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This Week in Hospitality

by thisweekinhospitality

Every Friday morning, This Week in Hospitality brings you the most important stories, insights, and innovations shaping the global hospitality industry — distilled and discussed by people who actually build within it. Hosted by Ben Wolff, Scott Eddy, Edwin Kramer, and Zach Busekrus, this weekly conversation is crafted for the founders, operators, and dreamers creating the next generation of hospitality brands. You’ll get more than just headlines — you’ll get perspective. Each episode breaks down the week’s most compelling hospitality stories and explores what they really mean for independent hotel owners, boutique brands, and experiential travel entrepreneurs. From brand strategy and design trends to tech disruption and capital markets, This Week in Hospitality keeps you informed, inspired, and ready for what’s next. So grab your morning coffee, and catch up on the stories that matter — before your guests check in. New episodes every Friday morning. Ben Wolff Ben Wolff is the visionary founder behind Onera, a trailblazing landscape hotel brand in the Texas Hill Country, and Oasi, a next-generation management company pioneering experiential hospitality. Known for pushing the boundaries of design, wellness, and guest immersion, Ben has become a leading voice in the evolution of high-end, nature-driven travel experiences. His work sits at the intersection of architecture, emotion, and environment — redefining what modern luxury feels like in the wild. Scott Eddy Scott Eddy is one of the world’s most recognized hospitality voices — a global keynote speaker, digital strategist, and content creator who has partnered with hundreds of luxury hotel brands, tourism boards, and travel startups. Named among the top travel influencers worldwide, Scott brings a rare blend of brand storytelling expertise, social strategy, and on-the-ground hospitality experience, offering a panoramic view of how digital connection drives modern guest loyalty. Edwin Kramer A hospitality executive with a pedigree forged at the world’s leading luxury hotels, Edwin has held senior leadership roles with brands like Four Seasons, EDITION, Campbell, Gray, Hyatt, and NOBU Hotels across multiple continents. Known for operational excellence and cultural leadership, Edwin has built and managed five-star teams that deliver some of the most lauded guest experiences in the industry. Today, he brings that global lens to the conversations shaping hospitality’s future — where service, innovation, and storytelling converge. Zach Busekrus Zach is on the founding team of Journey, a next-generation loyalty and storytelling platform empowering independent hotels and vacation rental brands to compete globally without losing their soul. He’s also the creator and host of Behind the Stays, one of the fastest-growing podcasts in hospitality, where he’s interviewed the visionaries behind some of the world’s most creative stays. With a decade in growth strategy and marketing, Zach brings a founder’s curiosity and contagious optimism to every conversation — always championing the builders shaping the future of independent hospitality.

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

8 Independent Hoteliers, 2 Days, 1 Recap: What We Heard at IHS Miami

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.

Sep 18
27 min

From Ian Schrager to AKA — Blake Danner on the Loyalty Lie, Brand Differentiation, and Staying Small

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 C

Sep 11
1 h 04 min

AI-Generated Hotels That Don't Exist, Airbnb Cuts Fees for Hosts Who Bring Their Own Demand, and Google Turns the Search Bar Into a Booking Engine

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 proper

Sep 4
1 h 09 min

Buying Hotels Off Bad Yelp Reviews & The Boutique Hotel Brand Obituary

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 founder Dr

Aug 28
1 h 09 min

Google Buys Spirit’s Data, Timeshares Are Cool Now, and Alice Sherman on the Future of Hiring in Hospitality

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

Aug 21
1 h 23 min

Airbnb & Trip Advisor Partner, IHG's Owner Gambit, and a Loyalty Program Worth More Than the Airline

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

Aug 14
1 h 15 min

Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit on The Great Hotel Owner Squeeze, Aman's YouTuber Fiasco, & Marriott's Owner Concession

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 st

Aug 7
1 h 12 min

Sonder is back, Fora hits a $1B valuation, The Odyssey drives travel & Google’s AI booking grab

Sonder is back — sort of. Eight months after going bankrupt and stranding guests mid-stay, the brand name has been bought by a Vancouver affiliate firm that paid for one

Jul 31
1 h 03 min

Hot Takes on Hilton, What Hotels Should Learn from the World Cup, and Shark Tank for Route 66's Last Surviving Motels

Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta went on record defending the brand's 28-property portfolio — and the panel has thoughts. Is the multi-brand arms race really about guests, or is

Jul 24
1 h 09 min

How Norwegian Air Went Viral for Losing, Should Airbnb and Ennismore Hook Up? and the Slow Death of Organic Discovery on Vrbo

This week, the squad breaks down Norwegian Air's World Cup Instagram stunt that cost next to nothing and generated more brand equity than campaigns with budgets a hundred

Jul 17
1 h 15 min

Ideas, Stories, and Hot Takes with James McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of NIHI Hotels

James McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of NIHI Hotels, joins the core four for a wide-ranging conversation on what it actually takes to build a legendary independent hospitality

Jul 10
1 h 01 min

Airbnb Founder's Secret AI Lab, Bass Pro's $300M Resort Bet & The Economy Hotel Franchise Revolt

Zach, Scott, and Edwin dig into three stories reshaping the industry this holiday week. First: Skift's The Big Squeeze Part 2, which spotlights a family in Iowa who let t

Jul 3
1 h 00 min

Pali Society Goes Bonvoy, Hilton's Incubating 5 New Brands, and Hot Takes with Skift's Hospitality Editor, Sean O'Neil

Sean O'Neill of Skift joins the roundtable this week for a conversation that cuts straight to the fault lines running through the hotel industry right now — distribution

Jun 26
1 h 14 min

CoStar’s Forecast Reversal, Marriott Hits 10K Hotels, and Amsterdam’s Tourist Tax Revolt

This week opens in full TWIH chaos: Zach and Scott are somehow a mile apart in San Antonio and still not together, Ben is on the Connecticut shore debuting smarter-lookin

Jun 19
1 h 16 min

The Airbnb-Marriott Deal That Almost Happened, MGM Goes Private(?), Journey & Cloudbeds Partner, & What Premium Travelers Want

Two of the biggest casino operators in the world became takeover targets in the same week — and the squad has thoughts. Barry Diller's People Inc. just offered $18 billio

Jun 12
55 min

Sonder's Founder is Back, Hyatt's New Growth Strategy, The Human Concierge Book, and L.E/Miami Recap

This week opens at LE Miami — which Scott describes less like a travel conference and more like Coachella for hotel nerds — before the guys dive into the real industry te

Jun 5
1 h 06 min

The Uber-Hotel Hookup, Expedia Optimizes for AI Agents, and Why Americans Are Skipping Europe

Mews embeds Uber directly into its PMS, promising seamless guest transportation and a cut of ancillary revenue hotels have long been leaving on the table. The guys are sk

May 29
1 h 04 min

Airbnb’s Super-App, Expedia’s Acquisition, The Overtourism Reckoning & Why Small Markets Are Winning

This week, Zach, Ben, and Edwin dig into the race to own the entire trip. Airbnb’s summer release becomes the main event: rental cars, boutique hotels, Instacart, airpor

May 22
1 h 12 min

Airbnb Rethinks AI, Brands Move Into Safari, Spain’s Tourism Reckoning, Hospitality’s Human Premium

This week, the guys trace one tension running through travel right now: everyone wants scale, but nobody wants the experience to feel scaled.   Airbnb opens the convers

May 15
1 h 04 min

The World Cup Bust, Spirit's Collapse, Priceline is Back, and Aman's Move in the Texas Hill Country

The hospitality industry was supposed to print money during the 2026 World Cup. Instead, nearly 80% of hotels across the eleven US host cities are pacing significantly be

May 8
1 h 03 min

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#63
all-time peak
47
days in the top 100 since Oct 2025

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Where This Week in Hospitality ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Sep 20, 2026).

#119 ▼ 38 Business News US

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