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Jen Barnwell: we don't think anything like Curator really existed, then and doesn't even really exist today.

It's the mission is to bring independents together for mutual benefit. Welcome to the, The Modern Hotelier you're presented by. Stayflexi. I'm your host, David.

Steve Carran: And I'm Steve Carran.

David Millili: Steve, who do we have on today?

Steve Carran: Yeah. David, today we have on Jen Barnwell. She is the president at Curator Hotel and Resorts. Jen was previously the senior vice president of asset management for Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, but before joining Pebblebrook in 2010, she held VP roles at Peninsula Real Estate and Tishman hotel in RealtyJen also has a degree from the school of hotel administration from Cornell university. Welcome to the show, Jen.

Jen Barnwell: you. Thanks for having me guys looking forward to it.

we're gonna go through some, just kind of a, a quick, simple questions. we'd like you to answer about yourself. We're gonna talk about your career and then we're gonna go into some. Industry trends. And at the end of the quick questions, we have a surprise, for you. So, and we'll, we'll get to that. So so what was your, what was your first job?

my first job ever,

was working at a little par three golf course down the road from my house. So I was in the little clubhouse taking everybody's money and, you know, giving them clubs to go off on the course and selling them candy bars. It was very, very tiny.

David Millili: you think you'd be doing if you weren't in hospitality?

I'm pretty sure I'd actually be a teacher. So

David Millili: All

Jen Barnwell: actually thought about it, you know, for a hot second kind of mid-career and even. Got into a graduate school and kind of started classes. And then a new opportunity in the hotel industry kind of pulled me away. And I was like, okay, let me go try this thing.

And then I can always go back, you know, to teaching. if this thing doesn't work out, obviously I didn't go back to teaching, but I would think I would be a teacher, probably elementary school. my

David Millili: right. Cool. know we could do . A whole show on this, but what's the weirdest thing you've seen in a hotel or one of the weirdest

Jen Barnwell: God. so listen, it's weird to me. I think everyone would agree not to meant to offend anyone, but, um, it's also kind of funny. So, I used to oversee the hotels for Pebblebrook in San Francisco. And you know, you always wanna see what's in the marketplace and who's renovating and what the renovation looks.

So when I went to see, and I'm joking about this, cuz we ended up owning it too. the Villa Florence hotel on Powell street in San Francisco when Las had done the renovation and they had this very strange, like full size ostrich that was like embedded into the front desk. and it is a joke because we had this whole big renovation plan.

We public work has since sold the hotel, but it was like, what should we do with the ostrich? You know, should we bring it to the corporate office? Just like, is a joke. Um,I don't know if you can still find it online anywhere. Probably not. Cuz I think the new owner did renovate, but it was just a very, you know, on one hand you could say a strange design choice and it was strange and kind of like, you know, we joked about it, but it also kind of got you talking about the hotel.

So maybe there was a reason behind it.

David Millili: that's funny. Who, who did you admire growing up?

Jen Barnwell: Oh, wow. Who did I admire growing up? Um, 

for me, it's a, it's a little bit of a hard question to ask because you don't really necessarily appreciate things when you're super young, but I will tell you that, I'd have to say my parents, honestly, because they hustled so hard. We, you know, grew up in a small town in New York state and we did not have any money.

Jen Barnwell: I, you know, we were poor and they really hustled very hard. They worked hard. know, I wasn't spoiled by any means, but I definitely was given an amazing upbringing with all my family around and actually didn't really want for anything that was very important. And. We all played sports and just the amount.

And you guys may know if you have kids or we'll soon have kids like the amount of time, commitment and energy you put into your kids sports or whatever they choose to do activity wise and especially a travel sports team, which I did with volleyball, traveling all around New York state and Pennsylvania, New Jersey.

So, I had a, maybe only a small appreciation for it at the time. but I knew they were really taking care of me, but just, you know, all these years later, I just, I don't know how they did it. They sent three kids to an Ivy league school and just like always bettering the next generation.

What they accomplished was pretty amazing, cuz both of them, only went to, you know, a community college and they just really put their heart and souls into us.

David Millili: That's great. If you could take anyone dead or alive to lunch, who would it be? Sure.

Jen Barnwell: Um,or these are hard questions. You guys are putting me on the spot. I allowed to say prince? Cuz I feel like he was like, so prince was my first cassette tape. I remember being a young girl, like my mom, let me out in the mall by myself to go buy my first cassette tape and it was Prince Purple Rain and oh my gosh. When he passed away, it really cut deep. So maybe it's prince

Cause I never got to go to new w concerts.

David Millili: Got it. Is there secret

talent, secret talent you have that nobody knows.

I'm trying to think like, did anything come out like with my kids, you know, since I've had my kids. I might have to come back to that 

David Millili: Sure. No, we had, 

Jen Barnwell: think of anything right off the bat.

David Millili: Judy from dream hotels. Uh,hers was hilarious cuz she was said, yeah, my town is I'm an excellent parallel Parker.

Jen Barnwell: Oh, wow. That's a good one. I mean, it, it, I don't know. I don't know how worthy it is, but I would say, if you're doing any kind of pop culture trivia, you probably want me on your team. Like, I'm one of those, you know, work is so intense and you know, family is intense. So I tend to watch all those ridiculous reality shows just to kind of zone out.

So I pretty much know everything there is to know about pop culture.

David Millili: that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Two more. What's name something. That's on your bucket. Yeah,

Well travel wise, which is like, I'm always thinking about cuz again, once you have small kids, it's kind of like, you're a little bit tied to your immediate environment, unless you have like a huge support system, but, um, I definitely wanna make it to the Maldives for sure. And I would also like to make it to Japan someday.

Jen Barnwell: So my bucket list is more around travel.

David Millili: We found out, I dunno if you know this, but Andrew, from the Independent Lodging Congress, he actually lived in Japan. 

Jen Barnwell: I didn't know 

that Uhhuh. 

David Millili: he speaks Japanese. It was like, we were, it does martial hearts. It was all stuff that like, 

just never would come up. So that's, that was kind of cool for me doing the show.

We find out stuff like that. So,

Jen Barnwell: Very 

David Millili: um,if you could have a superpower, what superpower would you like to have?

Jen Barnwell: to be invisible

David Millili: Yeah, that's a good one. 

Jen Barnwell: when I want to.

David Millili: All right. So now we have, now we have your surprise. Um, so we are gonna do, and this works out perfect with your secret talent. We are gonna do a condensed final round of the family feud. I'm gonna ask you three questions. If you get the number one, answer on each question, Stayflexi will donate a hundred dollars to the charity of your choice.

So we're gonna give you 20 seconds. I'm gonna ask you these questions and we'll just start you ready?

Jen Barnwell: Mm-hmm

David Millili: Name something you find at a breakfast buffet

Jen Barnwell: scrambled eggs.

David Millili: in horror movies, name a place teenagers go where they're always where there's always a killer on the loose

Jen Barnwell: the basement

David Millili: that's name, something you see outside that would make you wanna stay inside.

Jen Barnwell: rain.

David Millili: That's good. All right. 

So. Number one answer for something you'd find at a breakfast. Buffet is eggs. Number 

two is bacon, very close eggs,

Jen Barnwell: Yeah. I was thinking I might, should have said bacon, so good.

David Millili: You got that one. So in horror movies, name, a place where teenagers go, where there's always a killer on the loose. The number one answer was cabin or woods. Number two was graveyard.

Jen Barnwell: I was gonna say cemetery too. Yeah. 

David Millili: That was, That was, good. And then name something you'd see outside that would make you wanna stay inside. And number one, answer, bad weather.

So you got two outta three, so we'll still, we'll donate $50 to the charity. I'll get that from you, uh, later, but that's it. So that worked out perfect. Your secret talent actually kind of, you know, worked with that, but anyway. All right, Steve, 

Steve Carran: Awesome. Awesome. So,

Jen Barnwell: That was

Steve Carran: so Jen, thanks for that. now I wanna find, we get to find out a little bit more about you. Uh,so where were you born? You mentioned New York, I believe, but 

Jen Barnwell: So upstate New York, the exact town was actually it's called Montour falls, which no one will know where that is. That's just the hospital, that my parents had gone to, but it's, kind of right outside Corning, New York. And everyone's kind of heard of Corning incorporated and wains Glen, which is nearby, which also has a big racetrack,

Steve Carran: How did growing up in, upper New York shape you for who you.

a couple ways, one was, to really appreciate, like, have that appreciation for family because I was very lucky growing up. Like almost all of my aunts and uncles were, were nearby, like either in our town or the neighboring town. So I grew up spending a lot of time with aunts and uncles and you know, all of my cousins.

Jen Barnwell: So, I mean, that was amazing. Like, I think about like every birthday party, you know, since I was little too, I got older, just that appreciation for family. And secondly, I mean, absolutely no disrespect to where I grew up, but also kind of wanting to get out. So

David Millili: Right.

Jen Barnwell: being there and it was a wonderful place to grow up, but it was also, kind of small and kind of simple.

And I was like, okay, what else is there out there? I really worked hard in school because that was like the path out. It was like get into a great school, you know, do well in college, in a great program. And then you're outta here. Like you can go to the big city and, explore and, you know, start your life.

Steve Carran: totally get that. Do you, do you miss kind of the quietness of, of your hometown though,

Jen Barnwell: You 

Steve Carran: now that you're like in DC,

Jen Barnwell: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Like, so when I first, outta school, I lived in New York city, so it was like, I would go back once in a while and I like couldn't sleep. Right. Cause it's like so quiet. but things also change, you know, things change everywhere. So, what I thought growing up was kind of a sleepy little town, you know, a lot of places evolve and there's, you know, more going on now than there used to be.

So I do definitely appreciate it. And especially once in a while, I get to go back to where I went to school for college and it's nearby my hometown. And I just appreciate, yeah, the beauty, you know, the finger lakes areas where I grew. and just the, you know, everything around the wineries and the vineyards and the scenery and the state parks and the gorges and the waterfalls.

I mean, I do definitely appreciate that stuff and love going back. Although I don't definitely don't go back enough.

Steve Carran: I'm with it. The only thing that gets me is a 25 mile an hour speed limit. That's the thing that I can't handle anymore.

Jen Barnwell: I hear you. I hear you

Steve Carran: that's what gets me. 

David Millili: yeah, that same, my, my own town too. They changed the, our main road from 35 to 25. So every time I go to visit my parents, I've gotta like, like say to myself as I drive down the

street 25, 25, 25, because of course they did that. So they could have the cop park and get you that ticket. But, uh, so outside of sports, did, did you and your family travel much when you

no again, going back to, you know, the, the means we had, or the lack of means, so. we did a couple road trips, so we would go from upstate New York and we would drive to, one time it was Orlando, you know, for Disney world when we were a lot younger. And then when I got older and was kind of approaching high school, we did that whole road trip and we went to Daytona beach.

outside of that, no. I mean the area was great. You know, when would you usually travel as a family using the summers? And we had these beautiful finger lakes all around. So it was more about kind of barbecuing the family and going to the lake. someone always rented a lake house or something like that.

Jen Barnwell: So we would hang out like at the lake for most of the summer.

outside of, you know, just academics when you were at Cornell, did you, were you point of any clubs, sororities? Did you play volleyball when you were at Cornell?

Jen Barnwell: I did. So I played volleyball at Cornell, just the first couple years. you know, for me, it was hard to stop playing sports, cuz I had done it, you know, my whole life up until that point, I was in high school, basketball and volleyball. And then thankfully I got recruited to play at Cornell. but it was difficult to maintain for me because I had school and I also had to work on work study and then I had volleyball and although I mean I love volleyball still today and the discipline of it and the team comradery.

It, wasn't gonna be the center of my life. I mean, it's like, I, wasn't gonna miss class for volleyball and I didn't wanna miss my exams for volleyball. And no matter what sport it is, it's like the coach wants it to be, your number one priority and you have three practices a day.

And I was like, I, you know, I can't keep up. I have to have a job and I really need to do well in school. So I kind of held it together the first couple years, and then I had to give it up junior and senior year. So I could focus more on my studies, and working and getting summer internships that I thought, you know, were much more important for me to get where I needed to 

David Millili: Yeah.

Jen Barnwell: but otherwise, I wasn't really, you know, in some kind of academic focus clubs or like honors or associations. But frankly, the hotel school just kind of felt like it's a little club. It was like, you know, this little microcosm within Cornell. So we kind of had our own thing going on there.

Steve Carran: and you graduated with, a degree from the hotel school focusing on finance and real estate. It seems like all your jobs have focused either on real estate or obviously in hotels. How did you know? So. 

Jen Barnwell: Well, for me, it was more, I knew what I wa didn't wanna do. so I did, um, during school I always worked, there was a hotel on campus called the Statler. So I did, you know, every job that was available to the students over those four years of school. So everything, you know, reservations front desk Beman I worked in the kitchen and did you know every job in the kitchen?

I was. Server in the restaurant and a banquet server. So I did everything I could in the restaurant or the hotel space, in terms of my job during school. And then I did a couple internships during the summers. Both of them were also in operations. well, one summer I stayed at Cornell and worked at the hotel in the kitchen.

And then I did a summer at a resort in Florida where I was again, a banquet server and cocktail waitress and lunch server. And then I worked for a management company at a hotel at BWI airport, like for the whole summer, like a management trainee. And so I think it is kind of crucial to my base of knowledge and kind of obviously the direction I took to have all that experience in operations and try to wrap my head around how a hotel actually operates.

And I had amazing exposure to that. But I also didn't like it very much

David Millili: well, 

Jen Barnwell: and I like have the greatest level of respect for everyone, all those hotel teams that are on the front lines, cuz it just really wasn't for me, I was much better suited for the analysis and the numbers and the analytics and all the contracts and the agreements and the negotiation that that's really what interested me, you know, and got me excited.

So luckily, I was able to kind of realize that and I, you know, tried to take those kind of courses, you know, my, my two last years at Cornell to get more focused on real estate and finance and was lucky enough to, get a job at, at Tishman right outta college, which was fantastic because you know, they're an owner, they're an operator, they're an asset manager, they did brokerage, they did, construction.

They did development. So they were all on the ownership for the most part side of things. So, it was a good fit for me,

Steve Carran: And you said you knew what you didn't wanna do. What didn't you wanna.

Jen Barnwell: I didn't wanna work at a hotel

Steve Carran: what it was. Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. Was there anything that made you really fall in love with kind of, I, I guess a path you took more of those contracts, what was that moment where you're like, oh, I'm, this is what I should be doing.

Jen Barnwell: You know, for me it was just realization, like that's what I was good at numbers. I mean, that's just kind of how my mind works. I'm not a super creative person, but I love being in the room with their creatives and seeing how their minds think and, you know, taking the ride with them on all these renovations and retting and renamings of hotels.

I've been a part of. I think for me, what led me to where I am, because, I was definitely better at it. So, you know, I could do Excel spreadsheets and I can read contracts and kind of boil it down to, you know, what the most important terms are. And I, listen, it's not like I was negotiating anything my first, you know, five to eight years of being out after school.

But I had great experiences being in the room with the executive VPs and the senior VPs and the managing directors that were doing all of that stuff. And I was reading contracts front to back. I was doing all of this analysis and then showing it to them and getting comments and rerunning it like a million times.

that's just kind of where my capabilities were. So that's why it led me more to the ownership side of things or the analytical side of the industry.

David Millili: Great. Do you have a favorite memory from Cornell

Jen Barnwell: There's so many

David Millili: Right,

Jen Barnwell: um,God there's, it was such a good experience. I think, honestly right off the bat, just freshman orientation, it was like, you show up and you have this whole week of like fun-filled activities to meet. everyone that's on your freshman floor. And I was lucky enough that my roommate, we, we selected each other, requested each other, cuz she was on, the travel volleyball team with me that I was on in high school and she also went to Cornell to play volleyball.

So I already had my match with my roommate, so I knew that was gonna be good. And then we just had this most amazing freshman floor. It was a really good mix of. Like a ton of athletes, there were hockey, ice, hockey players and swimmers and football players on our floor. And then just the really, really smart, you know, pre-med kids.

And there were kids from other countries and there were kids from long island and there were kids from California. So, I know it's just like one little aspect or, you know, one little part, but I did feel like Cornell was great. Exposing me to a lot of things. A lot of diversity, especially growing up at that time, like, you know, in the nineties and a small town in upstate New York, it gave me a lot of exposure.

Steve Carran: You definitely were on the cool kids'

floor. 

Jen Barnwell: Yeah. The cool kids floor

Steve Carran: Yeah.

you absolutely absolutely were. 

David Millili: just gonna, it's a great town too, to be, I mean, as far as college towns, it's just a great town.

Jen Barnwell: yeah. It's so great. Like everything, I mean, the campus is so big, but then. You know, you can move off campus and everything is, you know, still walkable. And then you can go down to the commons and see kind of what's going, I mean, Ithaca was kind of ahead of its time with, all of the, organic movement and like farm to table and all that stuff and expose yourself to some of that too.

Steve Carran: Absolutely. So, so now, we get to talk about your career a little bit. So, uh, you,after Cornell, you were the VP Attman's hotel, and, and reality. And then after that you were the SVP at peninsula real estate. How did those roles prepare you for Pebblebrook?

Jen Barnwell: so Tishman was great because they hired new grads right. Outta college. And it was an analyst program, you know, I kind of give it that, that label and they really worked too hard, which was a good thing. They. Owned a bunch of hotels, you know, their niche at that time were these very big convention center, big branded hotels that they owned with partners.

They had loans on them and they also asset managed. So we were deep in analysis every month as the owner asset manager, creating a bunch of analytical reports, even something as simple as, you know, typing up needing minutes, like typing up summaries of the hotel's monthly performance. and they may have been managed, you know, by Starwood at the time, but it wasn't the deep kind of analysis that you would get from the management company per se.

It was like the asset management company had to report on out on those things. So I learned a lot at that point about, you know, analysis and writeups, and I got to go to the hotels, you know, a little bit, not the, not too much, but Tishman was so vertically integrated. And they always needed analyst help on things.

So when I joined, they were also working on finishing up at that time. It was called the Western Rio Mar, which was a new resort development in Puerto Rico. So I was on one hand doing these monthly analysis,reports basically for hotels, they asset manage, which was similar to it's all asset management.

And then I was also working on a ground up development in Puerto Rico, trying to get this huge Western open. And then also trying to figure out what to do with all the development parcels that were all surrounding the hotel. Like, do we do condo hotel or condos, whatever do we do. and then there was a whole group at Tishman that was, dedicated to brokerage.

So I got to work in that group for a while. And what I mean by brokerage at Tishman was they acted as the broker for other owners. So I was involved in the sale of two or three hotels in Hawaii. I was also involved in like debt placement, for example, some owners came to Tishman and needed them to run a process, to find debt for them sometimes to find equity partners.

and then even when I was there, it's been much overtaken since when I was there, but I don't know when was it? It was either the very late nineties, maybe early, maybe the very late nineties at that time. They still own it. The big dolphin Swan complex, and while Disney world, at that time, we did the biggest CMBS loan deal that had like ever existed.

so to be involved in, you know, it was constantly interacting with partners and, you know, recapitalizing, refining all the hotels and CMBS got really big at that point. And it was like, let's put CMBS loans on everything, cuz the interest rates are so low and they syndicated out,and then on the construction side, it was like, if you have to renovate a hotel or give an owner an estimate on, what it may take, if they're gonna buy something, if we're advising them to buy something and we need to give them an estimate on what it may take to do your capital improvements.

Jen Barnwell: All I had to do is like walk downstairs and that's like the huge Tishman construction company. So they had all these resources in house, you know, that were, very good at what they've done, you know, a hundred year history, very effective, everything that Tishman did, Tishman also built. So they were building the resort in Puerto Rico.

They built the E walk retail complex in Western times square also when I was there. So it was truly a great experience from a young person standpoint, because again, they were so vertically integrated. I got to learn all these different disciplines. Again, mostly from the ownership perspective and, learn how to do all this analysis and do all this reporting.

and I really loved it. I mean, I, at one point I feel like if you ever work for an owner, like you're in the owner's shoes, which is like the best place to be, like, you get to make all the decisions. I could never do anything else at this point because it's like, I worked for Tishman as an owner. Then I ended up leaving there, with a colleague at the time and we put together our own, you know, private investment fund with, an Irish bank and syndicated the equity.

Jen Barnwell: Some to some Irish investors, we bought a couple hotels. We did all these renovation plans. unfortunately that didn't end up working out in the long term because of some things that, some bad things that happened in Ireland with the Irish bank, which had nothing to do with us. but again, it was still like in the ownership.

Seat and putting together the redevelopment renovation plans, figuring out what the right thing to do is, you know, making one deal with Mart and then making a separate deal to keep one independent and, everything that surrounds like deal making, really set me up for then moving on to Pebblebrook.

And it didn't hurt that I worked with our CFO at Tishman way back when . So we didn't forget about each other. You know, whoever overlaps at Tishman is a young person you're we affectionately called it the pit. So in this like room with no windows together, there were probably like 10 of us, like, you know, with our heads down, you know, 12 hours a day.

So I gotten the call from a Pebblebrook CFO to, to see if there was a fit for me to be an asset manager there.

Steve Carran: Wow. 

David Millili: Great. So speaking of that, so Pebblebrook went live in 2009. I actually found this. I was actually there. That's my little, little name tag when I was on the 

floor watching you guys in 2009. what, tell us a little bit about what makes Pebblebrook unique.

Jen Barnwell: For me, and from my vantage point,I had not worked for a public company before, so I was like, okay, this is something different, you know, it's gonna, again, increase my knowledge base. give me some more information. You were now related to private versus public and how they both operate and how they operate differently.

And to be in asset management, you know, it goes back to, both Ray and John B's history with the Sal. I mean, asset management is incredibly important to them. You know, it's one of their core competencies. it's very important to them. You know, there may be other companies that think, oh, we can only make money when we buy and sell.

But that's not the philosophy here. It's like every day, how can we do things better? How can we meet, create value, bring more dollars to the bottom line for our shareholders. So because of that, the asset management function at Pebblebrook, sits right under John. So I was like, oh my God, what an amazing opportunity.

If I can, if they like me and I can get into Pebblebrook, I'm reporting directly to John. Like he oversees all of asset management, the asset managers report to him. He is incredibly involved and knowledgeable about everything and wants to be as well as being an amazing mentor. So, I mean, coming into pebble book, there's no way, like, I didn't know everything about asset management and didn't claim to.

He is just the type of leader that, wants to mentor people, whether it's, you know, a 40 year old me now, or it's, you know, a 20 year old analyst that comes in our, that come in our doors every year. So it's just, what I felt was very special and very different about Pebblebrook was, the culture, the interaction with everyone in the C-suite it's and it happens every day.

Like even technically today is our work from home day, but there's a smattering of people here. And, you know, our CIO is walking around, talking to everybody, and I'm walking around to see who's here and, you know, having a little conversation. So it's a combination of their view on being deep in the operations, through asset management and the amazing culture, you know, everybody likes each other here and wants to work together and it's, you know, all for the greater good.

Steve Carran: And now you're the president of Curator. How, how did curator yeah. How did curator come to be? Can you tell us a little bit about the backstory of.

Jen Barnwell: Yeah, for sure. I, the way I describe it, it as honestly in natural outgrowth of what Pebblebrook was doing for itself. So if you go back to 2018, when Pebblebrook was in pursuit of Lasel and was successful combined the two companies together, more than doubled in size overnight to 64 hotels. So to have that much more scale kind of overnight than we had before John, you know, made a strategic move to create this small group within asset management, we called it our portfolio wide initiatives group, and there were three people in the group.

I wasn't in it at the time. but our VP of curator was Austin Sieg. They just day in and day out, they were charged with finding value enhancement opportunities within our portfolio, trying to leverage our bigger size. So they did a whole series of what we called our portfolio level agreements that were applicable mainly to our independent hotels, but even some of our branded ones at the time.

Jen Barnwell: So, you know, to name a few it's, um, parking, audio, visual services, bottled water credit card processing credit card gateway. It's not necessarily things that are like, are incredibly sexy or like make all the headlines. But you add to that, rolling out our own workers compensation program under the Pebblebrook umbrella.

You add all these portfolio level agreements together, plus where we went with insurance being so much bigger. I mean, on an annualized basis, we were saving ourselves millions of dollars. And, but they were our deals only, right? Because we put together this team and they were going directly to vendors and doing the, the deals direct.

So our operators, you know, of our independents started to notice and they're like, oh, can we get the rest of our hotels on your deals? And we were like, respectfully, no. I mean, those are our deals, but we kept the conversation going, thinking, well, maybe there's something here. because we don't think anything like Curator really existed, then and doesn't even really exist today.

It's the mission is to bring independents together for mutual benefit. We're not gonna have anything to say, and we don't wanna have anything to say, there's no property inspections, there's no brand standards. Design your hotel, how you wanna design it, staff it, how you wanna staff it. But if we all come together, With this greater scale, then we're gonna get better pricing on a whole lot of things and more attention from vendors and service providers and you know, better products.

You can beta test and pilot test things that we stand behind. We can be your vendor resource and maybe save you a lot of time and save you a whole lot of money. Like why not come together, for mutual benefit on the independent side, because you know, in our industry, if you're part of the big, big, big, big guys, you get the lowest price on everything and the, you know, the poor independents why do we get slighted?

And we love independent hotels. I mean, obviously Pebblebrook is the largest owner of, independent lifestyle hotels in the us today. So obviously I'm coming from that vantage point and I've worked on a ton of independent hotels at pebble. And the conversions and the renamings and the repositionings, which was so fun and they're an important part of our industry.

So if we can come together and help them in any way, great, obviously we're trying to create a business model out of it too, but it's a value play. It's an ROI play. So we've done over 80 master service agreements that independent hotels can tap into. And again, it's all for the, for the goal of saving them money on fully vetted, recommended, systems, services, products, your value of your hotel will go up.

The more profitable you are. and you can benefit from all the knowledge, you know, these year, years of knowledge from the Pebblebrook team and all of our founding members, which are, you know, a group of amazing operators.

David Millili: So since the change now going from Pebblebrook to. What's the biggest change in your day now that you're president of Curator? What's the, what do you, think's the biggest change for you on a

Jen Barnwell: I, well, I, I spend all my, you know, all my days on the phone talking about how wonderful Curator is instead of instead of calling the hotel gym and giving him a hard time about why did you spend so much money in food cost this month?

David Millili: That's funny, but anyway, jokes aside, you know, my asset management background is invaluable for what I'm doing now, because basically everything we've put together within curator is what I had tried to do as an asset manager and what we tried to do, you know, as a group of asset managers at Pebblebrook, trying to create more value and more profitability for the Pebblebrook hotels.

Jen Barnwell: So. There are big differences. I mean, when you're an asset manager, you know, you're just mainly doing analysis, you're looking at PNLs, you're looking at contracts still, and you're interacting with your property team. And you're looking at all the revenue reports and trying to make sure the top line is there and that there's flow through and everything.

And I loved that and I loved the property team. So the biggest thing is I miss greatly miss talking to property teams almost every day, but what has changed is now, I'm out there on the market, like learning about which I didn't really necessarily have time before learning about all these amazing small, independent brands that are out there and exist now and are growing.

Even the one, the single owner operator hotel that, you know, could use some help and is off on his own, trying to negotiate the best thing he can, but gets no attention from any of the vendors. And, um,just building a new team. we brought in all new people from outside of Pebblebrook with various backgrounds.

So building a new team, recruiting people, you know, at the senior level and in the junior level to come in has been pretty fantastic. And, you know, just talking to all these groups about Curator that frankly, I probably wouldn't have interacted at all with before.

Steve Carran: That's fun.

Jen Barnwell: It's 

been a lot of fun. 

Steve Carran: Yeah, I was, I was researching curator and I did a search on a hotel website. I won't name names, but here's, here's just what I found. Curator adds four member hotels, curator adds six. New members. Curator collection adds eight Davidson hotels, curator and hotel resort collection welcomes four member hotels, curator collection adds five member hotels.

Curator adds Sage hospitality group curator adds 13 hotels from noble house curator collection adds 11 Providence hotels. Okay. That was all within about the past year. So without giving the secret sauce, what is the key to curator success? I mean, 

Jen Barnwell: gonna, we're gonna keep it going. Um, the key to curator success is going to be creating these cost savings and therefore value enhancement for the hotels. So really on a very simple basis, it is an ROI. So we have these discussions with prospects, any independent is potentially a good fit for curator, but we have, you know, Pretty detailed conversations, multiple conversations with prospects ahead of time.

So we can understand, what's their tech stack today. Do they have any flexibility, you know, are the expirations of the term coming up? Do they have termination rights? Because in some cases the hotels have to make a pretty significant change. Like, are you willing to change out your PMs to something that is actually a lot better and more cost efficient?

Are you willing to change out your revenue management system when we've seen hotels and collection are willing to do this and are much happier after the fact, are you willing to, you know, change out your bottled water work with new and different vendors, or even test something out that you didn't even know existed?

You know, we were talking to someone today who got to us because he was looking up tipping apps, and then he saw that we have two separate agreements for in hotel tipping apps for employees. So that was awesome, like in an interesting way that he finally, that he did get to us, but I mean, we cover all the basics.

Like everything you need to operate an independent hotel, we have a solution or in some disciplines, multiple solutions for all those things. But what else is out there that you don't have time to figure out for yourself that we've done all the RFPs and the detailed research on it's things like the tipping apps, it's things like,these new, interesting training modules that we're like trying out within curator ourself, you know, it's any kind of new technology, whether it's the robot vacuums or, there's a million apps and David knows this very well.

There's a million apps out there, but what are the, you know, the right ones that are sustainable and actually solve a problem for you or. A pleaser to your guests and actually integrate with everything else that you have. So the key to our success, I think, is we've got, you know, an amazing foundation with Pebblebrook and our founding members, which happen to be, noble house, Sage Davidson, Providence, and vice Roy.

So we have an amazing set of,founding members already. So we have an established reputation through that. I think first and foremost, they all put their hotels and including Pebblebrook, we can prove through many different case studies, how much money these hotels are saving and therefore increasing their value.

and the reality is the way we conduct ourselves is, you know, hopefully viewed positively because. There's a very long, free period in the end, you know, purposefully. So we can get these hotels in, show them what we have, get them enrolled in things and saving money before they even pay us a dime. And we have very favorable termination provisions.

Jen Barnwell: Anybody can get out in 60 days if they're not happy, but we're working kind of tirelessly every day to make sure everybody stays in. And why would they stay in it's because they're seeing the results. So, the word hopefully keeps getting out and people are curious and they'll come in and see what we have to offer.

And, you know, we'll save them a bunch of money. So they'll stay,

Steve Carran: What's a goal for curator moving. 

Jen Barnwell: you know, we are at 91 hotels today. maybe our kind of lofty goal is we'd certainly like to be close to 150 by the end of the year, to reach that goal, we've gotta get some more momentum, you know, in the next number of months. We feel really good where we are today. so there's a membership goal in terms of, you know, of course wanting to get much bigger and, you know, the bigger we are with the scale and the size, you know, hopefully the more we can accomplish for member hotels in terms of our offerings, we already have over 80 master service agreements and all various disciplines, but we continue to grow that because like I said, we've got the basics covered, but it's so fun and interesting to vet all these new things that are out there, which is a lot of what our programs team is focused on now, but also holding the vendors and service providers that we already have a agreements with, like holding them to, you know, if we have feedback for them, critical feedback from them that they're gonna continue to evolve their product, to make sure that it is a good fit and goes where it needs to be and meets our members' needs.

We're focused on any possible way. We can drive revenue for the hotels, not directly, cuz we're not a customers facing, company yet, but we're looking at what we would call more the, the niche OTAs or niche, OTAs and other distribution channels. If we can make some direct deals with them and make sure they're at the lowest cost possible that the, the members couldn't get on their own and then they can pick and choose what they think may be incremental for them and add channels to their lineup of, you know, demand sources, and just really trying to continue to evolve our website.

It's more of a discovery website. So you can find, you can be sure if you come onto the curator website, you know, you're gonna find really amazing independent hotels. Then you can go to each property's individual site, for more information, but to really drive home how special these hotels are, all the experiences.

You can have at these hotels that you can't get anywhere else. So we're working on, all those aspects of evolving our website in those ways.

Steve Carran: I do love your website. I was on it. Like, you can go to choose the experience you want and you'll bring up hotels. So I thought it was one of the coolest websites, that I've seen in a while. So kudos to y'all on that.

So, 

Jen Barnwell: it's meant to be very visual, you know, as Hotelier, we can't help ourselves cuz we really wanna be visual. you know, we're mainly B2B now you wouldn't necessarily know that from our website, but cuz we wanted it to look great and be focused on the hotels more than us, you

Steve Carran: It's great. It's great. So now kind of that last segment, kind of hospitality trends and things like that, but what, what is your advice if, you're giving advice to somebody who might just be starting in the hospitality industry, what's your advice to maybe one day become president of a company or.

What I'd like to say to, I was gonna say younger people, but anybody of any age going into the industry now is just try to get as much experience as you can. so whether, you know, you're in a corporate office, the way I conducted myself is I wanted to be in every meeting I possibly could just to learn, even if that, you know, you've like, oh, I gotta get this report done.

Jen Barnwell: And that report done. And if I sit in on this conference call, it's gonna, set me back an hour, but that's where you learn the most. When you're listening, you know, you're in the room and you're hearing the interactions, and if there's documents, that maybe you don't have time to read, read, 'em like take in as much as you possibly can.

And in the hotel environment, you know, similar to what you know, I said about my career early on, Rotate through like every department, every discipline. See what suits you the best. I mean, especially today, hotels are so under resourced, labor is such a big issue if you can rotate around. And maybe that means, um, asking your supervisor or just talking to whoever you can, management wise, you know, cuz you wanna, you know, test out other things or help out, in other departments to see what it's like, just to figure out what best suits you.

That would be my advice because the more you can really learn about how a hotel operates, how they do things. And then also, you know, if you're in a corporate environment, what everyone's roles are and what they do and how they do things, it does set you up. Like always, I've always been the kind of employee that always is asking to, you know, can I.

Be in that meeting or that meeting or this meeting. Can I listen in, like, I won't say anything, just let me, you know, listen in or, you know, what's this new project. Can I be involved in it too? Even if, you know, maybe I'm not the main analyst or something on it, but can I just like listen in and participate to learn that has served me really well in my career because, you know, it's that old saying, like, if you don't ask for something, you'll never get it.

I've never been someone who's just gonna sit back and wait for all the accolades to come and for people to somehow recognize how wonderful I am. you gotta be your, your best advocate in all aspects of your career. So I'm always asking to do more, to see more, to experience more, and I'm gonna be in there at the end of the year and tell you how wonderful I am.

Jen Barnwell: and see what happens.

David Millili: that's good advice.

Steve Carran: I love that. It's always that hunger for learning more. I love it.

Jen Barnwell: oh yeah. 

David Millili: so right now, I think it's dying down a little bit, but when we're all on LinkedIn, there's, you know, COVID, there's labor, you just mentioned, you know, the, the labor issues. What do you think, is a challenge that people aren't talking about enough in, in, in hospitality, because we get over and over.

There's so much about, you know, the staffing and, and COVID, but what else do you think that we're not talking about? That we should be.

good question. I think that, um,you know, one thing that we've tried to have our eye on and, you know, it does go back to the labor. It's just, I'm trying to educate myself more and conduct myself in a certain way. And it goes back to this concept of like recruitment and retention. I just sat in, it was actually the HLA forward conference.

Jen Barnwell: That was absolutely amazing. I mean, and it's a women's conference, but it applies to everyone. And just this concept of empathy and really understanding what that is and in today's work environment, conducting yourself, from that lens. And I think that's what people are looking for today.

They want to be acknowledged. They want to be understood. They may be much more vocal than they used to be. So I think continuing to, if you're a leader continuing to evolve and make sure you're communicating as much as your employees want you to with them. So I'm trying to do check-ins with my team members all the time, just to kind of give them an opportunity to maybe tell me anything.

They need to tell me business or professional wise and maybe not react to it. Cuz that's, you know, part of the learning make, sometimes people just wanna tell you stuff and you're like, okay, how can I help? You're not making judgment. You're not making suggestions. You're just listening and saying, okay, how can I help?

So I think, I mean, it really goes to retention. We need to really understand what our coworkers, you know, and our subordinates, like what they're doing today, how they're dealing with things what's going on in their life, if they wanna vocalize it. because it's kind of ever evolving, you know, the, the workplace landscape and your more apps to keep your people engaged and happy.

the more you communicate with them, I think.

David Millili: Yeah, a hundred percent.

Steve Carran: So a, a recent gift report just showed that RevPAR at us, independent hotels is 90% recovered compared to 2019 levels. brands are comparatively at 75%. Why do you think independence are recovering little bit more quickly?

Jen Barnwell: Yeah. I mean, uh,I'm a proponent of that stat by the way, I think it's, you know, to be fair, it's probably partially skewed by the fact that the brands have so many hotels in urban cores, and those are the last to come back, especially cities like San Francisco and DC, but setting that aside, I think it's absolutely still kind of true of what's going on.

And to me, I think that speaks to just what travelers are looking for. So there's, I mean, think about it the last two plus years, we've all been sitting back wondering when we're gonna travel again. And when we travel, what are we gonna do? And if we have some flexibility with our job, you know, maybe we can leave on a Thursday and, you know, stay till Monday, you know, extend your stays, bring.

Your family or your significant other, or a friend with you and you can work while they do some cool stuff. So that all lends itself. I think, to the independent space, the lifestyle space, the boutique space, because they have such a story to tell about how special their offerings are. In some cases, you know, very unique, certainly very memorable people wanna make memories.

Now they want something different, whether it's our Treehouse, you know, pebble Brooks, Treehouse accommodations up at Skamania lodge and Washington state, or it's a, the lap that's run by noble house for Pebblebrook down in Naples. You can have this beautiful private dinner on the beach. So I think in this space in particular, independents and boutiques have so much flexibility.

To do what they need to do to, keep guests happy and surprise and delight guests. And, they just have so many unique characteristics whether it's design or it's location or it's offerings that they can just continue to make sure that they put it out, in the media, make sure their website is their best calling card.

Cuz I, I just think that's what a lot of hotel guests are looking for today, those special experiences and ways to make memories and despite what they may say, you're not gonna get that, with the big, big, big guys, you're just, you're just not, I mean, this is a totally different kind of Hotelier that's running and owning these boutique and lifestyle properties and they're amazing and they're much different than you're gonna get, at the alternative.

David Millili: Yeah, I agree. A hundred percent everyone. I talk to, they're all looking for something unique. They don't want something that they know that is gonna be the same in Boston and the same in Philly and the same in New York, they want to do something that. Especially with not having traveled, they want something that's gonna be kind of where they can talk about it and experience something.

and I won't name any of the brands either. So, I was just before this, we recorded this, I got a phone call from a friend of mine, Alan Young, and he was telling me that he did a scan of the high tech floor. And there was only one company that was really focused on robotics or robots. So my question to you is, and maybe that's it, but what do you think is a kind of an upcoming trend, in our industry, that's here to stay something that's new that we haven't probably embraced before that now post COVID or as we're recovering, people are gonna, you know, there's a trend that will kind of take.

Jen Barnwell: Yeah, I think, I think the hotels and operators that are kind of paying attention, I think it goes to, I wanna say choice. So I think you have to have the mobile check-in I think you have to have the mobile key because there's some people that want it and there's, you know, the fallback is okay, you have someone at the front desk for those that don't, I think you need to think about how you communicate with your guests.

I mean, I was just in LA yesterday and the day before and I got texts from the hotel and I also got emails from them. They were a little bit redundant, but I was happy that it was like, okay, yes, you definitely have my reservation. You know, I'm coming. I can do this. Check-in ahead of time. When I have a minute, when I get off the plane and when I got to the hotel, they handed me my key and I was done.

And not everybody wants to check in like that, but I. Whether you're a resort or you're in the urban core. I think there's gonna be a mix, always of people who want, absolutely contactless, if they can help it. And there's gonna be some people who want high touch service too. But whether that's the check in the key, whether it's, the room, attendance and making out, you know, cleaning the rooms or not, when I'm traveling, actually it's both.

If I'm there for business, I'm like pretty, I'm like, I don't want anyone in my room. My stuff is all where I want it. But even when I'm, when we are with our kids, it's like, all we really need is really towels once in a while. And we leave the trash out in the door, or I'm sorry, in the hallway. We don't want anybody in our room and it's not.

And, and I don't expect it either. So it's like, and that also goes to sustainability. It's like, there's so many sustainable practices. That help you be more efficient will help you with labor will make you environmentally responsible. I, I do think it's kind of all tied together and also goes back to technology.

So I think we've gotta find the systems that work in work well, cause I was at a conference Monday and two different people said, well, technology's great, but only if it works, you know, and she's like the kiosk wouldn't let me check out. And I was like, yes, you're right. you know, if you have the kiosk, it has to work otherwise, you know, put a out of order, sign on it or something.

So I think that, even if you think you don't have to embrace technology so much, I think everybody really does because at the end of the day, you gotta provide choice and you'll make both sets of people happy. If you can do both. You're

David Millili: I'm glad you say that. Cuz one of the things that frustrates me is being on the tech side, being in XGM is that there's like always an assumption. My guest don't want this and it's like, okay, well I used a mobile app to get my Uber. I then used my mobile app to get my boarding pass and check the status of my flight.

And now you're telling me when I show up at the hotel, all of a sudden I'm allergic to mobile and I don't want to use an app or I don't wanna use a device. What you guys have done with some of your properties and, lasso and, and which does, you know, the mobile onboarding and check in is great. Cause if I can take a selfie, take a picture of my license, get my credit card information, just pick up the key.

If I want that key, cuz maybe the hotel doesn't have mobile then that's great. So I'm glad to hear that answer. So

Jen Barnwell: absolutely right. It's a total disconnect. Yeah. I took, you know, Lyft to the airport and, and I had everything, my boarding pass on my phone and then I took Lyft to the hotel or no, I used my Avis. App to find out where my car was. I went right to my car. I didn't see anybody at Avis, went right to my car and like right to the hotel and got my key.

but some hotels, most hotels, it's like a total disconnect. It's like, you can't do anything 

David Millili: it's frustrating. 

Jen Barnwell: Yeah. Agreed.

Steve Carran: so how do you kind of on this technology subject, how do you think the metaverse and AR VR are, are, are gonna ex gonna kinda the, the hotel and hospitality industry?

Jen Barnwell: I am gonna say no comment. I am not educated or informed about any of that. I think I have to leave it to someone younger than me to figure out. 

sorry. Definitely 

David Millili: podcast. Yeah. The podcast before this one is with Michael Cohen. Who's, you know, hospitality, AR metaverse guy. Uh metaverse Michael. Uh, so you can watch some of that. I just, I, I got feedback that I didn't smile that whole podcast from, and, and the reason why, because I was listening so intently because I didn't know anything.

I didn't know what he was talking about. Like, I'm like really that's how like, and I was, you know, and a couple people, like you looked really serious on that podcast. So today I tried extra hard to smile.

Jen Barnwell: Oh, I'm thank you for the reminder. I will watch it because I do wanna definitely get more educated about it, but I, I am not the person to opine on that. Sorry, Steve. 

Steve Carran: You're all good. You're all good. We'll come back to that one. We'll talk to you at high tech after you watch that episode and then we'll talk

Jen Barnwell: That's a good, good 

idea. 

David Millili: You can just tell people what I tell people. I know how to spell it and that's about it. I don't know nothing

Jen Barnwell: I mean, the height of the height of my technology is like, you know, my daughter has her iPad and watches stuff on it and you know, I know this is like a tangent. It is absolutely. It never fails to just surprise me. Like I have a nine month old and he's grabbing my phone and like trying to play around with like, it's so intuitive for them.

And me. I mean, I don't know when did I get my first iPhone, like 10 years ago and like, just trying to figure it out. And every time I get a new one, trying to figure it out again, but the kids pick it up like that.

David Millili: It's AMA, I mean, just two quick, funny stories, you know, I think my, my son was four. He picked up my phone and I was like, you're not gonna be able to get in there. There's a passcode. And he just looked at me and just put in the code. He had been watching me, but like my 

one son, my youngest son, it's amazing with the technology.

who's autistic. He can pick up my phone, which isn't his main communication device and find a video from like 2000 and like 13, like instantly. And you just wonder these kids they're, they're so quick, but anyway, it's crazy. they'll 

David Millili: they'll 

they'll all be in the metaverse.

Jen Barnwell: They, they don't have any patience for commercials. That's for sure. I don't think 

my daughter's ever seen one

David Millili: They don't know what it is. Uh

Steve Carran: I I'll thought I gotta be honest. I watch, uh, red zone for football and now I can't watch commercials

during football. I'm 

like, it, it ruined it for me. So I'm.

David Millili: yeah. Yeah.

Jen Barnwell: no, I

David Millili: Yeah, I do the same thing. So that's it. So we're done. So is there any, is there a question that you, we should have asked you that we didn't, anything we missed?

Jen Barnwell: don't think so. I think, um, you know, I just encourage everybody, you know, reach out to me or go to our website and reach out. I just, we like to call ourselves champions of independent hotels and it's absolutely true. It's you know, where my heart is in the industry and we're just out there trying to help independents actually that's our, our whole mission.

So any of those independent hotel owners or operators out there I'd love to hear from you.

David Millili: Absolutely. Thank you. I agree. A hundred percent. You guys are great. Thank you for being on. And that concludes, uh, the, The Modern Hotelier you're presented by. Stayflexi we thank you for being here and hope to see you again soon.