The Modern Hotelier #205: SOHO House Goes Private, STR Outperfroms Hotels in Q2, US Traveler Trends | Hospitality Hot Topics with Mandy Murry
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Steve Carran: Welcome to another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality Hot Topics. Don't forget to like and subscribe and let us know in the comments what you thought about today's episodes. Today we're gonna take a look back in August at some of the hottest things that happened in hospitality in August, and we are joined by Mandy Murry. Mandy, thank you for joining us today. How you doing?
Mandy Murry: I'm awesome. I'm in the basement of a five star resort and dry storage, so we're doing good today. Thanks for having me.
Steve Carran: You're good. You're good. Well, that's great. So we're just gonna dive right into it here. There were a couple reports came out that came out about the travel trends that are happening in 2025 from social media to driving inspiration to AI tools, OTAs gaining more influence and. Guests looking for more experiences. Mandy, we're gonna pass it over to you first. What do you think about this list? Is it accurate or are you seeing something different?
Mandy Murry: You know, it's accurate. But you know, we're always talking about experiences. I think that's been talked about for the last 24 months, right? Everything is experience, experience, experience. So I think we are correct. People want experience, but they want local. So they want to immerse themselves locally and they want the local culinary tours.
They want the farm experience. They want everything from A to Z in their experience. So it's no longer like this hotel is the experience. The hotel is only a portion of what they're doing on their travel. And so it is, it is experience. It also is, multi-generational travel, whether it's friends or families of several generations traveling somewhere, finding something.
And then, we're also looking at this place where we're, doing micro-cations so instead of seven day vacations we're now to like three or four day vacations, so I don't know. David, what are, what are your thoughts on this topic?
David Millili: In reading the article, the one thing that I think everybody is kind of leaning in on is leveraging AI to help them plan the trips. there's AI coming in the background right there. But anyway, so AI is actually, you know, people now are leveraging that more than search in some cases where they're basically.
asking where they should go asking, redefining it. So I think that people now are leaning in much more to ai, helping them plan those trips, which is part of a big growing trend.
Mandy Murry: I agree. And I think that ai, is also how do they find those deep local experiences? And so how are we, how are we submitting everything to AI to get it out there for really that truly local, local experience? So let's talk about SOHO House going private, like what does this mean? And, you know, Soho House was this place and everywhere I go right now I hear Soho house. So it's a $2.7 billion deal led by MCR hotels. David, dive into Soho House for.
David Millili: Well, I think what even struck out more to me than just Soho House was MCR and, and we know the folks there well, and they've got a technology arm, and so this was really interesting. We see moves. It's not exactly the. You know, independent being bought by branded, but it's a kind of a flavor of that, and I think that, you know, it'll be interesting to see also how they leverage the technology play with what MCR leverages, Steve.
Steve Carran: Yeah. No, I think it's kind of cool. And coming from somebody who's been through an acquisition with MCR, it's kind of cool to see that they're doing this now with not only the technology. That I was with, but a hotel brand as well. I saw Ashton Kutcher is joining the board as a fan of that seventies show back in the day.
I think that's cool. I'm curious to see what kind of creativity he brings, but. The goal of this, it seems like, is to build more exclusivity and focus more on the member experience, which I'm all about. I'm really curious to see how the brand shifts now that they're not publicly traded anymore and can focus more privately and I'm really excited to see how MCR really helps. Not transition, but helps build this hotel brand as well. Uh, they have some awesome hotels, so, I'm curious to see how this will all work out. Tyler's a very smart guy at MCR, so I'm sure they're in good hands, but excited to see how this one turns out.
David Millili: So putting more pressure on hotel brands and independent hotels, booking.com is launching a credit card. So how do you think that's gonna impact traveler Steve?
Steve Carran: I mean, one of the trends that we talked about earlier was OTAs are gaining more of an influence. And now one of the OTAs is launching their own credit card. And I'm not gonna lie, some of these perks are pretty good. They're getting 6% cash back on, hotels and other rentals. They're getting 5% on any booking.com travel services.
So, I mean, if I'm a consumer and I'm a fan of booking.com, there's a good chance I'm gonna pick up this credit card. I'm curious to see if we're gonna see other OTAs follow suit. and I'm also really curious to see how much, uh, of a increase we're gonna see for booking through booking.com. Mandy, what do you think?
Mandy Murry: Well, they're borrowing a playbook from the airlines, so Delta makes more percentage to their bottom line with their American Express credit cards. So all Booking doing is doing is diversifying their revenue stream. And I think that it will be a success. I mean, I don't know if you guys remember, but Yahoo had a credit card back in like 19 98, 99. So I think it could be an interesting thing. And you know what? Everybody is about getting the guest information and being able to market to them, and it's smart. I mean, giving somebody 6% off their hotel booking, somebody's gonna say absolutely, especially if they're a booking.com fan.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. Well said, well said. So, I feel like we talk about Airbnb more and more on, uh, that these hot topic episodes, and they made it again, a couple things in the vacation rentals slash hotel industry. Uh, short-term rentals outperformed hotels, in the second quarter. And also now, Airbnb just recently announced that they're gonna raise the service fee specifically for property managers from 3% to 15.5%. Quite the jump there. Mandy, what does this mean for not only people who are renting the Airbnbs, but the people staying in 'em as well?
Mandy Murry: Well, so to answer your first question of vacation rentals, right? Marriott's growth is in luxury vacation rentals. So we know that people want that. It's part of the exclusivity, it's part of having the most Instagrammable place. It's, you know, like it's the experience. And so that's what's driving this vacation rental market.
And this has been since the pandemic, I believe. but now we're looking at it in a different light. And I think what's gonna happen with this fee raise is it's actually going to increase. Your cost of the guest cost of the Airbnb rental because now it's a mandatory 15.5% to the property managers. Easy math, a hundred dollars a night rental.
It's now gonna be 115 because hosts are not going to want to take less money. so. You know, increasing that fee. And if you're an Airbnb, you know, hey, put the towels in the washer and will you start the dishwasher and will you make sure all the lights are turned off at a hotel? You don't have to do any of that and like So, I don't know. I mean, David, what are your thoughts here?
David Millili: As we talk about just we were struggling this month to find positive stuff, and I think some of the negative is possibly the vacation rentals are just doing better because there's maybe less. International business and more domestic people, and I know myself, my family, a lot of times we just like going to that vacation rental.
We feel comfortable. It's maybe a drive-in destination. We can then go shopping and get things done. And it's a lot less expensive than staying in a hotel and you've just got that space, which is important. and then on the Airbnb side, with those increases, I mean, I think that's where it starts to get dangerous.
The higher the Airbnbs become compared to getting one or two hotel rooms. I think there's already a bad taste in someone like my Myself's mouth. When you, you spend, you know, several days at an Airbnb, you're paying a cleaning fee, but then you're expected to clean. So, I don't know how that is gonna affect their bookings and their traffic, but it'll be, it'll be interesting to see.
Mandy Murry: I totally agree. Be fascinating, but let's talk about how the Hotel Lobby Bar is having a moment in 2025. So here we are, Forbes inside the world's best secret hotel bars. David, take us through this.
David Millili: We joking before we got on, but they're no longer a secret, but that's okay. Forbes, thanks for They're gonna be very busy. Yeah. I mean. We travel. I think all of us, you know, the, the, one of the great things about we do is we get to travel a lot. And I think that, you know, one of the things that I think, you know, when Steve, John and I are traveling, we love to kind of find those cool bars or find a speakeasy or something that's unique or even tying it back to, we're talking about something that's local or you kind of are feeling like you're experiencing that, that town or city, So I think it's just, it's something, I just see more and more of it, even here in Phoenix, uh, on Instagram. I feel like every day there's a new, cool looking bar that's, popping up. And so Steve, what are your thoughts on these new secret or cool bars that are popping?
Steve Carran: I mean, as a huge speakeasy guy, this was a pretty fun read for me when I lived in dc. we would try and find all the speakeasies we could and we hit most of them. Um, my favorite experiences are the ones that are hidden. Right. Like we went to one in DC where I had to walk through a restaurant. It was like a diner through a freezer into a side door, and then we were down in it.
And so I like those experiences where maybe you don't need a reservation, but you're walking in and you're like, am I gonna get busted here? Is somebody gonna be like, you can't be here. That's the kind of experience I want. So, there were some really cool ones. The one that stuck out to me, Is less reta reta, uh, sorry for if I butchered that, but it's, uh, the rhythm in Riah, Mexico where you have to take a boat to the speakeasy. So, I think that one's pretty, pretty cool. Mandy, did you have a favorite on this list?
Mandy Murry: Oh, I don't know that I have a favorite on this list. It's, uh, it's fascinating, right? This, this, this entire list that's not a secret anymore.
Steve Carran: No, definitely not a secret.
David Millili: I'll tell you, you know, you're a good speakeasy. When I went to go to one in Phoenix and it took 20 minutes to actually find it, even though people were telling us where it was at.
Steve Carran: Yeah, I gotta give a shout out. There is one in Milwaukee. Not gonna throw the name of it, but you have to go in and you have to find a bookshelf and you're being recorded the entire time and everybody in the speakeasy is watching you do try and find it, and occasionally they'll have somebody there where if you can't get in they make you do something silly like the chicken dance or something like that, and you're on TV the whole time. If you're m, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Mandy Murry: Awesome.
David Millili: Hilarious. So. Mandy, you tell us what is new with the hospitality concierge.
Mandy Murry: Wow. What's new? Well, I think, you know, there's some exciting things happening. We're doing a lot of, fractional, COO, fractional CMO, um. stuff with clients, which is really exciting in the independent space gives them opportunity to, for growth and it gives us the opportunity to, to really dive into the knowledge we have.
But, you know, there's some exciting news coming up and, you know, we'll just, well, we'll let everybody know when it's all time for that.
David Millili: Let people know how they can get in touch with you, find out more about your company, and then they can learn when you escape the basement. That would be great if.
Mandy Murry: Yeah, I mean, I'm here at Prince of Wells resort in Canada, and so one day they're gonna let me out of the basement. My husband probably purposely told them to bring me here for the podcast, I dunno. But, uh, so people can get in touch with me at mandymurry.com or hospitalityconcierge.com that's my website, best way to keep in touch and get in touch. So I look forward to, you know, more of this with y'all.
David Millili: That's great. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality Hot Topics, August. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to. You again soon. Thank you, Mandy.
Mandy Murry: Thank you.