Lori Kiel: Bridging gaps in talent and technology

Lori Kiel

I always, joke with my team and I say, you know, the great thing about being an independent hotel is there are no guardrails. And the worst thing about being an independent hotel is there are no guardrails. Like, you can just drive yourself right off that highway, and and there’s nothing to stop you. So these hotels, they have distinct personalities.

Sebastien Leitner

Welcome back to the turndown, everyone. Today, we’re diving deep into the dynamic world of hospitality with a true industry leader, Lori Kiel. Lori is the senior vice president of revenue management at Pyramid Global Hospitality, overseeing a massive portfolio of seventy hotels. With more than thirty years under her belt, she’s seen it all from the days of manual rate setting to today’s sophisticated RMS systems. But what really sets Lori apart is her passion for breaking down silos. She’s a firm believer in the power of collaboration between sales, marketing, and revenue management, and she’s got some incredible insights on how to achieve it.

We’ll also be tackling the pressing issues of talent acquisition and retention, the evolution of revenue management, and the impact of technology like AI. So get ready for an engaging conversation with Lori Keel as we explore the future of hospitality and the importance of vulnerability and trust in achieving success.

Welcome, and welcome to Laurie Keel, the senior vice president, of revenue management at Pyramid Global Hospitality. Lori, it’s a pleasure having you on the program.

Lori Kiel

It’s a pleasure being here. Thank you for having me.

Sebastien Leitner

I love to kick things off with my sort of, you know, branded and and and, special question, which is, what is keeping you up at night, Lori, these days?

Lori Kiel

What keeps me up at night, these days is, really been much the same for the last year or so, and I would say it’s talent talent from all levels, from entry level all the way up to executive level. And I think we have some real opportunities in the hospitality industry, to solve. We need to solve.

Sebastien Leitner

So let’s dive right into it. This is not new. Right, Lori? I mean, this is this has been top of mind forever. What has changed, right, if you will, when you think of talent?

Lori Kiel

Well, I think there’s more options. Right? So I think that’s one of the things is that we know that hospitality school admissions are low. We do know that there has been a decline since the pandemic, and so you have fewer people entering, you know, at the education for hospitality as their major. And so that that’s that’s real. And then those that are graduating are choosing other options outside of going into hotel operations. And so now, you know, with with so many owner opper opportunities, asset managers, the real estate side, we’re seeing a lot of those graduates go that route rather than coming into hotels.

What has not changed is we still don’t make it easy for people to graduate from college and come into the hotel. We we’re still in a place that, unfortunately, unless you had worked in a hotel and you had some experience in the hotel, you’re still starting at an entry level. However, there’s been improvements in the the mentorship programs and the internships. They do see more of that. At HSMAI, you know, as part of the foundation, we really embrace the mentorships and now reverse mentoring to make sure that we’re not only, accommodating them, but they’re accommodating us because, obviously, this generation gap, it’s really interesting on either side. You know?

Never have I felt like I was learning as much as I am today at my age as I was when I first got in the industry. So who’s mentoring who? I think it’s a great place to be, but it does keep me up at night. I was just talking to some colleagues earlier about sales. We’re at the top of the year. Everybody’s talking about their sales incentives. Are we gonna pull back? What are the goals gonna be? Are you gonna hold back part of their incentive until the end of the year? And and I said to the couple of people I was talking to, I said, be careful. Be careful. We have a huge need for hospitality sales. You have a lot of salespeople that have left and have gone over to the tech side of our industry. And if you start messing with their money, there’s a lot of places for them to go. And so that’s what keeps me up at night. It’s all of that. I could just go on and on thinking about how do we keep the talent.

Sebastien Leitner

That’s amazing. And we could probably spend the most of this podcast just on talent, but I do wanna talk a little bit about your role, right, if you’re responsible for revenue management. And, you know, I I’m curious how you think revenue management has changed. There’s always sort of the pre pandemic and then post pandemic, but I’m sure lots of things has changed. How has your job changed in the last few years?

Lori Kiel

It’s changed immensely. And and, again, to be fair at all I also think it changes based on where you are. Right? So for me personally, I worked with Richard Kessler in the Kessler Collection for sixteen years, and working for one owner and doing commercial strategy that went from the branding of the operation all the way down to the conversion of revenue. That’s a very different landscape than where I am today, where I’m overseeing the independent and lifestyle properties for Pyramid.

And in that, an enormous part of my role is just in keeping my eye on those numbers and that pace and those strategies and even the most minute changes to try to make sure that we get in front of it before it gets in front of us. I don’t need to tell you that so much of everything that we look at though trend wise, it’s like a locomotive. It gets in front of you before you even know that it’s coming sometimes. And so I think that that’s not just me. I I in in the industry, every single person I talk to in revenue management is looking for that single source of truth. We’re looking for what are those trends. We’re having to talk to each other to figure it out. Are you seeing this? Well, I’m seeing that. You know, again, never has it been more important because I don’t think that anyone can truly predict what’s going on right now.

Sebastien Leitner

You mentioned the locomotive. Is it fair to say that changes are happening faster than you can perceive it to happen? Like, changes are happening quicker than you can almost react to? Or have we gotten at least on on top of that?

Lori Kiel

I don’t know that we’re on top of it. I don’t know that I would give us that much credit. You know what? And I don’t mean it in a bad way, but I don’t think it was it’s an election year. Well, we all know if you’ve been in the industry for any length of time, you know what an election year is. But did you know what an election year was gonna be in this election year? And I’m not even gonna go there, but you know what I’m talking about.

So many things that happened. And then we see, oh, we gotta get through the holidays. Okay. We get through the holidays. Well, now you gotta get through the inauguration, and what’s gonna happen there? And then, oh, by the way, you know, now they have the LA fires. And so it’s like, can you really be on top of it? Because I I would believe that you would be who could predict this? And even more importantly, who would want to? Who would ever want to predict?

I even think about the ski patrol. This is the time of the year. Listen. If you have a hotel in the mountains and you’re, you know, you’re a a ski hotel, you make your money in the first quarter of the year. And now we have people waiting to get on a lift for two hours and only being able to do one run down a mountain. What in the world? You can’t predict that.

Sebastien Leitner

Nope. No. No. You can’t you can’t predict that. Let’s talk a little bit about the properties that you’re responsible for because I want the audience to know, you know, what what you do and, what properties you you take care of. Independent lifestyle hotels located where? And and give us sort of a a synopsis or a summary of the types of properties you look after.

Lori Kiel

We look after, independent lifestyle and luxury hotels that are not affiliated with a brand. Right? No one even the the endorsement brands like Autograph Collection, those are those are considered more on the branded side of our portfolio for Pyramid. This is what we call the benchmark side of the company, and, these hotels are truly independent. A few of them have the benefit of a of a soft brand like Preferred Hotels, but for the most part, they’re purely independent.

And in that, I always, joke with my team and I say, you know, the great thing about being an independent hotel is there are no guardrails. And the worst thing about being an independent hotel is there are no guardrails. Like, you can just drive yourself right off that highway, and and there’s nothing to stop you. So these hotels, they have distinct personalities. And in that, you always have to be able to encompass the brand, the positioning, those distinct qualities of that property, the experience as part of the strategy.

And so never so much as when you’re working in an independent hotel environment, do you really have to play that commercial strategy? It has to be marketing, sales, and revenue, and ops working in lockstep with one another because every single thing, every decision you make affects all. And in that, you know, again, that’s that guardrail. That that’s that comment that you can do anything you want. But can also do anything you want, and that can be very dangerous.

Sebastien Leitner

Location wise, they’re located in any North American

Lori Kiel

We’re global. Pyramid is global, so we have, hotels in Europe. We hotels all across the United States. I have hotels in Hawaii all the way down to where I live in South Florida. So it’s a lot of fun. It’s it’s great having hotels everywhere because you get a little bit, yeah, you you just get a little bit of each of those markets. The charm of each of those markets and and, you know, unfortunately, right now, with what’s happening in California, the tragedy of those markets.

Sebastien Leitner

I’m not gonna ask you for your favorite hotel, but it’s because it’s almost like asking, you know, what’s your favorite child. Right? Like but I’m I’m curious. Maybe you can disclose what’s your favorite destination that you you enjoy traveling to where there is such property.

Lori Kiel

Oh my goodness. You know, I, I’m an equal opportunity traveler. I just love I love traveling. So for me, you know, this year, I’ve been in Chicago and Boston, and and love that. I love being in DC. Who doesn’t love being on top of a mountain in Colorado? I mean, you know it’s I’m looking by my trip coming up at the end of, January to California. I’m still looking forward to that. So, and then there’s markets that we have hotels I’ve never been to yet. So I’m I’ve never been to Seattle in in, Portland, Oregon, and I’m actually looking forward to to seeing what that’s like. And maybe I’ll get lucky enough to go out to Hawaii. I haven’t been there either.

Sebastien Leitner

Excellent. Typical size of your properties, help us understand. So from what size to what size?

Lori Kiel

Yeah. Typically, your independent, hotel is in that two hundred room range. You know? You can get some of those that I call more boutique y that are under a hundred rooms. And then every now and then, you have those that are much larger, four hundred plus. And that’s, you know, that’s an interesting space for an independent hotel when you really get into those large numbers because you’re relying very heavily on group and meetings. And being unbranded, again, it just brings a different dynamic.

Sebastien Leitner

Your title includes the name revenue management. Right? But oftentimes, we we sort of talk in, in hospitality. There’s sales, there’s marketing, there’s revenue management. Some hotel companies have started using commercial the word commercial as a sort of all encompassing. Is that the future? Is I mean, is revenue management and marketing and sales finally coming together into one practice? Is that your vision? I’m curious what your opinion is.

Lori Kiel

Yeah. No. I I have a very strong opinion about this. I feel very passionate about commercial. And what I would tell you, I always use this analogy to help people understand what it is. Because, no, there’ll never be a place that even if I were the SVP of Commercial, I don’t do all things. That’s not what that is.

So if I use the rooms division of a hotel as my analogy, you have the front desk, you have housekeeping, and you have engineering. We call that rooms division. And each one of those leaders knows enough about the other department to work collectively together to give that experience to the guest that is of quality. Right? So, again, a front desk person knowing how long it takes for a room to be clean, what the expectation of when rooms will be clean, an engineer understanding, you know, again, how fast they need to react to, you know, a guest at the desk that’s screaming about something broken in their room. All three of those departments work together. That’s the rooms division, and you can’t do one without any one of the three. It’s not ideal.

And, again, that little bit about skill really makes the difference. So when you talk about it now with sales, revenue, and marketing, you still need a revenue expert. I still need a sales expert at the table. I still need a marketing expert. But now because we are working collectively, we’re working together to one strategy, that strategy becomes optimal for profitability, and that’s what you’re after.

So if you speak about maybe what we used to do in the old days when we were in our silos, we like to always talk about these silos that we’re in. Revenue management was looking at that top line, and we were looking at the whole. And sales is looking at the group side of that, and how am I gonna get that into what, you know, into what level am I going to get there regardless of what revenue management thinks I should or shouldn’t be doing on a weekend? And then marketing is out there gaining awareness, but are they gaining awareness on what we truly need?

Well, today, you can answer that question with a commercial strategy. Because in today’s environment, we decide together what we need, and we figure that out with awareness, consideration, and conversion in each of those disciplines having a piece of that pie.

Sebastien Leitner

Yeah. That makes sense.

Lori Kiel

Truly the way of the future. And I’m telling you, if you’re not doing it today, you have to get on board because what has happened since the pandemic is that our costs are higher, and we’re hearing it. We feel it. We feel the squeeze. And the only way to do this better is to do it together. And then at that point, you can be sure that you are bringing the most profitable business in on the most profitable channel and the right business that will be optimal for the property operation.

Sebastien Leitner

We can’t talk about revenue management without talking about sort of the the last three, four years and, you know, leisure versus corporate. Right? Like, I still scratch my head. And and looking back at what has happened in the last few years, I was like, surprise, surprise, leisure outperformed corporate for a long period of time. I don’t know if that’s true for your properties as well, but at least that’s what the industry talked about. We saw it in our customers’ data that leisure was the big savior of this industry that we were able as a hospitality industry to command prices that were never seen before. What’s your prediction for twenty five? Is this going to stick around? Is this going to soften? What’s your forecast telling you? What’s your data, your crystal ball telling you?

Lori Kiel

My crystal ball is is cloudy right now. I I I just got off of a call with a group, and, you know, and they said themselves they said, you know, we we said, oh, you know, one of our hotels is really struggling, or we’re trying to understand what that is, and and part of that business seems to be coming through your channel. You know, I seriously thought there was a disconnect in one of the systems, and the the person came on the line and they said no. The business in your area is down eighteen percent for January, and we have never seen anything like it. We are also scratching our heads, and so that’s not unlike any other conversation that I’ve had in the past, you know, couple of weeks where I don’t think twenty five is truly understood.

And and I think we saw a smidgen of that in twenty four. Right? Because we started off twenty four more optimistically than it ended. And so I do think people are coming at twenty five more cautiously. And so for me, I I don’t I’m not relying on a crystal ball. I’m really paying attention to the data. I’m paying close attention to the data, and I’m making sure that my, my focus is not always on that year over year or the same time last year, but I’m also looking at it week over week, month over month, quarter over quarter to see where are those tray those trends, compare on the year over year so that I know which trend to follow.

Sebastien Leitner

You spoke earlier about the single source of truth that we’re not there yet. Right? But it seems to be something that we strive for as an industry. Like, what’s slowing this down? Is it like, help me understand what’s what’s slowing us down from achieving that.

Lori Kiel

I would say integration. You know, it’s the integration between all of the technology partners. So you have the the technology is incredibly impressive. If you go to high-tech and walk the floor, you know, just pay attention to all of the different technology that is now out there and what everybody is offering and solutions are abound, but how they talk to each other is, in some cases, that in itself can be a deal breaker.

Because what you end up having is if you have all of these singular systems and they don’t talk fully, maybe they’re it’s a one way or a one and a half way interface, there’s always going to be that sliver of truth that is not delivered. Right? So what is that data that either didn’t come back, didn’t go through, and so you’re finding yourself constantly having to qualify that data, trying to make sure who is right, which system has the data the most accurate so that you can then go back and and audit the rest. That is a time suck. That takes a tremendous amount of time.

And, again, I just got done saying how important it is that we’re creating efficiencies that I e the commercial strategy because we don’t have an excess of time or labor. And yet our data, while we have more of it than we’ve ever known what to do with, it’s still questionable. And so I think that that’s tough. That’s tough for hoteliers. It’s tough for revenue managers who base their decisions based on data. And I I think at some level, you know, I talk to my tech friends in the industry. I think it’s tough for them too because they’re building this great technology that they want us to adopt. But at some level, we gotta put our hand up and go, okay. Well, wait a minute. I’m still trying to figure out how to integrate the technology I have before I can bring you on. Right?

Sebastien Leitner

Is there is there a sense sometime and and I’d love your your your opinion here. Is there a sense sometime that technologists and and maybe users such as yourselves collaborate not enough in order to get the the things that you need in order to get it done the way you want it, the way you need it?

Lori Kiel

I don’t know about that. I I am impressed by our technology partners, and and they frequently invite us to the table to talk about how we use and what we use and, well, what would you do with this? I know I’ve had just I’ve had great benefit of of having a seat at those tables, and I’m incredibly impressed at what they do. It’s it’s truly it’s just at the at the point that it gets within the operation. Right? It’s enough for me to say, I’m gonna I’m gonna buy your piece of technology, and you’re gonna bring it on board. Fabulous. Now how does it connect? And it’s that connection that I I don’t know who’s responsible for that. Right?

That is that is that the responsibility of the technology that’s already in the building or the responsibility of the technology coming in? And so yesterday, I was talking to a technology partner that wants us to adopt, their technology, and he said, I’ll look at all of your systems, and I can tell you who I connect you today. And those who I don’t, I’m gonna work on making a connection for. So he’s taking that onus. You know, that’s not always the case, and it’s not always feasible. It’s expensive. Right? Infrastructure is expensive. But if it requires you in turn to manually synchronize data, that’s not scalable these days, especially at the pace of change. Right?

Sebastien Leitner

Like I remember the first reservation manager I ever worked with, he was manually extracting on a daily basis once a day. The on the book situation, he was comparing it to the last twenty four hours manually. Right? And he was basically just you probably remember doing that too. So he did that. Right? Like, he was basically every single day.

Lori Kiel

Yes.

Sebastien Leitner

Now that was helping him identify, hey. Here’s a day that picked up in, you know, occupancy, or I have ten more rooms sold. I have twenty more rooms sold, thirty more rooms sold. Back in nineteen ninety nine or two thousand, whatever the date was when I remember seeing this, that was okay. Right? Now it seems like complete out of touch because changes are happening so quickly to your point, whether it’s fires, inauguration. Everyone talked about, you know, what’s her name and the heiress tour. Right? So, you know

Lori Kiel

What’s her name?

Sebastien Leitner

There seems to be so many things that happened very quickly. Talking about, you know, sort of historic, how did you end up in revenue management? I’m curious. You know? Like, was that always a passion?

Lori Kiel

It was. I started in the at a I started at a small hotel on the beach, and I was three to eleven front office. And I got an opportunity to move into reservations, and that’s really where it started. I had, you know, Holodex two thousand sitting bus up behind me, you know, dot matrix printer printing off reservations all day, and I’m typing them in.

And and then I continued in my career, through the front office. I came up through rooms, as they say, thinking that I wanted to be a GM. But as revenue management came into the fold, you know that it wasn’t called revenue management initially, and it definitely wasn’t a full time position. So somebody always carried that discipline along with them, and so that somebody was me. So as I moved into being a front office manager, a rooms division manager, an assistant GM. And even when I was the GM of a hotel, I was the revenue manager.

And so finally, the story goes that when I became a GM, I realized very it did not take long for me to be in that seat to go, I don’t like this job at all. I I I don’t wanna be general anything. So I was in that role for one year. We sold those, this suite of hotels, and, the company that I worked for at the time said, would you like to become a regional revenue manager? We would love to have you join us. We’ve got twenty five hotels. And and so that was when I took the leap and decided, maybe I’ll try this as a full time job. And from there, I never looked back. It’s absolutely a passion of mine. I I love it. I love it. It’s my favorite thing to do.

And then as I got into the next role in my career, it afforded me the freedom to then take sales under that umbrella and see how we could work together. And then eventually, I took marketing under that same umbrella. And so we were very fortunate to be doing commercial long before it had a name. So in that, again, it’s just it’s such a passion of mine. And so here I am now SVP of revenue. I love it. Absolutely love it. And I’ve got partners because this is a very big company. So I’ve got sales partners and marketing partners and ops partners that we all collaborate and work together. And it is, yeah, it’s it’s really it’s it’s a great place to be in my career right now.

Sebastien Leitner

That’s awesome. And you must have remembered the time when you first introduced revenue management assistant, an actual system into the fold. Right?

Lori Kiel

Well, yes. Well, I didn’t get married when that happened. So it was one yield. Okay. And then it was one yield version two. Yes. And, and then it was CITY. And so One Yield, I think I I was kicking and screaming. One Yield version two, was, like, maybe eye rolling. CITY, I fell in love with. And I think, honestly, it was that sales and catering system that made me truly understand the true benefit that a system can bring. Because I was like every other revenue manager. Like, no system can do it as good as I can.

But now we believe in the systems. But I also learned a lot through Marriott about data quality that and that’s how they want us all over, I believe. It’s just showing us that whatever you’re putting in is what you’re gonna get out. And then look how efficiently this can run. Look how much better. And then it gives you time to do the the best side of revenue management, right, versus dealing in the systems. The reason I ask, right, revenue management systems as a whole is probably still the sort of one system that is missing in most hotels. Right?

Sebastien Leitner

Maybe not in the two hundred room luxury property. Right? But if you think of, you know, there’s, what, a hundred thousand hotels in North America or in the US alone, revenue management usage is not that high. Right? It’s maybe thirty percent, twenty five percent, thirty five percent, etcetera. So sixty percent of hospitality businesses, let’s say, in the US alone, don’t use a revenue management system, and there’s a reluctance. Right? There’s a reluctance to use that. Why do you think that is?

Lori Kiel

Oh, I think it’s trust. You know, it comes down to it’s anything technologically for us as human beings. We think we can do it better. And, you know, with even those hotels that have RMS, the question is how many are actually using them? How many are working around them versus truly using them or somewhere in between? Right? And I I think that I see a lot of that.

But the sooner that we can get on board, the sooner that we can get those systems used optimally, the more profitability stands to flow because you’re getting your hands off that system. That system can make changes much faster than you can, but it’s all based on you making sure that that data quality is right. If how you set it up is not configured right, if those default settings are not right, if you have it kept on top of the maintenance on that, and then ultimately kept your human eyeball on those trends so that you can identify what the system cannot, you’re not gonna get that great result.

But I do think that the adoption is getting greater. I think I you know, Sebastian, believe it or not, in my opinion, the the onslaught of chat GPT copilot, I think that’s helping because people can put their hands on that, and they can see how it works, and they are in awe of what it returns. I’m not a coder. I can’t understand the back end of an RMS. I like to sit with data scientists that can. I’m in awe of them. But I just have to trust that they they have set it up right and that it knows what it’s doing.

With ChatGPT, I don’t have to trust. I go in there and I try it out, and I ask it a question that I think I already know the answer to, and it gives me something greater greater than what I already know. Right? Think about it. And the more trust I gain in that, then when I’ve got my RMS partner saying, well, this is working off of AI. I’m, oh, oh, and this is a lot of what we’ve talked about with HSMAI this year. When we went we did our It was all about AI. We talked a lot about AI as something you’re you’ve been using for years, and you just didn’t know it.

So I am hopeful that that’s gonna bridge that gap into the RMS world where we can get to the place that we go. Oh, you know, this system can probably calculate these trends better than you and I.

Sebastien Leitner

That’s a really interesting sound bite. So if I understand you correctly, ChatGPT is indirectly helping revenue management systems that have used machine learning and some form of AI for decades, if you will. But ChatGPT is indirectly increasing trust of revenue managers in hotels to actually use a system. Is that fair?

Lori Kiel

It’s fair if you understand the same analogy that I used for rooms division, commercial and rooms division. I was able to to show you very easily how you already adopted those three disciplines, and you clearly understand how they work together. And now I’m just showing you that commercial does it this way.

When I talk about RMS versus chat GPT, when I can get on a call and I can bring my revenue managers together and go, I wanna show you how fast I can do a SWOT analysis in chat GPT. They’re that is how fast your RMS can change rates, understand the trends, figure out the the supply and the the demand in the market, react to a peak, react to a decline. That understanding, that’s just taking one thing that people understand, like ROOM’s division, like ChartiPT, and making them understand that this is the same thing. It’s just a different system.

Sebastien Leitner

Okay. That’s fair. That’s fair. Lori, I wanna talk a little bit about your workload in general. Like, I understand what fifty, sixty, seventy properties are under your umbrella.

Lori Kiel

Yeah. Yeah.

Sebastien Leitner

How do you how do you prioritize those? I mean, that sounds like almost a a momentous task.

Lori Kiel

Oh, listen. You know, the strength is in the team. I have an amazing team that you know, pure and pyramid pyramid put that team together. I I’ve only had the benefit of joining and, you know, it’s it’s in the team. It’s making sure that you have defined the expectation for each of the roles in the organization and then removing the obstacles.

So my priority is a hundred percent of the time. How do I support the team? How do I remove the obstacles out of their way so that they can keep doing the job that they’re there to do? And by prioritizing that, I have great success. And that looks like a lot of things. Some days, it’s me diving into the numbers and trying to understand the actual numbers myself, whether it’s the trans pace, the group pace, the, you know, the channel mix. But sometimes it’s also understanding the skill level of that revenue manager who’s managing that hotel, and what is it that I can help you with so that you can get that edge up? What is it that I can help make less cloudy for you?

So a lot of times we do brainstorms, which I I love. I get a lot of benefit in that because, you know, all brains in the game, and if you have just a little smidge of vulnerability at the table there, everybody walks away learning something. But, you know, that’s how I prioritize. It’s I’m trying to be trying to be a great leader, and that’s what great leaders do. They just don’t get in the way.

Sebastien Leitner

How do you see, I mean, the role of your team evolving, the role of a revenue manager over time? What’s the future looking like? Especially as we think of recruiting that future revenue manager or at least educating them, to begin with.

Lori Kiel

It’s really understanding strategy. I think that’s a word that’s overused in our industry. We talk about strategy a lot, but I I have found in in many of my roles that it’s overused but underutilized, if that makes sense. So we all talk about strategy. Well, I have a strategy. You have a strategy. Everyone has a strategy. But it’s much like a marketing plan. Right? Like, you write it and you stick it on the shelf, and then no one looks at for a year.

And so what I believe we have to keep pushing for on the revenue side is really helping the teams understand how do you write a strategy that is tactical but not overwhelming, and how do you have those goal but not overwhelming? And how do you have those goal posts that say, oh, this is working. Let me keep doing this, or this is not working. Let me stop and try something else without it taking months to figure that out. So, yeah, I think that’s the future because you’re going to have all this data. The data should drive the strategy, but one is it’s not one and one. Right? You get the data, and then that data has to be accumulated into something meaningful so you can understand where to go to get more or less.

Sebastien Leitner

Do you expect sub any substantial shift in, like, channels and how travel is booked? I mean, everyone is talking about sort of the TikTok generation, the social media as sort of influencers. The I I’ve heard some trends in twenty four that the travel agent is back. Right? Like, the actual brick and mortar consultant is back. I thought that was an super interesting sound bite. But as you’re sort of looking at the data and strategizing around it, do you see any substantial shifts happening right now? And do do you expect more shifts to happen?

Lori Kiel

I don’t know that I see any shift. I think it’s high time that we get over villainizing the OTAs. I I’ve said that for a while, you know, because, again, it just to your point that the travel agent is back. Well, good for me. It’s one more person that will sell my product. Right? So, again, it goes back to the revenue manager. And if the revenue manager has a solid channel strategy that they’re working with marketing on so that we can bring in the business that is most profitable, then we’re doing our job.

But to suggest that you don’t want that business that might be on the other side of profitability, right, maybe it’s a little bit higher commission or margin than you want, I I think it’s absent minded. I I think that there’s a place for all of it. So, you know, again, I by now, you know, I love analogies. I I think I think about store shelves. I always think about the cereal aisle. It’s my favorite aisle of the grocery store, but I just think to myself when I’m going down that cereal aisle, what is it that I want the customer to take? I’m gonna stick it right in their line of sight. Right?

And then what is it that I would rather they not, but I’m gonna put it on the shelf. I’m gonna stick it way down low, or maybe I’m gonna make it so high that it’s hard for them to reach. But I think the important thing here is everything’s on the shelf. And so this idea that, you know, direct only, you know, no OTA, I I don’t I just don’t buy into that. I buy into there’s a place on the shelf for every channel. There’s a place on the shelf for every segment. It’s the revenue manager’s business to decide where that inventory sits. That’s their role.

Sebastien Leitner

What do you make of and and we see some interesting things happening in in distribution specifically related to payments. Right? There is there’s a lot of OTAs and and even, you know, if you will, the traditional wholesalers and bad banks that are seeing somewhat of a revival because everyone wants to be the merchant of record or own that customer experience, if you will. And there’s a lot of credit card companies that want to offer the ability to burn points and burn burn, you know, and and we, I guess, create rewards. If you had told me five, ten years ago that the merchant right, model is going to sustain itself and be as powerful as it is still now today, I would probably shake my head. Are you surprised by this, or is that something that you expected in a way?

Lori Kiel

I don’t know that I’m surprised by it. I don’t know that I expected it. I think, for me, I’m grateful for it because, again, it’s just bringing especially in the hotels that I manage because those are the hotels that people wanna burn their points on. And so, you know, I I’ve seen great reward from that in the past. So, yeah, I don’t know. I’m I’m fine with it, and we partner with a lot of them. To burn, to, you know, I guess You have to do all of that. Right? To be because then their loyalty is our loyalty, and that’s what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to play off of another company’s loyalty. And so, yeah, no issue here.

Sebastien Leitner

Before we close, I wanna go back to something that you felt very passionate about, which is about, you know, staffing and the next generation of hospitality professionals. And I’m curious, you know, what we need to do as an industry to make hospitality attractive again. How do we get the brightest and most motivated people back into this industry? What needs to change in your opinion?

Lori Kiel

Well, you know, I think we have to stop wearing that badge of honor that so many of us, you know, used to walk around and we used to I work twenty four hours a day, and every holiday, I’ve never had a Christmas off. And it it that is really not that’s not impressing anybody these days, not in a world of work life balance. And so I think that’s tops is really stop that stop that conversation as as showing your your own sweat equity as to how you got here.

And in instead, I think we really need to speak about the experiences of how rewarding this career can be. And the other thing about this career that I I love is how flexible it is to transition. He told you a story where I was heading to the general manager’s chair. It’s where I thought I was going to land. I worked very hard to get there, and then I got there and realized that was not for me. It is not what I wanted.

In what other industry can you pick a completely different path and not have to go all the way back to the start? I didn’t have to do that. And so that’s the benefit of hospitality. But do we tell those stories? Do we make sure that students know, you know, you don’t have to pick a major when you get into hospitality. You can get in and believe you’re going up through food and beverage, and you can end up as the chief engineer eventually if that’s what you want. Right? You can end up as an asset manager if that’s what you want. And that’s different than most industries. And I think those are the stories we need to tell. Tell more of them and less about the blood, sweat, and tears, to get here or there. Because every industry has it. Let’s not fool ourselves. No matter what industry you work in, you you’ve done something to climb that ladder. We just like to put it on our chest. We like to spin it.

Sebastien Leitner

Yeah. Laurie, why did you join the industry?

Lori Kiel

I’ll tell you the the hysterical story. I went to the college counselor, and I said, I’m debating between two things. I either wanna be a dental hygienist or I wanna get into hospitality. And she said, I’m signing you up for hospitality. And I’m very grateful for that because, yeah, I can’t imagine today of me cleaning people’s feet. That is definitely not what was in the cards for me, but I love it. I, I love travel. I love the world. I love the people I get to work with. I’m so inspired every single day. It’s a great, great industry.

Sebastien Leitner

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Laurie, in closing, I’d love to talk about you know, we opened, like, the the podcast this episode with what, keeps you up at night. I’d like to close this episode by saying what what lets you sleep easily? What

Lori Kiel

helps me sleep easily, is really the same answer. It’s talent, and I’ll tell you why. And that is because I am so inspired by people. I love, love, love the industry in which I work, the peers, and the colleagues. Those amazing students that I’ve been able to mentor who mentor me more than I mentor them. That’s what helps me sleep better. I am surrounded by just smart, brilliant visionaries in this industry. And every day that I get to work with them, to me, is is a huge benefit for me. I’m very, very grateful.

Sebastien Leitner

And it gives you the confidence that the future is bright for this industry.

Lori Kiel

I think so.

Sebastien Leitner

Fantastic. Really think so. Laurie, it’s been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for joining the program. I look forward seeing you at some point at some event, maybe live and and having a cup of coffee with you. But in the meantime, thank you so much for your time and sharing your insights.

Lori Kiel

Thank you.

Sebastien Leitner

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 Schoeman, 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.