ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS :
OLIVER BONKE CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER LOEWS HOTELS
CHIP CONLEY HEAD OF GLOBAL HOSPITALITY AND STRATEGY
( NO LONGER IN THIS DAY-TO-DAY ROLE )
AIRBNB
JIM HOLTHOUSER GLOBAL HEAD OF BRANDS , LOYALTY AND MARKETING HILTON
DAVID KONG PRESIDENT AND CEO BEST WESTERN HOTELS & RESORTS
STEPHANIE LINNARTZ CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL
MARK MORRISON VICE PRESIDENT OF OWNER SERVICES AND STRATEGY EXPEDIA INC .
MARCO ROCA , CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER HARD ROCK HOTELS & CASINOS WORLDWIDE
PETER STREBEL CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER OMNI HOTELS & RESORTS
JEFF WEINSTEIN ( MODERATOR ) EDITOR IN CHIEF HOTELS
Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn with Moxy hotels , and we ’ re going to dual brand Elements with Alofts , which are more lifestyle , hip , experiential brands in the lower price tier , because people want different things for different trip purposes .
Jim Holthouser : You can see the industry responding in multiple ways . That , to me , explains the rise in lifestyle hotels , where you ’ re in cool neighborhoods and basically the hotel is built around the character and the color of the local market . Soft-branded hotels are a great way to bring in local and authentic for customers who aren ’ t looking for prescriptive . There ’ s not a traditional brand not figuring out how to create better social spaces and bring in local flavor and color …
We ’ ve seen about 40 % of Airbnb demand is for price-sensitive people who aren ’ t staying in hotels . As you think about impact , for every Airbnb room night sold , it ’ s not a direct loss to the hotel industry .
Chip Conley : What the hotel industry needs to wake up to is that 20 years from now a large percentage of the population has absolutely zero interest in buying a home and plans on SPENDING MOST OF THEIR LIFE ON THE ROAD – partly because there ’ s going to be more and more independent employment and it means people , as long as they have a mobile device , can work anywhere . They will stay between a week and three months . The current product we have in hotels is a small box , and the model doesn ’ t work . The location of the boxes , quite often maybe in corporate suburbs , isn ’ t necessarily where the traveler wants to be .
David Kong : The Airbnb model is really good and the sharing economy is here to stay . It behooves the hotel industry right away to find a way to work within these confines thinking about why would someone want to rent a home through Airbnb and come up with something to offset that revenue loss . It behooves us , especially those with big global reservation systems , to think about how we can better utilize our system and tap into this need . I don ’ t think it ’ s farfetched to think that Hilton , Marriott , Best Western would one day have Airbnb-type rooms for sale because what we do then is we offer more choices to the consumers . Anytime you offer more choices , you ENRICH YOUR BRAND .
Marco Roca : We are going to launch a brand at the NYU conference focused on being a disrupter . To us a disrupter is something that takes these authentic experiences at Hard Rock and allows it to happen at a 3-star level .
Peter Strebel : Every occasion of travel has a different need . As brands we ’ ve got to really make sure that we know who we are , because our brand cannot be all things to all people . And I think that ’ s what basically will degrade the brands .
Oliver Bonke : Staying relevant is critically important , and what is a hard wake-up call is to be clear that technology is making peerto-peer commerce in a platform possible and something that we in the hotel industry have to embrace … Does our perishable inventory become increments of a 24-hour period ? Does our inventory become something of a purpose of travel ? Do consumers use a hotel room for a morning , for a meeting or for an overnight ? For us to rethink our product in lieu of this technology-enabled peer-to-peer commerce is fascinating .
HOTELS : HOW EFFECTIVE A POINT OF DIFFERENCE IS F & B FOR HOTELS VERSUS PEER-TO-PEER RENTALS ?
20 hotelsmag . com May 2017