Transcript: Episode 251: HITEC San Antonio Part 2
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor with Susan Barry, episode 251. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/251.
[00:00:14] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now, your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.
[00:00:32] Susan Barry: We are back at HITEC with more stories from the loading dock. If you missed part one, you can find it in episode 250 on topfloorpodcast.com, or anywhere you like to listen. First up, a run of stories about hotel guests behaving badly, a bartender's hookup gone wrong, the most particular celebrity rider you've ever heard, and a day club dress code nobody wants enforced on them. I am here with Amy, who I met yesterday at the Hospitality Creator Summit. Amy, tell us about you and your company.
[00:01:14] Aimee George: My name's Amy George, and I'm the owner of Amy Inc. We just opened a restaurant. I'm opening a restaurant in San Francisco. I have a book that comes out and a bed and breakfast in Oklahoma.
[00:01:28] Susan Barry: Cool. What kind of restaurant?
[00:01:31] Aimee George: It's gonna be kind of Americana, viral trends for recipes, limited edition prints, and African influence.
[00:01:40] Susan Barry: Oh, that's so interesting. Are you front of the house or a chef?
[00:01:43] Aimee George: I'm a chef. But it's kind of a family one-man show. I'm gonna be doing a lot of the AI stuff for the event to see my kids around the place.
[00:01:54] Susan Barry: Well, we're gonna head down to the loading dock because that is where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:02:05] Susan Barry: Amy, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:02:09] Aimee George: Well, I went straight to the loading dock with this one for sure. I was overseeing some guest services in a very nice hotel in Westbury, San Francisco. And all the managers moved on, well, really randomly stayed, so I was the one that got the call. And it was an irate guest, down payments from Italy, and he was cussing me out, screaming, saying, "This man just came into the hotel." He's in the room with his husband, locked clothes. The bartender had wanted to have a key to the room and wanted to access the room under the impression it was unoccupied to bring a guest from the lobby door.
[00:02:59] Susan Barry: Oh my God, are you serious?
[00:03:01] Aimee George: Yes, I'm very serious.
[00:03:02] Susan Barry: You were having a party.
[00:02:09] Aimee George: And they were, like, making out, opening the door, and then they opened it to two naked men in their room. And he was gonna call the police. He was irate and had to comp everything because he was like, "I'm gonna write a review." He's like, "No, no." Comped everything, and he was flying out. They were getting ready to catch their red-eye flight back to Italy. That was the wildest one. He went to the bar and fronted the bartender. He's like, "I know what you are doing." He's yelling. The girl, she's done. She's out. She's not going to that. That was a real story.
[00:03:54] Susan Barry: What happened to the bartender?
[00:03:57] Aimee George: Well, he was still there after that.
[00:04:00] Susan Barry: Are you serious? He didn't get fired?
[00:04:03] Aimee George: Right. Well, I was really objective in how I communicated it because you have to be kind. So I think I actually saved him.
[00:04:12] Susan Barry: So you said he inadvertently accessed an occupied guest room. But you didn't say while trying to get down with a guest.
[00:04:22] Aimee George: I just said, "Suffice it to say, I comped everything without approval. Police didn't come, and there were no bad reviews."
[00:04:30] Susan Barry: Excellent. Well, I'm glad you were able to pull that off. Thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:04:36] Aimee George: Thank you for having me.
[00:04:30] Susan Barry: Aimee is opening a new restaurant in San Francisco, Americana with African influence, run with her kids. A much calmer scene than her last hotel job, presumably. Next up, a celebrity rider that sent a hotelier sprinting to Macy's. I am here with Ryan. Ryan, who the heck are you and what are you up to?
[00:05:05] Ryan Brough: Hi, thanks for having us on the podcast. Ryan Brough here, SVP of Revenue and Growth at Hapi. And at Hapi, at its core, we really work on consolidating fragmented data because it's wonderful that we hear about all of these amazing AI solutions that are gonna change our industry, but if your data foundational layer's not there, then it's really gonna limit how much innovation you can do in the AI space and just the technology space within hospitality generally.
[00:05:30] Susan Barry: Amazing. I think you are also known for the Hapi Boats this year at HITEC and the Hapi Bus last year at HITEC, both of which are brilliant ideas and so much fun. Did you ride around on the boat last night?
[00:05:45] Ryan Brough: Absolutely. We had a wonderful four hours on the canals here in San Antonio. And I loved it because oftentimes when we're at these conferences, we don't get a chance to see the cities that we're enjoying. And being on the boats and on the canals was a beautiful way to see this great city that's hosting us.
[00:06:00] Susan Barry: Absolutely. I mean, San Antonio's famous for the River Walk, so we really got to immerse ourselves in the River Walk. I loved it, and it was beautiful, and I saw a sort of a side of the city that I would not have gotten to see, so absolutely amazing.
[00:06:14] Ryan Brough: Thanks for joining us.
[00:06:15] Susan Barry: Enough about the river. Let's move to something else. I am gonna press this button, and I want you to tell me what it makes you think of. You ready?
[00:06:25] Ryan Brough: Let's do it. You've got mail. I have to think of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
[00:06:29] Susan Barry: Okay, so you fall down in the movie camp. It's like almost 50/50. Half the people say that movie and Meg Ryan, and half the people say, "Oh, my first email address and my AIM account." So you are Team Meg Ryan movie.
[00:06:48] Ryan Brough: I guess I am.
[00:06:49] Susan Barry: Understood. So I have to assume then that you do not still have an AOL email address.
[00:06:54] Ryan Brough: I do not.
[00:06:54] Susan Barry: Excellent. I'm glad to hear it.
[00:06:55] Ryan Brough: That has been deprecated.
[00:06:57] Susan Barry: Have you found yourself being a fan or an anti-fan of getting email?
[00:07:08] Ryan Brough: I am a fan of efficient email. But we all know that our inboxes can get quite full of things that are far from that. Ultimately, though, it helps us do our job, so I guess I've gotta be a fan.
[00:07:19] Susan Barry: Yes. I think I am my best communicator in writing, and so I love that email is the tool that we still have to rely on for business communications, because I feel like I do my best work in typing letters, if that makes sense. Okay, not email, but snail mail. How do you feel about snail mail?
[00:07:40] Ryan Brough: I'm not a fan of snail mail.
[00:07:41] Susan Barry: Oh, tell me why.
[00:07:43] Ryan Brough: Well, I am on the road a lot. As a lot of us are in the industry, and I'm always worried my mailbox is gonna get full, 'cause, you know, you travel. And half of it is all stuff you gotta throw away anyway. So, necessary evil, I suppose.
[00:07:57] Susan Barry: What is the best thing you've ever gotten in the mail?
[00:08:00] Ryan Brough: Oh, that's a great question. Probably, I really like some of the travel books, actually. So that is one of the pieces of mail that I like. There is one that does organized trips over in Europe and it helps me actually dream about the next trip I might wanna take.
[00:08:18] Susan Barry: Oh, so like their catalog for trips? Oh, that's cool. I don't get any of those. I need to get on that list.
[00:08:25] Ryan Brough: I think it's the Smithsonian travel guide.
[00:08:30] Susan Barry: Okay, cool. Sign me up. I'm saying this loud enough that hopefully my phone can hear me, and then they will automatically add me to their mailing list. Well, you may wonder, Ryan, why I'm asking you these weird questions about mail and post during a hospitality technology conference, and the reason is that I decided we're launching something new at Top Floor, and I decided that this was the most contrarian audience that I could talk to about it first. So it's Top Floor Mail Club. It's a monthly snail mail subscription, and each month has a different theme, but everything is related to hotels, hospitality, and travel. You get four or five little treats in an envelope every month, including, like, a sticker, a project, a postcard, that kinda thing. And I felt like if I told a bunch of hospitality technology people about it, I would really get, like, the true hater nation sense of if this is gonna work or not. What are your thoughts?
[00:09:31] Ryan Brough: I think unplanned, the piece of mail that I like to kind of get is a perfect alignment with what you're launching. Because it's purposeful, and I think purpose-built technology and purpose-built snail mail is what's important. So I will be getting that, and I'll be opening it.
[00:09:47] Susan Barry: Okay, fantastic. My purpose is to give myself a project that forces me to put my phone down for a minute and, like, do something tactile with my hands, like think and be creative. And creativity in hospitality is so important to me that if I'm not doing something creative, I don't have a leg to stand on, at least in my opinion.
[00:10:11] Ryan Brough: No notes. I'm excited to see it launch, and thanks for doing it here so we all get the sneak peek.
[00:10:18] Susan Barry: Excellent. Well, it's time, my friend, to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:10:32] Susan Barry: What is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:10:35] Ryan Brough: Well, I'll just pretend we're on the loading dock and let me go back to my hotel days. I was handling our business travel market and our entertainment travel market. And those who have handled the entertainment market know it is a big job. It starts with buses arriving in the middle of the night. But, really, before that, it starts with all the planning. So maybe one of my loading dock stories would be when I was handling a certain celebrity. We won't go ahead and name names here. But they were coming in. As usual, we would get a rider, and those can be quite lengthy. This wasn't the worst rider I ever had, but it ended up being one of the most complicated, because there were a lot of different items in there as far as prep for the room, which is normal when you're handling that market. And we expect it, and that's why we work so closely with those travel agents to try to really meet and exceed the expectations of their clients because those travel agents were our clients. So I painstakingly went through the rider. I worked with my concierge team, my F&B team to make sure that everything was there. I would have my team go deliver things, and I'd do my last check. This rider was particularly unique because they were sending their assistant ahead of time on a different flight that was gonna arrive two hours early. And 'cause that assistant needed to inspect it, which is not completely unheard of, but usually we are the trusted advisor or the kind of proxy for those travel agents. So it was a little unusual. So I met the gentleman who is the assistant, and we walked into the room. And I'm going through all the checklists, and I'm thinking, "We have got this solid." I have thanked my team 'cause it was painstaking and from every little angle on things, the right type of tea and the right type of this. And I'm expecting to pass with flying colors. And maybe take that assistant out down to our restaurant for a nice lunch 'cause he's been traveling, and he works hard, and he probably needs a break also. Well, the joke was on me because we got there, and this particular person needed to make sure there were brand-new sheets on the bed, brand-new towels brought into the room. Not just there, though. A new coffeemaker. Anything that was gonna be touched by the individual needed to be completely new out of the box.
[00:12:58] Susan Barry: Oh, so brand new, not fresh, just brand new, like pull the tags off.
[00:13:05] Ryan Brough: Like just went to the grocery store or went to the store, and I went and bought everything. And I thought he was joking at first. And then I thought, "Okay, well, maybe he found something on a towel or sheet." Those of us that have worked in the industry know that you just deliver on those service asks no matter what. Well, once I realized that it all had to be brand, brand new from the store, I of course started thinking, "Well, I'm gonna buy it brand new, but I can't wash it in the next 90 minutes and have everything ready." But we always do what we can, especially in hospitality. So, what I did is, I switched out of my dress shoes and put my tennis shoes on and did a sprint to Macy's down the street. And luckily, it was only about six blocks away, so not the greatest time of year to go ahead and do a little sprint down to the store. So I was running down there, purchased everything that I could, ran back, then had my team try to do quick loads of laundry on everything that we were gonna go ahead and have to put back in the room. Got a new coffee maker. So I think that we ultimately delivered on it, because that's what we do in hospitality. But it just goes to show you, no matter how much you prepare, you've gotta be ready to pivot. And really make that guest experience the best it can be.
[00:14:27] Susan Barry: I have to ask one question before I let you leave.
[00:14:30] Ryan Brough: No, I can't tell you the name of the person.
[00:14:31] Susan Barry: That's not the question. The question is, when you're doing that, and you're having to, like, go buy product, I assume you add that to the bill. No?
[00:14:45] Ryan Brough: It does depend on the circumstance. We usually go directly to the agency, or back then. Now I'm on the tech side, of course. But we go to the agency, and sometimes they have their own slush funds, which back then they would take care of it. So it's kind of a mixed bag. I would say back then at least, we would kind of say if it was under a certain threshold, and this whole thing was certainly above that. Then we thought it was the cost of doing business in the luxury hotel business.
[00:15:13] Susan Barry: I see. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:15:15] Ryan Brough: Thank you.
[00:15:18] Susan Barry: Ryan's company, Hapi, helps hotels consolidate their fragmented data so all those AI tools everyone's so excited about actually have something to work with. Now, to Vegas, where the dress code is more of a suggestion until it isn't. I am here with Tracee. Tracee, tell everyone who you are and what company you're from.
[00:15:45] Tracee Nalewak: Hey. It's so nice to be here. Thank you so much. My name is Tracee, and my last name is Nalewak. And I am the chief growth officer for UrVenue, which is based in Las Vegas, which is a venue management system. But we do ancillary experiences, both the booking and operations system.
[00:16:02] Susan Barry: Oh, that's so cool. And do you mostly work with restaurants, event venues, that kind of place? Or do you also work with hotels?
[00:16:10] Tracee Nalewak: Oh, we do all the above. So we work within hotels, lots of experiences that you find within hotels, from cabanas to brand activations to lounges to nightclubs, bars, you name it, all the way through to independent venues as well.
[00:16:24] Susan Barry: All right. Well, it's that time. We are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:16:37] Susan Barry: Tracy, what's a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:16:40] Tracee Nalewak: A lot of people don't realize, I think it's more of, like, how Vegas works, which is kind of interesting. And I think it's kind of that little insider, kind of way of approaching. A lot of people want to get into nightclubs and day clubs, and what they don't realize is there's a lot of promoters on the street. So it's not that guy just coming up to you and saying, "Hey," but they're literally looking for a person with a -. Yeah, and less dressed wear before they want to invite you into the club. But no, I think one of the funniest stories really just comes down to what people actually wear when they come into a day club. Now, there are generally speaking, most people don't realize there is a dress code. But you will see many, many skin-tight clad.
[00:17:30] Susan Barry: Will you explain what a day club is for old ladies like me who don't know?
[00:17:34] Tracee Nalewak: Okay, so obviously Vegas is very much known for the nightclubs. You know, when DJs come, lots of partying, VIP tables, lots of flowing champagne. But day clubs are really pretty much what nightclubs are, but just during the day. And, in some cases, the pool party you can come with your bathing suit on. But you would be surprised. There's just little triangles
[00:18:04] Susan Barry: I think I'm blushing already just thinking about this topic.
[00:18:08] Tracee Nalewak: Yeah, yeah. You do have to, obviously, go up to people and help them understand you can't come in. Just little triangles.
[00:18:19] Susan Barry: What's the line? What's the dress code?
[00:18:25] Tracee Nalewak: So the dress code, I mean, generally speaking, you have to have shoes, and you need to have a coverup. And obviously once you go in, you can go into the pool. You can have your normal bathing suit. But to come in and out, you definitely need to be a little bit more dressed up.
[00:18:43] Susan Barry: Gotcha. Unbelievable. I really am just trying to picture what it's like to have to, like, tell someone who's basically naked that they have to leave. Like, do people get mad? What happens?
[00:18:59] Tracee Nalewak: They get so mad. Oh, my gosh. Because these tickets, actually a lot of times, 'cause there's pretty strong talent, I mean, tickets into these nightclubs and day clubs could be anywhere from $30 up to 200 plus. So a lot of times they're very upset, but it is clearly on the ticket information that they get. A lot of times they do not.
[00:19:22] Susan Barry: Holy moly. Well, I have learned so much in this conversation. Thank you, Tracee, for joining me at the loading dock.
[00:19:28] Tracee Nalewak: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much.
[00:19:32] Susan Barry: Tracy's company, UrVenue, runs the booking and operations behind cabanas, lounges, and day clubs, just like the one in that story, presumably with a dress code field built into the system somewhere. That is act one. Next up, two stories about snakes. Yes, snakes. Confidential to my sister, skip this part. Sarah Murray, I'm so happy that you're here. Tell everyone about yourself and about your company.
[00:20:04] Sara Murray: Hi, my name is Sarah Murray, and I'm the founder of a company called Murmaid International, and we are a consulting firm that specializes in sales and go-to-market. So that could be sales trainings, keynotes and workshops, or consulting for firms who want to expand into the hospitality space. So super fun. We love selling on value and relationships, and that's really what this industry's all about.
[00:20:25] Susan Barry: Yes, because you're famous for always adding value, which I love as your catchphrase. All right, you're gonna add some value to me, or I'm gonna add some value to you, depending on your response to this. Tell me what this makes you think.
[00:20:44] Sara Murray: From the movie You've Got Mail. Of course. Yeah. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
[00:20:50] Susan Barry: Okay. So you remember it from the movie. Do you remember it from real life?
[00:20:54] Sara Murray: Yeah, the discs that would come in the mail. Yes. And, like, you would get the allotted time on the family computer.
[00:21:00] Susan Barry: 100%.
[00:21:01] Sara Murray: Yeah, you couldn't be on it that long because it would tie up the phone line, so we would fight over it, my brother and I.
[00:21:06] Susan Barry: 100%. And, like, do you remember the days when your house had a computer room? Which my husband sometimes accidentally refers to as his office as his computer room from that very same situation.
[00:21:19] Sara Murray: Do you remember, Susan, did you have AOL Instant Messenger, AIM?
[00:21:24] Susan Barry: Yes, I did.
[00:21:25] Sara Murray: Do you remember your screen name?
[00:21:27] Susan Barry: No, I do not.
[00:21:28] Sara Murray: Mine was Serendipity, but with As. That was, like, the most proud I've ever been at 12 years old.
[00:21:34] Susan Barry: That is amazing. So I'm gonna tell you, I don't think I've ever told anyone this before, but I am firmly convinced that in circa 1994, '95, I had an AIM chat with Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam. I mean, it probably wasn't real, but the screen name was Elderly Lady, which is a song, and the things that he was saying were very inside information for Pearl Jam.
[00:22:05] Sara Murray: I'm sure you did.
[00:22:06] Susan Barry: Moving away from email to mailbox mail, post mail, with stamps and envelopes and everything else, what is the best thing you've ever gotten in the mail?
[00:22:17] Sara Murray: Well, I love snail mail too, because I think it's the easiest way to AVAV, add value. Like, we want tangible things in our hands and that is just, like, a dying craft. The best thing I've gotten in the mail. Silly, but the other day my best friend sent me snacks from Trader Joe's in the mail. Yeah, like a holiday, a godmother card for Mother's Day. And then she sent me snacks from Trader Joe's. I'm like, "This is so silly that you're sending me snacks that I could go buy myself," but I never had it. It's called a brookie. It was a brownie cookie snack.
[00:22:46] Susan Barry: Yum, those are delicious. Anything from Trader Joe's is good. I think getting something that's not a bill or, like, an election postcard in the mail is always a thrill, which is why we started Top Floor Mail Club, so that people can sign up for a monthly subscription and get cool surprises in the mail on travel and hospitality and hotel-themed every single month. So hopefully some folks will find that to be as delightful as the brookie that you got from your best friend.
[00:23:15] Sara Murray: I can't wait to receive mine.
[00:23:18] Susan Barry: Excellent. All right. Well, Sarah, the time has come for us to go to the loading dock because that is where the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:23:32] Susan Barry: What is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:23:36] Sara Murray: Well, one of my many lives prior to starting my consulting firm is I managed the North America Hospitality Business for Schneider Electric. So I've been very lucky to be in some of the world's most beautiful hotels, in the presidential suite with the directors of engineering or the general managers, whoever's kind of solving a construction problem that they had. And so I've been in a lot of different engineering back-of-house offices and engineering offices. And so one day, I'm at the Palace Hotel in New York City, very famous, where the president stays. Michael Jackson got stuck in the elevator once. Yeah, the presidential suite's three floors, so he got stuck in this tiny elevator. But I'm sitting there, and we're in this meeting, and I see this giant stuffed, like, taxidermied snake on the wall. And so I pointed at the engineers. I said, "What's up with the snake?" And they said that years ago, like 10 years ago, there was this rumor that a guest lost their pet snake. And everyone just thought it was this, like, urban legend. And one day, one of the engineers is up in the access panel in the ceiling, and this snake falls on him. And it was huge, you guys. Like, it was like a python-looking snake, and it was real. A guest lost the snake. It was crawling the hotel for however long, growing in size. It dropped on the engineer, and they stuffed it and kept it in the engineering office, and it was just so funny.
[00:24:50] Susan Barry: That is both horrifying and amazing. And I also wonder if any of the hoteliers listening are like, "Ha, that's a good way to cut down on our pest control bill."
[00:25:03] Sara Murray: Just let the snakes stroll free.
[00:25:05] Susan Barry: Can you imagine? Oh my gosh, are you scared of snakes?
[00:25:08] Sara Murray: Yeah.
[00:25:08] Susan Barry: Of course you are. Everybody with common sense is afraid of a snake.
[00:25:12] Sara Murray: Well, now, even just being in your hotel room is, like, pretty gnarly.
[00:25:15] Susan Barry: O-M-G. Well, Sarah Murray, thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:25:22] Sara Murray: Thank you for having me. I can't wait to get my Top Floor meal.
[00:25:27] Susan Barry: Sarah's company, Murmaid International, helps hospitality companies sharpen their sales approach; advice the Palace Hotel engineering team probably did not need that day. Our next guest, Dylan, heard Sarah's snake story and could not let it go without a confession of his own. I am here with Dylan Mingard, guard from HM Alpha. Dylan has a story to follow up on our tale from Sarah Murray. Dylan, tell us about your eight-foot python.
[00:26:03] Dylan Mingard: It's inappropriate. When I was in my 20s, a friend of mine lived in an apartment in South Africa, and he had an eight-foot python and a corn snake. And the eight-foot python had grown out of its tank size, and we were broke, as you are at that age. And then, so to feed the eight-foot python, we were on the 19th floor, we used to go down to the local park with some bread. And grab a pigeon out of the park, and then we would stuff the pigeon into a duffle bag with the eight-foot python. Alive pythons usually only eat live food. Typically, the python would have a go at the pigeon in the bag, in the elevator on the way back to the apartment.
[00:26:53] Susan Barry: Ooh. Ooh. So why did you get a python to begin with?
[00:26:55] Dylan Mingard: It seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn't originally an eight-foot python. It was a much smaller python.
[00:27:01] Susan Barry: But you were feeding it live pigeons, of course, it grew.
[00:27:04] Dylan Mingard: Anyway, so the python got too big for the tank, and he used to roam around the apartment. So you'd wake up in the morning, it'd be curled up next to you. My wife said the same thing. And the corn snake got out, and the neighbor, who we knew. He was probably late 60s or 70s, came over. A poor lady. She was in her 60s. So, the corn snake got out. We couldn't find it. She came and knocked on the door and said she had a python, a snake in her apartment. And wondered if we could help her. And so we were like, "Yeah, of course." So we went down to her apartment, and it was in a stove. It had curled up in the stove. We dismantled the stove and got the snake out of her apartment. She was very, very grateful. Unbeknownst to her, it was our eight-footer. We took it, we put it back in its tank. She did thank us. She was a little old lady. She was very present. And then we moved out of that apartment, and then the eight-foot python came with us. And my dad had just gotten remarried to my stepmom, and we didn't have anywhere to put it in his house, so we put it in the spare bathroom. Which was fine, 'cause it curled up on the window ledge, above and behind the toilet. Until my stepmother went in to go to the toilet and then came running out of the bathroom, 'cause she had sat down and out of the corner of her eye she had seen this movement. Which transpired to be this eight-foot python sitting on the window ledge. Unfortunate. That was the end of the eight-foot python. Then it got sold, and it went into a snake farm, and that was that.
[00:28:34] Susan Barry: Maybe how that eight-foot python ended up in the hotel in New York City, we'll never know. I sort of think it might be. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock, Dylan. Dylan Mingard is Vice President of Engineering at HM Alpha, where I hope they don't let him carry a duffel bag around. That is act two. Last up, two stories about hotel reservations gone awry, a migration that accidentally double-booked 50 hotels at 2:00 AM, and a Swedish operating system that saw a little more than it bargained for. Let's get into it. I am here with Tanya for the second year in a row. I'm so happy to see you. Tell everyone who you are and what your company is.
[00:29:27] Tanya Pratt: Great. Great to see you again. Back for a sequel.
[00:29:29] Susan Barry: Yes, exactly.
[00:29:31] Tanya Pratt: So my name is Tanya Pratt. I'm the Global Vice President of Oracle Hospitality Strategy and Product Management. We create and deliver solutions that help our hospitality industry, both hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships.
[00:29:46] Susan Barry: While email often brings both happy news and annoying things, so too does the regular mail, like snail mail in the post office, in the post. I'm curious what the best thing you've ever gotten in the mail is.
[00:30:04] Tanya Pratt: So I remember this story because I recently packed up a house that we've lived in for 25 years. And every single piece of paper, every report card that my kids had, every school photo, it was all in boxes. And I took it, and I went through every single one of them. And I came across a box of letters from, not to date myself, 1985. I could barely read and write by then, but I had moved from Europe to Canada. And all my schoolmates from my class in Europe, I stayed in one class, and I were pen pals. We wrote letters to each other. It's so awesome. I was bawling. Looking at it, because it was still longhand. Kids don't write longhand anymore. They write text messages. And some of these envelopes that still had, I don't know if you remember, but like letters that you would send internationally used to have like these rims. Around them. And some of them had like stickers, like Hello Kitty stickers. Like, little poems, little crayons, because we would send, like, gifts to each other back and forth. And so I have not seen that in twenty-five years. Since we moved into that house, it's been sitting in this box. I'm like, "What's in this box?" And I opened it up, and it was, like, stacks and stacks and stacks of letters.
[00:31:36] Susan Barry: That is so amazing. Tanya, what is also amazing is that you literally just teed me up in the best way possible, and you didn't even know you were going to. Because we are launching the Top Floor Mail Club, which is a monthly snail mail subscription. Full of stickers and little gifts. Yes, about hospitality, hotels, and travel. So I swear to everyone listening, I did not pay you to tee me up like that, but you sure did do a heck of a job. So I know it's weird to talk about at a technology conference, but I do think that as things become more frictionless in our day-to-day lives, we want a little bit of something that we can touch. What do you think? Does that sound right to you, or do you think I'm wasting a lot of time and money on this mail club?
[00:32:28] Tanya Pratt: No, I think it takes us back to a time that felt so free, and that felt so frictionless, as you said, that felt so full of possibilities, right? Where we kind of didn't think about anything except writing a letter to our friends or, like, running to the mailbox for that letter
[00:32:50] Susan Barry: Or collecting stickers. I feel like you just made the best commercial for me that I could ever hope for. So now I'm gonna say that we are going to head down to the loading dock and get your loading dock story of the year.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:33:13] Susan Barry: What is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock, Tanya?
[00:33:16] Tanya Pratt: I have to tell you about this. It happened in 2007. And so I was doing a really big project. We were migrating data from one system to the other. It was 50 hotels, so about 40,000 rooms. She did a data migration, and as we migrated the data, it doubled every single reservation at source. And so that basically closed out every single hotel.
[00:33:46] Susan Barry: I think I just had a heart attack.
[00:33:48] Tanya Pratt: This was about 2:00 in the morning. The team called me, and they're like, "This just happened." And I said, "How long to fix it?" Yeah. They're like, "About 10 minutes." I'm like, “10 minutes?” "I just have to, like, reverse it." I'm like, "Do it. For those 10 minutes."
[00:34:08] Susan Barry: Oh, no. How did you handle it with the hotel? What did you tell them?
[00:34:13] Tanya Pratt: As the time passed, I called the general manager of the hotel, and I said, "Here's what happened." He's the only person that I could call. And I said, "I just want you to, like, raise the alarm and let people know." And he said, "How long is it gonna take you to do it?" I said, "About 10 minutes." He said, "Do it, and let's never speak of it again."
[00:34:33] Susan Barry: That sounds like exactly the way that a general manager would handle that, as they should.
[00:34:39] Tanya Pratt: As they should, but some would've been freaking out, "Oh my God, you guys are useless." "What are you gonna do to me?" All that kind of stuff. But no, and to this day, he's like one of my heroes.
[00:34:51] Susan Barry: Of course. Well, that is, A, insane, and B, a happy ending. So thank you for joining me on the loading dock for the second year in a row.
[00:35:01] Tanya Pratt: Thank you. I'll see you next year.
[00:35:03] Susan Barry: Excellent.
[00:35:03] Tanya Pratt: Awesome.
[00:35:05] Susan Barry: Tanya's company, Oracle Hospitality, builds the property and reservation systems behind hotels, restaurants, and cruise lines worldwide, and can apparently un-doublebook 50 hotels in 10 minutes flat if it comes to that. Our last story comes from a Swedish hotel operating system that saw a little more than expected on the front desk screen. I am here with Martin. Martin, tell us who you are and what company you're with.
[00:35:36] Martin Chevalley: My name is Martin. I'm CEO and co-founder of a Swedish company called Innspire. We probably have our biggest base actually here in North America, even though we're Swedish, and that's really taken off through events like this, like HITEC, and Techovation, and a few others. And what we do, and what we roll out, is basically an operating system for hotels. We basically help people do their best work. And then we want, obviously, the staff of the hotel to be able to face the guest and do the things that humans do, and leave technology to us.
[00:36:09] Susan Barry: All right. Well, we are now standing here on the loading dock, where all of our best stories get told. And Martin, I need your story.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:36:25] Susan Barry: What is the story that you would tell, like, at the bar at 11 o'clock at night or on the loading dock, the one that's your favorite crazy story to tell?
[00:36:36] Martin Chevalley: I actually have two, and they're not that crazy, but if you add them up, maybe they'll qualify.
[00:36:41] Susan Barry: Excellent.
[00:36:41] Martin Chevalley: Yeah. One is actually more kind of practical. It's not that exciting, but it's good because it was a hotel, one of the hotels that I've been working with. I forgot which city it is, but they had a huge problem because there was a flood in the city and many people were really stressed and, and angry, and it was just not good, not fresh. Plus the community had to turn off the municipal had to turn off the water, so that was even worse. If you're running a hotel and you have no water. Yeah. So there was a very bad vibe. They were really stressed. But fortunately they gave us this information, and we could actually use our tools to make sure that everything got answered and sent out and communicated through the hotel, so whenever people had angry questions about the water, then at least that could be mitigated and answered. That was pretty cool. It was good because I think it was out for, like, a day or two.
[00:37:32] Susan Barry: I bet they got so many obnoxious questions too, like, "How do you have no water in a flood?"
[00:37:38] Martin Chevalley: When there is so much water around. Yeah. So that's a pretty good one. The other one that's kind of fun, which is kind of more borderline to what is possible to share these days, but we obviously see a lot of data through our systems. It's all protected, and we're SOC 2 and everything. But one time we were standing with the hotel looking at their front desk. We saw all the data that was coming through our system that they could see, like AI, like chat conversations, and who's checking in, who's checking out. And we're a Swedish company, and the team that was there was Swedish. And that very day they were going through the VIP list of who was checking in. And this is a hotel in New York with a lot of cool people that do check in. And we saw that the Swedish princess was checking in. And being from Sweden, and we still have royalty in Sweden, we really like the royalty, so that we can brag about sometimes.
[00:38:31] Susan Barry: Thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:38:35] Martin Chevalley: Sure. Really good to be on. Thank you.
[00:38:39] Susan Barry: Martin's company, Innspire, builds the operating system that ties together everything from PMS to POS to AI voice tools in a hotel, evidently including a front row seat to the VIP list.
That is all seven loading dock stories from our second batch. This special episode of Top Floor with Susan Barry was recorded at HITEC in San Antonio, produced by HFTP. HITEC is the hospitality industry's largest technology conference, bringing together thousands of hoteliers, innovators, and solution providers to explore what's next for our business. I am so grateful to our friends at HFTP for having us. You could not ask for a nicer group of people to work with, and I can't wait until HITEC 2027 in Orlando, June 28th through July 1st. Thanks for sticking around, and we will see you next week.
Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/251. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all-around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.
[00:40:18] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.