James Kendall LaRue
We want to create those different types of outdoor experiences within a major metro so that you can go into a market, you can educate people about the brand, hope that they experience it for the first time, and then let’s say, oh, this is great. Where else can I go? What other types of lodge experiences can I have as a drive to leisure traveler?
Sebastien Leitner
Welcome to the turndown, where we dive into the minds behind innovative hospitality. Today, I have the distinct pleasure of hosting Kendall LaRue, a force driving the experiential outdoor hospitality revolution at Lodge. Forget cookie cutter hotels. Kendall and Lodge are rewriting the rules focusing on authentic connections, community, and unforgettable outdoor experiences. From converting old rundown motels into thriving lodges to tackling guest experience one playful text message at a time, Kendall’s journey from finance and consulting to leading Lodge is as unconventional as the brand itself. Join us as we explore what truly keeps Kendall up at night and what fuels Lodge’s mission to help people find their place by making it easy to connect, get out, and explore.
Hi there. It’s my absolute pleasure to welcome Kendall LaRue. I’m hoping that I’m saying this right, to the program, to the turndown. Welcome, Kendall.
James Kendall LaRue
Thank you so much, Sebastian. It’s a pleasure to be here. Excited to spend some time with you today. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Sebastien Leitner
I’d like to kick it off with our typical opening question, which is what is keeping you up at night these days? And that would, of course, be, you know, except for the cup of coffee that I probably shouldn’t have mid afternoon. Generally, what’s keeping me up at night. And the thing for me, you know, it’s it’s all about guest experience. It’s constantly what I’m thinking about at lodge. You know, how do we ensure that we are consistently thinking about guest experience, improving it so that we end up being more than just a place where people are resting their head at night?
James Kendall LaRue
And so I’m sure we’ll get into it today, but everything we do is is centered around how do we get people out of their rooms, you know, whether that’s through programming, that’s through design of our spaces, that’s through getting them outside with the amenities that we have on-site. We’re trying to foster that sense of community when you travel, both for for guests that make the decision to stay with us, but also for members of the community and the places that we call home. We want people to have that experience where they feel like they’re getting an authentic taste of the towns and cities that we’re in. And so I’m constantly thinking about how do we refine that?
Sebastien Leitner
How do we improve on that? Because ultimately, you know, in the business of experiential outdoor hospitality, if we just become a bed and we just become a room where someone is staying, then we’ve failed in in what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to accomplish. So on that note, what are you trying to accomplish?
James Kendall LaRue
Is it really the experience? Is it building out that experiential hospitality? Yeah. You know, lodge’s mission is we help people find their place by making it easy to connect, get out, and explore. And so whether you are outdoor curious, you are a hardcore outdoor enthusiast, When you come to our properties, what we want is is exactly that. We want it to be easy.
And so we’ll have everything that you need on-site and nothing you don’t. And that goes from top of the line mountain bikes to go and hit the trails that sometimes go right off of our properties to stand up up paddleboards and kayaks and fly fishing equipment, everything you need to get out and have that that outdoor experience. And then that connect, get out, and explore those connection spaces, that community. We do a lot in our design phase and as we’re going through the renovation process for our properties to be thoughtful about spaces and create spaces and moments where you can, you know, come together outside of around a a fire pit after a day kayaking down the river in Missoula to share s’mores with fellow travelers and talk about what you did that day, what they did that day, foster that community, and share kind of the love of the outdoors of of being being there together and having that moment of connection in our spaces, but really in the communities where we’ve decided to to put down roots. That sounds fantastic. But it is just to be clear, it’s not a campground.
It sounds like there’s a fire pit. It sounds like there’s a lot of outdoor activities on-site on property, but it’s not a campground. We do have camping at a couple of our properties. And so our our first property is, in the coastal town of Westport, Washington, a few hours outside of Seattle. And the vision for that property was this space where where folks could come together. And so in Westport today, we have traditional exterior corridor rooms.
We have RV spots. We have covered and what we call rustic camping spots that are uncovered, and then we have cabins on property. And so not at every single one of our locations, but at several of them, there’s many different ways to stay based on the experience that you’re looking for when when you’re coming to town. And and so, yeah, we do have some of the amenities that would be typical at a campground.
Sebastien Leitner
Right? But fire pit and s’mores, we’ve got outdoor stages. Music is a is a big thing for us because we feel like music and food and fire all bring people together. And so that to that design element, we’re constantly thinking about how can we create natural moments through our properties, where those moments of connection can occur between guests and community members alike. How did Lodge get started?
James Kendall LaRue
You guys started before COVID. Right? This is not a COVID invention. We we did. Yes. So our our founder had the idea for this, you know, years and years before COVID.
Our first property in Westport actually opened their doors Memorial Day of two thousand seventeen. And so for a long time, it was a running joke of every new property, we we’ve gotta be open by Memorial Day. But the the vision for Lodge, our CEO and cofounder, Kale, was former military and talks about the experience of being on a military base, wanting to to get out and do something during the weekend. And I can’t speak to this from personal experience, but as he tells the story, the military bases are not the most exciting places to spend weekends when you have leave. And so he’d constantly be thinking about where can I get, you know, relatively close to a to a base, to go have an outdoor experience and found himself often stuck between camping in a in a state or national park or staying at a hotel that was forty five minutes away from where he really wanted to be? And he felt odd rolling his his muddy mountain bike through the lobby to bring it to his room.
And so the idea for Lodge was to find places that are really within major metro driving distances, you know, three to four hours of a of a major metro and that drive to leisure where someone can come, they can be at nature’s doorstep, they can come with or without their own gear, but to be able to to provide everything that we we have on-site so that you can get out and have that experience and be where you want to be kind of both before and afterwards. And so, you know, I’m sure we’ll get into it more, but just how we think about our growth. We’re looking for those places where you’re on nature’s doorstep, and you can often go right off property into a, you know, state or national park and spend a day outside and then come back and and share that experience with others who are looking to do very similar things.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s amazing. So twenty seventeen, that’s not that long ago. Right? I mean, it’s, you you’re celebrating your ten year anniversary in a few years. That’s right. How big is Lodge now, and what is your expansion plan?
James Kendall LaRue
Right. So we have we have ten open properties across the network various stages of development. And so once everything gets open, we’ll have close to to twenty properties, throughout the throughout the country. We started with a a very Pacific Northwest focus. And so pre COVID, we haven’t we had an office just outside of Seattle. Our first property was was there in in Westport.
We have two properties in Leavenworth, which is, you know, just on, you know, the east side of Seattle a couple of hours into the mountains. We have two properties by Mount Rainier National Park, one up by, Crystal Mountain Resort that said ski destination for Seattleites during the during the winter and the hiking paradise for folks from Seattle and, people that come from all over the world to to visit Mount Rainier National Park in the summertime and then a property that’s just down, very close to the entrance to the national park just eight miles away. And so we have density there with open properties in the Seattle area. We have a a property in Northern California, Mount Shasta, one in Bend, Oregon. And we’ve started that growth eastward and so have that strong density and brand recognition, in the Pacific Northwest. We opened two properties in Montana last year in Missoula and up by Glacier National Park.
And then we have a portfolio in development that includes a couple of properties in the northeast and in the kind of Boston, New York metro areas, one down in Asheville, North Carolina, one in Arizona, one in Utah. And so the the growth has really been from that Pacific Northwest area of strength to start branching out into outdoor towns and communities across the rest of the country.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s amazing. Are you looking for a specific size of properties? Like, what’s your typical, I don’t know, key or, I guess, accommodation count that you’re you’re thinking of?
James Kendall LaRue
Yeah. It’s, you know, Sebastian, that’s evolved over the years, and I think where we are now, the the sweet spot that we we think is is right for the business, but also intimate enough where you can still have that connected experience with other travelers is somewhere between forty, sixty on the low end to a hundred and twenty five keys. A lot of our earlier properties were much smaller. And so Westport, when it opened, it was it was eleven keys. It’s now thirty seven keys plus seventeen camp and rvings. We’ve expanded upon that property.
Our first property in Leavenworth, I had mentioned we have two hotels there, was a nine a nine cabin property right on the Wenatchee River. So some of the early hotels are are small, very intimate. And where we’ve been migrating, we just opened Missoula back in May of last year. That’s fifty eight rooms in in urban Missoula. The Glacier National Park property we opened was fifty three rooms. We’ll open Saint George, Utah at some point, which will be our biggest property.
That’s hundred and one keys. And so that sweet spot as we think about future growth, new sixty to a hundred and twenty five keys is where we think we can retain the magic of what we’re trying to create with Lodge, but expands the offering of of places we can go out and find and and turn into lodges.
Sebastien Leitner
I wanna continue with Lodge, but before we go there or back there, I’d I’d love to figure out how you got started. How did you end up with lodge?
James Kendall LaRue
Right? Like, because I understand you’re not a hotel person or you’re not a hospitality person. Is that fair? Yeah. To it’s it’s absolutely fair. I you know, if if you looked at my experience pre lodge on paper, you’d say this guy has has no business being in hospitality.
I grew up in the world of finance, went back to business school, and spent almost a decade in in consulting and wasn’t working with hospitality brands and consulting. I I primarily worked with large alcohol suppliers, retail organizations. My experience was, you know, I was based here in the US, but spent time living abroad in in the Nordics and Norway. You know, worked with clients all over the world. I had clients in in Asia and China, down in Latin America. And and so really at the core of it, as I’d spent the seven years in consulting, I was traveling all the time.
And, you know, the consulting experience was more upscale luxury properties. But when I wasn’t traveling for work, I was traveling for just my own enjoyment. And, you know, spent a lot of time, actually, between business school and starting in consulting, I took seven months to just backpack the world. I figured it was gonna be one of the last times that I had the freedom to do that. And so I had seen everything from the three, four dollar a night hostels in Thailand to the, you know, super luxurious properties, a thousand plus dollars a night, both kind of some a little bit during that trip to just tickle my fancy a little, but then with consulting and and everything in between. And I think for me, when I was evaluating towards the end of that stage of my career in consulting, what do you wanna go do next?
It was hard to ignore separating the passion that I have and what I’m thinking about all the time, which is travel and seeing the world and creating those special connections with people from all walks of life all over the globe. Doing something in that realm just felt natural. And so, you know, on paper, I had no business at all, you know, coming into this industry and was fortunate to have a friend of mine that I I finished my my MBA with introduced me to to Kale and spent about six months just getting to know Kale, getting to know the business and the vision, talking to him about my experience as a traveler and the experience that I had in consulting and how those two could really marry themselves together to be able to come and help him accelerate that vision to to bring Lodge to more people both here in the US and then ultimately, you know, ultimately abroad is the is the objective here to have Lodge camps all over the world. And, Cale, just to be clear, is cofounder or of lodge? Under and CEO. Yes.
Okay. Perfect. Perfect.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s great. So it sounds to me that, you know, consulting, dare I say, was a paycheck and lodge is your passion now? You know, I I don’t know if I would go to to that extreme. And when I left the world of finance and was entering consulting, the rationale for that finance, I found interesting, exciting. I was good with numbers. It was so niche.
And and so I felt like it was one of those things that once you mastered it, you had mastered it. And so that the pivot into consulting was really to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Right? You know, the the allure of consulting to a, you know, mid twenties kid that’s going to to graduate school is come and and work across all different functions, all different industries, and find that passion. And while I didn’t find hospitality formally through through work with clients and consulting, you know, it was an opportunity to see and do so many various things and really craft a a kind of multifaceted experience that felt like I was bringing a more well rounded perspective into hospitality when I made the leap year and after. On that particular note, I’m curious, like, what are some of the competencies you learned in finance and and consulting that is helping you now today, like, in your in your role?
James Kendall LaRue
Yeah. You know, there’s a it’s a really good question. There’s there’s a couple. You know, I think first, bringing a structured approach to problem solving. We face problems every day, in trying to create that that perfect guest experience and understanding if I’m going to go run an experiment because I’m trying to enhance guest experience, what am I actually trying to measure? How long should I run that experience?
What data should I collect during it to really, at the end of it, have this holistic set of data that I’ve collected through a structured way to be able to say this was something that positively moved the needle or did. So that structured approach, I I think, is is one that’s gone gone a long way to help us kind of refine the guest experience over time.
Sebastien Leitner
You know, the second piece that that you get drilled into your head in in consulting is often asking the next question. And so my early education in in hospitality, a lot of the answers that I was getting when I was when I was asking questions and trying to educate myself was, well, that’s just the way that we’ve always done it in hospitality. That’s the way that all the big brands do it, and it’s just always been done that way. Why?
James Kendall LaRue
Why is that the case? Why is has someone never tried anything else? Did we not have the technology or capability to try something else the last time that this was an open for discussion in the world of hospitality and trying to ask the right series of questions to get at the root cause of why something is the way it is to then be able to understand, well, well, maybe there’s a different way. And maybe we can we can break the way that it’s always been done as we craft our own version of hospitality. And then I I think that the the third one is, you know, just how to approach failure. And I I talk about this a lot with my teams and, you know, as part of that structured approach of just really a test and learn approach, how can you constantly iterate and evolve?
But I talk all the time with teams about fail small.
Sebastien Leitner
You know, don’t bet the business on a new idea, but find ways to craft it where you can fail small, you can fail safe, and failure that you can learn from that says, ultimately, at the end of the day, I wonder if this one thing we’re going to try enhances guest experience. If the failure is it didn’t, it drove a couple of bad reviews. Now we know that’s not something we should try at other properties. And so what were the learnings from that that shape what we go and try next? And so it encourages, you know, that controlled risk taking at properties to be able to to think about what you’re doing, understand the risks of failure, but treat failure as a learning opportunity if it is something that doesn’t work out. I’d love to hear, from you if you have one handy, an example of how you failed or how you sort of tried something in guest experience and it didn’t work out as intended.
Do you have one handy?
James Kendall LaRue
You know, it’s it it gets into a lot of you know, at the at the beginning of of this, I talked about guest experience being what I’m what I’m constantly thinking about. And we revamped, and so we we lean into technology to remove kind of transactional and just various friction points as part of the guest journey. As part of that, late last year, we revamped the language that we use in our text messaging service. You know, a guest, once you receive once you book, you would receive a text message from us with information about your stay. We do a contactless check-in, and so there’s a link to complete your registration card. My perspective in that was that it wasn’t something that was on brand.
It was a technology that we were using to reduce the friction point of arriving with a family at a property and standing at the front desk in line waiting to check into your room, but we moved it digitally in a way that took that transactional experience from an in person transactional experience to a, a digital transactional experience. And what we did in the fall was revamp the language to make that digital experience feel playful and on brand and not as transactional on, Sebastian, thanks for, you know, your stay. You’re staying with us next Tuesday to Thursday. Please fill out this registration card. And so we got playful with language, you know, change that from, hey, Sebastian. We don’t do front desks at lodge.
You know, please fill out this registration card because, you know, if that’s the way that you’re gonna be able to get the room card to access your room. And the last thing both of us want is for you to be wandering around the property when you get here trying to find out you know, find your way to your room. When we did that, we rolled that out across all properties. And I think what we learned with that playful language is there’s some properties where the way that we had crafted that didn’t actually work for that particular property. And the example that comes to mind was was our Glacier National Park property. It sits on the border, the southern border of the national park.
It’s thirty minutes from West Glacier. It’s thirty minutes from East Glacier. And when you’re doing that drive, it is a service less route. And so if you don’t have the information pulled up when you are driving east and you go through West Glacier on your way from Kal, Spell, or Whitefish to the property, you don’t have that information handy when you get to the property. And so we went back. We tweaked some language.
We changed the timing for when codes were sent, not when codes were active so that you could actually access your room, but sending it a day in advance versus noon on the day that, of arrival because you could be in the national park. You could be in a no service area. And so we had a lot of complaints from that of guests showing up angry with no information, didn’t have service around what to expect when they arrived. And I think the failure and and the response of, okay, how do we learn from that and tweak what we’ve done to make it fit for this property? Because this property is unique. And so that’s just one example of trying something that wasn’t as successful at one property as we thought and and being humble enough to say, hey.
You’re right. This this doesn’t work here.
Sebastien Leitner
How can we refine what we did to make sure it works? And you were, I guess, subjected to the lack of connectivity or the lack of, which, you know, it’s hard to sometimes predict or consider. Like, there could be outside forces in this context that that are driving that, which is fantastic. Now you use a lot of technology by the sounds of it to deliver guest experience to service guests. How many employees do you need on a on a typical properties?
James Kendall LaRue
Yeah. It’s, I I chuckle because this is something I’m constantly talking about with with our teams. And our staffing model and our approach to hospitality is is very different, because we’ve taken that technology first. And when we say technology first, what we’re what we’re looking to do is remove friction points, transactional connections between a crew member on property and a guest who’s arriving so that our crew members and our GMs can focus not on this transactional moment at a traditional hotel, but on a one to one hospitality experience. You know, I chuckle at that because in in essence, having a technology platform that sends you a text message, sends you your room code, gives you all the information that you need to have available would say, well, I can drastically cut my cost down at a property because now I don’t need labor here, here, or there. What we’re constantly thinking about then is the balance of guest experience.
And so we don’t want that to completely flip the scales in one direction because then someone’s arriving the property and they have all that information at their fingertips, but they’re looking for an authentic experience, a one to one hospitality moment versus a one to all hospitality moment, and we need people to be able to deliver that. And so, you know, the staffing model, is much more simple than it is at a traditional hotel. We typically have a a a GM or property leader, what we call site hosts. We we rip out front desk spaces at our properties, and we replace them with bars and cafes as a way to design connection points. And that bar cafe is staffed by our site host team where they can, you know, go in and point you in the right direction to find your room. If you’re unable to locate it, they can help you with a typical guest service request, But they’re also in a public facing bar and cafe, and so they’re making lattes.
They’re pouring beers and wine and creating an experience in that cafe that’s for the guests and for the community alike. And so it’s you know, we have people there, but they’re not just standing behind the front desk waiting to to serve a guest that comes up with a need. They’re engaged in creating a community while also kinda stepping in to help guests that have issues with their stay or need support. And then we’ll have a housekeeping team. And one of the things that, you know, very early when I came in that I noticed was different when I when I visited a lodge property, there’s a fun aside there that I’ll come back to, was our housekeepers, we don’t want them ducking into a room because they have to clean a room in in thirty minutes, and that’s the objective. We want them to to be efficient with cleaning rooms, but we also want them to stop and engage.
And so, Sebastian, if you’re walking down the hall and there’s a housekeeping card and the housekeeper is is cleaning a room for the next guest, our ask of them is stop. Take the extra five minutes. Ask, you know, what what are you doing in town?
Sebastien Leitner
What brought you here? Oh, have you tried this, this or that coffee place or this restaurant or, oh, you’re going hiking? This trail five minutes away is is a locals only trail. Like, not a lot of people know about it. It’s fantastic. Great views in the Missoula Valley.
We want those moments of connection. And so as we think about staffing, we’re balancing the efficiencies that you need for the business, but also creating space for creativity and personalization that comes with those moments of connection between staff. I’ll take a step back and then, stop talking here for a second. But my first experience with Lodge, and I I should have mentioned this in the the career journey. Back during COVID, I had just moved back from Norway. I was living over there for, you know, almost a year and a half right up until COVID hit.
And it came back to the US, was on a a cross country road trip of just working and exploring the country with with my wife and our dog, and we stayed at Lodge Bend back in two thousand twenty on this road trip just exploring the West Coast of this country and found Lodge because, it was a pet friendly hotel. We had our dog with us and and, you know, we were in Bend, and it had great reviews and talked about that community and the s’mores and the music and just the scene on property that our teams work so hard to create. And so my first experience with Lodge was not that introduction to Kale, but actually staying as a guest and experiencing that that guest experience of what we’re trying to create firsthand. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Does Lodge I mean, I hate to say that, and it it reminds me of your of your comment earlier, which was, like, hospitality has always done it like this.
Right?
James Kendall LaRue
Like, in in hotels, we often talk about star rating whether we like it or not. Right? Like and and different countries have different standards. You know, you can’t be a four star in Spain if you don’t have a pool. Odd. Anyway, point taken.
How would you classify a lodge property at this point if there’s any classification? It’s not economy. Right? It’s and it’s also not luxury. So where where would it sit from your Yeah. When when we think about our our comp sets, you know, we’re typically that select service is what we’ll compare against and how we’ll think about where we sit.
And from a star rating, you know, a lot of our early properties were smaller. You know, the the design standard of a lodge one point o and our early properties versus what our product is that we’re bringing to market now with Missoula and Glacier and St. George and all the openings we have slated, more of a lodge two point o. We probably started in that two and a half star, and the the vision is to get to that three to three and a half star. But we’re we’re very much a a select service hotel, and and that’s how we think about the comp set. We also when I say that in the same breath, and I say this to our our revenue management team all the time, I don’t necessarily want to compare us to the select service comp set because even though we have an offer that would be consistent with a select service hotel, we have so many things that other properties don’t with the gear amenities that we have on-site, with the programming that we have on-site.
That’s an elevated experience. And so when whether it’s revenue management and how we price and how we benchmark versus a a comp set, we often break the rules a little bit or try to ignore comp set data because we’re pricing based on that value proposition that our offering is is bringing to guests that decide to stay with us.
Sebastien Leitner
Interesting. I wanna talk a little bit about how how you’re creating, the right teams amongst around you. You talked about the general manager. You talked about, the the host. What do you look for when you’re, I mean, you’re you’re about to open another ten properties. You’re about to you’re working on doubling, I would say, the amount of, properties that you’re operating.
Clearly, you’re going to look for the next large employee. Is there a specific sort of asset or competency that this employee has to bring?
James Kendall LaRue
I think about this a lot. There’s a couple of things that are are nonstarters for me. And, you know, one is the element of care. Two is authenticity. And those two are are quite related in in my mind of just being an authentic person who shows up as yourself every day and showing that level of care for your team, for guests. And I think taking care of your team, that third one is how does someone think about team building and leadership and culture?
You know, if you can’t take care of your team, you’re never going to be able to take care of guests. What I’m looking for is trying to understand that care, that authenticity, that willingness, and and really not willingness, but that excitement about creating one to one hospitality moments. That’s what I’m looking for in a leader when I’m thinking about who’s gonna be guiding the property. All of the hard skills, my philosophy is that those can be taught. But that care for people, that care for a guest is spending their hard earned dollars to come to this place to stay with us because they’re looking for an experience, and they’re looking for an authentic experience. And so if we can’t create that culture around them while they’re on property to leave them feeling something when they leave that makes them remember their stay with lodge, you can’t teach that.
But you can teach someone how to build a budget. You can teach someone how to use our tech stack. And so I’m less concerned on all those hard skills and much more concerned about are you gonna create the right and best environment of people around you and the crew members that you hire where we’re going to be able to take care of our guests in a differentiated way to get them outside, to to leave them not only wanting to come back to that lodge location, but to, on their way home, pull up the lodge website or the lodge app and explore where else they can go and have that similar type of experience.
Sebastien Leitner
Do they need hospitality experience in your point of view from your point of view? Yes. They do. You know, that’s that’s one thing that we look for. You know, and it’s funny to to hear someone say that that comes from a nonhospitality background. I think in the fifteen months that I’ve been at at Lodge, I’ve played the COO role for the business, all the way down to the laundry attendant, in Missoula when we had just opened and we were staffing up the team.
And and so there’s a lot of nuances and intricacies on-site where a general hospitality background to understand that operation is important, background to understand that operation is important so that you can actually step back and care for your team and create that authenticity. I think if you’re trying to learn both at the same time and you don’t have that team leadership and that culture focus and you’ve never been in hospitality, that’s a lot to ask of someone. And so a general background in hospitality is is helpful. Now we’ve we’ve hired folks that were not coming from a hospitality background, and they’ve been successful. And and so it’s not a deal breaker, but it it does give someone an edge up if you understand the operation of a property and all that goes into it, and you bring that element of of care, authenticity, and and a mindset on culture and building that team around you. I have a beautiful mountain bike that I ride in the summer, on my sort of, I’m in Canada near a national not a national park, but, you know, a park.
So, anyway, I’m always blown away by my bike mechanic. The guy is fantastic. Are you hiring bike mechanics too?
James Kendall LaRue
I’m just curious because you mentioned the bikes that that you have. And, you know, we you know, in our early properties, we have kind of mountain bikes. Again, that lodge one point o standard for, you know, lodge Bend, lodge Missoula, lodge Glacier, and all of our properties going forward. We have a a relationship with Specialized, and so we have incredible mountain bikes on property for guests to be able to take and use. But those are very nice expensive bikes that require a level of care and upkeep to ensure that they remain, you know, night nice quality bikes. We’ve been fortunate that, the folks that we’ve hired in maintenance roles, because of the the brand that we are and the the value prop that we are trying to create in our communities, we attract outdoor lovers and bikers and adventurers to our teams that want to work for lodge in these communities and share what they love to do, which is biking and hiking and skiing and fly fishing and and all of those outdoor activities with guests.
And so a lot of the folks that we end up hiring in maintenance roles have that capability because they are taking care of their own bikes. And so we we haven’t necessarily needed to go out and look for a very niche type of capability. It’s been something that we’ve been able to largely service with the maintenance crew members that we have on-site because of what they’re doing in their free time and why they were attracted to the brand. And so we’ve been quite fortunate in the journey so far to just have folks that want to work with us that bring that capability.
Sebastien Leitner
So operate in a segment that is very much at one with nature, with the outdoors, etcetera. And as as I hear you talk about your experiences, I I I cannot forget that, you know, as travelers, we often have a footprint. We have an impact on the environment around us. And, you know, I I scratch my head and was like, how can I travel less so that I have less of an impact on nature? But I still at one experience it. What what’s your guys’ point of view?
James Kendall LaRue
What how can we help, I guess, travelers feel comfortable traveling, experiencing the great outdoors, and yet control the impact that we have as humans on nature? It’s a great question. And as someone that traveled Monday to Thursday for seven years in consulting, it was something constantly constantly on my mind on the impact that you have to the environment. And it’s something that we, you know, through design, we’re very conscious of. And so one of the things you won’t find on, any lodge property is a single use plastic. You know, there’s so many times where I’ve been in a hotel and you get a utensil set that’s wrapped in plastic, and then each individual utensil in the set is wrapped in plastic.
And we we try not to do that from our soaps and shampoos and lotions that we have in in the rooms. They’re all refillable bottles that we minimize waste. We don’t have, water bottles in rooms, but instead give you kinda cups and mugs for your coffee. Coffee and creamer and everything is is plastic free so that if you’re in your room, you can you can kinda enjoy those same amenities, but in a way where you’re minimizing that direct impact. We also, through, relationships with similarly minded organizations, a big one, is cloud paper. And so if tree free toilet paper, is something that we we use in in our properties, and we’re trying to work with them to expand that relationship to to paper towels and other products that they have to minimize our our impact.
It’s not direct that you see on on-site, but that community within folks that are they’re thinking about the outdoors. We have nonprofit partners that tend to be outdoor centric in all of the markets that we’re in. It is something that we look to to create anytime we open a new property. And so through those relationships, whether it’s education, it’s supporting the organizations that are doing something for the outdoors in their community, we find ways to support causes, you know, indirectly versus just minimizing waste on property.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s amazing. And and I assume your customers are receptive to this. They’re very happy with this. Like, what’s what’s the reaction?
James Kendall LaRue
What does it cause, from from your guests? Yeah. It’s, it’s something that honestly, I feel like is one of the differentiators. And folks at once we educate them on on all that we’re doing, you know, it’s a reason they come back to lodge and a reason they pick us in the first place is because we talk a lot about sustainability. And during the experience or the the education, excuse me, of a guest before stay, on stay, just everything that we’re doing to to minimize our impact. And so we’ve it’s been a an overwhelmingly positive response.
We haven’t had complaints from from folks about the efforts that we’re making to to kinda better the better the environment.
Sebastien Leitner
I wanna talk a little bit about your brand and sort of marketing and, you know, demand generation. You talked briefly about pricing and revenue management, you know, and and your comm set. How do you attract the travelers that have yet to discover lodge?
James Kendall LaRue
How do you, you know, help travelers discover your brand? I guess let’s start there. Yeah. It you know, it’s something we just went through in twenty twenty four in in Missoula and then up at Glacier National Park. It was a new market for us. We had this Pacific Northwest density.
We’re slowly expanding the footprint. And one of the things that you’ll find when you visit properties is our our properties are so unique. You can walk into, you know, the historic Isaac Walton in building at Lodge Glacier and then walk into Lodge, you know, Westport or Lodge Bend, and they’re they’re such different experiences. They’re different layouts. Well, we typically buy and look for properties that are seventies, eighties era and and renovate them, But you retain that quirkiness and character of of some of these properties, and so it uniquely feels different from one large property to the next versus not to pick on them. But, you know, if I’d walk into a residence in in Chicago or wherever it is, I know that I’m in a residence in just because it looks and feels the same.
With lodge, the look and feel of the brand design and standards are the same, but you would never know from one building to to the next that you’re in a lodge. And so we focus a lot on telling the story of our properties and connecting the past with the kind of now of a lodge property in that story. And so to take a Missoula as an example, a a guest might be traveling to Missoula because they want to go fly fishing, or they’re attending an a music festival, or they’re going to a football game. And they might not know as an outdoor oriented person that there’s an outdoor centric hotel in Lodge, Missoula in town where they can stay that caters to people like them. And so we spend a lot of time on storytelling, what makes Lodge unique. And as part of that that storytelling, we’ll bring locals into it.
You know, community we haven’t really talked about is a huge pillar for what we do and what we try to be both for guests and and those that live in the cities and towns where our properties are. So we invite locals into that storytelling to help us tell the story of the market, of the property, to be able to to kinda educate someone that’s coming into contact with the brand for the first time. Both what is the brand and what does the brand stand for? What is unique about lodge and this particular hotel, whether that’s gear and storage for gear that you have in your room or on-site music or fire pits or outdoor kitchens or know, boot dryers in your room, the distance to key attractions. We focus our storytelling based on where we think a guest is in that journey from just learning about lodge to considering staying with us on unique elements of our brand and the story of our brand, the properties and the story of our properties, and then specifically, you know, why they should pick our property versus another end of life.
Sebastien Leitner
Nice. Nice. And then ideally, they book direct. They use you know?
James Kendall LaRue
Once you sort of told the story, you’ve marketed to them, they come to your website and and book direct. Is that fair? That’s fair. And, you know, I think it’s something that everyone in the industry is constantly pushing for more of. We we’ve been fortunate. You know, it it kinda speaks to something I said earlier on guests have an incredible experience.
They remember how they felt and what they did and the interactions they had with our teams on-site, and so they come back and stay with us. And so from a repeat rate, from a book direct rate, we perform very, very well and and are quite competitive with the the book direct rates for some of the larger brands across our portfolio. I was gonna ask you about that because I I think your sort of brand invites itself to a road trip, invites itself to, you know, connecting a few larger large experiences into an itinerary.
Sebastien Leitner
Do you see that happening? Do you see, like, a repeat customer that goes to Bent, that goes to, you know, Glacier, that goes to different large destinations? Yeah. You know, it’s so yes and no. It’s something that I think we can consistently do a much better job of of when we have you on property educating you about all the other lodge experiences that you can have. And if you are a mountain biker and you’re at Bend and you spent the day taking one of our bikes and going from the trail that goes right off the side of the property into the Deschutes National Forest, oh, well, you’re really gonna love Lodge Missoula because it is a mountain biking paradise, and there’s all these other things.
And I think through technology and and through kind of refinements on how do we use technology to to promote that guest experience, promote that that cross pollination between properties, we can do a much better job of of that. But the second piece of it is just generally our our growth strategy and how we think about growth. And I mentioned this earlier. It’s very much a, like, a hub and spoke model. Right?
James Kendall LaRue
We want a major metro that has density and three to four hours of drive time from that major metro. We want several different property options. And so if you live in Seattle and you wanna surf, you can drive two hours to the coast. You can stay at Lodge Westport. If you’re a skier in the wintertime, you can drive an hour and a half up to Crystal Mountain and stay at the Lodge Alta Crystal or the Crystal Mountain property at the at the base mountain and go skiing. If you wanna hike the enchantments in the summertime, you can drive, you know, an hour and a half, two hours to Leavenworth.
And so we want to create those different types of outdoor experiences within a major metro so that you can go into a market, you can educate people about the brand, hope that they experience it for the first time, and then let’s say, oh, this is great. Where else can I go?
Sebastien Leitner
What other types of lodge experiences can I have as a drive to leisure traveler? Now with a place like Glacier and, you know, that just opened, it’s three and a half hours, three hours depending on how fast you’re driving from Glacier to Missoula, door to door with our two properties. It’s something that we are trying to kinda experiment with now because Glacier in the summertime, when that market is busy, it’s not necessarily the local traveler. It’s people coming in because they want to drive the Going to the Sun Road. They’re there for a specific purpose. And so how do you take that that guest and do the same thing and educate them about other properties and other locations.
And if you love Glacier, you’ll probably love Mount Rainier. That aspect of the storytelling for that non local guest who might be traveling into a property but still enjoys those outdoor experiences, I think that’s where we can consistently do a better job of of telling the story of the network and crafting that story based on what it is you personally like to do. How much of your business is, domestic versus international?
James Kendall LaRue
Is it split? Is it mostly you mentioned the metro area, so it sounds like Seattle is a big source market for you, but Glacier could also be a lot of international travelers. It completely depends property by property. I I’d say Glacier of all of the properties that we have today is is the most international, particularly during the the peak summer months. Most of the other properties are are highly domestic, but you will still get, you know, for Mount Rainier National Park in the summertime, there will be a a more of a tilt towards international travelers that are that are coming over to go to that national park. But, generally, across the portfolio, it skews more heavily towards the domestic traveler right now.
Sebastien Leitner
I wanna talk about tech as we sort of think of of wrapping up. And I’m curious on on sort of two areas. One is, you know, what is, I guess, we’ve already talked about the role of tech in your property. It seems that it’s front and center. What are some of the areas that you’re still investing in that you think we should or you should spend more on in creating better guest experiences?
James Kendall LaRue
Because we started with that. Right? Guest experience seems to be front and center.
Sebastien Leitner
Where are you investing at this point in time when you think tech? You know, a lot of our our tech stack is pretty well embedded in in what we’re doing. And so from the moment you make a booking, on the Lodge website or in the Lodge app, you’re in our digital journey. And so you’ll get a text message from the software that we use. You’ll fill out the registration card. You’ll get prompted to, you know, explore experiences and gear and book that ahead of your arrival.
I think enhancing that guest experience for me is experience for me is continuing to make some of the refinements on making sure that the language that we’re using is both on brand and fit for the property. But then two, we can use tech in a much better way to embed ourselves with our community. And so we use the the Way software right now to run gear rentals and experiences through leaning into that platform, I view as a as a massive opportunity for us. Sebastian had a a a bike tour agency in Bend, and you wanted to expand the reach of audience that you have to book tours. And we’re looking to facilitate those outdoor experiences in the spirit of our mission to make it easy for someone to to connect, get out, and explore. There’s a way within that platform to be able to offer your tours to our guests.
And so expanding that network, not only one helps us fulfill our brand promise by connecting guests to authentic locations within a community, it enriches that tie between us and the community because it’s helpful for us as as the place where they’re sleeping at night and where they’re chosen to stay, and it’s helpful for that business in the community that’s looking for ways to attract new audiences and and bring additional revenue to the community. And so leaning into those partnerships right now, I see as as the biggest opportunity of just more programming that allows us to bring that brand proposition to life. But I think there’s a there’s going to be an opportunity to continue to lean in there on removing friction points and taking time from a a a human who right now is engaging with technology to try and create that experience, having technology do more of the work so that, you know, a human on our team can engage more in the human to human connection interactions, knowing that technology is able to solve more and more problems. Yeah. The text messaging system is a great example of that. Right now, we have to monitor that.
We wanna reply. We want we have thresholds in how responsive we want our teams to be. As AI gets smarter, I’m sure that that system will be able to train itself to understand what guests are asking about, what are the types of responses, what is the language that we want to use so it feels on brand. And instead of then monitoring that text message tool, our team can be heads up walking around the cafes, engaging with people that are sitting there, creating more of that enriching one to one hospitality moment. And then on the, you know, prebooking side, AI and the opportunity and marketing to deliver the exact right message that someone needs and and an offer that somebody needs to the guest at the right time to be able to attract more folks to properties. I think there’s going to be a a real opportunity there as some of these tools get smarter and smarter and leverage AI and machine learning to be able to do more of that.
But the one worry I have is that you go too far. Right?
James Kendall LaRue
And that you’re so technology heavy that the intent of going and leaning into technology of removing friction points, removing transactional moments feels so transactional because you know you’re not interacting with a human that it’s hard to then unwind that. And so I think leaning into it in the right spots, particularly as some of these tools just get smarter and get better, is going to be the real challenge for us to make sure that we’re using it in productive ways that unleash the power of our teams to engage people and and make them feel like they’re having an epic experience with us on property and not so far where it feels, you know, cold and and not the warmth you get from a a person to person interaction. Yeah. Don’t be creepy. As I was listening to you around AI, don’t be creepy and and and create experiences that are odd.
Sebastien Leitner
I saw some really interesting things happening, in in the digital advertising space where you can create using AI digital ads that are really tailored to audiences at a fraction of the cost. Right?
James Kendall LaRue
You can take your content, modify it, embed, you know, personas, you know, put your face or equivalent thereof on a on a mountain bike riding down the trail, and it’s an ad that is tailored to you as a persona. Right? And, of course, the the click is what matters. Right? The conversion that that ultimately is that matters. But to your point, what is too much?
What is that balance? And and and how do we walk that? But it sounds like you you have figured out what the right balance is for you right now. And, as the tools become more sophisticated, you’ll choose the right path for you again. I wanna hear, you know, maybe a little bit on the sort of relaxing part.
Sebastien Leitner
How does Kendall LaRue relax? What’s your sort of vacation or, you know, downturn look like? Is that a weekend?
James Kendall LaRue
Is that a holiday, a trip? Yeah. You know, I I I think I said this at the beginning. When I’m not when I’m not working, I’m thinking about travel. I, you know, I’ve I’ve been fortunate through work life, but also personal life to to have I think I’m close to ninety countries visited in the world. And so I’m constantly thinking about where else can I go?
What what’s the experience that I haven’t had that is is kinda solving for connection and seeing some part of the world? And I I always say this to to my wife, but I I wanna collect experiences and not things. And so I get a tremendous amount of joy and relaxation from from going and experiencing some of those things that are so unique to our world that, you know, who knows how how long they’ll they’ll be here or that connection with the world and connection with people that are getting out and and exploring. You know, we don’t do a lot of beach vacations where you go somewhere to just sit. Our our vacations are very active where we’re trying to go off the beaten path and find the local coffee shop and engage with locals. And I think that’s going back to why I was so drawn to lodge.
That authenticity of how I like to travel is the authenticity that lodge is trying to create for folks to really have you come to a place where we have a property and experience that place the way the locals do and get out to explore the environment in the way that you want to, whether you’re someone that to be outside means going for just a a walk on a trail by the river in Missoula. That’s a nice gentle stroll, or it means you’re mountain biking, you know, down a down a steep mountain and enjoying the speed and the danger and the thrill. And it’s something you do every weekend. And and we want to be that for for everybody regardless of what it means to be outdoors for you. And and I think that resonates so much with me because that’s how I like to spend my time and how I like to unwind and relax is is being out there, just kinda experiencing the outdoors and everything that the world has to offer.
Sebastien Leitner
Excellent. Alright. We have to wrap up with your top three bucket list destination. Where are you yet to go that you wanna go to? Anytime, budget permitting, it doesn’t matter. I’ll, you know, I’ll wire the money, the resources needed.
Let me know let me know what’s on your top three bucket list destination. Two of them, I have pretty clear cut. One of them is there’s going to be totality over the pyramids, I think, in twenty twenty seven during an eclipse. And I think that being there in that moment for that event, it that’s that’s very high on the bucket list right now. I’ve never been to the pyramids. I’ve never been to Egypt.
And so that’s one that’s, a little bit further out than I’m in the in the early stages of planning. The second one would be Mount Kilimanjaro. I I want to climb Kilimanjaro and summit on New Year’s Day. I think that’d be a a very cool experience to in a way to start the year is atop Kilimanjaro kind of looking across Africa. And then the third, you know, I in the ninety two countries I think I’ve been to, I’ve never been to Antarctica. It’s my last continent.
There is an art to come marathon, that I would love to run, and I’ve never run a marathon. And so that, you know, training for that to just do one, I don’t have great knees at this stage of life anymore from just growing up and abusing them, playing all sorts of sports. But being able to train for a marathon, go down and run that in Antarctica would be would be the third one. Awesome. Kendall, thank you so much for joining today. Thank you for sharing your story, your insights, your experience, and, talking about your businesses.
So thank you so much for joining today. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me.
That brings us to the end of yet another episode of The Turndown. Huge thanks for all of you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. Of course, this podcast wouldn’t be possible without the amazing team behind the scenes. A massive shout out to the producers, Paula Carreirao, Linda Pashaj, Lana Cook, Ricky Shoeman, and Ayleigh Farquharson for the incredible research and preproduction work always keeping us on track. To Paulo Sanchez, thank you for your stellar audio editing and for making us sound so good.
And finally, thank you to Ying Liu for her organizational talents and keeping the season on schedule literally. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and follow us for updates and bonus content. Until then, take care and stay curious.
