No Vacancy Live!

No Vacancy Live
  • 4.8 (107)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Semiweekly

No Vacancy is home to the hospitality industry's top podcasts. We speak to the CEOs, influencers and leaders to go behind the scenes of the hotel and travel business.

  1. 11h ago

    The Luxury Boom Is Reshaping Where Operators Are Betting

    Your mid-market property is about to get a neighbor it didn't expect. Bruce Ford, SVP of Lodging Econometrics, explains why 158 luxury conversions are coming — and what that means for everyone else. Luxury used to be exclusive. Expensive to build. Hard to convert. Not anymore. Brands are loosening their grip. Third-party operators are moving in. Mid-market properties are being stripped down and rebuilt as five-star, with new tech and new standards. And they're happening fast. Here's what worries operators: once a guest stays at the converted property next door with all the new tech, better itinerary management, and total customer value strategy, they're not coming back to yours. Bruce talks through the pipeline — where the money is actually flowing and why your market might be next. China has 3 to 3.5 times more rooms under construction than every other country combined. The Middle East is accelerating. And New Orleans just went from one luxury hotel to seven on one street. This isn't coming. It's already here. From Lodging Econometrics. Visit lodging econometrics.com/global insights. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866. Your mid-market property is about to get a neighbor it didn't expect. Bruce Ford, SVP of Lodging Econometrics, explains why 158 luxury conversions are coming — and what that means for everyone else. Luxury used to be exclusive. Expensive to build. Hard to convert. Not anymore. Brands are loosening their grip. Third-party operators are moving in. Mid-market properties are being stripped down and rebuilt as five-star, with new tech and new standards. And they're happening fast. Here's what worries operators: once a guest stays at the converted property next door with all the new tech, better itinerary management, and total customer value strategy, they're not coming back to yours. Bruce talks through the pipeline — where the money is actually flowing and why your market might be next. China has 3 to 3.5 times more rooms under construction than every other country combined. The Middle East is accelerating. And New Orleans just went from one luxury hotel to seven on one street. This isn't coming. It's already here. From Lodging Econometrics. Visit lodging econometrics.com/global insights. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    12 min

  2. 1d ago

    Natural Language AI Just Changed Hotel Management Forever

    Your owners are making decisions blind. PM Hotel Group just fixed that. Steve Marino, VP of IT and Hotel Systems at PM Hotel Group, explained at HITEC how they're using AI as their competitive differentiator — not to replace anyone, but to move owners from reactive to proactive. Most owners aren't hoteliers — they're investor-class people who don't know how to navigate systems or run reports. So they wait. They ask. They get frustrated. PM turned that into natural language: "Give me my cost per occupied room across these hotels for the last three weeks." Instant answers. No friction. On the BD side, AI is now helping them identify which assets and which owners actually fit their model, so they're not taking every deal that walks through the door. They're qualifying for the right fit. From HITEC. Visit pmhotelgroup.com or find them on LinkedIn. Unifocus, Workforce Management Redefined. Visit unifocus.com. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    8 min

  3. 5d ago

    How Hotels Are Getting Paid to Reduce Energy Demand

    Here's obvious: Hotel energy prices aren't coming down. Rick West, CEO at Commercial Green Solutions, and Kenny Weston, VP at Commercial Green Solutions, explained why hoteliers need to stop treating utility costs as fixed. ⚡ The "double whammy" is real: your kWh costs are up AND your demand charges are through the roof. But there's $50 billion in rebates sitting in utility programs that most hotels don't even know exist. 🎯 It's not about spending millions on new infrastructure. One hotel cleaning a P-tack can save 17,500 kWh — paid for entirely by the utility. Multiply that across a portfolio and you're looking at 3-5% energy savings with zero out-of-pocket cost (#NoVacancyNews). 🔌 Peak hours matter more than total usage. If you can shift energy use away from peak demand windows, you save on kWh AND on what utilities call your "demand charge" — the penalty for asking for power when everyone else is. 💡 Utilities will literally pay you to participate in demand response programs. Their job is keeping the lights on 24/7. They'd rather give away rebates than build new power plants. Visit commercialgreensolutions.com or check them out on LinkedIn. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    29 min

  4. 6d ago

    Why the Most Confident AI Hotel Pricing Recommendations Are the Least Trustworthy

    Kartik Yellepeddi, Chief Product Officer at Duetto, says AI in pricing is stuck at level one: algorithms that recommend prices. That's the problem. Building three levels is the solution. 🎯 Foundation (pricing and forecasting algorithms), layer two (explaining why the AI decided what it decided), and layer three (performance engineering that guides humans across sales, marketing, and distribution). ⚠️ The most confident algorithms are often the least trustworthy. AI has to earn trust by explaining itself, showing its confidence level, and flagging where it's struggling — so humans know exactly where to jump in. 💭 Revenue managers are excellent at judgment. They don't need another dashboard. They need conversational AI that works like the computer in Star Trek — natural, explanatory, collaborative. 💰 Hotels optimize one lever: price. Yellepeddi is pushing for decision-rich systems (#NoVacancyNews) that optimize restrictions, group prices, ancillaries, labor spend — the entire commercial ecosystem at once. From HITEC. Visit duetto.app. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    8 min

  5. Jun 30

    Hotels Are Asking the Wrong Question at Check-In

    Hotels are asking the wrong question at check-in — and Alliants just proved it. 🔑 Apple Wallet and Google Wallet keys at Resorts World Las Vegas are table stakes. Member Pass is the real play: loyalty recognition built into the digital key so repeat guests see their benefits the moment they arrive. 🎯 One customer captured additional guest names from 13,000 out of 20,000 check-ins. Hotels book one name. Alliants helps capture the whole group — the difference between selling one spa package and five World Cup packages. ❓ Nobody's asking "What's bringing you to town?" They should be. Tristan Gadsby, CEO, Alberto Santana, Chief Revenue Officer, and Andrew Pirret, SVP Customer Experience at Alliants, explained how the check-in moved to pre-arrival (#NoVacancyNews) — where you can actually tailor the stay and learn why someone came. 💰 Golf packages going to people who haven't golfed since junior high. Hotels finally have the data to ask the right questions. From HITEC. Visit alliants.com or find them on LinkedIn. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    11 min

  6. Jun 29

    Hotel Data Breaches Are Getting Worse. Here's Why.

    Matthew Bright, SVP and Head of IT at Davidson Hospitality, made a promise not to talk about AI. He broke it 54 seconds in. 🔒 AI is making security worse and easier at the same time — phishing emails with zero typos, sophisticated language models doing the work bad actors used to do by hand. 🎯 Large hospitality companies getting breached makes the whole industry a target. People now understand what to steal. 👤 Your tools can block entry points. Your users are the real vulnerability — and they're more susceptible than ever. ⚙️ Basic security wins: strong network security, strong endpoint security. Then invest everything into user awareness, because that's where attacks are working now. 🚨 Social engineering and help desk password resets are the attacks happening right now, not the ones you're reading about. From HITEC.  Unifocus, Workforce Management Redefined. Visit unifocus.com. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    5 min

  7. Jun 27

    FNA 213: At our Baikowitz-end

    Deena Baikowitz is a cat whisperer, networking extraordinaire, and the funnest, loudest (the good kind) person you'll ever meet. She joins Friday Night Audit alongside myself, Craig Sullivan and Suzanne Bagnera, PhD, CHA, CED from Toronto (where she's "in exile" from New York) and the crew immediately put her to work on the pet peeves hotel tournament. 🐱 The parallels between training introverted cats and introverted people are uncanny. Slow blink. Build trust. Don't stare. Feed them. Deena's done it for both species. 🍤 Hotel networking events are broken: greasy sticky fingers on the shrimp, then a handshake, then touching your phone. Someone needs to design a clean-hands networking menu. Deena volunteered. We're here for it. 🏨 The pet peeves tournament is down to the Four Horsemen of Misery — and constantly hidden lamp switches just demolished anti-theft hangers 71-29. The hotel industry is listening now 💼 She speaks five and a half languages (people training and cat training), does coaches, comedy, and will absolutely work a room for you at any conference. Find her: Fireball Deena on Instagram, LinkedIn, or in the indentation at the middle of any crowd. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    1h 3m

  8. Jun 26

    Curator Hotels VP on Why Labor Costs Drive Every Tech Decision

    Brent Hayhurst, VP at Curator Hotel and Resort Collection, won't look at a new technology until he knows what KPI it's supposed to move. 💸 Labor is the largest line item on any hotel owner's balance sheet, and that's the number Curator's tech decisions chase. 🏚️ Curator skips the big splashy booths and goes straight to the fringes of the show floor, where the new ideas show up first. 🧪 A pilot that fails isn't wasted. Hayhurst treats it as proof the team needs a different approach entirely. ☎️ AI is already pulling phone calls off the front desk so staff can focus on the guest standing in front of them. More from the show floor at HITEC. #NoVacancyNews Unifocus, Workforce Management Redefined. Visit unifocus.com. Want the weekly roundup of news, videos, and what you might've missed from #NoVacancyNews? Text HOTEL to 66866.

    7 min
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4.8
out of 5
107 Ratings

About

No Vacancy is home to the hospitality industry's top podcasts. We speak to the CEOs, influencers and leaders to go behind the scenes of the hotel and travel business.

Information

  • Creator
    No Vacancy Live
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1.8K
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © copyright Rouse Media 2025
  • Show Website
    No Vacancy Live!

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