GMH Hotels: Hotel Owners Are Dropping the Big Brands

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Speaker B: Good morning.

Speaker C: Good morning Sarah. Uh, good to see you.

Speaker B: Good to see you too. Okay, you're coming from a little bit of a different background. Normally it's me, but you're going to be in the hot seat. So where are you joining us from today?

Speaker C: Oh, well, listeners and viewers, as you know we have a hospitality management company that I'm a co founder of and we're actually coming from one of our brand new listings, the pop art paradise here in Coconut Grove. It's a neighborhood in Miami, pool house, four rooms, beautifully decorated with a little bit of the art from the owners. Um, and we launch it next week. So we're here out of this home today to record from, but it was a busy week. I don't know how you travel so much. I was traveling around last week, I was jet setting, uh, Thursday, left San Francisco land in San Francisco for the night out to Sonoma for a farm hospitality event. Yes, Red Farms, which was very cool. Yes, Star Restaurant. I got to go see their farm that's okay. Percent of the food for the restaurant.

Speaker B: You have dinner there.

Speaker C: We had lunch on the farm, but, uh, not dinner at the restaurant. And then we finished the event, got on a plane. Myself, my. My co. Part. My co founders of Baya, um, Ben Wolf and Banks Chisholm, left the event, got on a plane to Palm Springs to scout a potential new location for another buy, and then back to Miami.

Speaker B: I love it.

Speaker D: I love it.

Speaker B: But you got to actually see some. By the way, um, for those that are joining us, let us know where you're joining us from. I love this because both the airport in Sonoma, super cool, very cute. They have a whole peanuts theme. And then also the Palm Springs airport. Very unique with that whole open air element. So, um, I mean, you know me, I love it. West coast girl. I was like, wait, you're invite. You're in my backyard, so to speak, relatively speaking. But I love that you got to check it out. It's very cool.

Speaker C: It was very cool. And I had a moment on the in. In Desert Palm Springs. It was sunrise, 5:30 in the morning, on top of a mountain, watching the suns come up. And all of a sudden, these two dogs started running at me out of nowhere in the middle of the desert. I'm like, oh, my God, this is it. I'm about to fight to the death on these dogs. And started licking me and just sat next to me as the sun came up. And now I want to get a dog. And I found out later it was a former owner's dogs that still live on the land and someone feeds them. I'm like, wow, this is so cool.

Speaker B: That is so cool. Wait, that. That's a very cool story.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, Will Slickers, I may be joining you as a dog owner producer Will in the background. I'll let you know. But yeah. So that was my. My week. Crazy. And now here, looking a little puffy, we said, how am I looking, everybody?

Speaker B: That's all.

Speaker C: Um, right. But we're here to do a great show today. We got a great one.

Speaker B: We are. We. Oh, and by the way, you definitely want to stay on because, uh, we have a special guest on today, so we don't always have a lot of guests, but, uh, when we do, it's worthwhile. So, um, but how about this? Before we get into it, uh, do you want to go ahead and do our first sponsor read here and then

Speaker C: we can thank you for all the listeners and viewers you keep tuning in and you keep spreading the word of how good our show is? We Keep getting sponsors, which we appreciate very much. So, uh, this episode is brought to you by StayFi. StayFi helps short term rental operators build direct guest relationships through branded WI fi portals, email marketing, and my favorite data tools that turn one time bookers into repeat guests. So start growing your direct booking revenue today@stayfi.com. good morning, hospitality. That's stayfi.com. goodmorninghospitality.

Speaker B: You did that so well. I figured that would be so appropriate considering you were in one of your short term rentals.

Speaker C: Look at this. Come on and stay with us. We'll put the link in.

Speaker B: I love that. Okay, so we were, um, we're saying that we have a special guest. So I know we don't want to, you know, delay much longer, but we've got a great guest.

Speaker C: I'm so excited to talk to her.

Speaker B: I know. So, um, I think, I think you've been on before Sarah, actually. Maybe not because you had. So, um, but so Sarah Copet, um, who is joining us on the show. She is editor in chief over at skift. And a recent article came out that we're going to do a deep dive in to, which was basically called Going it Alone. Why Hotel Owners Are Dropping the Big Brands. This is a fantastic read. Highly, highly, highly recommend. We'll make sure that the link is in the show notes for sure. But, uh, without further ado, let's go ahead and bring on the other Sarah. Oh, Steve, you might have a Sarah sandwich in a second.

Speaker C: O. I love it.

Speaker B: All right, Sarah.

Speaker C: Hi.

Speaker D: Thanks for having me on, guys. You know, I hear so much about good morning hospitality and, uh, now here I am.

Speaker B: I know, it's so good to have you on. We've met in person a couple times.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Had a chance to chat. We chat. We. We definitely had a long conversation in Berlin, in New York, other places. And I mean, I always see your stuff. And also everybody's always like, oh, wait, the Sarah, the other Sarah, this, that.

Speaker D: So the blonde Sarahs too. I mean, you just can't. You do. Yeah, I was gonna say.

Speaker C: I know. Hopefully we didn't bore you with our coffee talk. We had to catch up. You know, we only get to catch up on the show. So now.

Speaker D: Oh, I know. Well, Seth and I are the same. Like, we hardly ever talk and, and uh, we're always like, save it for the pod. Like we, we have to bore the, you know, everybody with our, with our catching up and how it's been going. So I got you.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Steve has been doing exciting things So I wanted to uh, catch up.

Speaker C: Sarah, you wrote an amazing article here. How about you give the viewers and listeners kind of like the 30 second download on what you did and what. Yeah, or even longer. Just kind of share what you're seeing out there because it really, it is very in depth.

Speaker D: Yeah. So basically this is part of a series that I've been writing on kind of the struggles of American hotel owners and basically on the more mid to economy, um, side of the, of the hotel ownership business. And I started um, it started really quite organically just watching how much hotels were kind of the center of the story up in Minneapolis in the winter. You know, think way back to what you were seeing in all of your social media feeds in January with um, ICE going, going up there. And really hotels, they were in an absolutely unwinnable situation. There was no good option for them. They were getting pressure from all sides, from the government, from the community. They were having issues with like their employees feeling safe to come to work because you know, it was just so we. I uh, did a deep dive on that and from that I, when I, as I was talking to the hotel owners, basically I learned about all their other struggles. And so I wrote a piece called the Squeeze, which I talked basically about their, like the pure play financial issues that are, you know, really squeezing them in their margins between you know, basically increasing costs and the franchise fees from the big brands coming right off the top. And then in doing that I heard a lot about hotel owners who were just dropping the brands altogether and going independent. And that was, that was their solution. That's what they found worked best for them. The numbers, when they did the math, especially as you know, there was a big boom, a big hotel boom in the early aughts, you know, 2000, 2010, MHM, or right before the financial crisis. And those franchise agreements that were, you know, usually between 15, 20 years depending upon which brand you were with, they are coming up for renewal now. And so you've got a lot of people who signed a hotel, you know, their franchise agreement 20 years ago and now they're looking at it for the first time. They're pulling it out. They're doing the math that Prates Patel and Gary Patel and other people that I talk to have done and deciding that, you know what, it just doesn't make sense. I'm going to put my own name on the door and uh, do it that way.

Speaker C: Yeah, nail it in a couple things. I remember that story when it was going on in Minneapolis. Yeah, we covered that here where, you know, they didn't want to host people in the hotel and the hotel brand took away their brand. They took away the flag because they were stuck in this position, like, I don't want ice here. I don't want to be political. And they took it away.

Speaker D: I went and I stayed in that hotel when I was. Again, um, I did.

Speaker C: And so what did you find?

Speaker D: It's called the Lake Villain. Um, it was, you know, I kind of thought it was lovely. It was lovely, that hotel. Like, it was, it was great. And sadly there was nobody there but me. But, um, you know, it was, uh, it was very well kept up. I kind of thought it would be somehow like, sad or something. And it was absolutely was not. It was, it was. They were still keeping it up to brand standards. I mean, I arrived just a few weeks after they lost their flag. But yeah, that was, that was a, that was a part of the, of that initial piece.

Speaker C: It was interesting to me, too. On this article, there's a couple things. One, we talk about all these brands that are always opening up and that's the way that they. Yeah, you know, the big chains can start putting more and more of their hotels in the same market and not have protection against it. What was something you heard from the owners about that? Because you pay all this money to get a Hilton, and then all of a sudden these brands can then start putting all their other brands there. What did you see when you were talking to them?

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, the, the, the, basically the hotel owners, the ones who, who do kind of disagree with, with this practice or don't like this practice, they just disagree with the argument that the hotel brands have, which is, this is a different class of hotel, this is a different customer. It won't impact you. And they're like, well, that's nonsense. It does, of course, impact me. So that, that, it's, that is the tension that, that you're really seeing from the soft brands.

Speaker B: So do you. Did you. Where. I mean, by the way, and even the backstory about how this kind of came about, like you weren't looking for this story, the story kind of revealed itself.

Speaker D: Exactly.

Speaker B: Um, do you feel like this is in how, how widespread of a trend do you think this is going to be over the next couple of years as a. These hotel owners are like, what are we doing? This doesn't make sense.

Speaker D: So I got some data, um, from Fran Data, which is a, you know, research firm that really specializes just in franchises of, of all types. And they told me that, you know, it would be 1200 agreements that are basically coming up for renewal. So it's not like a mass scale event, but you know, it's in this, this is really limited to the, um, to the like luxury. Like, we're not talking about luxury.

Speaker B: No, no, no.

Speaker D: Yeah, luxury is doing fine. Um, it's really, it's really these drive by, like you're on i80, you know, driving across the country. It's these hotels that are having, that are really, you know, struggling and having the issues. So, you know, I, while I, I think that like Pritesh Patel is a really good example of what you need to make it work, which is that, you know, he's so, he's the second generation. Actually, I, I shouldn't say he's the second generation of hotel owners. I don't know that for sure. But he, it was his parents who signed the original agreement 20 years ago. And now, you know, when he was a kid, now he's a grownup. You know, he worked at PricewaterhouseCooper. Like he came, he came back, he read this thing for the first time and he's like, you know what? I can do better. And so if you've like, we're also talking about families. We talked about a little bit backstage. Like that came up a lot for these particular owners. Um, this ownership group is that you've got a lot of parents who made these original deals and now you've got kids coming in who either, you know, I talked to some owners who said their kids don't want anything to do with the, with the business. We're just gonna like, we want to be out. But then, you know, if you, if you have somebody like Pritesh who is like, well, I have my own ideas and I have my own thoughts about how to run a business. And you know, I don't want to be told, you know, what color paint to use or how to do my advertising or, you know, I want to do it myself. And so if you have that, if you have that kind of entrepreneurial spirit, which I think a lot of these hotel owners did back in the early 2000s, it's just that this was the way they chose to do it. Like, this was the, uh, entryway that a lot of, um, these first generation, so to speak, hotel owners found. Now you've got those kids that are like, you know, let's rock and roll. Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, the landscape has changed too. You know, these hotel owners have many more options as far as on the back end and how to run their business. They have Options that offer them or uh, that take different percentages. And so at the end of the day, you know, they're looking at like, okay, what, what does the flag actually bring us in comparison to how much it costs us? And because there are so many different, it's like, okay, well what makes sense? And obviously each property, it's going to be unique, A uh, unique proposition depending on where they are. It's like, okay, well we happen to be, you know, uniquely located here. It wouldn't necessarily matter if, if we have a flag. Some might be like, well, we are on the side of a road and probably having a flag would increase the chances of somebody stopping by because we seem like a safe bet because we're in the middle of wherever off of I, uh, you know, I 80, whatever. So it is interesting.

Speaker D: Yeah. And you know, you think about it, think about how much the world has changed since the early uh, 2000s. Like you didn't you. I mean, let's not even get into AI but just like the off the shelf technology packages that are readily available, they're all sort, there are all types of them that you can, if you're a hotel, an independent hotel owner, you can just buy them. That was, that was, that did not happen. That did not exist back then. And then you think about social media, about distribution, about, you know, how you reach your customer. Uh, you know, this was pre iPhone. Yeah, right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Like, and so, you know, one of the things that Pritesh was telling me was, you know, he, when he, you know, went dark to do improvements and renovations, like, he's like, you know, content is king. Right. He did all of it on Instagram. Like he's, he's a very um, out there and he is very online and he's very, you know, he's everywhere. And if you look, you know, he put, he put this article out on X and like the number of people that follow him and he talks to and just, you know, it was, it was kind of amazing to watch him interact with his community, with his customers. Um, and that just of course was never available to his parents.

Speaker C: Yeah, I could say I could see it here too. Just because in my world I worked in hotels and in short term rentals and just in this home now I can log in and I could have it on 30 different platforms. I can get bookings from all over the world that come in here and then try to convert them into direct bookings. And the hotel we're building is not a flagged hotel. We're building a new brand and that was part of the argument when getting financing was well, you need a Marriott or a Hilton or Hyatt. We're showing. We don't. We already have 13,000 followers on an account on Instagram being open for a couple of weeks and we have a VIP list of people paid to get on that list to sit and join and come into our place. So there's all these different ways now that you can really do demand. But something I want to ask a question on it because for you, you used to be in or you still are an attorney, I guess that used to work on these agreements.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: What were some things that you saw that you used to make to protect the brands that maybe are a little, you know.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean I, I, I think that the thing that, the thing that hotel, I mean I can't speak for what the hotel brands do or do not do.

Speaker C: Generalized. Yes.

Speaker D: But you know, these franchise agreements are very rarely negotiated.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker D: Maybe tiniest bit. But it's kind of like a take it or leave it kind of thing. And I think that now, and I can only imagine what it's like to be a franchisor attorney at this point. Um, that I have not done, I haven't done it 20 years. But um, you know, there's a lot more wiggle room. I mean you were just talking about financing. That used to be another big hurdle as you said, like you need a, you need a flag. And now I think the banks also are kind of like.

Speaker C: Do you. Yep.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah.

Speaker D: You know, and they're more willing to like if you can show XYZ also that the brand used to provide, you know, the banks are more willing to give, take a little bit more risk and give these independent owners, um, the possibility because they've seen it done and they know they can do it, um, with all of these tools where before they, you know, it didn't exist. Like I said, it didn't exist. They didn't have it, um, and they couldn't. So that is also changing as well.

Speaker C: I love it. Give the power back to the owners and the operators. Look, there's a place for all brands. I'm not poo pooing the brands. I work for some great brands. They do a great job. But I think there's other times where you're getting nickel and dime and you don't realize that you are snow and you're like, where's my money going? Especially in the budget friendly places.

Speaker D: Yeah. And, and, and I, I also want to, you know, the brands are are not the villains here. It's just, it's more that the agreements that in the, the structure that has been in place for the last, you know, 23. I mean, it's longer than these agreements have been in effect before the, let's say the past 50 years. It's struggling right now. The structure itself is struggling. The business model itself is kind of collapsing and that. And that's really the tension here. The brands are just operating in the same business model too. Like they, you know, especially, you know, especially the company, the public companies, they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to make as much money as possible. Yes, that is the, that is the fundamental purpose of a corporation is to make money. So, you know, I don't think anybody begrudges them. They're, you know, to do that. That is their job. But it's just all of a sudden you've got this group of people that were like, but I can do it too, and I can do it better and I can do it without you. And so they go off and do it themselves. I mean, it's, it's kind of, I mean, you think, you know, if you're going to have warm and fuzzies about capitalism. Yeah, this is probably it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, um, totally. What were you gonna say, Steve?

Speaker C: I was gonna say I'm excited to see where this goes. I'm sure we could do an entire show on this thing and maybe two more when more of the series comes out. But m. I'm excited to see where these operators go. I, I hope you do a check in with the Patels.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: Related. But check in with them maybe a year from now and see how they're doing once they've gone on their own. Because I have a feeling in my gut that they're going to be doing better than they thought just with all the tools and technology out there in the world now.

Speaker B: Well, and I love what this, like, brings up. Um, I know I want to be mindful for time here, but I just, I, it's. I. And I, I do hope that this changes things because again, we've discussed the landscape has changed again. The, the, these agreements are highly advantageous to the brands, but maybe there's something that they can soften or they can equ. You know, they can.

Speaker C: Another value add.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Like, uh, the things that stood out to me. And I'll just like touch on these briefly. But again, if you guys are tuning in, definitely check out this article because there's so much more than what we're discussing here. But as far as like, the territorial protection. Yeah, the, the phantom territory and the brands that are. We'll tell you whether it'll encroach on your, on, um, your business. And it's like, wait, what? Like somebody else in like another city that doesn't even know the intimate details as far as this market. But then also the, like, the Google reviews and the review, like.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker B: Why are we holding on? And, and it's. Those may have made sense in, you know, 2000, 2002, but again, how the landscape has changed. Uh, I mean, there's got to be more wiggle room.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: Well, Ms. Sarah, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it.

Speaker D: Thank you so much for having me. Yeah.

Speaker C: All the knowledge you have on this. The article again, is great. Make sure to, to read it. Put the article back up one more time, Will, so viewers and listeners can see it and see the headline. Go read this article. It is fantastic, especially if you're in the industry and if you have that entrepreneurial itch. It's also a good article to read from that point of view too, because I learned a lot just from her article. So, Sarah, man, so awesome to have you here. We got to have you on more often. This was a lot.

Speaker D: Yeah, anytime.

Speaker B: Please, please. That was great. And I'm, um, just excited to see how this hopefully impacts, you know, it impacts change. It gets the word out there and we'll see what changes end up happening from this. So very.

Speaker D: Thank you. Great work. Thank you.

Speaker B: Thanks for joining us.

Speaker D: Bye.

Speaker C: Bye.

Speaker B: Oh, isn't she fantastic?

Speaker C: I know, she's awesome. I'm looking at the time, I'm like, oh, my gosh, we could do an hour on this show talking.

Speaker B: I know, I know I, I would. But, you know, it's like the conversation is so great. And I know I've mentioned multiple times in the show, but really read this because it, it gives a different, um, it just gives a different understanding as far as what some of these small hotel owners are, are going through.

Speaker C: Um, but I, I reviews you touched on but didn't say. It was like this hotel had, you know, thousands of hotel reviews over, you know, 18 years. And then when they dropped the flag, the flag's like, no, those are our reviews. Those belong to us and you can't have it. And we shut down our Google page. So you just have to be aware of what you're signing. I know, like she said, you can't really, you know, negotiate too much with the franchise agreement, but there's a lot of options out there now and I'm happy to talk more about that because I really am in the middle of it right now and learning all of that as we're building out a brand. But before we move on Sarah okay.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: I want to give a quick shout out to our sponsor, Built uh. They're helping restaurants and hotel F and M B teams better understand their guests and create more personalized experiences that actually drive repeat visits. So if you care about loyalty, which I know you do, Sarah uh, and guest experience, it's worth checking out. Head to join built.com GMH and that's join built.com backslash GMH millions of people

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Speaker B: Well, thank you. Gosh. So we had so many articles that we wanted to go over today but we were doing, we had, I uh, mean it was so fantastic having Sarah on. By the way, let us know um, in the comments as you're watching this live. If you enjoyed us having Sarah on, we can definitely look into having her back on other individuals. I personally love it because then it just gets a different perspective and we can do a deeper dive whether it's into the articles or obviously whether it's a, an industry, um, thought leader. But um, why don't we cover what

Speaker C: I love about it, having her on is she, she's a reporter. Like she's going out into the place asking people, doing questions, not just looking at a press release and the making article like she was totally so.

Speaker B: And staying at hotels like she's, she's out there. But I have to say that's a big shout out to um, to the team at skift. They are, they are reporters and they are literally rolling up their sleeves and going out there. So, um, when you're reading some of these articles at Skiff, like, know that a lot has gone into it and it's not just a regurgitated press release on something. It's like they, these are reporters. So, uh, but let's go.

Speaker C: Not like Sarah and I here, who are just. We're not real journalists, are we? I guess we cover articles, we go out and see things. We're gonna get some real journalism soon. We're gonna go break us.

Speaker B: A different type of journalism. I would say. I would say different type of journalism. I mean, what's my social media? That's a different type of journalism. Arguably, I don't consider myself a writer, but I've written a book and I'm working on book number two. So I guess this all depends on the lens that you're looking at it. Uh, okay, uh, one more topic. Let's do a quick, deep, A, uh, quick touch on this Visa topic. Okay? Um, all right. Yeah. So Visa just stepped into travel distribution. So for those that have been paying attention, Visa launched Visa Destinations, which is a consumer facing travel platform offering cardholders curated experiences, dining and shopping across 10 cities including Paris, London, Dubai, New York. Partners include Trip.com Star alliance tickets and Viator. Um, so what's interesting, there's a structural conflict here. Visa doesn't issue cards, banks do. So Chase Capital One City, they all have their own built in travel Porter portal portals. Oh my God, I can't say the word. And they spent years trying to capture travel spend, but Visa Destination sits above all of them as a network level consumer platform. Okay, chime in on this because I know you've got, you've got something to say.

Speaker C: Yeah, I just want to give out some numbers first to kind of give the scale of this because. Yeah, how many people are actually booking here? So Chase Travel did 12.6 billion in sales in 2025 and only growing this year. And American Express traveled at 11.1 billion in sales. And so Visa is sitting on the sidelines like, hey, we need to get in on this. We're at the top of the funnel. We can capture things here. And they're being very specific, Right. They have their alliances and they're launching in 10 cities. Um, and look, it's. We talk about this model all the time and the credit card fees and it's like almost not free money, but you're there and you're collecting those fees and it can become gigantic, especially like we were just talking about earlier for your shareholders, of your company. So I'm curious to see the pushback here of what Chase and Capital One and Citi start saying because they've spent so much money building this out for everyone and all the marketing and they have a giant audience. So if it starts getting whittled away, I'm sure there's some deals that are going to be made. Um, hey, hey, Visa, you're no longer doing the transactions. We're gonna go with someone else. Right. So it's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out. But Visas at the top, they control. I'm curious to see where it goes.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, I mean, this is going to be interesting. Uh, exactly. I mean, it's hard to like, add too much because it's more of like, oh, okay, obviously this is going to frame it in one way. No, no, we're adding. It's like. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, I've actually done, um, some work with Visa, uh, with different tech platforms and it is a very interesting, um, just landscape, just all of like the credit card companies. Because obviously, um, like, for example, the, when I was working with Visa, in theory they could have acquired the company that I was working with. But for them, what made more sense was to help it grow on the back end. Because at the end of the day, if that particular company became a Visa company, maybe others, if Amex etc wouldn't want to play. So this is not new territory. They understand, they understand the playing field.

Speaker C: Listeners and viewers, I'm curious, just put in the comments here, like, what do you use when you book trips? I'm curious, like this past trip we talked about the top of the show. I booked it all through American Express Travel. I used fhr. I looked for the best raid. I got my deals through there. I booked my flights to through there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I'm a big American Express user because I'm in there.

Speaker B: I barely use my portals. I barely use them. I, I mean, free money in there. I know. No, no, no. I mean, I, I do like, I do because I don't believe in, um, sitting on points. So I definitely do. But it's not like, not quite. I, I feel like other people. But it did actually, um, help me like a couple weeks back when I was looking for flights, for example, to go to Amsterdam, and all the flights were like an economy ticket was $4,000. Um, I ended up booking that through Amex because I had whatever the different things. And then by the time I got money Back I ended up, the ticket only ended up being like 3, 200. So I was like, okay, cool. Well that works. So yeah, I mean you can play the game.

Speaker C: I want to use. I want to do a points show because for, for this trip it was almost like free basically for me. I didn't use points. I use FHR. And if you have HR, if you have a platinum card, they give you 300 semi annually. So that's was a 450 room night. 300 off, 100 credit on site. So didn't have to pay for food basically when I was there for the day. So I was like, I was like, I paid 50 bucks just for using my credit card.

Speaker B: So if you do it right, if you do it right, it can definitely be. Be awesome. Okay, why don't we um, can we. Do we have, do we have quick time to do our.

Speaker C: We gotta do this, we have to do for this part of the show.

Speaker B: Oh, oh, okay. Well, thank you for joining us today. Appreciate it.

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker C: That's the only reason I'm here is for Whose Brand is It Anyway? Brought to you by no one yet, but you can be a sponsor soon. Let us know. Uh, but I love this part of the show where we try to guess the sub brand or we guess what brand owns this sub brand. So we put up the name of a hotel if you haven't played yet. It's a brand. We want to see who owns that brand because.

Speaker B: Okay, let's see.

Speaker C: So let's start it off. Who do we got here, Will? Who do we have on the screen? This is not even a real studio res. Studio reservations. Look at that logo. Uh, worked hard on it. Let me think here. This feels like I'm going Best Western owns, um, this brand. That's my guess. Viewers and listeners, get your guesses in. I see some brands coming through here. Ihg Hilton. Good guess.

Speaker B: See? No.

Speaker C: Five seconds everybody. Five, four, three, two.

Speaker B: I'll just say a core. Just to say a core one.

Speaker C: So we got a core and Best Western. Who do we got here? Will, Look at that drum roll. Marriott.

Speaker B: Uh, wait, what?

Speaker C: That is amazing. Marriott. Let's pull up Studio Res on the screen. Can we get a home screen shot of Studio Res in the background?

Speaker B: Because that is crazy. I have never heard of that. Studio resume.

Speaker C: Listeners and viewers, have you stayed at Studio Res? Settled in at Studio Res by Marriott. Your studio, your space.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Again, so more in the affordable range. Featured hotels. Yeah, Limited service. Do your own laundry there. I see it's getting more and more into this space. Right. We talk about it. Um, but thank you Studio Res for doing a great job for all the people that stay with you and make sure they have a space and a place to stay comfortably across many locations, Southeast and the West. So a growing brand. Let us know if you stayed at a Studio Res. But man, I was way off. Way off.

Speaker B: Were way off. No, I, I appreciated the direction you went. I'm shocked because I work with Marriott so closely. Um, and I have never talked about a Studio Res.

Speaker C: Like makes the game so fun and I appreciate all listeners and viewers for playing along with us. It makes it so much more fun. And we're going to find a sponsor for this one. I think this is a good one.

Speaker B: Yeah, this is a good one for sure.

Speaker C: Uh, but this was a great show. I can't believe we flew by already. Yeah, we appreciate you all sitting here listening with us. And if you haven't subscribed yet, make sure to subscribe so that you know when we're going live and doing these shows and you get to see our guests like Sarah Copic joining us and talking about her amazing articles. Um, anything you want to add here, Sarah?

Speaker B: No, I just have to say, like, again, just let us know if you liked us having a, having a guest on. Um, we're definitely open to it. And um, and yeah, because today's conversation was great. So be sure, be sure to share it. This was a wonderful conversation. And um, and I think it's, it's a very important, um, topic to get out there. So, um, hope you guys enjoy.

Speaker C: Well, until, um, next week, everybody stay.

Speaker B: Hospital.

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