The Hotel Investor The Wall Street Journal Spotlighted for Using AI to Listen to Guests - Drew Bridges, JMI Realty

In this episode, Drew Bridges, principal at JMI Realty, shares the process behind one of the hotel deals the Wall Street Journal recently covered, including how he uses AI to read thousands of guest reviews and understand what is actually broken in a hotel before buying it.

You’ll hear how Drew uses guest feedback to identify investment opportunities, how the same analysis showed him that the elevators at the Hilton Garden Inn Austin Downtown were a real capital problem while the air conditioning primarily needed better preventative maintenance, and how he evaluates the operator who will ultimately serve those guests.

Drew also shares why JMI is focused on distressed hotels right now, where he sees opportunity in urban markets, why he believes human service will remain essential as AI advances, and how his team is already putting AI to work across hotel operations.

Mentions in this show include: Avion Hospitality, Hotel Van Zandt, Hotel Indigo Nashville - The Countrypolitan, ElevenLabs, Twilio, and Claude Code.

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Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands