Latest / Brand Insiders / Darshana Jariwala of Bridgeton on Connecting the Dots Between Brand, Product, and Experience

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Darshana Jariwala of Bridgeton on Connecting the Dots Between Brand, Product, and Experience · Brand Insiders

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to an exciting episode of Brand Insiders.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joined today by Darshana Jarawala.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: She leads the Center of Excellence for Bridgeton Holdings.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Darshanna, how are you?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me here.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's great to have you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you're in a very unique position leading this center of excellence that I want to get to.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But first, tell us what is Bridgeton Holdings as it relates to the hotel industry.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to focus on the hotel side of it, but just a quick snippet.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Bridgeton Holdings is an umbrella institution above Bridgeton Hospitality, which is a lot of the hotels that you see on our portfolio.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: We have investment arm, we have real estate, amongst other things.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: But hotels is where I'm focused on.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So are you able to cite any of the hotels just to give people a sense of names, geography, brands?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: The ones that I can speak for.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Starting with New York City.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: We are based in New York City, right in Manhattan.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Our offices are in Manhattan.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the key hotels that we we take pride in creating the brand Walker Hotels in Tribeca, Walker in Greenwich Village.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: You've heard of Moram, a super uh popular and a really good example of a brand strategy.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's based in Montauk, um, Journey, East Hampton, uh, Don Ranch, California.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now we are in Miami.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's right across the new stadium.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Sheraton, part of our franchise portfolio.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then we do have other hotels between New Jersey, Midwest.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um we are constantly expanding.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So awesome.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So now tell us about the Center of Excellence.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, Center of Excellence, um, this is something I um yeah, this is not new for me.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've come from CPG World.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as I came into the business, which is um hotels, it's part of the family.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've been behind the scenes watching this business for many years.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and as I came into the business, I realized that we have, while it's a hotels are hotels, but we always are continuing to evolve and continuing to grow in um, especially in the boutique world.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a need to create something that can connect the dot and not just as single departments such as marketing or brand, but we needed to connect the dots and how the impact of brand, owning a brand as well as using marketing as a tool, impacts every area in the business and outside the business, which is our customers.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, Center of Excellence is not a department, it's a strategy and a vehicle to drive the connection and the directives that can continue to grow beyond selling rooms.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're seeing this trend in hotels right now from the brand side, this whole idea of a commercial team, which is uh marketing, public relations, sales, uh, and maybe revenue management as well.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Those sort of four pillars.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it seems like the Center of Excellence goes even further than that in that you're bringing in operations, design, partnerships, everything that uh affects this very complex industry, that is, hotels.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, fabulous question.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love this question so much.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because uh so yes, you're right.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we wouldn't be where we are if we didn't do most of what we are trying to do in a connected form, which is revenue management, um, using marketing tools to do the right things to impact on revenue, having the sales channel, which most of the times it's separated from marketing, um, having the partnership and programming as a nice to have versus must-have kind of a situation, and connecting all of them together.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: But what I am looking at as we evolve and continue to grow in this business is also connecting the dots to product, not just operations, not just external parties, agencies, but the product itself.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that we are building?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Every hotel is different.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: That means every hotel has its own umbrella product and what belongs within that particular location as a hotel.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So my focus goes all the way to definition of brand strategy, but brand strategy based on what we are building.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And design part, design is not about graphic design or designing something that beautifies a space, but design is in everything, whether it's a strategy, whether it's what we are envisioning when a customer is coming in, which is the customer experience.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it stems back to where we come from, which is ultimately your focus is creating an experience on our grounds, whether it's through programming, whether it's through through the space and the building and the physical atmosphere you get, but also when you walk away from where you were.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you should be able to remember that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody is trying to do that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like we are doing something new.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: But here I'm coming coming in and reminding ourselves that we need to go back and look at what we are building as a product versus brand and marketing coming in as an afterthought of building the product.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um I guess the term for that would be vertical integration.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, except um now it's instead of it being vertically integrated across one hotel in a silo, it's vertically integrated across an entire portfolio.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but I do want to make a note on that.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is not about creating a sameness.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is not about if we did something at Walker, it's gonna be the same thing at Moram.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because, again, going back to it, the product is different, the culture is gonna be different, your audience is gonna be different.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: But tying the dots between not just at the brand strategy level, once you have created the product, how do we how do you continue to maintain that?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: A through the through the people on the ground, all the way to housekeeping, anything that the language, the DNA of what we stand for.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the one thing.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: But then also continuing to offer something that still goes in line with the product that we've created.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where connecting the dot is the key on a strategy level as well as what we are executing on a day-to-day basis.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And with that connecting the dots, obviously the end point of all those dots is um prosperity uh in whichever way we define that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it could be defined by accountants in terms of the PL.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it can also be defined in terms of uh your teams to have a better, a better uh career experience, let's call it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um Do you also look at things from that holistic point of view in terms of not just uh what's flowing through on a P ⁇ L into Ebata but or NOI further down, but also in terms of your your people and your teams and how much they enjoy their jobs as well?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: A great example um just a few days ago, somebody on our e-commerce team, um she came out and said, Hey, I think we need to name and it's a pretty large lobby.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And she she and a couple of other people were talking about how we need to change the atmosphere of our lobby.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Fast forward within a few days, you know, she took that chance, and she one of the brand pillars for Walker is taking a bet.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: For example, that's we have every hotel has brand pillars.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: One of the pillars for Walker Hotel is taking a chance.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: We are good at taking chance with things.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: It goes goes with people as well.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and fast forward, she recommended these are the four options.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: What do we want to go with?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we we took it and we went with it, we made the change.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Four days later, we have a new name for the space.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, you could be in accounting, you could be marketing, you could be some completely, you could be an FNB, you could be a chef, but if you have an idea and if you if you want to execute the idea, there is an open door for that as far as it goes in line with the product that we've created and the product that we are going to continue to evolve.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, with all that as a preamble, I want to actually take things back to where the name Bridgeton came from and really talk about this because it is a very great success story uh about how we can build a portfolio and a brand over time really by sticking to the core tenets of hospitality and what that means.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So walk us back to Bridgeton, Missouri, and the start of the holding company and and its hotels and uh how it's proceeded over the decades from there.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm not sure if if I could go into too much of the detail because there are so many phases of how Bridget came around.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: But in summary, Bridgeton came from um a location in Missouri, as you already noted, and it started with family business.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: There was one hotel in um near the airport, St.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Louis Airport.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: There was a hotel in Westport Um Plaza in St.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Louis, all franchise.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um super smaller um brands compared to what that has been built, um, as you can see today.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it goes back to I this is a story um that hasn't been told often, and we don't we don't look back at it often because it's not something that directly impacted the generation that we are in.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But for example, our parents' generation who were also hoteliers, when we look back at where they came from, they came from a state called Gujarat in India.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is where a lot of people with last name patels are from.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you may have heard in the United States there are many patel hoteliers.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the, it's a to me, it it started with of the culture of who we are, two things.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody was a farmer, and it started with farming, and everybody was very hospitable in states.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So Gujaratis are known to be very hospitable community, even within within within Indian states that you you see out there.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of them came to US, they found um this as a as a as a roadside opportunity of like motel world.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the key things that made everybody successful over the generation, could be 10 years, 20 years, is there is a saying called Atiti Devo Bhava.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is we honor our guest.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody who comes through our door, we honor them, we respect them, whether it's 5 a.m.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: or whether it's 11 p.m.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you're you're always being hospitable to anybody who walks through your door.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that culture made us successful, this community of gujaratis that came in.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we watched our parents, our uncles, aunts, everybody that came with nothing, some not educated at all, um, zero English, but somehow they became very successful.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And one common thing that you can find is they were always hustlers, but they also knew how to treat people.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, fast forward, the the bottom line success, the platform for success in the hotel industry for us has been, apart from many other things, is where the culture came from, which is building this space of hospitality.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it came super easy.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't hard, it came from the world of franchise hotels.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then we also noticed that there is a room for creating something special and something different.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So boutique, the the the the the boutique hospitality side of it wasn't a big deal in the 70s and 80s when our parents' generation was there.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then as we grew, this became a stronger version of what we already knew how to offer, but something that we can define on our own and create on our own.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And again, going back to the family side of it, we've been taught to be same no matter where you are, whether it's in California, whether you're in in Montauk, whether you're in New York City, that the principle is same.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's interesting to think about that historical line going all the way back to Gujarat because uh it's a story that we've all sort of feel here in hospitality, but we don't really know it uh down to its core.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's very refreshing to hear it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can I can I can talk about all the strategy.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: I can talk about, you know, because there are so many beautiful hotels.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, so many beautiful boutique hotels out there, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so many successful ones.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the reason I bring out this particular um uh context in the story is because that's not everybody is looking back at, and it's a foundation of who we become.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean it I think it it translates the most into the culture that you bring forward.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And whoever coined it, we say culture eat strategy for breakfast, but having that firm culture then gives that multi-generational success and driving you to innovate and come up with the center of excellence as that true dot connector for modern hospitality.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's all connected, in other words.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So going on, um, one of the brands in your portfolio is the Walker Hotels.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us about uh that brand and um uh how it started, its current portfolio, and and how it's really innovating New York uh lifestyle hotels?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite brands.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm biased, obviously.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um it started on 13th Street.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was uh called a jade.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm sure you've you've seen the history of it, but the brand did not start out as Walker.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um originally when Walker was started, it was really rooted in the neighborhood that it it was developed in.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the experience and the design um was the the pillar in in how that brand was created, and we still continue to to offer that.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: We are the one who and we went into Tribeca 2019, we opened one in Tribeca.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you notice, both the hotels are very different, but it is a one brand.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the key behind that is we go into a neighborhood, we create something that's rooted in the neighborhood, we create something that has its own personality, but still at the end of the day, it is Walker.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Walker could be in, you know, in future, it could be in Atlanta, it could be in San Francisco, but you will see a walker that is going to have its own personality.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the pillars that we created, it also evolved from the starting in 2013 to now in 2027.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: We've realized that we've shifted that brand a little bit, and it was very natural.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was not something that we worked on shifting.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was very natural how we came about where we are today, which is one of the things I always thought Walker was all about design, like visual design.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: But as we continue to evolve into the brand as we are today, it's about the the pillars have slightly shifted.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's about the neighborhood, it's about the chance we take.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also about the the atmosphere that we create.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's always alive.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you walk into the lobby of Walker Hotel, while it's on a quiet street on 13th Street, it still has something that makes it alive.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: The beautification of the um of the space in the stairs, all of that feels alive when you're there.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And same thing in Tribeca.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: I call one, this is personally, one of them is an English sister, and one of them is this very modern and and feisty New York sister, Tribeca sister, because it both of them have different personality.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: But we continue to do the same thing that we do everywhere, which is have its own roots and have its own chances, and we take chances differently based on what it is.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: We do fashion week uh programming right on the street in um next to the hotel.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: We figure out a way to innovate based on the location.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's quite a bit about I I look at Walker as something that that's about neighborhood and it's about taking chance.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um just to fully color that, could you talk about one recent brand initiative for Walker Hotels?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it could be something as small as a new type of cocktail program or some artwork or musicians in-house, anything that can really give us that firm sense of place.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'll I'll speak about both the locations.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, every one of them will have its own personality.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um 13th Street.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of the one of my favorite things about uh there are a few, but there are there is a music studio that most of the people don't know about.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like this very quaint space downstairs in the basement and very hidden gem, um not accessible to everybody, but it is a studio, and you'll get some most some of the most prominent names coming into that studio and doing their thing, hanging out.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, second is the music.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: You'll always hear some kind of jazz music playing in the front lobby or live music that that's being offered.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, is that something new?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, but it does honor the culture of creative environment that you have in Greenwich Village, right?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have theater, you have musicians.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we really embrace that quite a bit in that.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then in terms of the programming, specific programming, there are two that I can speak of.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Talking about the theater, because we not only we have over the years um adopted the theater and film as a part of our um, it's it's part of who we are over there, and about to also potentially do a project that that I cannot speak of, but it it has some theater reference behind it.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: We did uh um the team, all credit to our team, very, very creative, very innovative marketing and and um and operations team at both hotels.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the initiatives that 13th Street did was Room 204.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks to our GoPr team, who's our you know, who represent um who represents all our PR initiatives, uh, between the two agency as well as a hotel, they created a concept called Room 204.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it had guest invites um once a week.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: We we partnered with um uh with artists and we had a theatrical rep, you know, like a show in the room.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was it was very it became um it became it's something that no other hotel has done.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: We I haven't seen that happening, and so I find that as we take chances, but we are taking chances with with relevance.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another thing that our chef does in Society Cafe, um, which he doesn't over advertise, but it's very special.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: He truly is very embedded into um the Union Square Market, works with the farmers.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: When when we do um field and feast, there are these local farmers that he reaches out and he works with them, and they are the ones who are creating the concepts and programming.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: But we don't we don't talk about it often, but I it that to me is is a really beautiful connection between our chef and the local market as well as the farming community that's around, and agriculture being one of one of the things that's close to my heart.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, farming culture in New York, state of New York.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot to be said there.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Many restaurants and many stores do these things, but to do it quietly and to continuously doing it, you know, it's it's sense of, you know, I feel pride in that.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then in Tribeca, that's a whole different story.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we do all sort of things, but you may have seen recently in the last couple of years.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if you can't make a runway inside the building, we make runway outside the building.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: So again, credit to the team.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: But we've created the runway next to the hotel.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: We shut down the street and we make that as a we do fashion shows there.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um we are about to do, start doing on the rooftop as well.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the things we do.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: If the space is small, we still figure out how to be creative within those spaces.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, well, they often say that um creativity needs to have a lens.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess the the more tightly wound you are in terms of your framework, the more creative you get in order to solve what to do with that space or that budget or whatever those parameters are to that you have to work within.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we also believe in giving opportunities to to the partners that are out there or to to continue to grow partners because this that's what it is about, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: You you're you know, you're building businesses around each other, and this is how sometimes uh it may not be a direct impact, but there's an impact that that these hotels try to make, and it's not just Walker hotels.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I probably can speak for many other hotels that that exist in tight cities like New York.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, New York, not everybody is that big.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but the note of farmers markets in New York, a little bit counterintuitive because it's such a big city, but yeah, drawing on the local par produce and then as well tying that over to the rest of the hotel hotel portfolio where you have places that people would more readily identify with that farm hospitality movement, such as Dawn Ranch.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So can you talk a little bit about some of the more unique properties that are in your portfolio as well?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when I say unique, um it's just the defining to the ground that it was built on, right?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um going before going to Dawn Ranch, I'll talk about Moram a little bit, because I was recently uh we are doing something called design dialogue series.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: This may be steering a question in the future that you were going to ask, maybe, but um this design dialogue series was stemming stemming from um, you know, a lot of hotels do some kind of experiences.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the experiences is fireside chats.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and this year we took that to a different level.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: We are trying to create a community of conversations, and in this case, it's designing around different topics and specifically focused on architects and interior designers.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that last series that was focused on modernism that exists in Hamptons in the Eastern Corridor, and how the building around the concept of modernism, um, one of the architects made a statement that one thing we don't do often is honor the grounds that we are building something on.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this applies to both Moram and Don Ranch.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you have an opportunity to honor the ground that you've built and how it seamlessly blends into that, that land is extremely important.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't believe every hotel development is doing that.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is not about uh who's doing better, but those two to me are very special.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Don Ranch in Moram speaks to that concept, which is you have really taken into what you were about to walk on, which is whether it's the grass that is so special at Moram, the ocean, the land, the sand, the dunes, all of it.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And instead of just creating a mega huge building and making it super fabulously um modern, we went in and looked at what is it that that our customer has experienced in the past when it was something else, and what are we adopting that hasn't been adopted before?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: So while making it a luxury environment, we still made it a barefoot luxury.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, that is doing something unique.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Moram, for example, the name stems from that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we honor honor the ground that it has been built on and will continue to do that.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing with Dawn Ranch.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Dawn Ranch has evolved from where we started to now.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's become it the that's another topic with even creating the brand strategy.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Brand strategy never sticks completely, 100% as you start out.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: It goes with anything, whether it's hotels or product, right?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: You continue to evolve.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: But Dawn Ranch has really proven that theory where where we started from where we are, including recognizing that when you do things that gives you a sustainability initiative, for example, we were looking at the land that we were on, whether it's the thousand-year-old um uh redwood trees, whether it's the hundreds of year-old apple um trees there, the orchards, how we are building the pools on those grounds.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: But we truly brought the the properties, it's 20, 22 acre total, but we are truly bringing out the environment that it's built on versus hotel is just part of the environment.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: To me, what we are good at keeping is what it was before.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And while keeping what it was there, we just happen to be an accessory.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: I call Don Ranch is an accessory to the space that is in.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like that you bring it coast to coast and with Maram going back to sort of the modern abuse of the term sense of place, and then looking at that as being the cure, whereby you're really designing from the ground up from what the guests haven't experienced yet in that area, particularly with a place like Montauk, where you have people driving out from the city, from New York City, and they've been going there for 30, 40 years.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh if if they're older or maybe only five to ten, but this giving them something they haven't experienced and then sort of cross-pollinating from the barefoot luxury space, which is more much more prominent in the Mediterranean or Southeast Asia, and bringing that experience closer to home for them.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one thing I do want to point out, um I call Dawn Ranches an accessory to the environment, but apart from then, it is an invitation.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: What we say is you're invited here to curate yourself and to find your own creativity because that's what we we are constantly um wellness is such a uh, you know, I guess it's so widely used.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I I wouldn't want to use that term, but you know, going beyond, you know, going to spa and experiencing things that makes you feel like you've disconnected, you know, the point is not to say disconnect from everything.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: The point is to say find yourself when you're on our ground.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I believe Don Wrench does is find yourself, find the next few days, make it about yourself versus trying to go to a destination.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So from that uh that core design principle of helping guests find themselves or be inspired to live better back at home, or I guess the buzz term now is transformative travel.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: How does the center of excellence help to enhance that guest experience?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very well said.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there are two layers to it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: There is a strategic layer and then there is the the day-to-day execution layer.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I go back to again, I haven't used the word process yet because it just makes everything, you know, to to it it almost sounds boring when you use those words processes and workflows.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: But part of my experience also comes from thinking about creative and being uh very brand forward, very marketing forward.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I also focus heavily on processes and efficiencies, but not just in in a traditional operational sense, but also when you're bringing something to life at the inception stage, which is building the product itself, building the brand, how do we really focus on creating something that's gonna happen on an ongoing basis, whether it's the experience, so stargazing, for an example, um, we can talk about it, we can market it, but how we are really making it truly experiential, experiential while on the grounds, that is that also requires work.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that requires coordination.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And now this goes into more like a process kind of uh thinking.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: But that that process is important, you know, stakeholders are important, who is doing what is important at the end of the day.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Even the creative and and um um experiential things requires method to the madness.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes there's a lot of chaos while we are trying to do all these fun stuff and good things, but that chaos requires consistency and repeatability.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that repeatability doesn't have to be uh stagnant for years and years to come because we need to continue to evolve.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, stargazing experience this year can be a different type of stargazing experience next year.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: But how can you create when you create that change versus making sure it's running seamlessly on a day-to-day basis, that's important too.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where center of excellence comes in.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Creating the dots between, yes, designing, but also creating the dot with between the process and the stakeholders.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's something if you are a large environment like myriads or or Hilton's of the world, um, it I'm not saying better or good, but you are built like a ship, right?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: You have systems in place, you have processes in place.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are also big enough where we do have systems, a lot of tools and lots of talent, lots of things that are happening.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: But often in running, because at the end of the day, down and dirty, it is the hotels that we are running, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the focus goes from really getting structured and and and and smooth in terms of daily operations as well as, you know, it's a rooms.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, people are coming here to stay in your rooms.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: But everything else that goes along with it, it's kind of sometimes when it comes to efficiencies, it's a sort of not as important.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I say this very openly because it's not just whether it's us or somebody else.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you see the same story.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just hotels, you see the same story in the product world too, no matter how big you get.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: But do being creative, uh being innovative, but with some kind of method to the to the to the madness, as I used that earlier, is just going to add to your success.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's also important as a part of Center for Excellence.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that you mentioned um the other industries, because this goes right back to your background in uh CPG, compute uh consumer packaged goods.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm wondering if you could just give us a quick background on how your background in other industries really gives you a unique perspective for the Center of Excellence and for uh uh Bridgeton Holdings overall.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: So very quick um synopsis.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: I used to be in the agency side of the world that worked with many uh CPG brands.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say agencies, um these agencies were pre-media companies um that focuses on two several different things, but super heavily focused on production and manufacturing, as well as a lot of creative.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I happen to, I've I've lucked, I've been lucky enough to be in roles where um super technical roles in my early part of my career um, you know, requires a lot of data and analytic um understanding in terms of how something looks on the shelf, as well as um sales and business development, and then going into the consulting side of consumer product goods space.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I've I've had pleasure to work uh with clients that are pretty large, such as PepsiCo, Procter and Gamble, um Colgate, Denone, um so many out there and so many beautiful brands, whether it's pharmaceutical, um, you know, food, fashion, all sorts of things.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing that I have learned in my um career is how you look at every single department, doesn't matter what company it is, and going back to concept and inception of an idea to how it ends up in hands of customers or beyond the experience of using that product.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: That is what I apply to the world of hotels.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you a quick example.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of my biggest experiences and quickest and biggest experience was working with brands looking at their um whole chain, the journey of packaging.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: When I say packaging, it's product.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, what you see on a shelf, you know, a bottle or a packaging, doesn't matter what you're buying.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, it has to be, it has to be a um manufactured, it has to be created, there is regulatory involved, there is marketing involved, there is engineering involved, there is agencies involved, there is manufacturing involved, supply chain, um, all there are 14 to 15 departments.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I had pleasure to touch a product going from all these departments, and that my job was to look at where we can create efficiencies, where can we make something look better.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: So those are very two different things.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're looking for financial efficiencies, you're looking for um process efficiencies, but you're also looking for something which needs to look great and which needs to sell.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that is the key.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Connecting the dots between all of this really taught me how to look at, or at least had pleasure, to learn from that experience how to apply that to any industry.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter where I go.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: So even in my own business as a stakeholder in some of these hotels, one of the things I look at is, you know, it's not just a operation, it's not just a marketing.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's I've I've touched based on that a little bit earlier.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: But if I am doing a partnership, this brings me back to experiences and partnership.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: If a partnership is one of the things a lot of hotels are doing is bringing all these experiential activations on their ground.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Example, one of the examples I use that a lot is you look at Gurney's, who has been doing Dolce and Gabbana, that activation, um, or anything else that you see, all these very high-end brands going into the hotels and they're doing takeovers.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is just the one example, but there are small-scale takeovers or one-day activations out there.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there is a financial and marketing ROI that that gets attached to it.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: In traditional sense, I'm only thinking about myself, right?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: If it's about my business and my hotel, what does it matter?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: They are there for three days, and sure, I got money and they got an experience and they left, right?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: What I do think, and what I am promoting within our business, is when you are inviting a brand to be part of our space, whether it's for two or three days, what I am wanting to focus, along with yes, there is that few thousand dollars you're gonna get from them being on our grounds, but I really would like to see what impact that brand walked away with and what did they achieve while they were there.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, again, talking about this takeover, and we do do this, whether it's large space or small space, we, you know, that's the game of creating a data and insight-driven marketing campaigns.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, that's the job of the brand itself.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: But here I'm thinking, I'm a hotelier, I want to build things.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm thinking I'm not able to speak to those things right now, but the innovation can go beyond building a hotel that can expand into a long-term partnership with some of the really large names out there, and it creates a whole new experience on a long-term basis for our customers, even potentially bringing theater and films into building a hotel.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um, one of the wish lists I have is that.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: But just just going back to CPG world, it really it really um taught me how to look at the scalability of an experience or scalability of what you're putting out there and um bringing it back again in a different shape and form.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: So this may be a long about explanation, but yeah, so those are the things that I'm trying to enforce.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think um, you know, to bring it back to the scaling of these partnerships and these activations is they are very hard to set up and there's no real sense of an ROI on them for an individual hotel, but the Center of Excellence can provide that verifiable ROI because you can deploy and adapt the same playbook for one hotel to another location across the portfolio.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: This the approach stays, right?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: The the across, I'm now going to use the process, down and dirty.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: The process stays the same.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: The way we think stays the same.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: What we do from one hotel to other hotel is not the same.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning, what we are building, the concept, ideation, and who we work with and who we build on our grounds will be different.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the the approach and the mindset will still stay the same.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: If this has worked here in New York City or at Moram, there is no reason we cannot do the same somewhere else.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: But what we are doing is going to be different.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's uh that's that's beautiful because so many hotels want to get into the activations and property takeover game, but it's so hard to set up uh and to keep running on anything sustainable that then offers the ROI for the guests in terms of their experience as well as the brand that is hoping to make this a recurring venture for them.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just a very simple example.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a minute, um I'll go back to something that I I, you know, first-handed um heard, you know, last week from these community of designers, interior designers, and architects that we are hosting this uh 10 to 12 sessions with partnership with an agency that that works with um, you know, the world of architecture and interior design.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I, and these are very big no names that are coming as speakers, and one of the things, a beautiful things that I heard from one of the architects who was a speaker and said there's this world is so big in New York City is filled with some of the largest names, and we have big um uh speaking engagements happening, a lot of things happening.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: But what's not happening is in a laid-back, still super nice environment, just sitting and having a conversation and post-conversation, having a three-hour dinner with a bunch of strangers, but those are mine like extrangers, there are that that design community and the culture of hosting that community does not exist.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's so transactional and it is so um, how do you call it, so boxed that it's not authentic.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the key word is building a stepping stone towards creating the culture of community, not just for advertisement and marketing, but truly building that community.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what I'm doing at Moram, I will not do the same, same version of it at Dawn Ranch, because again, it goes back to I'm not trying to replicate that same exit concept.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm replicating the idea, but not the same thing.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: So Dawn Ranch will have its own version.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: If I do do that, New York Fashion Week, I will probably do something similar, but it is going to have a different type of audience, different people, different environment, and even the format is going to be different because A, it's a different place and B, it's a different topic.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, and I like that that it's centered around, I guess, that concept of a culture of community, uh, insofar as that specific um core thrust, that core raw human emotion that we're trying to tap into, and seeing that need uh for a hotel space to really fill that gap in a lot of interesting ways.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to divert here and uh talk about something that maybe is a little bit anti-scale.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this is Don Ranch's green key certification.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and this is something where it is very hard to achieve uh to get sustainability at this level, and it sort of has to be tackled on a one-to-one level, even though there is a guideline to scale that certification.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Can you unpack uh the programming that helped get Don Ranch that sustainability and then how that fits into a broader brand strategy rather than it just being a standalone initiative?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll step back.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's like anything else.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mentioned earlier, when you're creating a brand and when you're designing a brand, whether it's Walker, Dawn Ranch, or Moram, what it starts out, it does evolve at some point.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um same thing happened with the sustainability initiative.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: How I started thinking about it and how I started it, it evolved by the time we uh got to the success point of it, or I would say it successfully got the certification, all credit goes to the team on the ground.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um without them, you wouldn't, there was just no way.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was a lot of work.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I will I will say that it's first of all, it's in California, state of California.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it is it is not an easy thing.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, the the the requirements are different, the regulations are different, a lot of things.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, to build a hotel there in that kind of environment, it's already difficult enough.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it's uh it's uh it's a good and a bad situation because you already are covered in in some of the requirements that you need for these certifications.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: But stepping back even from the hotel industry, just going back into the CPG, I was heavily involved in projects where we look at um manufacturing lines and you look at um how we are doing, how much we are throwing out.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: So just an example for one company, and and this gave me this it this gave me an idea of how you can um use A, yes, you're doing it for impact, but that impact also has to give a return.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, it is the business that you're running.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: So to your point, the anything we we do, we don't want to make it contradictory.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: And in CPG world, when the whole big train of sustainability as a as a buzzword started, there were not many who were truly doing it.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a a privilege to work with a a uh um V Corp certified very large client in the United States, and one of their initiatives was How can I stop throwing out 11 million dollars yearly of unfinished material goods, which is before the product goes in, there is this printed material that sits on the floor, and often you have to throw it out.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: And this has nothing to do with just how much waste it's happening.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's everything to do with beginning to end of the process, which is the journey of when a when a product is started, um, how the sales and marketing team is is strategizing, marketing is brand is building it, and by the time they launch the SKU, sales team is coming in, my forecast is changing.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I need to now, I don't need 200,000 on the shelf that I forecasted.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right there, you throw out.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Also, when you're creating something in the process of, there's a lot of back and forth in the pro in and you know, legal team don't look at something and you have to go back and change.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: In whole of this chain, there's a lot of impact that happens up front at the front stage of the business.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: But then as it goes down the line, there's also an impact from the manufacturing side of it, which is how your contracts are made with your suppliers.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if that is a certain volume, you're gonna you have to produce a certain volume and then you have to trace throw certain things.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's an innovation side of it.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the CPEO of the company at the time, he is one of my mentors in the industry.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things he said, Torshana, can you figure out a way where we make the manufacturing faster?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: So fast forward, how we design something has to also align with what we how we were, the systems were used in manufacturing.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: So can we move the factory from um Ohio to Salt Lake City to cater towards the manufacturing site?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much you think along the way to impact that$11 million in waste.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, because of this experience, we had to, whenever we suggested a system or an idea, it had to be driven by the results.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's not just qualitative, it has to be quantitative as well.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it went back to the the hotel in Dawn Ranch.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Before Dawn Ranch, it started in New York City.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: So lots of companies, especially credit card companies, how are they?
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is not a news to any other hotels.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: You go through RFP processes, and some of our RFPs, we weren't meeting the scores because, you know, New York City hotels, there's so much, uh, you you deal with so many restrictions.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: You trying to even get a certification just to get a certification, that's not a smart move often.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you're trying to fill out these forms, and a couple of sales team members came to me and they said the director of sales here in Walker Hotels, um, she kept on saying, she's like, DJ, um, we we are, you know, we lost this bid because we didn't, we were under 50% on on our sustainability score.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how actually this initiative started, is I started looking at what are our chances to do this.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: So my goal was to actually get Walker Hotels uh on board with with attaining some kind of certification.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: It turned into looking at Dawn Ranch because what I realized is out of all our portfolios, Dawn Ranch A is deserving, in my opinion, to do the process quicker because they're already there partly.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: You are in Guernville, Sonoma, you are in California, you already cover some of the requirements.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, you don't just get a certification because if you know uh it's nice to have.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's an impact.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: Also, what are your audience really caring about?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: 56%.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: This was three years ago, that the 56% of travelers care about the eco-friendliness in the in hotel.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because that doesn't matter what type of certification, they cared about the what hotel is doing and how they are doing things.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the same rate of audience you get in New York City when it comes to the transient travelers.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: So now you have this two different agendas, corporate versus transient.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it made sense when I look at the Dawn Ranch as a business, it made sense that we can increase, we were getting more groups and events, but we needed to increase our transient traffic as well, which we still continue to, you know, you continue to do that.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the ways this was a kind of a strategy that, hey, we can not only make an impact, but we are now also going to be able to use this as a part of our marketing and the brand and and and get that, you know, it's a more like an indirect impact, but it's still an impact getting your transient customers, you know, customers who care.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Since then, I've been checking some data and it's absolutely gone up, especially when it comes to the state of California.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: So aroundabout, it is not about always doing the right thing, which I say this boldly.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in sustainability very highly, and I'm one of the big champions of that, but I'm also the champion of where you're doing sustainability, how you're doing, who you're doing for, and what's the feasibility of doing that.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, you're in the business of of of running something and not going out of out of your, you know, you don't want to run out of your profit.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, but it's uh it's a very good point to talk about it from the customer expectation back into what's actually implement implemented on the ground for sustainability.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um just to drive the emphasis, in the middle there, you mentioned a statistic about uh how much guests care about eco-friendly hotels.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: What was that statistic that you found?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just to repeat it.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: At that time, it was approximately 56% of the travelers, yeah.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: From that wasn't specific to state of California.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you all your transient traveler from California?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: But at least within the state of California, that's the that's a kind of um data point that that we we found.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and you you think about that one statistic and then how that can be put through the center of excellence to reflect everything on the commercial side to the product side, and then developing a process to find similar statistics that may reinforce or counteract that statistic for other markets.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the funny thing is I say this to people, whether you're an accountant or whether you're a sustainability champion, or whether you're a brand maker, you're a designer, or you're just a revenue manager, it doesn't matter.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: But everything you do and the reason to do, you have to find the both sides of it, right?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: You want to have fun and you want to be creative and you want to have like nice to have, that's the key word.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, the impact needs to be there.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that impact has to be multifaceted.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: It can't be just one.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's that's so true for every aspect of hotel operations.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's all inter interconnected in these obvious or uh indirect ways.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: So looking ahead now, uh, we've talked a lot about the initiatives you have under under your belt right now at the Center of Excellence.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: But where do you see this going over the next three to five years?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I can what I I mean, there is I kind of quickly um uh how do I say it without saying anything, I I had I had I had pointed in a direction that um we internally as a family also quite often talk about some some ideas that are brewing uh that connects the hotels into other experiences, lifestyle world, and sort of brewing some ideas around it.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: But at least what I can speak about is um how you know the most immediate things that that I can see happening is how going back to if we are looking at a portfolio, and we do do this today, it's nothing new, but really strengthening and and in two areas from overall journey of taking over a business or building a new business or new hotel, for example, um how we are planning upfront in inserting every area that needs to be focused, even if it comes later on, but bringing them to the upfront.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like I just said something about legal and regulatory teams should be looking at how many blueberries you're gonna about to put on that packaging and then not wait for six months to point that out.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's as simple as that, but also looking at changing the way of not some things are afterthought, but changing that and bringing it to the upfront in the stage when we are thinking of taking over or or thinking, and we sometimes have you know agencies that helps us think for us, but what it doesn't connect the dot it we are in putting a lot of effort in in that front end of thinking, but at that same stage, we are not thinking of how it's gonna impact that downstream all the way at the end of the stream six months later.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's something we definitely want to continue to to build and change.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I can also sort of say is um at at Bridgeton um from the hotel side of it, um, starting more on the design front, how we look at design.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm not saying we're introducing a design team.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what I want this this call to walk away with, but um it is it is some one of my focus is also going quite a bit um building a product from the down, you know, from the ground up and thinking how it will behave three, four years from now, not just from audience's perspective, but from our own business perspective as well.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: So from end to end.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, end-to-end.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna use the word holistic, uh, same thing.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about uh the design uh per se, but uh what's the programming within that space?
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna make a space that can be adapted to future use cases and how are we gonna fit through lines like what you talked about, this culture of community to drive a lot of the partnerships and activations that are being led by the Center of Excellence?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Those sorts of things, I guess.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just the most these are more basic, these are more need driven.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um but like I said, when it comes to innovative thinking, I'm not I'm not uh at liberty to to to speak about them, but there are a couple of cool things that are going to happen through Bridgeton.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, yeah, well I mean, uh, you know, but we'll look for them and it'll be exciting for us.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I guess to finish off here, uh what aside from what you're working on at the Center of Excellence and at Bridgeton, what industry trends are you excited about?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a tough one.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: I do I do think uh people are going back to the this is sounding super basic, but people are going back to a little bit basics when it comes to what you expect when you are on somebody's ground.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's that's something I feel like we as hoteliers have quite a bit walked away from.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I can see that the way we behave and the way we operate is gonna shift back a little bit to what the traditional way of experiencing a hospitality is.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I see that as a trend.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even a new trend.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's like taking a full circle back, and it's it's gonna come back for focusing on the most smallest things that you feel versus how you feel when you walk away from that place and not just when you are on the grounds.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's definitely, I think that trend is coming.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing about bringing, and not because I am in the business of agriculture, but um I do think you are going to see more shift in in not the urban hotels, but you are going to see more and more a desire to experience farming, desire to experience not farm to table specifically, but desire to experience how something is being created as a whole community and living and going in that space.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a small village, and this may be far-fetched out in the future.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe there are things already happening happening on the eastern side.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: The hotel may be very small, but it's a part of the the village that you're experiencing a full thing, and and hotels just happen to be the rooms, but it's part of a small environment.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like people are going to want to experience more of that inclusive of agriculture on your land.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I I guess the term I've used for that is community stewardship.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we sort of become homogenized, where you can find a Starbucks in the middle of Central Asia and it's the same menu as you what you get in New York City, sort of thing.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I would say this is not a a a perfect answer that I'm giving you today because this may be just applying to the, as I said, it's a non-urban environment, right?
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: But people are going to travel.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at how many places just in upstate New York that recently has popped up.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I am glad that it is happening.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's very reachable to to a big city like New York.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think people are going to, you're going to see an increased amount of um uh travelers that that are going out to experience these things.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: And having that, also another thing is having that in your arm's length, being able to reach to those destinations, don't have to fly out to all the way to the other side of the country to experience something like that.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's also, I think, going to become more and more important.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just an example of it, something that's that really stood out to me in Waco, Texas.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, last year I was there.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a very historical home from Hudson, New York.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: It got moved, literally moved, down to Waco, Texas.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: It has six rooms in it, and it's completely driven.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody there attending, very digitized, refurbished, but it's a historical home, moved to Waco, Texas.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hotel.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: So just finding the uniqueness of things too, I think people are gonna look for that, but that's for uh desire to try something, right?
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: Desire to try something new.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to, hey, living in, you know, coming at a hotel in New York City, I don't think that really applies to coming to New York and wanting to try, you know, that kind of experience is is relevant and realistic.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm speaking more in terms of of those kind of things that you can go outside of the city and try.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's uh there's so many different types of travel.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what we are talking about is a is a very strong emerging type of leisure travel, but also maybe corporate retreat, wedding uh groups.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's always gonna be the uh bread and butter corporate travel to big cities for various reasons where they want that back to basics.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: They want that um, you know, the the lighting that that is intuitive and works, uh a soundproof room, maybe some good on-site F and B for the 10 minutes of downtime they have, and then they're off to their day for cramming in as many meetings as possible.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's exactly what we are.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: I hate to admit it, but that's what we sell, like Dawn Drange, not just for, hey, come time, you know, come on our grounds, take time off, uh, and this is your vacation.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, we are selling that to the the the corporate travelers too, and we are we are constantly pitching what that offer looks like when you are doing your meetings.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so with those trends in mind, is there anything else important uh to mention before we uh wrap up?
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, there are a couple of things.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know that this is a buzzword.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we didn't we didn't touch base on the on the topic of AI.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things, uh yeah, one of the things, uh two things as a closing note, uh, you know, I am not one of those people who um who is who is all about, hey, we need to apply AI to everything.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I am one of the one of the people within Bridgeton who is constantly speaking about, you know, AI.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe every hotel that is working on this, there's a lot of focus on the operational side of how we can leverage this and how we can um use it to the best advantage.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: But and this is nothing new, but I do want to make a note to anybody who listens out there AI is not just about bringing efficiencies within your operations, but it's also about bringing some of these experiences and things to light.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: It will not create the experiences for you, but not everybody is going to focus right away in utilizing what those tools and opportunities that are out there in a right way.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: And center of all of this is your people.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: And unless and until we don't have our basics down and what is it that we are trying to achieve and do, including the experience for the customer, none of the AI is going to do the good job.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can implement it in your accounting and in your systems for you know, reservations, all of that.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: But beyond, there is a whole big room to play and part of Center of Excellence, we are playing with that right now, utilizing the way we can and and also training.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's other thing about you asked me about people.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's something, something that we uh often miss to do is uh before implementation, understanding what our people, our team members are doing things today and how they are doing versus giving them a way of doing through AI.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it this is just a small top, small touch base on that AI, but it's a it's a it's part of what what a Center of Excellence is also doing.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so awesome.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's uh very good point to finish on.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I guess I didn't bring it up because it's mentioned everywhere.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: But yes.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a buzzword, and and at the end of the day, this business is about people.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to focus on that.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh amen.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's always about people and always will be.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I love some of the points you've mentioned throughout about uh some of the more unique ways that we're enhancing our properties, which still comes down to people, process, and that's what the Center of Excellence is all about.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: Darshana, DJ, thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's been fantastic to speak with you for a full hour.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for having me.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was lovely speaking with you.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.