Brought to you by Independent Hotel Show Miami
Don’t miss Independent Hotel Show Miami
Independent Hotel Show Miami is the most comprehensive, dedicated business event for boutique, luxury, and independent hotels.
Register Today!→
There’s a useful question bubbling up across hospitality right now: what are we getting for what we’re giving up? It’s showing up in owner-brand relationships, in the rethink of what an amenity can—and should—be, and in the scramble to get smarter about new technology. This week, we dig into all three, including a free eight-part AI curriculum for hoteliers. Consider it a little industry housekeeping. There’s plenty to unpack!
And in your inbox tomorrow: A Mint Pillow Q&A with Joe Collier, president of Mainsail Lodging & Development, who shares how the company builds hotels that capture the character of a place without losing sight of what it takes to operate them well.
QUICK CLICKS
Put the gap to work. If the first genuinely human interaction happens when guests arrive on property, you’ve left a lot of hospitality on the table.
The internet has opinions. Future guests are searching for your hotel, sure—but they’re also searching for proof that the experience matches the promise. “Operational consistency and communication habits can influence discovery just as much as marketing spend,” says The Reputation Lab’s Brian Price.
Build from curiosity. This year’s Boutique Hotel Owners Conference is about turning everyday wonder into something guests can experience for themselves. Bring what fascinates you when you’re off the clock and learn how it might shape the places you create.
Why are guests still waiting in the first place? Turns out “please hold” has been a customer-service ritual for a lot longer than any of us would like to admit.
Kinda extra, if you ask us. Endured a flood… Encountered a wild animal… Do these things count as “other duties as assigned?”
Sponsored by Alliance Laundry
A Partner In Every Cycle
Run Smooth, From Floorplan to Final Load
Great laundry operations don't run on equipment alone. They run on the right partnership.
UniMac® washers and dryers deliver the speed, efficiency, and durability hospitality operations demand—load after load. With Alliance Distribution, you get more:
Equipment Built to Last: Heavy-duty engineering designed for demanding hospitality volumes.
Laundry Expertise: Specialists who understand your operation and help you get the most out of it.
In-House Service & Parts: Local support and readily available parts to keep downtime where it belongs—at zero.
The right equipment. The right partner. The right results.
SPACE & DESIGN
The Culver Hotel exterior. (Courtesy Proper Hospitality)
Hollywood, recast
Few hotels can claim a Hollywood résumé quite like The Culver Hotel. Charlie Chaplin once owned it, John Wayne later called it home and the Munchkins stayed there during the filming of The Wizard of Oz. But the real magic is in how owner Maya Mallick brought the 1924 Renaissance Revival building back from years of neglect.
Why it matters: History can be an incredibly valuable design asset. Mallick leaned into the building’s original character, preserving details such as the marble checkerboard floor and grand lobby with its soaring 20-foot ceilings, while layering in vintage furnishings, custom pieces and 1920s-inspired touches. Today, the 46-room hotel gives old-school glamour a fresh take while embracing its Hollywood past. (Western Art & Architecture)
TECHNOLOGY
Back-to-school season is here—for hoteliers
The AI Hospitality Alliance has put together a free eight-part curriculum that starts with the basics and ends somewhere considerably more ambitious: building your own tools with AI. Along the way, hoteliers can get hands-on with LLMs, image generation, audio, video, digital avatars and AI agents.
Why it matters: Designed for hospitality professionals, the training gets into tools like Gemini Notebook, HeyGen, Gamma, Codex, Claude and Lovable. The useful shift here is from buying software to figuring out what you can actually make with it, so for operators, it’s a low-cost way to experiment with AI before adding another subscription to the tech stack. (Ira Vouk on LinkedIn)
REVENUE & INVESTMENTS
He wanted to make a better product... And that’s where the money is really coming for him. He’s making money as opposed to saving money.”
“I can do this better without the brand”
The old assumption that independence means giving up too much revenue support is getting harder to take at face value. Sarah Kopit says owners are looking closely at whether the business they receive from a brand justifies what they give up.
Why it matters: The revenue question may be less about what you save and more about what you can build with the dollars you keep. Kopit says the franchise fee itself was only a few percentage points for the owner she interviewed, while the bigger opportunity came from creating a better product and growing the business on his own terms. (Hotel Tech Insider podcast)
GUEST EXPERIENCE
Give your sense of place something to do
The “skillcation” trend is essentially asking hotels to rethink what counts as an amenity—got a property with access to a local maker, a regional tradition or a distinctive landscape? Then you’ve already got the raw materials for an experience guests can participate in; the opportunity is to package that access into something guests can (actively) learn rather than (passively) watch.
Why it matters: A hands-on offering gives travelers a reason to book your property for something they can’t easily recreate elsewhere. It can also make the destination feel more connected to the stay, which is exactly where indie hotels shine. (W Magazine)
POLL
Where has your business settled on daily stayover cleans?
Thanks for reading today's edition! You can reach the newsletter team at [email protected]. We enjoy hearing from you.
Interested in advertising? Email us at [email protected]
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get this newsletter once a week.
Mint Pillow is curated and written by Jennifer Glatt and edited by Bianca Prieto.
