No Show
No Show is about the business of travel: hotels, tourism, technology, changing consumer tastes, the conference industry, and what you actually get for $50 worth of resort fees.
Hosts Jeff Borman and Matt Brown explore the intersection of design, architecture, place, emotion, and memory. When we travel, we pass through these intersections, supported by a massive business infrastructure and a fleet of dedicated (and patient) service professionals.
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Fake Listener Mailbag - 2024 Edition
Rejoice America, Jeff and Matt answer critical questions from fake listeners. If we could change one thing about the travel industry, what would it be? What are some of the best travel and travel business articles we've read this year? What's the next hot destination? What's the biggest trend coming for the industry in 2025? Whatever happened to Yakov Smirnoff?
Articles we mention:
The Branson Pilgrim
Airbnb's idea to hold gladiator battles in Rome's Colosseum isn't going down well with some local lawmakers
CBRE analysis of loyalty programs
Colorado’s I-70 Has America’s Most Notorious Ski Traffic. Is There a Solution?
oh man, it's the most wonderful time of year, isn't it? And we are here. And one of my favorite sections we don't we, I think?
Speaker 2:I don't think we did this last year, but I love it, it's uh what I, what I love about this is that, uh, in one, the only other time we've done this, we had no listeners, no, and so fake listener mailbag was real, truly fake. Not one ounce of feedback had come our way. You know as we, frankly, we're what finalized season three? Here we still have no mailbag.
Speaker 1:No, no, there's no mail.
Speaker 2:It is still fake. It's as fake as it was from the beginning.
Speaker 1:I enjoy embracing the old traditions and I think the nice thing about creating fake mailbag is that it gets to the genesis of this podcast, which was us whenever I'd see you when we lived in DC at the same time and then when we didn't live in the same city. Whenever we'd get together, we'd have long some say too long conversations about the hotel industry, and you, as a veteran, were able to illuminate things in such a way as to make me feel like I knew what was actually going on for once. And we've decided to carry through that tradition with fake listener mailbag. We're the listeners. Some of these actually are inspired by friends and family who have tuned in over the last year, but a lot of them are things that we actually really want to ask each other. All right, jeff, first fake question what are some of the best travel and travel business articles you've read this year?
Speaker 2:You know I have almost every single quarter. I make some comment that Lark's quarterly webinar remains the best 50 minutes on the industry and I stand by that. I have for years. I don't know if that's really an article because it's kind of a Zoom webinar type deal, but there's a deck that goes with it and the material it's not to be missed. It's must read as much as any material I see on where the business is going.
Speaker 2:More fun than that I think we've seen some fun things this year, like you know. A lot of focus on experiences driving leisure travel things this year. A lot of focus on experiences driving leisure travel. What makes people get out the door is what marketers are being increasingly encouraged to go focus on in their effort. Why leave the house and with that, airbnb is hosting a gladiator fight in the Coliseum in Rome. How does that not make the list? Cbre did a great analysis and wrote an article on loyalty programs and I thought that was one of the better studies of the year. Dry for sure, right? I mean, this is about the economics of the business. It's a cure for insomnia for some. I found it fascinating. Is there anything that stood out to you?
Speaker 1:Yes, I had one that was a little bit more of a travelogue and I know we don't do a ton of those here, but there was an article in Harper's Magazine called the Branson Pilgrim. The author's name let me look this up Raphael Kroll Zadie, I think, is his name, and it's a personal history and then an actual history of Branson, missouri, and it's an attraction that he's been going to for years. You know, when you and I were growing up, branson really had kind of a cultural moment. I think in the 80s and 90s Branson was like a legit destination and in fact the article kind of goes into you know the acts that sort of flirted with Duny Res residency there, including Guns N' Roses at the height of their power, was actually thinking about doing like a I don't know like a three-month stint Branson, because it was sort of this you know Gatlinburg, pigeon Forge, sort of.
Speaker 1:You know Wisconsin Dells, ozark kind of thing, and while those places definitely have connotations with them, branson was riding high and now that's sort of crested and you know, for all of its ridiculousness, there's kind of a raw humanity to what this place was and what this place is the tackiness, the crowded nature of it, but how and why people congregated there. And this guy really gets into it. The thing's probably like a 10,000 word article. The centerpiece of it is his interview with Yakov Smirnoff, famed 80s comic. He's actually a pretty erudite guy. He got his doctorate from Pepperdine later in his career and sits down for a couple of interviews with him that are pretty lucid and informative. So yes, the Branson Pilgrim in Harper's for anybody who wants a journey into the heart of America. We don't get enough of those these days.
Speaker 2:I'd say it was one I want to read and have yet to be satisfied with the death of the cookie and its resurrection by Google. There has been no shortage of articles on the subject, but I have yet to find one that really addresses the what to do. It has been years in the making. Everybody prepared, supposedly I'm not sure what they did and then all of a sudden, google's like yeah, we're going to keep it, it's helpful for us. What do we actually do about that? This is the most core, fundamental thing in digital marketing, and it totally went 180 degrees twice.
Speaker 1:Do you ever read the accept all or reject all language for cookies on websites Of?
Speaker 2:course not Right the fine print no.
Speaker 1:No, it's become the modern day version of the old cell phone contracts, which no one ever reads. I also want to recommend and again these are a little more travel versus travel business, but they do intersect Outside Magazine, which always does excellent travel reporting, has a writer named Gloria Liu who did a great piece on I-70, colorado's notoriously gridlocked ski highway. Anytime that she has reportage in Outside it's worth checking out. Also, the Washington Post has a really robust travel section which I had not really keyed into until this year. They do a lot of articles that are a little more consumer friendly. They're not coming at it straight from the business side, but they do mix and match the personal experience of travel with the business side of it and I recommend that for anybody who can kind of hustle their way into a post subscription.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's what we'll do next here. All right, jeff, here's one for you. Inspired by my father. He sent me an article on La Paz in Mexico and how it's going to be a hot destination. Already is a hot destination, getting hotter by the by the month. What is the next hot destination in the world for people to go to that maybe has not been hot before?
Speaker 2:Well, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is pouring cash into their budding tourism industry. They'll host the first eSports Olympics this year, 2025. So that'll probably be literally the hottest event in 2025. The Year of the Snake in China probably will not be great for travel to China, at least not from the Western Hemisphere yet, but they'll be opening the world's largest indoor ski facility in Shenzhen. You know, I think Europe is probably the answer here, matt, and it will stay hot.
Speaker 2:The dollar is so strong. Going abroad is going to remain, I think the MO for the American traveler Dollar goes a long way. Internationals are still probably staying away from the US. Right, the inbound to the US. We're still just on the value of an elevated currency, 25 to 35% more expensive than we used to be, and that'll have a negative impact. So, america not hot, europe quite hot Within Europe, I think. The UK in particular. The inaugural South by Southwest London will take place this June and, of course, you and I will be attending the Great British Beer Festival in August, one of the world's great beer festivals. All this no-show cash, I mean.
Speaker 2:I can't figure, any better way for us to go blow all this sponsorship money we've been raking in?
Speaker 1:Let's go back for a second. There's going to be a South by Southwest in London.
Speaker 2:There is, yeah, the inaugural South by Southwest London. It shows you the power of the brand South by Southwest. It literally has to be in a place that is south or southwest of something. That's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's tough to do it in Iceland, though I wouldn't put it past them.
Speaker 2:The North by Northeast yeah.
Speaker 1:I had kind of thought South by was running out of steam, but maybe I need to plug back into that.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's why the move right. They need a new audience. Yeah, yeah, I also think there's some, and this is just me hypothesizing. I think there's a Brexit factor where the UK is looking for different ways to endear itself to inbound markets now that it's no longer free flow of traffic from the EU. I suspect that, paradoxically though, the UK next month or in the coming quarter will introduce an arrival processing that is elevated and a fee to go along with it. So come visit the UK. We can't wait to see you. By the way, here's more paperwork than ever and a fine for arriving. But I do think Europe will stay hot.
Speaker 2:Italy, heather and I will be going there this coming summer. Unfortunately, that overlaps with Jubilee, which is an event that takes place every 25 years. Catholics come around the world to gather in Rome for some spiritual. We will not be joining those festivities, but I think Italy itself will stay quite hot Not hot. We mentioned US, but I think 26 is going to be a great year. So we're probably another year away from great inbound travel. We host FIFA's World Cup. Philadelphia has the semi-quincentennial. Say that a couple times for what we've been at the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So there'll be all kinds of fanfare and there'll be All-Star in Philadelphia, right. When Philly does well, america does well. Right, it's not the most visited place and so it's kind of a nice barometer for inbound US travel. If Philly is elevated in travel numbers from outside the country, the rest of the US should do quite well. But we're probably a year away. All right, you ready for one?
Speaker 1:Give it to me straight.
Speaker 2:You often ask our guests, Matt, if you could change one thing about the travel industry, what would it be? It's your turn on the hot seat.
Speaker 1:This sounds like abject fantasy. Here it is. Here's what I'd do if I could snap my fingers. I would change everything about America's attitude to high-speed rail. People say, well, that's never going to happen. We will never embrace high-speed rail the way that China or Europe has embraced it Today. In China you can go the distance of Chicago to New York in four and a half hours. It's 700 miles between Chicago and New York. There's no reason why those two cities in particular couldn't link up with the East Coast in a high-speed train. You could be there in six or seven hours. And the argument is never that we're going to give up our cars to take the train. America will never give up its cars. I get it.
Speaker 1:The train is an alternative to airplanes. Everybody complains about air travel. The romance of it is dead unless you're in business or first class. It's a hassle, it's expensive and it's getting more expensive by the day. I think a train as a pitch argument of like would you rather spend six hours on a train or four hours on a flight? I think people would choose the train because the experience would be more scenic. It might be more beneficial to the environment.
Speaker 1:But there's kind of studies out there that trump up the congestion part of it. I think we have to kind of see what the effects of it were once we implemented it. I just wish the country would rethink it. Southern California, they're really getting serious about this about a high-speed train as soon as 2026 for a two-hour ride between LA and Vegas.
Speaker 1:I think that makes perfect sense and I just think there's so many routes in the country where we could do it and we could do it effectively. Part of the problem now with rethinking it is that Amtrak essentially shares a lot of its line with freight companies. So when you start talking about high speed and when you start talking about dedicated routes, you got a lot of other players involved in making those kinds of decisions and doing extra tracks and maintenance and it's just a shame that we kind of had to sell out a little bit in order to get some of these tracks laid down, because it kind of impeded our future thinking about what the ways that these tracks could work my formative years in travel were spent with a year rail pass in pocket and several different occasions in my life I saw the you know, nearly the entirety of the continent.
Speaker 2:because I could, because I had this pass and I could go anywhere anytime. I could reach every destination in Europe by train, every single one, and just being able to do that, the only limitation then was your desire to do it. I think, as you and I talk often about the value of travel to humanity, right, the way you see the world and the way you change when you do, that training enables those benefits.
Speaker 1:Next in the mailbag, Jeffrey. What's the biggest trend coming for the industry in 2025?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think guest expectations will soar and this isn't necessarily new, but I think it's going to reach a real pivotal moment in travel. People are so tired of inflation and shrinkflation. The expectations have elevated along with prices, but the prices stayed. The guest experience, whether you're talking hotel or air, has not, frankly, right. Price went up, but the service delivery has really stayed.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's much tolerance for that anymore and I think you're actually going to see, in some of the same ways that we've seen, real outlash for over tourism Right, the experience is bad, and I think over tourism, it's more like the experience is bad for the local. Right, the experience is bad, and I think over tourism, it's more like the experience is bad for the local. I think, in this case, the experience, if it's not excellent at today's elevated prices, customers are going to start pushing back in a very meaningful and aggressive way, and they can do that. We can vote with their wallets and just not do it. It can get surly with be it the desk agents or hotel operator, with air carriers and their representatives. I expect customers to really use their voices in a more powerful and potentially even kind of angry way. It's not new here. Right, this has been coming, but I think you're going to see a real crunch time where product and service delivery better improve.
Speaker 1:Adjacently, you deal with hotel revenue every day and I'll ask you one of my galactic questions that I usually ask our revenue guests what's something about revenue that hotels need to realize heading into the new year?
Speaker 2:Year over year is a silly measurement and I think every year presents a unique set of problems, opportunities, you name it, but no year is the same as the year prior, no month is the same as the month. So I think our metrics are really messy, right. I think they mislead the business leaders because we're so drawn habitually to compare everything we do to year over year performance. And, matt, this year we will not have a February 29. I mean now, practically, does that matter at all? It does not, but in reporting it will, and the way people are measured and bonused and the things they try to do, the tactical actions that they will go put in play, simply because one day of a calendar is missing. And so it changes the complexion of that month Easter, moving from March to fully in the back of April. It'll be on 420 this year. Is it any different? We had Easter every year for well, let's just call it 2000 years all round. Right, it doesn't change anything about the business, but we continue to get distracted by the silliness of the measure.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think maybe the better or the easier example to illustrate that is in the festive season of Christmas, new Year's, jewish holidays, during that period we see. A few weeks from now, christmas will fall on a Wednesday. New Year's Eve will follow on the following Wednesday. Two years ago they were on a Monday, and so the travel patterns were wildly different, as people took a whole week off when it was a Monday Monday, right, there was one really good week of travel in there. But everybody is kind of expected to come back to work on January 2, which was a Wednesday, and finish that up for a half week, whereas this year, with two Wednesday holidays and back-to-back weeks, it really messes up from a work pattern. If maybe it's a good thing or a bad thing, take your pick right, but there are two weeks that are essentially not going to be working. That kind of thing changes the travel demand pattern significantly all right.
Speaker 1:Do regular people care about hotel brands?
Speaker 2:If you look at it from a loyalty perspective, I think loyalty is mistaken. Right, if you translate your do they care? Into our people loyal, I think they are transactionally conditioned to return to the same brand umbrellas. But no, I really there aren't. No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:If I blindfolded you and walked you through the Hilton Garden Inn and a courtyard, could you tell I mean, the blindfold's probably not the right analogy, but if I stripped all the color and the branding off of those buildings and walked you through the lobby up to your room, all the color and the branding off of those buildings, and walked you through the lobby up to your room, could you tell the difference? I? I like to look at merch in this way, right, uh, at the very high-end luxury places, people love to go into the gift shop and buy the merch it says. I was there, I was at the ritz-carlton, whatever, the four seasons something, the aman, whatever, uh, people like to to wear it around.
Speaker 2:I don't know that's loyalty, though. Right, I think that's just a trophy. I want to announce to the world that we just got back from a ski vacation at this phenomenal resort. Like, I want to say that, and so I wear it, but I don't really see that, as do they care about the brand, probably not only for the way it makes them look Right.
Speaker 1:You don't. It makes them look right, right. You don't see a ton of people. You don't see a ton of people just walking around with like hilton sweatshirts right.
Speaker 2:If they do, they work for hilton right, right, of course, but you're not.
Speaker 1:You're not cruising down the street like I'll go down to the, I'll go down and get lunch somewhere. Let me just throw on my this uh 60 hoodie with Marriott on the on the front of it.
Speaker 2:I don't see that too often. Look at what they sell, do you see? You know a courtyard selling merch out of its gift shop?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, and I mean the Vegas hotels. But that's to your point, that's the. That's like a ski resort. To your point, that's like a ski resort. It's a destination versus like a property, and I think you can definitely have people who are loyal to certain locations for business reasons. I think you're right about the transactional part of it. I do this because I get a lot of points. I travel all the time for work and it just makes sense because the places I travel have pretty good Marriotts, so I'm just going to stay there or I have to go to these three cities a pretty decent amount for work, and the hotels are essentially across the street from the offices that I need to visit there. Once you take away the functionality of the places, there are very few properties that I think people are like oh yeah, I'm oiled at that place, Just love it, I got to get back there.
Speaker 2:I have come to appreciate Hyatt in this way where I think because it has stayed relatively small, which is a weird thing to say it's the fifth largest hotel company, or something like that in number of hotels. But the composition of the Hyatt portfolio is mostly full-service, luxury, wellness-focused, these really exceptional properties. And so when you think of the big hotel companies and of course there's Marriott and Hilton Hyatt rolls right off the tongue. Ihg and Choice are in there too, but of those major major players, I think Hyatt probably has true loyal guests and it's because they aren't doing. 200 million members, that's transactional. I need my points, I'm going to travel all the time. Just give me my points. I want free wifi. Sign me up, sure. Whatever the product portfolio and the relatively small size of its loyalty program, I think you probably do find people who are genuinely saying I only travel to Hyatt because I want that, not because the rewards are so appealing, right.
Speaker 1:All right, we have time for one more here. What do you want to do?
Speaker 2:Well, Matt, ultimately, you know, as the year draws to a close, all of us in HR, especially here at no Show, where we have a very aggressive human resources department- I just want to know in my review what can I do better on this podcast?
Speaker 1:Matt, give me my annual review please, so you want you want me to tell you what you can do better on no show.
Speaker 2:Yes, please. It's. It's time for my annual review. What do I need to do better?
Speaker 1:Well, your your audio quality has improved over the year, so kudos on that. Your preparation for the show is tremendous and I rely on it. The whole team here relies on it. It's hard for me to think of an area of improvement.
Speaker 1:I think the one thing I was thinking just in general is I've always wanted to kind of capture the colloquial kind of back and forth we have about the travel business Because, as I mentioned at the top of the show, we're able to talk about it in a way that can be deep and can get into some of the numbers, but not be so far in the weeds that you're just at a five-day finance meeting, and I think that's something that we've improved upon.
Speaker 1:But I think that's something that we improved upon. But I think it's something that I think both of us can probably think about first and foremost when we talk about these topics and when we we engage guests, because the guests that we talk to often are, you talk about, in the weeds. These are people we've we've been very fortunate to talk to, people who are are the experts in their field and they will just go a mile a minute and it's impressive to kind of hear their command of the industry and command of numbers around the industry, and I think we always have to kind of remember that um and I need to do this in some of the editing too it's it's like go back and define statistics and define acronyms, because even people in the travel business might not know everything that you're talking about. So I think, just stay curious, jeff, stay curious.
Speaker 2:Prepare less.
Speaker 1:No, definitely don't prepare less. I need it. I need that preparation, don't prepare less.
Speaker 2:I need it. I need that preparation, Thinking through more proactively the balance that we have of a really meaty business subject. You know, let's pull this back and understand it. I love that part of what we do and I truly think it's unlike what anybody does. Nobody does this when we pull it back and say how does this part of the business work?
Speaker 1:We're unique in that. So, in conclusion, we're doing great and I just want to thank all the fake listeners out there, because your support means a lot to us. There we go. It's no show. Oh, I didn't even do the intro. Hey, everybody, it's no show. Sorry, jeff and Matt, what would you like to say at the end? What would you like to say at the end? Anything in particular, that's okay.
Speaker 2:if you don't, no, we're good.
Speaker 1:Happy holidays everyone, and we will see you soon.
Speaker 2:They don't call him the best color man in the business for nothing, folks.
Speaker 1:See you later.