ATLANTA — The hospitality industry is a collaborative one, and it has to be. Hotel owners, operators and brands all have to come to the table to make decisions, especially during challenging economic conditions.
"With the larger pressures that we're seeing — I use the word 'relentless,'" said Thom Geshay, CEO and president at Davidson Hospitality on "The Performance Mandate" panel at the 2026 Hunter Conference. "I have to be relentless in every single part of what we do. It is no longer a group strategy. It's no longer a labor strategy. It's an everything strategy."
Every part of the hotel industry has to try to see the business from the owner's perspective, Geshay added. Of course, prioritizing the guest experience is important, but at the end of the day, with other competitive asset classes, the hotel industry needs to stay competitive.
"The business is getting very complicated, but we have to think through the owner lens, because that's really what matters," Geshay said. "If people aren't investing in hospitality, it kills the brands. It kills the brokers, it kills the lenders. It kills the operators. I mean, people have to invest in our business, so we have to be investable."
Ultimately, everyone is on the same team with shared priorities, said Chris O'Donnell, president of select service at Aimbridge Hospitality.
"The goal is to understand what is most important to everybody, and then try to deliver, which is what we do in hospitality," O'Donnell said about working together with hotel owners and brands.
Even when priorities differ, there are ways to work together and find a middle ground. Naveen Kakarla, HHM Hotels' president and CEO, gave the example of increased tension around capital expenditure and some of the brand requirements.
"The reality is that owners, managers, brands — you sometimes have different priorities and you sometimes have similar priorities," he said. "But to me, the energy has really been around how you raise the ask when you have an ask, and with whom you're able to make a request. And frankly, sharing a goal of not trying to stunt or make noise for the sake of making noise, but to offer a solution that might work forever."
From the brand perspective, individual relationships and transparency are top of mind, said Phil Hugh, chief development officer for Sonesta International Hotels Corp.
"We can't just treat everybody with a broad stroke. Everyone's needs for growth or challenges on the day-to-day operation of the hotel are different. So we as the brand have to listen. We have to be engaging to them, rather than reactionary," he said.
Hugh said these conversations are always ongoing, and these relationships don't fall apart overnight.
"No one wakes up in the morning and says, 'I hate my brand. I want to go spend millions of dollars to change the change the signage and get out of this and rebrand the hotel.' You just don't," he said.
The relationship between hotel brands and operators is a two-way street. Geshay said managers have to meet brands where they are, especially when it comes to the resources they provide.
"The brands have spent billions of dollars creating a distribution system, creating a loyalty program, creating tool standards, everything else," he said. "It's our job as an operator to be experts at those tools, how to use those tools, and how to drive performance with those tools."
When it comes to working with brands to meet their standards, Geshay said it's mostly a collaborative experience and "you really can get something down if you want to."
For a lot of hoteliers, meeting these standards is top of mind as the time to renovate is upon them thanks to the slower transaction market and delayed property improvement plans over the past few years.
Kakarla said that if a hotel is performing well, the owner has the ability to negotiate on the timing and phasing of renovations.
"Some of these hotels that I would have expected to be required to PIP are still waiting, and so you're going to have a market where hotels are coming available primarily for PIPs," he said. "It's hard because construction costs have gone up, and it's harder to forecast to estimate the pricing."
The other headwind hotels are facing is the cost of labor, the quality of training on-site staff and the importance of the general manager role.
"The most important role in a hotel is a general manager, because the general manager is the one that makes sure everything happens," O'Donnell said. "It really comes down to that leader in the business. They create the culture. If you give them those tools to say, 'This is what matters, this is what's important," and let them run with it, I find that to be the most successful."
It's incumbent on hotel management companies to be setting up property general managers for success and identifying and removing any barriers that may get in their way, he added.
Artificial intelligence is one way to help hotel teams on property, Hugh said, explaining that it can reduce friction at the front desk, handle easy requests from guests and be a resource for staff needing quick access to information.
Hugh said that brands can use AI to improve its communications to hoteliers.
"How do we lean into AI to give you answers quicker and then really be more proactive as the franchise order to provide service?" he said.
Even with tapping into AI and amidst all the current macroeconomic challenges, the industry will always come back to the people who make it what it is.
"Hospitality will survive any shock, anytime. It always does," Geshay said. "We do come back stronger, but it's because we pour into our people, it's because we create opportunities, and it's because the human spirit wants to get out and travel."