Hospitality Rewired with Simone Puorto (Travel Singularity)

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome back to Pillow Talk Sessions. I'm Christian Lepinski, joined as always by my co-host Jessica Gillingham.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Thanks, Christian. And today we're joined by Simone Puerto, who's the founder and CEO of Travel Singularity and is a real hospitality futurist. We're going to be chatting to Simone about how hospitality is evolving beyond hotels and is influencing the way we live and modern rental living.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

We'll also explore the hospitality mindset in residential living, the impact of technology, and the balance between automation and human interaction. Plus, we'll describe hybrid hospitality models and the future of flexible living.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Simone, thank you so much for joining us on the Pillow Talk Sessions podcast. It's really, really exciting to have you on and get your perspectives because I know you've got really interesting ways or interesting thoughts on hospitality and insights to share. So before we sort of get into the meat of the topic, could you give us a little bit of background on yourself and also travel singularity for our audience who may not already know you?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

So thank you so much for the invitation. Always a pleasure. My name is Simone. I've been working in the industry for 26 years, uh, this year, unfortunately. Uh and the first part of my career has been in uh hotels. So I ended up uh being a GM for a small uh group of uh beauty cotels in in Rome. Started getting a little bored of that, and I wanted to focus a little more on the marketing side, and especially I was always fascinated about the level of technology you can introduce in a in a in an industry that is very uh service-centered, very anthropocentric to a certain extent. So I started consulting with uh with a couple of uh web agencies, uh, and then um a few years ago I opened my own consulting firm that is called Travel Singularity, so you it's pretty much in the name. You know, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to educate uh hotels to um integrate some level of technology without completely changing what they're what they're doing, right? Uh I've written five books, yes. Uh and uh I do a lot of stuff in the academic world, uh, mainly guest lecturer for MBAs. I'm in the board of a dozen companies, mainly travel tech vendors. Uh and um on top of travel singularity, I do have another uh another company. It's called Review, and it's basically an AI startup uh replying with artificial intelligence to hotel uh reviews. And I think that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

That's brilliant, Simone. And I I know that you've been described as a futurist, you know, and about being able to kind of look at the future of hotels and technology and hospitality. And so one of the topics that we really love to explore on this podcast is how hospitality and service-driven principles, hospitality principles, if you like, kind of infiltrating modern rental living. So really hospitality beyond hotels. So, what we'd love to talk to you about is do you think like how how what do you think of that sort of hospitality mindset and how it's applied to other forms of lodging like co-living, built-to-rent, student living, that sort of thing. So, are you seeing much of that or or do you have thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Well, I think I think you describe it perfectly because uh hospitality is a mindset. It has literally nothing to do with the buildings, right? So, and I think and I think the the main thing is that we we still have this dogma that hospitality to a certain extent is is uh bill belongs exclusively to hotels, but it's never been the case, you know. And uh we first uh started understanding that with uh first of all, Bell and Breakfast, that for a lot of you know, for a lot of people they are not really hotels, even though they they offer quite a similar experience and in some cases even more uh meaningful experiences. Uh and I would say that uh we we really understood that uh during COVID. Now, the thing with COVID is as you may remember, at some point even players like booking.com started uh writing on the website don't if you really need to travel, it's bother it's better not to go to hotels because there will be other humans there, right? So maybe you want to go to an apartment. And I think this was for the for a lot of people, uh, me included, I don't know, was totally as a traveler, I was totally against anything that was not hotels. You know, it's uh that's probably a professional thing. But uh to me it was uh it was interesting to see this transition of people that never had an experience with an apartment, really thought that an apartment was something cheap or like you could not get any kind of good service, and they completely fell in love with apartments to the level that now when they want to book, they would probably go with apartment as a as the first option. So I think that when we talk about uh hospitality is uh is more about uh architecture of care, caring about uh people uh empathy, of course. It's something we unfortunately forget quite a lot, and where you know technology can actually help by quite a lot, and ultimately it's human connections, right? So if this is this is going to happen in a multifamily BTR industry or in a five-star hotel or a BNB or an apart hotel, doesn't really make any doesn't really make any difference. Um it's all about creating spaces that are not only efficient, because on the on the uh you know on the uh BTR code living inside is probably more about efficiency, but it's more about creating something that is actually meaningful, right? So uh I would say that what what the industry can can learn from the hospitality space is about creating this these spaces, right? And design these spaces around uh human rhythms, whatever they are, right? It's it's really something that he knows we understood it a little better because we have, well, I think mainly because we got a lot of people going in and going out on a daily basis. You know, for a lot of destinations, the average stay is less than three nights, so you can understand, and you you get in touch with so many different uh needs and so many different uh uh requests, uh, you know, privacy-wise, uh service-wise, uh uh data that you really uh understand that you really need to design your your property around the uh the needs of your of your guests. But um again, I don't see I don't see a big difference. I think that uh this dualistic view of of the industry is is probably per se is is problematic because it's it's it's really not there, right? And on top of that, if you think about it, when you when you you know, and I'm 46 now, uh, and I remember when I was traveling as a as a young kid, uh I remember that hotels were something very different from my apartment, right? They had better technologies, like the first flat screen I saw, it was in a hotel. They say, wow, this is amazing, right? And you this amazing uh uh audio equipment and so forth, right? While now this is pretty much the other way around. You know, you go to a hotel and very, very, it's very likely that the technology they do have is worse than the one you you do have in your in your apartment. So I think that uh this there's also a level of we lost some level of wow effect there. Um so it's really now it's all about the you know designing around the experience. And I think every every industry can do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, you've said so much there that that I want to unpack, but I've got two questions or two two points actually to make. And we have had a guest previously on the show that talked about that, how hotels were aspirational. You know, you'd go and stay and it'd be totally you've talked about it from a tech perspective. This guest was talking about, you know, that it would be a bed that you just wouldn't have at home and and sort of linen and things like that, but now we all kind of, you know, it's more normal for us to have those things. So hotels are sort of less aspirational, perhaps, and you're talking about it from a tech side. But the other thing, what I would love for you to talk a little bit more about, and it's one of the other themes that we talk about on this podcast, which is how technology is shaping resident experiences. We do look at it the operational side as well, but the guest residential experiences, and you said that one of the hospitality principles is empathy, and you say tech can help us with empathy. Can you go a little bit deeper and and and help us understand what that means?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Oh, big time, and this is probably my favorite question. Um, so if you think about it, because we got this this very you know dichotomy, fake dichotomy, false dichotomy, humans versus technology, right? Natural versus artificial. Now, if you look closely and you don't have to look into the the the industry, you can just look at us as a species, right? Uh we evolved to what we are right now uh because of technology, right? If you think about it, we we use tool, and because we do use tool is you know it created this this very anthropocentric uh planet. And um now the thing we can even push it even further by saying that it's it actually technology is what makes us human, right? If you think about it. So I wouldn't I wouldn't look at it with a very black or white um kind of approach. I will look at more as a using technology as a as a as a tool, right? As a facilitator for something. Now there's a bias though, and you know, whenever you talk about technology in in the hospitality space, the first thing that everybody thinks about is replacing the front end, right? So you start talking about AI and everybody is coming up with you know robots taking the place of receptionists. That's never the case. You know, the thing we want to do in hospitality that we're trying to do, and you know, it's it's also what I try to do with my consulting firm is trying to make sure that everything that can be automized and will not have an impact on the guest and on the staff should be automized so that you have more time to focus on what is really important, that it's the empathy we were talking uh before. So we can say that to a certain extent technology is uh is an empathy enabler, right? Because now it gives us back time that we can sit down and have an experience. Now let me tell you a story. I will not tell you the brand, but it's it's a story that I've said I've said like you know, billion times now. And uh and I trouble it quite a lot, right? We're talking maybe 200 night a year in my in my worst year. So and I've been doing this for 15 years now. And I don't really remember a good uh check-in experience. And this is mainly because you know, usually when you get to the to the counter, to the to the desk, the only thing, the only kind of interaction is very logistical, right? Give me your passport, give me your credit card, that's pretty much it, you know. And on top of that, you are behind a desk, so you got this power unbalance that is, you know, you don't think about, but you know, it's problematic. And you are in a position of vulnerability on top of that, right? Probably you need to go to the toilet after you know a long flight, and you know, and so you are now in this in this strange position. And but we ask our people to actually do all of these logistic tasks that can be and should be automated. Now, if you automate that, we go back to the to the human interaction. So I remember this guy, you know, and I will not tell the name of the of the brand, but I I so I checked in and they had these beautiful kiosks for for uh self-check-ins. So I started checking myself, and the guy came to me and said, Look, there are a couple of things that I can do for you. The first one is I can check you in so I can take care of the logistics, or we can sit down, have a drink, and I tell you more about the destination. And of course, I checked myself in. You know, we sat down, he offered me, he offered me a couple of beers, we talked a little about the destination. This is the only uh checking experience that I do remember and I do tell to other people. You know, even when I teach, I talk about that. And why is that? Because everything that was not necessarily adding something to my experience was managed by technology. And now I could get this guy outside of the desk instead of you know head down just putting numbers on a on a PMS or whatever, it could really create some level of interaction. Now, you can argue that this could have been like uh for marketing purposes, so it was not you know a natural interaction, but still it was a good interaction to me. So I would say that uh this is really this is really the the main the main point is you you do not have to lose the personal touch. And you do not have to lose this human connection. Actually, if you do it right, you can facilitate that with technology. Again, it's if we think about you know tomorrow going into an apartment and having you know robots all around, that's not probably going to be the case. But if there's anything in the background that can be automated and now we can replace these humans to do what they do best, that is basically what we need to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

You see my point? Yeah, 100%. And uh I guess that kind of kind of goes into, I mean, AI, uh, of course, was a big topic. Uh, if anybody went to ITB, uh, you know, AI was everywhere, everybody was talking about it. So I guess, you know, are there specific areas where automation and AI work best? And in in in this case, you know, in residential spaces, and you know, where does the human interaction kind of remain irreplaceable?

SPEAKER_00 14:16

So, well, AI is uh is a big word, okay? Because basically, under this big umbrella now, we're we're putting everything that is automation and technology, you know, RPA, whatever. It's everything it's under AI. That to a certain extent it makes sense, right? So I'm not totally totally against that. Um, to me, it's just uh, and of course you start with with the basics, and the basics are everything that is not really increasing the experience for the guest, uh for the people working in the hotel, and uh for that interaction. And that is getting rid of everything that is just uh you know repetitive work, uh tasks that are like super boring and so forth. And of course, when you when you got into the into into co-living, you get a lot of that, right? You get a lot of uh you know paperwork to do, it's it's painful, right? And I can totally see uh AI taking care of that, right? Um and again, especially now with uh in hospitality, for example, we got a problem, big problem with labor shortage, right? Uh, probably you you heard about that, you know, but over the last few years it's been worse and worse. And um, we need to do more with less people. That's uh that's the harsh reality of that. So it's more about finding all the things that we do with humans today, but are not really improving the experience and trying to uh use some level of automation there. And again, it doesn't need to be AI per se, it could be anything else. Again, the problem is when we talk about artificial intelligence, I think the problem is that intelligence part, you know, because when you say artificial intelligence, basically what you are implying is that there's somebody else that is probably going to be smarter than you, and uh it could be a threat, right? So that is why probably it's better to talk about uh automation because basically what we want to do is we want to get rid of stupid things. The example I always do is uh I always make it probably you remember the movies from the 50s when uh you got two people talking to each other over a phone, and now you got all these, you know, usually very beautiful women connecting jacks uh, you know, to connect the phone calls. And uh we do not have that today, but nobody's complaining about the quality of the conversation because there's no human aspect to that, right? We're doing this. I'm not expecting somebody to put jacks all around, but still we're getting a good conversation. So it's more something that uh uh I would say organically gets into the background uh to a point where you wake up. I I think a beautiful way of saying this is you wake up five years after you implemented that solution and you look at it and say, are we doing this by hand five years ago? Really, we were completely nuts. So this is really the kind of way item looking into pretty much every industry.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

You you brought up, you know, in the 50s they had you know these phone operators changing the jacks. You know, that was the expectations of that generation. Um, you know, as these future generations are more accepting of this fully automated living experience, you know, will like Gen Z or Gen Alpha now, will they just not even care about the human engagement or will it always be a key factor uh in this living sector?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

This is an amazing question. Well, first of all, I don't like to think in terms of generations, right? Because like if I if I start thinking in terms of generation, I will be I will be very hard to put into any kind of box, right? Because I'm getting old, but I'm the kind of guy that with every kind of experience, I want to go fully automated, right? So this is this is usually my thing. So when I when I do have time, I can get get like real human human interaction. So uh uh I would say that that is the first thing. The second thing is that um we we have this bias and we think we know uh our customers. And this can be of everything, right? Hotels, rentals, really any any any industry. And we try to fit our customers into uh boxes that sometimes they never fit, actually, right? So will they care less about the personal touch? Some of them, yeah, sure. But some of them already do, you know? Maybe they are more concerned about privacy, they're more concerned about the fact that they don't have to talk to anybody if they got a problem. You know, that's another big, you know. Uh that's that's you know, it does apply to me as well. But I teach a lot of kids in their 20s, right? Now, and they're amazing, you know, beautiful MBAs, you know, super smart. But if you ask them to call to book a table to get a drink, forget about that. They will they will not have that skill. They lost that skill to talk to other humans. Uh would they want some level of very human-centric experience? No, I don't think so, right? Maybe some of them. But um, so it's more about understanding that our needs uh change, and it's not necessarily generational, right? I always make this example, it's a funny one, but uh, you know, when I was a kid, I always uh I was always into computers and I really wanted to to learn how to code, and I was, I think it was six or seven. And my father couldn't understand that, you know, at some point he said, Why you want to do that? Why do don't you go outside and play uh football with all your friends, like all the normal kids? And uh my father is still alive, he's 70 now, and um and I and I put a little malware on his phone so I can track whatever he does. And uh he basically, sorry Dad, uh, but um he he basically now he knows, now he knows it doesn't speak English, doesn't speak English, so that's fine. Um it will never figure it out. But uh he spends like eight hours a day on the internet today. That is the same guy, you know, the same guy that was telling me go outside and play football, that's the same guy spending eight hours a day on on the internet. So it's not only generational. I think it's at some point if if any technology that will make our life easier will be massively adopted, no matter what, you know, if we like it or not.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, that's a really good point. So whether you because even when you think you're not gonna be the one who then you know takes up some technology, you are, because if if it makes your life easier, of course, we'll we'll all go for it. Um talking, just keeping on the technology um theme, and I just want to go back to what you said about the story that you told about the experience that you'd had at the front desk and when the chap sat down and told you about the destination. You also talked about how talent is such an issue in hospitality. It also is in the living the rental living sectors, and and the many of the rental living sectors are trying to get hospitality people to come and join in their their things. So I just want to sort of say that. But um that and you also talked about technology being an in a facilitator, an enabler facilitator. And actually, in that hotel where you had the really great experience of checking in, it didn't before it probably wasn't necessarily an either-or, either you would have someone checking you in, or you'd have someone having been able to give you the time to tell you about the destination. They may have had two people, one checking in and one doing the experience and the talking. So, what technology has allowed is instead of having two people doing the job, there's one person doing the job that really adds value to your experience. But if we sort of move on a little bit and talk about technology, again, the hospitality, you know, you know, there's a lot of technology available to a hotelier. You know, it's but if we were to look at how the kinds of technology or the ways that the hotel sector is in using technology to enable operations as well as experience, if we were to sort of transport that into the residential rental areas, so it could be anything from the retirement living to the student to the co-living to the built-to-rent. What can we learn? What can operators in that sector learn from hotelier's experience of creating tech-enabled spaces?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

I would say most of it, well, first of all, let me go back uh one second because uh I know your guys are trying to get people from the hospitality spalents from the hospitality space. That's not going to be easy. Let me give you a statistics. Like 50% of the students uh finishing uh uh the MBA at uh EHL, that's you know number one school of hospitality in the world that I teach uh there from time to time, amazing guys, you know, like brilliant students. 50% of them, and this is like the the uh the official data of the students, they will not go into the hospitality space, they will go somewhere else. So your question totally makes sense because the hospitality school today is more a school about understanding uh soft skills and interactions, right? That you can then use in the rental space, for example, that you can use in retail, wealth management, uh uh no matter what, right? So the first first part. Second part with hotels, uh you know, we've been using a lot of a lot of AI and a lot of technology for for years. If you think about it, uh even to be the small 20-room property, you need a lot of technology, right? You need at least probably six or ten software to run it. So we always say that we are a very traditional industry, we are not at all. You know, we we we we're slow in adapting mainly because we we work with outdated technologies, but we work we use a lot of technology, right? So I would say that uh for for the the co-living and the renting space, uh a great approach could be to use technology to um uh focus on personalization, right? That is really what what is what it's all about. Because in hotels, what you need to understand is in hotels you've got people getting in and out all the time, right? So it's um even with even with the best information you do have about these guests, you do have a tiny amount of information. So you want to personalize, but you personalize based on a very small set of data, right? Um maybe like somebody like me, I book on booking.com, and just I show up, I go, I don't have any interaction, usually it's for work. You don't know much about me, right? It's very hard to personalize if I'm staying in your hotel. Usually I sleep only one night or two nights. There's nothing you know about me. Maybe you know that if you got a if you have a gym, I I will go to the gym if I have time, but that's pretty much it, right? Now, in in the rental space, though, that's uh that's a whole different story because you got these people for a very long time and you can and you can pretty much understand every everything they they do. And this could be anything from uh the interaction they do have with the other people. Uh, it could be with interaction they do have with the spaces as well, you know, especially imagine you got some level of IoT. That it's something I will not push too much into the hospitality space because again, it's hard, you need to learn. There's a learning curve for IoT that you will not you don't you don't want to go through that uh if you stay one night, right? You just really want a big button that says, you know, turn on, turn off of the light so I can go to bed. You don't want IoT in hotels, you know, and this is coming from somebody that is super, you know, a techie, but I I hate IoT in hotels. Uh IoT in um in uh uh in in in uh in this industry though, it could be a lifesaver because now you can understand exactly what's going on in that room on a longer period of time. So, okay, what's the temperature like? You know, you always this guy always takes a shower at 7 p.m. What's going on, you know, and all this information can help you personalize the product. So I would say that this is something that you that you it would be great, it would be a dream for us because we don't have that kind of information. We kind of have it maybe for repeating customers business, or to a certain extent you have it with resorts with longer periods of time, but uh this is really a gold mine of information that you can use. And you can also use to redesign new spaces, for example, now that you know uh information about these uh uh these users, and even to market the spaces you do have, you know, correctly. And uh, you know, to to connect to what I was telling you before, that is why I don't like to think in terms of generation. I really think try to think in terms of of humans and single humans, you know, in terms of Jessica, Christian and Simone, what they do, what do they do? And how can I personalize for for for making your experience better and for making the experience of people similar to Simone, Christian and Jessica better. So I think there's a lot of data that you do have, and you're really sitting on a gold mine that you can uh you can actually, it's just uh, you know, uh an AI prompt a way to understand what to do with this, what to do with this data. I would say that's the number one. In hospitality, we got a lot of other things going on, um, especially because um, you know, first of all, it's dynamic pricing. You don't have a lot of that, right? Because, you know, you got 20 20 uh guests sleeping in the same hotel, same room type, same night, they pay 20 different prices, right? So it's it's really uh it's it's really a problem that is so typical to hotels and and uh uh airline companies that does not really does not really apply. Um we do use a lot of AI for uh CRM marketing automation with customers again because we know so little, now we try to squeeze every kind of information we can. So, you know, that is why after you you make a reservation in a hotel, you start receiving like a ton of emails, probably too much. Because we want to know more about you, you know, it's not because we're freaking stalkers, it's just because we don't have enough information. We want to make yours day better. Uh and uh, you know, another use that probably you you guys can can uh can inherit from us is we use a lot of AI to um uh advertising campaigns, you know. And of course you do not advertise as much as as as we do because again, we need to get, you know, every night we need to get 100 customers to to fill our our uh property. Uh but that's that's a lot to be learned there, you know. Uh if you start looking at all the interaction you had with your users and you sum it up with all the information that you have in I IoT, and you can really create some some really personalized message. And I would say that more than thinking in terms of what Gen Zen wants, what uh Gen X wants, is more about uh okay, we got this level of data, uh we can personalize how narrow we can go to make sure that when we talk to Simone, this is exactly what Simone wants with some level of approximation. Does it make sense?

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Totally, it's such an interesting topic, personalization, because I know in hotels we're not there, you know, in terms of the what we'd love to be able to do, it's still not happening, really. But if I think about in them in the rental sector, the modern rental sector or service living sectors, even though, like you've explained it really clearly, it should be really quite simple to be able to personalize and market to individuals because of the wealth of data. But those sectors are even way further down behind than than hotel in actually implementing that and and and using technology in a way and using data in a way and using AI in a way that really allows. It's it's just not there yet. But I've but you've really explained the possibilities of if if that stuff is harnessed well, how not just for marketing to residents, but actually that resident experience, making sure that it's so personalized. What a difference, and I'm sure we'll get there, but definitely not there yet.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Well, let me tell you something, for example. We we see that uh the gym is always packed at uh at 5 p.m., right? This is information that we have right now. So why maybe we can go and talk to the resident and slow, we gotta we gotta like the special um promo to the gym, or you can have that, or maybe you're interested in I don't know, blah in calisthenics, and there's a beautiful you know calisthenic lesson at this this time of the day. You got this information, right? The problem with hospitality is that this information all around, that's another problem. And you know, because I think, and I don't want to say that grass is greener on the other side every single time, but it's I would say it's probably easier for you to fix this problem. In hospitality, you got another problem that you do not have in the rental space, uh, that is um the fact that when we got a guest, this guest probably went through hundreds of touch points, and these hundreds of touch points were with external distribution systems. You know, typical, you know, you do it yourself. You want a book, you start, you go on Google, then you go on booking.com, and then you read review on maybe trip advisor, you go back to Agoda because there's a better price. Now somebody's writing something about the hotel in Reddit and so forth. So when you got when we got the final reservation, this guy left a lot of digital breadcoms, but on so many different distribution systems, so many different websites that we cannot reconstruct that, right? Because, and and and again, I'm the perfect example, you know. You I'm a mysterious guest for you, but because I did my my homework somewhere else. And it's impossible for you to track exactly what I've done before, you know, unless you you sit down with me, you ask me, okay, why did you book? Okay, what did you do before that? And uh in the rental space, that's different because uh at the end of the day, there will be there will not be 500 different you know people you talk to. It's the number of of touch points is is very limited to a certain extent. So now you can reconstruct the the digital footprint of of this uh of this user, and I think it's way easier. So uh, you know, it's um you're not there yet, and I think it's more because maybe you're not seeing the potential, and you know, there is there's some investment that needs to be done at the very beginning. We're not there yet, and I can tell you we will never be there uh because of the problems I just told you. You know, we don't have enough information of from from our guests, and when we do, they are in 500 websites that we do not have control to.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

I had uh one more question uh on the technology side. Um, because ultimately, you know, our listeners could be residential developers and operators, you know, and with all this tech coming out, uh again, I'll use ITB as an example. There was a lot of hospitality tech. There's a lot of tech companies, you know, all trying to say that, you know, use our tech for this, use our tech for that. Ultimately, um, you know, we want to be able to give some kind of feedback to these different residential developers to avoid this, you know, tech for tech sake kind of trap. So, how do we um help these developers avoid this and ensure the technology actually enhances you know the living experience?

SPEAKER_00 33:48

It's very hard. Look, it's uh but it's look, believe it or not, like I think over the last couple of years, my 80% of my job has been consulting hotels only on the tech stack. And we're talking about you know, people that get in touch every day with these vendors, but still they do not understand completely. And sometimes we don't even understand because there's a lot of marketing, you know, uh smoking mirrors. And uh and I'm I'm pretty sure a lot of a lot of these uh tech player, tech players they are in goodwill, they do have a very good product. The problem is, again, Christian, you know the problem very well, is uh now you need to integrate with another 25 different systems, right? And this is where the problem, where the problem starts. So, how how do you uh design to make sure you do not fall into the trap? I would I cannot recommend you one single vendor, but I there are patterns that you can see in vendors, you know, that will tell you that they are if they are probably they will not tell you if they're good, but they will tell you at least that they will be future-proof in a certain way, right? And of course, the first one is you know, we got we still have a few systems in the industry that are uh legacy. That's of course it's something you want to avoid. Uh so you want to go for the cloud. And but you won't don't just don't want to go for the cloud, you want to go for our uh cloud native systems, right? So something that is never spent one single moment in a in a physical server, right? And then of course it's API, API, API. So it's you know open APIs, of course, if possible, and good, robust uh documentation of these APIs. Now, if you do have that, even if you go with the wrong vendors, you can at some point uh make a U-turn and take another vendor, but you will not lose everything, right? Because it's um for a lot of for a lot of players, we got this in the hospitality space. I'm pretty sure you do have it too, to a certain extent. It's uh it's almost uh digital kidnapping. You know, you're using a system because it's so hard now to to to get out of that system that it's that's going to be that's going to be problematic. On top of that, especially now, uh we live in a world where uh we really don't know what the what the needs of our um users will be in in five years. Uh probably we don't even know what the what the needs will be in in one year. You really need to be super fluid when you design everything, right? And the fluidity only comes with tech agnosticism. So you need to make sure that you build for something that can be uh pretty much plugged to any system you need, and uh uh so you avoid this this problem. IoT is a perfect example, right? You start implementing some level of IoT, and maybe you go with a cheaper option, but it's all proprietary, and now you got a problem because maybe they're not developing, you know, with uh with the right speed, you want to change, and now it will be a problem. You cannot change, you know, and if you do, it will take a tremendous amount of time. The data uh will not um will not you will not be able to get all the data and so forth. So I think there's a lot of um tech analysis to do before you even start. Uh, but again, there will be there are signs where uh uh the if you can or cannot trust a uh specific uh specific vendor. For the designers themselves, I would say the main uh the main approach would be don't assume that uh you need to to design something because you think that is your typical customer, because that that is not true, there's no such thing as a typical customer. And um make sure that uh you can change your mind very quickly, especially when you build something, uh, because you know the way users change their mind is is very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

No, that's great. And I think that's great, you know, kind of advice for anybody looking at it. You know, don't lock yourself into a system, you know, these legacy systems as well are old school, everything for the future, as well as going into the cloud. We have uh two more topics today uh before we wrap up today's conversation. The next one we're gonna be talking about is you know hybrid hospitality in the living spaces. You know, apart hotels are are kind of bridging that gap between short-term stays and long-term rentals. Do you see a similar hybrid model emerging in the multifamily or built-to-rent where you know operators take more cues from the hotel industry while you know still providing this residential experience?

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Uh totally, totally. It's I my main, you know, I think we we we had this conversation a couple of times in the past, and it's it's always been my you know, what of the main question I ask myself is what is hospitality, right? And the the main uh the main answer to me is that it's becoming very like the the the lines are blurring every single day. So sure, to me, hybrid is the only way to go. And it's only uh the only way to go, even in terms of the the level of tech uh this this property will uh will adopt. Okay, and it doesn't matter if it's renting, uh, apartments, you know, hotels, BNB. Uh I I published an article a few a few years ago, um and this was before the whole you know Chat GPT thing. And um and I came up with this idea and I said, look, in 20 years, we will not base uh our hotels on star rating or reviews. We will only base the we will only base the properties uh based on the number of humans working in these properties, right? And I and I came up with three main ideas, you know, the first one is like technocentric hotel. And it could be also tech technocentric, you know, uh um uh building, right? You get in, you get out, it's pretty much uh as much as possible automated, uh no human interaction whatsoever. And that's fine, you know, some people will look for that, you know? Or even people not looking necessarily for that for a period of their life they want that, right? Let me give you an example. I I moved to Paris uh a few years ago and I spent almost 10 years in Paris, but I I spoke no French when I arrived. You know, to me, the human interaction was a freaking nightmare. If I had some some way of getting into an apartment without having to talk to anybody, that would be great for me in that first couple of years. After I learned some French, I loved every single interaction I had with these crazy French people in my in my in my building, right? So it was it was me, but it was me in two different moments of my life. Uh the second one is what I call the anthropocentric uh hotel. And um, you know, this is uh this this is now uh a word that is being uh uh it's officially used by HSMAI, so we can talk about it, kind of it gets, you know, kind of makes some a little more sense. And it's you know, it's to me it's uh uh a property that is run 100% or very close to 100% by humans, right? And I would say there's something in the middle, and that's the what I call the to your point, a hybrid model, okay? Where you get, you know, you automate what you can automate, but you still keep this this level of personal touch. So I would say that if you if you just change the words, if you ask me whatever question, for whatever industry, for in whatever way, the the answer will always be hybrid. To to a moment where when talking about hybrid will make no sense because for us, hospitality will be all of that. You know, it will be my apartment, it will be hospitality, uh, you know, renting an apartment will be hospitality, uh, going to a five-star hotel would be hospitality, sleeping on a on a train would be hospitality, squatting on a uh on a nightclub will be hospitality, everything will be hospitality, right? So that's that's really my answer.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

And in terms of hybrid, the hybrid model, if we were also looking at it, that a building might have short and long term, you know, it might have uh hotel style and it might have rental style accommodation, you know, operationally it's very difficult to operate and manage different types of lodging within one building, and we know that there isn't really yet the tech to kind of manage and operate the diff different types of lodging within one building. What, although it's coming and we know know that, but what what what else? How would you kind of address that issue for operators that are looking to not just do hybrid as in some of it's going to be tech, some of it's gonna be human, but actually hybrid when we look at the different types of lodging that could could happen, whether it's one night to 12 months, whether it's hotel to rental within one building, those those operational challenges.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Look, I know the challenge firsthand because when I I told you at some point I became GM of this little uh chain of of uh beauty hotels in Rome. And um the first one we launched was uh was in a in a building, and at the very beginning we only had the first the third, if I remember correctly, the third floor. The rest was offices, you know, uh or and people living there, and it was very complicated, as you say, right? It's to my my main problem was just trying to uh to make sure that the experience for people living there and the experience for people just staying there for a few nights were not clashing to each other, right? And I think that's the that's the big that's the big problem. And I wouldn't even say this is something to do with the tech, it has probably more to do with the design of what you what you do, right? So if you go with an hybrid solution from from day one, if you design it right, uh you can remove a lot of friction from from day one. Uh technologically speaking, and of course, you know, hospitality uh vendors are very vertical. So that is why, you know, you just if you need a if you need a you know a simple uh you know CRM, you would not go for Salesforce in the hospitality space. Even though Salesforce is better, but it's not vertical for your industry. So I would say that the main problem here could be to make sure that uh hospitality vendors can to a certain extent coexist with the structure of these these other industries. But this you go back to my answer, that is why uh you really need to future proof your future proof yourself, and that is you know just going with as much as possible with open ABIs. So in that case, you can you can actually build something on top of uh of these uh of these vendors. But um as a hybrid solution, I can totally see that. Totally see that. Um but I would say it would probably and and I think the more uh the more of these um properties we will start to see, the more normal it will become. Uh again, up to a certain point where it would be completely normal to have uh guests and residents in the same buildings. In the meantime, probably it's more a question about designing the space in a way that uh nobody's suffering from this coexistence. We do have this problem, for example, in hospitality, when you got a like a very mice and leisure-oriented property. Now you need to your main problem will be the coexistence of 50 executives from a big pharma just going there to work, and 50 people that just want to go to the to the bar by the pool, right? So still you got this problem, even in hospital you got this problem because these are very different, diff very different experiences for from different different users. It's all about designing it, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Yeah, it's really interesting point. And what I've noticed, Simone, is you you really come with a human-centric perspective, don't you, when you're when you're looking at everything really, not just technology, but but the operations and everything, which is very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Oh yeah, big time. Big time. Look, I wanted to be, uh I think a Christian, you know that. I wanted to be a philosopher. So when I started, you know, to me, hospitality, I started working in hotels because I wasn't paying my university, but I wanted to be a philosopher, you know, that that's what I wanted to do. So you know, a lot of people accuse me of being anti-human. That doesn't make any sense because I'm if if anything, I'm I'm totally pro-human. It's just that uh, you know, to me, what we're doing now it's it's human interaction. But uh, but if if you come to my hotel and I charge your credit card, that's that's really not human interaction. It's what I call uh post-human hospitality, you know? So it's not anti-human, it's let let humans do what they do best, let machines, whatever they are, AI, RPA, robotics, do what machines do best. And sometimes we forget, I think.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

I think the philosophy background makes complete sense for a futurist. So it's a perfect combination, isn't it? But I know, Christian, you want to let's get to the next topic, the last topic. Because I could talk to you all day, Simone, I'm afraid, but we do have to bring it to a bit of an end.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Yeah. No, no, I think this is this is a good uh last question. Is the pandemic uh obviously accelerated trends like remote work, home office setups like where I am right now, uh, and integrated co-working spaces in residential buildings. Now, how do you think developers in co-living, build-to-rent, multifamily, whatever it may be, should be rethinking their spaces to align with these evolving lifestyle demands?

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Well, that's a very good one. Um, I would say that uh traditionally we always thought about uh home as a static construct, right? Something that you need to adapt your rhythm around. I would say that it's now it's completely new the other way around, right? So pandemic did not change anything. If if anything, it accelerated the trend. But because right now it's it's my typical example where I am right now, you know, this is where I my room now, 50% of my room is an office, 50% is a zendo. So basically, you know, I can work here, then I can sit here and maybe read a book and so forth. This has been designed specifically with that in mind. So it's it's more about creating dynamic uh interface for work, for rest, for meditation, for creation and uh and uh so forth. You know, in uh if if you want to be pragmatic, that it's something I hate. But you know, just to give you an example, is acoustics, you know, why we need to focus more on acoustics now or you know, noise uh canceling windows, maybe. It's because I'm working here. You know, I'm recording a podcast now. If I don't have that, I cannot work here. You know, that's this is this is the the the space adapting to my rhythms rather than me adapting to the rhythm of the space. And um, so it's to me it's more about um it's not about the space, it's it's not more, it's no longer a spatial problem, it's more a conceptual problem to a certain extent, right? So did COVID change anything? No. But it made us it put us in this position now that that you didn't have before, that if you're working and you know you are in a noisy street, that's a problem. That's a problem you didn't have before, right? Because you were going to the office, maybe you didn't know your room, your your uh room was noisy up until up until that point. So again, it's um um that that is why we need more philosopher. It's it's uh it's it's more about the concept, you know. Uh architects, designers should sit down and understand the rhythm, the human rhythm, and build around that rather than the other way around.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

And that might be the big shift that is that is happening, isn't it? Is that we are looking at space in a different way, upside down than than perhaps before, which is also why what we explore on this podcast is that instead of looking at the rental sectors from a kind of capital expenditure perspective, it's looking at it from a different perspective, um, where it's putting the resident experience at the center. Um, and that's not for being fluffy or or any of those things. It's actually, is that not where the future's going? And that's where you know businesses need to be in order to attract and retain customers.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

I think up until a certain point we call everything that is built around guests for hospitality and residence in in your case, we call it personalization. But I think it doesn't even make sense. It will not make sense in a few years. I would say that in a few years, if you go to if you rent an apartment or if you go to a hotel and this is not being built around you, that will be perceived as under personalization. So you see the shift? The shift to me is here, okay? So it's not really fluffy, it's not for the marketing, it's not because we we need to push a marketing narrative that we're guess-centric or resident-centric. Is you want to rent these spaces in 10 years, if you will, if you do not build it like that, you know they they will not come. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Build it and they will come. Simone.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Exactly. That's a great reference.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Simone, I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and and there's a lot to think about, and I think there's so much that your knowledge can give to them the rental sectors. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. And what is coming up? Like, how can people get in touch with you? What do you have coming up?

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Oh boy, uh what what I do not have coming up. Um, so uh I published a book last year. Um I'm now translating it finally into English. I wanted to take care of the translation myself. Uh, so I hope this will be out somewhere in Q3, and it's all about uh artificial intelligence, uh decentralization and spatial computing in the hospitality space. Um I'm launching another firm, another consulting firm that is um basically focused on integrating um AI into uh hospitality. Um because, like to Christian's point, it's not about finding the best tech vendor, it's it's really about understanding the whole ecosystem. So that's uh that's a lot of that. Uh I will probably squeeze another book in by the end of the on the end of the year. Let's see, uh let's see how it goes. And um, and then I'm doing quite a lot of work with uh the guys at Hospitality Debt that maybe you're familiar with. And uh we're uh we're launching something I cannot really talk about uh right now, but it's going to be it's going to be pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Yeah, no, that's that's fantastic. Simone, it's always a pleasure to talk to you and uh have these conversations on podcasts with you. Maybe you should launch another firm looking at the living sector outside hotels, because uh I think you got a lot to offer to them as well.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Sure, sure. They'll they'll send you a quote.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Thanks, thanks, Simone, for joining. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much, guys. And that wraps it up for us today. So thank you guys so much for joining us on this episode of Pillow Talk Sessions. To stay connected and catch every new episode, do us a favor and head over to PillowTalksessions.com to subscribe. And be sure to follow us on LinkedIn for more insights and interviews with leaders who are shaping the future of hospitality, multifamily living, and community driven spaces. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on Pillow Talk Sessions.