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We’re joined by Saxton Sharad, CEO and founder of Revival Hotels, to explore the art of building brand ethos and the revival of boutique hotels in today's hospitality landscape. Saxton takes us on a journey through his early influences in the industry, from writing pretend restaurant menus as a child to working with his parents at Hilton Hotels, shaping his unique approach to hospitality.
Saxton introduces us to the mission behind Revival Hotels, a brand breaking away from traditional third-party management models that prioritize revenue over genuine profit. Revival focuses on aligning management goals with the success of hotels and their guests, with an emphasis on creating frictionless and authentic experiences—what Saxton calls "invisible hospitality." This seamless experience ensures that technology and hospitality services work behind the scenes, allowing guests to immerse themselves in local culture and experience something more than just a place to stay.
We dive into the concept of the "experience seeker," a new type of traveler who values authentic local experiences over amenities. Saxton shares how Revival Hotels embraces this by creating environments that encourage exploration, making the hotel a gateway to the local market rather than the destination itself.
If you're passionate about hospitality, curious about the future of boutique hotels, or just looking for insights into creating meaningful guest experiences, this episode is for you. Tune in to hear Saxton’s vision for boutique hotel revival and how Revival Hotels is setting a new standard in the industry.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more inspiring episodes!
Audio Timestamps
[00:00:16] Experience seekers in hospitality.
[00:04:22] Hospitality industry integration challenges.
[00:07:45] Unique hotel experiences in college towns.
[00:10:49] Third-party management solutions.
[00:13:37] Management focus on small hotels.
[00:18:40] Experience seekers in hospitality.
[00:19:39] Invisible hospitality and guest experience.
[00:25:34] Frictionless hotel experiences.
[00:26:15] Hotel experience versus short-term rentals.
[00:32:23] Unapologetically unique guest experiences.
[00:33:05] Hotel industry innovation and fear.
[00:38:00] Fear as a motivator.
[00:39:49] The gift of taking breaks.
[00:45:38] Hidden gems in small towns.
Quotes
00:04:09 - "In my fifth grade yearbook, all my classmates, doctor, lawyer, football player, police officer, my fifth grade yearbook says I wanna own and operate my own hotel someday."
00:06:41 - "The guest, who is the most important person in the whole piece of everything, doesn't care about the silo."
00:10:32 - "It's that level of detail to me that made Graduate extremely special and what makes our business special."
00:12:45 - "As long as the manager gets paid on revenue and the owner gets paid on profit, there will always be a misalignment."
00:15:02 - "The best crops grow in the gardener's shade."
00:17:56 - "It is a blessing and a curse."
00:19:15 - "We search for a specific guest that we have coined the experience seeker, that person who wants the authentic feel, that person who wants to eat from the local restaurant, that person who wants to hear the local music, that person who wants to feel what it's like to be in these markets."
00:22:08 - "One of the biggest things we found is guests want a frictionless experience."
00:25:30 - "If you say, hey, I want to go hit the slopes. I want to hit the beach. I want to go to the nightclub. I don't want to come back till two, three in the morning after I've really had that experience, had that adventure I'm looking for."
00:27:40 - "But if the coffee when you wake up is not good, that is heartbreaking."
00:28:36 - "You might tell me, hey, Saxton, you know, or I might say, hey, Rob, go to our hotel in Groton, and it's a beautiful hotel. You could have a great stay. When you and your wife want to go someplace next, you're not going back to Groton. It's another roll of the dice."
00:32:15 - "You could be the same person, right? Some nights I want to be the rock star. Well, other nights, I wanna be the father."
00:34:41 - "I'm excited for people to see that hotels don't have to be what they think of when they think of hotels."
00:36:09 - "1% better every day is a massive improvement."
00:42:14 - "What we do is so special because we give people the opportunity to take a break."
00:46:27 - "Get in your car. Get in. Explore. See something new. See something different. And that's really what travel is about."
Connect
Revival Hotels: https://www.revivalhotels.com/
Saxton Sharad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saxton-sharad-cha-6642a49/
Saxton Sharad: https://www.instagram.com/thesaxoflife/
Omniboost: https://omniboost.io/
Rob Napoli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnap/
Rob Napoli: https://www.robnapoli.com/
Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creators and Guests
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
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:04:07
Saxton Sharad
Get more and get in touch at all. When you touch it, all is really better. When it all integrates.
00:00:04:07 - 00:00:09:19
Rob Napoli
Yeah, it's easy to silo and that's what's so crazy about the hotel industry hospitality as a whole, as it's very siloed.
00:00:09:20 - 00:00:16:15
Saxton Sharad
Which is crazy because the guest was the most important person in the whole piece of everything, doesn't care about the silo.
00:00:16:16 - 00:00:19:20
Rob Napoli
How your journey kind of got into the hospitality world.
00:00:19:21 - 00:00:29:17
Saxton Sharad
My parents actually met working for Hilton Hotels. So, thank god the big brands, it’s And I was writing menus with my dad for my made believe restaurant when I was five years old.
00:00:29:18 - 00:00:34:17
Rob Napoli
So tell me a lot about Revival and why did you name it Revival, and what's the kind of mission with it?
00:00:34:19 - 00:00:52:18
Saxton Sharad
It started because I hate most third party managers. Again, sorry, third party managers, manager companies making decisions that will better revenue, but maybe not profit. Everyone is set out to do what is winning for them. When the hotel does well, we do well. If the hotel doesn't do well, we don't do well. It's complete alignment.
00:00:52:23 - 00:00:58:20
Rob Napoli
The way that you're looking at building it and the power behind it. Right. Invisible hospitality, which I fucking love.
00:00:58:22 - 00:01:16:08
Saxton Sharad
We search for a specific guest that we have coined, the experience seeker, that person who wants the authentic feel, that person who wants to eat from the local restaurant. Yeah, that's why I wake up in the morning. Yeah, I want to explore. Our hotels aren't the destination. They're a really cool place to spend some time when you're in the destination.
00:01:16:08 - 00:01:24:11
Saxton Sharad
But we want you to be out there.
00:01:24:13 - 00:01:45:12
Rob Napoli
All right. Well, Saxton, super excited to have you here. We are here for another episode of hospitable. Coming to you live from New York City in the Omniboost office is here. Obviously, Saxton being living out on Long Island, coming into the city. Appreciate it. Looking dapper today. I'm excited to get into this podcast. It's something that we've talked about for a while.
00:01:45:15 - 00:02:21:23
Rob Napoli
Right. So before we get into the topic, which is going to be heavily around some really cool stuff that you're doing, maybe let's take a step back and give a quick overview of what Saxton is. So Saxton is co-founder of Revival Hotels. We'll talk about what Revival is specifically, but your background is a long background from building brands like The Graduate to working at MGM to now really working with some of the coolest brands in the market to help create boutique, unique experiences with Revival.
00:02:22:01 - 00:02:41:14
Rob Napoli
And that's what I really wanted to. That's what really inspired me, was like, we all know these big brands like the IHG and Marriott, like, you know where those are, but there's so many cool experiences that happen during travel. And when you look for, especially when I look for hotels I want an experience, whether it's a big brand, whether it's a boutique, whatever.
00:02:41:14 - 00:02:57:15
Rob Napoli
And that to me, like, obviously the marketer in me also loves that as well. So I'm excited to get into that. But maybe give us a little background on you and how your journey kind of got into the hospitality world. Because it's kind of a cool journey of how you kind of grew in scale into where you are today.
00:02:57:15 - 00:03:16:22
Saxton Sharad
Well, I love that, but, unfortunately, I have to thank the big brands or else I wouldn't be here today. My parents actually met working for Hilton hotels, so, thank god the big brands exist. My father was a chef. My mother was the director of catering. The whole non fraternization thing didn't work. And here I am today.
00:03:17:00 - 00:03:36:14
Saxton Sharad
So thank god for Hilton hotels. For that reason. For that reason alone. No. So I've always loved being in this business growing up with your father as a chef. You know, most kids were out there. It doesn't suck doesn't it doesn't suck at all. I said it all the time. I said, you know, I'd open my freezer and there'd be, like, a loaf of water sitting in my freezer as a kid.
00:03:36:16 - 00:03:52:18
Saxton Sharad
No, I mean, most kids are out there like, say, you know, playing sports. And I did play sports, but doing all these things. And I was writing menus with my dad for my made believe restaurant when I was five years old. Right. So it was an awesome experience. And it was an industry I always knew I wanted to be in.
00:03:52:20 - 00:04:07:20
Saxton Sharad
It's actually just home for the holiday, and my mother pulled out my fifth grade yearbook and my fifth grade yearbook. All my classmates doctor, lawyer, football player, police officer, my fifth grade yearbooks is I want to own and operate my own hotel someday right so
00:04:07:22 - 00:04:26:16
Saxton Sharad
Manifesting here I am, and hopefully it works. So, you know, kept that, part of the industry. I've always worked in the business with my dad and the food and beverage side. When lucky enough to go to Cornell to study hotel management. Always wanted to go to Vegas. To me, Vegas was the Mecca. That was the dream.
00:04:26:18 - 00:04:46:07
Saxton Sharad
So I originally went out as part of a project called Echelon Resorts, which was an amazing project that Boyd Gaming was looking to put together. Unfortunately, due to Great Recession, that project was stopped but stayed out there, worked for Caesars, worked for MGM, as you mentioned. I worked for Wynn.
00:04:46:09 - 00:04:47:06
Rob Napoli
So all the big brands.
00:04:47:06 - 00:05:23:08
Saxton Sharad
All the big brands, right. Again, big brands. And just woke up one day and said I wanted a new challenge. So I found, this job posting that said, do you want to travel the world and make businesses better? And I said, hell yeah, I want to travel the world and make businesses better. Sounds so cool. So it was a company called Carpathia International, out of Oakville, Ontario, and it's a consulting firm that at the time had done health care, manufacturing, logistics, and were recently signing a contract to do some consulting with Hilton see Hilton comes up again in my life, needed a hotel.
00:05:23:11 - 00:05:46:22
Saxton Sharad
a hotel guy I interviewed randomly, went up to Canada for the first time of my entire life. I think it was a Friday. Took the job and started on a Monday. And that's when it started. So I started worked for them, help them build out their hospitality platform, worked with Hilton, worked with Lowe's, Carpathia has an amazing platform for, cost efficiencies and operational efficiencies for hotels.
00:05:47:00 - 00:06:03:08
Saxton Sharad
And they woke up one day and said, you know, I love this. I'm spending this much time living at hotels. I want to be able to improve profitability. I want to be able to work on the branding. I want to be able to work on the service elements. Not just not just the cost piece. Right? More on the weeds on it.
00:06:03:09 - 00:06:10:08
Saxton Sharad
Get more, get in touch it. All right. Like because I think it really is this business when you touch it all is really better when it all integrates.
00:06:10:08 - 00:06:30:09
Rob Napoli
Yeah. I mean it's hard not to because if you think about a hotel operation, it's there's just so much that goes into it and all of it affects the end goal of being profitable. Right? So it's easy to silo. And that's what's so crazy about the hotel industry. Hospitality as a whole is it's very siloed.
00:06:30:11 - 00:06:55:00
Saxton Sharad
Extremely siloed. Which is crazy because the guest who is the most important person in the whole piece of everything, doesn't care about the silo. They don't care what department is responsible for it. They don't care whether it's expense or revenue or purchasing or marketing strategy or revenue. They don't care. They just want a great holistic experience in the magic happens, in my opinion, in the handoffs between those are.
00:06:55:00 - 00:07:12:13
Saxton Sharad
Yes. So I said one day, that's it, I'm gonna go out and start my own firm. So I started a company called postscript, started out with one other consultant and myself. We built that company up, partnered with hotel AV. Built that firm up and, consulted again all over the country in the world on that.
00:07:12:13 - 00:07:39:17
Saxton Sharad
So between Dan Hotels and Israel, Meadowood and Napa, Omni hotels, mostly BMGI working for the ownership groups, all over the place. And it was an awesome experience. But I do warn people, when you catch a consultant on the wrong day, it's. You can always lure them in. So very true. My buddy of mine, Eric Hassberger who's the president over at AJ capital, we were talking about doing a project.
00:07:39:17 - 00:07:59:04
Saxton Sharad
He's like, well, why don't you come in to graduate hotels? We have this awesome platform going on, you know, why are you traveling 340 days a year, 341 days in 2013? He's like, you can come in and you can work for us directly. I'm like, oh my god, that sounds awesome, right? So, I joined AJ capital and graduate hotel platform.
00:07:59:06 - 00:08:21:04
Saxton Sharad
I became the CFO of that company. Started with 12 hotels in 2019 and left at the end of 21 with 35 hotels. So, I recently read an article that said it was slow, sustained growth. That was not the case. When I was there, I think we did four hotel openings. I know we did four hotel openings in one week.
00:08:21:05 - 00:08:23:00
Saxton Sharad
In two weeks. Sorry. Two week time period.
00:08:23:00 - 00:08:23:22
Rob Napoli
Still wild.
00:08:24:00 - 00:08:45:13
Saxton Sharad
Wild, And it was an amazing ride. You know, for those who don't know, AJ capital, who owns graduate the graduate ran until I sold it to Hilton, but still owns the real estate. Stands for Adventurous Journeys Capital. And I will say that my time at AJ, was certainly an adventurous journey. Yeah. And it was just a great platform to build.
00:08:45:15 - 00:08:59:05
Saxton Sharad
It was fun. It was different. It was unique. The team I got to work with, you know, Dave Rhodes, Alex Belden, Mike Hoover, some of my best friends to this day, Eric Brown, guys, you know, we were able to create something awesome. Yeah.
00:08:59:07 - 00:09:23:07
Rob Napoli
And for those that don't know, Graduate hotel is usually in big college towns like Iowa City. Up the big house, you got one add on, here in New York, on Randalls Island, Roosevelt Island, off next to Cornell Tech. And each one has a unique experience and unique feel. Right. And that especially like it feels like you're connected to the city that you're in.
00:09:23:07 - 00:09:27:17
Rob Napoli
Like, it feels like it's very connected to what it's tied into. That is something that I thought was really cool.
00:09:27:19 - 00:09:45:16
Saxton Sharad
And that was one of our sorry, but that was one of our, you know, real goals of building these hotels are when you go to a market, especially for going for work or a conference, you might never leave the hotel. Yeah, right. Our goal was that when you were at our hotel, you were able to experience the market, learn something about the market.
00:09:45:16 - 00:10:03:19
Saxton Sharad
When I worked on the menus for our trophy room restaurants, it was, how can you take something from the market and not just the generic, oh, let me put up the school colors or let me put up the mascot on the wall. It's what are these deep, deep stories? Yeah. pre-covid we actually had a librarian on staff whose goal was to research the markets we were going into.
00:10:03:20 - 00:10:23:13
Saxton Sharad
We also hosted tables where we had alumnus from these universities are people who lived in these cities. Come and tell us what was special for them? Yeah. In these markets, when we worked on our Peyton Manning, partnership restaurant in Knoxville, Peyton named every single menu item after a friend or someone in his life. And it wasn't just him naming it.
00:10:23:19 - 00:10:44:14
Saxton Sharad
I was on the call with Peyton for hours as he went through every single story and why he named every item after somebody. And it's that level of detail. Yeah. To me, that made graduate extremely special. Yeah. And what makes our business special now, I don't hate the big brands. Right. I you know, I don't hate them. You know, I kind of respect, Hilton Marriott, Hyatt
00:10:44:15 - 00:11:07:17
Saxton Sharad
They build amazing things. But when the Titanic is moving, can't pay attention to that level of detail. And it's interesting. Is now Hilton acquired graduate. Someone the brand someone recently asked me, you know, do they think that graduate can be in 400 markets? Do I think that graduate could be international more than the UK projects we did?
00:11:07:19 - 00:11:32:20
Saxton Sharad
And my answer was yes, but it has to have the attention to detail. What made graduate special wasn't that it was a college hotel. Yeah. What made graduate special was that we really tried to translate the new style to that. We tried to translate the stories, the warm and fuzzy feeling you got in your stomach and turn that into a property that meant something to the people in the community.
00:11:32:22 - 00:11:37:22
Saxton Sharad
And as long as they do that, they can grow it. But that's a hard thing to do at the scale that we're looking at.
00:11:38:00 - 00:12:05:08
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And I think that's why when you think of big brands, right, they have 30 brands underneath the umbrella, right? Like an IHG or Hilton or whatever. And it's because in order to create those real experiences, it's hard to do at scale. So you need those kind of sub brands and things of that nature. And that kind of leads us into, you know, Revival hotels and what you're doing now and taking your kind of consultant background, brand building background from all these different experiences.
00:12:05:10 - 00:12:13:05
Rob Napoli
And now you offer kind of a two part solution. So tell me a lot about Revival and why do you name it Revival and what's the kind of mission with it.
00:12:13:05 - 00:12:32:19
Saxton Sharad
So Revival started I left graduate to start Revival. And it's funny that Revivals maintenance is third party management because it started because I hate most third party managers. Again, sorry, third party managers. But, you know, I was on the road graduate traveling from market to market and, like, why aren't there any good third party management solutions?
00:12:32:19 - 00:12:56:08
Saxton Sharad
And finally, Mike Hoover, who's a dear friend of mine, said, you can either keep complaining about it or you can just go build a better one yourself. So, to me, the biggest problems with third party management was or is first off, misalignment in goals. As long as the manager gets paid on revenue and the owner gets paid on profit, there will always be a misalignment.
00:12:56:08 - 00:13:11:22
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, and I've seen that time and time again in my career management companies making decisions that will better revenue but maybe not profit. And you can't fault them, right. Everybody, everyone is set out to do what is winning for them.
00:13:12:00 - 00:13:31:11
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And yeah, there's also that whole yeah. You know, the argument of growth at all costs. Step in growing revenue is great. And that's the ultimate goal because you want to continue to show growth but doesn't always mean bottom line is there. Right. Because there's more revenue growth thereafter means growth in operating costs or growth in, labor costs, etc..
00:13:31:11 - 00:13:35:09
Rob Napoli
So yeah, there's always going to be a bit of a misalignment at that level.
00:13:35:11 - 00:13:53:16
Saxton Sharad
Always. So I said if we're going to a management company, we are going to align ourselves fully. So we collect all fees on our reroll management platform based on profit, gross operating profit, the things that we can control. So when we do when the hotel does well, we do well. If the hotel doesn't do well, we don't do well.
00:13:53:21 - 00:14:19:11
Saxton Sharad
It's complete, complete alignment. Second piece is I'm a big believer that you can't be good at everything. Yeah, I wish you could right. And I think this is where, in my opinion, some of the big brands struggle with their 30 sub brands. As we've been talking about, you can't be good at everything. Running a 3000 room hotel in Vegas is very different from running a 50 room hotel, or a 300 room branded hotel in a gateway market.
00:14:19:11 - 00:14:42:03
Saxton Sharad
They're all very different. Yes, and the game plan is very different. Yeah, I believe we are the best at running small independent hotels, so we only work on our management side with hotels under 150 rooms without a branded flag. And that's intentional because we think that that game is a very different strategy than others.
00:14:42:06 - 00:14:43:11
Rob Napoli
Very much, though.
00:14:43:13 - 00:15:05:23
Saxton Sharad
And again, because of growing at all costs, if you look at most management company platforms, they'll manage an independent, they'll manage a full scale Hilton, they'll manage a Hampton Inn they might. I don't think you can be good at all of it. Yeah. We want to focus on one thing and be the best last piece. I think management companies sometimes fail at again because of growth at all costs is I have this line I use a lot.
00:15:05:23 - 00:15:26:16
Saxton Sharad
The best crops grow in the gardener shade. You have to be there to make something better. You can't improve at check in unless you watch a check in. You can't improve a pool deck experience unless you see what the pool deck experience is like. You can't sit behind an office somewhere thousands of miles away and look at a PNL and really, truly improve a hotel product experience.
00:15:26:16 - 00:15:43:05
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, so for us, we and our management side stay here in the northeast for the reason being at this point that my team is here where within a couple hour drive to get to any hotel. So whether it be an emergency, whether it be just we're sitting in your lobby because we want to see how the hotel works today.
00:15:43:05 - 00:16:00:05
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, we took over a brand new property actually earlier this week, in Seabright, New Jersey, called the Beachwalk awesome hotel on the river on the private beach. You know, I sat Monday out by the pool doing work. Certainly, there's a lot worse places to sit and work. Like, I'm not gonna.
00:16:00:05 - 00:16:04:07
Rob Napoli
Lie, I was going to say it doesn't. But when it's 90 degrees and sunny.
00:16:04:08 - 00:16:21:22
Saxton Sharad
Sure, wearing in this blazer sweating like crazy, right? But on the flip side of things, when we left, we had a list of things that we knew, how we could improve the pool experience. We could never have done that by being miles away. So when we started Revival, it was about those things and we started on third party management.
00:16:21:22 - 00:16:43:19
Saxton Sharad
We built up our third party management platform. This second piece of revival was consulting, and that falls into my historical niche in consulting. Right? You do what you're good at. Tough to run away. It's tough to run away from those things. But on the consulting side, we do everything from operational efficiency consulting. We do brand building. I work with an awesome client, new company called Rosemont Holdings in Greenville, South Carolina.
00:16:43:19 - 00:17:05:21
Saxton Sharad
Connor Willis, amazing guy in our business came from Hyatt growing an ownership group there. Have worked with him on building some brands. They have an AC in North Charleston coming up, working on that side of things. I have a client who owns two hotels in Belize. Beautiful resorts, Gaia and Mada Chica. Honestly, if you are looking to escape, get to the rainforest, get to the reef.
00:17:05:21 - 00:17:29:18
Saxton Sharad
It is the place to do it. Yeah. And we're down there with them, working on revenue management, working on product offering, working on service, working on positioning all of these things that, frankly, independent hotel owners don't really have access to. And, and it's awesome. Now, the last piece of revival or which was kind of breaking off a revival right now is our acquisition arm.
00:17:29:18 - 00:17:57:07
Saxton Sharad
So we own a couple hotels today. We own a property in New Hampshire called the Sunset Hill House, where we're closing on a property in Vermont called the Jackson, in Woodstock, Vermont. But we are also now launching our own brand, called hideaway Inns, which is really, an emotional thing for me when I think about it, because I've spent the last 20 years working on brands, building brands for other people.
00:17:57:07 - 00:18:03:06
Saxton Sharad
And now to take all of those learnings and build it for myself, it's been interesting.
00:18:03:06 - 00:18:04:20
Rob Napoli
It's a blessing and a curse.
00:18:04:21 - 00:18:13:09
Saxton Sharad
It is a blessing and a curse. But it's like, you know, when you start to hear people writing their autobiography, you know, like, how could you get writer's block writing your own autobiography? Yeah, I now know.
00:18:13:11 - 00:18:32:10
Rob Napoli
Yeah. I mean, it really is hard and interesting. And I also went through that in my own life when I was back a couple years ago and I wrote my book, The social soul was all about building a personal brand and all the things I was telling people to do, I would run up against some of the stuff that when I was doing myself, like that time, energy and effort.
00:18:32:11 - 00:18:48:11
Rob Napoli
By the end of the book, I company at one point through the whole thing and rewrote it. And instead of being a content creator, the core thing became being a content engager because I had a sit with myself. Like I was like wanting to write about all these things. Like when I was coaching, I was teaching for others, which was great.
00:18:48:11 - 00:19:07:01
Rob Napoli
When I was doing for others what I was doing for myself. It's like, oh, let's switch this up. And then I completely retrained change tact wrote the book. It's all about engagement. And then I started teaching that, and that was so much easier and audible and I felt that way. But I had to growth that up and down because we start basically eating your own sauce.
00:19:07:02 - 00:19:25:22
Rob Napoli
You gotta sit with it. So I think it's really cool and really exciting. And I think The Hideaway Inn we'll get into the brand. But like the way that you're looking at building it and the power behind it, right. Invisible hospitality, which I fucking love that terminology. We're going to get into that here in a second.
00:19:26:00 - 00:19:53:03
Rob Napoli
I think it's going to create such a unique experience. This is what I don't hate big brands like, I still love to go to stay at a big hotel resort, but sometimes when you're on the road traveling, it's just nice to find that really quaint, quintessential feeling of being in that market, right? Whether it's in the Midwest, whether it's up in the northeast, whether it's down south, like getting to feel like you're living in that market, but also not always having an Airbnb style.
00:19:53:05 - 00:20:13:05
Saxton Sharad
Exactly. I mean, we use this term experience seekers. My mother, father probably still going to stay at Hilton. Right. Sorry. Mom and dad, they love the brand feel, right? We search for a specific guest that we have coined the experience seeker. That person who wants the authentic feel. That person who wants to eat from the local restaurant.
00:20:13:05 - 00:20:32:03
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, that person who wants to hear the local music. That person who wants to feel what it's like to be in these markets. That's why I wake up in the morning. Yeah, I want to explore. Right. And we’re they're for exploring, we’re they're for, you know, we aren't our hotel and our hotels aren't the destination.
00:20:32:06 - 00:20:33:08
Rob Napoli
Yeah.
00:20:33:09 - 00:20:37:19
Saxton Sharad
They're a really cool place to spend some time when you're in the destination. But we want you to be out there.
00:20:37:23 - 00:20:59:18
Rob Napoli
And that's kind of counter intuitive to what most hotels do, because they want you to spend money there, stay there, do all the things there. Right. So talk to me about this. You know why. And the idea of what is invisible hospitality and as the experience seekers wanting to not the hotel is the place that you stay. And it has a very unique look and feel, but it's to experience that market.
00:20:59:18 - 00:21:02:16
Rob Napoli
So how do you do that with invisible hospitality? Let's walk through that
00:21:02:19 - 00:21:25:23
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. So first off, Invisible hospitality. What is invisible hospitality right? other than the trademark I put out there, you know, invisible hospitality is really trying to feel what the guest wants today. And I think it's important because I've built a lot of brands and I've worked on a lot of brands, and a lot of times it's myself and owners and people sitting around the table saying, this is what I think.
00:21:25:23 - 00:21:44:19
Saxton Sharad
Guest one right, like we need to do this. First off, I'd say most of the time the stuff that most brands have is pillars or what I call air bags. You don't go buy a brand new car today and the dealer doesn't come out and be like, Rob, check out this new car. It's got amazing airbags. You know, the expectation is there are airbags.
00:21:45:01 - 00:22:03:22
Saxton Sharad
What are the cool features? Yeah. So we wanted to focus on what are the cool features. But to understand what are the cool features we had to ask the yeah I want to ask the guests. Right. We are the brand where the guest is going to tell us what we want, not us tell the guests what they should be wanting.
00:22:03:22 - 00:22:25:04
Saxton Sharad
So we did this massive survey and one of the biggest things is a couple others. I'm happy to share all of those findings with you. But one of the biggest things we found is guests want a frictionless experience. Yeah. And when you look at frictionless it's been done in other industries. Yeah. Food service frictionless, transportation frictionless.
00:22:25:05 - 00:22:38:23
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. Jeff Bezos has done an amazing job with frictionless. It'll be at your door in a couple hours. Yeah. Hotels not that frictionless. Yeah, right. There's some steps and there's some people and there's these interactions that I may or may not want to have.
00:22:38:23 - 00:22:40:05
Rob Napoli
Yeah.
00:22:40:07 - 00:23:04:10
Saxton Sharad
How can we create something that's frictionless that gives everything that people want in a hotel stay but nothing they don't? Yeah. So invisible hospitality was centered around this idea of frictionless where very easy to make technology based reservation process. Now, when you make that reservation, it's not just the reservation. You now start to get some of that insight into the market.
00:23:04:12 - 00:23:23:06
Saxton Sharad
So you have our high insider guest. Yeah, right. That that is going to start saying, okay, what are those cool things I need to do while I'm there? Where do I need to eat? What do I need to see? Where do I need to go blow glass. Where do I need to go hiking? What do I need to do when I'm in this market so you can start planning ahead?
00:23:23:06 - 00:23:43:21
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. Also, how can I maximize my Hideaway Inn experience? Yeah. Do I want to have a bottle of wine waiting for me? Do I want to have snowshoes waiting for me? Do I want to have so I don't have to worry about that? Yeah. And take that out of my travel time. Yeah. Then I don't want to think about it.
00:23:43:23 - 00:24:00:05
Saxton Sharad
Right. Life is busy after I've started. I can dream about my trip, but I don't want to have to worry about what I'm going to be doing. So we disappear. We then come back to you via text and we start to say, okay, getting ready for your trip, maybe give you a little bit more information about the market.
00:24:00:07 - 00:24:21:04
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, but then you don't hear from us until the day of your arrival. When you receive a text message, it says Rob. Click here to finish your check in just from a security perspective. Yeah. Here's the code to your door. Your room is ready for you. Yeah. Now it's on you. How you want to check into the hotel.
00:24:21:05 - 00:24:34:19
Saxton Sharad
You don't have to wait at a line. You don't have to wait to hear about somebody's loyalty program and whether or not you should be signed up or didn't sign up. Or you get a free bottle of water, you get a cookie, you get a, I don't know, one or yeah, lounge access here you don't have to worry about.
00:24:34:23 - 00:24:47:18
Saxton Sharad
It's when I said all time, my in-laws well traveled people, but I'll travel with them and they'll be like, oh, we got to check in before they give our room away. Yeah. I don't think hotels give rooms away. I haven't seen it, but.
00:24:47:19 - 00:25:02:15
Rob Napoli
I've seen it. Want to actually. Yeah. I ran into somebody at a wedding. My little brother's wedding actually had that. He was in Fiji. And because he had a set the night before, I, he checked in, I got hotel at 3 am just basically asleep. I have a short sleep before the wedding and It given this room away
00:25:02:16 - 00:25:05:17
Saxton Sharad
Oh, so it happens. Maybe my in-laws are right. I'm wrong. All these years I.
00:25:05:17 - 00:25:17:06
Rob Napoli
Well saying, but I hadn't heard it like I've heard those stories of like arguing there room. And I was like, oh, that's not true. And then literally was talking about this just early June, and I was like, there's no effing way that I find the one person that got.
00:25:17:06 - 00:25:30:19
Saxton Sharad
There right away. So it happens. It's out there. But with Hideaways Inn, you have your code. If you want to come right away, you drop your stuff off before you go do your thing. Yeah, you have the ability to do that. If you say, hey, I want to go hit the slopes, I want to hit the beach, I want to go to the nightclub.
00:25:30:20 - 00:25:57:06
Saxton Sharad
I don't want to come back till two, three in the morning after I've really had that experience, had that adventure I'm looking for. You can do that as well. It's completely free. The flexibility is on you. So now you come in, you're checked in, you check in. Throughout your stay, there are touches that allow you to have access to what you want, one of which is, you know, another thing that most guests are looking for is a great coffee experience.
00:25:57:06 - 00:26:20:00
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. Not a good coffee experience. A great coffee experience, actually. I'll quote one of my really good friends, Colin Pound guy over at Walden Street Capital, says that he chooses luxury hotels for two reasons. He doesn't care about the amenities. Doesn't work out. Neither do I, doesn't want to eat in the restaurants, but he wants a great mattress and bedding experience and a great cup of coffee in the morning.
00:26:20:02 - 00:26:47:01
Saxton Sharad
So why does that have to be reserved for luxury? Yeah, right. So you come in. We have 24 over seven coffee. Great. Not just not just cheering drip. We actually have you know bean to cup machine where you can have a latte at Cafe mocha cappuccino 24 over seven. You get that in the lobby. We have our collection of records in the lobby that you can pick the record, which you want to take back to your room and listen to the record player room and have this stay your way.
00:26:47:01 - 00:26:59:03
Saxton Sharad
If you want to interact and meet everybody else at the hotel, you can do that. Yeah. If you want to be like me and not talk to anybody, you can do that too. Yeah. It's completely up to you.
00:26:59:05 - 00:27:17:17
Rob Napoli
And I love this idea of frictionless and make the experience your own because, hey, I kind of said it's like blending Airbnb, but not in a hotel where you can get the finer things of the hotel. Or you have maybe the I call it security of being at a hotel, but you still get that kind of local feel that local stay.
00:27:17:17 - 00:27:38:06
Rob Napoli
And I love the idea of a good cup of coffee. That is one thing that, you know, I've been traveling a lot this year. I think as we're recording this in July, I think I hit 30 flights already for the year maybe 32 and stayed at lot of hotels and a lot of cool places, but if the coffee when you wake up is not good, that is heartbreaking.
00:27:38:06 - 00:27:57:02
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, and no offense, but the coffee pots and guest rooms in my life, I have watched in my consulting career, thousands of guest rooms get made, get cleaned by housekeepers, and I've seen some amazing housekeepers. I've seen some less than amazing housekeeping process. If you have seen what I've seen in my life, you are not using that coffee pot in your room.
00:27:57:08 - 00:28:13:13
Saxton Sharad
No offense. You're drinking a cup of coffee now. You're not using that coffee pot, right? So now all of a sudden this is correcting that for you. And it's funny, you talk about the safety and security, right? Because that's really a big part of this for me is, you know, early in my career and short term rentals hit the market.
00:28:13:13 - 00:28:37:16
Saxton Sharad
I was a short term rental hater. Right? I'm a hotel guy. Why would you stay in a short term rental? But the fact of the matter is, if a hotel can't offer a better experience, shame on us. Yeah, not shame on short term rental. Shame on the hotel business. So how do we offer that authentic interestingness but also giving you the sense of security?
00:28:37:16 - 00:28:53:21
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, in the sense of quality. Right. Because that's also the problem. Most boutique hotels one of one hotels have is it's a roll of the dice. Right. You might tell me, hey, Saxton you know, or I might say, hey, Rob, go to our hotel in Groton. Groton. And it's a beautiful hotel. You can have a great stay.
00:28:53:23 - 00:29:22:19
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. When you and your wife want to go someplace next. You're not going back to Groton? Yeah, it's another roll of the dice. It's the same thing with an Airbnb every single time. It's a roll of the dice. So our properties pride themselves on having awesome, unique, one of one design. Even our rooms are one on one design, but the quality and the pillars like the coffee, the bedding, the records, the shower experience, those are all one of those are all consistent.
00:29:22:21 - 00:29:34:22
Saxton Sharad
So, you know, every single time you're going to have a cup of coffee. Yeah, the hotel is clean, the design is awesome and unique. Yeah, but you don't have to risk it. Yeah.
00:29:35:03 - 00:29:52:15
Rob Napoli
No, I think that's really something that and like you said let me take this off. And the brand building background is these hotels aren't for everybody. They're for experienced seekers. Right. And so this is where I think some people get it wrong. You can cater to many, but everyone's gonna be different. There's the big thing of know we talk about frictionless.
00:29:52:15 - 00:30:11:15
Rob Napoli
And one of the cool things about invisible technology, which we'll get into, is because it's something where I cannot together with Omniboost right. It's how to make that frictionless through integrations, all tech enabled. But you don't actually feel like tech is destroying the experience, because nothing's worse when you get there and it's like, oh, your room was through a third party booking, okay, we can't find it.
00:30:11:15 - 00:30:30:05
Rob Napoli
Or have you're sitting there for 20 minutes? Well, I find a reservation. It's like, oh, you're room is not ready yet you know, drop your stuff up and wait in the bar might. No, I just want to get into my room. Right. So, I really believe that this is for that generation that wants to be tech enabled, that wants to have their experience.
00:30:30:05 - 00:30:45:15
Rob Napoli
And so really focusing on a niche allows you to create that experience that you want. And I think that is hard. It's hard to do when you're a big brand. And that's why you go to big brands. Sometimes you when you go in to a certain brand, you know the look, the feel, you know it's going to be like and you go there for that.
00:30:45:15 - 00:31:06:13
Rob Napoli
And I still love my loyalty points and do that at times. And then sometimes I want that very unique and kind of one on one experience that you're not going to get any other time. And so you need to like having that good balance and knowing who your target audience is. I think is key. And it's what a lot of especially independent boutiques don't always know how to do.
00:31:06:16 - 00:31:24:08
Rob Napoli
Right. It's not they started it could be a long time ago that could be new, but they're in that market to be there. But they don't always thinking about how do we attract, how do we bring people to our marketing, especially some smaller markets where it might not be the place that you think to be your destination? But now that it's on the map and because that experience around it.
00:31:24:08 - 00:31:41:15
Rob Napoli
Oh, I want a weekend getaway where I can go hiking. Oh, well, there's this experience here, right? And that's where you can really start to turn the tables of creating that one on one with having that seamless experience, both technology wise and as you said, bedding, showers, great cup of coffee type of things.
00:31:41:15 - 00:31:58:21
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. And I think that's it. Right. Because to your point, this week I want to go to the mountains. Next week I want to go to the beach the next week I want to be in a city the next week I want to visit my son at college, whatever that is. How do I have the lifestyle of these type of hotels without having the lifestyle of being one person?
00:31:58:21 - 00:32:22:06
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. It's really interesting. I worked on this project I mentioned earlier. I moved to Vegas as part of the Echelon Resorts project, and we had these archetype videos of all of the different personalities that would stay at our Vegas resort. And now you can imagine all the different personalities that stay at a Vegas resort. But the thing that was important to a lot, crazy, the thing that was important to me was it could be the same person, right?
00:32:22:06 - 00:32:39:09
Saxton Sharad
Some nights I want to be the rock star, while other nights I want to be the father or other nights I want to be the businessman. Or other nights I want to be the student. I can be all of those things. Yeah, right. So our hotels are about you can be not only you, but you can be the you that you want to be that night.
00:32:39:09 - 00:33:01:02
Saxton Sharad
And having a network of hotels that allow you to pick the property that will let you be the you want to be that day. And it's, you know, again, it's not for everybody. For some people, there's nothing more comfortable than no surprise. Right? I have a book of matches I bought at a, thrift store in Greenville, South Carolina.
00:33:01:04 - 00:33:26:15
Saxton Sharad
It was a Holiday Inn book of matches back from the day. I have it in my office and it says on the back of the book of matches. The greatest surprise is no surprise. And for some people, that's the case for some business travelers, they want to know that the room is going to be set up the same way that they want to know that every hotel has the same Peter Thomas Roberts hand soap.
00:33:26:17 - 00:33:43:14
Saxton Sharad
I consulted a Hilton for 18 straight months. I would wake up in the middle of the night and have to look for my where guest book, or open the window to see where I was, and that's for some people. That's what they're looking for, not our guests. Yeah, our guests want it to be different. We want it to be unique.
00:33:43:15 - 00:33:59:19
Saxton Sharad
We want it to be interesting. And that's where we place. So again, do I think hideaway Inns is the answer for everybody? No, I don't think anything is the answer for everybody. Yeah. But we want to be unapologetically unique. So our guests have that ability to be unapologetically unique. Yeah.
00:33:59:20 - 00:34:21:22
Rob Napoli
And I love that. And that I want to kind of come back. You said that, you know, building your own brand building hideaway inn as we say, is a blessing and curse is very emotional. It's very intense. Now, as you're kind of stepping into this and you're at two properties and looking to expand and building out this whole, you know, I guess I don't want to say chained, but like, group of experiences, right?
00:34:21:22 - 00:34:28:09
Rob Napoli
Yeah. What are you what are you most excited for? But also what scares you the most in this journey?
00:34:28:11 - 00:34:51:10
Saxton Sharad
Oh man, what am I excited for? I'm excited for people to see that hotels don't have to be what they think of when they think of hotels. I'm excited for people to have this frictionless experience, this unique experience, and say, wow, there's a different way of doing this. Yeah, because between you and I, I don't think our industry, other than short term rentals, which we can say is our industry isn't our industry.
00:34:51:10 - 00:35:10:15
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. I don't think we've had much evolution in the last fifty years. We've put different colors of paint, we put different logos, we've done different things. But if you want a zebra, you have to have a zebra, or you can't just go to white horse and paint, black stripes Right. So I'm excited, most excited to see how people want to experience this new, unique way of staying.
00:35:10:15 - 00:35:36:10
Saxton Sharad
Yeah and kind of hit on something because as from our standpoint, being a data unification platform and looking at this space, there's all these technologies and all these technologies are innovating. But then today, PMS is still PMS point of sale is still point of sale accounting is still accounting. There's additional tools and functionalities, but it's still causing a function of maybe a spa or a golf or whatever.
00:35:36:12 - 00:35:43:17
Rob Napoli
And so really, you're not really innovating as much as just making it better, what's already there and more efficient processes.
00:35:43:17 - 00:36:03:02
Saxton Sharad
So and I'd argue some of them don't even make it better. So I'm just put a different name on it. But the ones who make it better good for you guys for the rest of them. True. Right. Like, so to me, you need to push, you know, I believe it's one of our core principles at both Revival and Hideaway Inn is that every single day, you need to get better.
00:36:03:04 - 00:36:23:11
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. You don't need to get a lot better. Get 1% better. The, you know, the love marginal of aggregation of marginal gains. Right? 1% better every day is a massive improvement. Yeah, but not getting better or getting worse. So you're going someone else is going to eat your lunch. Yeah. It's only going to happen. It's going to happen in some period of time if you don't get better.
00:36:23:11 - 00:36:44:02
Saxton Sharad
So that's what I'm most excited about now. The really important question which you just asked me, which nobody has asked me now I'm kind of like shaking in my boots here, a little bit of what am I fearful of? I'm fearful because of the creativity, because each hotel was, you know, somewhere around 20 to 50 rooms. And each room is unique.
00:36:44:02 - 00:37:01:16
Saxton Sharad
And we're looking to do 525 rooms in the next 36 months. So much room for failure. Yeah. Right. There's so much room that maybe Rob. You don't like one of the rooms I design. Yeah. Or maybe you know it's not as if I can just kind of take the paintbrush and say it worked once and let me push it across the board.
00:37:01:16 - 00:37:19:23
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. Right. So there's that sort of risk of like, what if I don't bring it every single day. Yeah. And that's a risk. And that's something I have to live with. It's funny, on the design side, I was talking to somebody this week and I said, I hope people come too, into our rooms and there's one at least one piece that they like.
00:37:19:23 - 00:37:41:02
Saxton Sharad
I love that I want that from my house. And you know what? There might be one piece that they're like, I hate that. What, is he crazy for putting it in here? Yeah, that's the risk I'm going to have to take. Yeah, but I think the guests, again, our guests are experience seeker, our insider with two ends. You know, that person will appreciate that.
00:37:41:02 - 00:37:45:20
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. And we'll understand that they might not love everything.
00:37:45:21 - 00:38:12:11
Rob Napoli
Yeah. I mean, it's almost impossible to love everything, right? And so I appreciate you sharing that fear because the fear of you know, creativity is tough. It is one of those things where when do you stop creating and replicate, right. If that happens, what are you. But that's where I think you have so many opportunities to expand where you can create a, you know, let's say a baseline, a template.
00:38:12:13 - 00:38:31:19
Rob Napoli
And then within that template allows for creativity. Right. And so I think there's so many ways for that to, expand itself out. And I think that's a really cool fear and cool problem to have, but also one that is probably going to drive you so much, you know, is that, you know, I was I sometimes I ask that question differently, like what wakes you up at 3:00 in the morning, right?
00:38:31:21 - 00:38:52:22
Saxton Sharad
I 3:00 in the morning. I have three kids under five. I'm up at 3:00 in the morning. No 3:00 in the morning is. You're right. These are the things I think about. But the fact is, if I wasn't thinking about them, I'd be bored. Yeah, right It's not for me. There are some people out there who can sit in the same part of the assembly line every day, can work in the same company and earn their gold watch.
00:38:52:23 - 00:39:12:22
Saxton Sharad
That's not who I am. And that's not who my company is. That's not who the people who work for us are. That's not who our guests are. So at the end of the day, it's a fear. Yeah, but fear is also have this amazing way, if treated correctly, can be your biggest motivator. So, will I ever get tired of creating?
00:39:13:00 - 00:39:22:15
Saxton Sharad
No. You know, it's. I'm going to be 90 years old and still putting hotels together and doing this because I love it so much. Right? But, like, it can still be a fair.
00:39:22:17 - 00:39:41:12
Rob Napoli
Yeah. Now, if there's one thing getting to know you over the last few months is that, you submitted me have just curiosity. Like, it's just it's hard to sit still. And the minute you do, you get bored really quickly and say, I. What's next? Yeah. And that's the hard part. That's also, I think really hard as a traveler.
00:39:41:16 - 00:39:58:03
Rob Napoli
Like sometimes I want to travel. So my wife and I different when she travels. When we travel, she wants to go on an adventure. Sometimes when I travel, I just want a vacation. Yeah, right. Like I want to chill and relax. And so you gotta find those balances. And I think that's the kind of experience seeker.
00:39:58:03 - 00:40:20:01
Rob Napoli
Right? We talk about the insider, the experience seeker. You're giving them the opportunity to they can stay in their room and shut away and so have a great experience in that local market. Or they can be out in the market. And that's where you need to find those balances. And it's going to be really cool to see how you do that, because that way you do that in the mountains versus on a beach versus on a river versus on a lake versus is, you know, on a plains
00:40:20:03 - 00:40:20:22
Saxton Sharad
Right. And I think our.
00:40:21:03 - 00:40:23:20
Rob Napoli
Plains like in the Midwest, not like on an actual airplane.
00:40:23:22 - 00:40:49:07
Saxton Sharad
That's true. So the Midwest guy says plains Yeah. But I think that's where our high insider guide, our tech piece that is going to talk about our partnerships, our unique partnerships where you can do these things because one thing I find is everybody likes being an insider, right? I think the coolest part, people say, what was the coolest part about living in Vegas when I live in Vegas, the coolest part about living in Vegas was when somebody came to visit me who had never been to Vegas before, and I could pull out my insider card.
00:40:49:09 - 00:41:12:02
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, and show them all the cool things that I knew that, you know, you wouldn't find in your typical frommer's guest book. Right? Or your travel guide or the top ten things to do on TripAdvisor. Right. We want to be able to give guests that ability. Yeah. So to your point, you know, your wife might want to take advantage of the hike that nobody knows about.
00:41:12:03 - 00:41:37:01
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. But you might want to take advantage of listening to a local band in a underground club that nobody knows about. Right. We want to make sure that our guests have the inside knowledge of all of that. So again, they can be free to use this to anyone. Not getting too deep here. I apologize if I am, but, people ask me all the time, why do you choose the hotel business?
00:41:37:01 - 00:41:54:08
Saxton Sharad
Why do you do this? And for me, it's simple. Yeah. Life sucks. Right? I, you know, listen, I love my life. I don't mean that, but I don't care who you are. You can be the richest person. You could be living paycheck to paycheck. You can. There are strains in life. There are health issues. There are marriage issues.
00:41:54:08 - 00:42:13:07
Saxton Sharad
There are children. There's war. There's political. There's the world. We I mean, listen, you know, turn on the TV without hearing ten news lines that are just terrible to life is hard. Yeah. To me, what is amazing and the greatest gift ever in the hotel business and why I think what we do for humankind is more noble than being a doctor or a lawyer.
00:42:13:08 - 00:42:36:02
Saxton Sharad
Lisa, what we do is so special because we give people the opportunity to take a break, take a break, forget about the bills, forget about the doctor's appointment. Forget about, your children's report card. Forget about it all. Yeah. And take a break. And when you take that break, you can go to the mountain and hike. Yeah, or you can go to the spa.
00:42:36:04 - 00:42:46:15
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. Or you can go to a restaurant and try something for the first time and just fully engage in that. And that is a really, really cool thing.
00:42:46:20 - 00:43:03:23
Rob Napoli
It is. And also a really hard, hard it's very hard to do and I love that you kind of bring this up because it reminds me of a time I went to this amazing, huge resort, down in Mexico. And I had a blast. Like, I absolutely loved it. But at the same point, it was so big.
00:43:04:00 - 00:43:20:15
Rob Napoli
There's so many things going on and overstimulation, which just kind of funny living in New York City overstimulating the whole time. But I was wanting that relaxing vacation. And it was one of those things where you never felt like you could actually slow down there. And the experience I wanted wasn't the one I got.
00:43:20:15 - 00:43:46:03
Rob Napoli
I still enjoyed hell out of myself. Yeah, but it wasn't the experience I wanted to travel is. Such experiences, especially travel experiences, are some of your most cognitive. You feel it. You remember the feel the space, the smell, the experience. Right? Yeah. And that's what you're creating. And you brought up this the insider thing, right? One of the things I love about living in New York city is that people come and they ask me for recommendations.
00:43:46:03 - 00:43:59:21
Rob Napoli
Is that like giving them a really cool little bar, like it's a dive bar that no one really know about, and they go on like, that was the most fun I had, right? Or you seem to rest like, hey, I know this is not like the one you see and all the guides, you can go way for that.
00:43:59:21 - 00:44:06:18
Rob Napoli
But if you want the best Italian, go here. And when they come back to you and say, what a recommendation.
00:44:06:22 - 00:44:08:03
Saxton Sharad
Yeah, it's the best feeling in the world.
00:44:08:04 - 00:44:30:05
Rob Napoli
It is the absolute best feeling in the world. And so to be on that, I created a whole hospitality stay around that. Yeah. Especially being able to then serve the community back and drive business to them and then vice versa. And this is again that frictionless. What we're building together with invisible hospitality is going to be so cool because you can have all that.
00:44:30:05 - 00:44:44:20
Rob Napoli
And it's not just I booked, let's go to TripAdvisor. It was the ten best things and be with everybody else. You still have those big things, right? Like I do all the time. If you're coming to New York City, you haven't been here. And you have to choose between top of the Rock, Empire State or the summit or whatever.
00:44:44:20 - 00:45:07:13
Rob Napoli
I'm always like, top of the rocks, everyone, right? But guess what? I've been up to it four times. I'm not going with you again. You're right. Like, go up there, I'll meet you after. Right. So you still got to have those big things, but those smaller markets, those local things, it's such a unique, cool thing to be able to like go to that out of the way bar to my favorite experiences are like the most whole the wild places.
00:45:07:15 - 00:45:34:20
Rob Napoli
I was in Barcelona, walking back from the beach, studying there for two weeks by myself. Well, the first week I had some other classmates. For the second week, all my classmates went back to a different class and so I had a second week there by myself. And so I was walking back from the beach when I and I just stumbled by this little hole in the wall restaurant and I looked around and it was late and all the other restaurants were empty, and this one had people there and was like, if people are here
00:45:34:20 - 00:45:55:23
Rob Napoli
It's because they're locals and they know this is a good spot. So I went and sat down, got the last table later It came up to me. he was like, what do you want? I was like, I want what are you known for? Our pie all right, definitely what I want and a beer. And I was like, look at that menu segment and I got you like I'm mixing this spectrum over here.
00:45:56:04 - 00:46:11:20
Rob Napoli
Okay, so the broth, this big thing up here and a beer and then came out with I got appositive afterwards and it was like one of the best experiences I remember staring at on my map was like, I got to talk about this, and I was actually telling some of the people that went to school there about this, but like, oh yeah, that place is known for Bob.
00:46:11:20 - 00:46:20:09
Rob Napoli
I was like, why would no one say that? When I asked you where I should go to eat like hers? All I said, because, oh, we just never think of it. It's such a hole in the wall. I was like, that is exactly why I loved it.
00:46:20:11 - 00:46:38:22
Saxton Sharad
But isn't that what hospitality is about? Yeah, right. When you think about hospitality, it's bringing someone into your home and cheering, right? Yeah. That's what it's about. And again I love big cities don't get me wrong. But so much at the beginning of my career was New York, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Miami all the Vegas the biggest.
00:46:39:03 - 00:46:58:10
Saxton Sharad
Right. All of these places. But I'll, you know, when I was in graduate, who would have known thought that some of the best food I've ever eaten in the country is in a place like Oxford, Mississippi, or visiting Iowa City, Iowa, or Lincoln, Nebraska, or or some of these small towns or even the towns, you know, hideaway inns, our first group of hotels is all between Maine and the Jersey shore.
00:46:58:12 - 00:47:21:20
Saxton Sharad
A lot of reasons, geographically, why we're doing that. We could get into that or for the next time of why we're saying staying so geographically focused. But there are so many cool towns that most people don't even know about. There are so many great restaurants, there are so many great hospitality services. There's so many amazing pieces of art or artists or pieces, you know, parts of nature or things that you just don't know exist.
00:47:21:20 - 00:47:35:05
Saxton Sharad
Yeah. So, you know, while I have certainly flown my fair share of miles like you over the decades, get in you car. Yeah. Get in, explore or see something new, see something different. And that's really what travel is about. Yeah.
00:47:35:05 - 00:47:53:20
Rob Napoli
There's what people don't realize is that there are so many amazing museums and things just upstate New York. Like you can't get to much train if you take a train, you got to take an Uber or whatever. But you could drive. You can hit three of them and a day and you're like, Holy, this is amazing, right? Like you didn't realize what is there and how close or how accessible or whatever.
00:47:53:20 - 00:48:05:04
Rob Napoli
And I think that's something that people don't take advantage enough. And but it's different. Right. It's again, you have to be of the mentality to seek experiences.
00:48:05:10 - 00:48:06:08
Saxton Sharad
Experience seekers.
00:48:06:09 - 00:48:15:06
Rob Napoli
And, we tie it all back together. I mean, I know we could chop it up for four absolute hours. So I do think we'll have to do a part two, especially as we continue to roll out.
00:48:15:06 - 00:48:16:00
Saxton Sharad
Part two
00:48:16:02 - 00:48:22:01
Rob Napoli
Yeah, and roll out and maybe we'll do it over a beer at a bar or the lobby of, a.
00:48:22:01 - 00:48:24:21
Saxton Sharad
Lobby of a Hideaway Inn maybe the golf course for my buddy here Rob
00:48:24:23 - 00:48:33:19
Rob Napoli
Yeah. Oh, yeah. The golf course. But for those that are listening who want to learn more about what you're doing in Revival hotels, how do they get in touch with you?
00:48:33:21 - 00:48:58:00
Saxton Sharad
Honestly, reach out to me directly if I'm anything. I'm a nerd. About this business. I love what I do. So, you know, whether it's my business card, our website, you have my direct information on there. saxton at revival hotels.com. My phone number on our website. Revival hotels is my direct line. Shoot me a text, call me LinkedIn.
00:48:58:01 - 00:49:15:20
Saxton Sharad
Just like I like talking to Rob here. I'll get a beer with anybody and talk about this business. So please reach out. You know, between invisible hospitality, which, you know, we're so excited to be working with Omniboost on of how we can create something that is truly unique and really changes the industry for the better.
00:49:15:22 - 00:49:28:14
Saxton Sharad
Hideaway inns, you know, our management business at Revival, there's a different way of doing all of this, and there's a way that is the 2024 way to experience, and that's what we really want to hit on.
00:49:28:16 - 00:49:46:15
Rob Napoli
I love it, I'll make sure to link all those things in the show notes. All you gotta do is click on it and you'll be directly, routed to Saxton, Saxton I appreciate you, my guy. Thank you so much for chopping it up. We'll definitely have to do more, and out there as you're listening. And don't forget to be a tier one like rate subscribe, review.
00:49:46:17 - 00:49:57:02
Rob Napoli
Please let us know what you think. If somebody should be on the podcast or if you want to be on the podcast, let me know. All my information is in the show notes as well and until next episode be hospitable.