LODGING LEADERS
235 | Lodging Leaders Spotlight: Yotel a tech-forward brand worth watching
LODGING LEADERS
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
LODGING LEADERS
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245 | Win-Win: Women of AAHOA step up to the leadership plate
This is the second of a two-part update about people, campaigns and programs that are furthering the mission to promote more women into leadership roles in the hospitality industry. In this episode we touch base with Jagruti Panwala and Rachel Humphrey who are in top leadership roles at AAHOA, the world’s largest hotel owners association read more
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244 | Missing Rungs: A slow climb for women in hospitality leadership
A new study by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org reveals that over the past five years Corporate America has made some progress in gender diversity, including increasing the number of women in leadership. Although that finding is promising, women remain underrepresented in business leadership across the board and continue to lack access to opportunities available read more