From a scarcity of seasonal workers to having to project more accurate budgets in an era of uncertainty, hoteliers are facing an array of issues, and experts speaking on recent episodes of CoStar News Hotels podcasts sought to unpack the "why" behind them and so much more.
Here are some highlights from the past month of podcasts.
CoStar News Hotels
Common themes from recent episodes of the CoStar News Hotels podcast revolve around both forward-looking trends and the practice of looking back on past experiences to better understand the now.
During National Housekeeping Week, executives with Davidson Hospitality Group joined the podcast to talk about how their careers grew from experience in housekeeping and how housekeepers remain some of the hardest working and least appreciated people in the industry.
Harry Carr, senior vice president of revenue management for Pivot Hotels & Resorts, noted housekeepers might have more power to affect a stay than any other individual at a hotel.
"It's also the little touches, when your housekeeper is in the hallway and sees a guest and greets them and says hello, even if it's not in English," he said. "And then the little things that they do during a stayover clean: making sure that the kids' stuffed animals are spread out on the bed, taking extra care in the bathroom to place the toiletries correctly. All those little touches are what, to me, hospitality is all about, and it's getting the guests to feel like, 'Oh, this is my home away from home.' And that intent-to-return metric that we all hear about, I think a lot of that comes from the people and the little touches in every department, including housekeeping."
Meanwhile, Crestline Hotels & Resorts joined the podcast to talk about how that company is celebrating its 25th anniversary, diving into the history of how Crestline spun off from the companies that would become Marriott International and Host Hotels & Resorts.
“We joke sometimes that we’re like a grandchild of Marriott if you go way back to our roots, but that’s what kicked things off,” James Carroll, president and CEO of Crestline said.
Some major markets in the Asia Pacific regions went through major typhoon and weather-related disruptions recently, and STR's Jesper Palmqvist joined the podcast to discuss how that part of the world reacts differently to storm season.
"You have a lot of these markets — think about [the fourth quarter] in Hong Kong — and along the coast line where it's peak for events business," he said, adding the Jewellery & Gem Fair is one of the top annual events in Hong Kong and happens during storm season.
Hoteliers across much of the world are grappling with a more difficult than usual budget season, and Alicia Carr, vice president of finance for Charlestowne Hotels, joined the podcast to talk about the factors playing into that experience.
One major challenge is owners broadly pushing for better forecast accuracy after years of uncertainty. Ultimately, she said, that will come down to better alignment of experience between corporate and property-level teams.
"That's where you have to rely on your general managers really knowing their business and incorporating their staff to ... not just do the forecast from their [general manager] office but really getting feedback in from your food-and-beverage director, your housekeeping manager, your maintenance manager," she said. "What are they seeing in terms of changes to be able to look forward with more accuracy?"
Beyond budget season, another major issue is a scarcity of seasonal workers made worse by long-term issues related to the H-2B visa program.
Ashley McNeil, vice president of federal government affairs at the American Hotel and Lodging Association, said the 66,000 employee cap falls woefully short of the industry's needs and has grown increasingly out of date since it was put in place in 1990. She noted contrary to some perceptions, the presence of H-2B workers often increases opportunities and wages for American workers.
"Years ago, they used to be jobs that college students would fill or teachers would fill," she said. "But with shoulder seasons, those folks just aren't available. They're still working. They're still in school. And summer season starts in May, depending on your location, and goes until October. So the June, July and August time frame, it just isn't realistic anymore."
In cheerier news, Hilton released its annual report on trends for the upcoming year, and Hilton's Senior Vice President of Strategy, Insights and Full Service Brands Jess Petitt joined the podcast to talk about how the theme for 2026 will be people focusing more on "why" than "where" in travel, calling it the year of the "Whycation."
"It prioritizes the personal growth and connections that we expect to create when we build out these itineraries for when we travel, and so we believe 2026 is going to be all about this intentionality," he said.
Hilton in recent years has prioritized expanding the pool of hotel owners, and DeShaun Wise Porter, vice president of strategic pathways and recognition at Hilton, said the company's Unlocking Doors program has sought to do just that through education and mentoring.
She said connecting new hotel investors with experienced owners has been particularly fruitful.
"It's helpful to really make sure that they have a cadre of industry leaders, other owners, mentors, if you will, to help them as they are facing new challenges or new opportunities as they're delving into this space," she said.
Tell Me More
On the September episode of Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast, co-hosts Isaac Collazo of STR and Jan Freitag from CoStar Group unpacked the question of whether the hotel industry was facing an industry-specific recession despite the larger economy not regressing into one.
"Yes, the [U.S. economy] is bumpy up and down the food chain, and you have tariff impacts and the tax cut impact and immigration and all those conversations, but bottom line is continued growth of the American economy," Freitag said. "And then we're sitting here looking at our data and saying, 'Growth? What growth?'"
Next Gen in Lodging
For some hotel properties, food and beverage is the life blood of the experience, and Next Gen in Lodging co-host Chris Henry connects with Massimo Caruso, director of food and beverage operations at the family owned Planencia Resort in Belize about how that property built out its approach and how he specifically learned to love food from his grandparents.
"I got to see them cook, the passion behind it, the love and dedication, and it just sparked something in me, and so I wanted to pursue it," he said.
The Upgrade
On the most recent episode of The Upgrade, CoStar News Hotels' EMEA-focused podcast, Katharine Le Quesne, managing director at hospitality advisory HoCoSo, discussed how many hotel businesses are moving forward with sustainability efforts despite pushback in some spot.
It's remained a bigger governmental focus across the European Union than in the U.S., but she noted there's also a compelling business case for sustainability.
“In the case of hotels, upgrading refurbishment aspects so that [hotels] perform better from an energy- and operating-cost perspective means [sustainability] can translate into real financial returns,” she said. “There are two sides to this. One is that you can positively influence your operational costs. The other one is actually that we are talking a lot about long-term risk. When an investor is coming into an asset, they are saying, are we sufficiently future-proofed.”