Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #345: Hotel Worker Strikes, The Luxury Boom, and A.I. Rollouts in Hotels | with Simone Harms
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #345: Hotel Worker Strikes, The Luxury Boom, and A.I. Rollouts in Hotels | with Simone Harms === Steve Carran: Welcome to another episode of Modern Hotelier Hospitality Hot Topics, where we're gonna go through what happened this month in October in hospitality. Don't forget to follow, like, subscribe, and let us know in the comments what you think about today's episode. Today, we are joined by Simone Harms, managing director from The Ameswell Hotel. Hey, Simone. How we doing today? Simone Harms: Absolutely great. Thank you for having me on the podcast. Steve Carran: You bet. You bet. So we're gonna kick it off with something that's been happening over the last month or two, but has escalated here in October, and that's hundreds of union hotel workers are on strike in Chicago. It's including the Hilton Chicago, the Hyatt Regency Chicago, and the disputes reflect wider concerns among around 7,000 workers across 46 hotels over wages, benefits, healthcare, pensions, protections, and workloads. Simone, kicking it off to you first, what do we think about this? And as somebody who's on the hotel side, are we gonna see more of these strikes come up maybe over the next year or two? Simone Harms: You know, I can't predict that, and this is definitely a very difficult topic, right? I cannot and I will not weigh in on another company's bargaining table and what's happening in Chicago. I'm also too far removed. I can just tell you lessons for the operators are that, you know, stay close to your team and when, you know, you have your people delivering experiences, you need to make sure they're taken care of, right? And everything else will follow. and it's always a very hard time, a situation like that for both the operators as well as the employees. So certainly my thoughts are with them. It's tough. Steve Carran: Absolutely. I think that's some great advice. David, what are your thoughts here? David Millili: Yeah. Well, having run hotels but not run a union hotel, but having worked in New York City, look, there's two sides to every coin. I mean, I've heard situations where, you know, employees wanted more money to-- because they actually had a credit card swipe on their keyboard rather than going over and putting a credit card into a machine. And then I've heard the other side where there's, you know, obviously situations where employees are getting taken advantage of. So I think there's two sides, and I think that, you know, hopefully, cooler heads prevail and everybody kinda comes away with a win rather than one side feeling like they're losing. Steve Carran: Agree. David Millili: So what's happening and was really surprising to me is I didn't realize how many people were making 30, were worth 30 million plus. And luxury and the people that are traveling, luxury just keeps growing. So Steve, we've interviewed many, many people, so what are your thoughts on some of the drivers on why luxury just keeps growing? Steve Carran: Yeah, there were a few things that kinda really stood out in this article for me. One was how fast the high net worth population is growing. It grew about 29% from 2021 to 2026, and the ultra-luxury room supply only grew 2.3% in 10 years from 2015 to 2025. So, you know, the ultra-luxury population is growing extremely quick, it seems like, but the, you know, the experiences and the ultra-luxury segments not really growing that quickly yet. But I also think another thing that was interesting was how people are placing travel and luxury travel specifically over luxury goods. And then kinda, as David, we've talked about this, how guests really want privacy, space, wellbeing, and, the wellness side as well, which is becoming so popular and, wellness travelers spend about 38% more on trips, than other international travelers. So I think kinda those three things, those combinations are why luxury is growing so quickly and why it's gonna probably continue to grow as one of the fastest growing areas of travel. But Simone, what are your thoughts on this one? Simone Harms: No, I think you touched all the right points, right? It's all about the experiences. luxury guests, they aren't just buying like a thread count, right? Not the goods, but it's all about how a place and a person makes them feel, right? That's what it's all about. we've seen it even during the COVID pandemic, right? the luxury experience, I think in times of uncertainty especially, people still splurge on experiences, right? Because, again, you're dealing with their feelings, right? And it's also about personalization, I think you touched on as well. It's like, do I remember how you take your coffee, right? it's all these little details that just will make that segment growing. Steve Carran: Absolutely. Well said. Well said. So, a new h2c study came out recently that found 91% of hotel chains are already using AI, but only about 20% have a company-wide strategy. Since most reported benefits are operational and just 13 of chains reported measurable ROI. So Simone, I'm curious about what you thought about this article, and then I'd also know, I mean, You're beta testing technology and AI in your hotel. Can you tell us a little bit more about that as well? Simone Harms: Yeah, absolutely. So I think every software provider is coming out with some sort of AI element, right? Be it your PMS, be it your, you know, your, your sales, your PMS, it's really all over the place, and some of them are really not good, and some of them are really good. And it's, like, really difficult sometimes to sort through all the noise. I get, in any given day, I think at least five to 10 companies reach out to me with a new AI product, and that will make apparently the customer experience better, faster, more personalized, you name it. And I think it's very difficult, because you wanna lean in, right? And I think AI has such a huge potential, which is one of the reasons why we are beta testing. But how do you, like, possibly demo all of that, these new products that are out there, right? And really getting the real use out there. What I find as well is you have two kind of people developing these softwares. Some of them, they come from a tech perspective, and it sounds good, and maybe the tech is good, but you can tell that these individuals have never worked a day in their life in a hotel. And you can tell by the product that the, usability of it, it's just, not gonna happen. And then you have people that come from the hospitality side, that really get it, maybe though their tech is not that good because, they don't have that background. So I think you really need to, merge those two to make really good technology. and then also, you know, I think how we do business will shift through AI, right? Because at the end of the day, I think it will shift a little bit, I don't wanna say the power, but at the end of the day, hotels, I'm the one that have to test the data lake, right? I have all the data about the customers, and I think in the future, I will no longer need some of the intermediaries, right? That are right now multimillion dollar companies, but they don't own the data, that's me. So, and I know they are throwing a lot of money out there right now to be fast and to develop tools that we'll still need, but it's a very interesting time, so I'm really curious actually where that goes. Steve Carran: I have a follow-up question because, it says in here 13% of chains reported measure of measurable ROI. I know you're not part of a chain, but when you're evaluating AI companies, do you ask them for measurable ROI and examples of how they've provided ROI? Or, if they haven't, say they're a newer company and it's more of a prototype and it isn't live in a lot of hotels, does that reflect your decision, or do you have to see that measurable ROI examples? Simone Harms: No, it's a combination. I think some are just, to streamline processes rather than really a direct ROI. so it's a combination depending on what the tool is supposed to do. Steve Carran: Fair enough. Fair enough. David, what do you think about this? We just got back from Destination AI a few weeks ago. What do you think about all this? David Millili: Yeah, I'm kind of the grumpy old man here. I mean, AI to me is kind of like the dot com era where in 2000 everyone was trying to figure out what did this mean and what should we be doing. And I would argue that 26 years later, as an industry, we're not doing a great job when it comes to just basic things like our websites, our SEO, or the, booking journey, email marketing, things of that nature. So the adoption is there, it's the shiny object, but I just have been kind of preaching. I was on a webinar earlier, last week I should say, and I said there's a couple things. It's coming. AI is here. It's not going anywhere. But get your house, we were talking about our foundation, in order. Make sure that there's certain things that you've got in place that you're covered, because if you're focused on AI but your email marketing and your website is not in order, you're still gonna miss out on something. So again, when I look at it, I look at it in a way that you've got two segments that will tell you everything you need to know about what you should be doing. That's your guest and that's your employees. So if you listen to your guest and you listen to your employees, that'll help you navigate. Yes, you gotta pick the right partner, you gotta pick the right technology, but I just am kind of a little nervous that the big players are gonna spend the money, and everyone thinks that AI is gonna revolutionize the, booking journey, and, we have to wake up as an industry on the independent hotel side if we want that to happen, and not just sit back and think it's gonna happen when others are investing a lot of money to make sure they get that piece of the pie. Steve Carran: I agree 100%. When I was reading this, I thought the numbers I was reading was actually backwards. I thought 91% of chains had a strategy and 28% were implementing it, but it's reversed. I can't believe that, 91% of people have AI in their properties but don't have a strategy behind, but only a quarter have a strategy behind it. I feel like you should have a strategy before the implementation begins, but I guess we'll see what happens. David Millili: all right, so tell us about The Ameswell and what's new at your property. Simone Harms: What's new at our property? Well, there's quite a bit. We have an immersive dining experience, which if you've never done that before, I might say that we have the best. It's called 17 Things, and it's a real kind of 3D. The other immersive dining experience where it's just essentially a movie that's on your, on your plate, but ours, it really has, puzzle-solving and art education while enjoying a seven-course meal. So it's a little bit different. It's really fun. We also lean into our neighbor right across the street, NASA Ames. That's who gave us our name. So we do have a curated NASA dinner, which is a nice four or five-course dinner. again, it's specifically curated to, like, a small group. And then it's followed up with a stargazing experience. We have a partner Unistellar, and it's really neat. I've never seen the moon like this before and the moons or the rings around Saturn. So it's a really neat experience. I can highly recommend that. So those are the latest and newest things. Steve Carran: So can you just give like a brief overview of the Ameswell for those that might not be familiar, a little bit about the property, where you guys are, things like that? Simone Harms: Of course, yes. We are 255 luxury boutique property right in the heart of the Silicon Valley. We sit in Mountain View, as I mentioned, right across the street from the NASA Ames Research Center. I guess the biggest corporate group that you might have heard of, which sits right next to us is Google. Google has their headquarters and so it's just really fun to be at the center of innovation, to see, the self-driving cars everywhere. I think there are four or five companies in Mountain View. We have now drone deliveries as well, and it's just really, it's a fun place to be. So come and stay with us and check it all out. Steve Carran: Very cool. Very cool. And then the last question here, I know you've recently made a partnership with AI Hospitality Group. Can you tell us a little bit more about AI Hospitality Group and that partnership? Simone Harms: Yeah. So we are actually their first, I guess, beta testing partner with AI Hospitality. They are a new management company that, as the name suggests, leans heavily into AI. And so the idea is not to massively replace, our employees, but actually hotel systems are so convoluted. We are working with a hotel tech stack that has five, six, seven, eight, sometimes 10 different systems that all do not talk to each other. And so a lot of time is spent, downloading information from one system and inputting it into the next system. And so they've really created solutions that take that really tedious part away so that the team then can really focus on the customer, right? We talked about what's luxury, the experience, the personalization, instead of them, again, transferring data from point A to point B. And there are a lot of touch points in the hospitality. So you know, taking, again, that work away, refocusing, the staff time onto the customer. And the beta has been going really well, the testing. There's some really cool technology out there. And then also what they do, in the beginning I talked about that there are so many new providers of technology and new systems, and they cut through the noise because there's no way I can, as I said, demo five to 10 new solutions and yeah. And they do that, and so they just really then, show us the, the one system out of all of them that makes sense. Steve Carran: That's great. David Millili: Well, that does it for this episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality Hot Topics. This is where you get to let people know how they can get in touch with you and how they can find out more about Ameswell Hotel, so plug away Simone Harms: Great. So again, we talked a lot about, technology and the Ameswell, so come and stay with us, part of the Silicon Valley. You can make a weekend out of it. We are also in a not very known, wine country, which is the Santa Cruz Mountains. It's not as crazy as the Napa Valley or Sonoma, but just as delicious. so yeah, come stay with us. It's theameswell.com. and we have a beautiful restaurant called Roger, and come and eat and stay with us. David Millili: That's great. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality Hot Topics, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. So whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Thanks for joining us Simone Harms: Thank you so much. Steve Carran: Thank you Simone.