Latest / Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast / 190 – TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Ben Rafter
Transcript
- Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree here with a very exciting, informative episode continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers. This is our series where we are talking to those industry leaders and brands, management companies that are paving the way forward. I've got an absolutely amazing guest, I'm excited to speak with him today. Ben Rafter, CEO of Hotel Equities. Ben, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot. Ben Rafter: Thanks, Ryan. Looking forward to it. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're gonna have fun conversation, talk all about hotel equities, but on the Suite Spot we do a little tradition where instead of just doing your normal bio, I actually like handing it over to our guests to kind of talk through their hospitality journey. because sometimes you get a little bit more insights. Us hospitality people, we got mentors. We come from different brands, sometimes fall into hospitality, quite frankly. You know, talk to us, our Suite Spot hotel audience, a little bit about your hospitality journey and what led you to your role as a CEO over at Hotel Equities. Ben Rafter: Sure, I fit into the fall into it category, without a doubt. I was a, uh, tech guy for better part of 15 years, mostly startups. Sold two of 'em and after selling, the second one was locked out of the industry for a year and got a phone call from a hotel guy. And he said, what are you doing? You want to come to Mount Everest with me? And just because nothing better to do for the next month. We packed up and headed over to Nepal and on about the third day he said to me, so what do you think of the hospitality industry and hotels? And it was dumb enough to open my mouth and give him my opinion that you needed to sort of fuse together larger than life hoteliers, which was his background and kind of quant tech data, guys like me. And over the next 20 days, we hashed out starting a hotel company literally on the side of a mountain, in this case. And after that ended, it was 2008, the market crashed. We had a new president. I flew to Hawaii and we started with four hotels in Hawaii. And it's been nonstop ever since. So definitely not a traditional way to get into the industry. Ryan Embree: Yeah, yeah. You give new meaning to kind of climbing the corporate ladder, so to speak, when, when talking about that. But I think that's what honestly makes hospitality so fascinating. Because yours, honestly, a lot of the majority of the guests we talked to Ben, hospitality was not their final destination, so to speak, what you were talking to. But I think it brings new perspective and obviously insights into an industry that, quite frankly, we're gonna talk about it in a minute, but needs some more technology integration into hospitality right now. And to fast forward to today, obviously a strategic merger in May, 2025 with Springboard Hospitality. It's been extremely busy second half of the year for you and your team, including a couple exciting announcements we're gonna talk about in a second, Ben. But, you know, can you share some of the biggest kind of takeaways and lessons you've learned for the business, over this past six months? Maybe give us a state of the Hotel Equities as you would say. Ben Rafter: Yeah, absolutely. I mean one thing, coming from sort of independent and generally either gateway market or leisure focused. You learn how diverse some of these markets are and how much different it is running a courtyard or a Rest Inn or a Hampton in a suburb versus running a resort in the middle of Waikiki. And it's been great kind of seeing both sides of the spectrum there. And then trying to figure out how initiatives or which initiatives work across the entire entity. And then which of 'em should be limited to $400 a night hotel or a select service hotel. And I gotta say, coming from the independent space where we're all about content and drone shots and Instagram and social media and things like that, obviously walking into a suburban flagged select service hotel is a whole different, a whole different ball of wax, so to speak. So that part's been great. We have great leaders in all of those divisions and it's been great working with them. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I mean, just adds to the exposure, again, what you were talking about. And to add to that, right. You know, in October you were back on a panel discussing outdoor centric hotels at the lodging conference in Phoenix, we talk about the spectrum of from lifestyle, and now you've got this experiential glamping. This was the perfect topic for you and hotel equities, obviously through your management of postcard cabins, which is with Marriott's new outdoor collection. Talk to us, how about how you guys are really capitalizing on this trend, experiential travel, that glamping that now even the big brands are trying to get into? Ben Rafter: Yeah, every, everybody's trying to get into it. So we were on all of the postcard cabins, and that was kind of the feature point of Marriott's launch of the outdoor, their outdoor segment. It's one, it's been great. It's an area that's growing two and a half, a little more than two and a half times faster than the regular hotel on the street. Now, of course, you break that down by segments it maybe two times and maybe three times. And it's also so new for the brands that they're trying to sort of get their arms around it. And because you, you just have to think when you're staying in an outdoor experience, you're not staying in a city. And when you search on Marriott or Hilton or Hyatt or whatever, the first thing you usually do is you type in New York City, you type in Seattle, you type in whatever. Well, if you're gonna stay in the middle of the national forest where the nearest city is 2000 people and you don't know what it's called, like how do you even search for this kind of stuff? And then you combine that with staffing, where, the GM better have a pickup truck and be able to go to the nearest Piggly Wiggly or whatever to go find whatever's needed because you may be an hour away from the nearest area to get the entity. There's no Sysco truck driving by in the middle of the afternoon. And then high seasonality. And the big question I think for the industry is going to be how do you fill some of these things on a Wednesday afternoon in off season? Obviously we're targeting groups in corporate and to make them kind of intimate experiences where 8, 10, 15, 20 people can get together. But it's, it's a totally different space. But the great thing is consumers are really interested in it because they're interested in branching out from their traditional leisure stay, and now they can find this kind of stuff. Ryan Embree: I mean, listen, as someone who climbed Everest, right, I mean that is all about the experience. The destination and getting to that is part of the journey and part of the experience, which I think is why people love it. And they're gonna do a lot of your marketing for you to be honest with you, between the storytelling that they're doing on places like social media, now all of a sudden they're telling your story and, and people are, are, are just really seeing this in a time where we're gonna talk about in a minute, technology's kind of taking over, but being like, Hey, maybe this is a nice little escape for me and, and something different that is going to be an experience. You know, we talk about that all the time. And a true experience. Ben Rafter: Yeah. And it doesn't have to be outdoor travel. The great thing about this industry in general, and the way it's evolving and I'm looking forward to talking more about technology, is that people want something more and more customized and more and more localized. It could be a food vacation, it could be outdoor travel, it could be adventure travel, which to me is a different category. And the way that we're now interacting and searching for these experiences getting much more advanced and people can now find them. Versus before it was, I know I wanna stay outside, I'm gonna research some natural national parks, and where do I go from there? Right. And now it's a wide open space. Ryan Embree: You wanna see how many segments our industry has gotten chopped up into go to any hospitality conference. And you're talking about heritage, travel, food travel, like you're talking about travel, that's multi-generational travel, right? It used to just be business and leisure. Which one are you on now? There are so many different ways and priorities the way that people and travelers are looking at travel through a completely different lens than they did a decade ago. And I think a lot of that, to be honest with you happened. What happened in 2020. It's interesting to see brands, management companies adapt to those and try to be at the forefront of that because it's these emerging markets and trends are popping up and they're becoming widely popular. Ben Rafter: Yeah, it got it, it was accelerated for sure. In 2020, I, there's a comparison I like to make. Back, back when I was a kid and was learning how to ski, we had the little skinny narrow, super long skis. It was difficult. Snowboards came around and everyone complained about snowboards 'cause they carved up the moguls or whatever. I can't remember what it was, but ultimately the snowboards made skiing better and the ski technology advanced to what we have today. And I look at the emergence of Airbnb or things like that, they've really pushed the traditional sort of hotel lodging space to up its game. And I think we're sort of seeing that with all these different concepts coming out. And I think it's needed too. And we have one advantage over some of these, some of these transient vacation plays. And that is, at the end of the day, we still the human in most of the hotels. And I think we need to up the game in terms of the level of service that the people at the hotels provide and can provide to sort of make it so, Hey, I'm staying outdoors. I'm staying in a gateway city. I'm on a food vacation, whatever, but that person actually at the hotel is going to provide value to my vacation. Ryan Embree: They're gonna supplement it, sometimes even be a part of the experience there. I think that's the big knock on what we see on Airbnb is, you have to be the housekeeper, you have to be the concierge, everything like that. And they're starting to adjust, obviously with what they're doing on the tech side. So it should be interesting to see, but you're right that that competition I do think has accelerated that and really interested. We're at a very cool inflection point right now. And speaking of, you talked about your strong tech background, Ben, you know, when you come into hospitality, where do you think we are right now in this an overall technology cycle? And then maybe you can drill down a little bit more into, when you look at your portfolio at Hotel Equities, what's your approach to kind of this technology? Ben Rafter: You may have heard the, or seen the big sigh on where we're at in the industry. Since I got here has been behind, and there are a lot of reasons for it, but we're gradually catching up. And AI although probably not over hyped, but over talked about AI will make a major difference in the hospitality industry because of the nature of what it is, much more so than other industries. We're just not quite there yet. So, a long-winded way of saying we're still behind. We have a lot of legacy backbone issues and technology in general. We have too many startups chasing too few solutions and then trying to prove that they can do other solutions. But the great tipping point coming up is how people are searching for their hotel stay, whether business or leisure is changing dramatically, how the back end of the hotel is operating is changing dramatically. And some of these solutions that are being built are now targeting these areas. So I'm not excited about the past, but I'm pretty excited about the future because everyone wants to talk about the front end and search, and that's probably the more exciting thing. But just think about scheduling workforce in a 300% hotel and how effective and efficient that is becoming. And we need it because margins are being eroded. RevPAR is flat. Well, expenses are up 5%. And so we need to be able to squeeze out every ounce of efficiency in all of these hotels. And our owners are all demanding it. Ryan Embree: Yeah, you're absolutely, I mean, the conversations we've had at covering hospitality conferences with leaders is talking about both sides of the desk. And the opportunity at both sides, because I do think we get that shiny object of the, how can we improve the guest experience andeven the sci-fi that robot coming down with the towels to do all that stuff, but it's really gonna be those small efficiencies that get us to a closer place to what we've been talking about forever in our industry, personalization and, and this seamless traveler journey, right? Ben Rafter: Yeah. And we can figure out what, you know, we try to define a great hotel experience historically, or luxury historically, and what's the thread count and how many fixtures are in the bathroom and all this other stuff, which is important. But now we're nearing a point where we can understand, okay, what really means luxury or a great hotel experience to this individual guest? And it may not be five fixtures and a 600 thread count. It may mean something else, right. And the level of personalization we have is nearing where we can define that experience when the person arrives. But yeah, so that's, it's, it's all really exciting. And one of the great things we're pretty aggressive with technology as you might guess. And so we beta a lot of different products and I want to continue doing so because although, three outta four may not work to the satisfaction that we have, or four outta five, you do find the ones that do, and we can embrace and adopt those really, really rapidly. Ryan Embree: Yeah. I talked to a leader at the hospitality show back in October who said the modern hoteliers tech stack today is absolutely, it's the most vast it's been, and it's gonna be very interesting to see, because so many people are doing what you're doing, Ben, a lot of beta testing, a lot of trying out new technologies to try to calibrate it right to that point, to where we can be closer to personalization. And to your point about luxury, right? I mean, we're even to a place now where if you've checked out White Lotus, the ultra luxury is actually removing technology altogether, right? So, but I think that's, to your point of my luxury, could look very different from your luxury. And I think that's what the true place of AI and technology is gonna get us to where we can personalize that perfect hotel experience no matter where we're at. Ben Rafter: Yeah. And there's a debate that you've had on this podcast and had with other people I'm sure is does AI help or hurt the most for flags for OTAs, for independence? Where is it gonna make the biggest impact? And I won't say where I think it's gonna hurt the most, but I do think it really, really helps sort of soft brands and independence, because soft brands and independence have the ability to tell a story, and they can augment that story through technology content sort of finally is king. We've been talking about content being king for 20 years, and now content finally will be king because people are searching and AI knows what I want or what you want almost as well as you do, right? And so just think of how you've changed using Google over the last 10 years, where now you're generally asking it questions instead of typing in prompts, multiply that by 10, and suddenly we have AI that says, oh, I'm going to Honolulu. I usually stay outta Westin because that's what I know, or a Marriott or whatever. But AI can say, oh, you're gonna Honolulu here, stay at this place because it has a restaurant that you're gonna love. They make a great cocktail, and they have this thing that you indicated you liked when you were in New York City. And so this is your thing. And of course, what AI really gets advanced is gonna say, and I've booked it for you and I requested this, and I'm gonna monitor it for the next 30 days to make sure the revenue managers will screw up and lower the price. And if it does, I'll cancel and rebook it for you. Ryan Embree: Yeah. I mean, all of a sudden you're telling your story to a little bit different audience with that and trying to capture that agent's attention, maybe that, so that they can kind of put you front and center in the eyes of the traveler and the guests. But wanna switch our converse along the same lines, but more of a cautionary tale in hospitality and technology. What's obviously headlining the news recently, the Marriott Sonder story, and you commented on this on LinkedIn. I saw Ben, you know, you said, and I quote Saunders shut down highlights just how complex our industry has become, where tech integration, long-term lease structures and multi-state partnership must align to create a sustainable operating model. So in a time when technology, right now, a lot of people would argue is, I mean, every day is at its peak, right? We're peaking every single day in technology. Why is still having the right partnerships in alignment still so important? And, and we still see a Marriott Sonder story happen today? Ben Rafter: Taking a step away from technology, I think the real lesson learned from Sonder, and it's unfortunate because we learned it with WeWork too, is if you're going to lease a bunch of properties, you better make sure, you can fill those properties through thick or thin because that lease payments come in due no matter what, right? Suddenly you're representing yourself basically, and you're trying to fill the owner's shoes. And WeWork failed, and Sonder I think ultimately failed because of that. But underneath it, you have to make Sonder never carved itself out as, Hey, it's seamless technology that gets me into my room with no interaction. And what is the additional value of that, and what will somebody pay for it? And then I think they plug into Marriott, I don't know, obviously, but they plug into Marriott for broader reach and distribution. But now you're searching New York City, you've got 30 other Marriotts who all have a well-defined brand, or probably a hundred other Marriotts in New York, you're searching somewhere, right? And the seamless technology story just got lost in the whole thing. And then it's like, okay, why am I gonna stay at this place over these other 20 choices I see on Mary's site? And then ultimately the whole thing collapses. But it's a classic case, a very long-winded way of saying it's a classic case of technology for technology state sometime just doesn't work. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And well, and it goes back to the storytelling part, right? Without a defined value to your brand. And if that's not being translated to your guests, you know, it's ultimately we saw what happens when that goes on. Ben Rafter: Yeah. And I'm going to put myself into the position of saying, I wanna be the last person on earth who gives up on human interaction as part of the hotel experience. And, you know, we could put in kiosks and everything like that, or robots or whatever. I think we're better off investing in training our front of house people or all of our people, team members to interact better. And let's use all these new technologies so that we can truly interact and provide a better experience. And yeah, maybe 25% of the audience, or 30% or 50, or whatever the number is, doesn't wanna interact. But I think most people want the hotel experience to include people. Ryan Embree: We got to a place, I would argue where it was in 2020, it was almost, there was a risk to going to the front desk sometimes. So, you know, quote unquote, and people still did it, right? We still needed that human interaction, the brands made it easier than ever to get to your rooms without needing people. And we still wanted it. The, the travelers still demanded it in some way, whether it was house-keeping, whether it was interaction. So I think if there's ever a use case, you're absolutely right. And I'm there, I'm right there with you. I'll be the second to last person there with you saying I don't want that in my hospitality experience either. But we'll switch gears here, Ben. Second, I had in late October, I told you I was out out at the Hospitality Show, caught up with Rob Robinson, a little bit colder than where he is in Hawaii, but president of the lifestyle division at Hotel Equities, we talked about lifestyle and independent hotels, we've talked about on this, on this episode continues to grow popularity just ever increasing. Why do you think these have remained so attractive to travelers? And how has, I mean, obviously Hotel Equities with that strategic partnership has really positioned itself as a leader in this segment. Ben Rafter: It's growing because people want an experience, right? And there's obviously a market for checking into a select service that's the same no matter whether you're in Dallas or you're in Seattle or you're in Vancouver BC right? But there's also an equally large segment of people who are saying, whether it's business or leisure or any of the hundred other derivations of travel, when I go somewhere, I wanna stay at a property that tells a story. And usually that story is going to be around the place. If you stay with our properties in West Hollywood or you stay where Rob is at in Hawaii, you should know you're in Hawaii and you're going to, you're going to get that sense of place that you're there. And lifestyle and independent properties just naturally can sort of expose that story a little bit better if they're run well. And then we can market to that story. And independents have to, because the distribution capabilities of the flags are amazing, right? And so the independence, their only counter balance to that is, I'm going to market via the story that I tell and the content that I produce. And then of course, the middle ground and Marriott, and Hilton and Hyatt have done so well with it is the soft brands. And what I would like to see, or what I hope I don't see is they start to harden those soft brands because an autograph with the flexibility to tell a story that's still plugged into the Marriott distribution system in this case is, is a powerful thing. Ryan Embree: Yeah. So immersive these lifestyle hotels can be offering amenities and experiences that the brand hotels are great. And I just think people, when you want consistency, consistency's there, but everyone doesn't want to tell a consistent story. Sometimes they want a unique story. They wanna be immersed in their in the local culture that we don't get the opportunity to see every day. That's why we love travel. Ben Rafter: But we have to embrace it too and make the investment to do it. And I think there's some ground, there's, there's some work wood to chop, so to speak, in terms of, you can't just say your hotel's independent or a boutique or a lifestyle hotel and then not invest in content and the activities that make it there. No, I think that's where we need to grow a little bit. And as noted earlier when we were talking, I think we'll be forced to, because the way that people are searching for these hotels, if we don't, then the hotel's gonna fail. Ryan Embree: Yeah, absolutely. Listen, more seasonal, F&B options the better from local source places at these lifestyle and independent hotels, I will take that all day to make those memorable experiences. Ben Rafter: Well, and F&B is a good example because all of the major operators now have these relationships with the giant F&B providers, or for that matter, the giant F&E providers, and sort of turned F&B into a similar commodity. I could tell you the Sysco fries at 50 different hotels, it's this, you know, it's, it's, oh, this came from Sysco or this came from over here, right? And so localized F&B and in Hotel Equities' case, the ability to have a national relationship, but the ability to also give the independent restaurants and outlets the flexibility to do what they want with local vendors is critical. Because we're sort of homogenizing F&B in the same way that we've homogenized a lot of hotels. Ryan Embree: I mean, that's a microcosm of what's going on in our industry as a whole right now, the return of the hotel restaurant, right? Which used to be, I think, a decade ago, well, decades ago, that used to be the place to be. And then all of a sudden it kind of got to that place, what you were just talking about, and now it's reemerging. And I think a lot of brands, management companies, the smart ones are seeing that and seeing an opportunity to not just welcome, obviously outside travelers, but locals are embracing it too, about saying, Hey, you know, when you come into town, you might be staying with me, but I'm taking you to the local hotel restaurant for that experience. Ben Rafter: I mean, I guess it, it goes back 500 years to hotels are the gathering place. I was on a call yesterday. We have a cocktail bar named the Green Lady at one of the Hawaii hotels. And the person who runs F&B said, Hey, do I have to buy this and this and this? A memo must have come out, right? And I said, well, obviously no, like, who's your audience? And he said, well, it's 50. This is Hawaii, which is full of 10 million tourists and 1 million residents, right? And he said, well, it's about 60% locals and 40% tourists. And obviously he's buying highly, highly customized products for, in this case, for that, for that audience. And hotels have to be, it's really easy to understand a restaurant that orders local and everything. The broader thing is the hotel needs to be the same way. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. Like I said, microcosm of what's going on, you know, throughout the operations and brand to be quite frank, gonna switch topics again, we're covering everything today, Ben. Hotel Equities, in February, 2026, you guys are headed out for your annual leadership conference in Las Vegas, Travel Media Group, our parent company have the privilege of attending. We've spoke the last couple years in sponsoring the event. This will be your first time, I would imagine. And what are you most looking forward to, and can you share the impact of events like this have on a culture right now, where staffing, over the last couple years has still been a struggle for our industry? Ben Rafter: So events like this are critical. And its easy to say that, but at the highest level, and what I'm looking forward to most is you don't see everybody very often anymore. Remote work has its place. Bigger company people are going to be, I used to try to get to every single property that we had at least once or twice a year, right? And as you keep growing, that becomes a little more difficult. Ryan Embree: And it might be tough now. Ben Rafter: Exactly. And so this is my chance to see everybody. It's everybody's chance to see me and to see other leaders of the team. It's a chance for people from New York City and Atlanta to meet people from Honolulu and most importantly, trade ideas and figure out what's working and what's not. And I think a good management company or a good operator should be doing it not just once a year, but all the marketing people should be getting together. All the finance people should be getting together. And yes, there's a cost to that, but the amount of creativity that's unleashed from doing it is amazing. And we have, so that's what I'm looking forward to. Ryan Embree: It would be a fascinating study to see how some of these major ideas and concepts, initiatives and hospitality as a whole, the groundwork is laid at these in-person events. And I think it can be traced back to and just to speak to the importance of getting together in a time where we thought, do we really need to get together as anymore, can we just say virtual? Obviously that that has a place for it. But I think the groundswell of support when you get a number of people together in one area having the same challenges. And I think that's a powerful sentiment when you hear someone in Honolulu and New York City having the same exact challenges and trying to get through that is ground zero for trying to create creativity and solutions, which hospitality people, I mean, you think maybe I'm biased, but we've got the problem solving critical thinking skills. Because you need it. It's a skill that you need every single day. You're practicing every single day when floor floods or, or some, yeah. So you need that. Ben Rafter: People still put hangers on the little fire things and then the floor floods. You wouldn't imagine, 40 years later, but here we are. No, you're exactly right. No good idea. Oh, I'm sure there have been a few over the course of history, but we like to say no good idea comes from one individual sitting in their home office. Tapping away all the best ideas come from people interacting. Ryan Embree: Totally agree. Well, obviously this is also award season and a lot of those great ideas translating to the operations. I want to congratulate your portfolio hotel equities on a few of those. Notable recognition saw Marriott's international top performing number one, top performing management company in the US and Canada for Q3, and some individual awards, the 2025 International Association and Full Service Awards, F&B Excellence, we just talked about F&B, and then opening of the year, the Vanguard Autograph collection, Ann Arbor Autograph collection. What do these recognitions mean to you, Ben, and and how does it reflect on kind of the reputation overall in the industry for hotel equities? Ben Rafter: Well, I mean, anytime you get an award, it should mean a lot to, to people. And it validates what we're doing. And it validates that we're doing it right to win awards from all the way to partnering with Marriott, who's been a great partner throughout the years to winning. We got a Michelin key at an independent hotel, right? And then the Vanguard launch, it's validation, and it's not validation of what I'm doing, it's validation that the team members who are actually executing on this stuff are doing a great job of it. So internally, what I'd like to expand is kind of rewarding people for that, that we started giving away money for people who created ideas. We're starting to give away awards for people who, you know, there's always the guest service component. We got a letter from Marriott just yesterday, two days ago, some guy had taken the time to write to somebody pretty high up and Marriott and saying, look, I had the best customer serviceI've ever had from this individual. It was actually was at the Vanguard, oddly enough. And it's a necessity for me and team members to recognize that, because we talked a lot about it is human aspect of this industry is the most important. And a little side story when we were on the side of the mountain creating this, creating our hotel company 15, 20 years ago, the larger than life hotel guy who was not me, he said like, one thing you can never forget. Well, you're looking at all these spreadsheets and data and all that other stuff is there's a real guest in the room and in Hawaii that real guest may have saved a year for their one leisure vacation, that they've dreamed about possibly their whole life, right? And he said, never forget that there's a guest in the room. And then he convinced me to put my cell phone in all the rooms. And we did that for the first 11,000, hotel rooms that we had. So, and it was worth it because it, every once in a while is a reminder that, hey, we are in the service business and people are, we are people first business. Ryan Embree: Listen, probably some pretty interesting conversations you had with guests having a direct line to you. But I think, very sobering to hear, again, that I think that's great advice for anyone that is struggling right now talking, thinking about are we doing enough on the technology side to keep that north star there of, there is a guest in the room. This is what people are looking for. We're hosting people in our home. So yeah, great advice there. I'm gonna quiz you on one more piece of advice, Ben. Because I think, I started this podcast, we're almost 200 episodes deep. I always feel like it's my kind of mission, especially for younger hospitality professionals that just coming into the workforce now, listen, when I when I came in to to hospitality, I didn't have the looming clouds of, you know, AI might be be taking these jobs. So what advice would you give maybe a message of hope or even advice, tips that you would give to a young hospitality professional entering their career right now? Ben Rafter: For sure. Don't be afraid to reach out to people like you, people like me, CEOs. I don't know. I mean, obviously we have a lot of competitors and we compete with them for obvious reasons, but I don't know a single one of them that would not respond to someone who reaches out and says, Hey, how did you get where you are? What do you like doing? I think I just use a double negative in the sentence there. But, I would, I don't know, a single one who is not willing to help expand people's careers. And then the second thing is complacency just kills. And if you have ideas, push 'em. And I was 19 or 20 when we did our first startup, it would've been really real easy to not do it. And then five years later, 10 years later, life changes. And if you have the idea, push it and do it, and you'll be rewarded for it later. And you'll never look back and say, oh, hey, I wish I wouldn't have done that. Ryan Embree: Very good. And like what would it you have said if I told you 19-year-old, Ben, that you'd be given hospitality advice to young hospitality professionals. Ben Rafter: When I was 19, I was terrified to reach out to people, like, why would anybody talk to me? But, you know, we're all out there. And so I think that's two pieces of advice. One, reach out to anybody that they'll respond. And then two, if you have an idea, push it. People, people are, there's a lot of self-doubt out there. You have it, I have it. You think, oh, that's not a good idea. Well, it's not, you prove that it's not a good idea. There's just as good a chance. It's gonna be a great idea. And if you're implementing technology, get the implementation part done because, it's great seeing a thousand different technologies, but 9 times outta 10, they don't talk to all the other ones we're using. Ryan Embree: There's some tech advice at the very end. I love that. Right on brand. And so wrap it up into 2025, 2026. Can you share any notable developments right now in the hotel, equities, pipelines, or even projects that within the portfolio you're excited about right now? Ben Rafter: Really excited about the Caribbean and Latin America and particular Mexico. I think in some of these regions, third party operators are just emerging. I mean, obviously pretty common in the US and in Canada. We have an awesome team down there and we've, we've kind of got it in our little laboratory so they're protected. And I just think the impact they're gonna make next year across the Caribbean and Latin America is gonna be fantastic. Ryan Embree: Yeah. Tons of market opportunity there. Keep hearing a lot of harder earned dollars spend down in that region for sure. Ben Rafter: Yeah. And fun stuff, great hotels and you know, obviously we know Hawaii pretty well. We know Florida really well. We know the traditional US vacation destinations. If I were the governor of Hawaii, I would grab about 10 members of the ledge, or 20, or as many as we could fit on a plane from Hawaiian Airlines or Alaska and fly somebody down. You probably can't do it, but fly somebody down to Mexico, down to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, because if they could really see the quality of the product down there, they would be investing in more tourism marketing in Hawaii. So governor, uh, Josh Greenham, Hawaii pay attention. Ryan Embree: Well listen, we have a Suite Spot spotlight series that actually profiles some properties. You gimme a call, Ben, whenever you're ready to spotlight one of those properties in the Caribbean, I'm happy to make the trip down there and help you out with that. So yeah. Ben Rafter: Awesome. I'll look forward to it. I'm gonna hold you to that. Ryan Embree: All right. Well, as we wrap up the year and as we wrap up the episode, I think this is obviously a great time for a lot of reflection. Thanksgiving just happened. Looking back on 2025, what are you most proud of in 2025, and what are you most looking forward to in 2026? Ben Rafter: It's, I mean, look, we got the Springboard/Hotel Equities combination done. And I'm really excited. So, we'll call that the most proud. And I'm really excited for seeing where this combination goes in 26. But as the tech guy who seems to be more people focused than most, I mean, you look at this industry and we've got several thousand team members and I'm proud that they can deliver every single day. And I think everybody should say that is like, if you don't have your team members, and if you don't have your GMs on the front lines fighting, there's nothing. And so I'm most proud of what they're delivering. Ryan Embree: There we go. Awesome. Well, Ben, we're excited to watch, continue to see Hotel Equities grow, wish you nothing but success, covered it all today. Got the large spectrum from your journey to tech and even Marriott, Sonder and, and covered some awards and developments. Any other final thoughts you got before we sign off? Ben Rafter: We're all over the place. That's fun. Makes it great. No, looking forward to seeing you in February. And I think you covered the most important thing. If you are young and new to this space, and Ryan, you teach and speak at I think UCF, but probably everywhere, do not hesitate to reach out. Just track somebody down and they will remember you five years later or 10 years later. And when I've long gone, you know, their careers will be going crazy. And that's, you know, that's good. We need more innovation. We need more young people. Ryan Embree: 100% agree. Hopefully there's another podcast sitting on here and maybe they'll be mentioning our names as someone they reached out to back in the day that we can only hope, right? Ben Rafter: We'll go to Nepal or China climb an 8,000 foot meter mountain and, on the side of the mountain we can all, we can all share stories and create the next hotel company. Ryan Embree: That's all you need to do. That's it. So, all right. Well thank you so much, Ben, for taking the time. It's been a pleasure speaking to you and like I mentioned, wish you nothing but success. And yes, we will see you in February at the Hotel Equities Leadership Conference. Ben Rafter: Great. Thanks Ryan. Looking forward to it. Ryan Embree: Thanks Ben. And thank you for listening to Suite Spot. To join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five-star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I'm your host Ryan Embree and we hope you enjoyed your stay.