A Big Week for Hotel AI and Resort M&A.

On this week’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into two stories with real implications for hotel operators heading into the fall.

The conversation opens with what hotel CEOs are actually deploying with AI right now, from voice agents handling a growing share of front desk queries to digital twins being used for executive decision-making. Then, Sarah and Steve unpack Royal Caribbean Group’s reported talks for a 50% stake in Sandals Resorts International, and what a cruise company investing in a major Caribbean resort brand could mean for the broader leisure travel landscape.

This episode also marks the final chapter of the GMH Hotels Edition, but it is not the end of Good Morning Hospitality.

Going forward, GMH is evolving into one broader lodging show, bringing hotels and short-term rentals together every Wednesday at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET, with the regular GMH crew joined by more Skift reporters and industry voices covering the biggest stories across lodging.

While this is Sarah and Steve’s final episode as regular hosts, it certainly won’t be the last time you hear from them on GMH.

Join us as we close out the Hotels Edition and get ready for what’s next for Good Morning Hospitality.

Watch This Episode

Hello, and good morning. Welcome back to Good Morning Hospitality. I’m Wil Slickers, the Director of Video and Audio Strategy here at Skift, and this is a special episode as we are closing out Good Morning Hospitality, Hotels Edition.

It does not mean the show is ending, but this is Steve and Sarah’s last episode with us as their businesses are growing and we want to support them and let them basically be free, be free from the show and it’s been a crazy ride.

We’ve had three years over 150 episodes, hundreds of stories and breaking news captured through these two voices in the industry that have really led the charge and merging, what we would say the lodging audience from hotels and short-term rentals

together, and so without further ado, I’m going to hit the intro, but we just have so much love and appreciation for Steve and Sarah. They’ve given so much to the show.

They’ve dedicated three years of weekly attendance of a live broadcast, which is no easy task. There’s been lots of early mornings for Sarah.

There’s been a lot of traveling, a lot of schedule changes, a lot of special guests like Katie Klein coming in to fill in for some spots when we need her, and so we’re just super thankful for the last three years, and so without further ado, let’s

bring on our two amazing hosts.

What do you got to do that?

Hold on, no one told me, this is our last show.

Stop it.

What’s going on?

What’s going on?

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh. Will, thank you for that. We were not expecting that.

Yeah, we were not expecting that at all.

Viewers, listeners, and if you’re listening, and Sarah, it got us a little emotional.

We were talking a little bit backstage, three years of some things that’s constant in your life, every single Wednesday, joining you all that jump in every single time, having Will back here.

In my life, I was looking back at the last three years, I was like, man, a lot has changed in my world. Good things, bad things, but the highlight every week, I really love coming out here with you, Sarah.

I’m so glad we got to become so close after all these years. It really means a lot to me. I think we can tell you a little history.

I want to give the shout out to him because he called me. We don’t think we ever shared this. I was doing a show.

Why don’t we share how we came together, by the way?

How we came together.

He called me. He’s like, hey, man, I have the Good Morning Hospitality show. We do a lot of short-term rental, but we’re looking to do some hotel and I thought you’d be great.

Would you be interested? I was like, I don’t know if I have time. This is a live commitment every single week.

He’s like, I have this woman, Sarah Dandashy. She’s really cool. She’s out there.

She’s connected and she’s looking to potentially join. I was like, let me look up Sarah here.

Oh, stop. We had met once before prior to that.

She was very mean to me.

I was just about to say, tell everybody what you actually thought.

It was funny because I met her at a conference and she, I don’t know Sarah and we were at a conference. I said hello and she was with another podcast host.

They had the number one show at the time and they were like, look at me and Will, they’re like, we’re the number one show. We remember that, guys. And Sarah was walking around.

I don’t know about any of that, but okay.

I think that memory is a little bit.

And I was like, oh yeah, all right. But anyhow, I’m so glad that he put us together. I said yes and then we really connected on the first show and that was three years ago.

So it’s just amazing what’s changed. I started companies, I’ve written a book, we’ve given speeches together, we’ve gone to conferences, we’ve done so many, so many cool things.

So it’s amazing what you can do when you’re consistent every single week for three years. So I’m grateful to you, Sarah. It really means a lot that you show up every week with all the energy, and I love doing it with you.

As we started calling it very early on, that early morning energy, because for those that know, I’m on the West Coast, and got to be all ready by 6.45, so we go live by 7 a.m., which 7 may not seem that early, but to be fully ready to go and adjust,

there’s a lot of early morning. Oh, Stephen and Sinclair, by the way, joining us from Chicago, please, we haven’t done this in all of the last shows, but again, as we started this so many years ago, we always started with like, tell us where you’re

joining us from. So please, in honor of starting that tradition, tell us, I love this. Again, Christopher, thank you. I know our paths have crossed in person.

So we also have help in the background that kind of like putting the show together, and Kelsey, I have to give a shout out to Kelsey because she’s always done a fantastic job putting together our outlines.

And she kind of put together a little opening potential monologue. I won’t necessarily go into the whole monologue, but I want to be part of it because it actually was very cool.

So to kind of put perspective, it was three years ago, August 30th, 2023 that we started this show. Kate, yay, thank you so much for joining. Steve had his Biscayne coffee.

I was still catching up because of course it was so early and we were actually shocked because in that first show, we had people joining us from Germany, Israel, Dominican Republic, all of that. Everyone tuned in on that first day.

So that’s why, again, tell us where you’re joining us from. This was kind of cool remembering the specific memories. I guess Steve was talking about sweating through 112 degrees at Disney World.

The different cast members who showed up anyway because they understood that they were making memories. Again, these are real life hospitality lessons.

I talked about how I called a yacht company in Newport Beach and I praised the guy who picked up the phone because he already knew my name, which was special. Oh, then I laughed because something never changed with that.

We talked about, we were debating resort fees. I mean, I think that debate will be evergreen. We told everybody to book direct.

That’s right. You heard it here. Always book direct.

We called Extended Stay Hotels not necessarily sexy, but profitable. That sounds like a line that I would say.

We closed that episode with, I loved it when we used to do these quotes, but we closed that episode with our very first quote and it was by Eleanor Roosevelt.

True hospitality consists of giving the best of yourselves to your guests and somewhere in the middle of all of that. Will Suckers was also in our ear telling us that, hey guys, you’re over time. We’ve got to wrap up.

Thank you guys, by the way. A lot of great memories.

7:08

Highlights

I think before we wrap, we should also share some of our favorite. Actually, do you want to just do it now? Do you have some favorite little moments that there was little segments or whatever?

Oh, wow.

I’m not putting on the spot here.

How about that? You want to think about that when we come back?

I have some. I would say that my favorite parts are really seeing the people that show up every single week into our live chat. I can think of many of you that show up every single week and leave us nice notes.

It means the world to us that anyone cared what we were saying, was watching. That was some of my favorite. I think just when you and I have our coffee chats, it was definitely my highlight.

We really were just catching up on everyone. When you saw the coffee chats, we were just hopping on, getting everything connected and learning about what we had going on in our world. Those are the highlights I’ll take with me.

We have so many new stories and so many things that we covered. I think the yearly predictions, I felt pretty good about as well.

You like that?

Those were cool too.

I love the wild stories of the crazy things that were happening in travel.

The ones that used the underwear and the coffee maker, I think that was the most I forgot about that one. Yes. Yes.

They didn’t have the filter, they used the dirty underwear. That was nice.

Exactly. There were so many crazy stories. I’ll never forget.

We talked about the one who was an off-duty pilot. I think it was an Alaska Airlines flight and how he decided to go and try and get to the cockpit.

I think I referred to him as like, homey was having a bad day and decided to go and try and ruin things for everybody. You could see a real side of Sarah, when she starts referring to somebody as homey.

By the way, if I refer to somebody as homey, you know I mean business. It may not seem on brand, but homey means business.

Gangster backstage. I think too, what I like is seeing emerging technology too. We had just started talking about AI at the very, very beginning and to see where it came now and where it will continue to go is just unbelievable too for me.

I listened back to some of the old episodes like, wow, it was just like coming up and we didn’t know what it was. It’s like, you know, when you look back at the day, she’ll talk about the internet and email for the first time.

Right.

It’s gonna sound like you and I talking about it. So it was interesting to see that too.

Well, let us know. I know there’s so many great faves.

Let us know as you’re tuning in, like if there were some favorite moments that you remember, something ridiculous, something fun, something informative, whatever it was, like just drop that in the comments.

Like we want to make sure, yeah, we want to keep it interactive and fun. And we so appreciate you all joining us every week when we go live. I think that to me was the coolest part because we’re not just in an echo chamber.

We’re really like interacting with you. So please continue that on today. And I promise or I can’t promise actually that I won’t cry before the end, but should we talk about some news?

Just because like that’s also the point of.

I think we should definitely talk about some news and listen to the viewers. Listen to Sarah, if you’re something you want to say, say it here. Give a shout out to your company here in the chat.

Let’s give a free sponsorships to everyone. Put your company.

Wow, Steve.

We should do. Let’s go. Give everyone a shout out.

Wow, who let him out?

Wow, guys. Yeah. Let us know where you’re joining us from and what company you work for.

Perfect.

Yeah, let’s give a shout out.

Oh my gosh. It is good to see all that representation.

10:32

AI in Hotels

So okay, let’s go to our first topic here. Let’s switch gears a bit. So I love that you led into this.

What hotel CEOs are actually doing with AI? This is a great piece. And by the way, if you see this little, what we’ve got on the screen right now, so I love that you can see us as well as that.

But make sure if you have not been to the Skift website, last Tuesday, they launched Skift Intelligence. Check it out, the format is new, different, you and improved.

So check it out, and you can kind of see a little bit of it here, how it looks a little bit different. But yeah, so what are hotel CEOs actually doing with AI? That’s the whole thing, and that was talked a lot about.

That was talked a lot last week at the Skift Global Forum. I will also give a quick shout out to that, and I go to a lot of conferences. It really is one of my favorite conferences, and I’m not saying that biased at all.

I love the conversations that are happening in that room. It’s great, so put that on your calendar. After two years of AI announcements, Hotel CEOs are now talking about specific deployments with measurable results.

Hyatt has built a digital twin of its CEO that models how the executive would approach key strategic decisions. That’s wild, giving leadership teams a tool for pressure testing choices at scale.

IHG’s voice agents are handling about 40 percent of front desk queries in pilot hotels, reducing wait times and freeing up staff for higher value interactions. Do you want me to continue here? Yeah.

I think it’s really good that we’re starting to talk about this, the CEO.

Because every CEO is doing different things. You have some CEOs that are very careful to say, we’re not replacing anybody. Don’t worry.

This is enhancing the staff. That’s what they keep saying. I’m a big believer.

I know. I’ve been saying it since the beginning. It’s going to replace people.

It is just in that nature of technology and what comes. But then how do you use that money you were paying those people to put them into different areas? That’s what I also like hearing.

The Accor CEO mentioned that too. He’s like, yes, a lot of jobs are going to get lost. He said, I think the stat was 50% on the article, but they’re going to be using that to go into other areas.

How do you make the ordinary, it’s automated, and then the extraordinary with people out there?

I’m going to push back on that a little bit.

Because I’ve been listening to a lot of conversations on this, and one of the podcasts that I always listen to, that’s not ours because we’re living ours, is diary of the CEO, and he had somebody on recently, and I think he brought up a really

interesting point. Whenever there’s been technological advancements, there’s been a shift in the job force. So yes, we might lose jobs, but then we’re going to build back more jobs with different skill sets. And so it’ll look different.

I don’t know. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to stay with.

Listen, all your phone operators, you don’t have a job anymore, right?

So what are they going to do?

A bookkeeper, an accounting in the back of house, gone. All your HR intake forms and scanning through things, gone.

I know, and they’ll evolve.

Right, but it’s hard when you’re 50, 60 years old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I’ve been doing that for 20, 25 years, 30 years in a hotel. I’ve seen it happen to some of my friends already.

So I’ve been saying it now to all of you, if you’re inputting stuff and you’re filling in spreadsheets and you’re doing presentations and that’s your sole job to reply to reviews, that job will not exist for you.

You need to start working on some new skills like Sarah’s saying, get into the front of house, learn how to create things for yourself. So I just tell people that because I see it now in real life happening.

I hear you too.

You would have been podcasters 10 years ago that didn’t exist. What was a podcaster?

Yeah, of course. It was definitely not the same. I mean, my whole career is built off of social media.

Like my independent career is built off of social media. Like there was no way when I was graduating college, I was like, oh, I’m going to start doing that. Like it just didn’t exist.

So, I know. But it’s an interesting time. I actually think it’s exciting because it’s changing so many things.

I had a conversation with somebody yesterday and they called me up and they asked me for something and I had a moment where I was like, you could just use a, they wanted a favor from me, which I’m not opposed to that, but I was like, you also could

just use some sort of AI to help you with that. But it was like the idea of, I think we’ve all been there in that situation where somebody asked you something and you’re like, you could just Google that, right? Yes.

It’s happening. I can say for our hospital management company, we realized I did a study. I had to go through all of our Slack messages and emails and see where the bottlenecks were.

A lot of the messages were very basic messages like, hey, can we give this discount? What should we do for this guest? How should we do this?

We update our SOPs and then we had a study of all the answers we provided to our team, put that into a database and said, your first task is to ask AI now because it’s been built out that way and it answers just like we would 95 percent of the time.

It’s now reduced the workload and the mental workload for our leaders because now they can go and work on what we need them to work on, which is growing the business versus answering questions that now the team is empowered to do.

There’s a lot of good things that they can do as well, as long as you’re using it the right way. If anyone has any questions, I’ve been testing out every AI bot.

Oh my gosh. By the way, if you guys don’t know this about Steve, Steve, anytime there’s any new announcement, any new addition to any of the big AI platforms, Steve is out there testing it.

Every time before we come on the show, he’s like, oh, I did this this week, and I did this this week. Oh, I created what? And I’m just like, what?

This is, but it’s great. I will say this, it is very useful too, because you’ve turned me, you’ve definitely turned me on to trying certain things and products that maybe I was like a little bit late to. And so, and I pass that along to other people.

So Steve, you might be the, Steve, the digital, the AI influencer.

Oh, no, but I like using it. It makes I, because I’m a creative person. And so if I used to have to call people, hey, can you help me create this?

Do this? I didn’t have the technical skills now. Yeah, these tools to really make things the way I want to make it.

So it’s been a lot of fun.

I love it.

Get ready, hoteliers. Make sure you’re using it. What does this say here from Christopher?

Chatbot has reduced the number of phone calls to the front desk so they can spend more time with guests in the front of the desk. Exactly. 100%.

Right. So that was someone answering that phone. So if you don’t have to pick up that phone anymore, great.

But if you’re going to use that as dollars, that’s why I would challenge hotels and operate them doing it with myself too, like, all right, we save money here.

How can we use that money that we were spending and put it into something that helps us grow or help the guest experience? I think that’s the mentality moving forward.

I think another big thing to wrap up this topic is this gap between what the big brands are doing and then independence. As far as AI capabilities, that gap is narrowing far quicker than maybe we might even realize.

So I think that’s an indication as far as where the industry is going as a whole, and everybody’s on board. So, yes.

Up on the train, up on the AI train.

Up on the AI train. Oh, good. We had Desert Wind joining us from Las Vegas.

That’s my mom, by the way. Yeah, that’s great. Thank you, Kay, for joining.

The burner account, that’s the one that leaves me all the messages.

18:11

Sandals Royal Caribbean

Okay.

Oh my gosh, I know. So let’s talk about our other topic here. So we leave time for a little bit more reminiscing at the end.

Royal Caribbean is in talks for 50 percent stake in Sandals. I think this was great. This was a big buzz.

Everybody’s like, really, whoa, what’s going on?

So to bring you up to speed, Royal Caribbean is in talks to acquire 50 percent, to acquire a 50 percent stake in Sandals Resorts International, which would be one of the most significant resort consolidation moves in years.

Now, earlier this year, Sandals Chairman Adam Stewart shut down sales rumors. He said the company was not for sale, but a minority stake rather than a full acquisition may actually be the structure to make this deal possible.

What’s interesting with this, because a lot of people are like, okay, wait, why do this? Why would Royal Caribbean be interested in this? But Sandals Caribbean Resorts, their footprint, in the Caribbean is a natural complement to cruise itineraries.

So passengers, for example, can stay at Sandals Resorts before going on a Royal Caribbean cruise. These sort of combined land and sea packages, to me, it makes so much sense.

And I mean, because we’ve always talked about it, it’s like the idea of cruise as being the sort of almost like all-inclusive at sea, and there’s complimentary parts.

Obviously there’s far more nuances to that, not saying that that is a blanket statement, but there’s absolutely overlap in the type of travelers and how people can kind of approach their travel budgeting and strategy, right?

Yeah, I love it. I think it’s a great move. Have you been to CoCoK?

I forget to ask you, have you been on Royal Caribbean ships? Or you’re only a Cunao?

I haven’t been on a Royal Caribbean. Call your girl. I have not been on a Royal Caribbean ship.

I’ve been on many, many others.

Yeah, so I’m a big fan of Royal Caribbean, especially with family, you know, it’s great for mobile generation and all the fun and the games and the restaurants. I’m a big fan of theirs, especially the mega ships.

I’m a fan of those big mega ships when you’re out there. But Coco K, their island, I always say, is the best resort I’ve ever been to without an actual hotel on it. They do such great things.

They have so many cool things going on on their island that they bring people to. And they’re really good about making money, but also about making sure you have a great guest experience while you’re there. So we’ve talked about Sandals.

I remember when we talked about that a couple of months or a year ago, but they were branding, trying to go a little bit more upscale.

Royal Caribbean can now bring that mentality to those resorts that are island based and how to plan for it and how to do a great experience for them and how you can give value to them.

I think I was reading somewhere online that it’s also like a hedge against the rising of fuel costs as well. So not as good as people are spending money and the cruise ships are getting a little more expensive.

So if you can just have your destinations and have 50 percent invested and really have a say in how that operates, I think it’s a great match for them.

I’m sure those travelers on those cruise ships somehow are going to end up at the ports that have sandals as well.

Oh, completely.

So I think that will be a good outing as well for them.

I’m actually kind of surprised this hasn’t happened yet, or unless it has and I don’t know about it. I will say that.

We don’t want to get in any trouble here on our last episode.

We’ll have to come back on.

Sorry, Cruz. No, but I think what’s interesting about it is that it’s new that people are starting to build their islands. So Royal Caribbean has their island, Disney has the island, Norwegian is starting to make their island.

Yeah, they have their own islands, but the actual full was like-

Yeah, but I think that’s what it is.

I think that’s where there’s things like, all right, let’s look at these resorts. We can have a bigger footprint with them, get the mix in, promote Royal Caribbean and Sandals together, which are two well-known brands. I like it.

I think it’s good. I’ve never stated a Sandals, but if there was a promotion through Royal Caribbean, I probably would.

Oh, I mean, it’s also great as far as just getting new exposure to different travelers. Again, like as you said, you’re a big fan of Royal Caribbean, and you haven’t stated Sandals yet.

So let’s just say through Royal Caribbean, that would introduce you to the whole Sandals brand and experience. And I think vice versa, like, oh, cool. I like this idea.

Why not?

Yeah. All right, chat. Who’s staying at Sandals now?

Give me a yes or a no. I’d be curious to see if this moves the needle for you.

Yeah. No, this would be really, really, really cool. So anyway, let us know your thoughts on that.

I know it’s, yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, it’s a complimentary consolidation.

Yeah, it helps. It works. I like it.

It’s a good investment by Royal Caribbean. I think it’s really smart. And Sandals, I haven’t heard their name brand in a while.

I think this is a good, good thing for them. I know they have diehard fans, but this will open up a whole new, new area for them.

Yeah. No, definitely.

23:09

Brand Game Insights

All right. Well, why don’t we go to your favorite part?

My favorite part, Sarah.

Wow. That dramatic pause. I was like, what just happened?

Whose brand is it anyway?

The game show where we put up on the screen, a sub-brand, and you have to guess the parent brand that owns that sub-brand. We have a very bad record at this game, Sarah, you and I. I think we’re batting below.

Will, are you going to join us for this?

I was going to join you to let you know, I totally dropped the ball and didn’t grab a gram.

So we’re going to do this live while we chat.

Wait, that’s hilarious. I was going to bring you on after, but like, hey, let’s go ahead and like.

Come in here for the game, okay?

Yes.

Yes. But I’m a little biased because I want to know the answer. So I’m going to just fill in the gap here for some quick search of the logo.

Listeners and viewers, I want you to put up some sub-brands and we’re going to choose one of them to be the game.

If you get it in here quick enough, put it in the chat. Give me a sub-brand. Paul Manzi, let’s go.

Paul Manzi, I know you’re watching live. Give us a sub-brand real quick.

By the way, for example, we had motto on here not too long ago, and I totally walked by the motto this last weekend when I was in New York City. Actually, that ends up being Auditor Production Meeting. That’s happening right now.

This is what happens before we go live, by the way. Yeah.

But this is perfect for our last one. This is why we like doing this show so much. This is why it was so much fun because it’s teamwork, there’s energy, there’s positivity, and we have fun doing it.

There’s a lot of caffeine consumption, at least on my part.

On my too.

Drinking some Bitscane coffee right now.

I think my favorite has been the times that Sarah, we made a joke about this at Skip Global Forum, but shows up with her like monster energy drinks, or not the Elani, or is it Elani? The other one?

Yeah, Elani. I do Elani. I rotate.

By the way, just to be very clear, I am energy drink agnostic, so a little bit of love for everyone, just so long as they’re sugar-free. Okay, just gonna put that out there.

Has to be sugar-free, has to.

It does have to be sugar-free. All right, we got one.

Are you guys ready? You guys ready for our sub-brand of the week?

Yeah. Yeah, let’s see it. I like that we’re doing this on it.

Whose brand is it anyway?

Anyway, brought to you by Will Slickers.

Let’s see.

Here we go. Well, what do we got? See if you guys get this one.

Here we go.

Okay, okay. Canopy Hotels.

I got this one.

I know the brand. I don’t know who owns it, though. Canopy by, all right, I’m putting my guess in.

I’m going with Hilton.

Yeah, it was Hilton, Hilton, Hilton. What are you thinking? Oh, wait, you know.

I was going to say, I know the answer, but all right, don’t put it in.

So everyone, put listeners, put it in there.

Got Paul St. Mary.

Paul Manzi. He said Marriott. Paul also gave us a hotel brand that we should have.

Caption Hotels.

We should come back to that one. We’ll do too.

Brian Fish, welcome. Welcome to the last show.

Brian, thank you.

Had Brian Fish on the podcast.

All right, let’s see.

The big winners, get your answers in. Five, four, three, two, and one. The winner of today’s show, what is the brand, Will?

The winner of today’s show.

Oh my gosh.

A double win on the last show.

We go out winners.

We had to go out winners. You had to.

And this was not pre-planned, listeners and viewers. So I know.

Yeah, I can’t believe it.

So I want to make sure that they didn’t think I was going to bring it up.

Shout out Lowe’s Hotels.

So we’re just doing all the shout outs. So wait, wait, hold on. So we have to, what did, do we address, which one we did, Caption Hotels?

Oh, Caption, yeah.

Should we do one for Paul Mandy?

That’s our loyal listener, friend. Let’s see, Paul Mandy.

Jamie gets Hilton too. Jamie, thanks for joining us.

Oh, can you guys guess who Caption is by? I’ll give you like 10 seconds.

I’m surprised by Caption Hotels. I’m going with Marriott.

Me too. Marriott. What is it?

What do we think?

All right, you ready?

Yeah, we’re ready.

Okay. Well, I don’t have the logo because I’m not that quick.

But that’s fine. That’s fine.

Hyatt.

Oh, duh. It’s the other H Hotel.

Oh, and then there’s an HG and then there’s like all these Hs.

H for Hotel.

H for Hotel baby. That was my favorite part.

Yeah, I couldn’t believe that. That was one of my favorite parts of playing these games. I think.

You love that game.

I just like having something fun to do every week.

It was cool to learn. I got to learn about all these brands I didn’t know about.

Well, first, like Sarah said in the beginning, it was the Quote of the Week, and then we did real-time recaps.

Yes, I loved our real-time recaps.

We still do those, and then-

Guys, it was real-time recaps. What’s happening on the streets of hospitality? Streets.

Streets.

I gotta put my street cred out there, all right?

Yeah, homie.

Means business.

Well, Will, you put us together. I’m curious how you all thought about this. We don’t know that story from your point of view.

I think it’s great for us and the listeners to hear. When you thought of Sarah and I three years ago, how did this all come together?

Yeah. Tell us.

Honestly, it was kind of an easy from like, you look at the landscape of the influencers and the podcasts that are happening in the space. Yes, you guys had your individual stuff. I think, Sarah, you were doing a show out in LA.

Steve just started his podcast, a hospitality mentor with us at HFM, Previous to Skift. And I was just seeing it, I was like, man, who are the hotel voices I know and trust? And that aren’t already on a podcast.

There’s Modern Hotel Year, there’s No Vacancy, there’s other podcasts out there already cranking out tons of hotel content. So I was like, I know Steve, I know Sarah. Sarah and I have worked together on other stuff in the past too.

So it was an easy marriage where I was like, if I can just convince them to do a live show, that was the hard part. Because Steve, as you said, I was like, oh, that’s a big commitment. Every week.

I was like, yeah, but we can pre-record every now and then. We do that with the Monday show. Sometimes we’ll pre-record on a Friday, if we have to travel on a Monday or whatever.

I just remember I was like, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. Then the first episode, I think we’re like, before the first episode aired, we were talking about how, we’re like, oh, let’s give it a try. We’ll see what happens.

If it doesn’t work, no worries. We’ll find someone else. But yeah, the first episode is a no-brainer.

I was like, yeah, they’re staying.

That first episode, I remember as we were approaching, I was like, okay, we got to have a show format. So I remember working on that.

We’re trying to find a third person because the Monday show has three people. So we’re like, hey, let’s get a third person. We were trying all these different things.

But I think it worked out with just the two of us.

Put together that outline. I remember going in, like we didn’t really have much time to chat. There was no rehearsal.

There was no time to chat. And then I remember before we went, Steve was like, you just go ahead and lead. And I was like, oh, well, okay.

But that’s the thing, you two have always leaned on each other’s strengths, right?

So like Steve is always like, Sarah, you lead and then he’ll come in with a great commentary. And then that spirals into an absolute great conversation, which obviously has proven over the last three years.

So that’s one thing I like, not to get sentimental or emotional because I had told myself I wouldn’t cry.

But you two truly do have such a phenomenal, not only friendship outside of, like for the listeners, just FYI, we are all friends and still will be. We text each other very often. And so just to see the friendship blossom from it.

But then, like I said, you guys really lean into each other’s strengths, which I think in an industry that can have a lot of ego, not to like throw any names or anything out there, but it’s just like there was no ego working with you guys.

It was very much like, hey, I could do this, I could do this. And hey, we should bring up the creative ideas that you guys had and have all the time. Yeah, it just is really special.

I was like, it’s so easy to work with people like you guys are just so willing to collaborate and have fun.

So when it comes to being creative, I think it’s like it’s all about how do we just keep it fresh? And if we keep it fresh for us and we’re excited about it, that trickles down to people that are tuning in.

And just know that we always were trying to like, how do we keep it fresh and cool and get inspired by different things? But yeah, I mean, Steve and I discovered that we’re practically birthday twins. Yeah.

We also discovered that we could change the tire together. That was a more recent discovery.

That was team building.

Teamwork.

Team building. Exactly.

But I would say for everyone listening, the viewers and listeners of what I taught me is you got to say yes to certain things in life, even though if you’re uncomfortable, right?

Because if I didn’t say yes to this, I wouldn’t have had three years of all this fun and experiences and opportunities that this show has brought me and getting to meet so many cool people at conferences or out in the streets that listen and thank

us. And it just means the world to me that we did this. And I take it now as a really good wisdom and learning lesson to teach my kids and everyone I work with is take those chances in life because you just never know what will happen.

Yeah, it might be hard to wake up and do something every single week consistently and put in effort and rent an office and get good equipment and do all these cool things because it really does pay off in the end.

So that’s my message for the listeners and viewers and just for myself and for all of you, I’m just grateful that we had all this time and we’re going to continue doing all cool things, I’m sure, in life together again.

But in this format, I can’t believe it’s the last day, the last show, but I’m really thankful for everyone that’s been a part of it.

Yes. As Brian said, I love this because we just talked about it. This was actually in my book, Hospitality From Within, Follow the Yeses.

In a world where we’re constantly hit with no’s, and sometimes it’s up to us to decide whether, okay, if we get a hit with a no, do we find another way around to still make that thing happen, or is that the universe telling us like, maybe that’s not

the way, and then you start paying attention to where the yeses are coming from, and you’re like, let me follow the yeses, because that could lead you down a path that you wouldn’t expect. Just as Steve was saying, that we wouldn’t necessarily

expect, and all the things that have happened over the last three years. It’s wild.

34:17

Future Endeavors

Well, for the listeners and viewers, I do want to like some housekeeping before I want to ask you guys, I want to give you guys the opportunity to share what you’re doing outside of the show moving forward.

For the listeners, FYI, the show is not going away, like I said in the beginning. The Monday crew is now moving to Wednesday at the same time, 7 a.m. Pacific, 10 a.m.

Eastern. We’re going to bring on some more voices like Sean O’Neill, Dennis Shaw, Adriana Lee, Bailey, why am I forgetting Bailey’s last name, Bailey Schultz.

Some of the reporters at Skift that are covering these stories to keep the moving flow of lodging as the umbrella for this show. Anything lodging will be lodging in tech, really.

But for you guys, Steve, like you said in the beginning, you just started busking coffee when you started. Sarah, you have a successfully growing concierge business with some amazing high-profile clients. I’ll say that.

What are you guys doing now? Steve, I know you got BIA, you got two locations signed before the first one is even up. I want to give this a couple of minutes just for you guys to be able to promote what you’re doing outside of the podcast.

Because I think a lot of people, from what I’ve heard at conferences, and Brandy has said this, Michael said this after the Skift acquisition thought, we’re doing this full time, like that you’re only on GMH.

And it’s like, no, they have way more things going on inside the show. So yeah, please give us, let’s take a moment for you guys to do some personal shout outs.

Oh, that’s sweet. Steve, why don’t you take the lead with this? Because you got some exciting things going on.

Yeah, I’m involved in a lot of fun things.

But I would say listeners, viewers, you know, the big one right now, my main focus is staybaya.com. So if you haven’t checked it out, staybaya.com. Check out Baya, what we’re building here in South Florida and soon to announce in the Northeast.

I won’t say where just yet because we got to make that announcement. My partners would be mad at me. But working with some great partners on that, they’re fantastic and I love working with them.

And then our hospitality management company is called Tangie. We’ve grown that now every single year over the last, it’s crazy to say, over the last five years.

And we’re managing really beautiful homes across South Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina. So we have homes now over 60 homes that we’re managing and we’re getting into boutique hotels too.

So you can follow along on LinkedIn. I’ll be sharing more and more as we’re doing there. And if you haven’t yet, Sarah, really push me to make it happen.

But get Hospitality Unlock the Book and you can read all the fun stuff that have been going on. Make sure to do that for us too. So we appreciate you all very much.

But you guys can stay in contact. We’re not going anywhere. We’ll be online all the time.

No, no.

We’re still very visible.

And you’re all friends. We’re definitely going to have you guys back on as guest hosts or special guest experts on certain topics that we need some insights on. So this isn’t the last time.

No.

This is not goodbye.

See you later.

This is exactly, exactly true. Yeah. Was that you passing the baton to me now?

Oh my God. Yes. The concierge bell.

So yeah. No, I love that. Well, you’ll definitely still be seeing me all over everywhere on social media.

That’s obviously a big part of what I do. And we’ll be continuing to do that with a lot of different brands going on site, creating some awesome content with that. Continuing to do a lot of the TV segments that I do with different brands.

Dare I say, maybe even Good Morning America. We’re just planting the seed with that, by the way. We’ll see.

We’ll come back when that happens. But I love that Steve brought up his book because I just actually read it. So I have a new edition of My Hospitality From Within.

Look at me. Look at me. Oh my gosh.

Throwing up my gangster signs with my hands. But that’s cool. Just got to always keep it real.

But yes, so a lot of that that’s going on in the background. I am working on my second book that should be out early in next year, early 2027. So I’m very excited about that.

So stay tuned. When I can share more, I will be sharing more. And yeah, also for those, I mean, we’ve kind of talked about it a bit on here, but those that may not know, I do have a private concierge business called AC Reserve.

And I work with ultra high net worth individuals. That it’s not just travel, but it really is all lifestyle management. And that is growing very quickly.

So I’ve got more people coming on board and it is very exciting. So yeah, I’ll probably talk more about that online with what I can, but that’s also really exciting too. So obviously lots of great things in the works, but we’re not going anywhere.

We’re still gonna be very visible. So yeah, just in a different way.

So like and subscribe to all things, Sarah Dandashy, Steve Turk, all their personal channels. Make sure to follow along in the comments.

And of course, yeah, I just, I gotta give you guys one last big thank you just for the last three years of dedication. It’s no small feat.

And like I said, I feel like we successfully have like really merged these audiences with your guys’ experiences, your consistency, your willingness to cover stories, even though like it may not be something that we’re all very familiar with in terms

of like the topic or the segment of the industry. And yeah, it just could not have played out better. Like I could not see GMH Hotels being with anyone else. So yeah, thank you guys for all you’ve done.

And thanks to everybody that’s joined us live every week.

I know we mentioned that before, but really, like you guys help make the show what it is. Otherwise, it would just be Steve and I being like, what? Or heads.

Exactly. But you guys keep us grounded in reality. And yeah, it’s been real.

Like, it’s crazy. I know.

Should we do one last sign off, Sarah?

Oh, goodness gracious. Yes, well, you should join us in this too. Okay.

All right.

I’m all messed up. On three.

All right, guys.

One, two, three.

Stay Hospital.

Terrible. Oh my God. One more time.

One more time.

Let’s not do it slow. Let’s just say Stay Hospital.

No, no, no. We’re not doing it that slow. Okay.

All right.

Ready?

All right.

Two, one.

Stay Hospital.

So close.

Oh, well.

Oh my gosh. I’m sorry, guys. All right.

Oh my God.

Bye.

See you guys again next week.