The Modern Hotelier #121: Looking for REAL Innovation in Hospitality with Bashar Wali & Eric Jafari
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Bashar Wali: I have a one-night-stand relationship with hotels. One time, I don’t repeat it. I am on my 250th in Manhattan—250—and I do this across the globe. I am desperate to find something innovative. Have you seen anything innovative? Are we overthinking innovation? Like, I don’t want someone to take the bed and put it on the ceiling because that would be stupid, right? But there’s got to be some innovation.

Steve Carran: Alright, now we are joined by Bashar Wali and Eric Jafari. We’re throwing the cards out—Bashar’s hosting, I’m taking it away. I got it. Eric, how are you, man?

Eric Jafari: I’m great.

Bashar Wali: Okay, let’s get right into it.

Eric Jafari: I love it. You and I haven’t actually, haven’t… have we ever done an interview, by the way? This is our first time. First time. Man, I’m terrified.

Bashar Wali: This is good. This will be good. I am sick and tired of our industry claiming innovation. I am desperate for innovation. You know my neurotic thing—I never stay in any hotel more than once. I have a one-night-stand relationship with hotels. One time, I don’t repeat it. I am on my 250th in Manhattan—250—and I do this across the globe. I am desperate to find something innovative. Have you seen anything innovative? Are we overthinking innovation? Like, I don’t want someone to take the bed and put it on the ceiling because that would be stupid, right? But there’s got to be some innovation.

I think our industry has had two moments of innovation only: the invention of the internet—the entire world changed—and then Airbnb. But since then, have we done truly anything innovative?

Eric Jafari: Listen, I think this is a really good question. The question you’re asking is: Is the depth of innovation so incremental that you don’t even notice? Or could there be—and is there likely to be—a big jump?

Bashar Wali: Like a disruptor? And I hate that word—disruptive, whatever that means.

Eric Jafari: Yeah, and I think a lot of the dialogue today has been around AI. The question for you and I is: How does AI actually change the industry? And I don’t have an answer. The one thing I would say is this: My perception as to what was the last disruption was when Ian and Steve brought Studio 54 and incorporated that within the fabric of an ugly building in the middle of a bad part of New York.

Bashar Wali: The invention of lifestyle, essentially. Hotels became more than a commodity.

Eric Jafari: Yeah. So that was 1984.

Bashar Wali: What have we seen since?

Eric Jafari: Not yet. Here’s my comment to you: I’d say it’s twofold. Everything kind of spurred as a result, and most of the incremental innovation post-1984 revolved around looking at what restaurateurs, cocktail bar guys, and nightclub people were doing, and slowly incorporating that into the lifestyle hotel movement. That’s where we are today. Am I looking at restaurateurs and cocktail bar guys to decide and define where we’re going? The answer is no.

Bashar Wali: Hell no.

Eric Jafari: What I’m currently looking at is wellness. And there are a few concepts that have just kind of popped up in Toronto, New York, and LA that have taken the premise of wellness and redefined it a bit.

So, think about wellness. It used to be—and I think I talked about this earlier—it used to be this very indulgent thing: sitting by a pool.

Bashar Wali: Canyon Ranch, blah, blah, blah. Amangiri.

Eric Jafari: Yeah. And so, as Martin from Future Labs says, it’s horizontal. I’m doing nothing. I’m not being bothered. It’s solo. It really is set aside for the ultra-wealthy.

Bashar Wali: But is this a moment in time? Is this the flavor du jour? Is this what everybody’s hanging their hat on? Fundamentally, I’m an urban business traveler. I love urban. I’m probably not going to engage or indulge in wellness. Maybe I’m the wrong demographic for it.

When I think about innovation, for example, to me, innovation is something that’s not across the spectrum of offering. And I sort of say—and I’m going to pick on my friends at Hyatt—Caption by Hyatt has a tattoo artist in the lobby. It’s dead. It’s fucking dead.

Eric Jafari: Oh my God, I can’t believe that.

Bashar Wali: When Curbed comes out with a "here’s how to do a boutique hotel" lifestyle guide, 1 to 100, by definition, if there’s a guide on how to be cool, that’s the very definition of uncool now.

So, how do we, as the cool hoteliers—I describe hoteliers as the merchants of cool—how do we create an experience where, when you come into our hotel, you hear a new song you’ve never heard, you have a drink you’ve never tried, see a piece of art you’ve never seen? When all of that has been commoditized, here’s my dilemma: Hotels once upon a time were inspirational and aspirational. They were inspirational because they had all this cool shit you didn’t have at your house. Well, now your house has much better shit than any hotel—art, mattress, TV, Wi-Fi, streaming, and all the things.

And they were aspirational because you got treated a certain way—you got to order room service in bed. All those things have been democratized because I can Postmate the best room service to my bedroom at home. So how can hotels regain their positions as bastions of inspiration and aspiration?

This is so good. Okay, so that’s the question I’m struggling with.


Here’s the text with spacing corrected for clarity:

Eric Jafari: So, I think I have my own answer.

Bashar Wali: I want to hear yours. Okay, so the first answer is...

Eric Jafari: Um...

Bashar Wali: Do I think any hotel has implemented innovation in wellness? The answer is no.

Eric Jafari: And I'm going to explain why. So, if you think about the hotel industry, they're all creating these super high-end luxury sedate experiences. And yet, who are the people that care about wellness the most? The Gen Z consumer. Now, you ask them—Gen Z, Millennial, what we call Zillennial—

Bashar Wali: Younger millennials, older Gen Z—that's that group. They're the affluent ones who have access to the money to do those things.

Eric Jafari: And they're the ones who are going to drive the change. So, how do they define wellness? It's literally the opposite of horizontal. It's vertical.

That's what Martin calls it. It's communal, it's tribal, it's loud, it's high-intensity, it's...

Bashar Wali: Induced with mushrooms. I mean, induced with some mushrooms. Let's not lie.

Steve Carran: Ayahuasca. Yeah.

Eric Jafari: So, if you think about kind of our generation—past generations—we used alcohol as the social lubricant. They are finding other ways to implement as a social lubricant to forge that sense of community. Now, in some cases, it's illegal. In a lot of cases, it isn't.

So my response to you, with respect to where's that change gonna come from, what is it...

Bashar Wali: Position...

Eric Jafari: But perhaps let me give you a story to give you an example of this. I think you and I have talked about this before, that in 2012 they released a study where they analyzed people over the course of the entirety of their lives. It's an amazing study—it was a Harvard study. At the very end, the study says the quality of one's life is defined by the quality of their relationships.

Now, in a world where we have been accustomed to using alcohol as a social lubricant, say for our relationships, if we're not using...

Bashar Wali: Okay, so that's what I thought.

Eric Jafari: And then last year, I spent so much time thinking about this because you've got the emergence of this non-alcohol movement. They're like, "Oh, yeah, you drink it, you feel buzzy." I've never felt anything.

What happens? Okay, so I was in New York at the time with my sister, my family, and at the end of the week of spending time with my family and my parents, I needed a night out.

Bashar Wali: Ready. Like fish, they all stink after a while.

Eric Jafari: So I look at my sister, and I was like, "I desperately need a night out." She's like, "I got you covered." I was like, "Great. So where are you taking me? Vegas? Miami? Tulum? What are we doing?" And she's like, "Don't worry, I got it covered." So I show up at the airport.

"Where are we going?"

"Toronto."

I was like, "What? Toronto, right?" Yeah. So, I show up in Toronto, and she gives me this itinerary. I'm looking through it, and the first thing I go to is, "What are we doing tonight?" The rest of it is irrelevant.

"9 PM: Othership."

I'm like, "Okay, what is it?" So I'm thinking, "Is it a nightclub?" And I look, and it's like a wellness place. I look over at my sister, and I'm like...

Bashar Wali: What are you thinking?

Eric Jafari: You can delete this part.

Bashar Wali: Deletion.

Steve Carran: No, no, no, no. We'll keep it.

Eric Jafari: He said, "What the fuck?" And my sister was like, "Don't worry about it. It's gonna be great." I was like, "No, I am worrying about it."

Against her will, I walked over to Othership at 2 PM. I was like, "Listen, my sister booked the 9 PM slot. I was wondering if we could come to an earlier slot." The person starts laughing. They're like, "You're joking, right?"

"No, why?"

They're like, "We were fully booked a month ago."

I start asking questions. "How many people? How many sessions do you have?"

"We've got ten sessions a day."

"How many people per session?"

"Like four or five?"

"No, there's around fifty."

"Per session?"

"Yes, and it's seven days a week."

Yes, and then I was like, okay, I've got to see this. Then the next question I ask is, I do have to see this. My business mind—I put my business hat off, I put it on the floor, and then took back my hedonistic hat. I was like, can I go out and get drunk prior to coming to this?

We wouldn't recommend it.

What about doing other stuff? Cause shrooms are legal and, uh, and I never do anything illegal.

Bashar Wali: People's Republic of Canada.

Eric Jafari: And they're like, listen, you can, but it'll feel redundant.

Okay. So I leave, I come back at 9 PM. I'm with four of my friends, and I walk in there, and there's a kind of communal changing room. The lights are low, and they've got this amazing speaker system. It feels like I'm in Mykonos or Ibiza, not Toronto.

I'm like, okay, this is kind of weird. And then I'm about to do this. I take off my clothes to get into my swimsuits where everyone is in there. Then I look around and notice everyone is ripped. I mean, probably ripped.

Bashar Wali: And topless or just shirt?

Eric Jafari: No, no, not topless.

Bashar Wali: Unfortunately?

Eric Jafari: Unfortunately. The guys—

Bashar Wali: Were topless.

Eric Jafari: Okay, good. Sorry, yeah. And I'm like—

Bashar Wali: Always looking for a cheap thrill, you know. Whatever.

Eric Jafari: So I was like, okay, this is quite intimidating. I should have gone to the gym prior. I told my sister, "You should have warned me." You know, I didn’t know there was gonna be so many beautiful people here. And she looks at me, she goes, "Listen, as a heads up, it's two hours."

I was like, gosh. Uh, and I was like, "Listen, Sheba." And she's like, "Listen, I know you. If after an hour you wanna leave, we'll leave. We will leave."

I was like, thank God.

So I go in there, music's picking up, and then there's this beautiful communal area where everyone’s hanging out. And there's these two beautiful people.

Bashar Wali: No.

Eric Jafari: Okay, not yet. These people are like, "Listen, you come for social hour. We're gonna do a little bit of breath work for those of you who wanna do it, and then we're gonna go into the sauna."

They're like, "Oh, course. So it's a sauna place."

Alright. So we do some breath work, and we go into the sauna. And the sauna's got this incredible speaker. And the lighting's really low.

You have to remember, saunas in Germany or in Europe—

Bashar Wali: Are very utilitarian.

Eric Jafari: Yeah, and it's not the most aesthetically, uh, crowded. It's not designed—

Bashar Wali: So everyone's standing, sitting there naked.

Eric Jafari: You're not allowed to move. And the moment you say something, someone screams at you in German.

Bashar Wali: Now, for some people, that—

Eric Jafari: Turns them on. Me? I'm not one of—

Steve Carran: Those people.

Bashar Wali: Touche.

Eric Jafari: It would not turn me on, not even on mushrooms.

So we're sitting there, and everyone's talking and bantering. And I'm like, oh, this is kind of weird. It's got a nightclub-style setting, but a lot more beautiful and a lot more curated.

Then, all of a sudden, after 15 minutes of being in the sauna, someone comes out and goes, "Alright, time for the cold plunge. Eight people at a time."

So we're all being escorted to the cold plunge, and my first response was, "I'm not doing this. I didn't sign up for this." But then I see all the other beautiful people going, and the peer pressure sets in.

I'm like, "I am doing this."

So, all of a sudden, we go into the cold plunge. It's about zero degrees, or 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice. And it's dim, dark.

And you're there with, you know, seven other beautiful people, so the pressure's on. And you're there for two minutes.

And I'm doing it solely—exactly—the whole time I was sucking it in.

And then, the moment I get out of the cold plunge—

Bashar Wali: Have you done it before?

Eric Jafari: Um, no.

Bashar Wali: Okay.

Eric Jafari: That's when the lights were on.

Yeah, and I'll tell you why. All of a sudden, I had this endorphin high, like a line of coke. Not that I've ever done it before.

Bashar Wali: You're told.

Eric Jafari: Yes, exactly.

And then I realized, oh, so this is what they're—

That is their—

And so at that moment in time, my sister timed it perfectly. She goes, "Okay, we can go to the nightclub."

And I was like, I've got 40. I've got 50 other people here, all 10 times better-looking than any nightclub. Everyone's super friendly.

And here's the reason why—here's the rub. When you go somewhere like Mykonos or Ibiza, there's a barrier to entry. Sometimes it's cost. Sometimes it's being part of the "cool kids."

Bashar Wali: The way you look.
Eric Jafari: You don't go there unless you're working out a lot and have the courage to be in that crowd. Once you're there, everyone's like, "Oh," and you're partaking in some form of biohacking activity. So you're already part of this tribal community—a group of people where they're like, "Oh, you're one of us."

Bashar Wali: So that you belong.
Eric Jafari: You automatically belong just by showing up.

Bashar Wali: Exactly. Whereas in Ibiza, you don’t belong, no matter how hard you try.
Eric Jafari: You belong for an hour.

Bashar Wali: It depends.
Eric Jafari: It depends on the amount of things you take.
Bashar Wali: Exactly. Sure, sure, sure.

It's interesting—I trademarked the term "Longing for Belonging" in hospitality.
Eric Jafari: Really?

Bashar Wali: Yeah. Because fundamentally, what you're describing, and I know you've talked about Maslow earlier, is this: we are tribal animals. We need each other to survive. I couldn’t run off into the forest because I'd be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. I needed my community.

When you talk about generations, like my kids who are off to college, they’ll likely never come back home again. The family structure is breaking apart because of the global, mobile world. We don’t belong to churches anymore or political parties—they're a shitshow. So how do you find your tribe?

I see the proliferation of private clubs as the new way to belong. We all want to belong. What you're describing feels like, "Okay, I’ve found my people, my tribe." Even if it’s for three hours or an overnight hotel stay, how do we capitalize on that? How do you convey that?

Eric Jafari: Exactly. No one can describe this experience for you. It’s just woo-woo and bullshit until you show up.
Bashar Wali: I was the biggest skeptic, but now I’m a convert.

Eric Jafari: So how do hotels do this? How do we infuse it into typical urban lifestyle hotels?
Bashar Wali: That’s the hard part.

Eric Jafari: This is the challenge. You’ve got an entire demographic obsessed with wellness, and an industry facilitating indulgence. The two don’t go together.

Bashar Wali: Wait—arguably, indulging in wellness is an indulgence.

Eric Jafari: Yes. Spending three hours and whatever you've spent on it is indulgent. It’s not a necessity.

Bashar Wali: Then how do you describe it?

Eric Jafari: It’s a good question because this demographic is making it a necessity. They’re doing wellness and fitness daily. They don’t know how to walk up to someone at a bar, but in a wellness setting—

Bashar Wali: Where they belong.

Eric Jafari: Yoga, Barry’s Bootcamp, or other communal activities. It’s less intimidating to say, “Hey, I haven’t noticed you here before. Where are you from?” These settings feel safer because they’re not predatory, unlike bars or nightclubs or bar format is that it can feel a little bit predatory. I feel very, very preyed on by some of the women that are there women all.

Steve Carran: I know, I know you do. I'm tired of it. I know, I believe.

Eric Jafari: And so, the one thing I'll say with respect to indulgence—it isn’t just the time factor. It’s the type of items you have on your menu. It’s the fact that when you go into the gym, the gym’s just not fit for purpose, so I just skip my workout. There are so many areas where it’s facilitating me going, "You know what? I’m not going to maintain my best."

Bashar Wali: Okay, but brass knuckles, I want you to give me the hack for a dumb urban hotel guy who follows the checklist from 1 to 100 to create a cool hotel. Who’s now trying to compete with the tattoo artist at Caption.

Eric Jafari: Do I… it’s a little boring, sorry. How do I—

Bashar Wali: —on what you’re describing, brass—

Eric Jafari: Okay, I will. I’m going to give you three different things. One, length of stay is increasing. So the average length of stay in London alone has gone from two days to five days.

Bashar Wali: This idea of bleisure?

Eric Jafari: Well, I think it’s been starting since 2002.

Bashar Wali: Okay. Why is it increasing?

Eric Jafari: But since COVID, it’s gone up further. Some of it has to do with the fact that people who are traveling for work are then adding two more days for leisure. And then the second is people traveling for leisure, adding two more days for work, and doing their Zoom calls from abroad. But there’s another piece to it: people care about sustainability. There’s nothing less sustainable than traveling to a city for a day or two and leaving. You want sustainable living, forget about all of these things—stay longer. That’s the first thing. So stay, stay longer. It’ll give you an opportunity to ingrain yourself.

Bashar Wali: Your carbon footprint. Now—

Eric Jafari: If you’re going to stay longer—

Bashar Wali: The—

Eric Jafari: Hotel format is not suitable for longer than four days. I’m sorry. It’s just a tiny minibar, a shitty gym, the club sandwiches downstairs. It’s designed—

Bashar Wali: For 1.3 nights because that’s been the average stay.

Eric Jafari: Okay.

Bashar Wali: Better bang, better bang. Get in and get out.

Eric Jafari: So, if you ask someone—and my answer to your question is—if you’re going to stay for a week, what do you need? And not a single hotel can facilitate it. They need co-working spaces. They need the sauna, the cold plunge, the communal wellness activities. They need healthy foods.

Bashar Wali: They might even—

Eric Jafari: Need a grocery store downstairs so they can prepare a meal. They need a kitchen in the room. These things are not what you would expect of a hotel.

Bashar Wali: And because of that, you’re basically suggesting—I love this idea of these apartment offerings that you subscribe to. You say, "I’m going to live in Seattle for a month," so you go and live there, and it’s furnished. And then you move to New York for a month. But you’re merging, you’re sort of living with hoteling because it’s getting extended, you know?

Eric Jafari: Here’s the problem I have with all of those concepts. The longer you stay, the more important it is not to indulge. The longer you stay, the more important it is to have really good, healthy food options. The more important it is to have a place where you can meet locals. The more important it is to have co-working downstairs. So this is the irony behind all this: the world where we’ve got loads of Airbnb options, none of them are putting those features within their properties. There’s this assumption that, "Oh, if I want to enable a long-term stay, I am not allowed to have the things that you would not expect to see.

Bashar Wali: Um, I interviewed Sean McPherson recently. Uh, he's my hotel hero in New York, the Bowery, the Chelsea, et cetera. Yeah, like I love all those hotels, and he's a genius.

Eric Jafari: It's hard for me to not continue staying at the Bowery.

Bashar Wali: I know. I know. So I say to him—he says, look, and it was really well put the way he described it. He says, I don't go to the coffee shop to spend $15 on a latte that I can press a button at home for 25 cents and get. I don't go to a restaurant because I need to eat to survive. And I don't go to a hotel because I need a room and a shower.

Those are all places where we go for a respite, to get away from our lives and pretend we're sort of in a magical world where all the problems go away. And I feel like what you're talking about—this idea of escaping reality and doing something indulgent, for lack of a better term, that's more about centering you, in a way—is what we're talking about here.

We're not talking about traditional wellness as the Gen Z and Gen X and Millennials would think of, to your earlier point—Canyon Ranch and all of that. And I know there's been a lot of movement towards this idea of, um, longevity. People are spending millions of dollars on it as individuals to try to live longer and healthier.

What you're talking about is far more accessible for hoteliers that might be listening to this—that they can, in their own small ways, start to implement those so that it can become the norm. And I totally agree with you.

This idea of staying longer—we demand more, we want it to be all central, I don't want to run around to accomplish my day. If you could all encompass it in a hotel… again, back to my direct question: What are the tactical things one could do now to start on that journey? Does it have to be well thought out and planned, or can you tomorrow start thinking about having more healthy offerings and doing whatever?

Eric Jafari: Yeah, it's a good question. Listen, I think there's two things. One, I like the term social wellness because it flips it on its head. But then there's another piece to this, and I think the answer to your question is the following.

When the lifestyle hotel movement started in 1984, back then, you could go to a liquor store to buy alcohol, but Ian and Steve revealed the fact that people—
That same bottle of alcohol that you could pay £10 for at the liquor store, you'd pay £1,000 for within the right setting.

And I think the same applies. Here's what I mean by this: If you ask a couple of my friends, when they come to London, what they're most frustrated with, they're like, "I can go to any gym. I go to the gym as the new nightclub."

Bashar Wali: And—

Eric Jafari: They're like, "I can't believe that there isn't a single hotel in London where I can go and find a scene."

Bashar Wali: À la Equinox in New York.

Eric Jafari: It's a good question. As a foreigner, do I feel welcome at an Equinox? The answer is no.

Bashar Wali: And—

Eric Jafari: The other piece—Equinox is a fitness brand that's decided to open a hotel.

Bashar Wali: I'm trying to think if I've seen anything in my travels that hits it. It doesn't exist.

Eric Jafari: Walk into a hotel, and then the reason for why I'm staying at the hotel is because I know there's beautiful local people hanging out at the gym below, and those people I'm going to bump into upstairs.

Bashar Wali: Right?

Eric Jafari: It's a gym, not an afterthought.

Bashar Wali: And—

Eric Jafari: That's where the locals hang out. That's where the locals are working out.

Bashar Wali: So again, it seems like you're repeating everything we've been parroting for the last 20 years. Local and crafted and curated and authentic and all that nonsense.

But you're infusing it with the element of the new definition of wellness. It's no more about the bar or about the scene or the private club. It really is about: How do you infuse wellness through all those offerings?

Still maintain that line of thinking that I want to go to a hotel and feel like I'm in that city, meet people from that city, but you're doing it with the angle of wellness.

So you're—I'm putting words in your mouth—your answer to my first question about innovation: We have an opportunity to innovate and disrupt, to accommodate the desires of this generation and the next generation through the lens of wellness. Is that fair?

Eric Jafari: Yes, and I think there's a number of, I think going back to the previous topic, which is this premise of aspiration. What is it that that hotel can deliver that I can't get at home? Is it, uh, is it IV drips? There's so much new tech that's coming out that's really exciting. If I can go there and as part of my stay tap into maybe one or two of those things on a daily basis that I wouldn't be able to do—some of it could be longevity-based, some of it could be vitality-based—but those things enable me to, you know, leave that place feeling less exhausted, more vitalized. I forged new friendships.

Bashar Wali: My answer on the aspirational part is everything you said I can have done in an app and have it done in my house. What I can't have done in an app at my house is feeling like I matter and like I belong. So to me, it's hospitality, which I define as how you make people feel rather than a service, which you deliver. The IV drip in a hotel, it's a service you deliver, but if you don't nail the service part down and make me feel—make me press that self-actualization, transcendence button for me on the hierarchy of need—I don't matter, I don't belong. If you manage to make me feel a certain way, that's what's going to make me come to you.

Because, name one thing that you can't have done in your house in five minutes? Like, everything can be done. Obviously, you pay for it. But if you do it at home, it seems transactional. If you do it in the context of a place where someone makes you feel welcomed, like you talked about this thing in Toronto where people sort of received you and there was a protocol around it and ceremony around it—I feel like that's the one part that we can't democratize yet, this idea of service and how you feel. And community, well, that's what ultimately makes you belong, right? That's why I trademarked this idea of longing for belonging: “Welcome here. You now belong. We got you.”

Actually, by the way, another trademark that I just—I love trademarks, by the way, in the middle of the night. My fucking lawyer hates it. I've never done a trademark on anything. I trademarked the term, "Anyone can take your luggage; we handle your baggage."

Eric Jafari: I think there's a psychological thing there.

Steve Carran: Right?

Bashar Wali: That's my point, though. But my point is, when you show up in a hotel, the idea should be: Leave your worries behind. We got you. And yes, wellness, and yes—but you now matter. You individually matter to us. We care for you.

Because again, we don't have it in our normal lives, right? Again, family and all of that, like we said, is sort of broken apart. So to come to a place where you feel like you're number one—we're talking earlier about three-Michelin-star restaurants—like, it's not about you; it's about the chef. But when I come to a hotel, I want to feel like it's all about me and get all those things they're talking about. But I think fundamentally, it's this idea of community and culture, because that's what we're trying—

Eric Jafari: Yeah, that's a good point. It is a good point. Listen, I struggle. To be candid, I struggle with the word "wellness"—

Bashar Wali: And fitness.

Eric Jafari: —because it conjures up so many—

Bashar Wali: Emotional—

Eric Jafari: —emotional anchors.

Bashar Wali: And—

Eric Jafari: So at some point, you and I will have to—

Bashar Wali: I mean—

Eric Jafari: I might go to Bashar and ask him to come up with a—

Bashar Wali: Term, term for that.

Eric Jafari: There you go.

Bashar Wali: That defines it. Because the reality is what—

Eric Jafari: Actually talking about.

Bashar Wali: Completely agree. And it's new to us. And I think it's a function of we as humans having now the means and the need to really rethink about what wellness used to be. Take a pill—that was wellness. Then it became fitness. Then it became—

Eric Jafari: I know. I got it. I got it. I feel like—

Bashar Wali: You're absolutely right. It's not what we're used to calling it. We need a new term for it that doesn't conjure up any of these sort of negative images that we may—but it is really back again to a point you made. I now look at retail for inspiration. I don't look at hotels. I don't look at restaurants, because I feel like we've lost innovation. I feel like retail, out of necessity because they were dying, had to sort of innovate again and think of new ways.

Eric Jafari: Interesting.
I mean, they expected this to be a five-minute—

Bashar Wali: Conversation. Oh God, there is no five minutes.

Eric Jafari: So are there any retail concepts that you've walked into and gone, "Oh, wow, they've changed the game?"

Bashar Wali: I mean, look, obviously in Paris—help me out, tip of my tongue, the name—the name of it, it’s this sort of curated—

Eric Jafari: Kind of concept store?

Bashar Wali: Yes, Colette, thank you. Colette in Paris. That wasn’t a store, that was community, that was culture. If I went to shop there, I felt like I was a part of something bigger than I am. I feel Kith is doing the same thing now. But I look at Nike in my hometown. Nike knows when you walk into a store, you're not buying shit. Like, you're not there to buy; you're going to buy it online. You don't want to carry it, you don't want to pay taxes, you don’t want to do any of that.

So they say, "How do we build loyalty with the brand for you when you walk into the store?" They're doing activations, they're doing music, they're doing art installations. They’re doing so many things that have zero to do with the transaction and 100% to do with building loyalty with their brand.

And I feel like we hotels only think about the customer transactionally these days. And look, big brands talk about loyalty. There's no fucking loyalty. It’s bribery. You stay with me, I give you miles. The poor owner is paying for the miles. If I stopped giving you miles, are you going to come stay with me? The answer is no.

Eric Jafari: That’s not loyalty.

Bashar Wali: That is the very definition of bribery. If you're coming for the points, that is not loyalty. So again, I think retail is doing some innovative things that we can learn from. And I think we as hotels, we keep going to the same wall, expecting different results. Every hotel I see is a regurgitation of the last hotel. And I really feel like, again, we have an opportunity—to your point, with wellness being one angle or whatever term we come up with for it—but I really believe that we should be rethinking what we're doing because we, the Gen Xers and the Boomers, think we know best, and we're doing it for us.

Eric Jafari: It’s not for us.

Bashar Wali: Exactly.

Eric Jafari: So, 10 years ago, my parents lived in Marina del Rey, and 10 years ago, I’d fly from my parents’ place, go for the nightlife, go to Soho, Malibu, and so on. But the one place I kept finding myself going back to was this organic grocer called Erewhon.

Bashar Wali: The $20 shake my daughter wanted.

Eric Jafari: Smoothie.

Bashar Wali: I have no idea why I fell in love with it.

Eric Jafari: But I kept on coming back and kept on coming back. And then I was like, "I gotta bring one of these to London." And then I asked, "Hey, listen, is there a way for me to buy a stake?" And they’re like, "No, the company is actually a multi-billion-pound-dollar company." I was like, "Oh my God."

So going back to like, what is it? You know, it’s a grocer. Grocers have struggled for years, and somehow this group, for all the things, they’ve figured out a way. That’s their tribe.

Bashar Wali: Here’s why.

Eric Jafari: They give a sense of belonging.

Bashar Wali: Yep.

Eric Jafari: I gladly wait in line for 30 minutes for a $22 smoothie.

Bashar Wali: That costs $5 right around the corner.

Eric Jafari: Exactly. And by the way, they did a collaboration with Balenciaga. Think about this. There's a hat that says Erewhon with Balenciaga on it for $400.

Bashar Wali: Imagine Safeway doing it.

Eric Jafari: Think about what these guys have done. But, to Eric's point, they make you feel like you now have found your tribe, and you will do anything to be part of that tribe. You will do anything to protect that tribe.

Bashar Wali: And to your point, like, I walk in there, you look at people, and there’s this sort of automatic icebreaker. "We belong. We all know about Erewhon. We’re part of that community." It’s brainwashing, essentially.

Eric Jafari: I mean, look at Goop.

Bashar Wali: Goop. Gwyneth Paltrow’s thing. It’s the most genius thing ever.

Eric Jafari: Goop sells literally rotisserie chicken and vaginal eggs.

Bashar Wali: Not at the same time, I hope.

Eric Jafari: But literally, that is what they sell.

Bashar Wali: You know why? Because people say, "I don’t give a shit what they sell."

Eric Jafari: "I belong to this."

Bashar Wali: They could sell me dog shit for $100, I’ll buy it.

Eric Jafari: Apple.

Bashar Wali: Exactly, exactly, exactly. Apple is a tribe. Apple could sell toilet paper tomorrow. We’ll buy it. People don’t like the word "cult," but these are, at the end of the day, cults. And the people at the top of those places are cult leaders.

Eric Jafari: Cult is not a bad word. It is part of culture.

Bashar Wali: Exactly. So, if we think of hotels, brands—to your point earlier, Andre Balazs—that’s a cult. Like, we all drank the Kool-Aid from Andre Balazs and Ian Schrager and all, and whatever they did, we went to. So I think we’ve missed that opportunity because a lot of brands now get so diluted that it doesn’t mean anything.

Eric Jafari: And there’s no person.

Bashar Wali: Liz Lambert, Chip Conley—every brand I admire has had a human at the top. Because I feel like I’m doing business with a person, not a big machine.

Eric Jafari: So, I guess this is part of it. You and I probably do think so, like, as it relates to this topic—15 years ago when I decided to start going down this rabbit hole, at that point in time, there was such a dearth of hotels that had design, good food, and a cool bar that if you did those three things well, people would go out of their way to go to that hotel.

Bashar Wali: A hundred percent.

Eric Jafari: Fifteen years later, it’s literally table stakes. So now, you can’t tell the difference between them.

Bashar Wali: That really spooked me 12 to 24 months ago.

Eric Jafari: Because at that point, I was like, "Okay, wait a minute. If design and branding and music and tattoo artists in the lobby don’t differentiate you, then what does?" That was part of the second rabbit hole I started going down, asking, "What is it that this next generation of consumer is looking for that isn’t having their needs met?"

Bashar Wali: With that, we’re going to hand it back to you, boss.

Steve Carran: The Bashar and Eric takeover.

Eric Jafari: Thank you, guys, for stopping by. That was an awesome conversation.