Behind the Stays · 2026-06-05 · 1h 7m
Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - Podcasts - - This week opens at LE Miami - which Scott describes less like a travel conference and more like Coachella for hotel nerds - before the guys dive into the real industry tension underneath the party. Hyatt tells investors to stop counting rooms and start counting fees, arguing that “empty calorie” growth is the wrong metric. But the panel digs into the contradiction: the premium story is Park Hyatt, Andaz, Thompson, and Alila - while the actual growth engine may be Essentials, all-inclusives, and credit card economics. Translation: hotel companies are increasingly distribution platforms, loyalty machines, and maybe even banks. Then Hilton’s Undergraduate by Hilton gets a second look. The name still gets roasted, but the strategy starts to make sense: college towns are wildly underserved, Graduate doesn’t pencil everywhere, and tired select-service boxes are begging for conversion. The question is whether this is lifestyle innovation - or just another brand solving an owner pipeline problem.
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