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The HotelTechInsider podcast interviews the top leaders at the convergence of hotels, travel and technology. Guests include founders, executives, top hoteliers and industry organization leadership. Find all of the episodes at hoteltechreport.com
The biggest trick is just to remove ego from it and allow curiosity for people in the right space for them to ask good questions because that's really where the work happens and ultimately the best outcome. And so that's the space we really have to listen for.
Speaker 2:From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.
Speaker 3:Today, we have Peter Twachtman, the CEO of Lark Hospitality on the podcast. Lark Hospitality manages over 70 hotels in 22 states, Mexico and Canada. We discuss Peter's mindset around AI, how he manages change among a huge team, and why curiosity, kindness, and good listening skills are more important now than ever. Let's dive in. Well, thank you so much, Peter, for joining us today.
Speaker 3:I'm really looking forward to chatting with you. To kick things off, I invite you to introduce yourself, tell us a bit about your role and your organization.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for having me. Really great to be here. My name is Peter Twachtman. I serve as the CEO for Lark Hospitality. We're an independent hospitality group.
Speaker 1:We currently manage and operate 70 locations in 22 states across The US, a couple in Mexico City operations and are working on a project, our first project in Canada actually. We have four brands that can belong to us under LARC. One is LARC Hotels. Another is AWOL, LINE Tiger, and then Blue Bird Hotels. Of our 70 odd assets, 30 of those fall under our brands as well.
Speaker 1:So we are a brand company, management company, and an asset light company. And so from that perspective, we manage and run, but Lark doesn't actually own any of the assets that it runs or manages.
Speaker 3:And what's the average key count? And are they urban, rural, business leisure?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So average key count is really right around 40 currently. You know, we specialize in hotels and assets under a 150 keys. We sort of dominate that space even in our smaller world. Many of the assets are high barrier, high destination markets, things like Stovermont, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard.
Speaker 1:We really sort of look for great assets in those demand markets or in high visitation sort of secondary markets, ski towns, things like that. We have a few urban locations, but more secondary in small city, Boston being the biggest and then I think cities like Plymouth, Massachusetts, Salem, Mass. But most of what we do tends to be more in the leisure transient market than sort of group business market.
Speaker 3:Did growth kind of happen organically or did you set out to have locations in those different cities?
Speaker 1:Well, a little bit of both. We are an entrepreneurial group at heart and so it's never about the next shiny thing, but it really is around seeing what we're capable of, where we can push ourselves to, where we can push people that work within the organization. And so we really require people who not only can run great daily ops, but who are builders as well. We certainly have been keen on growing our branded portfolio as much as our representing our great independent assets with the various owners that we have. So when I joined, it was January 2020, ten weeks later, twelve weeks later, shutting things down with COVID.
Speaker 1:But really that was as much as it was a really challenging time, it was really great for our organization because it forced us to think about where we wanted to go. And so we articulated what came out of that was Bluebird, certainly one of our brands. And it focused us to sort of think about one, how do we preserve the management company? How do we keep people employed? How are we ready for an opportunistic side of what we thought would happen, which was a lot of cash in market assets that would kind of come online, potentially management groups that might not make it to the other side.
Speaker 1:And so we knew that we need to keep people working. And so we are opportunistic in that way, in the right way. And then so we've grown, we grew then from sort of 20 to 46 assets and then in late twenty four we merged Lifehouse with Lark and formed Lark Hospitality and added about 30 more assets into ourselves. And so some of it is sort of forced growth, some of it was to align with a competitor, immerse the competitor into us, and really to be able to dominate the space that we work in.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm very interested in learning about how you think about technology. And with a portfolio that has grown in such way, I'm curious, do you use the same tech stack for all of your hotels? And if so, you know, how did that merger work? Was there a big systems migration?
Speaker 1:Yeah. There there was a lot of that. When I first joined LARC, they were using one PMS clock, small F and B system, and then a mix of accounting systems. And so part of that first year certainly worked through COVID as well, but was really to understand what would be best in class at the time sort of moving forward. And so I thought about it in sort of buckets and this is a little bit pre sort of AI and all the sort of the movement behind it.
Speaker 1:So really it was around the system based enterprise version of system basis at the time in particular. So the first thing I wanted to do was make sure that our financial ERP was aligned. So after a year or so of really looking, we ended up committing to HIA Hotel Investor Apps and that is our ERP across the board for every asset that we have, including the management company side. At the time we were using sort of three different systems, so everything sort of amalgamated. And then from there said, well, what's next?
Speaker 1:On the PMS side, the workhorse, the engine of what we do, we looked at a bunch of competitors, ended up selecting Muse. And so we worked with Muse about almost two years now from when we started September '24, so coming up on two years. We started that integration actually and then as the team was sort of working through that, converting the current assets that we had, you know, roughly 45 at the time And then sort of mid November, I had been working on the back end of our merger with Lighthouse for a few months, sort of notified the team then and said, oh, hey, by the way, we're going to pull in 30 or 35 more assets. Get ready. We've got an awful lot happening now.
Speaker 1:Fortunately, Lifehaus was using Muse and so while there was an awful lot of conversion around back end, getting the GLs aligned, all of those other pieces, that was a relatively easy one. And then at the same time, we also flipped out our point of sale system, our POS, and went to Toast. And then from there, I looked at other sort of back end support systems from a technology side after deciding on those sort of three main drivers: Toast, Muse, Hotel Investor Apps.
Speaker 3:What are some of the other components of your tech stack?
Speaker 1:You know, early on we used like it was interesting because we were forced to think about tech stacks certainly and really from a communication standpoint coming through COVID around, you know, social distancing certainly pushed us into places like how do we talk to our guests? You know, we were as much as our services were non prescribed, a little bit from the background, there's always somebody around. But even then that didn't work. And so early on, we used Whistle as a texting platform, started to sort of model through the idea of online check-in, it was a little bit clunky. I believe Whistle has since been purchased as under Clognitz now and that's part of their infrastructure.
Speaker 1:But we use Akhia now as that guest journey platform. And so messaging on the ground, right, you need new towels, whatever that might be. You've got a question about check-in, but we also use it as a pre arrival and online check-in for those guests that want to kind of come through seamlessly, don't really want to, you know, talk to anybody, want to bypass, or who are coming in really late or early and just need to be able to get into their space. You know, the data on the back end is getting better. You know, I think the challenge with almost every group talks about connectivity and seamless connectivity, but it's never connected seamlessly and so you really have to work hard to get all those data points to sort of connect and really understand and pull the information that we would want out of, you know, out of Akia back into our information flow.
Speaker 1:And so it's getting better all the time, but we really want to be able to follow those guests to understand their pinch points, know that it takes six seconds to punch in online versus three and a half minutes that may be frustration. We can't check some of that unless we hear it from the guest. And so I think there's still a lot of opportunity to sort of move through that piece in a seamless way. I think it's not so clunky because we don't get a lot of feedback on it, but I never take the unknown piece to the bank. Right?
Speaker 1:We really want that data in and of itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And I do think that's a common pain point for hotels is maybe the data's out there, but you either can't operationalize it or access it or combine it with other data. How are you working on solving that problem within your organization?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, if we just think about like, you know, first off, what is the source of truth? Right? And so the first thing was really around this last year, we hired a great person into the organization who their job is just to think about that. And so
Speaker 3:What is their role exactly? Like what's their title?
Speaker 1:You know, we've shifted an awful lot because we're like, how do we really capture this? But really, you know, it's sort of an information specialist, but they sit certainly in a director role because they need to be able to touch an awful lot of pieces and move through. And I don't think that we have their title right for them, but we know that their workflow and what they're digging into is appropriate. And and ultimately, I've said to them, what should we call you? And they've said, let me think about that a little bit.
Speaker 1:So they seem comfortable with the lack of title or sort of solving for what their title should be, which I actually think I think is good because if we try to box people too much, we also end up potentially stymieing what they can or could be looking at. And so we want this to be a fairly open forum for them to really dive through. So if we go back to the information, that source of truth, even early on in my late sort of technology adoption mind as an individual, I knew as a company we need to sort of get ahead of these pieces. The source of truth was financial ERP information needs to be right, point of sale or property management system information needs to be right. And so really it was around making sure that our inflows into those systems are tight and clean so that as we're pulling and extracting information and building from there, the information grab and the amalgamation of that, that we knew that that information was correct and really what we want to build on.
Speaker 1:And so we have this gentleman is building sort of models on the back end for us to sort of pull and he's pretty talented. But even I just spoke with him this morning and, you know, even in his daily life, he's always like it's a bit of a head scratcher because I can recommend that we do this but tomorrow I might say we need to pivot. And so it's an ongoing experiment I think. But you know as an industry, we tend to talk about RevPAR, cost per occupied room, but really I want us to get into places like revenue per square foot, revenue per guest, right? Lifetime value of guests, really hard to measure, lifetime value of guests in many ways.
Speaker 1:Even groups that are doing it well, really struggling to hone in on what that is. And so I think that the information is all out there, but in fact we don't even know at times if we are looking to gather some of the right information to build that upon or where to grab that in the booking process along the way. Right? Some of the unknowns, but at least knowing the question that we have which keeps us on point of asking it versus just saying we don't even think we know what the question is.
Speaker 3:What system are you using to manage your loyalty program? Is that integrated? You know, this when we're talking
Speaker 1:about technology, you know, is one of the biggest frustrations on our end kind of across the board. It's either really large platforms that are oversized for small assets that are expensive, are really complicated, try to touch too many things. We currently use Ascend three sixty five. Overall, pretty decent, but we actually just started to put that one in play kind of mid summer last year, so about a year ago now. So really six months of the last year we're building it and six months into sort of using it.
Speaker 1:You know, I know that some PMS groups are looking to sort of pull that in and make it all one system. And in fact, it really makes sense because data is there, you should be able to pull that loyalty piece right through, understand that's, you know, all the information that might come in and out, and then be able to use that, extract it, build upon it, and then from a marketing perspective, lean into it. I think in an ideal world that makes great sense. I also have concerns about it because now all the information resides in one spot and you're sort of stuck in the system as well versus saying we just want to be able to use best in class and plug in and plug out on an ongoing basis because not that we don't value partnership, we value partnership an awful lot in all of the things that we do. But if the system is not right or not keeping up, we also want to be able to get out of it.
Speaker 1:And so it's always sort of a dance in that space. I think the Sens three sixty five has been fine to this point, but I don't see and it's not for anything they're doing right or wrong, but it's probably not our long term solution because at the end of the day, we need to continue to build out our loyalty side. And I don't think that what we want, where we want to go, that it will connect with where we need to be.
Speaker 3:So how do you think about the evolution of your tech stack? Like, are you doing some regular reviews of each system to figure out if it's working today, but, you know, maybe six months from now, there's something better on the market or you have a different use case that you need to solve for?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a good question. And the short answer is, I think about it all the time. And, you know, this is always this tricky place, you know, I don't think anybody is listening to us from, you know, the vendors we work with, but you never know. And the reality is anybody that says we're not considering it, they should be, right?
Speaker 1:They should always be saying it's not about the next best thing, but it is the question is always, is the tech stack that you're using keeping up with the industry, not only keeping up but staying ahead of the curve and willing to take some risk in what they do and using you know, have they gotten so big that they can't even use the groups that are willing to push the boundaries in that partnership? And so for us, we want to ensure that we're aligned with whomever we're working with that they need to be able to take risk with us as much as we want to take risk with them. And so if the group stops responding in that way with us, we're really sort of happy to move on because we need, even though we're small, we still need that back. And so always evaluating whether it's booking engine, property management system, point of sale on an ongoing and regular basis.
Speaker 3:So how are you thinking about introducing AI into your organization?
Speaker 1:I think in part it depends on what we're defining as AI, right, and it's this large sort of bucket. For me, I sort of said, where and how are we defining it? And so we have to have a place of commonality in terms of the description of those two letters, right? What does artificial intelligence mean? So, you know, I bring the group back to sort of the place of, guys, look, if we're really thinking about it and really thinking about where it's going to go and what it means for us, you know, general take is it's really around the cognitive ability of machine learning to recognize patterns and apply to something it hasn't touched before to give us a better outcome.
Speaker 1:And so from simple modeling perspective, we have people already in house who are building tools to sort of grab the information, sort of move it through and it's using our internal sources. Part of the challenge that we're faced with is understanding what are the guardrails now. And so we've actually there's a group that has some investment into LARC. There are a large company that deals in a lot of tech investment. And so what's really great about them is we actually get to talk with some of their very very smart people on the back end.
Speaker 1:And one of these was an individual who worked for Google for a number of years, got called him actually the other day on this very topic and part of it was around advice, what do we do going forward? And they said, what I would recommend is also understanding what you're doing today. You know, where's your safety net, where's your guardrail, where's your information access, what are you sharing, what are you not sharing. And so I think for anybody that's moving fast, because they're thinking about where and how to connect and pull and extract data and share data and move that information forward, At the same time, make sure that you're asking enough questions to slow down in the right spot to say, do we believe at least what we're doing today will protect us into the future as much as we need to take risk in this space at the same time.
Speaker 3:So talk me through how you think about change management with 70 hotels. You have many employees who would need to learn a new tool or adapt to the change. How do you keep everyone on the same page?
Speaker 1:You know, think that that's always sort of the perpetual question here. I would say some tough lessons learned across the board has certainly helped. My typical MO is to keep my foot on the gas and keep pushing us and my sort of expectation based on how I work is if you're sitting in one of the sort of the chairs next to me, you just need to be able to run your agenda, sort of there's no micromanaging here, you need to be able to see big picture and fine picture at the same time. But what I've learned over time a little bit is, at the same time while keeping a pretty high and robust agenda for the company, I need to take that piece into consideration, which you sort of spoke to, which is what is the impact across the board and are our timelines really appropriate? And so, you know, couple of years ago, a really large agenda, you get behind on one, you add another and all of a sudden it's landing in like June when that's the culmination of a bunch of things.
Speaker 1:In our portfolio, 17 assets are also seasonal. So they're all turning on that. And so we've got everybody saying this is crazy, got all this work going on, operators trying to get their minds and heads and workflow on these things. And so from a change management perspective, we do a couple of things. We hold a call with anybody that wants to join the organization, but typically there's about 200 people on the call.
Speaker 1:We hold that every 10 actually. It might seem like a weird cadence, but it's really to make sure that we are communicating what we've done over the last ten weeks, what we're working on, what's going to come at them, and then we give a little view further. And so we're always rolling this picture forward and backward, forward and backward. And then at the same time, through that process, we identify where we are in our place and say, is this something that we should continue to move forward? Necessity, right?
Speaker 1:Opportunistic, whatever that might be. And is the pinch point going to back us up or allow us to move forward within whatever agenda we're working on? And we'll either drop it and clean everything else up, but we've gotten better at one, really listening to the team and asking them for their feedback, but more so building the trust with the team. We've always had pretty good trust where they can just say, no fear of reprise or anything else. Guys, this is messed up, right, ladies, gents, we need something different from you or we need you to slow down because it's now impacting us through the operations, the guest experience, because that's the piece that always needs to be right.
Speaker 1:And so we can model through the back end a little bit with the idea that we're being thoughtful and patient and moving our agenda the right way. And so not everybody needs to be involved in everything. We certainly try to communicate well. But that change by inner peace is tight and it's really kind of hard. The biggest trick is just to remove ego from it and allow curiosity for people in the right space for them to ask good questions because that's really where the work happens and ultimately the best outcome.
Speaker 1:And so that's the space we really have to listen for.
Speaker 3:Shifting gears a little bit, I would love to hear from you one or two of the most important characteristics someone should have to be successful in the hotel industry today.
Speaker 1:I think in today's world in particular, and I can, you know, I can speak to sort of the general side of operations and then certainly our sector, but from my experience and certainly the way I believe that a group should be run, curiosity, number one, And anybody that thinks they just know is I think in the wrong seat. And so then within that, I think that there has to be a place of kindness and empathy. Doesn't mean being nice, right? Doesn't mean not being direct. Doesn't mean not calling things out.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean not sort of following up relentlessly. But we can do that in a place and be really human about it because at the end of the day, we are still serving ladies and gentlemen walking to the door and on the ground that are taking care of those people. And so as much as we have technology and all these other pieces behind us, we are a guest experience focused company in that way. But we have to be able to drive that place of curiosity, not just in sort of senior ranks, but all the way through. And that to your earlier point, that safe space to be able to sort of make sure we've got good information back and forth with one another because the young man or the young woman or the older man or the older woman who's working on the ground ultimately has many times better insight to the daily interaction and flow of that guest, right?
Speaker 1:And so we need to hear from them. So, you know, it has to be somebody who is, when we think about back to that quality then, somebody who listens really well, asks really good questions. And then I think this idea of too much of vertical in organization, yeah, you have to have people assigned to the roles and move up and down and through. Within that, think it's really important to keep compressing the organization so that there's the perception and the reality of the ability to daisy chain around each other drives much more continuity of information. It's a check and balance, removes protectivism in many ways, and allows exposure through the ranks left and right, up and down, where people can learn to become better generalists as much as they've got depth, now some breadth into their experience as well.
Speaker 1:I think it drives fulfillment, drives all the other pieces, and ultimately makes the operations run tighter because it balances work for people on the ground, right, gives them a new skill, keeps them interested, flat lines, up downs of hourly gaps lessens attrition, right, and then therefore the assets can actually build upon each other year on year. When you asked about scaling, to me everything is about keeping, you know, the house of cards intact, right? And so strong foundational basis. If, you know, our 70 assets aren't running well today, then it's really hard to go after a portfolio of another 40 tomorrow because everything else could fall around after it. And so as much as we look forward, it's always about coming back and saying, are we keep track of what's happening in the current work we do, never mind the work we want to take on.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Great reminder. Just one last question before we wrap up. What is one thing that you believe about technology in the hotel space that your peers or competitors might disagree with?
Speaker 1:Well, I've heard some peers say lately that there'll be a mass compression of systems and many will get pushed out. I disagree with that completely. I actually think two, three, four more years we're gonna have more to choose from than we do today, which ultimately is just going to complicate it more because it's much easier to I shouldn't say easy, but I believe it's probably faster to bring a system to market today than it was five and ten years ago. And I think that's actually gonna create more disruption. And ultimately, then the question will be, are we loyal to the groups we work with?
Speaker 1:Or think that will change the dynamic of how vendors, partners, hotel companies, restaurant management companies, whatever that would be, see how they work together and the value of those relationships. And so as much as I think there's a lot of opportunity there, I worry a little bit about that as well because we still need the partnerships.
Speaker 3:Well, loved our conversation. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. Great to see you here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by hoteltechreport.com. Our goal with this podcast is to show you how the best in the business are leveraging technology to grow their properties and outperform the concept by using innovative digital tools and strategies. I encourage all of our listeners to go try at least one of these strategies or tools that you learned from today's episode. Successful digital transformation is all about consistent small experiments over a long period of time, so don't wait until tomorrow to try something new.
Speaker 2:Do you know a hotelier who would be great to feature on this show, or do you think that your story would bring a lot of value to our audience? Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn by searching for Jordan Hollander. For more episodes like this, follow Hotel Tech Insider on all major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.