Year in review: The laughs, the tech, and everything in between

In this celebratory episode of Hotel Moment, host Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate, takes a different approach by curating the most impactful moments from the podcast's archive this year. Rather than featuring a single guest, she presents a carefully selected compilation that showcases both the entertaining personality and serious innovation driving modern hospitality forward.

What you'll learn:

Rethinking loyalty beyond points: Bashar Wali, founder and CEO of Practice Hospitality and This Assembly, with over three decades in hospitality, delivers his unfiltered perspective that points programs represent bribery rather than genuine loyalty, arguing true loyalty comes from making guests feel seen, understood, and valued rather than simply rewarded with transactional benefits.
Simplifying direct booking friction: Bashar also compares buying shoes on Instagram with three button presses to hotel websites requiring 75 steps, including keyboard switches between alpha and numeric inputs, emphasizing that hotels with perishable inventory shouldn't fight guests every step when they're trying to give you money.
Entrepreneurial origin stories: Sky McLean, founder and CEO of Basecamp Resorts, shares how she took a $38,000 loan check from a BMW dealership for a car she couldn't afford and used it to buy land in Canmore, then lived in a camping trailer on the construction site while building what would become a $600 million hospitality empire, advising that "there's no right time, so just do it."
Cybersecurity's human element: Matthijs Welle, CEO of Mews, warns that cybercriminals now use AI to impersonate voices and buy Google ad words to create fake login pages, emphasizing that teams at the frontline with access to sensitive data must be trained because IT departments can't provide 100% protection when human error creates vulnerabilities.
Never Google your login pages: Matthijs shares the critical practice of bookmarking login pages or using single sign-on instead of searching on Google, where criminals set traps with ads looking exactly like legitimate pages that steal credentials when employees enter them.
Master data management as a foundation: Dimple Jethani, CIO of Aramark Destinations, overseeing technology for iconic properties in Yosemite and Yellowstone, emphasizes, master data management becomes critical when implementing systems like Salesforce because failing to integrate properly ruins your master data and creates silos, preventing actionable insights.
Starting with guest questions: Dimple stresses defining what you want to know about guests before collecting data, building systems to answer specific questions about how you know them, engage them, and understand what's important to them, rather than accumulating information without purpose.
Transaction-level personalization: Dana Cariss, Senior Vice President of Revenue Strategy at CoralTree Hospitality, describes how their four-year investment consolidating data from PMS, point of sale, and sales systems into a single warehouse enables them to see not just whether guests used resort credits but exactly where they spent them, allowing hyper-targeted campaigns sending spa packages to spa lovers rather than generic promotions.
Technology for social impact: Georgine Muntz, CEO of Visual Matrix, explains how their PMS and housekeeping tools enable staff to safely document suspicious activity related to human trafficking without confronting potentially dangerous criminals, feeding information into databases that help identify patterns and assist law enforcement.
Partnerships over integrations: Georgine emphasizes that while APIs and integrations are important, hotels operating 24/7 in real time need partners who will fix issues at 2 a.m. rather than point fingers, achieving 98% issue resolution without referring customers elsewhere through relationship-focused support.

Throughout the compilation, Brenna reinforces that great hospitality happens when human connection balances with intelligent technology, using data to enhance rather than replace intuition while building systems that free teams to make guests feel welcome, understood, and valued.

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Episode Highlights:

[02:20] Points are bribery - Bashar Wali delivers his bold perspective: "Points are not loyalty. Points are bribery. If I stop giving you points, are you still coming? No, that's not loyalty. I'm buying your loyalty, not earning it." His point underscores that true loyalty comes from making guests feel seen and valued, not just rewarded.

[03:05] The 75-step booking nightmare - Bashar compares retail to hotel booking: "I go on Instagram, I see a pair of shoes, I press three buttons, they're in the mail. I go on a hotel website to book a room, and on step 75, they're making me change my keyboard from Alpha to Numeric. Please don't fight me every step of the way when I'm trying to book my room on your website."

[04:16] The BMW loan origin story - Sky McLean shares her wild beginning: "I end up with a check for $38,000 from BMW. I'm like, done, sold. I'll take this car I can't afford with a $1,000 a month payment, and I'm gonna take that check and buy a piece of dirt in Canmore, which is the land where the first Basecamp Resorts now sits."

[06:44] The human cybersecurity vulnerability - Matthijs Welle warns: "We have to teach everyone who works at the frontline that has access to sensitive data how to protect that data. You can't look at an IT department to do 100% protection. That's never 100% unless you really make your teams aware of it."

[08:43] Master data management matters - Dimple Jethani emphasizes: "No one wants to talk about foundational things, but master data management matters. If I decide to implement a system and I don't integrate it, my master data has just been ruined."

[09:59] Transaction-level personalization - Dana Cariss explains hyper-targeting: "We can see quickly if the guest is using resort credit or not. Do we understand where they are actually spending that credit? Once we do, are we tailoring our ongoing messages based on that guest spend? Once you understand at a transaction level, then we can truly tailor personalized communication."

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro
02:20 - Bashar on loyalty and booking friction
04:16 - Sky McLean's entrepreneurial leap of faith
06:44 - Cybersecurity with Matthijs Welle
08:43 - Master data management with Dimple Jethani
09:59 - Transaction-level personalization with Dana Cariss
11:07 - Technology for social impact with Georgine Muntz
13:00 - Closing reflections on high-tech, high-touch hospitality