Zach Busekrus

Behind the Stays

Business EN ↓ 398 episodes

Welcome to Behind the Stays — a podcast that shares the stories behind your favorite boutique hotels, short-term rentals, and hospitality brands and the hosts, operators, and entrepreneurs who’ve brought them to life. Every Tuesday and Friday you’ll meet the military veterans, retired flight attendants, tech entrepreneurs, school teachers, single moms, hoteliers, and real estate investors who are all, in their unique ways, shaping the future of travel and hospitality. Discover how these visionaries — from all over the world — have built stunning landscape hotels in the mountains, designed bohe...

Be sure to visit the podcast's website and support the creator: www.behindthestays.com

Author

Zach Busekrus

Episodes

This Week in Hospitality: Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit on The Great Hotel Owner Squeeze, Aman's YouTuber Fiasco, & Marriott's Owner Concession 07.08.2026 1:12:50

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week we're joined by Sarah Kopit, Editor-in-Chief of Skift — the publication that fuels basically every episode...

Sponsored Listings Are Coming to Vrbo — Plus What 2,000 Guests Actually Want from Vacation Rentals (and It's Not a Hot Tub) 04.08.2026 45:21

Connect with Tim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-rosolio-434b2a98/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/ — Vrbo just did three things most operators haven't connected yet: it purged 100,000 homes, surveyed 2,000 guests across seven countries, and started rolling out sponsored listings. Put them together and...

This Week in Hospitality: Sonder is back, Fora hits a $1B valuation, The Odyssey drives travel & Google’s AI booking grab 31.07.2026 1:03:19

Sonder is back — sort of. Eight months after going bankrupt and stranding guests mid-stay, the brand name has been bought by a Vancouver affiliate firm that paid for one thing: search equity. The buildings are gone. The trademarks and 70+ domains remain. And because large language models still route travelers to Sonder’s optimized pages, that name is now targeting $100M in gross booking value over...

The Godfather of Hospitality Podcasting Has Notes: Disney, Virgin, and the Quest to Be Original with Glenn Haussman 28.07.2026 55:17

Connect with Glenn: linkedin.com/in/glennhaussman Explore "No Vacancy": https://novacancynews.com/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/ — Meet Glenn Haussman — thirty years in hospitality media, a decade helming No Vacancy News, and one of the most recognized voices this industry has ever produced. He's bee...

This Week in Hospitality: Hot Takes on Hilton, What Hotels Should Learn from the World Cup, and Shark Tank for Route 66's Last Surviving Motels 24.07.2026 1:09:36

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta went on record defending the brand's 28-property portfolio — and the panel has thoughts. Is...

This Week in Hospitality: How Norwegian Air Went Viral for Losing, Should Airbnb and Ennismore Hook Up? and the Slow Death of Organic Discovery on Vrbo 24.07.2026 1:15:40

This week, the squad breaks down Norwegian Air's World Cup Instagram stunt that cost next to nothing and generated more brand equity than campaigns with budgets a hundred times the size. Eivind Hammer Myhre, who leads comms and marketing at Norwegian, joins us live to walk through exactly how it happened — the 25-minute brainstorm, the one phone call to get sign-off, and what came after when the w...

Why Luxury Hospitality Is Optimizing Itself Into Irrelevance — And What To Do About It (with Colin Nagy) 21.07.2026 55:58

Connect with Colin: linkedin.com/in/colinjamesnagy/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/ — The luxury hotel boom of the last decade produced more five-star rooms, more high-end brands, and more capital chasing premium travelers than any period in modern hospitality history. It also produced a lot of hotels...

How Cloudbeds Is Shaping the Future of Independent Hospitality with Their New Partnership with Journey 14.07.2026 49:15

What if the technology helping independent hotels compete with the biggest brands in the world shouldn’t feel like technology at all? Cloudbeds serves tens of thousands of properties across more than 150 countries — giving its team a uniquely expansive view into how independent hotels are performing, what operators are struggling with, and how the way travelers discover and book stays is rapidly c...

This Week in Hospitality: Ideas, Stories, and Hot Takes with James McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of NIHI Hotels 10.07.2026 1:01:30

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality James McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of NIHI Hotels, joins the core four for a wide-ranging conversation on what it a...

This Week in Hospitality: Airbnb Founder's Secret AI Lab, Bass Pro's $300M Resort Bet & The Economy Hotel Franchise Revolt 03.07.2026 1:00:27

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality Zach, Scott, and Edwin dig into three stories reshaping the industry this holiday week. First: Skift's The Big Squee...

This Week in Hospitality: Pali Society Goes Bonvoy, Hilton's Incubating 5 New Brands, and Hot Takes with Skift's Hospitality Editor, Sean O'Neil 26.06.2026 1:14:46

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality Sean O'Neill of Skift joins the roundtable this week for a conversation that cuts straight to the fault lines runnin...

This Week in Hospitality: CoStar’s Forecast Reversal, Marriott Hits 10K Hotels, and Amsterdam’s Tourist Tax Revolt 19.06.2026 1:16:36

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week opens in full TWIH chaos: Zach and Scott are somehow a mile apart in San Antonio and still not together, B...

This Week in Hospitality: The Airbnb-Marriott Deal That Almost Happened, MGM Goes Private(?), Journey & Cloudbeds Partner, & What Premium Travelers Want 12.06.2026 55:49

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality Two of the biggest casino operators in the world became takeover targets in the same week — and the squad has though...

This Week in Hospitality: Sonder's Founder is Back, Hyatt's New Growth Strategy, The Human Concierge Book, and L.E/Miami Recap 05.06.2026 1:06:30

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week opens at LE Miami — which Scott describes less like a travel conference and more like Coachella for hotel...

This Week in Hospitality: The Uber-Hotel Hookup, Expedia Optimizes for AI Agents, and Why Americans Are Skipping Europe 29.05.2026 1:04:33

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality Mews embeds Uber directly into its PMS, promising seamless guest transportation and a cut of ancillary revenue hotel...

How an Engineer-Turned-Michelin-Chef Built Epicurate, the Experience Platform for Luxury Stays 13.05.2026 46:54

Explore Epicurate: https://epicurate.vip/ Connect with Max: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-porterkhamsy/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/ — Every once in a while on this show, I get to share news that I'm personally invested in — and this is one of those episodes. A few weeks ago, Journey acquired Epic...

This Week in Hospitality: The World Cup Bust, Spirit's Collapse, Priceline is Back, and Aman's Move in the Texas Hill Country 08.05.2026 1:03:07

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality The hospitality industry was supposed to print money during the 2026 World Cup. Instead, nearly 80% of hotels across...

This Week in Hospitality: Uber Becomes a Hotel Platform, TikTok Outperforms OTAs, and Hotels Still Don’t Own the Customer 01.05.2026 1:06:14

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week’s conversation pulls apart a reality the industry has been circling for months—but is now impossible to ig...

He DJ'd for Jay-Z and Kanye — Now He's Rewiring Sound for Aman, Hyatt, and Jose Andrés 28.04.2026 58:31

Explore Raina Music: https://rainamusic.com/ Connect with Vikas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikassapranyc/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/ — In just a moment, you’ll meet Vikas Sapra—DJ, tech founder, and the guy who’s quietly rewiring how the world’s best hotels and restaurants think about sound. Vik...

This Week In Hospitality: Hospitality’s Muddy Middle Is Breaking — With Bashar Wali 24.04.2026 1:08:44

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality Luxury hospitality has a credibility problem: the industry keeps charging more while delivering sameness, ceremony,...

Inside the Vrbo Where George Washington Stayed — and the Operator Turning Savannah Into a Historic Luxury Destination 21.04.2026 58:25

Connect with Corey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corey-jones-a66a004/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/ — His tenant stopped paying rent. When he went to investigate, he found guest books, five-star reviews, and a listing on VRBO — for his own home. That's how Corey Jones stumbled into vacation rentals....

This Week in Hospitality: The Hotel Owner Squeeze, Six Senses Founder's Comeback, Wyndham's Grandma Gambit, and Coachella's Dirty Secret 17.04.2026 1:12:05

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality The hotel industry is telling two very different stories right now — and this week, the squad unpacks both. First up...

This Week in Hospitality: Why Direct Booking Isn’t Working, Hyatt’s Miss, and the New Rules of Demand 10.04.2026 1:09:08

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week, Scott, Ben, and Zach discuss the growing disconnect between industry strategy and traveler behavior. New...

How a Health Crisis, a Divorce, and a Thai Monk Led Her to Create the #1 Spa in the World: Meet Diana Stobo of The Retreat Costa Rica 07.04.2026 57:55

Explore The Retreat Costa Rica: https://www.theretreatcostarica.com/ Connect with Diana: https://dianastobo.com/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ In just a moment you'll meet Diana Stobo, the founder and visionary behind The Retreat Costa Rica — a 25-room luxury wellness destination and...

This Week in Hospitality: The Death of Hotel Discovery, The Rise of Food-Led Hotels, and Loyalty’s Identity Crisis 03.04.2026 1:05:45

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week, the guys unpack a massive shift happening across hospitality — and what it means for who actually owns de...