AI Won't Kill Hotels, It'll Upgrade Them with Dr. Fredrik Sjoberg

AI isn’t coming to replace hospitality, it’s coming to restore it.

In this final episode of Hospitable, host Rob Napoli sits down with Dr. Fredrik Sjoberg to explore how unified data, better hotel education, and AI-driven tools will shape the next decade of hotel innovation. As founder of Maison and a professor at NYU, Fredrik brings a rare combination of academic insight and hands-on startup execution.

From shifting guest expectations to the real problem behind “bad tech stacks,” this conversation uncovers why the future belongs to hotels that connect their systems, elevate their teams, and adopt AI as a co‑pilot, not a replacement.

🧩 Topics Covered
- Why AI will transform hotel service without removing the human touch
- How data unification unlocks real personalisation & operator advantage
- Why hospitality schools must teach business, tech & integrations
- How AI can relieve staffing shortages and operational overload
- Where hotels should begin their digital transformation journey
- Why young talent and student collaboration will drive the next wave of innovation

Whether you’re a hotel operator, tech leader, educator, or future hospitality founder, this episode breaks down the mindset and ecosystem needed to thrive in the next era of guest experience.

📢 Like, subscribe, and comment: What’s one task you’d let AI handle tomorrow?

🔗 Learn more about Maison: https://www.maison.cx
🔗 Learn more about Omniboost: https://www.omniboost.com

⏱️ Timestamps
02:45 How Gen‑Z Views Hospitality Careers
05:30 Confusion Around Hospitality Jobs
08:40 Guest-Facing Roles vs. Corporate Paths
10:55 The Future of In‑Keeping & Personality-Driven Hotels
13:50 Travel Culture, Work Flexibility & Misconceptions
16:50 How Travelers Choose Hotels Today
20:12 Community-Driven Hotels & “Hidden Neighborhoods”
23:30 Data: The Operator’s Missing Advantage
26:05 Connectivity Problems & Bad Integrations
29:35 Tech Stack for Next-Gen Hotels
33:20 Unique Concepts & Rapid Hotel Iteration
36:15 Why AI Matters for Operators
39:45 Conversational AI & Personalisation
47:00 The Future: Human Service + Digital Co‑pilots

Connect
Dr. Fredrik Sjøberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredrik-sjoberg-6851174
Maison: https://www.maison.cx
Rob Napoli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnap
Rob Napoli: https://www.robnapoli.com
Omniboost: https://www.omniboost.io

Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com

#HospitalityTech #AIinHotels #HotelTechnology #HotelInnovation #DataUnification #FutureOfHospitality #HospitalityEducation #HotelOperations #GuestExperience #ConnectedEcosystem #MaisonTech #Omniboost

Creators and Guests

Host

Rob Napoli

Rob is the Global Head of Brand at Omniboost and US Commercial Lead. He is passionate about sports, travel, and where to find the best whiskey bar in Manhattan.

Guest

Fredrik Sjoberg

Founder & CEO at Maison, NYU Faculty

What is Hospitable?

Hospitable is a podcast that discusses how to make hospitality MORE human through technology.

Hospitable focuses on discussing the leading challenges facing the hospitality industry and to explore the latest trends, technologies, and best practices that are shaping the industry. Each episode features interviews with hoteliers, restaurateurs, chefs, industry analysts, and other experts who share their insights and experiences on topics such as customer experience, sustainability, innovation, staffing, and more.

Hosted by Rob Napoli

00:01:24:24 - 00:01:28:08
Rob Napoli
How did it by the way, how did your class finish up.

00:01:28:10 - 00:01:34:20
Fredrik Sjoberg
Well yeah. No they they they they loved it. They're off for their summer break.

00:01:34:22 - 00:01:41:08
Rob Napoli
But do you have some good, like, actionable, plans from the from your class?

00:01:41:09 - 00:02:03:03
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. No, I mean, I, yeah, I wish there were like, I wish they all had, like, a free course or, you know, subscription. They could just, like, literally spin up those things. Now, there were quite a few interesting, interesting ideas. Some of them, however generic, even if I tried to make them really narrow.

00:02:03:03 - 00:02:21:20
Rob Napoli
Yeah. There's two that reached out to me. Oh, really? Yeah. One from the in-person. The one I was talking about, like, not on it, but. Yeah, kind of her name. And then, on the virtual one, when I was very engaged. Has a lot of questions. Yeah. That to catch up in the picture. She also reached out to me, had like two question follow up.

00:02:21:20 - 00:02:31:18
Rob Napoli
So that was kind of cool to see. A couple of them kind of follow up and ask some questions. So glad that the session went well. I had a lot of fun talking through it. But yeah.

00:02:31:18 - 00:02:45:22
Fredrik Sjoberg
Just know it was a fun you know, it was a fun it was a fun session. For sure. They're all, I mean, charge to navigate. Like, where are they going to end up and what part technology is going to play in their careers. Yeah. So, Yeah, that was fun.

00:02:46:03 - 00:02:52:09
Rob Napoli
So when you're teaching that course, these are the students that are in hospitality management. Is their major correct?

00:02:52:12 - 00:03:01:03
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yes. But these are undergrad, so most of them haven't worked in hotels. So they're still kind of playing around like trying to find their, their.

00:03:01:05 - 00:03:02:12
Rob Napoli
Kind of their vein of what they want to do.

00:03:02:12 - 00:03:22:17
Fredrik Sjoberg
Their thing. And I mean, you know, this industry, you know, if you take it any way you want. But certainly now with technology, there's the added layer of imagine if you were really good at articulating a product vision, you could just go and try it out, like literally just plug it into Curser and play around with it.

00:03:22:17 - 00:03:23:08
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah.

00:03:23:10 - 00:03:31:20
Rob Napoli
Would be that's new. Yeah. Would be cool. I mean and that's the thing with like the undergrad stuff is it's different because you're still learning about the industry.

00:03:31:21 - 00:03:32:08
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah.

00:03:32:10 - 00:03:46:00
Rob Napoli
And there's the basic is hospitality management of like managing a hotel. But then there's the whole you realize there's so much more to hospitality than just. And that when it goes into managing a hotel, if they want to be managers or kind of what they want to do at the hotel.

00:03:46:01 - 00:04:11:23
Fredrik Sjoberg
Sure. Well, I mean, I think the big I'm, I'm thinking about this, all these students that have I mean, they're exposed to technology, but a certain a very, a very certain kind of usability paradigm. I mean, it's all mobile. It's all swipeable you know? So, you know, a lot of it is, you know, it's voice to I mean, they're not typing, they're just saying out loud.

00:04:11:23 - 00:04:27:09
Fredrik Sjoberg
And then the machine does the typing. So in terms of their expectations of how technology should work when they enter the workspace is going to be very different from the the windows 95 kind of clunky UX paradigm that we've been living in.

00:04:27:14 - 00:04:38:14
Rob Napoli
And what's the difference between the undergrad to the grad school courses? Is it like they do it for grad school? Is that really wanting to be a hotel GM, or they wanted to go into bigger spaces? Like, how does that kind of break out of NYU?

00:04:38:15 - 00:04:58:16
Fredrik Sjoberg
I think a lot of it is, is, is they have experience and, and, that they're bringing to the table, and, and, yeah, that could be, that could be good. But it also could kind of be like a constraint factor. You know how hard it is. Yeah. Yeah. I like the the undergrads are kind of the unspoiled.

00:04:58:18 - 00:04:59:20
Fredrik Sjoberg
They're just like.

00:04:59:22 - 00:05:00:17
Rob Napoli
The they're still.

00:05:00:19 - 00:05:07:02
Fredrik Sjoberg
They know you're, you're doing this thing, you know Dells and it's like it's a great I think it's great for the industry to be challenged.

00:05:07:02 - 00:05:32:12
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I think so too. And it's really interesting because the way hospitality hospitality management probably hasn't changed a lot, only tools and tech has. But I think this new generation is really thinking about how hospitality will change in a digital age, because we're starting to see it now with checking kiosks and things of that nature. Right. But it's still early and so that's why it's kind of interesting to see from like an undergrad to a grad student.

00:05:32:12 - 00:05:37:04
Rob Napoli
And what you really don't realize is how much is in the hospitality space.

00:05:37:06 - 00:05:44:24
Fredrik Sjoberg
A lot of opportunity. But I also think that a lot of them feel.

00:05:45:01 - 00:06:10:22
Fredrik Sjoberg
I don't know if confusion or angst is the right word, but like there is this sense of what are the jobs that are going to be out there. It's one of the kind of big industries in terms of employment. But but, you know, what are the jobs and what are the ways that you could, you know, work your way up in an organization if those entry level jobs aren't there?

00:06:10:22 - 00:06:25:15
Fredrik Sjoberg
I mean, there are a lot of big kind of, kind of foundational issues for the industry. I think that especially the the undergrads are struggling with and I'm I mean, I'm just trying to lean into the opportunities, but I mean, the the challenges are real.

00:06:25:17 - 00:06:46:13
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And that's what's really unique because there's, there's the hotel management. Right. Wanting to manage or be a part of a specific hotel. There's then the chain's, what you have like large corporates and there's like the corporate side of it versus like on the ground side. There's lots of management companies, especially in the States where you own different flags.

00:06:46:13 - 00:07:04:01
Rob Napoli
And so each in a hotel runs a little bit differently based on brand standards of the flags. And so depending on where you want to get into hospitality management is that at the basic level, like being a GM or managing food and Bev, or is that at a corporate level? That's where I think it's really interesting because it all has different experiences.

00:07:04:01 - 00:07:06:16
Rob Napoli
On the experience of the guest journey.

00:07:06:18 - 00:07:07:24
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, you know for sure.

00:07:08:01 - 00:07:23:13
Rob Napoli
Like that's what I find very unique, working with different hotel groups in Europe where they're owned and they use the same tech stack across the whole portfolio versus the US, where it's major companies. They have multiple flags and a portfolio, so they have multiple brand standards, does create a little bit of unique.

00:07:23:15 - 00:07:40:06
Fredrik Sjoberg
Interesting challenge and a more fragmented, I guess in terms of the but, I don't know, I thought I find, I don't know how many students are aiming for a

00:07:40:08 - 00:08:10:15
Fredrik Sjoberg
They have a very clear mind of like a corporate career in, in hospitality. I mean, a lot of them, like traveling. They like, you know, creativity, they like to express themselves. They want to be, you know, unique. So I think the big groups, might have a challenge in attracting, like, the best talent.

00:08:10:17 - 00:08:27:14
Rob Napoli
Yeah. Because from a travel side of things, if you're working at a hotel level, you're at that hotel. Yeah, right. And the corporate level, through either the corporate office or there are certain jobs that you go out and about to do these things, and you're activating new hotels depending on the type of role. So that was also interesting.

00:08:27:16 - 00:08:35:02
Rob Napoli
The hospitality industry is like, what do you want to do and what is experience you want to have. And was the impact you wanna make because there's so many different.

00:08:35:04 - 00:09:01:15
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. But I think the big as I said, I mean, a big overarching, you know, topic that I'm trying to engage the students on is like, there are a lot of opportunities in this space, but you gotta you gotta like hospitality to be in this space, though. Those jobs that are further removed from the act of hospitality, I think they're going to be fewer.

00:09:01:17 - 00:09:31:14
Fredrik Sjoberg
While the jobs that are like literally guest facing, or if it's on the owner side, creativity kind of coming up with new concepts. I think those are interesting. That's going to be, I think a interesting new direction for the industry, really going back to the basics of like, In-Keeping. Yeah. a property in a, you know, a personality.

00:09:31:14 - 00:09:32:19
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

00:09:32:19 - 00:09:54:01
Rob Napoli
That's it. And that's the difference, too. That's why I'm so fascinated by this conversation. This topic is that when you look at the way hotels are in today, you have your experiential hotels, resorts. And those are either part of, management company or small owner operator group. They're kind of independent. That's a very different than the corporate level, where they have the same look and feel.

00:09:54:01 - 00:10:10:22
Rob Napoli
And a lot of times if you're a GM, you're working more on that foundational level at the hotel, and somebody else is kind of taking more of a technology level. And this is where that kind of that switch, where we were challenged them, when we did the session at NYU, was you got to think about that. And where are you?

00:10:10:24 - 00:10:28:00
Rob Napoli
Where are you decide to play in this space? Depends on like where your brain wants to go. Are you, you know, you want to be in front of customers all day. You want to run a hotel, you want to have that service level and that experience of working with guests, and you want to be thinking more creatively on full scale problems across the portfolio.

00:10:28:00 - 00:10:30:02
Rob Napoli
And like, that's it's going to be very unique as we move.

00:10:30:03 - 00:10:57:03
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. I think there's a I think we're entering a golden era of hospitality, but but we're going to have to figure out what machines are good at and what humans are good at. Yeah. And and and just because. You can kind of mimic machine behavior or you're really good at like copy pasting or like numbers like that's the I don't know how much of that there's going to be in hospitality going forward.

00:10:57:09 - 00:11:24:13
Fredrik Sjoberg
And and so I think it's a huge opportunity to kind of attract people to be more guest facing and or, creative, people are gonna have more time than ever to eat, travel, socialize. So I mean, very bullish on the industry. But yeah, there's also a lot of of what kind of short term anxiety I think.

00:11:24:13 - 00:11:46:20
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And it's interesting with hospitality too, is the you know, if you want to work at a hotel is it's not a traditional 9 to 5. Right. It's not Monday through Friday. They are weekends. There's different holidays, there's different kind of schedules. And that opens up the ability to be a lot more flexible, which kind of fits in with the the younger generation of wanting flexible work, different hours like we don't they don't look at weekends the same.

00:11:47:00 - 00:12:07:17
Rob Napoli
Right? The younger generations look at weeks very differently than, let's say, my generation, your generation, our our parents generation, which is like Monday through Friday, o'clock and 9 to 5, the evening hours for family of the week and short for for relaxing. And I think it's much more fluid as we go out, as we get to the younger generations who grew up in this sense of time is a little bit different, you know?

00:12:07:17 - 00:12:35:03
Fredrik Sjoberg
Right. But yeah, you're right. But I do think that. I don't know, it might just move me as a parent, but hospitalisty is really hard. Like the sacrifices that you make. It's hard work. And so yes, you'll have some flexibility, but we've always had flexibility in hospitality. You know, we're working weekends, but the idea that you have holidays off.

00:12:35:04 - 00:13:04:17
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. You know, it's such a fundamental kind of self-actualization of this next generation of like, yeah, I, I want to be traveling during the holidays and, and and, you know, post about it. No, dude, you're going to be working, you know, in a guest facing kind of high intensity role. So, so it's it's more flexibility. But the jobs that are left for, for humans are going to be they're going to be demanding jobs are fun.

00:13:04:17 - 00:13:24:11
Fredrik Sjoberg
If you're implying if you like people, you want to be around people and you want to be in a in a dynamic setting where you need to be on your feet, like, that's amazing. But but, the more kind of rigid of well managed workflows. Yeah. I don't know if that's the this is the industry for that.

00:13:24:11 - 00:13:25:20
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. If that's what you're looking for.

00:13:25:20 - 00:13:38:02
Rob Napoli
Yeah, exactly. I'm going to keep on this topic, but we're cut into kicking off episode. We are back for another episode of hospitable. We're here in New York City at the office with my friend Fredrik Solberg. So I pronounce it.

00:13:38:04 - 00:13:39:12
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, it's Doctor Solberg.

00:13:39:12 - 00:13:56:01
Rob Napoli
Doctor Schober, doctor Solberg. You and I met, for the ecosystem. Professor for hospitality management at NYU. But you're also founder of an AI hospitality tech startup. Quick intro on your background in hospitality and how you got into the space.

00:13:56:03 - 00:14:27:07
Fredrik Sjoberg
Wow. I mean, I, I, I'm a recovering operator. Started my first hotel, like, lodging operation, back, in the 90s, before the booking engines, before any of that stuff, did everything. Love it. I mean, I wanted to make money, but, Yeah, I've been in and out of operations, but also being dragged more and more into technology because you can't really operate a hotel without technology.

00:14:27:07 - 00:14:34:05
Fredrik Sjoberg
And now, of course, everything's about AI. And I was considering teaching a lot more, but now I'm ending up building a lot more.

00:14:34:05 - 00:14:57:07
Rob Napoli
So I mean, what can I do? Yeah. So. So doctor Sjoberg, we met and we did a workshop. What we're talking about is we kicked off things here, came and did a couple workshops for undergrad class, and one of their kind of cornerstone projects was how to innovate hospitality operations through technology. Right. And I thought that was really cool because we met and it kind of aligned with what we're doing at Omniboost

00:14:57:09 - 00:15:14:09
Rob Napoli
We have sitting down for coffee for like an hour and a half and came in and did two workshops and an hour here. And so I love talking about this. And you know, kind of keeping on this theme of, you know, former operator and we're talking about hotel operations. This is interesting, and it's not structured. It's not your 9 to 5.

00:15:14:09 - 00:15:36:00
Rob Napoli
And I think the young generation loves to work in hospitality. They want to travel the lifestyle. Sure of it. But also what does that mean to work in it. And you know, I know back when I was young on the radio, they always have service industry nights. Said night was always Sunday night. Right. So all those that work in hospitality had to work over the weekend, Sunday night and Monday night, where your your nights to go out and enjoy it.

00:15:36:02 - 00:16:02:11
Rob Napoli
You know, we look at holidays and you kind of bring this up. Your second ago holidays have changed. And yes, we still have cultures that have your traditional summer holidays, whatever. But I think as things progress, especially with the millenial generation having more DINKS, so dual income, no kids traveling, the nomadic lifestyle, the fact that they can work from anywhere, their remote working life, holidays aren't the same.

00:16:02:11 - 00:16:18:15
Rob Napoli
Like holidays are whenever you want to go. And what makes sense for your schedule. And I do think that that opens up the door that you have for a traditional holiday schedule where people are going to travel, which means hospitality has to be there and workers have to be there. But this idea of the holiday schedule is going to open up.

00:16:18:17 - 00:16:57:21
Fredrik Sjoberg
No, I think yeah, you're right. But that goes for both demand for like, you know, the days in between the holidays, but also supply of of workers that are going to be people there are going to be more flexible, even on holidays, because not everyone takes the holidays with the same level of seriousness. Yeah. So, I think there's a lot of opportunities still to, to match the demand for, for travel and experiences with, like, the supply for it because it's such a fundamentally human thing, you know, to be hosting a cover letter, like having people over, you know, and, and, you know, make some money on the site, like it's awesome.

00:16:57:23 - 00:16:59:05
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah.

00:16:59:07 - 00:17:14:09
Rob Napoli
As a former operator, when you travel, what are the things that you look for in a hotel when you're booking travel and you're staying at a hotel, do you have specific things that you look for at the hotel, to stay in, or do you just kind of pick closest, cheapest? Like what's your methodology?

00:17:14:11 - 00:17:42:16
Fredrik Sjoberg
That's a good that's a good question. I, I, I just got back from a trip to Dallas. First time, and I can't help myself. I have to look at the, in the hotels at the outskirts at an, you know, like an area that's kind of up and coming. And every time I go to one of these places, that Uber driver is looking at me as if I'm crazy.

00:17:42:18 - 00:18:06:22
Fredrik Sjoberg
There's no hotel here. What are you. What? Where is this place? So I started this, like, lark, property in, And, Yeah, the Brooklyn of Dallas. Absolutely awesome. And it looked like a residential area, but from the inside and from the whole experience. Absolutely. Loved it. But, yeah, I mean, I didn't get any loyalty points for that.

00:18:06:22 - 00:18:32:08
Fredrik Sjoberg
I booked direct, you know, I, I, I don't mind doing a little bit of, research when I go, even if it's just like an In-N-Out corporate stay. I know it's not for everyone, but I, I yeah, I am, I'm be like, yeah, it's kind of like a professional kind of house type of thing.

00:18:32:08 - 00:18:33:00
Fredrik Sjoberg
I just have.

00:18:33:00 - 00:18:49:02
Rob Napoli
It's also your Brooklyn mentality. Right. Perfectly. When you're Brooklyn has. Oh, yeah, I do it. You know, I ask this question because I'm similar, like depending on what I'm going for, whether it's work or kind of personal. If I have the opportunity to be in City Center, I always love to be, like, in the heart of it.

00:18:49:02 - 00:19:04:23
Rob Napoli
Yes. The New Yorker on me. Like I love being in the middle of it. But there are certain areas where I like finding kind of the up and coming areas. When I was in Greece, we in Athens, we stayed, right in the city center. But then we went explored outside. I was like, wow, this is the place I want to stay.

00:19:04:23 - 00:19:14:09
Rob Napoli
And next time I'm here, stay in this neighborhood. The up and coming part in the experience, that's all I like. Write a mental checklist. I went back in Athens. I want to stay in this part of the city.

00:19:14:11 - 00:19:30:22
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, it's funny, I, I don't, yeah. Whenever I'm going to say I don't really move around a lot, you know, that's why I want to pick the hotel in the area that that where I could kind of. You're going to be. We're to be. Because, I mean, you're out all day. I mean, especially if it's like, work.

00:19:30:22 - 00:19:55:15
Fredrik Sjoberg
So it's, you know, you got the window in the evening, you know, you know, perhaps a dinner, you know, breakfast the day after. There's only so much time you have to spend. So, so, Yeah. No, I mean, finding those gems. And I actually, a lot of times I reach out to the operator to, I just want to talk to the owner or the operator to learn about, like, what's going on and what were you thinking?

00:19:55:15 - 00:19:56:22
Fredrik Sjoberg
And, you know, it's kind of chit chat.

00:19:57:00 - 00:20:15:02
Rob Napoli
So it's quite interesting to see where things play out because like for when we went to, I went to London with, my twin brother and our significant others,, and we actually stayed kind of on the outskirts, kind of over by the shard, but right on a subway line. So when I look up places, I always want to be honest, some of the things I don't mind traveling the whole city as long as I have a quick access to.

00:20:15:04 - 00:20:15:10
Fredrik Sjoberg
Know for.

00:20:15:10 - 00:20:32:10
Rob Napoli
Sure. And so I'm always kind of picking like hotels and places to stay based off that, so we can kind of enjoy a certain area, whether that's city center or like a really cool district, but then have quick access to be able to explore the full city. So I'm always kind of looking at, you know, what is accessibility?

00:20:32:14 - 00:20:55:06
Fredrik Sjoberg
But I mean, it is funny nowadays how Uber made it so that, I mean, the logistics of it, you know, the hassle is kind of gone, you can move around. Sure. In a city like London, you know, prefer the subway. I mean, I used to live there, but I show up in, in, in Texas and everything's new to me in Dallas.

00:20:55:08 - 00:21:25:14
Fredrik Sjoberg
But the Uber experience, like, I, I don't need that to be exciting. I just want to get from point A to B and I get to talk to the person. But it doesn't need to be like, I don't I don't need to cognitively be engaged with like, scheduling or, or bus tickets or like anything like that. And I find that that's just, reduces the friction of going, you know, a perhaps deeper into some interesting neighborhoods where that you wouldn't go.

00:21:25:14 - 00:21:27:21
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, I've gone because they work on the subway.

00:21:28:02 - 00:21:43:22
Rob Napoli
But I also think about that from from the experience level. Right, is hotels can have experiences outside of city center and different things because it is so easy to get there. You don't need to have used to have a map, and you had to do everything on a physical map, and you had to make sure get a bus ticket or a transportation lined up.

00:21:43:22 - 00:22:01:17
Rob Napoli
And now it's like we could just go whenever. Whether you wake up at 6 a.m. or 10 a.m., you have ability to get anywhere you want and go explore and have that experience. Because we think about hospitality. The one thing I love about this industry, especially from a hotel standpoint, is hotels are part of the community, right? Well, that's the beauty out there.

00:22:01:17 - 00:22:19:21
Rob Napoli
They provide jobs, they bring in business, they bring in new people, they bring in experiences, and they they're there to really uplift the community, whether that's a block in New York City or that's a small town in Iowa. It's there to provide an experience and bring in business for the wider community. So it's part of that community and needs to be ran as such.

00:22:19:23 - 00:22:35:03
Rob Napoli
And it gives operators and management companies and chains the ability to put hotels in locations they may not have thought of before, because you're trying to stay close to city center, because that's where all the action is now. The action is everywhere, and you have much more ability to create a lot of really great experiences.

00:22:35:05 - 00:22:54:01
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. No, no. For sure. No, I mean, that's where I like I mean, I if I pick a property that's cool. Got great, reviews, and, and has, you know, enough of an offering around it so I can just show up there and I know there's a bar and, oh, there's a coffee shop. I know there's like, you know, some basic food and beverage.

00:22:54:02 - 00:23:03:24
Fredrik Sjoberg
If even if it's not right by, like a strip of restaurants. But. Yeah. No, no. The Madison, I recommend it. Dallas. Dallas is cool, I love it.

00:23:04:01 - 00:23:12:01
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I, I've been to Dallas a few times, so that's fine. It's a big city. A lot going on, a lot of traffic. But it's it's super unique in its own way.

00:23:12:03 - 00:23:17:19
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. No, I like I know I loved it. Yeah, I had probably had too much beef. But yeah. No, it's a cool place.

00:23:17:19 - 00:23:40:01
Rob Napoli
So we talk about, you know, being a former operator, you know, talking about connectivity when you were running hotels was very different right now. Technology has been crazy. And I know that you post a lot of videos on your LinkedIn when you do experiences at hotels, taking your class to, to CVS, and you're looking at PMS as a connectivity, how has, you know, has that changed your view on operations?

00:23:40:01 - 00:23:54:16
Rob Napoli
Like, you know, you always love to talk, go talk to them. But like when you're when you're looking at this idea of connectivity in hotel operations, how has it changed your view? Because it feels like you were an operator, then you were a teacher, and now you're kind of dragged back into a day to day operations that you're a founder of a company doing this stuff.

00:23:54:16 - 00:24:00:20
Rob Napoli
How do you look at it? How has that changed in your eyes? And what's so unique about this idea of connectivity in the hospitality space?

00:24:00:22 - 00:24:48:07
Fredrik Sjoberg
It's, it's a good question. I, I am. I still don't think that operators realize quite how useful the data can be, because they can't easily access the data. So, so, I mean, in my mind, it's been clear for a very long time. Not not when I started in the 90s because there was like, we didn't even have a PMS, you know, much less a booking engine, you know, but I think, we're in this interesting moment right now where people talk about data and about, what you could do with data, but.

00:24:48:09 - 00:25:19:09
Fredrik Sjoberg
Even if there's a lot of talk about it and you kind of intuitively understand how the data could be used to personalize the experience or for like, you know, reporting or optimizing, you know, purposes for like revenue management, whatever it is, it's still quite fragmented and there aren't a lot of really kind of mindblowing use cases where it's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that you were able to stitch those get data sources together to turn into something that's really kind of production ready, industrial kind of.

00:25:19:09 - 00:25:52:03
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, it's a lot of it is still, I find, just kind of previewing what you could do if you were to connect, the different data sources. But, I mean, the people that get into hospitality aren't, always the most data driven technical people. So, so we have this like, underlying, kind of like foundational shift going on in terms of data availability, where we're cloud was the one that really pushed it.

00:25:52:05 - 00:26:09:01
Fredrik Sjoberg
And now we have this like group of operators that aren't quite sure. And then there's the the vendors that jump into the space and to sort of they demo a lot that, you know, but it's it's early days, man. Yeah. Like it's early days. It is.

00:26:09:01 - 00:26:24:16
Rob Napoli
And it's interesting from a data standpoint, everyone thinks that AI is going to fix it and and it's going to help. But at the end of the day, data is only as good as the data coming out of it's good data that it can be used. If it's bad data, it's going to be bad out right bad in bad out good and get out.

00:26:24:18 - 00:26:48:11
Rob Napoli
And this is where there's so much technology and hospitality from OTAs to booking engines to PMS, accounting, rev management, all these things, they don't all play nice in the sandbox. And so how do you actually leverage, a connectivity layer that makes that seamless? And then how do you leverage that into actually utilizing your data. And do you have ownership of your data?

00:26:48:11 - 00:27:05:21
Rob Napoli
Do you not? You know, you have big brands that have the franchisee model. So they have oversight of some of the data, but they don't have the day to day. And this is where it's it's just scratching the surface of what can be done. And it goes back to this kind of fundamental question of hospitality is always first and foremost, going to be human.

00:27:05:23 - 00:27:27:22
Rob Napoli
But how does technology and machines, etc. impact that to offset some of the mundane, repetitive stuff so that humans can be more hospitable and do more things? And where does that kind of rub happen? I think everyone's kind of scared. Everyone's looking at it, everyone's excited. But it's a very unique situation of where we sit for the hospitality industry and what the end of the day.

00:27:27:22 - 00:27:30:19
Rob Napoli
Hospitality still needs to be hospitable and you still need people.

00:27:30:21 - 00:27:55:03
Fredrik Sjoberg
To know, but I mean, I think we're going to go back to the basics of this industry. You know, I don't know what's the equivalent, like man with a van. I mean, you just have a property and you have a personality that's a pet. Whatever. You know, you need, to be physically present in a property to deliver, you know, hospitality.

00:27:55:05 - 00:28:13:21
Fredrik Sjoberg
And your service concept can vary. You know, the distribution and the pricing and the accounting and the payments, like all of that stuff, I think is just going to be in the background. The operator it's not going to be in front of a screen. The operator is going to be on their feet. That's what hospitality always was.

00:28:13:22 - 00:28:42:06
Fredrik Sjoberg
Absolutely. But so then what needs to happen in terms of the tech stack for it to be truly interoperable? I think most hoteliers aren't really quite able to articulate what it would even take. Yeah, because they're only now getting comfortable with like a modern PMS kind of cloud based PMS. And now we're already taking them away from them.

00:28:42:08 - 00:29:11:14
Fredrik Sjoberg
I mean, it's it's so I think we're just kind of scratching the surface of what it could be. But I do think that it's going to be easier than ever to, open a hotel and to manage a hotel really professionally. All you need is, you know, essentially personality, creativity and, and and and presence. And then the rest can be kind of stitched together in a, you know, in a kind of almost it's, you know, kind of, you know, hidden fashion.

00:29:11:14 - 00:29:14:02
Fredrik Sjoberg
And that's where all these like, integration layers come in.

00:29:14:04 - 00:29:38:14
Rob Napoli
And that's what that connectivity, the integration layer becomes truly dynamic. If you have the right systems and the automation is there, that that seems kind of connectivity, which only as right that automation layer, you can actually leverage that to having a single source of truth. In fact, we actually just announced that we have our kind of new look and feel from our data warehouse product into, single source of truth for the unification layer.

00:29:38:14 - 00:29:58:15
Rob Napoli
And dashboarding, where you have all the data right at your fingertips to really look at it from a strategic level, from a day to day up versus kind of your sea level operations. And that's that's where this becomes really interesting, because it can run automatically on integrations on every day. You don't have to do manual work reducing that.

00:29:58:17 - 00:30:13:24
Rob Napoli
But you look at it, you do the reconciliation you have that day to day on day. So you can actually leverage that information to improve your day to day operations. That that that human interaction can be more impactful with the right system set up and the right kind of process.

00:30:14:05 - 00:30:15:10
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, I have for sure.

00:30:15:12 - 00:30:35:04
Rob Napoli
And that's where these modern hoteliers need a really understand what that looks like. And then you brought this point about like having a presence and personality know there's the difference between the hotels that are being built with a very distinct look feel, vibe, experience. But then you have your kind of corporate hotels, your chains that have the same look and feel.

00:30:35:04 - 00:30:37:04
Rob Napoli
And how do you think that's going to change as the.

00:30:37:05 - 00:31:01:13
Fredrik Sjoberg
I think it's going to be hard to I mean, you're in any product category, you're going to have the, you know, the kind of the commodified space, you know, but the question is like, where do you want to compete? Do you want to compete with like prize with a commodified product? Or do you want to, you know, find a niche, get some more pricing power?

00:31:01:15 - 00:31:16:12
Fredrik Sjoberg
You know, build a brand, you know, you know, lean into experiences like the things where the profit margin can be greater. And it's also, you know, I mean, a lot of people feel like it's it's it's what excites them. But there's going to be both. Yeah.

00:31:16:14 - 00:31:29:00
Rob Napoli
I mean, there's brands that you have to have that are like the same look and feel and they're there and you know what you're going to get when you step into. And then you have this other. And I think that's what's gonna be interesting too, is, you know, we transition from kind of quiet luxury to luxury out loud.

00:31:29:02 - 00:31:30:23
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. Meaning no, that's a good point.

00:31:30:23 - 00:31:47:22
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And you have the timeless minimalist, right. Like you know, my wife's a designer, for a an architect design firm that is very, like, timeless. And they're and they're look, feel and style. But then you have the ones that are going to really be in the moment of now. And then how do they iterate like they do they stay funky and fresh from the 60s and 70s.

00:31:47:22 - 00:32:00:22
Rob Napoli
Do you kind of make that retro look? Do you have something new that kind of iterates over time? Do you build like a, you know, botanical garden in the middle of it? Like I was at the Bellagio, and they have that botanical garden thing in the middle. I, you know, it's just crazy to think, what is that going to look like?

00:32:00:22 - 00:32:19:20
Rob Napoli
You know, in terms of hotels with a certain vibe and experience and how they play in with a wider portfolio versus is, you know, you have properties in hotels, like in Montana and Wyoming and in Colorado that are seasonal and they are like four rooms, that's for sure. And then you have like a longer gas station out there for 1 or 2 days.

00:32:19:20 - 00:32:44:20
Rob Napoli
You're there for a week. How is that going to plan? All these things make a really cool piece because there's there is those different segments. There's, you know, basic all the way through upper upscale and you have unique. I think that's where where this idea of hospitality management can be really fun. And the operator is it management companies, you can have some really interesting things to do is looking at new properties versus acquiring properties versus building and what that looks like.

00:32:44:20 - 00:33:20:19
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. But I think standing out with like, you know, trying to be unique is always going to be, appealing. And then eventually, you know, there's going to be consolidation and it's going to be watered down standardization. But then the cycle starts anew. I think with these new technologies now, it's going to be easier to iterate. You can spin up, quite a unique concept, perhaps it's a hotel with a co-working thing on top, and it's got like a, you know, like a whatever, like a spa element or some kind of experience element there.

00:33:20:19 - 00:33:50:18
Fredrik Sjoberg
And in terms of a tech stack to make that a seamless kind of bookable, product suite like that was a nightmare. But now you can start stitching, you know, the, the different systems together so that you could just kind of spin this thing up. And perhaps it's, it's, I don't know, like, you know, a glamping and, and, you know, just out in a field, like, I think lowering the bar for experimentation is going to be good for humanity.

00:33:50:18 - 00:33:57:15
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, because we're going to be looking for things that makes it makes us feel human.

00:33:57:17 - 00:34:12:16
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And with with, connected cloud based systems and having the integration layer and all these things, you can also put hotels and remote places where you can have these experiences. You could actually bring them apart and do some really cool things and open up for so many more.

00:34:12:18 - 00:34:40:16
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. But I also, I'm going back to the Uber example, like the logistics hurdle, you know, we're robotaxis. We're going to be make the world's going to be accessible. So in terms of real estate to like, you don't need to be paying a premium. You know, you find an a unique spot with a unique concept with a kind of interoperable kind of easy to use tech stack gets you off the ground.

00:34:40:18 - 00:35:17:00
Fredrik Sjoberg
And and then you start iterating. And especially if you come from, like the tech tech kind of or like hospitality tech, you know, hybrid world, in the technology world, it's all about iteration. In hospitality, the development cycles have I mean, if you've opened hotels, it's insane timeline that you go through with all the permanent everything. And I think we're entering this new era where, where why would you want to open up a high rise hotel in a regulated market like New York, when you can, in the time it takes you to just take that, you get the permit.

00:35:17:00 - 00:35:35:02
Fredrik Sjoberg
You could have tried out like 12 different concepts in one in the Catskills, one out on the North Fork, one in Jersey, to kind of get a feel for whether that's going to be the product, instead of waiting for the five year development cycle to be wrapped up, and then you're like, oh, well, corporate travel is out. Yeah.

00:35:35:03 - 00:35:52:04
Rob Napoli
It's going to be it's going to be unique. You know, we talk about connectivity and this tech stack. And then the kind of the next phase is what can I do? I know that, you know, you brought up that you were kind of brought back in to being more and instead of teaching full time or being brought back in and you start up a startup in the air space.

00:35:52:05 - 00:36:01:08
Rob Napoli
What what is AI? How is that going to change? What do you see really happening with AI in the hospitality space today? And then kind of future?

00:36:01:14 - 00:36:24:14
Fredrik Sjoberg
It's a it's a good question. And I mean, the honest answer is, we don't know. But we've got a feel for the amount of work that you do, the amount of busywork that that you do at a hotel. I mean, the night out, it might be a good example, like a canonical example of something that.

00:36:24:16 - 00:36:29:07
Fredrik Sjoberg
We're going to look at and go like, wait, a machine could do that better than a human.

00:36:29:07 - 00:36:30:00
Rob Napoli
Or an integration.

00:36:30:01 - 00:37:03:07
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. Well, yeah. But but yeah, I mean, that mindset, we don't know where this is going to end up. So I just want to build, I want to build a product into this space. We launched, conversational AI agent, embedded, hotel websites where, if you have specific questions before your book, we're going to look back at hotel websites as these like static.

00:37:03:09 - 00:37:31:19
Fredrik Sjoberg
Tools that didn't really address the pain points of the customers. Sure. There were like booking engines where you could scroll through images and you could get like a price calendar. But if you want to know about the allergens, the breakfast buffet, if you want to know about accessibility of your suite or if you want to know, you know basics about the pet policy, it's insane how deep into the hotel website you need to go to find that information.

00:37:31:20 - 00:37:55:00
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. So you could call, right? You could call the hotel and ask some people like that. Some people might even prefer that. I think a lot of people might be a generational thing. A lot of people, I think, would just rather have that information. So, yeah, you know, we built into that, it's funny, like it's going literally left, right and center.

00:37:55:02 - 00:38:19:12
Fredrik Sjoberg
But anyone asking me, okay, so what's your vision or where is this going to end up? I mean, I mean, the honest answer is we don't know. I mean, you just add features on top of this, both guests facing and kind of operator tools. We don't know. But there's certainly a lot of workflows, that are, could be improved by automation and, and and personalization.

00:38:19:15 - 00:38:35:22
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And I think that's what's kind of unique is everyone is using AI and are talking about it. But what does that actually mean? And a lot of times AI isn't real AI right now. Like it's still having a scratch service of implementing. So conversational AI, a tool like that that I can just easily use, we want to text.

00:38:35:22 - 00:38:51:06
Rob Napoli
You want to be able to do quick things, especially the millennial Gen Z, right? They don't want to, they didn’t grow up on the phone. Right. They know for sure. And you're right. A lot of these websites are very static or they're hard to find information. How do I find it quicker, faster so we can make decisions for waiting to evaluate?

00:38:51:08 - 00:39:08:02
Rob Napoli
You know, I I've actually played around with ChatGPT and actually having a plan a trip for me just to see what it comes up with. And it's it's amazing what you can do and how you can optimize without doing hours and hours of research like you had to do when you're visiting a new city to simplifying that from hours and hours to two hours for sure.

00:39:08:04 - 00:39:26:08
Rob Napoli
Agenda, and then finding a place, you know, Airbnb got really big. They have Verbo but then crackdown on on that as well. And the hotels are kind of coming back of a very unique experience where you can actually because sometimes the hard part about the hotel is you just have a bed, maybe a little desk and maybe a little fridge, but you don't.

00:39:26:10 - 00:39:30:22
Rob Napoli
It doesn't feel like some are, and you're not meant to stay in your hotel room all the time. Right? That's kind of the idea is kind of what they get.

00:39:30:22 - 00:39:31:20
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:39:31:22 - 00:39:48:04
Rob Napoli
To live in the city. But we also want to be able to have a place that doesn't feel like for in that room where we're doing it wrong, you want to actually feel relaxed. And so the hotel experience has changed, and AI tools are going to really help people be able to maximize what they're looking for.

00:39:48:06 - 00:39:48:14
Fredrik Sjoberg
Oh for.

00:39:48:14 - 00:40:05:19
Rob Napoli
Sure. And an experience. Right? Not just from the the location of the hotel, but the whole ecosystem around it. Like if I want to stay at this hotel in this part of the city, what's around it that I can do within five minute walk, 15 minute walk and what, you know, what other things am I missing in the city if I stay in the Brooklyn of Dallas versus downtown Dallas?

00:40:05:19 - 00:40:25:19
Fredrik Sjoberg
Oh, for sure. And I think a lot of that is going to come down to like the good operators are going to be working hard on like curated content. And how do they display that to their customer and the guest pool, efficiently. And it's travel, after all. So there are a lot of people that come in with a different language.

00:40:25:19 - 00:41:00:12
Fredrik Sjoberg
And if you can have if you can have an AI concierge that really kind of cloned like the best concierge that you have. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you don't need to have someone, you know, scouting for, like, nice, you know, kind of curated content. But if you feed that into a bot that you can customize yourself as an operator, it immediately gives it, you know, it makes it this whole world that you're talking about, not only the bed, but the actual whole service landscape.

00:41:00:12 - 00:41:21:01
Fredrik Sjoberg
It opens that up to to people before they book and throughout your stay in a way that I think we're going to look back at this and go like, oh my God, imagine what you had, like printouts in the room, say you had like TV screen with like some different channels and information. I think that's a great win.

00:41:21:03 - 00:41:40:06
Fredrik Sjoberg
So I mean, that's what we're trying to, to, to build and it's early days, but, but, but yeah, hotels seem to love it. Like, they love that idea. It's a very intuitive idea that fits well with like, the hospitality mindset. It's like service giving this information in an easy, accessible format in all languages. Yeah.

00:41:40:06 - 00:41:58:09
Rob Napoli
And you're going to still need your like, high level concierges to get like certain tickets or certain experiences. Right. But for the for the basic traveler and I talked earlier about hotels are part of the community. So being able to have a conversational AI tool that also says, hey, you're going to be here for five days, here's things around town that you should know about it.

00:41:58:10 - 00:42:19:12
Rob Napoli
Think about New York City is a little different. This so big thing about the hotel. And, you know, let's say small town Iowa, an Ames College town or Iowa City, and you're there for for a week for a game, visiting your kid at college or something. And you want to also explore kind of the hidden gems of a small town in the Midwest or somewhere around the world.

00:42:19:12 - 00:42:39:18
Rob Napoli
And you could ask, you know why I'm here? I have three days to do x, y, z. I really love coffee, museums, etc. what's in the air and having conversation? It's like, well, actually, if you stay here, you have this, this and this within a ten minute commute to also do and you can add this to your agenda here and actually help you build out an experience that you're not just going with that one thing, are you going for that one thing in mind?

00:42:39:18 - 00:42:49:18
Rob Napoli
But now you have five other things that you can do to fill your time, to have a full experience so you don't feel like, okay, I'm just going here to see this person do this one thing, but now you have a whole itinerary of things.

00:42:49:18 - 00:43:26:03
Fredrik Sjoberg
You can't know. But I think, I mean, I think, I think what's going to happen is that you I mean, the foundational models that open AIs of the world are going to be providing these type of services. But there's going to be ads embedded into that flow. So so I think if the hotels can own and control that narrative, I mean, it's like the analogy would be imagine a hotel like a full service, ambitious hotel operator that would outsource there a concierge tool to like Google. no, they want to control the products that they're putting in front of their, their their customers, their guests.

00:43:26:03 - 00:43:47:12
Fredrik Sjoberg
They want to control the recommendations that want to partner up for promotions and all of that stuff. That's the kind of stuff that the foundational models aren't going to be. Yeah, be, you know, giving up and certainly not giving out for free. So if the hotels have a tool that allows them to communicate in all languages to their own guests, perhaps some of that content is gated.

00:43:47:14 - 00:44:12:06
Fredrik Sjoberg
So you need to have a booking to kind of get access to it. But that becomes this. Like this, like ongoing dialog between the guest and the operator on the operators term without like ads or, or or any, any, any other, kind of considerations injected into that conversation. It's just what the operator wants you to experience.

00:44:12:06 - 00:44:27:19
Rob Napoli
And you can also build that experience based on if you know that your hotel gets mostly business travel, you don't want to be like, oh, go see your show. They're here for business. Hey, if you're want to do a client meeting, here's five restaurants we recommend that are perfect for meetings with clients. Like you can also create that to know what your guest is.

00:44:27:19 - 00:44:30:22
Rob Napoli
So if you have the data on what your guest is or who your guest is and how long they stay.

00:44:30:22 - 00:44:31:14
Fredrik Sjoberg
Exactly.

00:44:31:15 - 00:44:47:20
Rob Napoli
You can then train that model to to really provide the experience they want. If it's, it's, out-of-town guest that's their for pleasure versus business. They have a whole different track of information that you can give from an operator level to different partnerships that things to the community. So you're you're curating to business travel or the.

00:44:47:21 - 00:45:25:17
Fredrik Sjoberg
For sure that hyper personalization that we all been talking about for forever. I think it's closer than you think. You plug in your conversational agent into your CRM. You know, you provide a very user friendly tool to the operator to be able to essentially, you know, monitor and set the boundaries and hand over a little bit more and more autonomy to this engine that can personalize, you know, the stay and that's that's how I think we're finally and, the kind of the, the we're finally seeing what that would look like.

00:45:25:19 - 00:45:30:06
Fredrik Sjoberg
But yeah, it's early days. I mean, it could go a bunch of different ways, but,

00:45:30:08 - 00:45:41:04
Rob Napoli
Yeah. Because I also, if they own their tooling, right, they can also filter and data that they own to help it provide recommendations or leverage things that an open platform wouldn't be able to do. Right.

00:45:41:04 - 00:45:42:00
Fredrik Sjoberg
Because you know for sure.

00:45:42:00 - 00:46:07:02
Rob Napoli
And that's that's where I think this gets really unique and interesting and how this continues to, to play in the hospitality space and high performance location versus personalization, personalization at scale, but also from a marketing standpoint, leveraging this to make data driven decisions on marketing to your target audience. Because some hotels are meant for short stays in and out, high turnover, some are meant for a lot, and you can actually take all that.

00:46:07:02 - 00:46:32:04
Rob Napoli
So there's different levels, the data from the connectivity layer to make good data driven decisions on operations. Then the next layer of making data driven decisions from operations to marketing to our target audience, then experiences to our target audience. And then you create this full funnel where the experience feels intuitive and each guest feels like they were heard and they unique, and they have this unique experience that's kind of one of one versus one of many.

00:46:32:06 - 00:47:09:05
Fredrik Sjoberg
I mean, I, I'm quite convinced and it might be. Considered kind of, you know, utopian, but I'm quite convinced, Rob, that we are going to be in the future, in the near future, when you call a hotel and you say, talk to Agent, what you mean is talk to an AI agent because the agents, are going to be empowered to work more efficiently in nine out of ten of your kind of, you know, cases.

00:47:09:05 - 00:47:10:17
Fredrik Sjoberg
There might be edge cases for sure.

00:47:10:17 - 00:47:11:07
Rob Napoli
Yeah, you're going to have a.

00:47:11:07 - 00:47:32:07
Fredrik Sjoberg
Weird refund thing or, or or, you know, a, a say like a cancellation or a line item in an invoice that you want to dispute, like there will be cases like that. But in nine out of ten, you just want to know, is there early check in, how much is it? Can I connect these two rooms or not?

00:47:32:08 - 00:47:55:13
Fredrik Sjoberg
Can we get an extra bit like the basic requests that quite now quite hard to do right now? Even in the more kind of forward leaning booking engines. So I think we're entering this world where you are going to allow the machines to take care of nine out of ten of these cases, the operators are going to have full visibility into, you know, how the system works.

00:47:55:15 - 00:48:16:13
Fredrik Sjoberg
You know, to set the boundary conditions for how the system should operate. And, the role of, of that, the operator is going to be essentially, more guest facing and the system part is just going to be more just tracking what the system does. And that's that's a good thing. I think it's good thing for the guests.

00:48:16:13 - 00:48:38:19
Fredrik Sjoberg
It's a good thing for the operators. It lowers the bar for entry into this industry that at times can feel slightly intimidating. Very much does it GM do? Well, I mean, if you have a couple of digital GM copilots with you, I mean, yeah, it could be the difference between do you want to do this business or no.

00:48:38:19 - 00:48:39:07
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah.

00:48:39:09 - 00:49:09:02
Rob Napoli
And you know, we always talk about AI is going to take jobs away. And that to an extent yes. But it's going to but I is here to do. And with this automation, all these things do is that it makes your ability to have human interaction as much more. And so you can focus on bigger things. So if you have something like conversational AI tool that can handle up to 40, 50% of like your tier one basic questions, so that only time that you actually talking to human are on these kind of specific escalations, then you actually have a much more operational, efficient team, processes.

00:49:09:02 - 00:49:26:21
Rob Napoli
But also you have more people that can focus on other parts of their business where you can actually drive revenue versus just answering questions all the time. And this is where the, you know, AI. And so these automation tools can really help focus on taking away from those, those basic things that just kind of clog up your normal.

00:49:26:23 - 00:49:55:17
Fredrik Sjoberg
Busy work at this industry. Some I mean, the industry is full of it. And it depends on the concept. Right. Like certain service concepts really want you to engage in person for everything you do. But there are people, even at high end resorts, that just want their key. They don't want to have that conversation about. So I think it's it can't be in this industry and be service minded without giving the options to the guest.

00:49:55:20 - 00:50:21:11
Fredrik Sjoberg
Some. If you want to chat and you want to chat in your own language and just get immediate responses, hi and or or or or or kind of any level of hotel are going to have these tools available. And that doesn't mean that you are placing all the humans, especially at the high end, you know, properties because they, as you say, they're going to be doing more valuable things for those cases where it really matters.

00:50:21:11 - 00:50:48:12
Fredrik Sjoberg
If it's a human. I'm actually quite bullish on call center sales. I mean, it's I mean, I'm like leaning into AI full stop. I don't think reservation departments really, you know, are here to stay. But meeting and events, sales, human call centers with agents that have actually been on site, they know the product. They know the, the the, the property and they know the target segment.

00:50:48:12 - 00:51:14:23
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. Those humans that have a unique personality too, I think they can add a lot. So like figuring out under what conditions are humans better doing certain things and what what conditions are machines better? I think we're going to find some really interesting hybrids. Yeah. Where I mean, I'm not pretending that I know where this is going, but it's going to be an interesting conversation to have.

00:51:14:23 - 00:51:23:02
Fredrik Sjoberg
And the hotel groups, you know, high end or medium kind of scale that are experimenting, they're going to reap the benefits.

00:51:23:05 - 00:51:38:03
Rob Napoli
Yeah. It's interesting because I was at, you know, there's some hotels that are leaning into, digital check in like a one person, but everyone kind of checks in and you don't really need to talk to a human. Some still have an old school, but I was in Vegas, for their annual conference.

00:51:38:08 - 00:51:57:07
Rob Napoli
And we sat at the Bellagio and the Bellagio had check out kiosks, but no check in. And so the line was so long. And for a hotel and Vegas, where they want to get you to go spend money as quickly as possible. The line I was in, a line that was short, like maybe 10, 12 people, had to wait 30 minutes to get to check in.

00:51:57:09 - 00:52:13:12
Rob Napoli
And I remember coming back and that line snaked around five, six times thinking, that's probably an hour and a half. They had five people up front. Think about if you can optimize to those. I just want to come in and check in really quickly and not talking to anybody, I just check in and boom, boom, get their key, go check into their room and then get to the, gambling floor to the restaurant.

00:52:13:14 - 00:52:20:19
Rob Napoli
The the money that each guest spends is going to be higher because they're not waiting for an hour to get checked then. And this is.

00:52:20:20 - 00:52:51:12
Fredrik Sjoberg
For optionality, like some people and a lot of hotels actually want to have that human connection at the at the front desk with their guests because it's an opportunity to upsell. It's an opportunity to build that connection. But to argue for this industry, to argue that checking someone in is a service, I mean, we're that's over. Like it's not a service in most cases for you to ask for the documents that the person has already provided when they booked.

00:52:51:12 - 00:53:16:09
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. Like and to fill in forms in paper. We're, we're, we're for good reasons being pushed to rethink some of those workflows. Yeah. But I think the, the good hotels are going to allow for optionality. And it's going to be more of a kind of a, an introduction to the property in a more concierge type of, of, of, of a way which some people might want to bypass.

00:53:16:11 - 00:53:33:16
Fredrik Sjoberg
And that's all about optionality. You know, we're all individuals, have individual needs. And I'm excited about that because that that to me breaks up these like rigid ways of doing things and, and and, and and and operators that are leaning into these can, can take market share.

00:53:33:18 - 00:53:50:09
Rob Napoli
And I'm, I love the optionality because sometimes I want to just get in and get out. And so now I like going to the desk and having a conversation when I get there after. It's actually funny enough, when I travel a long distance, I actually like when I go to Europe and over and I actually like getting to like check in and talk to somebody.

00:53:50:12 - 00:54:04:10
Rob Napoli
I kind of gets me into the flow of like that time zone versus like when I travel, out to the west Coast. I kind of just want to get checked in and get moving. Right. It's a little bit different. Yeah. I don't even like optionality from when I go to our headquarters. I stay at the same hotel I've been.

00:54:04:14 - 00:54:27:12
Rob Napoli
I always stay at the same hotel. I like it, but I get to a point where they always offer breakfast. And like, for me, one of the things I love about hotels. Now for breakfast in the room rate, I'm always looking for that. So that to me is an immediate like big thing for me. And last time I was there that last time, a couple of times before, but I leverage just now before I was there one time, they're like, oh, as I'm checking out really early, I maybe I gotta get on the road to go catch my flight.

00:54:27:12 - 00:54:41:19
Rob Napoli
I gotta leave here at 530. It's before breakfast opens up. I know that you say that the front desk doesn't matter. What's the plan? Is that, like, actually, you know, just come on down. Once they check you out, we have a, person that handles overnight. Also, if you want, we can do a bag breakfast. It's like, really?

00:54:41:21 - 00:54:57:03
Rob Napoli
So now and I usually go when I leave. I always leave early in the morning. So now they actually give me a bag breakfast and a cup of coffee on my way out the door. So I. Tom, I'm checking out at 530. They have a bag breakfast with a cup of coffee waiting for me. And it's like that to me is amazing because they took that time.

00:54:57:05 - 00:55:05:05
Rob Napoli
I brought that up once and they noticed that that was always, oh for sure, for sure. And like that's why I love that optionality. I got to talk to somebody and they saw that and they realized that like, hey, we can do this for you.

00:55:05:07 - 00:55:05:24
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah.

00:55:06:01 - 00:55:19:02
Rob Napoli
It's been a game changer. And I go every six weeks, I stay at the same hotel every time I come back like, oh, Rob, you're back. And even the bartender is like, oh, Mr. Napoli, you're back. I like that. I love that, you know, and she always knows what she knows. When I sit on the bar. I don't even ask anymore of me.

00:55:19:02 - 00:55:29:18
Rob Napoli
That first beer. Like, she just knows I've been in enough time and like, those those things that you want to have when you travel kind of more heavily versus maybe not. And that's that optionality. Having that there is a big difference. Not a.

00:55:29:19 - 00:55:30:15
Fredrik Sjoberg
For sure for.

00:55:30:15 - 00:55:32:11
Rob Napoli
Sure getting here.

00:55:32:13 - 00:55:58:17
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah. No, no for sure. No no it's it's yeah. It's funny, I was just staying at this other property in Dallas. Young group of owners, first time hotel operators, and and I had no idea I was one of the cheapest hotels around, but I wanted to try it out because. Because, it was close to the venue where it had to be.

00:55:58:17 - 00:56:15:19
Fredrik Sjoberg
But it's also like in, in a in a block in the city that was, not even up and coming. So I'm like, wait, that's interesting. Why would you open a hotel there? So, I had no idea. I didn't know if it was going to be like, you know, kiosk check in or complete self-service, anything.

00:56:15:21 - 00:56:42:23
Fredrik Sjoberg
I as I approach this building, you know, big windows and and and I see this glow coming from inside because there are a couple of people at the bar, there is a bar and a couple of like, you know, lounge chairs and that like for a bar for kind of a really quite an affordable hotel experience to get that hotel glow as you walk in.

00:56:43:00 - 00:57:12:00
Fredrik Sjoberg
It's amazing. Yeah. And it didn't require much from the the whole kind of experience was very kind of streamlined and no, no fuss. But there was that level of hospitality that made it feel really human. So yeah, I mean, the room was actually a windowless room, the room itself, you could have had that without any of that lobby, hotel like experience.

00:57:12:02 - 00:57:33:18
Fredrik Sjoberg
But but in terms of what I remember and the feeling, it didn't come from what happened in the room, and I just slept. But, I mean, it really came from that whole experience. And we had a great, you know, chat about, you know, Dallas Stars and ice hockey and the kind of things that you really don't talk to with a, with a robot.

00:57:33:18 - 00:57:34:09
Fredrik Sjoberg
Yeah.

00:57:34:11 - 00:58:00:06
Rob Napoli
I mean, I, I love a good vibe, lobby vibe. I stayed at this hotel in Phoenix, are in Scottsdale, just outside of Phoenix, and I remember I love the lobby. The bar was super nice, eclectic, always people. They had a pool table that, pinball machines that had a big video screen and a bunch of coffee seats, just like you felt that any time you were down there, whether you're going down there for a drink or you're down there to work, you had space and it was a great vibe.

00:58:00:06 - 00:58:16:14
Rob Napoli
And I'm a big fan of like a good lobby, a hotel lobby experience. And then another where they quality that you're talking about is there's this management or they work with that. And Nashville on the east side of Nashville, they, open up a long term and short term side. So it's one building long.

00:58:16:19 - 00:58:18:10
Fredrik Sjoberg
I love East Nashville. Yeah, awesome.

00:58:18:10 - 00:58:39:20
Rob Napoli
Long, long term of top. You can, like, apartment style. And then you have the, the hotel on the bottom. And what they did is that East Nashville is kind of not connected. So what they did is they bought the whole land. They put the Live Nation on a flat there. They put a coffee shop, a pizza parlor, Soho House, and then this building and because of Uber we talked about transportation is now super accessible.

00:58:39:22 - 00:58:58:18
Rob Napoli
It really help. They bought like five miles of land and built around it and created this whole hyperconnected ecosystem to have this hotel. And it's such cool where you can actually explore different parts of the city and not have to be in the thick of downtown Nashville. But you're there in five minutes and you can kind of come out and feel like you have space and you get this really kind of eclectic vibe.

00:58:58:20 - 00:59:09:08
Rob Napoli
And that's where this where the hospitality industry can go with connected systems, with tooling and AI and the stuff they can do to really create unique experience.

00:59:09:08 - 00:59:28:06
Fredrik Sjoberg
I think that's it, actually. If anything, it lowers the bar for bringing hospitality and the the synergies between the hospitality, the anchor that hotel and the service providers that are around it. If you lower that bar, you know, for entry, I think it's going to be a great era. So the implementation.

00:59:28:06 - 00:59:49:09
Rob Napoli
We started off this whole thing that hotels are part of the community. They create community, they create, they create economic buying. Yeah. In the community is if you lower that bar to create really cool experiences and, and unknown places, you just open the opportunity to, to, to rise up communities and really give back and create amazing experiences. And that's where the hospitality industry is going with the rise of technology and how technology is going to make this such.

00:59:49:09 - 01:00:11:04
Fredrik Sjoberg
No, it's right. It's a great industry to be in. Certainly encourage anyone to, to to to lean into it, even if it's, you know, you we don't know where this is going to land, but I so I'm very on a very basic level, people need to sleep, they need to eat. And we find it immensely rewarding to socialize.

01:00:11:04 - 01:00:20:16
Fredrik Sjoberg
It's just what humans are so to get closer to that in a more kind of geographically distributed fashion, I don't see how that's not a good thing.

01:00:20:17 - 01:00:21:06
Rob Napoli
That's amazing.

01:00:21:06 - 01:00:21:21
Fredrik Sjoberg
It's great.

01:00:21:23 - 01:00:36:06
Rob Napoli
I love it, Dr. Sjoberg, I appreciate the time you coming down here. I know we could chat for hours and hours, but appreciate you. For those that want to get to know, get in touch with you, learn about what your startup is doing, and you, how do they find you? How can they get in touch with you?

01:00:36:08 - 01:00:48:23
Fredrik Sjoberg
You can find me, on LinkedIn, or through the NYU, hotel center page, but, yeah, please feel free to reach out. I'm sure we're going to continue this conversation.

01:00:49:00 - 01:01:05:05
Rob Napoli
Absolutely. I'll make sure to link his LinkedIn, the company page and the NYU link so that you can find them and reach out to him anywhere you want.

Hey, yo, Rob Napoli, your host here. And with that, we have officially closed the final chapter of the Hospitable podcast, powered by Omniboost. To our listeners, I want to say thank you with a tune in for what episode or every episode. Your time. Curiosity and support have meant the world to us and to all of our incredible guests.

From the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Thank you for bringing in energy. Thank you for sharing expertise, stories and your passion for pushing hospitality forward. You've helped make this show more insightful, more human, and more meaningful than we could ever imagine. While the podcast is coming to an end, the conversations, ideas and connections they don't stop here. If you want to stay connected with what's next.

You can always find us at Omniboost.com. We'll continue building, innovating and amplifying the voices shaping the future of hospitality. And for me, if you'd like to connect, it's Rob Napoli on LinkedIn. I'll have a link to the show notes. I want to thank you all for being a part of this amazing journey. Stay curious, stay connected, and as always, stay hospitable.

Stay Well.