On this week&#x27;s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Steve Turk and guest host Katie Cline break down a week where consolidation is happening at every layer of the hotel industry at once. The conversation opens with NORWEGIAN AIR UK LIMITED&#x27;s $843 million bet to acquire Nordic Leisure Travel Group AB Group and own the entire travel value chain from flights to hotels. The number that explains the deal: NLTG&#x27;s owned hotels are 25% of its holiday volume but 60% of its gross profit. From there, Steve and Katie dig into IHG Hotels &amp; Resorts&#x27; CEO, making the case that eight years of tech investment is finally showing up in franchisee margins, and close with RealTime Reservation&#x27;s acquisition of STAY and what unified ancillary revenue tech actually means for total RevPAR. This episode is presented by ⁠⁠⁠Cloudbeds⁠⁠⁠ &amp; ⁠⁠⁠Bilt⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠cloudbeds.com/gmh⁠⁠⁠ to learn more. And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to ⁠⁠⁠joinbilt.com/gmh⁠⁠⁠ to learn more. And if you&#x27;re leaving direct bookings on the table, StayFi turns your wifi into a guest relationship engine. Visit ⁠⁠https://stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality/⁠⁠ to learn more.

GMH Hotels: Why an Airline Just Bought a Hotel Company for $843 Million.

Good Morning Hospitality

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Good Morning Hospitality

## Participants

- **Steve Turk** (The Hospitality Mentor)
- **Katie Klein** (Skift)

## Transcript

Good Morning and welcome back to Good Morning Hospitality. The best day of the week is when you're listening to GMH, but before we get into this episode, I have a quick word from our friends at CloudBeds. You all know that I started behind the front desk. I was at the Davenport in Spokane, Washington under the autograph collection of Marriott. We had over 716 rooms and I'll tell you, I loved that job. I loved the guests and the rhythm. What I didn't love was the technology because here's what nobody tells you when you take that job. The tech is supposed to make you better at hospitality, but most of it just gets in the way.

CloudBeds was built on a different idea, that the hotelier is the hero. That technology should free up your ambition and not eat into your morning. One platform, intelligence running through every layer, and hoteliers in 150 plus countries are already on it. If you ever stood behind the front desk and thought there has to be a better way, well, there is. CloudBeds.com slash GMH. Alright, now let's get back in the news.

If you're trying to drive more direct bookings right now, here's the reality. They don't just magically happen. You have to actually stay in front of your guests. And one tool I've actually been recommending for a very long time is StayFi. What's really cool about them is that they turn your Wi-Fi itself into a data capturing tool. So every time a guest connects, you're collecting contact info. And not just from the one who booked, but from everyone who's staying in the property.

And that's a huge unlock because most operators don't even own even a fraction of their guest data. And in a time of AI, data is king. From there, StayFi actually helps you turn that into bookings with automated emails, post-day follow-ups, and campaigns that bring guests back. I've seen portfolios collect tens of thousands of guest emails and more than double their direct bookings in less than a year with this StayFi feature.

And if you don't have time to run all of that, or you prefer to be more hands-off, they now offer managed email marketing services where their team just handles it for you. They've also made their setup way easier with a new hardware option called Adgenet, which is up to 40% cheaper than traditional setups. So if you've been thinking about building a real direct booking engine, now is a fantastic time to start. Head to stayfi.com slash goodmorninghospitality to learn more and to get 50% off your first three months.

That's stayfi.com slash goodmorninghospitality.

Hello, hello, Katie Klein in the house.

Hello, Steve. So nice to be back with you today. It's great to be back with you. I am coming from live here in San Antonio, Texas. At the High Tech Conference. So a lot of exciting things going on there. And we're going to chat about a couple of those in...

GMH Hotels: Why an Airline Just Bought a Hotel Company for $843 Million.

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

GMH Hotels: Why an Airline Just Bought a Hotel Company for $843 Million.

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.