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Hilton Grand Vacations COO Gordon Gurnik on Innovating Timeshare Experiences and Expanding Global Horizons · Brand Insiders

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to an episode of Hospitality Nets are Brand Insiders, where we're talking to innovative hotel brands to learn what makes them special and how they're meeting the trends of modern day travelers.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joined today by Gordon Gurnick.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's the Chief Operating Officer of Hilton Grand Vacations.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Gordon, how are you?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm great, Adam.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very excited to be here.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me on today.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is going to be a fantastic conversation.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot to cover.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get underway.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So to start off, Gordon, uh set the scene for us.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us what is Hilton Grand Vacations and what's its relationship to Hilton worldwide.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: So Hilton Grand Vacations is its own standalone public company.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're part of Hilton.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: We spot off with our own company in 2017 when Hilton went back out as a public company itself.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: But we have a very close relationship.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: We have a 90-some year of a license agreement with Hilton, where we share the name, of course, and get to share some leads and have a lot of great benefits that we're allowed to give our members.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And Hilton Grand Vacations is really the premier timeshare ownership and experiences company out there.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: We have a little over 700,000 members, about 725,000 members.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a little over 200 properties across the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And of just about 23,000 employees.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's an incredible engine that you're responsible for.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you could break down those 200 properties into the main brands that fall under Hilton Grand Vacations and the subsidiaries, what makes them unique from an area planning standpoint as well as uh services and target customers?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we we run three main Hilton brands.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the first one is you know Hilton Club.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hilton Club is really our luxury brand.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's primarily urban.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: You'll tend to see it more in a high-rise type of format.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh New York City, Waikiki, places like that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, private lounge, you know, very high level of fit and finish service in those properties.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have Hilton Grand Vacation Club, that's our sort of upper-up scale brand.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: More of a resort style, you'll tend to see them, you know, near city, say Orlando or maybe in Las Vegas.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it's a little, you know, some are more high-rise, some are a bit more resort style, great for families, you know, very nice fit and finish.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have Hilton Vacation Club, that's more of our entry-level brand.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a great product, you'll tend to see it more in drive-to-markets, might be in a Williamsburg or a Pigeon Ford or you know, something like uh San Antonio, something like that.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then last year we just completed an acquisition of another brand called Blue Green, uh, which was another timeshare company in our space.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that's a brand that we uh still have and maintain and are working on integrating together with the three brands that we have with them.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, next to unpack for background is vacation ownership is different from regular hotel ownership structures.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, you could you describe the financial structure of it a little bit for vacation rentals and timeshares?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'll I'll start a little bit with just sort of what's the structure of the building and talk a little bit about from a consumer perspective.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's it's different than a hotel.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: In some ways, it's almost a little bit more like a you know, an HOA you might see in a condominium that you might see out there almost like a branded condominium.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we'll tend to build a building, then we sell that in increments out to owners who become members of Hilton Grand Vacations and part of our ownership base.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um you build that up, sell it out over a period of years, the owners get to use those rights to stay there or anywhere across our 200 properties.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's an HOA that sits on top of that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: We help manage the HOA, make sure that the resort itself stays refurbished and that it's in good shape and uh service those members and allow them to have all the benefits that brand vacation provides on top of that ownership.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and you mentioned 23,000 employees, and hospitality is a story about people.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your story?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's your background?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my personal background, uh, I've been in this industry really my whole career.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I started in an exchange company that works in this space and have worked there for about 30 years before I came here to work for the old Grand Vacations after it had spun off from Hilton, um, where I became the chief operating officer here and have been working with us to you know acquire a couple different companies, help grow the business.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I run a lot of our resort operations, the Firm Services Division, to find a lot of the technology strategy for all that servicing as you know at the company, and uh a lot of the marketing functions that help us drive the ownership base that we have today.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you've talked a little bit about your role now at Hilton Grand Vacations.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: How does operations for timeshare products and vacation rentals differ from traditional hotels?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: In a lot of different ways.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, as I said, it's almost like you're actually managing a homeowners association, almost like a condominium uh in a particular location.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So for the owners that have bought, you know, from their perspective, that resort is their resort.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: And our job is to help them manage that and then to provide them with all the great benefits that Hilton Grand Vacations can add on top of that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So with all that background covered, to understand Hilton Grand Vacations in this grand ecosystem that is hotels, within a grander ecosystem that is the travel sector.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's start off by asking how is Hilton Grand Vacations innovating within this industry?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll talk a little bit about where's the whole industry going and then how are we?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people, when they think you know, about timeshare, they sort of think about a little bit with an example I gave I bought into this building, I own it at this particular location, I have to go every year at the same week.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: The entire industry has moved very far from that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you do buy that building and you may want that priority.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you buy a Hilton Club New York, you may buy that because you really, really want to be able to go to New York.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost a replacement for having an apartment in New York City when you want to come and experience that, or maybe in Hawaii or one of the other locations that we have.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: But but really what you're buying is access to those 200 some odd properties and all the other benefits you have.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you're buying a particular location where you may be buying into the network.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have two different options you have, but regardless of that, every year you get a set of points.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Those set of points allow you to you know make that reservation either where you were before, or you can use that to do you know a whole set of different vacations across the 200 that we have.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: So you might have bought a two-bedroom in the summer in Hawaii, and maybe you use that every year, but you might take those points and decide, hey, you know, this year my kids are a little older, they're gonna go out and do things with their friends, and I want to take that two-bedroom set of worth of points, and maybe I'll do a studio for four or five days in Charleston, and then maybe I'll do a one-bedroom in Las Vegas for four or five days instead of having just the one week, I'll do the two.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then in our world, because of that great Hilton relationship that we have, if you want to take those points and you might want to convert them over into Hilton Honors, you can do that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: So you can go and stay at their 8,000-plus resorts that they have, or combine it with other loyalty points that you already have at Hilton for a reservation somewhere in their network.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then we also provide the capability to you know do other types of travel services.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: You can take those points, book a cruise, you can book a you know uh escorted uh you know trip somewhere.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we provide a lot of flexibility, and you're really buying into a lifestyle almost like a private club.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about sort of what's the difference between a hotel and a timeshare.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you become one of these you know 725,000 members of part of this you know special membership that we have, where we're innovating a lot is you know, what do we do to provide experiences for people?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: You think about what's happening out there in the world, it experiences becoming more and more and more important when people are traveling.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: We certainly saw this over the last four or five years.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: People are just as concerned with you know what might they be able to post to social media and you know how do they share that experience with their friends, their family, maybe a set of followers they may have, as they are with, you know, how great is that resort stay, and what's the uh the inspired hospitality that might be at that resort.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we're doing a lot in the experiences space to add on to that membership and almost really have it be like this private club where you have this capability through something we call HGV Ultimate Access to do lots of interesting experiences and private concerts, chef dinners, things like that.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the arena we're really innovating in uh and doing lots with technology to make all that process as simple and seamless as it can be.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're we're gonna dig into the technology in a bit.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the key word I picked out is flexibility.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And within that, I want to add one more word.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: When you mentioned cruises, the word is interoperability in terms of those points transferring into H honors or beyond.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that and that's that's I think what a lot of people just don't realize.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: What you what you're really buying is this right to do all kinds of things, and you know, we're always trying to strike that balance between making sure that resort stay is as spectacular as it can be.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm incredibly proud of our 23,000 team members and the inspired hospitality they provide at a resort, but every year, what can we do to add value to that membership?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: What new flexibility can we give you when you talk about you know flexibility and options and choices?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you really are buying the ability to have a lifetime of vacations and a lifetime of memories, and lots of different ways to do that.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So the other thing I think a lot of people think about is hey, is this just for me when my kids are growing up?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's more of a family type of thing, and it's really not because as you age and as your kids go off and do different things, you can either, hey, if you need something slightly larger because you need to bring more of their friends with them.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know how that was that was like when my kids were young.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, maybe you go and stay in a slightly more off-season and you know you get a three-bedroom instead of a two-bedroom.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, hey, uh, you know, my kids aren't going to come with me this year, and I'd I'd rather do that cruise, but I'd rather do that weekend in New York or that weekend in Charleston over, say, coming down here and hitting all the amusement parks with my kids and my friend.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the convertibility of points allows the loyalty to stay with the context of the guest as it changes over time and over each season.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then it's just that it comes down to the experiences because people are booking uh uh vacations and hotel states around access to certain uh experiences they want.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you're meeting the market exactly where they want to go by offering that flexibility.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And just to cover this in one more way, now that uh it's uh October 2025, uh we have uh basically five months of minor uh five years minus six months of uh of retrospective on the pandemic.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh now we have more than enough time to basically say that uh the pandemic did uh significantly change our industry.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So uh what ways uh aside from those that you've mentioned, has uh has the industry changed since the pandemic um and uh in what ways does Hilton Grand Vacations meeting that that new demand that is evolving?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it comes into a couple of different things.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: A big part of it is I think people looking even more for experiences, but but before that, you know, when we were before the pandemic, we were uh highly concentrated at a few destinations.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: They were great destinations, it's where people really wanted to go.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, very big concentrations here in Orlando, Las Vegas, New York, Myrtle Beach, uh Hawaii.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, that was a big hub for our members that were in Japan coming to Hawaii, as well as the US uh population wanted to go to Hawaii.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um we certainly saw in the pandemic lots of people wanted to get in the cars and drive around instead of maybe getting an airplane.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and a lot of people were, you know, that was the age of the digital nomad.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: That was the the age of, hey, I'm you know, I'm gonna do these long road trips.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um we we decided having a broader network that had more drive-to and maybe was a little less concentrated in the fly-to market would be good.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: We acquired a company at that time that added a set of resorts to us that really added that drive-to capability for the member base.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: And those two member bases, I think, greatly enjoyed that combination.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: We brought the urban, they had a lot of the more uh drive-to regional destinations and put those together to create you know this much broader network.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: We continue to build on that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: How do we make it easy for you to string those vacations together?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to, you know, come down from New York City and you're going to stop in DC and then go to Myrtle Beach and then end up in Orlando and then maybe stop in Williamsburg on your way back before you head back up to New York.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, now we have a set of resorts that allow you to do that and can help you, you know, put that vacation together.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other's really experiences.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: We launched a program that we called HGB Ultimate Access.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really bringing you know the bespoke private experiences to that base and really giving them something they kind of couldn't get anywhere else.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: It might be something like a chef's dinner where you're with a bunch of other owners and you have a chef come in, you know, curated wines, you get to kind of experience it as a group of people.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: We'll take you to that restaurant, take you back while you're on that vacation, and allow you to have that experience.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's going to a sporting event where we'll take you to a suite, um, take care of all the food and beverage and the transportation back and forth as part of your vacation.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, to things that are, you know, some of the signature events that we have.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: We you know, we have what we call tournament of champions down here in Orlando, which is where I'm talking to you from today.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's the first LPGA event of the season.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um it is a tournament of champions, so you have to have won a major tournament over the last two years to be invited.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you know, great LPGA players, all of which you would know.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um, then we also have a set of celebrities, about 50 celebrities that come down to play too.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: They're either from entertainment or sports or you know, a variety of other uh arenas.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they play in a paired format.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, our owners get to come you know at the course, and they're right near all of those people, and then we'll do a private concert on three different nights of that event.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's you know, it's a great event that really is something they couldn't get any other way, and it becomes part of that membership, it becomes part of your ownership.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And really, you know, we talk a lot about you know, it's about building you know vacations and memories for a lifetime with your family.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, part of investing in timeshare is really investing in all those memories with you, your family, and everything that happens as your kids grow up.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: But adding these events and adding these experiences really adds that that next level of that, where you know you have this opportunity to do something you could never really do for often for many people, um, another way.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I want to color one detail uh to pick it up from what you said is that with these dinners and these private experiences and um the private concerts, you're bringing owners together.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what I get when you said that is yes, it's uh it's uh facilitating memories of a lifetime for families, but also a sense of community insofar as the club really becomes something where owners can connect over a shared experience.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one thing I really love.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and you really see, I mean, what has always amazed me with my seven years here is you start talking to some of the owners at some of these events, you know, uh you talk about how they met another owner at one of these events, yeah, and now they're back together, now they're planning vacations together multiple years in a row, you know, and it really creates a sense of community.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: We we call it a club because you know, structurally that's what it is, but we also call it a club because that's really what it is.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know it is this group of like-minded people that you know really want to invest in their vacations, and you know, they love spending time with each other and they love spending time at our property.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: Our resort staff are I think for second to none, to be honest.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have what we call inspired hospitality, which is the experiences we provide at a resort.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: It can be anything from the GM, having a party and a welcome party, and allowing all those owners to come together and just spending a little time talking to you know little special one-off things that you find out it's someone's birthday, coming down with their family and one of their children's birthdays that week on their vacation.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you let us know that ahead of time, we'll help you decorate the room, we'll get you a cake.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, those kind of little touches that really make it more than just staying in a hotel for the week.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I love the little touches, the the little details that make hospitality real, like decorating the cake, writing somebody's name on it, and then the guest who's traveling in from whatever doesn't have to find a local baker, uh, call them, drive out there and arrange a time and pick that up, uh, etc.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're able to handle all the details, which is hospitality, not just lodging, but real hospitality.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And like so we we call these, you know, we call it inspired hospitality, and it's also sort of those little moments of joy.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the greatest thing I think that I see in a resort, they love to surprise people.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: If they find that out and you don't know, we know they love to do these kind of things for the owners as they come in.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, it's it's just an amazing moment when they walk into that room and you know it's decorated, or you know, they've helped arrange something for them very special for that vacation for them and their family.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So but before we hopped on the call, uh you had mentioned that uh part of your job also is communicating with properties in Europe, I believe Portugal and uh and Japan.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you had mentioned uh places New York, Florida, uh the LPGA tour in uh across the United States, and over in Hawaii.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if you could talk about some of the more recent launches for Hilton Grand Vacations and how that's starting to expand globally uh to offer even more flexibility for your members.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: We have um in Europe, we have sets we have resorts in Scotland, we've got resorts in the UK, resorts in uh Portugal, uh Spain, and Italy, uh Austria, I think also.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um lots of great destinations over there.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, some of the new launches that we've had, ones you know that I think are fairly special for us.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we just opened a resort in uh Pigeon Forge, Mill Springs, uh was a brand new resort, branded over to our Hilton Vacation Club brand.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: A couple years ago, we opened a couple resorts in New York.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um great resort, you know, right on you know, right off the park, uh is one of the properties.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: The other property is right off of Rockefeller Center.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Those two are great resorts.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um in Las Vegas, uh we have the Alara, which is uh about a 1300-room timeshare resort right on um Harmon Drive and Las Vegas Boulevard.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's actually the largest single uh standing timeshare resort in the world.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um we just finished on the top four floors a Hilton Club edition.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: So took that luxury concept, brought it to the top four floors of the property, put a beautiful lounge in that overlooks Las Vegas.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can come and sit there at night or sit there and have a drink.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you're a member of Hilton Club and added sort of that resort inside of resort concept, that one's done very well.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: The owners who owned in the bottom part of the building were very excited to be able to upgrade into the upper part of the building, and that's done really well for us.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're working on a resort.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: You talked about international expansion in Kyoto, Japan.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it's you know the great thing about Kyoto, I would say, is it it's a destination for anyone who lives in Japan, and it's truly an international destination, very much like a Las Vegas Oregon.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think there'll be a lot of our US members who are excited to go there.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that resort will be open next year.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're renovating the building.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's going to be absolutely gorgeous.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we're working and finishing uh a new resort in Waikiki in Honolulu uh that uh is a new high rise.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we actually just went to the uh topping off event for that building uh just a few months ago, and it should open up next year.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be another great addition in Hawaii for all of our own events.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh all those destinations sound incredible.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Kyoto, of course, is world none for world renowned for design as well as service in terms of befitting that classic Japanese style.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then Waikiki uh is.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: A very, very well developed um bastion of hospitality, uh, what they've done over the past 50 years to service incoming guests from, I guess, primarily United States and uh in Japan as well.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that probably will be very special in being built very focused on the Japan market and what Japanese are looking for.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think when you talk about things that we do uniquely, especially in Japan, uh, where we we actually sell a lot of that in in Japan, the Hawaii product.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, we're very focused on making sure it has the right elements to it that you might want if you're a Japanese member coming over to stay in Hawaii.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Good good language and translation skills, so they feel comfortable when they're there.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it sometimes it's the simplest of things, things like rice steamers in the rooms and things like that that are very important for someone when they're vacationing if they're from Japan.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: This particular one, we're putting an OFURO on the on the top floor, um, which is a you know private spa, uh Japanese spa, um, you know, built in a very traditional style for the Japanese.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Even I think for someone from North America going there, I think it'll be a really special experience.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I've walked the model room a couple times.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's going to be an absolutely gorgeous report.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a great segue, particularly talking about the rice steamers in the rooms, about how you how you decide on what services and amenities, both on premises and in the units, to uh to put in, which allow you to create these special experiences, but also keeping in mind that everything has a cost, both CapEx and OpEx.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always a very, very fine balance between going overboard and then not doing enough to uh stay competitive amongst all the other options people have.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's your general philosophy uh around surrounding this ongoing process for development?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it comes in a couple different ways.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: I talked about the three different brands.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, certainly when you look at a Hilton Club resort, uh the amount that you might put into that unit and the amount you put in the finish of the unit is always going to be a little bit higher, of course, than a Hilton Grand Vacation Resour.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, part of that is that element and who's the audience and what they're looking for.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: We spend a lot of time, frankly, listening to the owner, getting their feedback.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Where do they want us to go?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: What do they want to see?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Our teams, I think, are very focused on you know trying to understand the market that that is going to be buying that product and using that product and what's important to have there.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: I talked a little bit about model rooms.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we we you know we don't simply look at designs on a piece of paper.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if we're going to build a resort, we'll build a room out completely and uh walk that room multiple times.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: We'll tweak and and change things and tune things, and you know, that's a combination of trying to make sure it's right and it has what it needs.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And also, to your point, just you know, make sure it's cost efficient.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Ultimately, members are the owners of that building.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: They are, you know, they are their own HOA.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, a lot of that maintenance is theirs to keep.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: So our job is to both make sure it meets their needs, but also make sure it's going to be cost effective in the long run to own part of that building and have that be part of the you know the renovation expense associated with that unit.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the teams do a great, great job striking that balance.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh I I love what you said uh just about walking the room multiple times and the whole idea of the model room process and really drilling down, going through it multiple times, not just designing it and walking through it and saying, Yeah, that's good enough, but actually getting in there and torture testing everything to come at the most effective way for the owners who are gonna have to um have those maintenance fees going forward as part of the uh homeowners association.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I've sat many uh many kitchen table chairs trying to figure out if they're actually all that comfortable for two or three hours of sitting and playing a game.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: And if I thought those are lights, do they actually really work and light the room nicely?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, is that the right kind of carpet?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, is it that chair class before?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it it speaks to the attention to detail that you go through on behalf of the entire uh all all stakeholders so that they don't have to go through that and nitpick everything.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: They can go into a room and they know that it's gonna be a comfortable, intuitive space.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: And and and like I said, we we bring in a lot of different people.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: We'll bring in resort operations staff, make sure they can clean it efficiently, and if that product can get in and out of the unit quickly, they give a lot of great feedback.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um they really also know a lot of times what the owners are looking for based on what they hear every day.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, bring in some of our sales staff that's helping to you know sell the product and you know, have them take a look at it, see what they've heard, and what people say, oh, I really wish a resort had X.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, our build our staff that build the resorts, and uh, you know, certainly they have a great deal of input on that process.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then you know, a lot of you know, people like me who spend time in tubs, spend time sitting in chairs, and just really thinking about is this is this comfortable?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Is this an environment that you know our owners would really enjoy?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love that you involve the entire operations team to really get buy-in.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this is this again is a good segue to a discussion of labor where uh worldwide, every hotel year is asking uh where is the labor of the future coming from?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is a uh perennial challenge for hospitality.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the solution seems to be uh let's focus on culture to make sure that the people that we get are ones that we can keep.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm uh wondering here within the ever changing ever evolving world of hospitality, how is uh Hilton Grant Vacation creating a culture that uh reduces employee turnover, keeps your talent, and therein uh reduces overall costs while allowing for these great experiences to actually happen.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: One of our precepts is we put people first.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: And especially when it comes to our resort operation staff, we really, really do.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're a great group of people and we invest in them a lot, to your point.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's extremely difficult to find some of those people.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And for us, we want them to be part of the family almost like the owners do.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: We want someone to start at a property.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: The number of stories I've heard of someone who, hey, they started at a front desk and now they're a general manager somewhere, um, you know, is is you know enormous in our system.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we invest an enormous amount in training.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what's our culture?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: What are we about at Hilton Grand Vacations?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: What do we expect out of inspired hospitality for the owner base?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, two very operational elements.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: We have boot camps and universities.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: So if you started in that in you know in a particular role, you might have started in you know something like a front desk spiritual role or something like that, and now you're moving into an assistant general manager.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: What's the expectations of that?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: You've obviously seen it a lot if you're you know one of our team members and you know what that sort of was like to work for an assistant general manager, but now what's those expectations?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: How do we skill them?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: How do we train them?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: What's that ongoing education associated with that?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: We do a great deal of succession planning also.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um we we purposely try and move around our you know, our resort staff as they move up through the organization and work very hard to prepare them for that next step.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: But as I said, I the number of people I've met who've been in our system for a long time is is really stupendous.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have some great tenure in our our resort staff, and uh you know they're really our family, just like the owner base is.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is one of the advantages of hospitality, is you can start as a a front desk clerk in Waikiki, and then before you know it, you're an assistant GM in in Kyoto or somewhere else in Japan, and then you become a GM or an area manager in in Europe somewhere.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it really is uh it's it's it can be a definite aspirational aspect of the career.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of people come to those roles with the hope of being able to do that.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's great when you can provide that for someone.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: The other great part about that is it maintains that culture.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: What we really want people to represent when they're out there talking to owners and out there talking to prospects for us or someone who's renting at the property.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: I often say when I'm talking to team members, you know, if you're having those interactions, you are building gratification.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're not just representing the company, you are the company that holds.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's they they make or break our brand every day, and I'm proud to say they make it far, far more than you think.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean that's uh that's a actually a fantastic motto for the industry is to embody the company wholeheartedly, and then from there everything else falls in place.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's also, I think you you asked me earlier what's the difference between sort of regular hospitality and timeshare.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and certainly you get a lot of repeat if you're a you know, if your branded hotel and you have a lot of people who like that hotel, they come back, but it's definitely far more transient.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: In our world, you know, many of these owners they either own there, they consider it theirs.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh fallen in love with that property, they come back year after year.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Or you know, I've even seen where kids of parents who now become owners come back to a property they were going to when they were teenagers.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you you have this very high close relationship.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: The resort staff get to know these people sometimes very well.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: I've talked about some of the surprises.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: They know those things because they see these people year after year after year, and they build great relationships, and that's great to see.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean that's that's incredible to see.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh it's a good segue into our next uh section talking about uh your customers and who they are.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And of course with a vacation ownership, there's uh essentially the three years.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh the owners um developers, there's the then there's the different types of transient uh people that may come in, the uh just the straight transient or maybe some sort of extended stay or other segments.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about who uh who the customers are for Hilton Grand Vacation?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean our our customers primarily are the first two that you mentioned.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, for us, we have that that 725,000 people who own across our 200 properties, and um you know they are our owners.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I often from my perspective and you know think of you know our job is to you know they are they own this club, our job is to be the stewards of that and provide them with the great services.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and many of them think of it that way too, which I think is great.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they're different, as I said, they come back year after year.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: They they know how to use our club, they know how to stretch those points and do various things more than you know, sometimes I think everyone here does.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: Some of our owners I'm always amazed at just how good they are using the system to get the most out of their vegetation.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um we do also have renters.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: We we have them for a couple different reasons.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: I talked about that high-rise we were building in uh in Honolulu with the high rise that we built in New York.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, our business model is to sell that out ultimately to owners.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: That does take a period of years.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so during that period of time, the great relationship we have with Hilton.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: We were able to take those excess rooms that we haven't sold yet, put them out on Hilton.com, rent them through there.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: That brings renters into the property, which is also great from our perspective, gives them a chance to experience our brands and our level of service and decide if they want to become an owner with us.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so you know, those are the two primary customers we have.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: And we treat them very similar.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: When they're on property, you know, an owner is always going to be treated a little bit different.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: They are an owner, uh they are a member of our club, and we always want to recognize that.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but you know, from our perspective, when a renter is there, they very well could be our next owner.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: So we treat them very well too.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there are you know, from an area like a New York or Las Vegas, uh, you know, we will do groups and things like that.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have members who do things like weddings, and so we'll help them arrange those.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Certainly, you get the citywide in some of these big cities, and you know, to the extent we have rental availability, we do that at some of our bigger properties.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but that is really more to fill in occupancy than it than it really is to you know, our primary you know, customer base is either someone who's an owner or someone who's a renter who we hope will be an owner.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you talk about the clubs themselves and this diversity of members across different segments that are coming in.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Give us an overview now of what privileges a Hilton Grand Vacations club member is entitled to.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, first and foremost is you know you own either part of this network or you own at a particular resort.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: And as I said, that really gives you a set of points.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that points represent your ownership.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you can use them just to stay where you know you own, or you can use them to reserve across the system.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you can take those points, you can save them for a year, you can borrow them for a year.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: So if you want to do a really big vacation, maybe bring some friends, or maybe get a really large unit, you can put two or three years worth together and do that.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or you can take it and break it up into some smaller vacations, and that's just the resort side.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: The next benefit that you have is what we refer to as travel services.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: If you'd like to use those points or part of those points to go do a cruise, help buy down some airplane tickets, uh, something like that, you can do that through there.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and a lot of our members take advantage of that.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Through the Hilton relationship that we have, you can either get some discounts on stays at Hilton that are just your standard discount that a member might get if you're using cash.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: Depending on how many points you own with us, you get recognized in their loyalty program.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, if you have a lot of points you own in our world, uh, you know, you'll be recognized as you know, someone higher in their loyalty system on an annual basis.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can take those points, you can convert them over to Hilton Honors and uh use them for stays in uh somewhere in that world.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to go stay in South America or Central America, we don't currently have the resort.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can do that, stay at any of the great Hilton uh products that might be down in those markets to basically make sure you can go anywhere you want in the world.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, I talked a lot about experiences, created this platform we called HGUV Ultimate Access, and that is about providing that experiential nature of your ownership.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: So it ties into your stays typically.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you're going to go stay in New York, and uh you know you might want to go to a you know Broadway show, we can help you do that as part of that, or maybe one of those dinners that I talked about.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you're coming down here to Orlando, maybe you get the opportunity to do a private concert.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: We do a lot of private concerts uh here in Orlando.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we have our signature events.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: So those those events we'll do, say almost 4,000, about 3,800 of those a year.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: Then we have a few signature events.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: We'll do large private concerts.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but the you know the two or three that are you know really our signature events are the Tournament of Champions, the golf tournament that I mentioned that's here in January down in Orlando, uh week long, you know, all these great LPGA players, all these celebrities, the chance to mingle, three concerts.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: We've had pit bull, we've had Boo Boo Dolls, uh you know, Kelly Clarkson's coming.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: We've got you know a lot of great you know, backs that come into that event.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mentioned that resort in Las Vegas, it's host to our other really large uh signature event, which is the F1 race that's in Las Vegas, the Heineken F1.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um our resort happens to sit right on Las Vegas Boulevard in Harmon.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: And if you know where the track runs, that's right where you turn to come drive back into the paddock area, the main start stop for the race.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we have a big pool area, we cover that, we do concerts on that pool area and uh have you know some viewing screens and things like that, uh, you know, dinners every night, uh, do a set of concerts out there, and then we build a viewing platform right on Harmon Avenue, and you have the opportunity to uh you know hang out in that, we have food beverage, and and uh you get the chance to see all the races.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: We've got some great view lines and some really um you know great events that happen inside of there.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, those are two of our really signature events.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: We've also got relationships with NASCAR, and you go to about 10 different NASCAR races as part of Ultimate Access.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: And just a whole series of other events, and that's part of that benefit really of being an owner.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I love hearing about all these different events that you've set up um across the calendar year and across different places combined with the points, you're giving people the total flexibility to really access these.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they whether they whether they want to go one year or the next year, combine points, it it really is a great system.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the question then is you're you're now at 700,000 club members.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: How is this growing over time?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what are you doing to get the word out about all these uh all these benefits that you have for owners?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we do that a couple different ways.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, for for us, we always want to see the organization grow.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, certainly as a you know our own public company, it's important that we continue to grow.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: But for the owner base, it's important to grow and give them new opportunities, new destinations out there.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, one of the things I I really love is our relationship with Hilton.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we work with them and provide you know, out to everyone who's an honors member or or you know guests or you know, part of the you know, sort of renter base of Hilton.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we will give them opportunities to come and stay with us, experience our product, and see if they want to become an owner.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we use some of these signature events uh to get the word out during that LPGA event and in the you know golf tournaments running up to it.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we'll have commercials on uh on the golf channel and on the channel that's carrying the uh event, uh you know forward gratifications to get the brand out.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um certainly when you're at F1, if you look at the uh viewing platform that we have, it very prominently has the name there.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: You see on uh on uh on televisions the car goes by a lot.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um a lot of other ways of really trying to get it out there.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um a lot of it is in partnership with Hilp and in partnership with that you know that rental process that that we have.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's why we actually enjoy having renters come in and get a chance to really experience the product.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: Some of it's word of mouth.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the great thing when you built as a big a network as we have, um you know, people who love this product love to talk about it with their friends and their family.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: We love when they bring their friends and family with them.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, a lot of the owners were people who were someone's guest before the you know, the first time they came and experienced the product.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: And just to color this a little bit more about the participation with Hilton Honors, um how what contribution or per per percent attribution of total stays in Hilton Grand Vacations would you say is attributable to Hilton worldwide, either that being people using their H honors points or um or direct bookings?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it it'll vary a little bit every year because first and foremost it it's about the owners and how many of the owners want to come and stay with us versus how many might go to Hilton Honors, right?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or how many might go off and experience something else.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um the majority of the stays across the system are owners staying at our properties, right?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, a little bit under 50% will be split between um you know someone renting it because we haven't sold that unit yet, or our owners have gone off and done something else, and we allow a renter to come into that property to help pay for the benefit we gave that person, um, or to um you know provide someone with an opportunity to come and see what our experience is like.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: And to segue into our next section on technology, the ability to be flexible with the availability rates and inventory is all done by connecting all these systems together, and they all need to be up in the cloud, they all need to have these interfaces.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Can you give us a brief overview on the technology that you're using for Hilton Grand Vacations?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: First, our technology base, I think, is it's incredibly important to the business, and it's it's it's I would say in many ways more complex than you might see in a standard hospitality company because we're we're a couple different things.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're we're selling real estate to someone, so we have to, you know, we're generating contracts and deeds, and we have to keep track that you know you own this particular you know asset, you own this amount of points, and you have the right.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: To do this kind of thing every year, and then that you know, we have all the resorts, and we have to manage the inventory and you know set up the allocations to the various people who might be using it.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you have your more much more standard you know property management systems like you might see out there at any hospitality environment where yeah, you have to be able to check people in and out, food and beverage systems, everything that comes with that.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: So you know it's a business that's actually in multiple businesses compared to say standard hotel might be because of that.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of it is fairly proprietary.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: We have uh you know built up our system over the many years we've been in business.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we do attach a lot of things to that.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you're seeing us do a lot and you know to modernize our websites, bring in things like um you know AI tools uh to make that whole planning process and reservation process easier for a consumer.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're using platforms to be able to deliver things like mobile applications that allow you to access your information, look at your ownership, book a vacation, things like that.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it is, you know, the choices are abundant, and so technology to help owners plan, help them understand what their ownership is, what they can do, uh, what they can't do with that product is incredibly important.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it's an area we've put a lot of investment in.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I I do actually like that you mentioned the word proprietary because this speaks to a huge industry trend, which is that the IT architecture that hotel brands are putting together is part of the value of that brand.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is fundamental to the operations as well as the expansion of that brand and the guest experience.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and I would say even when you think about where we're investing, a lot of it is taking things that didn't used to be in the cloud and making sure they are in the cloud, and um, you know, to give all the flexibility that comes with that.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and a lot of it is in those more advanced sort of tools.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um launched something we called My Explorer Plus recently that does a couple different things.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: When someone's looking to make a reservation, plan a vacation, um, it helps them, gives them recommendations.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if they're looking to go a particular location and um it might be before they can book that, it'll help them understand that it might be too soon to book that and give them alternatives.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: It can be you know more of a you know, hey, I kind of want more of a beach experience, and you know, where where might there be an opportunity to do that?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: It can provide those kind of recommendations.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: The great thing is you you know you talk a little bit about proprietary, you know, AI is uh an interesting thing today.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: When you take these models and train them on your information, you want to make sure it's pertinent to our owners that matters.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we've actually brought a lot of those tools in-house, train those models interior to us so that it really uh both is proprietary to us, but also more most importantly, you know, it really is you know useful for an owner, helps them you know do their vacation planning, gives them good recommendations.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: We just recently launched a chatbot version of that.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: So now it's not just helping you with your search, if you just want to have a conversation with us and say, hey, you know, I I I need a place before people, I want to be able to go to Broadway shows, but I want to be able to go to a beach and you know, I only have this amount of time, it'll give you options on where you can do that and help you sort of plan through that process.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you can do it a little bit more in an interactive format, be in the chat bar.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: We're very excited about that.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I do love that you mentioned the the word training because these uh LLM slash GPTs out of the box, uh they are not that uh well uh knowledgeable, uh let's just say, and they can hallucinate and they can give wrong information.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, think about what it takes to train them.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're dealing with so many different complex interactions or different strata of owner allowed gather across 700,000 members and 200 properties, there is a significant amount of training that needs to go in to torture test that before it's ready for um the end user.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: And as I said, we're a little bit different than you might see standard hospitality or standard vacation.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we need to make sure it actually understands our business and understands what our owners you know want to do and how they want to play it.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it was very important that we actually did that in a way that we thought was going to really be useful and interact with the owners appropriate button.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and within all this, you are the chief operating officer.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is your role in technology decision making?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's very heavy.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a lot of what I'm doing is working with a great team of people, be it our technology team or be it the operation side of the business, and really determining what's the future?
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: Where do we want to go?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: What's most important to do?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: As you can imagine, you can spend an endless amount of money on technology and moving technology forward.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, part of my job is to say, okay, what does that roadmap really need to look like?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: What's that next thing that's going to provide value for the business, value for the owners, um, or simplify our business, which in the end is actually helpful for the owner base.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so a lot of what's that roadmap trade-off decisions, uh, you know, making sure the requirements that go into something new that we do really delivers, you know, the right thing.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: I talked a lot about how we pressure test a room with a model room.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: We do a lot of that same sort of thing with technology.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, before we put it out, let's make sure we have people here pressure test that and you know, really have the user experience before we turn it on and uh you know, make sure it's actually right for the owner base.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love I love that you mentioned um just to color some more, the fact that you are testing these technologies and you understand that it's trade-offs.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is always trade-offs in terms of what you want versus what's actually available, and then how certain features, even though you may want them, they may not properly integrate with the current system based on what you're putting forward.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the cost of all that that a lot of people don't realize is that data and data storage is very expensive.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the more you're adding to it, those costs add up in terms of warehousing.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and and we make a lot of very you know difficult but you know important decisions around how much do you license software and how much do you run a SaaS model in a cloud environment versus how much do you build yourself?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you might build it yourself, still run it in a proprietary cloud environment, but you know, what's really the right uh level of flexibility that you can get, use of other people's tools versus the run rate cost of doing something like that.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we we drive a lot of that process when we're thinking about our movement.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: But we have a great partnership with our CTO who helps you know plan and deliver all that technology.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of our job is to help make sure that that roadmap matches the strategy of the business and that the business is ready to take that technology when it's delivered and use it as best as it can be.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so within this roadmap, um what pain points are you personally experiencing on the operation side that you're now looking for technology to help solve?
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: For me, the best thing that technology can always do in our business is make our interaction with our owners and their interaction with us simpler.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I don't think of these tools as, you know, hey, how can I uh shrink our team member base?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think about how can they help us grow, how can they create loyalty, how can they make people you know really enjoy the product that they have.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: So for us, I mean, you we provide a lot of options for people.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, timeshare has a certain amount of inherent, you know, I would I would say almost a little bit of complexity when you think of just a hotel stay, you know, hey, I here's the hotel I want to stay in, there's the money, am I willing to do that or not?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: For us, you do get these rights every year, and you can use them in a lot of different ways.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, how do we help our owners plan through that process, understand their options, understand the choices they can do it, and frankly, how how can they optimize if I only have a certain amount of you know points this year?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: What's my highest and best use of those points to really get the best medication that I can?
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: When you think about the advances in technology and the things that are happening right now, you know, what I'm super excited about between just the ability to deliver video uh you know much more quickly and much more cost efficiently than you can in the past, you know, these AI tools to interact with our owners and then allow us to really provide really deep service to them.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm just really excited about what opportunities there are in the future to just make that ownership that much more seamless and that much more friendly for them.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: And one other piece of technology, aside from the, I guess, accounting systems for tracking uh fractional ownership and the PMS property management system is the CRM, uh customer relationship management.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering if you could color some of the details that you're using the CRM for in order to help make those interactions simpler and to enable a lot of the experiences that you're now offering.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, we do a couple different things.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we have, as I said, a you know, very deep relationship with the owners.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're buying a piece of real estate from us.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: We obviously know who they are, where they live.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: As they vacation with us over time, we learn a lot more about them, you know, what's you know what their family look like, you know, what's their preferences.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I talked a little bit about training, you know, our My Explorer tool to uh really be able to work with you when you're planning a vacation.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: Some of that information helps that tool figure out what's the right recommendations for you know, Borden's member does he always look for beaches?
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you know, you want to be able to record that and be able to feed that back via tools like that and uh get more and more personalized as we go.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um we also use that when we think about communication with owners.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: We need a lot of our communication with our owners to be much, much more personalized.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, just knowing who you are, where you live, what your preferences are.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we can now use these tools to customize our messages of communication with the owner base to not be sort of generic or in big segments, but to start to talk one-on-one more and more and more with the owner base.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I guess supplanting a lot of the work with that personalized messaging that would have to be done manually by reservation agents or guest service agents, and just being able to front load that a little bit uh by having those CRM details properly properly itemized and in in defined fields.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there, the agent can step in and get really give the the icing on the cake uh for one to draw back to one of your experiences you mentioned, and really it just enhance service even more.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: And all of that never replaces that human interaction.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, for us, this is just about how do we how do we make that process as simple as possible.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and you, I'm sure you see this.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: The world, I think, has two different kinds of people out there.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: There are people who love to plan, you know, they are planners, you know, that brings them joy.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's the people who you know, they just want to go on the vacation, you know, they want somebody to plan it for them.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, for us, it's how do we use all these tools to help both those people?
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're very different people who go about it very differently.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, how do we help them both do those activities?
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, for us, these are tools for growth.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, how do we use this to create loyalty in the base?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: And how do we use this to you know have you know bring the experience to more people?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how can we do that cost efficiently?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: What you know, and it you know, you do buy into something, it is a homeowners association, it does have homeowners association fees.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: Part of our job is to make sure those are as efficient as possible.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we have to be very careful about you know, as we grow, how do we do that as efficiently as possible?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's uh planning, planning, planning, uh process, process, process, and pressure testing, pressure testing, pressure testing the whole thing.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: So so to end off the conversation here, let's look ahead to the future.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are your overall thoughts on the hospitality industry as a whole?
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then more specifically about uh fractional ownership products as well as the growth of branded residences.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you when you talk about sort of where's the timeshare industry going to go, I think you'll continue to see diversity where those products are and what they look like.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I talked a lot about you know some of our urban products 20 years ago.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: There really weren't urban timeshares.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh these great relationships with hotel companies allowed you to build a 40-story building and solely maturely sell it out over five or six years, create a new segment of timeshare industry.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think people will continue to do that and you know, find new locations to go, and then how do we build great destinations for the owners of timeshare in general?
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: For us, I think we're well down that journey and ahead of many of the other timeshare companies that are out there.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of great diversity in our product across North America and Europe and Japan, both be it urban, be it whole resort, be it mountain, be it beach.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, to me the next step is experience.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: We talked a bit earlier about you know, experience just becomes so front and center uh with the people who are buying this product today.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: Most of our buyers these days are more millennials, Gen Z, starting to be solely even solely materially the younger generation than now.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: It is a very social media world.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um great thing about phones is they keep you connected everywhere you go.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes the difficult thing about phones is everybody feels they need to share what they're doing with everyone in the railway and everyone's press.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um providing great experiences where you give that moment to someone.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think you'll see people move more and more into that.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: I I talked a lot here about how car owners are buying into the lifestyle.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're not buying into a car.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we need to continue to work and expand what those lifestyle benefits look like, what the opportunities are like.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think in the near future, medium future, a lot of that'll be about experiences.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_02: After that, it'll be where do they tell us they want to go.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: We try very hard to listen to our prospects, our owners, understand what their interests are, what they want to see us doing next.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um, our job is to try and stay ahead of that and providing that for the excellent thing.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the feedback and with experiences at the center, where you can design from the inside out from experience into both the features and amenities you're putting on a property to actual property selection in a given market and to the overall demand.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a whole rewrite of uh of the actual development cycle, starting from starting from the experience rather than just having a block of land somewhere and then and then doing feasibility on that.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's weird.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: You think about Kyoto and places like that.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: We we didn't go there because we found the building.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: We went and found the building because we saw that our owners really wanted to go there, either build or via feedback to us, knowing that take some risks out of the model and and and know that at the same time you're going to be creating satisfaction for the owner base by going where they want you to be.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you think uh about the growth of the branded residential asset class, which has sort of really dominated the conversation many ways in luxury and alter luxury, and now um other brands in the upper upscale and upscale and lifestyle are are now moving into the space.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: What are what are your thoughts on on that growth overall?
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I think it's got a very bright future.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you think about, as example, our Hilton Club brand, our luxury brand that we have, uh it's kind of an example of that.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it it you know, these are people who are buying into that sort of branded luxury residence and these are other locations with the lounges and uh the service that comes with that.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you see that just in general.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Someone might want to buy an entire unit and have a branded residence.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: What they're looking for is the experience.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: They want that hotel experience in a whole ownership.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they want to know that those services and those extra benefits are wrapped around just owning a condominium.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I think you're you're seeing a lot of that growth.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think you'll continue to see that growth in that space.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I think you'll see an interesting mix, and you see this today, uh buildings being partially branded residence, partially hotel, to be able to provide those services efficiently.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, in many instances, you see all three.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: You might see a timeshare component for someone who may not want an entire year, a whole ownership residence, and then you know, a home ownership branded residence, and then a AOA hotel component that helps you know really provide the services across all three.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you'll see more and more of that going forward.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of the I guess mixed use is the proper word, but it's so interesting to see because the mixed use also extends into other classes of commercial real estate where you have offices blended in, retail, and wellness is a huge growth area as well.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're seeing a bigger spa footprint that where the costs are uh covered off by a lot of the recapture off of these branded residences.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a um it's a great model.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: The resort we're building at Waikiki has you know a series of floors of commercial space and you know on the bottom of it before you get to the actual lobby, um, you know, a few floors up.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's great.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: It you know it helps amortize off the whole building, but it also gives a lot of great services right there in that same building for the for the owners in the building.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I mixed use is always a great model.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: We do have a few of our resorts that are actually in a hotel.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have one of our products in in uh New York is in the Hilt Midtown.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we have uh we have a few floors in Washington, DC that are dedicated timeshare and an overall uh a hotel.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, those are great models.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: I you know it actually helps uh the owner of the hotel asset by you know taking you know some of those rooms and dedicating to another model from a timeshare perspective and from the timeshare owner's perspective.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: It gives you a broader range of services um, you know, at a more economical cost than owning in that location.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh again, I want to draw back to that word flexibility, which seems to be the the hallmark of just giving people the options uh and how that ties into something far greater with the the club program.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean for us, we love the club format.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that it really allows for a full lifetime of ownership.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can buy this when your kids are very young or before you even have kids and kind of run ride all the way through your you know your life experience and use it in a lot of different ways to really have whatever kind of vacation experience you really want to have.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: So to finish off here, second last question, can you give us a sneak peek of what's upcoming for Hilton Grand Vacations uh in terms of uh properties that are in the pipeline or new features, new programs you're gonna roll out?
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, we're adding some we're adding some benefits to the program, but we haven't announced that to the ownership phase yet.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: So we can announce them here.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it publicly traded companies got to be very careful, right?
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: But beyond that, it yeah, we always want to tell the owners first what's coming.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then we do want to make sure we're always anyway.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_02: We talked a little bit about some of the new resorts that are you know really been announced, Waikiki and Kyoto, and a couple that we just opened, like the Hilton Club at Alara.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: We've got uh a couple resorts here in the US that we're looking at that are in some great emerging destinations.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have a location that we're looking at that uh is really becoming the new hub for a lot of uh people who are going on things like bachelorette parties and things like that, uh, that we're very excited to announce very soon.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we're always looking for new locations, looking to add new benefits to the system.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um we mentioned the blue green roots uh system that we bought uh last year.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_02: We're starting to brand those over into our Hilton Vacation Club product, and so for those owner base, they're starting to now get all those Hilton benefits that I just talked about as they come over and join into that larger system.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, a lot of great things coming from the base, a lot of things that are happening.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: We'll continue to invest in technology and grow that AI capability for our owners to make it easier and easier to use the system at the same time.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: To conclude, is there anything else, Gordon, that we haven't mentioned that's important and deserves mention?
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think we've covered a great deal of it.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think the biggest thing I would say is, you know, for us, we're we're very excited about the future.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's um, you know, we've we've had a great run growing this business.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we are now the largest timeshare company in the world.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's not just about being big, it's about using that scale to continue to grow, continue to provide benefits to the owner base, to give them just lots of great, you know, really memories and vacations for a lifetime.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we're just really excited to continue to do that for the base.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: Gordon, it's been a fantastic conversation.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all the inside details for Hilton Grand Vacation.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: Adam, thank you so much for having me on.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to have had an opportunity to spend the afternoon talking to you.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks, Gordon.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right, take care.