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PODCAST

Behind the Stays

Welcome to Behind the Stays — a podcast that shares the stories behind your favorite boutique hotels, short-term rentals, and hospitality brands and the hosts, operators, and entrepreneurs who’ve brought them to life. Every Tuesday and Friday you’ll meet the military veterans, retired flight attendants, tech entrepreneurs, school teachers, single moms, hoteliers, and real estate investors who are all, in their unique ways, shaping the future of travel and hospitality. Discover how these

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All Episodes

54:30

An Empty Pool Is Perishable Inventory - Here's How...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/10/07

Sponsored by:Modbeans Coffee Code for 15% off: BTS https://modbeans.co/bts Sponsored by: https://Lake.com Michael Wolf thought his career would be in government. He spent every summer in Washington, DC, and wanted the FBI. Then Bain came to campus, and he took a detour that turned into 15 years of startups. Today he is the CEO of ResortPass, the world's largest marketplace focused on getting hotels more revenue from day guests. The idea starts with perishable inventory: hotels have mastered revenue

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36:26

Empower Your People: Staypineapple's Dina Belon-Sayre...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/10/06

This Week’s Guest:Dina Belon-Sayre - President, Staypineapple Hotels LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinabelon/ Explore Staypineapple Hotels: https://www.staypineapple.com/ Your Host: Zach Busekrus - Journey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/ Dina Belon-Sayre, President of Staypineapple Hotels, opens with a story from a Portland snowstorm when she waited tables herself, fed a stranded hotel and received a thank-you check

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64:00

Hilton This Week in Hospitality: Says AI Is Coming...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/10/02

Scott is in Sicily, so Zach, Ben Wolff and Edwin Kramer take the docket. Edwin checks in from a new boutique hotel on Spain's Costa Blanca, and Ben is fresh from the glamping show.The first story: Hilton's CIO says AI assistants have put online travel agencies under real threat, yet he expects personal AI agents to become commissionable channels too. The crew asks what "direct" even means when an agent that never sleeps keeps rate-shopping after the booking is made. Edwin says post-booking shopping

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35:48

The Third Way: Curator's Jennifer Barnwell on Cost...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/10/01

https://roompricegenie.com/Checkout code for 25% off: WISH26 This Week’s Guest: Jennifer Barnwell - President, Curator Hotel & Resort Collection LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-barnwell-a8689ba/ Explore Curator Hotel & Resort Collection: https://www.curatorhotelsandresorts.com/team/jennifer-barnwell/ Your Host: Zach Busekrus - Journey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/ Recorded live at the Independent

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32:29

Nourishment, Expression, Movement: Heidi Zimmer on...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/29

Heidi Zimmer closed on her construction financing the day before the country shut down in March of 2020.Then lumber tripled. She had to cut an entire building from the plan. And the business she'd underwritten, roughly seventy-five percent group retreats and twenty-five percent leisure, opened in 2021 and flipped almost exactly upside down. Heidi has spent more than thirty years in real estate development, much of it building artist housing and creative spaces around the country. Wild Rice Retreat

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64:55

This Week in Hospitality: Royal Caribbean Buys Half...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/25

The full squad is back. Royal Caribbean is taking a 50% stake in Sandals Resorts for roughly $3 billion, and the crew breaks down why a cruise line wants an all-inclusive hotel brand. Edwin runs the numbers on who is really serving whose guests, and Scott, who has known the Stewart family most of his life, explains why cruise companies can't build ships fast enough and are coming ashore instead.Then it's Airbnb's hotel push: just shy of 4,000 hotels on the new listing format, hand-curated and aimed

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52:55

She Opened a Bachelorette Airbnb in 2020. Everyone...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/23

Check out Lodgify claim your exclusive discount: https://www.lodgify.com/behind-the-stays/Femme House website: https://stayfemmehouse.com/ Femme House on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/femmehouseaz/ — Vanessa Aguirre was in her bridal era when the idea for Femme House found her. A disappointing experience with her own wedding venue, a travel blogger's eye for what makes a stay shareable, and a hunch that bachelorettes deserved better than what Nashville was offering. So in 2020, with

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27:04

This Week in Hospitality: 8 Independent Hoteliers, 2...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/18

Fresh off Independent Hotel Show Miami, Zach and Ben break down two days of conversations with eight owners, operators, and investors from across independent hospitality.Before the full interviews roll out on This Week in Hospitality, this is the recap — the ideas that kept surfacing across every mic session, the moments that caught us off guard, and what these conversations say about where independent hospitality is actually headed. Whether you own a property, back one, or build for the people who

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58:08

Building Nature Nooks: How a Project Manager Turned...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/15

Check out Lake.com claim your exclusive discount: https://www.lake.com/partners/behind-the-stays— Every few weeks, someone emails me a vision for a stay they want to build. Edoardo is one of the rare ones who actually went and built it. Before Nature Nooks, he was a startup co-founder and product manager who'd done a stint as a senior program manager at Dollar Shave Club. Then he walked away from tech, bought seventeen acres of raw land in Sullivan, Maine, and — in a single summer — stood up a

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64:10

This Week in Hospitality: From Ian Schrager to AKA —...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/11

Blake Danner has spent his career inside the rooms where lifestyle hospitality was invented. Eleven years alongside Ian Schrager opening the Clift, Sanderson, and Shore Club. Seven years as founding COO of the Sydell Group, where he helped create Nomad, The Line, and Freehand — 11 hotels in seven years. A stint running operations at Proper Hospitality. And now, as COO of AKA Hotels & Hotel Residences, he's running a 16-property luxury serviced residence portfolio where the entry-level monthly

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60:59

He Bought His First House at 17, Sold a Company to...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/08

Check out Lodgify claim your exclusive discount: https://www.lodgify.com/behind-the-stays/ — In just a moment you'll meet Austin Allison — co-founder and CEO of Pacaso, the co-ownership platform that's reimagining how people buy, use, and think about second homes. Austin's dad was a carpenter. They lived paycheck to paycheck in a home with unfinished plywood floors because they couldn't afford carpet. Austin started working job sites with his dad at six or seven years old, and the thing it

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69:01

This Week in Hospitality: AI-Generated Hotels That...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/04

TikTok Go was supposed to turn creators into a hotel distribution channel. Instead, a Skift investigation found dozens of AI-generated fake videos attached to real properties — fabricated suites, nonexistent amenities, faceless accounts — with one Sedona luxury resort racking up 17 flagged videos. The kicker: the hotel doesn't even sell through TikTok Go's booking partners. Scott says forget the AI part — someone can now recommend a hotel they've never visited, show rooms that don't exist, and

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43:27

She Left Chicago, Bought 160 Acres, and Built a...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/09/02

Check out Lodgify claim your exclusive discount: https://www.lodgify.com/behind-the-stays/ — In just a moment you'll meet Lauren Blanford from Lost Woods — a glamping retreat and event property built on 160 acres of northern Michigan that started with two bell tents, a porta potty, and homemade bagels hand-delivered at sunrise. Lauren and her husband Jason were living in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood, raising young kids, feeling like two ships passing in the night. They put their condo

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69:25

This Week in Hospitality: Buying Hotels Off Bad Yelp...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/08/28

Hotel sales in the US are up 28% in the first half of 2026 — and a meaningful chunk of that activity is chasing bad Yelp reviews, not trophy assets. JMI Realty executive Drew Bridges joins the show to break down how his firm is using AI to source acquisition targets off terrible guest feedback. The specific deal: a Hilton Garden Inn in Austin bought for $100K per key that reviewers called "janky" and "a complete nightmare." Drew walks through the renovation math, why he's keeping the brand, and why

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61:15

Why Blackberry Farm Doesn't Buy Ads — Matt Ferebee on...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/08/25

Check out Lodgify claim your exclusive discount: https://www.lodgify.com/behind-the-stays/ — Explore FerebeeLane: https://www.ferebeelane.com/ Connect with Matt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ferebee-2287566/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ — Twenty-five years ago, a kid with an English degree and a freelance gig writing about furniture realized something. People didn't want to just know what the sofa looked like. They wanted to know how it was made, who

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83:40

This Week in Hospitality: Google Buys Spirit’s Data,...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/08/21

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts:Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality On this week's episode the guys are joined by Alice Sherman, CEO of HVS Executive Search! Alice Sherman has placed some of the most powerful executives in hospitality. As CEO of HVS Executive Search, she's seen

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53:32

The Real Reason You Can't Build a Vacation Rental...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/08/18

Explore Inhaven: https://inhaven.com/Connect with Ashley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-ching-inhaven-b56a843/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Check out Lodgify and get an exclusive discount: https://www.lodgify.com/behind-the-stays/ — Meet Ashley Ching — founder of Inhaven, former head of global merchandising operations at Tiffany & Co., and the person behind what might be the most important piece of research the vacation rental industry has produced in

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75:28

This Week in Hospitality: Airbnb & Trip Advisor...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/08/14

Airbnb just partnered with TripAdvisor to bring 425,000 experiences onto its platform — a move that signals Brian Chesky isn't just dabbling in experiences anymore, he's building a second business inside the first. The crew breaks down what this means for the future of in-destination travel, why the real unfair advantage might already be sitting inside every host's guidebook, and whether this is Airbnb's best play in markets where short-term rental bans are tightening the grip on its core product

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57:13

Why the Complaint Is the Doorway: Rachel Alday on Her...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/08/12

Read "Please Do Disturb": https://pleasedodisturbbook.com/Connect with Rachel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelalday Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Check out Lodgify and get an exclusive discount: https://www.lodgify.com/behind-the-stays/ — In just a moment, you'll meet Rachel Alday, co-founder of Abode Luxury Rentals and author of the forthcoming book, "Please Do Disturb." I brought Rachel back on the podcast because she's an awesome friend of mine, but also

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72:50

This Week in Hospitality: Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah...

Behind the Stays ·

2026/08/07

Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts:Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week we're joined by Sarah Kopit, Editor-in-Chief of Skift — the publication that fuels basically every episode of this show — and she came ready. We open on the story all of hospitality shared this week: Aman's

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