The Hotel Daddy Podcast

A hotel can have a beautiful lobby and still feel broken the moment you ask for help. That’s why I wanted Scott Eddy on the show. Scott is a hospitality marketing strategist and digital storyteller who spends more than 300 nights a year on the road, and he notices what most leaders miss: whether departments are connected, whether the same maintenance problems keep returning, and whether the team seems genuinely proud to be there.

We get into what “sense of place” really means in hotel marketing and branding. Scott argues the destination should lead the story, with the pr...

Hotel design isn’t decoration. It’s strategy, storytelling, and the difference between a property you sleep in and a place you can’t stop talking about. I’m joined by Stacy Shoemaker Rauen, one of the most influential voices in hospitality design media, to connect the dots between design, operations, and the modern guest experience.

We get into how the industry moved from “anywhere” brand boxes to spaces that feel authentic and local, and why the lobby became a living, breathing extension of the hotel’s identity. Stacy shares what she’s seen across two decades of hotel design...

If you think AI is going to save mediocre selling, Cindy Novotny has a reality check for you. I sit down with Cindy, one of the best-known hospitality sales trainers and leadership experts in the industry, to unpack what actually drives hotel revenue when everyone has the same tech stack and the same “perfect” templates. Cindy is direct, practical, and funny, bringing decades of experience across luxury hotels, major brands, and corporate clients who buy meetings for a living.

We talk about the unglamorous side of business development: grit, follow-up, and the ability to have a real conv...

A hotel brand can’t live on nostalgia, but it also can’t pretend its history never happened. I sit down with hospitality innovator and brand strategist Ben Pundole to trace the unlikely route from 1990s London nightlife to the center of the global lifestyle hotel movement, including the moment Madonna introduced him to Ian Schrager and the early years when design-driven hotels were still rewriting the rules.

We get into what those formative openings taught us before social media changed everything: why design creates the first impression, why service is the real proof, and why “experience” has to b...

A motel becomes a resort, a brand becomes a destination, and suddenly the whole industry gets permission to think bigger. We’re joined by Brad Wilson, chairman of Ace Group International, a leader who’s helped shape modern lifestyle hospitality through roles at W Hotels, the James Hotel brand, and Ace Hotels. Brad shares what it really takes to build a boutique hotel that guests talk about, return to, and gladly pay more for, even in an era dominated by OTAs and constant price comparison.

We dig into the James Scottsdale story and why a design-forward concept can...

Hotels once treated online travel as a threat, but then it became the engine room of modern distribution. Now the next shift is here: Airbnb and hotel brands are learning how to work together, and the real competitive edge is no longer just inventory; it’s partnership quality, connectivity, and guest discovery.

We’re joined by Lou Zameryka, a long-time commercial leader in travel technology who helped shape the OTA era and now leads hotel enterprise and connectivity partnerships at Airbnb. We talk about what hypergrowth teaches you when there’s no playbook, why “test and learn” cultures s...

A robot can drop a towel at your door, but it can’t make you feel welcome. That’s the line we keep coming back to as I sit down with hotel founder Bashar Wali to talk about what the hospitality industry gets right, what it gets dangerously wrong, and how to build hotels people actually love. If you care about guest experience, boutique hotels, lifestyle hospitality, or the future of luxury travel, this conversation is a masterclass in separating the essentials from the noise.

We get into Bashar’s journey into hospitality, his obsession with culture and de...

What if the most valuable amenity isn’t a butler or a points upgrade, but time you can feel? We sit down with AutoCamp’s Chief Commercial Officer, Bryan Terzi, to trace a career that moves from Starwood and W Hotels to SBE’s celebrity-fueled nightlife, through chef-led creativity at Mother Wolf and Sydell Group, into CRM scale at Sage—and finally to the surprising power of outdoor hospitality. The throughline: brand clarity, operational empathy, and marketing that translates real moments into stories guests can’t help but share.

Bryan breaks down how brand frameworks scale without going gene...

Emotion is the real currency of hospitality, and Kat Bangs knows how to design for it. Blake sits down with the creative mind turned small-town hotelier to explore the choices that turn spaces into feelings, lobbies into communities, and careers into lives that actually fit.

Kat’s path runs from Michelin-level service and national press to leading creative for multiple award-winning hotel openings. She breaks down the difference between spectacle and service, why “never dumb it down” earns trust, and how the cheapest levers—lighting, music, scent, pacing—create the richest experiences. You’ll hear the simple checks she l...

What if a single bite could send you home again? Chef Ollie Walleck joins us to explore how memory, empathy, and rigor can reinvent what a kitchen feels like—and what guests taste on the plate. From his start as a teenage cook chasing the service rush to leading teams at The Midway in San Francisco, Ollie breaks down the craft behind food that scales to thousands without losing nuance, warmth, or soul.

We get granular about culture change: why the scream-and-throw era doesn’t build loyalty, how radical candor and respect keep teams together, and why calm...

What does it really take to walk away from a marquee role and build a brand that feels personal, principled, and wildly creative? We sit down with David Bowd, co-founder and CEO of Salt Hotels, to unpack the decision to leave the world of iconic properties and start small with a 20-room inn in Provincetown, Massachusetts —and how that leap reset his definition of success. From St. Martin’s Lane and Gramercy Park to a boutique collection rooted in design and community, David shares the choices, mistakes, and moments that shaped Salt’s identity.

We get candid about...

The best restaurants don’t just serve plates; they build worlds. Chef David Myers joins us to unpack how a driveway farm stand, a passport full of stamps, and a Michelin star shaped his approach to food, leadership, and life. From Los Angeles to Tokyo, Dubai, and Miami, David shares how he balances French technique with California freshness and global flavors while keeping one rule sacred: keep it simple and make it craveable.

We talk about pressure—and why he treats it as a privilege. David opens up about the routines that keep him sharp: daily transcendental medi...

Step into the lobby with us and meet Victoria Fabio, a people and culture leader who grew up roaming the Gramercy Park Hotel and went on to transform workplaces across Soho House, Four Seasons, The Sydell Group, SALT Hotels, and CORE. Her story weaves together childhood memories, hard-earned lessons, and a blueprint for safer, smarter, and more human hospitality.

We dig into traditional HR and modern people and culture, and why the companies that win invest first in their teams. Victoria breaks down how empowered staff make better decisions, how honest feedback prevents “surprise” terminations, and why cult...