Sarah Fults
And, Sebastien, I’ve actually never stayed at an Airbnb. I’m a hotel girl through and through. I won’t do it.
Sebastien Leitner
Welcome to The Turndown. I can’t wait for you to meet Sarah Fults. Sarah Fults is the vice president of distribution at MGM Resorts. MGM Resorts is a big casino company. It’s operating thirty one properties, about fifty thousand, forty six thousand hotel rooms. So think of every casino having roughly fifteen hundred hotel rooms. Sarah is responsible to manage not only her team of, I think, thirty five, forty people that are taking care of connectivity, onboarding, distribution of offers to third party channels. She’s also in the process of changing her CRS system. I can’t wait for you to discover what Sarah has to say about her work, her life, and what’s keeping her up at night. Let’s roll the tape.
Welcome to The Turndown. I’m joined by Sarah. Thank you so much for joining me. Sarah is the vice president of distribution at MGM Hotels, and I will dive right straight into it. My warm up and opening question is, Sarah, as a VP of distribution at MGM, what is keeping you up at night these days?
Sarah Fults
Oh, you’re going there. You’re going right for it. You didn’t prep me with the questions, so great to be here. Thanks for having me. Always great chatting with you. We always have a good time. What’s keeping me up at night? I would say, well, for those that know me, they know I’m not a great sleeper, so I do a lot of good deep thinking at night. I tend to map through problems in my head at night. That’s number one.
But I would say I probably focus on my team the most. I have an amazing team. Right? I am nothing without my team. I probably have the best team I’ve ever had. And I want to ensure they’re thriving and they’re happy and what’s next for them. And I focus a lot about their growth and where they’re at. I spend a lot of time focusing on my team.
Sebastien Leitner
Okay. Go on. I’m gonna give you a second one.
Sarah Fults
Lately, I’ve been spending a ton of time thinking about designing the next best toiletry bag and carry on. This keeps me up at night. I have purchased a million carry ons, backpacks, and toiletry bags, and I have yet to find the right one. If anybody wants to invest, let me know because I’m determined to do this.
Sebastien Leitner
Right. And you’re gonna find a designer or a producer. Well, you’re gonna design it yourself?
Sarah Fults
I have the vision. I have the vision in my head. Toiletry bag, yeah. I love to sit in the airport and look at all the backpacks in the airport. I’m like, they’re all different shapes and sizes and what works for people, and I still have yet to find the right one for me, and I’ve ordered a lot.
Sebastien Leitner
I think the most important thing is to travel light. Don’t overpack. How big is your luggage for three days? Are you checking?
Sarah Fults
I literally just had this conversation with my boss. He said, you’re never traveling with me because I won’t do a carry on. I check every time. Never lost my luggage, knock on wood.
Sebastien Leitner
Let’s go back to your team. How big is your team? What do they do? Help us understand what you do.
Sarah Fults
I have about thirty four people on my team right now. We focus on connectivity and operations of third party. And right now, one of the big projects we’re working on is we’re gonna launch a new CRS this year. That’s been a long project that we’re excited to launch. So I have a team that focuses on that. I have a team that focuses on GDS, travel agent commissions, third party connectivity to all the partners, and I have third party content as well as third party reservations.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s exciting. So you’re maintaining two systems right now, like you’re sunsetting your existing infrastructure, you’re introducing a new technology, and you’re managing the process throughout. That should keep you up at night, it doesn’t? You didn’t mention that right away.
Sarah Fults
Oh, because those nights, those sleepless nights are over. We’re in the homestretch, we’re launching soon. That did keep me up at night, that did, for sure.
Sebastien Leitner
I know it would have kept me up at night, but I guess you figured out the data migration, all the processes, and now you have a date. Is there a magic date when things are being unplugged and replugged?
Sarah Fults
There is a magic date. I can’t give you that exact date. It’ll be the end of the year for sure. That’s exciting. I’m excited. The date is finally here. We’re very excited. A lot of hard work went into that. The team has worked incredibly hard to get us here. I’m super proud of them.
Sebastien Leitner
What do you do to keep your team happy and engaged and excited to go to work? You dedicate your role to your team. You mentioned that in the introduction. So you spend some extra attention to their satisfaction, happiness, engagement, etcetera. What do you do to get them excited to come to work?
Sarah Fults
So first and foremost, we moved to fully remote during COVID. Most of us, though, are based in Las Vegas. The team loves being remote. I think it gives them that work life balance. I love it as well. So that makes them extremely happy. But we do, you know, we do every meeting on camera. We use Teams. We’re always on camera. My team knows they need to be on camera. I think it helps you connect better being on camera.
I do monthly all team meetings. We do a quarterly in person meeting. I do a ton of skip levels, I don’t really love the word skip level, but I spend a lot of time with my team at all levels, speaking to them, talking about what they want, their careers. I know a lot about their personal lives, because that’s important to me. You know, all the kids’ names, and pets, animals, all of that. And we’re really close. I think we’re all very loyal to one another. They support me as much as I support them. So we just make a really good team.
I’m big on the team culture, so I really push for that. Everybody knows what I expect. I know people think I’m a tough boss because they know me from managing partners. And I’m actually a bit of a mama bear when it comes to my team. I really want them to be very protected. There’s a lot of loyalty on both sides there. So I’ve had people with me for a long time, people that have come with me from outside the company.
Like, yesterday, we played a game on the team meeting. We love to play games. Yesterday’s simple game was, if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would that be? Everybody loved that. Right? It gets you to get to know each other in a different way. So we just do a lot of fun stuff. We use the team chat a lot. We celebrate every birthday, every anniversary, anything exciting or important going on in people’s lives. We celebrate wins. We try and keep really connected.
Sebastien Leitner
What was your answer? What was your album?
Sarah Fults
I knew you were gonna ask that. So I think, you know, I listened to everybody’s answers, I was like, oh, I should have said that. I should have said that. So for me, I love music. It really keeps me in a good mindset. Right now, I think I went with what I’m feeling right now. So I’m an eighties and nineties girl, and if you remember in nineteen ninety two, this movie came out called Singles, and they made a soundtrack. And I’m listening to that a lot in my car right now.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s awesome. There was something else I wanted to dive into, which was around your team’s culture. How would you describe it? What are some of the attributes that come to mind? Some companies have values or descriptions on how they operate, but how would you describe your team’s culture?
Sarah Fults
That’s a good question. I want my team to feel, first of all, I want my team to feel safe in the environment they’re in. I want my team to be able to speak up, tell me what’s working, tell me what’s not working, what’s making you happy, what’s making you stay up at night. That’s first and foremost. I want them to feel like they have the tools and the education to do their job. I will get them as much training as they need to feel like they can speak to their role and be proficient in their role. That’s super important.
I have some expectations that everybody helps one another. I view the hotels as almost clients, right? We actually work for them. So I ask that they treat even other corporate entities as such. So it’s important to me that we’re known for being helpful and polite and good to work with, but super knowledgeable in our roles. And we have a lot of processes, SOPs. Somehow I don’t think that surprises you. We’re very structured.
I have a lot of perfectionists on my team, so we are all striving for, you know, we want to drive efficiencies and be as automated as possible. It’s important that we stay up on new technology, so I send articles every day. I’m big on articles. Harvard Business Review I read daily, and I send leadership articles to the team. So it’s a good environment. It’s a good culture. I think people are happy for the most part.
Sebastien Leitner
Excellent. Walk us through your morning routine. How did you start your day this morning?
Sarah Fults
So, being not a great sleeper, I woke up at three thirty. And knowing I had to actually get dressed today and speak with you, I didn’t get on the treadmill. I try to get on the treadmill every day. I’ll do that later tonight. I am that person that grabs my phone while I’m still in bed. I like that kind of, if it’s fifteen minutes or I have half an hour, I’ll read LinkedIn. I definitely start there. I’ll go through my emails. I make sure I know what’s on my calendar for the day.
And I can’t believe that I’m actually going to admit this, but I have totally got sucked into TikTok. I mean, that is a rabbit hole of anything and everything that you could go down in that world.
Sebastien Leitner
Before LinkedIn or after LinkedIn?
Sarah Fults
I do it actually after LinkedIn. It’s kind of a way to just not think about anything to start your day. So I’ve been spending a little too much time on TikTok lately.
Sebastien Leitner
Now I’m curious on the TikTok thing because, you know, you’re a very busy professional person. I’m curious what gives, meaning at what expense? Are you watching less TV? What are you doing less?
Sarah Fults
That’s a great question. Well, I gave up mainstream news a couple of years ago. You can understand why. So I don’t watch the news. I used to be a big watch the news every morning or read the news. I read the industry news. I do go through and read the industry news. And so I would say probably I’ve given up a little bit more TV. TV is my way to decompress, and so I’ve switched up TV for TikTok lately. I’ve gotta get off it. It’s a bad habit.
Sebastien Leitner
Alright. What is a common myth about your job?
Sarah Fults
That’s a great question. A common myth about my job. I still think the importance of distribution as a role in the greater organization is still a struggle that I think all of us in distribution fight for. Right? Distribution really makes the wheels go round for revenue management and in the commercial group. I think that the importance of distribution is still something I’m fighting through at all levels, right, inside, outside the organization.
Sebastien Leitner
With your vast experience, how would you describe distribution to date, especially to somebody that maybe is not familiar with what you do specifically? Where does distribution start? Where does it end? I love to get your unfiltered perspective here.
Sarah Fults
You’re taking me back to when we were doing the HEDNA marketing. And you and I just talking about how we can’t find a great glossary of terms that exists out there, right, that we need. So where do you find the definition of distribution?
So of course, we focus on distribution, especially at MGM. It could be you’re distributing show tickets. You could distribute many things. I focus on room bookings for my career. And it’s in simplest terms, you’re putting the product on the shelf for sale. But that starts all the way from the sales partnership with all of the third party partners all the way through to the end with support.
I will say the biggest wake up call, that’s not the right words, but over COVID we centralized this third party reservations team that was all on property. They centralized that under me. And seeing everything that comes in on that side of third party has been so interesting, from guests’ requests, the phone calls, the emails that guests send in, whether it’s the conversation tools, it’s billing issues. We handle a lot of stuff on taking deposits, a lot around third party that is very still manual that we’re working really hard to drive efficiencies on.
But I think that most people don’t see that end of it. I have a copy of their inbox within my Outlook, and I love to go in and just see what are the guests asking for, what are the most common questions. And that’ll be something that I think about at night is, okay, how can we further this process? We have great partners at MGM that I work with on the technology side, because I am looking at the technology side to drive some efficiencies there. I had a great call with Microsoft last week to talk about ChatGPT and perhaps using that for the conversation tools. We are responding back if somebody’s saying, hey, what can I do to celebrate my birthday at one of your properties? Can these new tools help us drive efficiencies there? So there’s always work to be done. I’m always looking, how can I make this faster, more efficient, more automated?
Sebastien Leitner
That’s so exciting. So what are the areas of questions that are most common that you get?
Sarah Fults
I think I’m always surprised to see the number of people that try and get out of their reservation within the cancel period. The number of things that people come up with is absolutely amazing to me. I think being in Vegas, we probably have a higher number of that too. So they book the nonrefundable rate or they’re within the cancellation period and they’re gonna lose their deposit. That creativity is endless. But, I mean, people ask, there’s a lot of special requests that come in. Everybody wants a fountain view at Bellagio. Everybody wants a high floor. There’s a lot of requests that come in.
Sebastien Leitner
You’ve been in distribution for some time. I’m curious how distribution from your perspective has evolved and changed over time. Think of now versus maybe ten years ago.
Sarah Fults
So I started in distribution, I would say, around two thousand and five when I went to work for HBSI. At that time, Michael Hines, who’s the founder, the original founder of HBSI, he invented that product in nineteen ninety nine. Fast forward to twenty twenty three, the product looks generally the same and works generally the same, which is a kudos to Michael because he had such a vision.
But overall, connectivity still works the same in a lot of ways from back twenty years ago, if you think about it. It hasn’t evolved a ton, and that’s no fault of anybody for trying. There’s a lot of people out there trying to push. I think that we’re still sitting on all of these disparate systems, and we’re trying to connect. And I think that the third party distributors have really pushed the envelope coming out with a lot of different APIs, but are they really usable for everybody?
Even at the size of MGM or it could be the size of another big brand, you can’t really take advantage of all the APIs that they have out there. Like for content management, if you don’t have a content management system that they can pull the content from, then it’s a bit more difficult to use a content API. So I think about this actually often, and obviously if I had the right solution, Sebastien, I would call you up and we would start our own company.
But how do we continue to push the envelope on connectivity, I think, is the big question still out there. There’s a lot of work to be done. You still have your push and your pull and now a hybrid. You still have errors. You still have people that have to map rate plans. It’s still a lot the same as two thousand and five.
Sebastien Leitner
So the fundamentals of distribution haven’t changed?
Sarah Fults
It’s still the same. The processes are still the same.
Sebastien Leitner
Alright. I wanna do a lightning round. I’m gonna throw a word at you, and you just share what comes to mind. Departures.
Sarah Fults
Seamless.
Sebastien Leitner
Luggage.
Sarah Fults
I still have yet to find a good one, a good brand.
Sebastien Leitner
Direct versus OTAs.
Sarah Fults
You need both.
Sebastien Leitner
Distraction.
Sarah Fults
TikTok. TikTok right now for sure. Big distraction.
Sebastien Leitner
Digital marketing.
Sarah Fults
Digital marketing is still very important, and I think that’s another one that’s just gonna continue to evolve.
Sebastien Leitner
Travel in two thousand and thirty.
Sarah Fults
That’s a good question. There’s a lot of ways to answer that question. I’m gonna answer this from a systems standpoint. I still feel strongly about the need for an integrated PMS and CRS. Not everybody’s doing that, but I think there’s a couple of people that are on their way to doing that, and that’s gonna be very interesting. By two thousand and thirty, we better not have two systems anymore. It’s been too long. One system, one platform. We need one system. Why are we having an interface between a PMS and CRS anymore? It’s just another interface to manage and two different platforms usually by two different companies. It’s too much.
Sebastien Leitner
Bleisure?
Sarah Fults
Oh, bleisure is what I do all the time. Like, that’s how I travel. That is how I travel.
Sebastien Leitner
Turndown.
Sarah Fults
I like a good turndown service. You know I like to stay at nice hotels. Blackout curtains, all of that. Mint on my pillow. Let’s go.
Sebastien Leitner
Let’s go back to platform for a second because I want our listeners to understand. You’re right now implementing a brand new CRS. You said, why do we have PMSs and CRS? Why is everything separate? Why does it matter to you that they’re two different systems? Why do you think one system could do it better?
Sarah Fults
I think the systems need to integrate and work so closely together. I’m just gonna throw out there packages. So packages are traditionally built in the PMS because the billing and the folio and all of that takes place there, but the ability to sell, and just for definition, a package includes multiple meal plans, multiple tickets, anything that is more than just the hotel room. You need the CRS to be able to properly sell a package on the distribution channel, but you need the PMS to fulfill it.
And sometimes those two systems aren’t really talking in a way that’s going to work out smoothly. And I just think if we had an integrated system, there would be the like minded thought on how it should work from booking all the way till checkout. And we just don’t have that in many cases. Again, I know Cloudbeds does it well, and there’s people that are on the chase for it. And there’s people that have tried it in the past. I’ve been a part of those companies that have failed. But that’s where we need to continue to go.
Sebastien Leitner
I want to talk about your experience in the last three, four years. There was this pandemic that has sort of changed a lot. You went from in office to out of office. Travel changed our lives for a certain period, seemed to stop. I’m curious what you learned from that experience. What did you take from this COVID incident with you?
Sarah Fults
I’m gonna go back to my team and being so grateful for my team. Unfortunately, I had to furlough half of my team during COVID, more than half. And those that stayed, first of all, they couldn’t have been more gracious on every phone call I made. I mean, I had to hold back the tears, but on the other end of the phone, they couldn’t have been more understanding and gracious. I had people asking me how I was doing. So the humanity and people was completely restored during COVID.
I think there’s a lot of people that have forgotten about those last three years and are back to normal. But I think people cared and they focused on one another a bit more and they worked closely together. The whole industry came together during that period, and everybody just was in this together to bring travel back and get back to normal. And I think we’re out of COVID now, and a lot of people have gone back to their old ways. And we need to remember that we’re all partners, and we’re all striving to move the industry forward, whether you’re competing on the hotel side or on the third party side. We’re all in this together. We all want to do good things for travel.
Sebastien Leitner
Was there a change in travel or in distribution that you didn’t see coming out of the pandemic?
Sarah Fults
Not that I can think of off the top of my head. I like to see the direct bookings increased. I think that’s evened out a bit back to normal levels in a lot of places. I don’t love the high rates that everybody’s charging right now, but it’s good to be a hotelier because everybody’s still out traveling. I was just looking at over fourth of July, and I couldn’t believe the rates up in Jackson Hole. You could get a three star hotel, and you’re paying almost six hundred a night. It’s a bit crazy.
Sebastien Leitner
You’re constantly recruiting and expanding your team. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to somebody starting out in the industry?
Sarah Fults
I’m always gonna say this. First, continually try and learn. Read everything that you can. Make sure you read the news, and get involved and network. I owe HEDNA a lot because it’s where I really met a lot of people, such as yourself. And now I can call up so many people in the industry and ask, hey, how are you handling this? Or what do you think about this? So try and get yourself out there and network and learn as much as you can.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s a great piece of feedback. How do you do networking now? You were at some point HEDNA president before me. So I’m curious, what do you do now?
Sarah Fults
I have to admit after that three years, I needed a break. I think I just took a step back. My presidency was done in January of twenty twenty where you picked up. You timed that pandemic very well. I was able to take a much needed break. I’m a big phone person. I actually still talk on the phone a lot. And so I try to make time to connect on the phone with a lot of industry people. And I try to get out and go to conferences and stuff. That’s still such a great way to get out there and really connect with people. You just can’t replace that in person. You can’t.
Sebastien Leitner
Where are you traveling to next? Both business and leisure. What’s your next business trip, and what’s your next leisure trip?
Sarah Fults
I’m hoping to get to HEDNA in Milan. Actually, I’m doing leisure there too. I always do. And I was actually this past weekend looking at these kind of small, little quaint hotels up in northern Italy. Like an hour from Innsbruck, Austria. Kind of get me out into the mountains and hike and swim and bike.
Sebastien Leitner
At the lake or something? Not Lake Como?
Sarah Fults
Not Lake Como. That’s too busy. Out in the wilderness. Just need kind of a wellness kind of hotel. Take a little break from everything. Unplug from email, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn. That’s what I wanna do.
Sebastien Leitner
Let me send you a couple of addresses. I think I may have a recommendation or two. You mentioned Microsoft ChatGPT in an earlier question. You’re heading to a Milan conference. What do you think is sort of a topic at upcoming conferences that we will all want to discover more?
Sarah Fults
I think anything AI related, but I think back on when blockchain came out, we talked about blockchain at every conference in ad nauseam. Super hard to achieve. I know some companies are using it in many ways. I think ChatGPT popped. It’s cool new technology. Everybody should understand what’s new out there and how they might be able to use it. But I think continuing to talk about AI is super important. It’s definitely the future.
Sebastien Leitner
I do feel though, right, like I’m often overloaded when I search for something. You had a great example, you want a very specific product in Northern Italy, with hike, with spa, with decent food that is of high quality where there’s a turndown service. You start that discovery today, you will get a million results that none of them are really matching that criteria perfectly. How do you find the right hotel?
Sarah Fults
I love that we’re talking about this because when I go on vacation to plan vacation, it takes me weeks. I’m not loyal to any big brands. I don’t prefer to actually stay in the big brands. I like to find the independent luxury hotels. And you may be surprised to hear where I usually start my journey. I actually usually start at Mr. And Mrs. Smith hotels. I look at Tablet Hotels. Sometimes I’ll look at Leading Small Luxury Hotels of the World because I wanna get my pulse on those independent hotels that are out there.
Then I’ll start to do a Google search on luxury hotels in this region, and usually you’ll have some publication, whether it’s a fashion magazine or somebody will write an article about some kind of cool, hip hotel, and that’s usually what I go for. Something that I read about. And I like small. My ideal is definitely under a hundred rooms.
Sebastien Leitner
Your average size property that you’re working for has how many rooms? Three thousand? So you’re going for much smaller than that. About thirty rooms approximately.
Sarah Fults
Yeah. And I like that personal attention. They usually give you so much personal attention. I’m still, I wanna go to the front desk. I wanna talk to people. I’m that girl. And Sebastien, I’ve actually never stayed at an Airbnb. I’m a hotel girl through and through. I won’t do it.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s a bombshell comment. Final question. What’s your favorite travel destination in the world?
Sarah Fults
Well, there’s so many more places to go to. But I just love Italy. I’ve been to every area of Italy. I can’t get enough of Italy. I’ve looked at what it’s like to buy real estate in Italy. I’m pretty obsessed with Italy. I look at the one euro houses every time it comes out. What does it take to convert this?
Sebastien Leitner
Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today on The Turndown. Really appreciate you being here on the program, and I really appreciate sharing your insights, your wealth of experience, and your personal travel experiences. Thank you so much.
Sarah Fults
Thank you for having me.
Sebastien Leitner
Thank you for listening to The Turndown. Don’t forget to subscribe and tune in next week as we discover new exciting guests.
