Long Live Lodging

Josh Ramsey is founder and managing principal of Prosper Hotels in Dallas, Texas. It’s a revenue-management company formed during the COVID-19 pandemic. If it’s true that opportunity is borne out of crisis, then Ramsey and his cohorts might be at the start of something big. Comprised of former executives at Hilton who found themselves unmoored in the early days of the coronavirus crisis, the team at Prosper Hotels believes it can draw on its collective expertise in pricing strategies and customer experience to navigate small to medium-sized hotels to profitability now and post-pandemic. In this episode of Lodging Luminaries, Ramsey talks about how he moved quickly to onboard seasoned experts in revenue management, the importance of remaining hands-on even when deploying technology and how providing great customer experience influences revenue growth.

14 - Josh Ramsey - Deploying revenue management technology without right people is handing a machine gun to a monkey If it’s true that opportunity is borne out of crisis, then Josh Ramsey and his cohorts at startup Prosper Hotels might be on to something big. Comprised of…

Shawn Seipler of Orlando, Florida, founded Clean the World 12 years ago to fight life-threatening illnesses in children who had no access to soap and water. He started by collecting discarded guest-room soaps from a single hotel in his neighborhood. Today Clean the World has recycled 63 million bars of amenity-sized soap from more than 8,000 hotels and resorts and distributed them around the world Lodging Leader’s introductory episode in its special series, “Happy To Be Of Service: Stories of hospitality giving back,” features Seipler who talks about Clean the World’s beginnings and how a hospitality industry in recovery has helped the nonprofit pick up the pieces and move forward with its life-saving mission.

344 | Clean the World: Recycling hotel soap prepares nonprofit to save lives in pandemic Shawn Seipler of Orlando, Florida, founded Clean the World 12 years ago to fight life-threatening illnesses in children who had no access to soap and water. He started…

Kal Patel is president and CEO of Crestpoint Companies in Mason, Ohio. When the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. with full force in March 2020, Patel was building two hotels. He had eight properties open and operating. Amid the uncertainty, he decided to move forward with construction and to keep his other hotels open. It was a business decision that is paying off as the hotel industry is positioning for a recovery. In Episode 337 of Lodging Leaders podcast, we explore the challenges owners and managers faced in deciding to close hotels and what it took to reopen. We also talk to hoteliers who struggled with ramping up business at hotels that were at such low levels of occupancy, they might as well have been closed. And we feature owners who opened new properties during the pandemic. This report is part of Lodging Leaders’ ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hospitality industry.

337 | Open-and-Shut Cases: How hoteliers managed decisions to close or stay in business In spring 2020, more than 1,700 hotels in the U.S. were closed as the coronavirus pandemic shutdown the travel industry. Eighteen months later, hundreds of h...