215: Fire Trucks at Tiffany's
Ashley Ching is the founder and CEO of InHaven, a company standardizing vacation rentals with hotel-grade essentials and service. After 13 years at Tiffany & Co., she saw how consistent standards create unforgettable experiences and brought that rigor to short-term rentals. Susan and Ashley talk about standards, scale, and service.
What You’ll Learn About:
• How a free research study can turbocharge credibility, conferences, and customers
• What Tiffany’s playbook taught Ashley about pairing consistency with authenticity
• How Westin’s Heavenly Bed reset guest expectations across an entire industry
• The five pillars great operators share—and the warning signs when each starts wobbling
• How grouping by shared demand drivers sharpens ops and marketing
• Why too many owners tank speed, focus, and sanity
• Why empowered on-the-ground pros outdeliver policy-bound HQs
• How hospitality hits dis-economies of scale and where the hidden labor costs lurk
• How a new vacation-rental quality framework helps guests know what they’re booking
Our Top Three Takeaways:
1. Consistency + Authenticity = Guest Trust
Ashley draws on her Tiffany & Co. background to show that hospitality success hinges on balancing certainty (clear, dependable standards) with authenticity (local character and uniqueness). Just as Westin’s Heavenly Bed redefined consistency in hotels, In Haven is working to create a reliability framework for vacation rentals so guests know what to expect without losing the charm of individual homes.
2. The Five Pillars of Successful Hospitality Management
From her case study of Vacasa, Aimbridge, and decades of roll-ups before them, Ashley identified five pillars that predict whether management companies succeed or fail:
Curated portfolio (avoiding too many “bad apples”),
Properties grouped by similar demand drivers,
Limited number of owners,
Local-oriented operations,
Empowered hospitality professionals.
When these pillars erode—especially through over-centralization or owner overload—companies face churn, brain drain, and eventual collapse.
3. Bigger Isn’t Always Better: Diseconomies of Scale in Hospitality
Contrary to the industry’s obsession with scale, Ashley’s research shows that large property managers often face rising costs rather than savings. Unlike manufacturing, where size brings efficiency, hospitality is labor-intensive and complexity grows with scale. More units mean more staff layers, owner demands, and overhead—leading to diseconomies of scale instead of the promised efficiencies.
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