Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #313: A Journey of Hospitality Innovation: From Cairo to Hotel Brand COO | with Karima Zaki
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #313: A Journey of Hospitality Innovation: From Cairo to Hotel Brand COO | with Karima Zaki === David Millili: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Don't forget to follow, like, subscribe, and let us know in the comments what you think about today's episode. Steve, who do we have on the program today? Steve Carran: Yeah, David, excited for this one. We have Karima Zaki on, the COO of the hotel division at Town and Desert Hospitality. Thanks for joining us, Karima. How are we doing today? Karima Zaki: Fabulous. Thank you. Absolutely great. David Millili: All right, good. We're gonna jump in. We're gonna go through a lightning round, some quick questions. We're gonna get to know your personal background, your career, and then we're gonna dive into some industry topics. Sound good? Karima Zaki: Sounds great. David Millili: All right. So when you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? Karima Zaki: Business person. I knew that from a very early start. There's a picture of me holding a pen when I was about eight or so. You could tell where I was going. David Millili: That's great. So what's something that you wish you were better at? Karima Zaki: Good question. I would say patience. Playing the long game is important, and sometimes you just have to step back and say, "Hold on. Let's make sure this all makes sense." I like to get results quickly, so it's one of those things. David Millili: I can relate to that. So what's a luxury you can't live without? Karima Zaki: Boy, general technology. I adopted very early on, so I'm dependent on my phone, computer, and all the things that make life a little bit easier and move things along quicker. David Millili: Okay. So if there is a person, dead or alive, that you could take to lunch, who would you take to lunch? Karima Zaki: Wow. Past would be my father, who I lost when I was 30 and who was brilliant. And still alive, Barack Obama. I would love to sit around a table with him and get some thoughts. David Millili: That's great. All right, so if you could have a superpower, what superpower would you like to have? Karima Zaki: I think I'd like to be able to listen through barriers. Sometimes I think what isn't said is the most important thing that weighs in on a situation. I'd like to know what you're really thinking. David Millili: Yeah, that's a good one. This is the last one. Let us know something that's on your bucket list. Karima Zaki: A trip through wine country in France, which I missed because we had to cancel during COVID-19. The other is to develop an organization before I retire that's going to hold the OTAs accountable. Steve Carran: Ooh. Love it. That's good. Karima Zaki: Right? A whole different conversation. Steve Carran: Yeah, absolutely. So now we're gonna dive into your personal background, a little bit about what makes you tick. You were born in Cairo, Egypt, and spent your childhood between Europe and the Middle East before your family came to the United States when you were a teenager. How did becoming a world citizen really shape you into who you are today? Karima Zaki: I think that the more exposed you are to different cultures, the less myopic you get. You broaden your understanding of other cultures and realize that you're much smaller than you think you are, and that you can contribute much more than you think you can. Traveling my entire life was great. When I came to the States, I didn't speak any English. I spoke three other languages, but English wasn't one of them. I think that when you travel as a young person, you adapt much quicker. I don't know that I remember learning the language because I had to. I was immersed in school, and that's how it developed. But it's definitely a broadening experience. I recommend it to anyone who has children: get them to travel early on in life. Steve Carran: Agree. I have to ask, what was your favorite place you lived? Karima Zaki: The United States, without a doubt. Although I absolutely love Western Europe. We lived in Düsseldorf, which is a great small city in Germany and where a lot of my family still is. Cairo is a whole different experience. If you haven't been, it's a jolt. Obviously an ancient city with a lot of history, but it's definitely a different cultural experience. I'd like to think I get pretty comfortable anywhere. David Millili: Good. So you got your degree in political science and government, and your master's in German and literature from SUNY New Paltz. I think I said that right. What led you to go there and get those degrees? Karima Zaki: I was on a very planned trajectory. I was going to get my political science degree, then I was going to go to law school and go into international law. Then I got sideswiped by the hotel industry, and I made this massive right turn. I've never looked back since. I'm so glad that I got exposed to this industry. I've loved every minute of it. Of course, you've got your struggles and ways of having to develop your career. But I've never looked back once and thought I would've done anything else or been as happy. Steve Carran: That's great. So you mentioned America was your favorite place you've lived. You knew you wanted to become an American before your family even came to the United States. What made you want to come here at such an early age? Karima Zaki: My dad was a very unusual Muslim father. He had two daughters and he said, "I want you to be independent. I want you to be financially independent. I want you to be educated. I want you to choose your spouse and not have it chosen for you." In the '70s, that was a very different thought process. We actually left Cairo—or I guess you can say we fled. The political environment was getting very heated, and my father had a high enough position that it became dangerous for us. We sat on a bed and collectively said, "Where do we want to go?" Obviously Germany was an option. We had a lot of family there. But my father said, "I want my girls to have every opportunity possible, and the place to do that is the United States." So they came before us, about a year, got settled, and then my sister and I followed from Germany to upstate New York. Yeah, a typical immigration story. Somebody who says, "Hey, there's a better world out there." Steve Carran: Wow, that's crazy. What a story. Thanks for sharing. So now we're gonna dive into your career and how you got to be the COO at Town and Desert Hospitality. This is so cool. You became the first female general manager in Red Lion's hotel history. What did earning that opportunity mean for you? And you mentioned challenges in your life. What challenges did you have to overcome to be the first woman in that leadership role at that time? Karima Zaki: I think you have to travel the road on both paths, right? You have to have the courage to say what's on your mind, and you have to say it in such a way that it's digestible and that people are hearing you, not turning you off because of the way you're delivering your message. It was a road. When I became a management trainee with Hyatt, there was not a single female general manager in a hotel chain in the United States. Not one. About four years into my career with Hyatt, they appointed the first female GM. When I was a management trainee, I said, "I want to do that." People were like, "Aw, isn't that cute? She thinks she's gonna be a GM." Or they said, "How dare she? Why would she put that as a goal? We just don't do that." So I navigated that throughout my entire career. I was also the first Area Vice President in the group with Hilton at the time. If you're the first, you have to be very conscious of the fact that you're going up a ladder, and you want to make sure you don't pull it up behind you. You're standing on other people's shoulders, and hopefully people stand on your shoulders. You have to navigate the path so that you're heard, perceived, and really able to effectively act as a partner in the business that moves things forward, as opposed to being an obstacle along the way. So yeah, it's been a very interesting road. David Millili: So you touched on it. From Red Lion, you went to Hilton. As you said, you became the Area Vice President, leading major properties like the 2,000-room Hilton in San Francisco and opening the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. What did you learn from those days that you still take with you today? Karima Zaki: I think the most important thing I learned, from my very early days, is to stay ahead of the game, which is why I love your podcast so much. No, but really, we get so busy in our day-to-day operations as hoteliers. We'd literally have to have the resources or the time to go to conferences all the time to gather information. I have this one saying that I've lived by my entire career. It was said back in the 1600s, so you can tell the world hasn't changed that much. The saying basically says, "To stand on the precipice of perfection is difficult, because that which does not move forward slips back." So you have to constantly evaluate whether you're still in the right place. To sit back and go, "Yeah, I got it. I'm there. This is common," is a critical mistake. For me, I went from managing one hotel—and by the way, I went through a whole bunch of mergers, so the company grew exponentially in four years. When you go from managing a single hotel to being responsible for a portfolio of hotels, the shift changes. You have to make sure you're bringing to the table the kind of changes that can elevate the hotels and move them forward, as opposed to saying, "We've always done it this way, so we're always going to keep doing it this way." That's been my mantra: always look for what's around the corner, what's on the horizon, and move toward that. Make sure the team can follow you in a vision that you're really clear about, and that they can participate so they feel like they're pulling their own weight. That concept has stayed with me throughout my career. My last project actually was not opening the Hilton Bayfront. I was responsible for getting it built. I was the Hilton connection throughout the construction project for the 1,200-room hotel, and that was a whole eye-opening experience as well. Steve Carran: I can imagine. After Hilton, you launched Above 30,000 Feet and did consulting to help struggling hotels reposition, reorganize, and return to good financial health. What made you want to get into consulting? And I'm curious, did you see any patterns among these underperforming hotels? Karima Zaki: It's an interesting journey. I left Hilton largely because I was a single mom—and still am—and I didn't want to pull my daughter out of high school in San Diego. So I started Above 30,000 Feet with my partner right at the crash of 2008. Hotels were rapidly spiraling downward. We had the skill set. My partner was an expert in marketing, and I knew the financial operations of any given hotel. We helped about a dozen hotels avoid bankruptcy, rebrand, reposition, or even make simple operational changes that allowed them to refinance or take on partnerships when savvy investors recognized that a down market was the right time to buy. That's what we did for several years until things stabilized around 2011 or 2012, when we were pretty sure we saw the light at the end of the tunnel—and it wasn't a train coming at us. It was a very rewarding time. David Millili: Yeah. So you then stepped outside traditional hotel operations and created Sanctuate, a technology-enabled spa concept. What made you start your own tech business? Karima Zaki: Here's the thing. I figured out early on, especially in the 2,000-room hotel that had this phenomenal spa that wasn't working, that the hotel industry had never really figured out that the traditional spa in a resort doesn't work in a business hotel for a variety of reasons. You can't keep staff on, there's not enough business, there's not enough time. So my concept was built for business hotels, group hotels, and even airport hotels because I delivered a service that was tech-based, where the operators of the services were constantly there. They didn't call in sick. If we had to perform a repair every once in a while, we could. My spa was really the precursor to what is starting to be adopted now. The interesting thing is I went to a bunch of hotel companies and said, "Listen, I've got the solution here." I was so ahead of my time. People just couldn't see it. They said people wanted to be touched. They wanted the traditional massage service. We did far-infrared treatments for facials. We did far-infrared body treatments—everything was tech-based. Visionaries are lonely because they see things out there, and you have to bring people along. It's interesting for me now that everybody says, "Oh my gosh, all of a sudden there are all these services available." Well, I had a spa. I had a fleet of spas, and people would walk in and say, "Well, this is strange." Then we'd give them a sample of our services, and they'd walk out saying, "Oh, I totally get this. Totally get this." Yeah, it was really highly successful. I'm still very proud of it. Steve Carran: That's awesome. So now you're the COO at Town and Desert Hospitality, overseeing a growing portfolio of boutique hotels in Palm Springs. Can you tell us more about Town and Desert Hospitality and why you decided to come here? Karima Zaki: Of course. I was looking at the next chapter in my life, and I knew that I didn't want to pursue the larger chain operations anymore. I really stumbled into this opportunity. At the time, we had two hotels: The Hideaway and Desert Hills. Our principal partner truly has a vision for the type of hotels that we curate, and all of them are architecturally significant. They have a history. Four of our hotels are Herbert Burns hotels. Herbert Burns is a very famous architect in the mid-century modern architectural movement. It's a very specific type of hotel that we continue to curate. On the other end, where my expertise comes in, is making the back end seamless while each hotel continues to have its own personality. You don't necessarily know that you're coming into an organization with multiple hotels unless one hotel doesn't have availability and we can put you in one of the other hotels. It's been my absolute pleasure to take my long-term experience and apply it to these small hotels. Our smallest hotel is seven rooms. Our biggest hotel is 16 rooms. This is a whole different world. The reason why I love your podcast so much is that there is a tendency in these resort destinations with these small hotels for inexperienced people to buy a property. They say, "Oh my gosh, I've stayed here for 10 years. It's for sale. I'm going to buy it." Then a year later they say, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know what RevPAR was. I didn't know I needed to be on the OTAs. I had no idea I had to pay TOT." It gets complicated. What I really love is taking everything I've learned over the last 35 years and saying, "Okay, let's take this model, apply it, make it efficient, make it smart, and grow it." We are continuing to grow because it only makes sense. We can do a lot more with 110 rooms than we can with 10. It's just been an incredible journey. For me, it's like closing the loop because I hadn't checked a guest in for, I don't know, maybe 30 years. It wasn't my role. I was a GM. I was an Area VP. I built a hotel. It wasn't what I did. Now I get to talk to guests and have immediate interaction because we're so small and we can. That's really rewarding. Steve Carran: Awesome. I'm really excited to start into this next section, our thought leadership section. Being as forward-thinking as you are, I'm excited to hear what you have to say about some of these topics. We can't have a conversation about technology without artificial intelligence. There's also shifting traveler expectations and, as you mentioned earlier, the growing influence of OTAs changing the ways hotels approach operations, marketing, distribution, and guest relations. What advice do you have for hotels with all these shifts going on? Karima Zaki: I think anytime something as big as AI starts to develop, everybody gets very excited. Although I do think that the hotel industry tends to be behind the curve a little bit. AI is obviously being embraced. I think a big mistake is thinking that we can use AI technology with a broad brush. The application for a Hilton is going to be very different than the application for a Sage Hotel or for a small group like ours. I'm very careful not to jump the gun too quickly and automate everything in our little hotels where the dependency on guest information and guest touchpoints is still so critical. We hired somebody about eight months ago who has become a rock star. One of the things she said to me was really interesting. Her daughter went to college up north, and there was one particular Hyatt she always checked into. It was her go-to hotel for years. She said, "The only interaction I ever had with that hotel was checking in." Because you get your room key, go to your room, and do whatever you're going to do. I come from that company, so I'm not criticizing it. But in our small hotels, we've had interactions with some of our guests over weeks or even months before they arrive. They ask, "Do you have a refrigerator?" "What's the Wi-Fi like?" We need the human memory of those conversations because it continues the relationship. We can't delegate that to AI. Conversely, I've moved my hotels' night shifts—between 7:00 in the evening and 6:00 in the morning—to an AI-generated response team, and I feel very comfortable with that. Our guests are totally comfortable with it. His name is Danny, and he answers questions. We continue to educate him as new questions come along. His name is Danny. I think it's really important that we look at how AI fits us instead of letting AI take over the operation. Before we know it, we've lost control of one more element, and we've already lost so much control. That's something I strongly suggest for hoteliers, especially in the world I'm in with small, intimate hotels. All of our hotels are adults-only. Those are very specialized hotels that have to look very carefully at how they apply that technology. David Millili: So you're living it. Why is collaboration between hotels, tourism organizations, local government, and industry partners becoming increasingly important for destinations to remain competitive? Karima Zaki: The best way to conquer something is to fracture it, right? If you don't want to be conquered by other destinations or by the ever-changing distribution world, a.k.a. OTAs, then you have to come up with a common strategy that defines your destination as a brand. Collectively feed into that brand and take advantage of the fact that there's a shared vision so the brand stays really strong. The even more interesting thing in the Palm Springs market is that we have one of the biggest collections of small hotels in a small geographic area in North America. Palm Springs has 80 small boutique hotels, and it would be very easy for that group to have no collective voice if we didn't come together and say, "We're stronger together than we are individually." The strength of that organizational leadership here has been absolutely amazing to me. I've seen us do things like that in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, where you have a lot of resources and are able to pay big salaries for people to put a cohesive vision together. But for a smaller community like this to have the kind of strength we have in our small hotel organization has been absolutely great. We link arms with the chains. There's an incredible cooperative atmosphere here in Palm Springs that has only strengthened the more initiatives we undertake and the smarter we become about how we stand out, differentiate ourselves, and become stronger. Steve Carran: Absolutely. David asked you what's on your bucket list. Palm Springs is on my bucket list because of what you said—you have 80 of these small independent boutique hotels. You're one of the few destinations where these independently owned boutique hotels define the visitor experience. There aren't a ton of brands around there. So how does that create a sense of authenticity about Palm Springs that the big brands really can't replicate? Karima Zaki: The beauty of it is that you have a combination of both. What the big brands bring is the ability to fill our convention center and create some compression so the smaller hotels are able to thrive in that environment. There's no doubt that guests figured this out a long time ago. Some of our hotels have guests who have been with us for 30 years. As soon as they're at the end of their trip, they're planning next year's trip. They want to make sure they have the room they want, the dates they want, and the timeframe they want. This has been figured out for a while. It's been a best-kept secret that we're trying to make not so secret. You're absolutely right. We have a unique perspective. For instance, five of my hotels are within walking distance of each other—some within throwing distance—but each one is so unique and offers such a nuanced experience that they don't compete; they complement each other. We have guests who proudly say, "I've stayed at every one of your hotels, and every time you add one, we're going to stay because we want to see what you guys are doing." You can have a tremendous experience year after year here and enjoy that intimate, small, quiet, calm environment. It drills everything down for a minute, and that's what we need more than ever. Everything outside is so crazy anymore that having a small environment where you're not walking a mile from one part of the hotel to another, where you're literally walking out your door to the pool and back into your room, is a very special experience. I think the blend between big and small here has been accomplished with remarkable success. David Millili: You touched on it a little bit before, but dive deeper into how the collaboration between Palm Springs hoteliers, tourism leaders, government, and civic officials has helped the destination overcome challenges and pursue new opportunities. Karima Zaki: I think what we do here is speed to market. I'll give you a great example. An initiative started toward the end of last year—maybe even a little earlier, around September of '25—to fund the expansion of our convention center. Our convention center needs that expansion not just to grow attendance but also to bring the building up to current standards. There are technology expectations, comfort expectations, parking expectations, and those kinds of things. In some of the cities I've been in before, this would have been a protracted five-year battle with lawsuits and all sorts of things getting in the way. At the end of the day, everybody who ever fought a convention center expansion claims they were on the side of it all along. I've never known a convention center expansion that didn't benefit the city as much as people said it would—and usually exceeded those expectations. So there's this long fight in every city over these expansions. We started the process to expand the convention center at a multi-million-dollar level in September. We brought it to the community—the larger community. We included the restaurants because they benefit from it. We included the vacation rental community. By December, we started the drive to sign the petitions. By April, the petitions were signed, and by May, the city council voted on it. Starting in September, we're charging an extra 1% for a TID, not a TBID. The hotels are going to collect the money, the restaurants are going to collect the money, and the convention center expansion is getting started. September to May—unheard of. I think there's a wisdom here that says, "Listen, we're small but mighty. This doesn't have to take so long. The end result is going to be to pass this thing anyway. Why put it off? Why lose all that time waiting to get this expansion started?" It was an amazing experience because I've been in cities where this was fought over for years. It was just an incredible experience. Steve Carran: I love to hear that. So, Karima, you've been a trailblazer in this industry on the hotel side, the technology side, and the small business side. What advice would you have for somebody in the younger generation who's looking to get into this industry, become a leader, or even start their own company? Karima Zaki: Great question, and thanks for asking it. I don't think the hotel industry specifically—not hospitality, but the hotel industry—does a good enough job telling our story. When you really look at the totality of a hotel operation, there are so many career paths that can be taken. You can be an MBA and find a career path. You can be a digital artist and find a career path. You can be a retail expert and find a career path. You can be a chef and find a career path. It's just so broad, and we don't tell people enough about the many opportunities that exist within that framework that can really be very enriching as a long-term career. When I speak to younger people, I always say, "Imagine yourself as a light bulb. Whatever plugs in and lights you up, that's what you ought to do for a living, and there is likely a path to that in our industry." The thing I would say to people starting their own business is this: when I started Sanctuate, I experienced this amazing massage chair in June, and I opened my doors the following January. What I would say to anyone interested in starting their own company is to make sure you have the financial depth to sustain whatever you need to sustain longer than you think you're going to need it. Even if you have a brilliant idea and you want to go to market, do that. Just make sure you've either secured funding, have your own funding, have family behind you, or whatever the case might be. I've seen too many fabulous initiatives fail because they couldn't be seen through to the end, and that's a shame. David Millili: That's very good. Steve Carran: That was well said, especially about hotels themselves and how we position ourselves to the younger generation. I've said things along those same lines, and that was such good advice as well. This has been such an insightful and fun conversation. We appreciate you joining us, but this is where we turn the tables and let you ask David and me a question. Karima Zaki: First of all, I'm absolutely in love with the podcast. I think what you provide is so critical to people who don't have resources. Things move fast, and you have to be able to get information very quickly. How did you two decide... I love the name Modern Hotelier because that's the whole point, right? You have to move forward all the time. How did you decide that this was an important mission—to bring such broad information, from uniform companies to people in big organizations starting initiatives that my little company couldn't afford? There are nuggets in those conversations where I think, "Oh, I better look at that in the future." What was that road like for the two of you? Steve Carran: David, you want to take this one? David Millili: All right, I'll jump in. For us, when we started, we were helping a company create brand awareness in the United States. When we started the podcast, Steve and I had a lot of conversations, and we really wanted it to be more about the guest, more about education, and more about people learning from people who were active on LinkedIn or elsewhere, where you didn't really understand why somebody had a particular opinion. For us, it was, "Here's someone with an opinion who's with XYZ company. Why do they feel that way?" That's why we ask questions like where you grew up and about your career. Taking people through that process is super important because we don't want this to be, "Come on and just talk about your company, what you're doing, or what your opinion is." We want people to get to know you. At the core of it, we really wanted people to understand each individual's journey through hospitality and how they got to where they are. Karima Zaki: Yeah, and people like people, right? That's why you should take pictures with people in them instead of just a shot of your room. People want to see people. That's great. And you? Steve Carran: Exactly what David said. Writing and doing research on the guests is my favorite time of the week, to be honest with you. When I'm doing research on someone, I'm thinking, "What can I find that's fun—something maybe other people haven't found?" There are a lot of good podcasts out there, but it takes time to research people. I like asking myself, "How deep can I go? What can I find that other people won't spend the time to uncover?" I enjoy learning about people, their different perspectives, where they came from, and how they got to where they are. You have such an incredible story. That's the most fun part for me—understanding people more and learning about their backgrounds. Karima Zaki: I can fully understand that. You asked a few questions that shocked me. I thought, "I wonder where I put that out..." Steve Carran: It was a Facebook post from 2015. Karima Zaki: It will. That's wonderful, and that's the whole point—to bring people to light and have somebody listening to your podcast say, "That's my story," or, "That's so similar," or, "I didn't think about that, and maybe this is a direction or a resource I can use." I just think our industry is broader than so many other industries. I have an engineering firm. I have a restaurant operation. I have a full-on catering operation. I have retail operations. It's such a big universe within a small microcosm. It's really great to get feedback and advice, or listen to something and think, "Oh my gosh, I've been looking for that solution for I don't know how long, and here's finally somebody talking about it comprehensively in a way that I can understand and move forward." I think the format is great. Please keep going. By the way, if the OTA conversation ever comes up and you want to explore that a little more, please call on me. I have strong opinions. Steve Carran: We might have to bring that one back up. Well, this has been great. Now we're going to loop in Jon, our producer. He's been listening this whole time, and we're going to have him ask you one more question before we let you go. Jon Bumhoffer: It was great to hear your whole journey, but I thought your comments about AI and your advice on maintaining control and being cautious were really interesting. I don't think we hear about that enough. Outside of that, you're obviously a very forward thinker. Where is your brain taking you? What are you seeing that's next for hospitality, whether that's going back to the basics of human connection or something technologically that you're starting to implement with your properties? Karima Zaki: I think the one thing that's really important for us not to lose sight of as we test the waters with AI is the element of leadership. To me, leadership and management are very different things. I personally don't feel I have the right to manage other human beings. We manage processes, but we lead people. Leadership is responsibility. Management is a power grab, in my opinion. It's critically important that we don't lose sight of the fact that we need to involve our living, breathing team in everything we're doing and make sure nobody feels left behind. Any time you embrace technology, the danger is that you're going to alienate people through a lack of understanding, a lack of training, or by failing to include them in the vision and helping them understand why an initiative is important. I'm very conscious of sitting down with my team regularly, talking them through the changes we're making, giving them a chance to interact with those decisions, and being flexible enough to say, "You know what? I thought that left turn was the right turn. It turned out to be a dead end." How quickly can I make that shift so we don't lose the idea behind it—which is using technology—but still integrate it into every experience that should exist? Our guests are already expecting a different experience, and we're curating that by telling them we're going to keep improving it. But we have to make sure we're bringing our teams along with us and that they're standing shoulder to shoulder with us when we're in leadership positions, saying, "This is all of us. This isn't me dreaming something up in my office and saying, 'Here you go. Here's the policy. Good luck.'" That's what I'm very careful about. I want to take advantage of all of it, but I want to do it wisely. David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is where you get to let people know how they can get in touch with you and find out more about your properties. Karima Zaki: First of all, you can reach our small group of hotels at PalmSpringsStay. That's the handle for our whole collection. Our website is Palm Springs Preferred Small Hotels, where all of our hotels are featured, and the initiatives there are exceptional. You can also reach our hotel group at townanddesert.com. All of our hotels are featured there, and we're about to add another one to our collection, so it'll be updated very soon. Of course, you can also reach me at karima@townanddesert.com I welcome any and all questions. I've been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to help people along the way, and if I can do that in any way, shape, or form, I'm more than happy to do so. David Millili: That's great. We appreciate that. That does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Thanks for joining us. Karima Zaki: Thank you. Steve Carran: Thank you.