Hospitality Daily Podcast

In this episode, Paul Martin explains what it takes to build genuine confidence in serving and connecting with guests. Drawing on his experiences as a bartender, he shares why confidence develops through practice, repetition, and learning from both successes and failures, rather than trying to psych yourself up. Paul also explores why developing confidence takes time and how understanding what works, what doesn't, and why helps hospitality professionals become more effective in their interactions with guests. A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Paul Martin, the founder of Mixxa, challenges the idea that five-star service always creates memorable guest experiences. Drawing on a personal experience at a luxury hotel, he explains how rigid service standards can make even excellent hospitality feel predictable and impersonal. Paul shares why exceptional hospitality requires more than following a script, and how leaders can create environments where employees have the freedom and confidence to respond to guests in more personal, creative, and meaningful ways. A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Paul Martin, the founder of Mixxa, a hospitality transformation consultancy, shares his journey from washing dishes to becoming an accomplished bartender and helping others develop their hospitality skills. He reflects on how his love of entertaining people led him to find meaning and purpose through connecting with guests and creating memorable experiences. Paul also shares how his motivation has evolved over the years, from enjoying the personal satisfaction of serving others to helping hospitality professionals recognize their strengths and reach their potential.Watch Paul's TEDx talk, mentioned in this episode. A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Roman Pedan, the founder and CEO of Kasa, shares what it took to bring Mint House onto Kasa's operating system and into its team and culture.Roman also shares the before-and-after results, and how the pressure he wrote about in his Fortune article will drive more consolidation: AI will make the biggest companies bigger and the smallest more powerful.See photos from Josiah's recent stay at Mint House 70 Pine by KasaThis is Part 4 of our series with Roman Pedan this week:Part 1: How We Make Room for "Hall of Fame Hosting"Part 2: How We Built Our AI Native Operating System for HospitalityPart 3: How We Help Other Companies Run Hotels on Our Operating SystemRoman's earlier conversations with Josiah, from April 2024: Building a More Efficient Hotel Operating Model A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Roman Pedan, the founder and CEO of Kasa, shares how Powered by Kasa can put the operating system Kasa built behind other hotel companies.In this episode, Roman talks about his Fortune article on the "barbell effect": AI will make the biggest companies bigger and the smallest more powerful.This is Part 3 of our series with Roman Pedan this week:Part 1: How We Make Room for "Hall of Fame Hosting"Part 2: How We Built Our AI Native Operating System for HospitalityRoman's earlier conversations with Josiah, from April 2024: Building a More Efficient Hotel Operating Model A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Kasa founder and CEO Roman Pedan shares his take on why so much hotel AI work never shows up in the results, and what Kasa built to change that.In Part 2 of our series this week with Roman, you'll hear why automating one task inside a fragmented tech stack just moves the bottleneck, how Kasa built its own PMS, guest-facing AI agent and housekeeping system so it could rearrange the factory floor, and how accounting and revenue management roles change once the routine work runs on its own. Roman also explains why this is still hard, even for an operator that has been doing it for years.More from our series with Roman:Part 1: How We Make Room for "Hall of Fame Hosting"Go deeper:Our 2024 conversation on Kasa's earlier AI work: How We Improve Service and Profits With AIRoman in Fortune: AI will make the biggest companies bigger and the smallest more powerful. Hotels show who gets squeezedRoman on The Modern Hotelier: Building a Tech-Forward Hotel Brand A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, recorded live at Destination AI, Stephen German, the head of product at Actabl, shares what hotel companies need in place for any AI project.The research: State of Hotel AI: Fall 2026 findings Learn more about the technology discussed:Actabl Data Services: Managed Data Feed, Managed Data Warehouse, and Forward-Deployed EngineeringHow Avion Hospitality Built the Data Foundation for Hotel AI (case study)Good Hotel Data Is Hard to Get Right. Actabl Just Got a Patent for It.Hotel AI that Works: Actabl's AI platformProfitSwordActabl Launches Forward-Deployed Engineering for the Hotel IndustryEarlier conversations with Stephen:AI Only Works for Hotels in This OrderThe story behind Actabl AltitudeStephen on the digital night auditThis episode is sponsored by Actabl A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Kasa founder and CEO Roman Pedan shares how his company creates the time and space for teams to deliver personal, thoughtful hospitality. Following a recent stay at Mint House 70 Pine by Kasa, Josiah and Roman discuss the hiring practices, training, and operational systems behind Kasa's commitment to being "Hall of Fame hosts." Roman explains how Kasa has expanded into more traditional hotel operations and evolved from using AI copilots to autonomous agents handling routine tasks. You'll hear how technology and operational efficiency give hospitality teams more opportunities to focus on guests and deliver exceptional service.Watch our 2024 conversation on YouTubeSee photos from Josiah's recent stay at Mint House 70 Pine by Kasa A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Richard Valtr, founder of Mews, shares the story behind the company’s name and his read on what Meta’s Muse could mean for hotels. We explore his vision of a “thinking hotel,” where connected information helps teams make better decisions and provide more personal hospitality.He explains why your rates should follow the data even when it disagrees with your sense of what the hotel is worth, how a knowledge base that learns from guest conversations could give your team something new to say at check-in, and how agents could lower distribution costs while making it harder to oversell your location. You’ll also hear his iPhone analogy for open hotel tech and what teams can build with Mews Automations.Related listening and resources:Destination AIOur previous conversation with Richard: Hotel Tech & AI Deep DiveHospitality Is Eating the World: an earlier conversation with RichardRichard on the importance of friction in hospitalityThis episode is sponsored by MewsA few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Tom Deighton and Zach Demuth, co-founders of TBD Companies, discuss how they're using AI to evaluate opportunities, understand the value of hotel brands, and bring their experience to a two-person team. They also explain how they plan to use operating results to improve future decisions, while keeping human judgment and the guest experience central.Earlier conversations with Zach: Tariffs, Unfolding Travel Trends, and San Francisco's Comeback, Luxury Hospitality Trends, Opportunities, and Innovation, and Top Hospitality Trends to Watch. A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands