What Next-Gen Hospitality Might Look Like - Adam Wallace

Josiah: You and I got our start in hospitality in a world where the Ace Hotels of the world were sort of the new ones on the block, and they're still doing interesting things. But since then, it feels like you've worked with essentially every cool new independent brand on the market. You know, we're recording this toward the end of 2023. I'm curious, as you look out on the industry, are there brands or concepts or people that you think are embodying what the next wave of hospitality innovation can look like?

Adam: Yeah, it's been so interesting. I mean, I've learned so much across all these areas. And there are different people in this past decade that have done different things in great ways, right? So, I learned a ton from Highgate early on when they were getting into luxury lifestyle and realized that they could do things digitally that was a bit more design-driven, creative. And they were, of course, amazing at revenue management. and established a name and reputation for that and great on the real estate side, never valued branding and marketing fully. And so there was sort of a shortcoming there. But there are elements of that now that that revenue management piece is largely commoditized, but new hoteliers can learn from that piece. And then so many others that have gone through these different transitions of growing visionary-driven brand and then getting institutional money in whatever kind of way. And then some of the soul of that being gone. And so you look at Accor and all of their acquisitions of, I think, 12 different brands and the dregs of whatever's left of Morgans Hotel Group. I think they're still calling that from Ian's early work and interesting hotels that I admired, like 21C Museum Hotels, Mama Shelter and Hoxton. And the idea that they put that all under. Sharan and Ennismore and then try to scale these previously visionary-driven hotel brands. It's a complicated thing to do. They've got a hundred hotels in the pipeline. There becomes a point when you can't scale the soul of that. And even Standard that we're working with Bunkhouse, which is amazingly ranked as the number four hotel brand in the world. And really it was Lambert and her work out of her Austin motels that grew from that. But, you know, Standard now, you know, they're over half owned by the prime minister of Thailand and it's tough to kind of keep up that soul and that spirit after you sort of goes through these life cycles. So there has been so much consolidation. There are so many brands that we've worked with and so many different ways that has maybe benefited from the capital, but also, it's tough to keep that soul. How does Six Senses, which is so visionary driven, how does it exist in an IHG context that you've got the, you know, managers of Holiday Inn that are going to try to scale vision? No. And we work with all these places and it's great. And there's plenty of space for these different things. But I think that there's massive negative space I see right now in terms of opportunity for new visionary hoteliers. And that could be on a property level or a brand level. And I think that people sort of going getting back to the soul of hospitality, the more family run spirit that, hey, I don't need to have 100 hotels, but let me do one that I really love. I love what Lyon Porter's done over the past however many years with Urban Cowboy. Started with buying a house in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, made it a four-room B&B, put tons of love and passion into designing it. It wasn't about the economics about it, it was about creating a community, a soul. had 100,000 very engaged followers on Instagram for a four-room B&B, then started a great hotel in Nashville that leaned in more to the luxury and experiential side, and then Urban Cowboy Lodge up in the Catskills, which is an amazing luxurious experience that's highly design-driven, these amazing Japanese soaking tubs. Then he bought a motel in Nashville and called it The Dive, created this dive motel brand that's like, cool and playful and like playing off of sort of a 70s sort of vibe. And he's patient, like he's no, any of these brands would want to buy Urban Cowboy and the Diamondline Porter's not for sale. He's doing things that he loves with curating a group of friends, doing cool things. And I think he's really a good example of sort of a new gen of luxury house. Alex Ohebshalom that has just opened the Fifth Avenue Hotel here in New York after I think probably eight years or so of developing that concept was, he's young, this is his first hotel, comes from a real estate family, but has really been a visionary on creating this. And I think that I told him early on in our conversations that he's really the first person since my uncle that I've worked with that feels like he's using the hotel as a vessel to communicate a bigger idea than just even the experience of the hotel. And he was really inspired by his global travels, backpacking around the world, and experiencing different cultures. He's curated an incredibly eclectic, wonderful art collection, both high-end and not high-end, of communicating statements of humanity from all around the world. His inspiration for his new parent brand, which is called Flaneur Hospitality, is inspired by the 1890s in Paris when people, it was the wealthiest city in the world, and it was a moment when there was artists and writers and the early Impressionists and poet Charles Baudelaire and Flaneurs who would explore the city on their own pace. And there was a symbol that they would have people that would walk turtles to slow down and be in the moment and be present. And I think he's got a really resonant idea in a post-pandemic world where people took time to slow back, not be slow down, not be so scheduled, not be so running around from this thing to the next, but just let the sounds and smells of the city inspire you and wander and, you know, sort of take it on your own time. And he's very clear that he says, hey, like, I don't really care what's happening in that busy outside world or what everyone else says I need to do. I'm going to create something that's the hotel that I want to stay at, that I want to curate. And really, as a translation, it's a bigger idea. He will likely create other hotels and grow from there. So I think what he's doing is amazing.

Josiah: Just on that point, though, I feel like that has to be one of the best definitions of hospitality that I've heard of using your physical space to communicate a bigger message. And it feels like that's if I kind of recall some of both you and your family's history, some of the collaborators, some of the clients that you've worked with, it seems like that's been a common thread of great hospitality. They had a bigger story to tell beyond just four walls and a bed.

Adam: Absolutely. And I think there's a whole wave of that, that is amazing space for, we're starting a project in Panama with a great hotel group out of Mexico called Hamac that these guys that three guys that have been in business for 20 years or so as a management company and really amazing award-winning visionary type places. And there's space on this new project that this area has been Panama has had a lot of issues with deforestation, there's cattle farming, and so the tropical rainforest has been sort of become cattle farms in a lot of ways. And when we talk to people in the community, there's a lot of international expats, it's a small surf town, beach town, but everyone there is very passionate about any hospitality that comes in. One, respecting the nature that's there, and two, can hospitality have a position of actually reforesting this area and saying, hey, there's economic activity that can happen here that that is positive to the environment. And then also, I think that I'm really excited with some of the more sort of entrepreneurial people on the social impact side of the business. So Harsha L'Aqua, who's has an amazing nonprofit, Saira. She's been a great friend for a very long time and she's got pop-up hotel schools in emerging markets where she's bringing hospitality education to otherwise overlooked or underprivileged people. So previous refugees or previously incarcerated or people just that have a hospitality gene but are overlooked. Another, Christina with Foodprint Group that's really using hospitality as a way to figure out reduction of food waste. and doing amazing work there. Ben Pundole did this amazing work with plastic reductions. I think there's cause-based, impact-based, and idea-based expression that actually hotels going into different markets can be a cause for positive local economic development, positive environmental impact. positive community impact and actually like communicating something that has meaning and connection and not just being extractive of, hey, here's an opportunity to put up glass and steel and concrete and extract money, but actually doing things that have soul and spirit and impact and meaning. And so, yeah, there's a whole space for that for sure.