DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
235 | Lodging Leaders Spotlight: Yotel a tech-forward brand worth watching
DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
Taco Bell made headlines when it opened a 70-room pop-up hotel in August in Palm Springs, California.
It was a marketing scheme that lasted four days.
The day The Bell Hotel began to accept reservations, it sold out in two minutes.
The guaranteed novelty of staying in a Taco Bell hotel obviously paid off for the company, but it’s not the only fast food business that has ventured into the hotel space.
Ten years ago, Simon Woodroffe, founded YO! Sushi, which delivers food on a conveyor belt and has robots that deliver drinks. Woodroffe went on to use his technology and design prowess to co-create Yotel hotels with Gerard Greene.
Yotel began with technology-enabled sleeping cabins at airports.
Today, Yotel Hotels & Resorts is a sustainable hospitality company that recently launched an ambitious plan to expand its presence around the world.
In this episode we talk with Hubert Viriot, CEO of Yotel Hotels & Resorts for the past five years, about the company’s growth strategy.
Also featured is Christopher Grey, chief technology officer at Intelity, which recently teamed up with Yotel to scale its innovative, tech-forward guest-services platform.
And we include some audio clips of Woodroffe talking about the early vision for Yotel.
Resources and Links
- Hubert Viriot, CEO of Yotel Hotels & Resorts
- Christopher Grey, chief technology officer at Intelity
- Simon Woodroffe
DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
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302 | Value Judgment: Hotel asset pricing in COVID-19 age is different from previous recessions
Hotel appraisers and brokers expect distressed assets to come to market as the pandemic recession continues into 2021. Analysts say billions of dollars in private equity are waiting in the wings to acquire hotels underperforming as a result of the coronavirus crisis. But pricing will be different than in previous economic downturns. While a transaction may be distressed, it will not necessarily reflect distress pricing,” said Daniel Lesser of LW Hospitality Advisors. Long Live Lodging explores the state of hotel values as well as what may lie ahead with regard to transactions in 2021 as the spread of COVID-19 continues to stifle lodging performance. This report is part of our ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hospitality industry.
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301 | The Road Warrior Ahead: Business travel will come back ‘with a vengeance,’ say experts
Global business travel is a $1.4 trillion industry. The Global Business Travel Association calculates the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 resulted in a loss of $113 billion in business travel spend in hotels, airlines and other sectors of the travel industry. But all is not lost. GBTA, industry analysts and travel management companies see some green shoots of hope for 2021 as the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out and corporations put some of their people on the road again. This report is part of Long Live Lodging’s ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hospitality industry.