Welcome by Design: Weaving Culture into Hospitality Design, Celebrating Diversity and Identity

speaker-0: This is Hospitality Unpacked powered by N.E.W.H.

We're diving into the trends, ideas, and people shaping the hospitality industry from design and innovation to the business behind the brands. Today's segment is the design, the creative visions, materials, and spaces that define how we experience hospitality. speaker-1: you everyone, my name is Valerie Coleman and I am the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Diversity for N.E.

W.H. Our whole mission is really kind of educating our membership on issues around equity and inclusion. Our goal is trying to help our chapters with the programs and the fundraisers.

that they do to make sure we are being inclusive, to make sure it is representative of the communities that we're working in and that we're doing our NWH work in. We are international organizations, so we've got Domestic US and Canada, we've got Paris, we've got the UK, we've got Milan. So we're growing and we're hoping that our message is growing. So this series today that you're attending, this is part of what we call EID dialogue.

And we've been doing these at like the HD conference show and the BDNY, and we try to pick a relevant topic that's related to issues around equity and inclusion. So today we're going to have a conversation about weaving culture into hospitality spaces. And I'm going to kick it over to my counterpart, Leo, who's going to talk a little bit and kick off our guest speaker today. So thank you.

speaker-2: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming to Weaving Culture into Hospitality, another EID panel of education. Today, as our only speaker, have Damon Hotelier, Damon Lawrence. Thank you so much.

Damon, please tell us a little bit about yourself. speaker-0: So I'm from California. I'm also a Howard Grant. So I Howard Grant back in 2018 had this idea that we needed more black representation in hospitality, right?

Didn't see it, wanted to see it. So started a brand called Homage. And the goal of that brand was to pay homage to black culture in various cities across the country. We opened up our small property in New Orleans.

It did really well in 2019. Then a year later, I wanted to tell you what I pronounced to that, a year later, I did, damn. We're embarking around some pretty cool stuff with taking that brand to HBCU campuses, right? Because there's a need across college campuses across the country for hospitality offerings, but specifically at HBCUs.

And we'll talk about that a little bit. But one thing I wanted to say to kick this off, when you think about even HBCUs in markets that have tons of hospitality, there are no hotels near the campus. How are... It is an example, right?

TSU in Nashville is another example, no hotels nearby, and their corresponding university, that's a PWI, will have over 10, right? So it's an issue. Parents need to go to the campus. Visiting teams need to stay somewhere.

So there's a huge need. So think of it as the graduate hotels for the HBCU campus. speaker-2: Exciting, exciting. That sounds really cool.

Damon, how has your upbringing in Los Angeles influenced your approach to hospitality design and the creation of spaces that celebrate African American culture? speaker-0: That's a great question. think because I traveled a lot, I don't think it has much to do with being necessarily in LA, but I went to school in Louisiana for two years, right? And then after Katrina hit, then I went to Howard.

And so seeing the way Black culture is different in every single city, I had the unique experiences of people all over the country, all over the world, and especially at Howard, where you get to see people from all over the world, all different walks of life. And how can you celebrate that in a way that makes everyone feel appreciated and I think that that's what the birth of the vision for the homage brand is like in Memphis, there's different food and different dialogue and different way of speaking in New Orleans is a different food, different dialogue, different way of speaking.

How can we take a brand and celebrate that in each individual market? ⁓ speaker-2: Just to give you some statistics, right? The workforce demographics in hospitality, the racial ethnic breakdown, 2023 US hospitality industry was 49 % white, 25 % Hispanic or Latino, 18 % black or African American, and 8 % Asian. And then the gender representation, women represent about 55 % of the overall hospitality workforce.

but this number decreases significantly in higher level positions. Just throwing out some stats out there. Another question for you, Damon. So you're developing hotels that cater to the historically black colleges and universities, HBCU community.

What inspired you to focus on the specific niche? And how do you think these spaces reflect the HBCU experience? speaker-0: Yeah, so, you know, it was crazy. I was just doing a Google search and was going to specific HBCU campuses and then just typing in hotel.

And every single time I did it, the Google pans so far out to find the nearest hotel. And I was like, oh, man, there's a serious opportunity here. And then we'd go to other campuses in the same market and do the same thing. And it would be like an explosion of all these hotels up at Oclo.

And obviously, there's a disparity here. And in 2022, Biden released some letters that talked about the disparity of funding that HBCUs were getting to their PWI counterparty. And it was crazy. It was like 500 billion in funding disparity for some of these colleges in these different locations.

And so I just realized there's an opportunity here. If fits with the homage brands, hopefully. One of the issues that I had in pitching the brand is people didn't understand what it meant, what it meant to pay homage to culture. Is it only for black people?

Is it exclusionary in any way? And that's not the case, but it's easier to ditch it. We're talking about the HBCU universe and campuses. speaker-1: So I was going to ask next about some challenges or opportunities that you've run into.

I think just from my background, just from a design standpoint, how do you see the role of design in kind of fostering the sense of belonging for those guests, particularly those who are from either marginalized or underrepresented communities? speaker-0: So the topic of the panel is weaving culture and then weaving culture has to define what culture is. And there is no culture without people. And the nuances that people have from location to location, that's the reason why we travel.

When we travel, we want to experience the local culture. And so if you're going to accentuate it, pay homage to it, You have to honor it, right? And you have to do your research and it requires you to really understand what that location needs. And even for HBCU, that's a perfect example.

I went to Howard, but Howard is not Hampton. There's no distant Hampton, but it's not Tuskegee and it's not Morehouse, it's not Spelman. Each university has its own history, its own heritage, and you have to pay homage to that and not specific culture. And one of the things I was thinking about on the ride here was what's a place that everyone feels included.

The only spot to think of was Disneyland, where everybody's happy and everybody feels included. But even with Disney, they held to start being more inclusive with the princesses that they would show even in the cartoons so that when these young black women go to Disneyland, they see a representation of themselves. And in design, you need to see a representation of yourself in the artwork, in the fabric, in the music. And once we can do that, it feels more on case.

speaker-1: And I think that probably brings a question about like authenticity, right? So how are you ensuring that your hotels authentically are representing the black experience and kind of avoid the, we call cultural tokenism sometimes or cliche or a trend. speaker-0: or cultural appropriation, you have to spend time there. You really do have to spend time.

You have to get to know the people, get to know the environment. Even when we went to New Orleans, I'm not from New Orleans, but by the time I left, people thought I was. And that was because I spent so much time there and got to know it and its unique history and its unique culture in a way that I could authentically sell that back to travelers. And that's the way you want to give up, right?

And you want to honor it because it's so unique. And I appreciate it. Orleans is one of my favorite cities in the world. But each one of our cities, D.

C., has an amazing, authentic culture. Baltimore, where I live now, authentic. you know, it's 45 minutes from D.

C., but it's totally there from a cultural standpoint, right? So you want to honor it, but that will part you spending time doing research, asking questions, and making sure that in the design process, you have diverse art. And one example of that There was a cabin manufacturer that I was talking to about a development for a site and they have these rain head showers.

And you know, when I say rain head shower, I know what you're thinking. It doesn't work. Doesn't work for your hair. That's a design flaw in the way that they built it because think about my mom and my sister.

I could do it, but they can't, right? It doesn't work for them. And so when you have other people in the room with diversity of thought, then it's the diversity of the product. speaker-2: And that's a really good insight there.

Leading into collaboration with designers, right? In working with designers for your hotel brand, how do you balance creator freedom with the need to stay true to the cultural themes and stories you want to highlight? speaker-0: So let me say this, I'm gonna go a little bit off topic with that because it's been an issue in hospitality design. We don't have enough black designers, right?

They exist, but not enough. And it's a top-down effect because you don't have enough black hotel developers, right? And so if you don't have black hotel developers developing the product, then who's going to hire the black interior designer to design the product? And so for me, I think who designs the hotels, especially with it being homage to HBCU is so important, right?

To make sure that we get it right. And if I had ID, I would need ID, right? If they had the opportunity, if they had it on their resume, then they can get other opportunities from it. And so I think it's just super important for us to do the extra work, the extra due diligence to find the hidden talent that exists.

Cause it does exist, but we have to seek it out and make sure that we do all right. speaker-2: of free panel discussions, you talked about statistics for New Orleans, which really kind of shocked me. Do want to share that with speaker-0: Crap. Here in New Orleans is interesting because it's 80 % black.

And this is not even unique to New Orleans, but it's 80 % black, which you can only think of, I can only think of one black-owned hotel in that market, right? And then when we were open, it was two, right? And so that takes to the discrepancy that exists in a largely black city, how he only have one hotel, that's all, but there's a chapel, right? Access to chapel.

Where's the Mario? Mario here, TV. You back there? Okay.

He's a broker. So he understands access to capital. I also work on the brokerage side. I now understand access to capital and that's the biggest challenge that exists.

know, going back to the challenge question, just making sure that we have more people in this space. And I have to shout out one of my clients, Marissa back there, who is actually a hotel owner, black woman hotel owner, very unique in this space. Right. And so we're working on developing and designing her property right now.

And I tell her this all the time, she's a Gielincon, right? She already owns the building, which is unique in and of itself. And so as she does what she does and how she gains more prominence and notoriety and, we design her space, I hope that there's more that follow. speaker-2: Just about awareness, right?

So we talked a little bit about representation and hospitality. The hospitality industry is often criticized for its lack of diversity in leadership and ownership. What are some of the ways that you believe the industry can better support black hoteliers and designers? speaker-0: I think we're doing it.

You know, every time I come with this, it's a few more, you know, and I think we're growing in popularity and, and while Marissa's example, because you need to see more examples, right? It's important to see it once you've seen it and then you can understand that you can do it too. Right. All right.

And so I think that that's important for yeah. speaker-1: And I was going to say, think certainly, know, venues like this, it's like, I've been in what, I've been in what, 20 years now. So certainly when I started, you know, being... maybe the only black in the room sometimes.

And I come to shows like this and then year after year after year, this exposure, we're educating, we're letting people know. And so when people don't know what they don't know, right? So once people know, then you say, and I've had students come up and say, wow, I didn't realize there were black interior designers or, know, so like you said, I think us in these roles as well, sort of a caucus kind of show what's possible. You know, you can do this.

Here's what you need to do. then the mentoring part kind of connecting you to folks in the industry. you start to get the access to the people who do the work. speaker-2: the economic impact.

talk a little bit about that. How can creating hotels that celebrate Black culture and identity contribute to the economic empowerment of Black communities, both locally and nationally? speaker-0: There's a statistic that is so crazy to me. think someone said that the black dollar stays within our community for like six seconds or something like that.

And in other communities, it stays for days, for weeks, for months. And so just that alone, being able to go to a city that you love and patronize that city out of black establishment just does so much for the person eating this food staying there, but also the people who work there, the employees, et cetera. And we just don't have that enough. You can think of any major city and where you're going to stay that's going to, first of all, be culturally relevant and also that you know is going to be Black Tom.

And it's hard to do. It really is. It's hard to do. And the more that it happens, the better off it is the entire community.

speaker-1: So I guess if we look ahead future wise, how do you envision the future of hospitality design involving so that we're embracing and celebrating more diverse cultural narratives beyond just the trend? And that could be black culture, could be any. speaker-0: And I think I brought up Disneyland or the Disney ecosystem for a reason, because it wasn't just Princess Tiana, right? It's Princess Jasmine, right?

It's Mulan. Disney realized that they had to speak to a diverse demographic to continue to move forward. And I think it's the same way in hospitality. We have to continue to speak to a diverse demographic.

And that means that we need more people at the table. and make design decisions where it matters the most. speaker-2: Tell us a little bit more about the hotel that you're currently working. speaker-0: So our first hotel is actually at Tuskegee University.

Tuskegee is like number three HBCU in the country and they have a hotel on campus. It's been shuttered for about five years now, so since COVID. And the interesting thing about HBCUs in general right now is there's a huge enrollment increase over the last couple of years, really since 2019. Howard just graduated their largest class, had the largest incoming class this year, right?

⁓ Even when you think about them graduating the largest class ever, that was in 2024, those students started in COVID 2020. And that's the largest class. So enrollment is booming and that's across the board. So in with the hotel, we're also doing student housing, right?

So student housing in concert with hospitality. But I know friends that went to Tuskegee alumni when they're traveling to homecoming, which is this weekend, they go, they're coming from Atlanta, they go. and they have to leave, right? They have to leave and either go back to Atlanta or stay in Auburn.

And so when you talk about the economic impact, that money could have been spent right there at the university. It could have been spent right there in town. If they're going to stay at the hotel, they're also going to go to the local restaurant. They're going to patronize the coffee shop.

And it keeps the dollars circulating in that neighborhood and in that community. And so I'm excited about the opportunity. It's this world, it's out there, but it's a cool project for us to get everything off the ground and they have some really cool support. And one of the things that I'm happy to announce today is Venus Williams is our design partner on that project as well.

speaker-2: So there will be tennis rackets. So can you identify any design choices that you've made already that identify your brand's uniqueness? speaker-0: I mean, we're still in the research and development standpoint right now. We just finally finalized our agreement with the university after a long time.

But the research and even the things that I've learned from Bovartee Washington's involvement with the university, it just has a rich heritage that I appreciate and I love. In Tuskegee, you think about the Tuskegee Aranin, you think about just that whole region in general. A fun fact, that university is the eighth largest landowner of all colleges and universities in the country. Right?

So they have an immense amount of land, a lot in agriculture. And so when you think of agriculture, can think of a farm to table restaurant, right? Where we can use some of the goods that they all produce in the restaurant. So there's so much that we can do.

I'm just excited to kind of dive in and do the research. speaker-2: Did you find it difficult to pitch for the capital on your idea? speaker-0: No, not this time. No, it was actually pretty easy.

It was crazy. I think initially it was hard because it wasn't connected to the HBCU universe. I was thinking DC, I was thinking LA, I was thinking Chicago or Detroit, which I think that the brand will evolve to later on. But now when he talked about colleges and I show the staggering stats on how the top 10, even student housing developers, only 1 % of them is connected to an HBCU.

Right? So there's 500,000 beds and only 2000 of those beds developed in the last decade have been near HVCUs. But there's a huge problem. They don't have enough sleeping housing.

And so even when you look at the hospitality, in pitching it, I show all the HVCUs in these top tier markets and how close the nearest hotel was. Right? Some of them not even within three miles. Then I show other schools, but in the same exact market, similar enrollment and how you can see 20 to 30 hotels right near the canvas, right?

It just kind of just sold itself. So ironically, this time has actually been one of the easier times raising cow. And everybody loves HBCUs too now. It's like, everybody wants to get money and get back and go ahead, do it.

speaker-2: So why not? speaker-1: So, Damien, kind of just knowing your trajectory, kind of starting in the hospital, on the kind of operations side of the business, and now you've moved into ownership side. If you had to kind of give advice for someone kind of looking to get in, you're looking to kind of break into the industry, starting their own kind of culturally driven business, whether it's design or what would you say or what would you might you suggest? speaker-0: I mean, there's different routes.

Everybody has their own route. But I think for me, working in hospitality was probably the best thing I could have done. And I learned so much about the operation. So I know what every single person does at a hotel, whether housekeepers.

I was in housekeeping for a number of years. I was in food and beverage for some time. I did the front desk. So every single job and position, I know it.

I understand it. And I know what those people do and how hard that work is. I will never forget being in a training. and housekeeping and my back was hurting every day.

You know, that's not back breaking work, making those beds and you know, folding those sheets and breaking them down. And so when you understand what your employees job is and how much work they put into it, and it allows you to appreciate them so much more and appreciate the entire operation. So for me, That was an experience. worked at Ritz Carlton.

I worked at Sheraton's. worked there. Motels, hotels all over the country. But knowing what people do and how it all fits together, that helps even on capital raising and even in leading people to have said that you have done the job as well.

So I would highly recommend, like, if you're interested, just get a job in hotel, right? Even if it's just briefly, just to understand the operation. And then it makes the design and the other parts of it so much more fun. because you know it on the back end.

speaker-2: Just one more question. It's good to hear you speak about that the often marginalized back of the house, know, the afterthought people. So you seem to be really on this. What's your vision for the next five years?

Like, where do you see yourself and what you're doing? speaker-0: I mean, I hope we have a couple of hotels at HBCUs and that the brand can kind of grow from there, but I just want to make sure that I give as many opportunities to people as possible. I do consulting too, so I try and help other people, young entrepreneurs that want to open up their own hotel, figure it all out from soup to nuts, how to raise capital. I think it's a unique experience to raise capital in this industry from a Black perspective.

And there's things that there's cultural nuances that we need to be prepared for that I don't think there's any one kind of prepping us for. And so I love to be at work. It's exciting. I'm just hoping that more people get into the industry and actually want to do more cool, fun, exciting projects in hotels.

speaker-2: And you did mention that Howard University now has an interior design department or a starting one. speaker-0: They've had it. Yeah, they've had the interior design, but they just started their hospitality program, which I believe these young ladies are actually coming from. Yeah, right there.

So that's exciting. I was in partnership with the Marion Foundation and they're doing amazing work as well. So excited to have them with this. Demon, thank you so much for your work.

It's very important. Howard used to have a hotel called Haram. speaker-1: ⁓ So that concludes, we're going to wrap up. We're grateful for the turnout.

We hope you learned something. We hope you can meet Damon and make a meeting. speaker-0: Thank you. speaker-2: Thank for coming.