Behind the Stays · 2026-06-12 · 56 min
Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - Podcasts - - Two of the biggest casino operators in the world became takeover targets in the same week - and the squad has thoughts.Barry Diller's People Inc. just offered $18 billion to take MGM Resorts private, days after Fertitta agreed to buy Caesars. MGM's own CFO didn't argue the company was fairly valued - he argued investors aren't doing the work. Ben, Scott, and Edwin debate whether public markets are simply too lazy to underwrite experience-driven hospitality, and what the next-generation casino actually looks like.Then: the deal that almost rewrote the industry. On a recent podcast, Airbnb's former Chief Strategy Officer Chip Conley revealed that Marriott and Airbnb spent six months negotiating a major partnership in 2016 - including talk of earning and burning Bonvoy points on Airbnb stays - before Marriott's owners killed it. Was it the most expensive "no" in hospitality history?Plus: Zach got access to Odesia, the AI travel search platform from Sonder's co-founder that just landed $6M from Sequoia - and it's the best AI trip-planning experience he's seen, full stop.
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