Two line items that deliver savings at every hotel

What originally drew you to this industry, and what inspires you to stay so deeply rooted in it today?

I began working in hospitality during my college years. At the time, I was pursuing a Wall Street career and had never considered a hotel career. But eventually I found a sense of purpose in hospitality and chose hospitality over that Wall Street career in finance. I came to realize that, in hospitality, we can truly make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. 

We often don’t know the situations that our guests, colleagues, friends or family are going through. Guests may be visiting town for a celebratory wedding, a competitive sporting event, facing a job interview or grieving the loss of a loved one. By being empathetic and carrying a bucket of sunshine, we can perceive and meet the needs of others in their moment. That's how we give others the courage to face the day, and we can make the world a brighter, happier place!

You are a big advocate for maximizing Total RevPAR. How does your company culture empower your team to hunt for ancillary revenue, and what are some of the most unique micro-revenue streams you’ve implemented?

Ooooh, I love this question. It touches on a couple of our core values at Aperture Hotels and the importance that we place on being curious and value creation. Through these core values, we encourage team members to be forward-thinking, uncover hidden potential, find a better way and seize opportunity to drive peak performance. And our incentive plans reward those results. This entrepreneurial mindset has led us to identify less customary ways to drive ancillary income through upsells, travel insurance, monetizing unused Wi-Fi bandwidth through mobile data carriers, generating commissionable income by booking packages with third-party outfitters and more.

When Aperture steps into an unbranded or lifestyle asset—like the immediate $70,000 insurance savings you achieved for a property in Atlanta—what are the first two or three line items you audit to find instant margin relief for the owner?

Housekeeping labor and insurance are two key areas where we have identified and achieved substantial savings in literally every single hotel that we’ve taken over from competitive management companies.

What strict criteria do you use to ensure technology drives actual ROI for an independent property without fracturing the unique, authentic guest experiences that define lifestyle hotels?

Hotel tech is booming, and hospitality tech companies offering business intelligence, booking engines and guest journey management now have multi-billion valuations while hotel industry EBITDA is under pressure. If we're not deliberate in our evaluation of technology, then SaaS expense can become another tax on the hotel P&L.

Effective hospitality technology can enhance revenue optimization, accurately predict business levels, improve employee communication, facilitate delivery on guest requests and efficiently handle mundane tasks. Guests can engage our technology to customize their stay in advance of arrival or communicate with our team while onsite. When technology accomplishes these things, then hospitality managers and employees can free themselves from being desk jockeys in the back office and instead engage with guests to drive memorable experiences.

Staffing shortages continue to challenge the hospitality industry. How is Aperture adapting its labor and scheduling strategies to ensure your independent hotels can still deliver on their brand promises?

Adaptability can be key towards combating labor shortages in certain markets. In some cases, we’ve found opportunities to implement four-hour micro-shifts to provide additional coverage during peak periods, or late cleaning for crew rooms. In other cases, employees have opted toward four 10-hour shifts per week to allow for more personal time or second jobs. We’ve also introduced a mobile app that allows employees to select available shifts, giving them more agency and control over their preferred work schedule.

Independent hotels must be particularly diligent about ensuring that we have the right people, in the right place, at the right time to deliver on our culturally unique brand promise. This can be what sets us apart from our hard-branded competitors.

Anything else you’d like to share?

If there’s one thing that I'd want operators to take away from this:

Every margin we find, whether it’s in insurance or smarter scheduling, is really about making sure our teams have the time, tools and energy to take care of people. The operators who win the next decade are the ones who treat “creative” and “financially disciplined” as the same job description, not a tradeoff.