From financing deals to franchising tensions to shifting mindsets for young hoteliers, Hotel News Now's podcasts covered a wide range of issues in the first quarter of 2024.
Here are some highlights from the Hotel News Now podcast network from the first quarter of 2024.
Hotel News Now Podcast
The Hotel News Now podcast started off 2024 by highlighting the fraught financing conditions hotel investors face with insights from Peachtree Group Managing Partner and CEO Greg Friedman.
Overall, he said, the industry is in a better environment in 2024 than it was in 2023, which presented some historically unique challenges for hotel borrowing as multiple regional banks faced crises and collapse.
More stability and a rise in alternative lenders — along with the potential of interest rate cuts — could make this a better year for borrowing.
"And because of that stability within capital markets, I do think it's going to make it a more viable lending market because it's going to allow traditional lenders to be able to start to come back," Friedman said.
Hilton's Senior Vice President and Global Head of Talent Christine Maginnis talked about how her company was recently named the best place to work in the world and how businesses can benefit from treating people well.
"We prioritize an unwavering focus on creating a workplace that's inclusive, one that offers strong growth opportunities, is driven by our founding purpose and provides the kind of support that empowers our team members to bring their best, most authentic selves to work," she said.
Asian American Hotel Owners Association President and CEO Laura Lee Blake joined the HNN podcast to dive into major issues faced by her organization's membership, headlined by continued tensions between brands and franchisees. She mentioned specifically how Choice Hotels International's now-abandoned pursuit of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts could have a negative impact on hotel owners in lower segments.
“The thought that one franchisor would have such a dominant role in those segments raises some high concerns across the membership,” she said.
CoStar analyst Emmy Hise and reporter Jack Witthaus talked about the opportunities and challenges in Los Angeles, which is enjoying a long string of mega events to drive demand but also has a series of regulatory challenges that make building and selling hotels more difficult.
"Developers certainly want to build hotels in Los Angeles, but it's a 'not so fast, my friend' situation," Witthaus said. "There's a lot of hurdles to clear in Los Angeles despite the demand drivers we talked about."
Tell Me More
On Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast, CoStar's Jan Freitag and STR's Isaac Collazo dove into the hospitality data trends early in 2024, including how a strong February helped make up for a weak January.
"From a data perspective, if we're suggesting that January came in a little bit below expectations, the good news is February is coming in well above expectations," Freitag said. "Overall, that leaves me with [the first quarter] being pretty good."
Freitag and Collazo kicked off 2024 by highlighting how the year might look and feel a bit more "boring" than it has in recent history, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
“The numbers look good,” Collazo said. “Good is all relative; it’s going to be a more moderate year in 2024 than what we saw in the last three years, but it’s still positive. It’s still [revenue per available room] growth. It’s what we want.”
Next Gen in Lodging
On the Next Gen in Lodging podcast, co-host Davonne Reaves connected with Keller Williams Commercial broker Ntxhi Song and Rachel Vandenberg, founder of The Travel Leader and Accelerate Women Leaders in Travel, to talk about the importance of community for young women in the industry.
"It helps when you have women in leadership who identify other women to be in leadership positions," Vandenberg said.
In February, co-host Omari Head talked to Erinn Tucker-Oluwole, chair of the hospitality and tourism management program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, about the shifting mindset for young hoteliers at historically Black colleges and universities.
"That's where this ownership mindset is coming from. They want to control their time; they want to control what it is that they do, their values," she said.