker 1: So Oliver Carr was it was an individual who built
7:33
Speaker 1: a very big real estate company in Washington. See the
7:36
Speaker 1: company still around. UM. And then you were recruited, I
7:39
Speaker 1: guess to go to Mariott, is that right. No, in
7:42
Speaker 1: between there, I created a private equity business, I know,
7:45
Speaker 1: a little teeny one compared to that big behemoth that
7:49
Speaker 1: you're part of. At the time, you know, this would
7:51
Speaker 1: have been in this was the early days a private
7:54
Speaker 1: equity generally, certainly real estate private equity. And our view
7:58
Speaker 1: was that it's there's gonna be massive opportunity as a
8:01
Speaker 1: result of the displacement going on in the SNL crisis,
8:04
Speaker 1: just so much inadvertent ownership of real estate on the
8:08
Speaker 1: wrong people's balance sheets, and we wanted to get out
8:11
Speaker 1: and UH and take advantage of that. So we did so.
8:14
Speaker 1: For five years, my partner and I went out and
8:16
Speaker 1: uh I had a fabulous private equity business. We did,
8:20
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of deals probably you know, it
8:22
Speaker 1: seems like small numbers today, but probably a half a
8:24
Speaker 1: billion dollars of deals across the spectrum of hotels and
8:28
Speaker 1: office did a lot of tax exempt multi family UH
8:33
Speaker 1: in in in our fund, and had a lot of
8:36
Speaker 1: great partners UM, one of whom was Blackstone, and then
8:40
Speaker 1: got recruited my partner and I to go to what
8:44
Speaker 1: was then Host Marriott UM. After after doing that for
8:48
Speaker 1: five years, Host Marriott was the real estate arm Marriott Hotel.
8:51
Speaker 1: Mary had split the company into two parts. One was
8:54
Speaker 1: the brand Marriott that operates the hotels and managers HUM.
8:57
Speaker 1: The other part was owned the real estate right and
8:59
Speaker 1: that was Host Mary. I came in as a CEO,
9:01
Speaker 1: and I became the CEO within four years. My partner
9:04
Speaker 1: in our private equity did business, Terry Golden was the CEO.
9:07
Speaker 1: I was CEO. He retired in four years and I
9:10
Speaker 1: and UH and I took over. So you're running Host Marriott.
9:13
Speaker 1: You did very good job, as I remember it, Um,
9:16
Speaker 1: I think, So how did you come to Hilton? I
9:18
Speaker 1: mentioned in my private equity days, I had gotten to
9:21
Speaker 1: know the Blackstone guys, you know really well, John Schreiber
9:24
Speaker 1: then who since retired, but John Gray you know particularly
9:27
Speaker 1: really well, UM, Steve Schorzman a bit and UM. When
9:33
Speaker 1: I got to Host. As a result of that relationship
9:35
Speaker 1: and given their interest in the hotel space, we did
9:37
Speaker 1: a bunch of UM transactions to them. So while I
9:41
Speaker 1: had known them, I got to know them really really well.
9:45
Speaker 1: And as a result of that relationship, I guess when
9:48
Speaker 1: they decided, you know, in July, early late June, early
9:51
Speaker 1: July of two thousand and seven that they were gonna
9:56
Speaker 1: buy Hilton. John Gray Calton said, I've got I've got
9:59
Speaker 1: the perfect job for you. We know you, we like you,
10:03
Speaker 1: we trust you. We think you've sort of trained your
10:05
Speaker 1: whole career to be able to run a company like this.
10:08
Speaker 1: I think there's a huge amount of upside and potential this.
10:12
Speaker 1: This company has been grossly undermanaged and you should come
10:16
Speaker 1: do it. Um, And I said, what are you crazy? Um,
10:21
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pick up my wife and my six little
10:24
Speaker 1: daughters at this time, and we're gonna move to Beverly Hills, California.
10:28
Speaker 1: And you know, I famously said like, well, we're gonna
10:30
Speaker 1: be like the Beverly Hillbillies out You know, I don't
10:33
Speaker 1: see that the set is on on Rodeo Drive, but
10:36
Speaker 1: those who know John Gray know that he's very persuasive.
10:40
Speaker 1: And the truth is, as I stepped back from it,
10:43
Speaker 1: and as I talked to my wife, who was an
10:44
Speaker 1: equal partner in the decision, we realized how many chances
10:48
Speaker 1: in your life are you going to have where it's
10:51
Speaker 1: a counterparty like Blackstone, who you know really well, who
10:54
Speaker 1: you trust. It's a business that you know but has
10:58
Speaker 1: massive opportunity, and it meeting and it suits your skill set, um,
11:03
Speaker 1: and those things just don't come together that often. And
11:06
Speaker 1: so eventually I decided we would be pick up and
11:08
Speaker 1: be the Beverly Hill bill As and we moved. So
11:11
Speaker 1: Hilton was a publicly traded company. Blackstone bought her for
11:13
Speaker 1: roughly billion dollars. Some people thought it was a pretty
11:16
Speaker 1: high price at the time. You come in to manage
11:20
Speaker 1: the large amount of debt and so forth, and you
11:22
Speaker 1: moved your six young daughters all the way out to California,
11:26
Speaker 1: and then, um, the Great Recession comes and all of
11:30
Speaker 1: a sudden, the debt from the leverage buyout seems to
11:32
Speaker 1: be burdensome. Were you worried that the deal wasn't gonna
11:35
Speaker 1: work at all and it might go bankrupt? David, I
11:38
Speaker 1: I slept like a baby. I slept for two hours.
11:41
Speaker 1: I woke up, cried, slept for another two hours, woke
11:44
Speaker 1: up and cried. Kidding, no, you know, the truth is
11:47
Speaker 1: there were some tense moments at the you know, at
11:49
Speaker 1: the beginning of the Great Recession, but we never lost faith.
11:52
Speaker 1: Like John and I particularly is the two that sort
11:56
Speaker 1: of put our heart and soul into making this thing work.
11:59
Speaker 1: John Gray and I we we knew we had a
12:02
Speaker 1: really good strategy. We were building a world class team.
12:06
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm a big believer in a steady
12:08
Speaker 1: hand on the wheel. What goes down will come up.
12:11
Speaker 1: You know, don't panic. If you've got a strategy, work
12:14
Speaker 1: the strategy, adapted to the times, and and you know
12:17
Speaker 1: you'll get to the other side. And we did. So
12:20
Speaker 1: we don't have as much gray hair as I do.
12:22
Speaker 1: But you get any hairs, I might question that you
12:25
Speaker 1: Did you get any gray hairs from this experience? Definitely?
12:28
Speaker 1: I definitely did, but I found it. You know, I
12:30
Speaker 1: definitely got more gray hairs. And I'm not gonna say, like,
12:33
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't stress me out on occasion, but
12:35
Speaker 1: I love a challenge. I mean, the truth is, I
12:37
Speaker 1: had a really great job running HOST, and I love
12:39
Speaker 1: the company and the people and the board was incredible
12:42
Speaker 1: to me. And so why did I leave. I wanted
12:45
Speaker 1: a bigger challenge and you know, something that was more
12:47
Speaker 1: global and needed fixing. And so the reality is the
12:51
Speaker 1: Great Recession. While it was hard and it was stressful,
12:54
Speaker 1: it was also an opportunity to sort of stretch myself
12:58
Speaker 1: and and to you know, fix it and to really
13:01
Speaker 1: push myself to get to the other side. So black
13:04
Speaker 1: Stunt ultimately injected some more money into the deal and
13:07
Speaker 1: they bought some debt back at a discounted The bottom
13:10
Speaker 1: line was they ultimately took a public or you took
13:12
Speaker 1: a public and it turned out to be one of
13:14
Speaker 1: the most successful, if not the most successful buyouts in history.
13:17
Speaker 1: I think Blackstone made about a fourteen or fifteen billion
13:20
Speaker 1: dollar profit when what I'm told and when you took
13:23
Speaker 1: the company public, um you did at a certain price.
13:26
Speaker 1: But today I think the price is up about SI
13:29
Speaker 1: stock is up about so you must be pretty happy,
13:33
Speaker 1: right think. So we we, you know, did our job
13:36
Speaker 1: for Blackstone and their investors, and they, you know, they
13:40
Speaker 1: made a great profit, you know, out of what looked
13:43
Speaker 1: like a difficult set up during the Great Recession. And yeah,
13:45
Speaker 1: anybody that is that bought the stock and we when
13:48
Speaker 1: we went public and held it has done exceptionally well.
13:51
Speaker 1: So c e o s today are under a lot
13:54
Speaker 1: of pressure to speak out on publicly controversial issues, civil
13:58
Speaker 1: rights issues, voting rights issues, other things. Do you feel
14:01
Speaker 1: as a CEO that you should be speaking out? Is
14:04
Speaker 1: that good for your shareholders or stakeholders. It's a really
14:08
Speaker 1: complicated issue and it always has been. But as the representatives,
14:12
Speaker 1: the most senior representative of the company, for for the
14:15
Speaker 1: company effectively through me, to have a you, it has
14:17
Speaker 1: to be directly connected to our purpose. So I'm constantly
14:21
Speaker 1: looking at the convergence of what is good for society
14:26
Speaker 1: but is also good for our business, and and looking
14:29
Speaker 1: at that point of overlap and making sure that we're
14:32
Speaker 1: focused in those areas. So here's the thing again, in
14:35
Speaker 1: my humble opinion, today's world, everybody wants to have an
14:38
Speaker 1: opinion on everything and do everything. Last I checked focus
14:43
Speaker 1: and discipline matter, and so we've picked sort of three
14:46
Speaker 1: areas that are most in important to us. Diversity and inclusion,
14:52
Speaker 1: which is clearly a huge part of our business. We
14:54
Speaker 1: serve a mentally diverse customer base, immensely diverse team member
14:59
Speaker 1: pop relation. So you know, that's a really important area
15:03
Speaker 1: of work and that I do speak out on. On
15:06
Speaker 1: the social side, youth. You know, one of the biggest
15:09
Speaker 1: issues in the world today is that was a problem
15:11
Speaker 1: before COVID. It's only gotten worse as youth unemployment. We
15:15
Speaker 1: need young people desperately to want to get into our business.
15:18
Speaker 1: So it's it's uh, definitely in that convergence. And then
15:22
Speaker 1: the environmental side of it. You know, if we don't
15:24
Speaker 1: have destined, if we don't take care of our destinations
15:26
Speaker 1: around the world, there is no travel business. And so
15:29
Speaker 1: that is directly you know, taking care of the environment
15:32
Speaker 1: and and attending to climate issues. Not only can we
15:35
Speaker 1: have a big impact on it, but it's it's immensely
15:38
Speaker 1: important to the to the future opportunities and traveling towards him. Now,
15:42
Speaker 1: your company was started more than a hundred years ago,
15:44
Speaker 1: a little bit more than a hundred years ago, by
15:46
Speaker 1: Conrad Hilton. He's famous for many things. He built this company.
15:49
Speaker 1: But I was told at one time he made a
15:51
Speaker 1: famous statement about the most important thing in the hotel business.
15:55
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what that was? He did? I
15:57
Speaker 1: I wasn't alive to see it, but he was. He
15:59
Speaker 1: was famous in the time, and he ended up on
16:02
Speaker 1: the Johnny Carson Show on more than one occasion at
16:05
Speaker 1: one point. And as it goes, I've seen the clips,
16:07
Speaker 1: so it's not legend. Johnny Carson said, all right, Connie,
16:11
Speaker 1: he went by Connie, Um, you're the biggest hotel man
16:15
Speaker 1: on earth. Could you just give everybody in the audience
16:18
Speaker 1: one piece of advice. He said, if I could give
16:20
Speaker 1: you one piece of advice, I would say, please keep
16:23
Speaker 1: your your shower curtain inside the shower because otherwise it
16:27
Speaker 1: was going to leak out and the water was going
16:28
Speaker 1: to damage the hotel. So do you ever commune with
16:31
Speaker 1: Conrad Hilton? You ever getting messages from heaven from him?
16:34
Speaker 1: You're doing a good job protecting my name. I haven't,
16:36
Speaker 1: but I do have his bust right next to my office.
16:39
Speaker 1: When we moved out of Beverly Hills, UM, we had
16:41
Speaker 1: all sorts of paraphernalia that you know that was related
16:46
Speaker 1: to the history of the company, most of which I
16:48
Speaker 1: sent to the Conrad Hilton Museum at the at the
16:51
Speaker 1: University of Houston because I thought it would be great
16:53
Speaker 1: for them. The catalog didn't have it. The one thing
16:55
Speaker 1: I did keep was his bust, which I keep very
16:58
Speaker 1: close by my office. I did so I didn't know
17:01
Speaker 1: Conrad personally. I did meet his son, Baron Um, who
17:04
Speaker 1: ran the company for for over forty years UM and
17:09
Speaker 1: was very close to his father Um, and they, you know,
17:12
Speaker 1: at least talking to Baron, he was quite proud of
17:16
Speaker 1: what we had done. With the company and suggested to
17:18
Speaker 1: me Conrad would have been as well. Well. Conrad Hilton
17:21
Speaker 1: was very famous, and Barren Hilton was very famous, But honestly,
17:24
Speaker 1: the most famous person with the last name Hilton is
17:27
Speaker 1: Paris Hilton. Harris is she involved in the company she had.
17:31
Speaker 1: More recently, we've been working with Paris on the marketing
17:34
Speaker 1: side of it. We're working with her. She just got
17:38
Speaker 1: married and she's on her honeymoon and we're helping sponsor
17:41
Speaker 1: the honeymoon, and so we we have been doing, um
17:44
Speaker 1: some work more more recently. When I was growing up
17:49
Speaker 1: a blue collar family, we couldn't afford to go to Hilton.
17:51
Speaker 1: Hilton was the ultimate brand in those days, and we
17:53
Speaker 1: were lucky if we go to, say a holiday inn
17:55
Speaker 1: or something like that. Um Over the years, Hilton name
17:59
Speaker 1: hasn't yet been seen as maybe as ultimately elite as Ritz,
18:04
Speaker 1: Carlton or four Seasons. Is that a fair statement in
18:07
Speaker 1: some respects? Yeah, it is, and my choice if you
18:09
Speaker 1: go back fifty years ago, Hilton was probably the leading
18:13
Speaker 1: pioneering luxury brand on Earth. But as time went on
18:17
Speaker 1: and as we learned that segmentation mattered in the business,
18:21
Speaker 1: and that the customers had these different needs. We really
18:25
Speaker 1: tried purposefully to make Hilton a four star brand to
18:30
Speaker 1: allow for other things above it. So your ultimate luxury
18:33
Speaker 1: brand is that Waldorf Historia, that's Waldaver Sto. Luxury brands
18:36
Speaker 1: are Water water for Historia, Conrad and alex Are. You're
18:40
Speaker 1: in a Conrad as it turns out today, but the
18:43
Speaker 1: very highest end of luxury for us is his Waldor.
18:46
Speaker 1: Then Conrad and alex Are is a collection of luxury,
18:50
Speaker 1: historic luxury hotels. Now in New York City, there's the
18:53
Speaker 1: famous initial waldorfer Historia which has been under construction and
18:57
Speaker 1: rehabilitation for a few years. Um, you don't own it,
19:00
Speaker 1: but you're going to manage it. I presume isn't going
19:02
Speaker 1: to open in my lifetime. Well, let me correct one thing.
19:05
Speaker 1: That is not the original Waldorf story. The original water
19:08
Speaker 1: for story was was put together as a consequence of
19:14
Speaker 1: the Astor two members of the Astor family feuding that
19:20
Speaker 1: had two hotels that were on the site of what
19:22
Speaker 1: is today the Empire State Building. And the way they
19:25
Speaker 1: settled the feud was they one hotel was the Walter
19:28
Speaker 1: if the other was the Astoria, and they settled the
19:31
Speaker 1: feud by connecting them with what they called Peacock Alley,
19:34
Speaker 1: and it became famously the Waldorf Storia, New York. That
19:37
Speaker 1: was in the late eighteen hundreds. They ultimately sold it
19:41
Speaker 1: to what got redeveloped as the Empire State Building and
19:44
Speaker 1: where the current water story is was built during the
19:47
Speaker 1: Great Depression and opened the nineteen and is under massive
19:52
Speaker 1: redevelopment um and should open reopen as what I think
19:57
Speaker 1: will be the best luxury hotel in New York in
20:00
Speaker 1: with four hundred rooms and you know, about the same
20:03
Speaker 1: amount of high end luxury apartments. So there's another rumor
20:07
Speaker 1: going around about another Walldorf story. It's rumored in Washington,
20:11
Speaker 1: see where we are now at the Trump Hotel um
20:14
Speaker 1: which had its challenges, which has been reported and sold
20:17
Speaker 1: to somebody, and that you Hilton will manage it as
20:20
Speaker 1: a wal Dover Storia. Can you comment on that. I've
20:23
Speaker 1: read that same rumor, but no, I can't comment. I
20:25
Speaker 1: have a very strict rule. I'll comment when something is
20:30
Speaker 1: And so the rumors are justified in the sense that
20:33
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of work and discussion going on,
20:35
Speaker 1: but nothing is done. Now there's a new phenomenon that's
20:39
Speaker 1: now not that new called airbnb. What what is that?
20:42
Speaker 1: And when it came along, the hotel industry kind of
20:44
Speaker 1: shrugged it off a bit. But is it a real
20:46
Speaker 1: competitor to you? And are you going to be in
20:48
Speaker 1: that business? UM? I do not think it's a real
20:52
Speaker 1: competitor to us. So if you think about what we do,
20:55
Speaker 1: it's something different than what they do, and I think
20:58
Speaker 1: we coexist with them quite well. We deliver a high quality,
21:03
Speaker 1: consistent product with the amenities wrapped in service, with all
21:07
Speaker 1: the technology loyalty, and people pay us generally a big
21:12
Speaker 1: premium for that because they, you know, they want that
21:14
Speaker 1: level of consistent, high quality experience. What they do is
21:19
Speaker 1: something different that what they're doing is by definition, you know,
21:22
Speaker 1: doesn't can't have the consistency and the quality and the
21:26
Speaker 1: products and the amenities that are tailor fit because it's
21:29
Speaker 1: just something different. But it doesn't mean it's bad. It
21:31
Speaker 1: just means something. It's it's satisfying a different kind of tripication.
21:35
Speaker 1: So if you look at the numbers, even you know
21:37
Speaker 1: pre COVID we were coexisting quite what we were. We
21:40
Speaker 1: were at the peak levels of performance UM at a
21:44
Speaker 1: time you know where they were growing leaps and bounds,
21:46
Speaker 1: and we weren't really seeing UM significant competitive threat as
21:52
Speaker 1: a result of it. As an investor, UM, should I
21:55
Speaker 1: be looking at the hotel lodging industry is a good
21:57
Speaker 1: area to invest in? I mean, your stocked rely has
22:00
Speaker 1: gone to near all time highs from very low point
22:04
Speaker 1: in time during the COVID period of time. UM, you
22:06
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of growth left in lodging in
22:09
Speaker 1: hotel stocks? Uh that you know, You're one of the
22:11
Speaker 1: smartest investors on us, so I'm not going to give you.
22:14
Speaker 1: And I'm a lowly hotel guy, I like you decide that.
22:18
Speaker 1: I think why the stocks have performed well is UM
22:23
Speaker 1: really quite simple. I think it's an underlying belief that
22:27
Speaker 1: the business broadly will demand in the business in all
22:31
Speaker 1: segments will come back and will ultimately over time grow
22:35
Speaker 1: to be greater than it was before, which I believe,
22:38
Speaker 1: and I think in our case, why we performed well
22:41
Speaker 1: as I think they believe. Investors believe that the decisions
22:44
Speaker 1: we made that we had a very good capital light
22:47
Speaker 1: business that was that was growing faster than anybody in
22:49
Speaker 1: the industry before. The decisions that we made during COVID
22:53
Speaker 1: put us in an even better position where when we
22:55
Speaker 1: get to the other side of it, where a higher
22:58
Speaker 1: market share, higher growth, higher margin business, and um, the
23:03
Speaker 1: market as you and I both know, as a result
23:06
Speaker 1: of a whole bunch of things in terms of discal
23:09
Speaker 1: policy and like, is just looking further forward. And I
23:12
Speaker 1: think when people look forward two and three years, they
23:16
Speaker 1: like what they see in the industry, and I'd like
23:18
Speaker 1: to believe they really like what they see in terms
23:20
Speaker 1: of what we can deliver. You've now been doing this
23:22
Speaker 1: about fourteen years. Count the numbers, right, and you're fifty
23:25
Speaker 1: nine years old. I am so have you thought maybe
23:29
Speaker 1: I should go do something else. I can't do anything
23:31
Speaker 1: better than I'm already doing. I already turned this company around.
23:33
Speaker 1: I've made a lot of money for the investors, the shareholders,
23:35
Speaker 1: and yourself. Are you happy doing this? You're gonna do
23:38
Speaker 1: this for the resieable future. I'm gonna do it for
23:40
Speaker 1: the foreseeable future. I love what I do, And the
23:42
Speaker 1: reality is we've accomplished a lot. As you've described, We've
23:46
Speaker 1: made blacks and a lot of money. We made our
23:48
Speaker 1: shareholders a lot of money. More importantly, we've grown the
23:50
Speaker 1: business and we've been a huge engine of opportunity. If
23:53
Speaker 1: you think about all the jobs we've created around the world,
23:56
Speaker 1: all the communities we've made better places, all the ownership
24:00
Speaker 1: groups who we've helped grow their business and and having
24:03
Speaker 1: built a world class culture, the opportunities we've created for
24:06
Speaker 1: upward mobility for people, and this business I would still
24:10
Speaker 1: say is like a coiled spring coming out of COVID particularly,
24:13
Speaker 1: so I feel like we just have more to do.
24:16
Speaker 1: You know, my job, My job is far from dune.
24:19
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
24:22
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
24:26
Speaker 1: wherever you listen.