The Experience Strategy Podcast: A Top Ten List for Hotels of Tomorrow

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In today’s episode, we are joined by Ron Swidler, Chief Innovation Officer at The Gettys Group Companies and creator of the Hotel of Tomorrow® Project, a think tank that unites teams of hospitality experts to ideate, prototype, and test innovations for the near and more distant future of the hotel industry. From technological innovations and new business models to unprecedented shifts in customer expectations, Ron shares the top 10 things hotels should be doing to prepare for the future. 

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the experience strategy podcast, where we talk to customers and experts about how to create products and services that feel like time well spent. And now here are your hosts experienced nerds, Dave Norton and Aransas. Savis

Aransas: welcome to the experience strategy podcast. I'm Aranda Savvis. Today.

We are. So excited to welcome Ron Sweller. Ron is the chief innovation officer at the Getty's group companies. He created the hotel of tomorrow project and industry leading think tank that brings together hundreds of companies to envision the future of hospitality. The result has been innovation really, that can be found and.

Pretty much every hotel or a restaurant in the world. And certainly those that are leading the future. Ron is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been interviewed in countless [00:01:00] publications for his hospitality design and branding insights. And today we are going to challenge him to serve as the top 10 things that the hotels of tomorrow should be thinking of.

Ryan. Thank you so much for joining us

Ron: today. It is my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Aransas: Absolutely. We're so excited to hear more about what you've been learning. So as you know, our goal today is to really walk away with the top 10 list of ideas and innovations that we should be expecting and the hotels of tomorrow.

So I know that. Customer expectations have changed radically over the past couple of years. What are the major shifts you've been seeing in what customers want and need from a hospitality experience?

Ron: [00:02:00] Wow. Well, what a great place to start? Um, I think that the, you know, we've all been suffering through this pandemic and so our needs have changed a few.

If you would've told me a few years ago that, um, you know, cleanliness, uh, for my own personal safety was the highest priority in hospitality. Uh, I would have thought, wow, you know, that, that is, uh, that's always been a, that's always been a given that's an expectation that you would have. Um, so I think that the experience, the expectation of experience for hospitality guests has been rising in importance, pre pandemic, and all of a sudden it became critical right now.

And now it's a health issue. Now the experience is am I safe to travel to this hotel? Uh, so a lot of things have changed quite, quite candidly. As a result of the pandemic. And as you know, the hotel industry has been hit particularly hard, um, by, you know, the lack of travel, uh, for business and for leisure.

And so I think [00:03:00] we have, um, Concern than ever before in the eyes of the guests. And now it is the responsibility of the hoteliers, the owners and operators and brands and designers and architects and consultants to help figure out how do we make guests feel comfortable traveling? You know,

Dave: run, I think you're absolutely right.

And this idea that identifying the new needs that guests have for hotels, that there actually might be new needs for hotels, I think is gotta be on our list of top 10 things that companies have gotta be focused. Besides cleanliness, what other new jobs to be done? Do you see, um, hotels doing in the future?

Ron: Well, well, there's so much opportunity here. [00:04:00] You know, I'll take you back to a mid year, 2020 when, uh, we didn't certainly didn't have an understanding of what COVID was and how it was transmissible. Uh, we didn't understand how far reaching this was going to be and, and how dramatic it was going to change the future of hospitality.

And we kind of saw how inflexible hospitality. Is by nature. And what I mean by that, Dave is, um, hotels are designed to accommodate guests for their most basic needs, a clean place, a safe place, a place that is a place to, to, to get rest and to get cleaned up and to go back out and, and pursue, you know, your other, your other objectives, the other jobs to do, um, But when the hotel industry saw an opportunity, that to be more helpful to the community, you did see hotels [00:05:00] stepping up, uh, some hotels stepping up and saying, you know, for first, a first line of defense, uh, you know, kind of healthcare workers, uh, they were offering rooms to, as a place to, to quarantine is a safe space to, to, as an alternative, to going home or being in the hospital.

Uh, we saw in England, we saw birthing centers actually. Popping up where hotels were being, uh, an alternative to going to the hospital to deliver babies. Because, uh, you know, at the time again, we were very concerned about the transmissibility. Is that the right word? I'm going to say it is the right word, um, of the disease and how it might be contracted.

Yeah. So what we saw, Dave, going back to your question is I think there was a, kind of a, a dramatic eyeopening, uh, experience of the lack of flexibility in hospitality. How could we better serve those in need whose needs changed? So their job to do is changed. It went from purely [00:06:00] being a source of lodging and accommodation to supporting a community, supporting their team members, uh, uh, you know, supporting those.

Who were, you know, kind of on the front lines of the fight against this pandemic. So I think there are lots of things that, that, that we learned, uh, about what hospitality does well and perhaps what hospitality might need to do even better.

Aransas: I love that that's such a radical shift now, in terms of the role, it plays in society in big and small ways.

It's such a big opportunity area. So how our owner developers. How are they thinking differently now about what it means to create profitable spaces that provide both hospitality and meet these new needs that consumers have come to expect.

Ron: Well, or ANSYS, that's a [00:07:00] tough one because, you know, look the, the industry, the hotel owners, and as you guys may know, or the listeners may know that, um, you know, the Getty's group is a hotel developer as well.

And so we opened a couple of hotels. During the pandemic. And we were scrambling prior to opening to make sure that we were abiding by as many safety protocols as possible, right? The safe, social distancing of furnishings and finishes the new cleaning protocols. Um, anything that we could do to, uh, you know, provide the kinds of quality of service that was required by those guests.

But here we were kind of, uh, you know, really questioning where our nest next guests were going to come from. Um, and so as we looked at what we could do to the existing properties, with introducing a plexiglass and all kinds of things like that, that were temporary solutions, just to give guests comfort that the decision they've made to stay with us, uh, is a good [00:08:00] one.

Um, and to protect our team members, of course, as well. Uh, we were also looking to maximizing safe spaces within our properties, like rooftops or outdoor spaces in our restaurants, uh, and in our hotel to be able to accommodate people safely, uh, to still be able to gather. So I think that how space gets used the flexibility and really the inflexibility, uh, but the flexibility.

Of hospitality has to become a higher priority. We experimented and knew of experiments that were going on converting ballroom spaces into fitness and workout spaces, because it was a place to keep the, the workout equipment at a safer distance and not be as concerned about occupancy levels. Uh, we introduced, for example, a air quality reader and one of the two hotels.

And, uh, the Rand tower hotel up in Minneapolis. So guests could actually see that, uh, the air [00:09:00] quality is safe and that we were monitoring it constantly. So I think owner developers all were looking at themselves and saying, how do we build what's what's more flexible. How do we, you know, have more spaces that are safe to enhance?

Maybe outside the building or inside the building slightly differently. It was a challenge. Yeah.

Dave: Or see that continuing or are there additional things that owner developers are going to have to do? So, yeah. Is this the norm

Aransas: or is there going to be forever,

Ron: right. Oh, let me throw away my masks please. Um, yeah, I, I.

I think we are, uh, our eyes have been opened to the opportunities that are ahead of us as it relates to what guests need most in a hotel. And those things have changed. Right? We have to pay more attention to what guests are telling us. [00:10:00] Uh, what are the things that are most important to them and how can we serve them best?

And if we need to modify the way that we are designing hotels, building hotels, we want to make sure that we're putting our money in the places that are most meaningful to those guests. And ultimately that might mean, you know, being able to work more effectively in the guestroom. You know, it occurred to me, there was a project that we did.

About 10 years ago when it was fashionable to eliminate the desk and the desk chair from the guestroom in order to kind of maximize the perceived space within a hotel room. And because our data was telling us that. Wanting to work on iPads and laptops and not be restricted to a desk. Well, that experiment, uh, didn't last very long.

Uh, and now think about the kind of, uh, work that's being done in hotel rooms, on video calls, with supplemental lighting and higher speed connections. And, [00:11:00] um, and I think. What, what guests expect in order to be effective and to do the jobs that they need to get done, um, have shifted.

Aransas: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think you keep coming back to this idea of flexibility and modularity.

And to me, that seems like a really pervasive, overarching theme that brands, owners and customers really, um, need to expect and, and design against. One of the things I've heard you say that that really stood out to me, as you said, if brands stand for everything, they stand for nothing. What does

Ron: that mean?

Yeah. Well, I mean, let's take a look at the number of hotel brands that reside within a few umbrella brands. Some of the powerhouse brands out there have many, many brands and through consolidation and through growth, [00:12:00] that's just, uh, the end result of where we are. And so, um, If you saw the trend emerging for more specialized brands that appeal to a certain kind of traveler take, for example, when the extended stay hotels were first starting to become more popular there, the residence Inns of the world, for example, or, you know, in the more economical category, the extended stay Americas.

Well, now we're seeing a lot more brand saturation. Of similarities between offerings and, you know, there's an opportunity to continue to differentiate, um, the kind of experience that is being offered at these brands and being more targeted about, um, the kinds of experiences that are being offered. And frankly, I think technology is.

Enabling more parody. And what I mean by that is the same kind of way of communicating with guests [00:13:00] now through text messages to either welcome them to the hotel or respond to a request for some additional service, you know, please send me more pillows or, um, I would like room service, that same kind of interactivity, uh, utilizing technology.

Is available to a luxury quality hotel and an economy hotel, uh, all of whom are looking to reduce costs of labor. And so it really is an interesting time to say, what do we want to stand for? How are we going to deliver our services to our guests in a way that is most meaningful to them and positions us differently than our competition in a similar price point in a similar.

Dave: It almost sounds like what you're describing is that there's too many, um, brands trying to serve the exact same purpose. Do you think that there'll be a day when some of those brands will need to disappear?

Ron: I [00:14:00] think so, Dave, but, um, if you followed what the brand say about that, you know, these are, they're driven by growth of total number of units.

And so, uh, where, for example, we just developed a, uh, A TownePlace suites hotel in Nashville. And now we're about to proceed with the development of another Marriott brand on the same site. Marriott's thrilled because they see one developer as being able to develop, be a franchisee for two different brands, uh, in the same market.

So I don't, I think that there's this appetite for brand growth is going to probably prohibit brand consolidation. But I think it's going to lead to further brand refinement and that, that same brand that hung there, there, you know, their brand around one central idea might need to shift that idea further away from, um, some of the other brands [00:15:00] in order to, you know, maybe appeal to a broader.

Demographic or psychographic, you know, um, one of the things that I'm, that I'm doing right now is, um, um, teaching, uh, at a couple of universities overseas, um, on brand creation. And one of the things I'm hearing from my students and these are master's students, but what they're saying is that sustainability and wellness have to drive the future of hospitality that, um, you know, just greenwashing, for example, by making a pledge to eliminate.

Plastics is not really enough and not happening fast enough for their tastes and they are the future travelers. And so I think as the brand start to listen a little more closely to the emerging expectations of future travelers, like these young students who happen to be hospitality, master students. I think that they, they may have to shift which of their brands [00:16:00] really fully embrace and to what degree, these opportunities for satisfying those future travelers.

Very

Dave: interesting. I would definitely want to take that topic up again just a second, but, um, the next couple of questions we want to ask, you have to do with a notion that we're very interested in and that is time well spent. What does it mean to be. Time, well spent. So as you think about, um, a hotel, um, you've already talked a little bit about work and a little bit about exercise, but what do you foresee as the future around the types of activities that people will do in, in a hotel when it comes to like work and exercise or other maybe types of things that will lead to this idea of time while.

Ron: Uh, I love that question, Dave. Thank you. And it is, that is a wonderful thing to focus on as we look to the future [00:17:00] of hospitality as, as you guys know. And I think you mentioned in the intro, uh, I'm the founder of a global thing. That is focused solely on the future of hospitality called the hotel of tomorrow project.

And right now we are running multiple workshops that are focusing on, uh, the future all over the world of different. Brand types and different brand quality and trying to better understand what is most important to these guests. And one of the things that we're identifying is that, and I know you guys talked about it on your recent podcast is this notion of transformational travel.

And, uh, as a matter of fact, I'm running a workshop today on a, on a new thought that might be centered around, um, Pay based upon the degree of change you've been able to achieve and would say, uh, it's [00:18:00] it's, uh, it, it is a, uh, that is flipping the model on its head. Um, but what if, what if, for example, you knew that you could get a better night's sleep in a hotel than you could have.

What if you knew that the monitoring and sensing systems in hotels could not only sense your needs, but deliver against your needs in a way that was frictionless. And what if, for example, as you know, you woke up in the morning, you got a report that said, yeah, I noticed your hydration levels are really low.

Um, based on temperature and time of year, it seems like I would S I'd suggest you supplement your diet with these vitamins and minerals. Uh, You know, you, you haven't, you haven't your, your heart rate. Wasn't elevated enough in the past day. We're suggesting, you know, just like your, your apple watch now is telling you to stand up.

What, what if there were ways to help put you on a better path, um, and make [00:19:00] recommendations and deliver against those on things like food and beverage fitness. Quality of sleep and restfulness mindfulness. What, what, what would the hospitality environment need to look like? Uh, at all quality levels and differing offerings in order to truly offer transform transformation.

Um, and that would be. That would be a reason to travel.

Aransas: Yeah. I hear an integration with whoop coming.

They're doing a good job with all that. Um, so tell us what are some other cool ways that you're seeing technology driving the future of hospitality?

Ron: Well, you know, let me take you into, um, Into the alternative reality, uh, for a second here. So one of our sponsor companies for the hotel tomorrow project is [00:20:00] Nvidia.

And as you guys probably know, they've spent quite a bit of a time in. Developing their version of the metaverse and, uh, it's, uh, still, as we all know, whether it's, you know, Facebook or, or, or Microsoft or video or, or other companies building these alternative universes, uh, we have an opportunity to change how we visualize, um, the reality, uh, through virtual reality.

And what I mean by that is. If you are building a hotel right now, and we are building many hotels. A lot of them, we are using what was referred to as BIM technology, but, but it's the visualization technology that allows us to build the building virtually prior to building the building actually. And it has everything in that virtual model that we're building [00:21:00] of the structural mechanical, architectural and design systems, all, all in place.

That model doesn't have to, um, kind of become useless once the building is built. Um, and the hotel tomorrow project is exploring ways to use those virtual models to continue to mirror what is actually going on in the hotel. In virtual reality. So imagine for a second, if you knew where energy is being used or energy is being produced, um, in the building, if you knew where the greatest, where patterns are happening for the furnishings and the finishes, if you knew, think about contact tracing, if you knew where your team members should be cleaning, uh, rather than assuming, or when they should be cleaning.

So when, when things are likely to be. Based on, you know, that refrigerator and room 1109 is likely to fail because you know, a high enough percentage of other [00:22:00] ones that failed on the same floor from the same or non date, if you will. So, um, we're exploring how virtual reality could. Assist future hotel operations, not just future hotel, design and construction.

And there's a whole other guest overlay where we might have similar to Pokemon go. We might have. Uh, an entire layer of guest experience that sits in augmented reality, um, that if you choose to opt in, uh, to see that layer of information or entertainment or connection or whatever it is, you can opt into it.

So I know I've just said a lot there. Um, but that is a, that's a way out their view of how technology. Good hospitality in the future. I'll jump

Aransas: in briefly. And just say that when you talked about flexibility and modularity before, I think for most of us, our heads went to room dividers and [00:23:00] furniture configurations, and being able to really make the space itself flex flexible and modular.

But now what you're talking about is, well beyond that, it's making an experience that is truly flexible and modular.

Ron: Well, it isn't that. Yeah, Dave, isn't that something that we've been talking about for a long time? How, how do you take care of guests needs in a way that feels personalized and. This is perhaps technology is going to allow us to do that.

And it's not to take away from the advances we've seen in technology adoption over the course of the past two years in particular where this, you know, th the brands like Hilton and their digital key platform, for example, with keyless entry or room controls through an app, uh, we're seeing more and more adoption of using your own device to interact with the environment.

Maybe interact with the team members, uh, which are [00:24:00] certainly strides in that direction that we're talking about, but personalization and hospitality, just like transformational promise of transformation. Those are big brass ratings to reach.

Dave: You know, I just thought of this weird use case that you could use the metaverse for.

And that is, uh, when that fire alarm goes off, I would like to know where the fire alarm was actually, um, polled and. Be able to pop it up and say, oh, it doesn't look like there's actually a fire or something like that.

Aransas: Like someone who just had this experience.

Dave: Exactly. Anyways,

Ron: I just had, I just had this experience too.

I stayed at a hotel in LA. It was. I dunno, two or three in the morning and the fire alarm went off. And, and as you know, because you've just gone through the [00:25:00] experience, it is, it is intentionally loud and. It's attention grabbing, and it's telling you, there is a threat get out of the building. And I don't know about you, but when I'm woken out of a deep sleep, I am not in my clearest mindset.

Um, so I was literally looking around saying, do I put on my shoes? Do I put on my jacket? Do I grab my laptop? All the things that. I had to run through in my head. And then I'm also like disciplining myself. You're taking too long run, get going, get going. You know, the threat is real. And so I get out of my hotel room and I'm walking in circles trying to find the exit stairs.

I'm on the 19th floor of this building. I'm looking for the exit stairs and. I find them, but while I'm walking around, people are poking their heads out of their doors and saying, I'm not going [00:26:00] down. It doesn't look like a threat to me. And I'm thinking you're right, Dave, any, so I walk all the way down the fireman comments, a false alarm.

And I ended up, you know, back in bed, but not asleep. Uh, about 45 minutes later. I wished what you wished for, which is how can technology give us information that we need in the moment, in a way that we can understand it and that we can react to it. Um, and that's not easy. Um, but certainly something that look hospitality could deliver information about lots of things.

Um, and, and if you said that in the future, guys, you might choose to stay at a hotel over another because of. Various policies. It could be their DEI policies. It could be their sustainability policies. It could be getting a contribution to the supporting the local community, whatever those decisions are.

And if, if brands or hotels were more [00:27:00] transparent and gave you more knowledge at the point of purchase. Uh, it will likely, and is it's inevitable. Let's face it, it will change people's choices about where to stay when to stay, how long to stay and maybe what they do while they stay. If I was told that I was using 50% more water in my shower, um, than the average guest in the hotel.

I might feel incentivized to be, you know, less of a water user. You see where I'm going there?

Dave: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk for just a second about this idea of modularity and flexibility. You've talked about this. How do you see modularity and flexibility relating to this idea of time?

Well spent?

Ron: Well, You know, I think we're, we have. [00:28:00] We've we've built a lot of hotels. Uh, we thought that there were, there was an ever increasing, you know, growth demand for more hotels, uh, of a similar size or similar brand in a given market. And there is. Quite as inflexibility in a lot of real estate Dave, and whether it's retail, um, or it is hotels, or it is, um, you know, multifamily there's inherent in flexibility and I, and, uh, without giving too much away, we've been, we've been exploring.

Creation of we've been creating a brand, um, for, uh, a large real estate development company that capitalizes on converting failed real estate into alternative uses. Um, and. The solution requires quite a bit on modularity and flexibility. If we are going into an existing [00:29:00] structure and changing its purpose, you either scrape it all back to structure and rebuild it to match that purpose.

Or you find a way to capitalize on the. Great opportunity. That's happening in modular construction and, um, production on demand and production closer to the site. What I mean by that is reusing existing building materials to turn them into other things and building in modular fashion. You know, closer to the actual installation site.

So you're not shipping things, flat packing and shipping things across the world. We're seeing big advances in that kind of construction methodology. We're seeing cost savings, time savings. And so I think we're going to see more modularity and flexibility in the way that buildings are made, but we're also going to see a little kind of faster to market solutions for conversions of changing real estate types.

Uh, this is, [00:30:00] uh, we studied, I'll tell you during the pandemic numerous buildings. Where we were looking to convert hotels into multi-family residential. We're looking to convert hotels into senior living facilities. Uh, we are looking at, um, failed mall space to convert to alternative uses. Uh, we looked at, um, we had a project to convert part of a hotel into a university.

So we're, we're seeing all kinds of opportunities out there for more modularity and flexibility. And I think we were going to see some very interesting new creative solutions, um, to incorporate some of those multi-use facilities into what was kind of single purpose and maybe single purpose that was no longer feasible, viable and desirable.

Dave: I love that. I think. Absolutely on the right path, honestly, with this, with this idea that people in the future are going to very much [00:31:00] want their spaces to adapt to the particular need. And it's not just room size. That they're going to be interested in. They're going to want different components and different, um, and, and different spaces for different purposes.

So I really do agree with you that hotels in the future are going to have to address that. And I'm excited about this, this idea that you put forward. So it's fantastic.

Ron: I've got to build on something that, that you just brought up. If you don't mind. A couple, couple of examples of interesting things. So we are developing a hotel right now that is in Hilton's brand family, a brand that they developed a couple of years ago called Moto.

And one of the room types is a. Well, we'll call it the modern version of the Murphy bed. It is a, it's a concealed, it's a concealed bed that comes down. But, um, but there's a [00:32:00] sofa underneath. So the sofa goes away and is replaced by a bed and the bed goes up and, and is, is back to a living. Environment.

It's a very clever room type and, and we're seeing more advances in kind of design flexibility for alternative use of spaces like that. And if you haven't seen Ikea's most recent experiment that they've been running around design flexibility, there's a movable partition system that houses a closet and another system that houses.

That can expand and contract the way that those, you know, those movable library, storage shelves do on tracks that come together and move apart. And, um, and look, there are examples of, uh, uh, a trend in hospitality where one way to reduce your construction cost is reduced the total amount of square footage that you're allocating to each gastro.

And we're seeing some very clever micro room solutions. I point to citizen M as an example, if you haven't stayed at a citizen M [00:33:00] hotel, I highly recommend you go and check it out. It's a very effective use of a limited module. You can put three citizen, um, hotel rooms side-by-side in the space that you would normally put two hotel rooms.

So you can start to imagine the economy of scale associated with that. So interesting. I think we're seeing more. Design intentional design to use space wisely. Some of that is for, uh, as a, as a way to combat escalating construction costs, uh, which have certainly escalated incidentally, um, to 25% or more over the past year alone, which is an incredible increase if you consider that by the way.

Uh, and that takes into. Cost of materials, cost of labor, cost of shipping. But, um, yeah, twenty-five percent cost of increase over the previous year is, and the escalation isn't tapering off yet. So [00:34:00] there's a real concern. So how do we combat that? We will, it may be that we offer less space or we're more intentional.

The space allocation. Um, but, but I'll, I'll put a question out to you guys because I know you're big thinkers that are, that are trying to strategize on future experience in lots of categories, but how do we define luxury going forward? How do we, it's a tough,

Dave: I have a thought. I have a thought for you.

Yeah. And that is the future of, of luxury. And the future of wellness are. And, you know, that's, I think, I think it's already occurring. I think it's been occurring for some time now, but I do think that this idea of a premium experience is going away and being replaced by the idea of a wellness experience that is so tailored [00:35:00] to you, that it knows you better.

You can actually know your stuff. I think those two ideas are connected.

Aransas: I'll add to it and say that I believe it's a blend of human support and technology that it's it's through combining the strengths of each of those that you get to truly meaningful and valuable luxury experiences. And. Both are expensive and, and marrying them together can be expensive.

And so it is a place for brands to really be able to invest in Seattle value.

Ron: Could you guys imagine, as we look to the future of hospitality, that there's one price for automated service and there's a higher price to be paid for human supported service and interact.

Dave: Yes. And

Ron: no,

Dave: because yeah. You're right, right.

[00:36:00] So human plus technology. Yes. Human alone. I think those days are numbered.

Aransas: Yeah. I think the people who want that won't pay for that,

Dave: there are, there are the, like just expected and that could be a very rarefied type of thing. But you know, you even think about like the bill gates of the world, when he shows up, he expects both the technology and the people.

He doesn't expect

Ron: one or the other, and he expects an compliment. I would hope. Exactly. And I would hope, truly hope that the hospitality industry never loses sight of that. Caring for others, that making people feel good, feels safe, feel cared for. Um, and inevitably, there's going to be a combination of.

Technology supporting human service. Um, and that's an [00:37:00] irreversible trend, but I do believe that until AI is truly, you know, smarter than us, um, which I'm sure it is in many instances already. Uh, I think that humans crave the interactivity with humans. So. But, but I, I go back to this question of what is luxury, because I do wonder luxury itself was a reason to travel for many aspirational travel, um, is a motivator.

I I've saved up. I'm going to stay in that hotel as part of a trip I've been longing to take. Um, and I hope we don't lose that. I hope that the future of hospitality is, is rich and.

Aransas: Mm, I agree. And I think too, it goes back to what you were saying about transformation before. And it's a, I think a nice link between what Dave added with the wellness that is that sense of wellbeing of wellness.

However, people [00:38:00] define it is very much linked to a, an experience of transformation. That is luxury right now. It is that moment to invest in ourselves and to feel somehow nourished and nurtured and cared for. And I think underneath everything that we're saying about luxury, it's somebody paying attention to us.

It's somebody really caring. And I think there's some of it that's tech driven. Those are the patterns that you were alluding to the of the space and really knowing what all the biometric shifts are. And then there's the person who looks you in the eye and shows that they care. And that, to me, that's, that is the essence of what we're talking about for the future.

Yup. Yup. All right. So one of my favorite things to do in every episode, Ron, I have to like shake it out here and warm myself up is to try to summarize what we've talked about, whether we've covered a lot of ground today. So you guys catch me on anything I've missed. Um, but if we [00:39:00] were to try to, based on all that you have shared and surfaced here, uh, identify the top 10 takeaways for.

Hotels and frankly, the hospitality industry in general, to consider an a in the years ahead in terms of their, their innovation strategies. We, the, the top ones I think are really just about taking into account the shifts in consumer expectation. So let's understand, first of all, Guests have new needs from the hotels.

There are new jobs to be done, and these, these spaces are playing a new role in community and therefore, so the next one is that owners and developers need to really rethink what drives value and profit based on those new consumer needs. And then if you take that to an even higher level brands need to stand for something, they need to have a sense, a clear sense of purpose and a [00:40:00] clear place in the.

From there. I, Dave brought us to time well spent and really appreciating that what it means to have time well spent in a hotel has shifted radically. It's not necessarily anymore, just about a place to sleep and a nice pillow. It's about the ability to multitask that space, a place to work and move in a way I want to work and move.

And again, to be hosted. As my needs are met, um, beyond that, I think it's really about how these companies stand up technology and put it to good use. I, what you were saying about, uh, AR and, uh, biometrics, I think is all really exciting and probably just scratching the surface of where these companies are going to.

Um, my declarity flexibility. We can't say this enough to meet permeates everything that you shared today. Uh, whether it's the experience or the space itself. And then finally, there's just a whole [00:41:00] new set of social requirements that these companies need to look for. They've got to prove that they are, they are being sustainable in their practices, around everything from their operations.

Approach to the, the materials that they're using to create these hotels. And we're going to have to keep performing safety theater. It seems like for the, for the long term in some way or another. So put on your costume to go with your mask. And, um, then I think just, just this idea of how. Experiences that we touched on, uh, pretty lightly, but, but I think, um, comes through loud and clear as being important to the consumers.

But I guess in the end where we landed in terms of the big opportunity, it really is innovating for wellness and what that means probably at every level of luxury we miss anything.

Ron: I love that. [00:42:00] Boy, you guys have covered a lot of ground

Aransas: back and visit us again. You are just a wealth of information and inspiration. And I know Dave and I are both so excited to talk to you more soon. For those of you listening, check out the hotel of tomorrow project, check out the Getty's group. Listen for more from Ron, he's got lots to say. And I know I for one will be listening closely for those of you listening to us.

Thank you so much for being here. Look forward to hearing from you about this episode and those that are coming up next.

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