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A major hotel brand doesn't need to make every property feel the same. I toured the Embassy Suites Downtown Asheville with Jack Benton, Area Director of Sales & Marketing, and this hotel takes plenty of inspiration from its surroundings. Appalachian textures, mountain-inspired design, open public spaces, meeting areas that connect naturally with the rest of the hotel and guest rooms with unobstruc...

A popular band you've never heard of announces a tour, demand suddenly takes off in a market, and a short-term rental owner misses the signal and leaves money on the table. That's one of the examples Anurag Verma, co-founder of PriceLabs, and I get into while walking along the Chicago River. PriceLabs watches what's happening across individual markets and combines those signals with an operator's...

The hotel room someone books online sits at the end of a massive web of technology, partnerships and decisions most of us never see. Danielle Von Weyhrother, Head of Sales North America at HBX Group, joins me on No Vacancy to pull back the curtain on #HotelDistribution. HBX connects hotels with airlines, travel agencies, OTAs, loyalty programs and more than 100,000 clients worldwide, helping hotel...

Something enormous is happening with hotels in India, and I don't think enough people realize the scale of it yet. I brought Bruce Ford, SVP of Lodging Econometrics, back to No Vacancy because the numbers coming out of #India are pretty staggering, but the real story goes much deeper than the size of the pipeline. Global hotel companies are making major moves across the country, investment is acce...

Friday Night Audit gives hotel company presidents a dangerous combination: cocktails, bad ideas and three people absolutely convinced they know how to run the business better. Red Roof President Zack Gharib made the mistake of joining us this week. We insisted our advice was genius. Zack knew better. Between drinks, Craig Sullivan started designing a red-jacket tradition for Red Roof, Suzanne Bagn...

What happens when you build a hotel around elves, orcs, fairies and leprechauns — and commit fully to the idea? Ancient Lore Village has just 14 rooms, yet some of its social videos draw millions of views, including one that topped 25 million. Now CEO Melissa Blattner is taking the concept much further. I spoke with Melissa about why immersive storytelling connects so strongly with guests and what...

What if the biggest problem at your hotel isn't what you're missing? Heidi Stone knows that trap well. She took over Mountain Lake Lodge — the Virginia resort made famous by Dirty Dancing — when the lake had dried up and the property had plenty working against it. Her answer wasn't to obsess over everything that was wrong. That mindset changed the property, and it shapes how she looks at independe...

Some of the biggest hotel construction opportunities in the world right now are taking shape across Asia Pacific — and India is accelerating fast. I spoke with Lodging Econometrics' Bruce Ford about where hotel companies are placing their bets next. India's hotel pipeline nearly tripled over the past three years, and Bruce expects a construction wave there for the next five to seven years. China b...

What if the SBA's $5 million hotel loan limit doesn't actually limit you to $5 million? At LendingCon, SBA Regional Administrator Tyler Teresa explained how hotel owners now use the 7(a) and 504 programs together for as much as $10 million in total financing. Congress never raised the $5 million limit. The SBA found another route. Then Tyler dropped another number every hotel buyer should hear: 15...

Waiting for "uncertainty" to disappear before making your next hotel deal? Dan Lesser has a technical term for that: a cop-out. I caught up with the LW Hospitality Advisors president and CEO at LendingCon 2026, and Dan sees considerably more activity in the hotel market than all the hand-wringing might suggest. He says the first half of the year has been phenomenal, people continue to travel, subs...

Staypineapple Hotels President Dina Belon joined us for Friday Night Audit, and within minutes we were talking about underground printer-paper markets, retired Peabody ducks and why her early Google results once featured photos from the Playboy Club. So, pretty much a standard Friday Night Audit. Craig Sullivan and Dr. Producer Suzanne Bagnera were along for the ride, while I broadcast from EPCOT,...

During LendingCon 2026, Glenn Haussman asks Red Roof's Lina Patel why conversions now account for roughly 80% of the company's hotels this year. Lina also explains how Red Roof's RIDE initiative has helped 40 people become hotel owners and why the company sees more room to grow that number. Watch the conversation to hear what Red Roof sees happening in the hotel deal market right now. #NoVacancyNe...

LivAway Suites made a bold choice: give long-term guests more room and still protect the economics behind the hotel. The company builds rooms about 20% larger than typical economy extended-stay rooms, places the kitchen at the center of the space and adds features that matter when someone lives in a hotel for weeks at a time. Fast Wi-Fi, better sound control, package lockers, useful storage and st...

A Michelin-recommended restaurant on top of an Embassy Suites changes the conversation pretty quickly. I spoke with Bonnie Campagnolo, Global Head of Embassy Suites, from the rooftop of the brand's Asheville hotel, where the restaurant draws customers seven nights a week. The property combines two-room suites, breakfast and the evening reception with meeting space, serious food and beverage, and a...

Curator Hotel & Resort Collection brings together some seriously cool independent hotels without sanding away the qualities that make them interesting. New Waterloo offers a great example. The company creates distinctive hotels inside historic buildings, connecting each property to its surrounding community. Curator gives the team greater buying power, stronger vendor relationships, broader market...

Anthony Klok keeps 80% of his hotel staff for more than 20 years, and he doesn't credit software, surveys or another employee engagement program. I visited Anthony, Principal of Rebel Hospitality, at the Best Western Plus Hawthorne Terrace in Chicago while he cooked for his staff and handed out appreciation bonuses. He explained why people stay, why so many hotel companies still get this wrong and...

Every hotel brand makes a promise on a slide deck somewhere. There's a real gap between what a hotel brand promises and what actually happens at the front desk. I got brand strategist Philipp Mirow, CEO of Meridian Thinking, on the show with Dr. Producer Suzanne to figure out exactly where that promise falls apart. Philipp ran the Radisson brand while at Choice Hotels, then founded Meridian Thinki...

Picture 100% occupancy on your busiest weekend of the year — then picture running out of towels. Rooms sit unsellable, guests grow furious, and the hotel writes refunds and credits just to get through the night. Bart Begley built Integrity Laundry Services so no hotel has to live through that scenario, and I went to Destin, Florida to see how. Under Bart's model, hotels don't own a single towel or...

The hotel business apparently didn't get the memo that everything is supposed to be terrible. Consumers feel squeezed. Credit-card debt keeps climbing. Business travel remains soft. Hotel construction faces the same cost and financing challenges we've discussed for years. Yet hotels keep performing, people keep traveling and owners keep making deals. So what's actually holding this market together...

Jamie Caraher was recently recognized as one of Utah's CEOs of the Year. She runs Lodging Dynamics. Owners trust her with their #hotels. And she told me, on camera, that the moment she got the call, her first thought was: do I even deserve this? If you've ever sat in a leadership role and quietly waited for someone to figure out you don't belong there, this conversation is going to hit different....

Hotels keep sending me golf deals. I don't play golf. I've never played golf. Dana Cariss, SVP of Revenue Strategy at CoralTree Hospitality, showed me exactly how close the industry now stands to fixing that problem. Disconnected systems used to trap hotel data in silos that couldn't talk to each other — point of sale here, property management there, sales and catering somewhere else entirely. Dan...

Derek Pacqué drove three hours from Manhattan to The Haussman Resort, Pool Club and Smokehouse on Long Island for Friday Night Audit. In LIE traffic, you know it's bad when the cars start passing you, then a horse and buggy passes you, then an elderly woman with a walker passes you. That's Friday in the summer on Long Island. Derek made it anyway.   He runs Chexology , the bag and valet check comp...

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts just knocked Marriott International out of the #1 spot in U.S. News & World Report 's 2026 hotel rewards rankings — and the reason comes down to something travelers are clearly reacting to: devaluation. I talked with senior travel editor Elizabeth Von Tersch about this year's rewards rankings, plus a brand new list for road warriors. A few numbers worth knowing: Wyndham he...

Morris Tiedemann, General Manager at AYANA Midplaza Jakarta, joined Glenn and Suzanne from halfway across the world to explain how a hotel competes in a market flooded with luxury. Morris took a job in Urumqi in 2003 when he had to buy a book to figure out where it was. Twenty-two years in China taught him to move fast. Then AYANA came calling, and he had to slow down. Indonesia rewards patience....

Hotel technology shouldn't just look impressive. It should help guests enjoy their stay and help hotels make more money. The Hotel Communication Network Inc. CEO Kevin Bidner showed me how the company combines in-room tablets with AI to create a much more useful guest experience. Guests can request extra towels, explore room-service options, discover hotel amenities, research local restaurants and...