Then what we do afterwards is, um, I'll take it, I'll, we'll edit it down, we'll kind of take the highlights and then tighten it all up, and then you get to listen to it. And then if you like, Hey, this is cool, or, Hey, I wish I could say something different. Um, you can, so even if, um, I. We're in the process of chatting here and you're like, uh, I got a better story.
Like we to rewind it, cut it altogether. So I know you've done podcasts before too, so, um, but I just gave you those questions as sort of a frame of reference, not like, Hey, sure, yeah. And I made, made some notes just so I remember like, oh yeah. Tell this story or reminded me about certain things. So yeah. I mean, I like to do mine the same way.
Just keep it conversational. We'll just, yeah. Yeah. No. Okay, so we'll just, I usually just start saying, Hey, welcome to Tickets to Travel, the Business of Travel Experiences, and I'm your host, Mario Bwin. And today we have Calvin. Calvin from RevPAR Media. Calvin, welcome to the pod. Thank you very much, Mario.
It's a pleasure. Uh, I'm glad we had some time, uh, to, to catch up. You know, you've had a long career in hospitality, uh, you've been in, uh, the main reason I just said to you is like, I, I wanted to talk to a, a pure revenue, uh, director, someone who understands all the different principles of how to fill a house.
Um, to fill the property. Mm-hmm. But more importantly, what you do now is really interesting. You, you have a company. Can you gimme the quick 32nd pitch of what RevPAR Media does? Yeah, absolutely. So we focus on branding, social media and digital marketing. Um, yeah, as you, as you know, my background's in revenue management, and as you also know, I'm a content creator on Instagram.
Um, so those of you out there, shameless plug, follow ref pars on Instagram. I was, I was gonna get there because that's how we, that's how we met you. You, you've gotten, uh, a pretty big account for, and I guess was targeted to hospitality, even re you know, obviously RevPAR problems. Yeah. Is directed. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I could, I'll, I could tell a quick backstory on the account. Yeah. Uh, I mean, obviously it just started with me, you know, kind of shooting the shit at work, you know? Yeah. Making jokes and, and stuff. After, after meetings, and this is back in the day when you'd have to go to a website. I think it was like er and all these different, like meme generators, right?
Dot com, you know, there everybody's using the same six like meme templates, you know? Um, you know, what was it? The girl with uh, um, like, I think overly attracted girl, you know, she had that face. I. Yeah. Um, you know, all, all these different things. But anyway, um, yeah, that's really where it started. It was, um, I used to work for a company that was pretty spread out around the country and, um, you know, we had this thing going in New York.
I'd send out these emails to the New York team after a conference call about, you know, whatever. Um, one of the first ones I remember making was, uh, using the ludicrous on When I move, you move, somebody made a joke on the call that like, Hey, whenever I change rates, you change rates. I, yeah, I made, I made the joke.
Yeah. Um, but yeah, it started out as a Facebook group, um, and then it went to Instagram because, um. Because it was within my company, everyone knew where I worked, so they were like starting to think that these situations that I was just pulling from my experience was happening in real time. Sure. So they thought I was talking about my GM or my analyst or whatever, my sales person.
Ah. And I was like, no, I, I mean I've been in this game a while and just remembering situations, you know? So anyway, um, yeah, moved it to Instagram and like you said, you know, I've grown that account or organically, uh, I think I'm approaching 30,000 followers now. Um, yeah. And through through that and through that experience, obviously I've learned how to engage an audience, how to build an audience, um, and I realized that revenue management and content in that sense is really, there's a lot of similarities.
You know, it's about knowing, you know, in revenue, the saying is putting the right room. At the right price in front of the right person at the right time, and content is the same. You know, my content resonates because I know who the audience is and I know what they're going through. You know, I know right now with summer travel, you've got your sports teams, so roll aways and complaints about the pool not being open, you know, those are the kind of things that, you know, if you post right now, are likely to resonate now because people are going through that.
Um, yeah, it's, it's brilliant man, because, you know. A lot of people, uh, outside of hospitality, hotels, uh, you know, I'm an OTA guy. You know, they don't really gauge the seasonality as you would live it, essentially. And so Right, right. Creating content around this to engage an audience who's just like, I. Yeah.
Uh, I don't wanna see another star report, you know, as long as I live, or Yeah. I've got, you know, I've got a, uh, a special event coming in. How do you prepare for that? Right. Um, you all speak a language that only I. Those people know. Right. And so it, you know, when was the first time you went viral with something?
Because obviously you've had millions of, of views rack up on a few of those, but like what was the content that sort of got all of these hotel people like really, really engaged? Um, you know, it was funny when I meet people, um, and I've met people. Funny enough to say around the world, like I've met people as far as Barcelona, I was in the middle of, uh, Scotland.
I had a remote resort and a front desk agent came up to me and was like, are you ref problems? And I, I couldn't believe it. You know what I mean? But they all, they all kind of reference a different meme. You know, everybody likes to tell me that story about, Hey, you know, I really found your account when.
This. Um, but I think the one that got the most traction, um, you know, you said you're an OTA guy. Um, you know, Expedia was probably my first, I kind of went viral within Expedia. Oh really? Um, yeah. Expedia, please tell me. Yeah, I have, um, uh, you know, a lot of good friends. You know, at Expedia, obviously in New York, you know, me being from New York.
Um, but yeah, it kind of went viral within the different offices. And then when I would go to the conference, it, that's really when it started to hit me that this was growing because you'd have people coming up from La, Dallas, oh, I'm in the Denver office and we love your account. And I'm like, I've never been there.
Like, you know what I mean? It was sort of starting to become that thing. But I made a, a meme about, um, what the, what that conference is like. Because that conference used to start, which, which conference? Was it? Like High Tech or No, no, the, the Expedia Explorer Conference. Oh, the, okay. Yeah. Fun, fun fact. I was at the very first one of those.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Back in in, uh, I wanna say like 2001. 2002. Yeah. They actually used to run it out of the parking lot of the offices. That was the very first ones. Okay. And so it's, it's, and then we would have a party. Where I think Cool in the Gang was the, or Earth, wind and Fire was the first ones that they had.
I love it and I was, it was just like mind blowing back then, but now it's like a. Laser light show Extravaga. Yes. You know, it's done at, you know, some large club, I think they were doing it at light or one of the large, um, oh my God. Las Vegas clubs at one point. But yeah, pretty amazing what they've done with it.
The first one I went to was gotta be around 2014 ish. And um, yeah, we had, there was, uh. A VIP party the first night at, uh, at Tao. Mm-hmm. And then, so I'm like, oh wow, this is awesome. Great. And they're like, this is just a warmup for tomorrow night. I'm like, okay. Uh, so yeah, the next night there's a party at, I think they rented out.
Um, I. The, uh, dries at at the Cromwell Dres. Ah, yeah, DRES, excuse me. Dres at, at the Cromwell. Um, and I'm like, this is insane. And it's like open bar everywhere and all of this. Um, but the meme was, you know, when you show up on Wednesday, you're all like fresh and excited and everything, and then you spend two days of doing that in Vegas.
So by Friday morning. You're done. You know, so I, I put two pictures next to each other of Michael Jackson, you know, when he's like, you know, Jackson Five, he's fresh face, his, the makeup is great, his hair looks good. And then the next to it I put Friday morning and that was the picture of him from, from Thriller.
Um, right. And I just, it was just the simplest, you know, two pictures next to each other and I was like, Expedia conferences, like. Wednesday afternoon, Friday morning, this is what you're gonna look and feel like. And I got so many comments about that. Uh, you know, so many people that told me this was, this was going around, this is when I started following you because this is exactly what this conference feels like.
Um, so I would say that's probably the, the first viral one. That I had that, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, um, as someone who has lived through that, that conference and just conferences in general in Las Vegas, I mean, you could apply that. It's, I, I have a rule now, Calvin. It's three nights. That's it.
That's my limit. That's a lot. Right. And a lot. Yeah. Two's probably perfect two, but Yeah. Yeah. But three nights and, and I stopped drinking too. So, but back then it was like, yeah, three nights is tops, and you know what? You probably need another week to sort of recover from it too. That is so true. That is so true.
I, I did a Vegas trip last year with my wife, um, you know, so obviously a very different vibe. Uh, we did, we did a spa the first night. Um, you know, I did some, some gambling stuff the second day, whatever, not a ton of drinking, obviously by comparison. And I still needed like a week before I felt normal again.
I. I'm like, yeah, man, what is going on, man? Yeah. Which just, you can't do it like we used to, you know? Not at all. Not at all. It's a, it's a different vibe altogether. Sneaks up on you. Um, you know, speaking of vibes, you know, this is tickets to travel where we really are looking at scaling. You know, entertainment and hospitality and travel together.
And a lot of it is very simple, right? It's, it's the ticketed event, whether it's sports or live music, and merging that with a hotel room. And so you have a unique, you know. Network audience experience in terms of, um, how event travel is. I, it's growing now. You know, I decided earlier that mm-hmm. Um, it's gonna be a $260 billion industry segment of the, you know, I don't know, $11 trillion a year industry that is, uh, travel in general.
And so it's significant. It's significantly growing. Um, and a lot of that's driven by obviously professional sports and, you know, Taylor Swift and Beyonce and all these big music tours that also do that. Um, have you had any, you know, experiences working with, uh, entertainment providers throughout your career or heard of any situations that are noteworthy in terms of merging travel and entertainment?
Well, um, I was kind of on the, on the wrong side of a, of an entertainer at once. Um, okay. So I was working at a hotel where we just all, all of a sudden out of nowhere checking the Star report every week and we're getting crushed, you know? Okay. We just, we just couldn't gain share, and it was like two months straight.
Come to find out that one of the hotels in our comp set had rented out their most expensive suite. To Rick Ross. Oh no. Who was in town to do concerts or whatever he was doing, uh, for some ungodly amount of money. It must have been like 20 grand a night or something like this. I'm like, we are never going to beat this a DR.
We're gonna be getting hosed until he checks out. You know? Um, I haven't, uh. I haven't been on the, on the positive side of, you know, like a, a Taylor chef or Beyonce coming to town type of thing, you know, but I have dealt with a lot of city-wides. Uh, you know, yeah. New York City is, uh, NG is is a big one, obviously.
Um, you know, at Nacent General Assembly, that's when, um, that's actually probably the, the biggest event in New York City. A lot of people think it's New Year's Eve, but that's really just localized at times Square. You know, UNGA, your entire city is gonna be, is gonna be compressed, uh, filled up. Um, so that's really the one where, you know, we, we look out for, and when we're constantly, you know, checking the rates and, and, and things like that, and making sure that you're, you're, you're on it for every single room.
Because if you miss the wave, if you miss that compression or you have too many rooms to sell on the day of, or not enough, you're, you've gotta get it just right. Yeah, you, you bring up a good point 'cause. You, you can, you can pair down the entertainment piece to just a citywide and what, what drives that?
And, you know, whether it's a big convention or a, you know, UNGA obviously is in September. It pretty much, um, I recommend to anybody I. Not to go to New York City during that time. They will close the streets, you know, some whatever. Diplomats leaving. Yeah. And then he is got a police escort. The president comes, it's a, it's a mess.
Um, but more importantly, what, what is the typical A DR. During that time period, just to put it in perspective, um, yeah, it's, it really depends on the hotel. You know, I'll, I'll, I'll do my, uh, I'll give myself my, my humble brag at this point. Do it. The last hotel that I was at, um, I set over a $715 a DR. Wow.
Um, for, for that peak night of UNGA, um, which is still a record, um, which I assume will not be beat because that was pre COVID. Um, it's gonna take a long time to get that one off the books. I think that's right. Um, at, at what occupancy level in that house? This completely, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Total sellout.
Um, it was about a 200 room hotel. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it was something like that. You've gotta be, um, you know, I'll, I'll never forget that day I was, uh, it's, it's a mixture of. Excitement, anxiety and stress, you know? Um, I came in today with a few rooms to sell, which is what you want because you wanna get that last minute compression.
Uh, these people who didn't book in advance and, oh, I have to be there, or, you know, mm-hmm. Okay. Yo, you're gonna pay two grand for this room. You know what I mean? Um. So I, you know, I came into the day with, with some rooms to sell, had a few cancel. So then you're like, okay, let's open up some inventory, but what price did we open up this inventory at?
Um, so we've, we've gotta check the comp, we've gotta check what everybody else is doing. What are similar hotels doing? Uh, 'cause what makes sense to charge more than say, you know, the, the hotel right by, you know, the, the, uh. The you win. You know what I mean? Yep. Um, so you look at proximity, star level, star rating, uh, just overall where, what your comp set looks like in terms of how you're gonna price that.
Let, let's say last 10% of your inventory. Right? Exactly. So, you know, you're looking at all of these things and then it's time to pull the trigger. You make a decision that somebody okay, book right away, that was too low. Right. So you go back and reassess. Let's, let's close it again. Let's figure out how many more rooms we have to sell.
Figure out another price point and up, down. Okay. Put it too high. We actually had a few cancellations now, so now I've got more rooms to sell and I literally, at lunch, I went to the, I went to the grocery store. I remember I had like a stack of cookies. And chips, and I literally spent the rest of my afternoon just like typing.
I didn't move from my desk for like four hours straight. Um, but it was, it was all worth it because, you know, we set, we set a record, um, that year. This was, would've been 19, 20 19. 2019. Yeah. I think it's, it's important that you're saying this because it's the, what I want a, a lot of event producers in particular to understand mm-hmm.
Is that. You guys on the revenue side, hoteliers in general don't care a lot of times in terms of like who's coming into the property. Yes, there is customer service and guest services, stuff that you guys consider, but really comes down to rate and occupancy, right? So overall. You don't want RevPAR problems, no pun intended.
So you want, you wanna keep it high because, you know, I, if you have someone from a, a big company, you know, I had a situation where, um, we had a similar, a wrapper or I was on the event side, or we kind of were a tour operator to a certain degree. Okay. And. They wanted to book, but there was a budget, so we couldn't take the entire group block at this rate at a high rate, and they want us to bring it down.
And the, the promoter's attitude was, you know, well, we'll just take it as Justin Bieber, for example. And they said, mm-hmm. Well just tell, tell the hotel. That Justin Bieber's gonna stay there. Mm-hmm. And I, and I laughed and I said, I'm pretty sure the hotel doesn't care, and I'm pretty sure that Justin Bieber wants to stay at that hotel for whatever reason.
Right. Is is that, is that accurate? You guys are pretty much only looking at the numbers To a certain degree, yeah. I would say for the most part. You know, I mean, that's kind of, that's kind of the. It's kind of, the job is you have to be pretty, um, pretty just focused on the numbers and block everything else out.
You know, you do have your situations where, uh, let's just say for example, it's, uh, it's an artist that's known for messing up your rooms, you know, um, because they're, they're rich and they do whatever they want wherever they want. Sure. You know, they're, they're accustomed to doing that. Um. You. I mean, maybe you weigh that into account, right?
Like, okay, is the money we're going to we're gonna make, is that gonna be worth. Having to, you know, fix the room afterwards. Um, and even on a much smaller scale, if you're talking about certain, like sports teams, you know, where these, you know, youth travel, youth sports where they're known for packing as many people into the room as possible, and, um, you know, those rooms are gonna be beat up afterwards.
Is it, is it worth it? Is it gonna be worth the noise complaints? Is it gonna be worth all the other complaints that you'll get from, you know, noise complaints from maybe other guests, depending on what type of hotel you have? Right? Right. Um, so those are things you do wanna weigh into as you get more savvy and more seasoned in, in what you're doing.
But for the most part, if that money makes sense, you, you're gonna pull the trigger. We'll book it, you know, sales will send the contract and then it's operations, you know, you know, deal to worry about. And you know, they. They don't like that, but it's, that's your job, right? I mean, the same way, you know, the other side of that coin is if we don't book and then we don't hit budget, we've gotta answer to the, to the owners.
You don't, you know? Right. And you know, on the other, their side of the coin is, well, you don't have to deal with these noise complaints. No, we don't. But I have to deal with the guy who writes a check. Fair enough, fair enough. You know, you don't wanna run into the asset manager for the ownership. Right, right.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, that person that pays us is probably a little bit more important to keep happy than the guests you may never see again. Got it. Crystal clear. So, you know, back, back to the citywide piece when you, obviously revenue managers, revenue directors, VPs of revenue, they're masters at planning.
They're masters at it. And so what? You're right. Good point. Um, alright. How did, how did you prepare, like would you go and, and work with the CVB or, you know, the tourism bureaus, um, in any given market and sort of plan this out? Or did you ever make relationships with, let's say, Madison Square Garden in New York to kind of understand when the big shows were coming in?
How, how did you guys sort of prep to plan. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that piece is typically handled by your, your sales and marketing team. You know, they typically have those relationships and will alert us to, um, you know, what's coming into town, what may be. What, what shows are coming and it's, it's a team effort.
Um, I'm sure there are revenue managers out there, maybe in a, a smaller market that you have to do that yourself. Um, got it. Like even, you know, there might be a GM listening that's doing all of these things by themselves, you know. But, um, from the, from the revenue standpoint, you are really looking at, uh, you wanna prepare.
For next year right now. So the best time to, the best time to get prepared for an event to say you have a citywide update, like again using UNGA the minute that day was over, I start setting the pricing for next year immediately. Ah, because most systems that's gonna roll in within, uh, it's like a 50 week.
So I have two weeks after that date runs to look at the strategy, look at what we did, uh, how we could have built that base better because you only, you kind of, only as good as your, your lowest price room. Right. So we, you would look at your market mix. Let's see, how much group did we have on this date?
How many corporate rooms did we allow to get in? How did we have to do any OTA or Opaque or any of that stuff? You wanna minimize those. Yeah. No offense to any of the OTA people out there, but we all know that's the game because we're paying commissions on those. Right. You know? So if we can replace that OTA business, say with group at the same price, we net.
More of that revenue. So we start to look at that and it's like, where did we start our pricing? Where did we end our pricing? Obviously, you're not gonna start it where you end it. If we sold rooms for two, $3,000 at the end, you're not selling your entire house at that price. That would never happen. Sure.
Um, but maybe we can get an extra, did we spend most of our time at. 500 bucks. So maybe we start it out there and see how much base you can build up at a higher a DR. Even if you just pushed that another 5% higher for next year than you did this year, you're already ahead of the game. I. And that's, it's, it starts there.
It starts immediately because if you wait until Oh, 60 days out, yeah, you and ga you, you're toast already. You've probably already booked up so many rooms at a rate you don't want that was lower than last year. So you have to, that's the problem when you have these events is it's exciting at the moment, but your revenue manager is probably stressed out, pay attention.
They're probably stressed out the day of because they're like. I gotta do this again next year. I have to do better than this next year. Or God forbid that event is leaving the market like a Super Bowl. Um, they're gonna get killed next year on that star report. And it's not always that your asset manager remembers, oh, last year we had the Super Bowls.
I can't bring a hundred. You know, a hundred thousand people into this city just because I want to, they were here for a reason. That's not, doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. It's, it is this fine balance, right? Like, uh, yeah. Utilizing the inventory at a steady pace because if you've sell too quickly, I. You probably priced it too low.
Exactly. If you, if you sell too slowly, you're like, ah, am I too, am I too expensive? Versus, you know, my comp set. You know, it's, it's an interesting dilemma that I, I feel for you guys. 'cause even from an OTA perspective there, there are similar, um, not, not as minute in detail, because let's face it, all of the technology's there to sort of give you market level data.
Mm-hmm. Um, but. It, it works the same way from, you know, that's why they're called market managers because they look at the entire market. They see the, the various trends year over year, and then they have to forecast and also hit those. And there's a mix of how much available inventories there, any new product that comes in.
And so. You also manage the merchandising of that particular destination? It's all automated now, but back in the day, I used to be able to go cut a deal with a hotel pen, remember them Oh. And say, oh yeah. And say, Hey, you know what, um, I, I need a 99 or a $79 rate. And get layer in a pretty good base over these certain dates.
And then you'd have, you know. Three star properties, four star properties on top of that to sort of even it all out. So you're go looking at a market level, a DR, um, as a, as an OTA guy. And the the other thing that you, you reminds me of, there was, um, there was this year, I, I gotta look it up. Um, what year was it?
Yeah, it was. No, no, it's just, oh, 2005. I will never forget it. Were you in the market? 2005 in New New York City? Five. Where the heck was I in oh five? Um, I would've been, I probably would've been in Brooklyn at, around that time. Okay. So you, you probably didn't feel this, but like mm-hmm. So going in into 2005, no one understood what was going on, but there was this, this artist named Christophe who did the, the gates.
And what the gates were, were these like orange, like Home Depot curtains that they hung all throughout the Central Park Uhhuh. And so if you were into art. You kind of knew about it, but like he was more popular in Europe and you could look it up. His name is Christophe. And so during that time period we're like breaking records in February, because February is typically low season, right?
So That's right. It's freezing cold. And we just couldn't, we, we couldn't figure it out. And then as the stuff started coming, like. Could these orange curtains be driving all this demand to the city? Mm-hmm. And it turned out it was that that's what was happening. Yeah. But to your point, the following year.
You know, we were getting yelled at. They're like, well, no, you have to beat. I'm like, S sorry, there's no gates again in Central Park. Right? So we're actually gonna forecast down. And it became this like point of contention. And it was funny because there, there's nothing like it. I think that it probably held the February record for New York City occupancy for mm-hmm.
A while. It, it might still be standing, I don't know. But it was, yeah, it was that type of. You were kind of blindsided in terms of planning and then having to explain that the following year Right. Was, was the challenge and I think, yeah, that's the issue. That's the issue. It, it's always funny when you get these random things that there's always something that flies under, under the radar.
Um, I remember once I was, uh, I had a hotel in, in Tennessee, um, in like Smokey Mountains area. Yep. And um, we, we had this weekend, I think it was in July, I couldn't push the rate high enough. Every, like typical that hotel's 80 R is probably in the mid two hundreds. We're selling 3 99 this weekend. And every day I come in, pick up, pick up, push it up, 4 29, pick up 4 59, 4 99, and I'm like, what the heck is going on?
So I'm not based there, and I keep asking, asking the team on property. I'm like, guys, what is, something's happening this weekend? But yeah, finally we start digging. It's a, it's a Bigfoot convention and so we've, we find the website, we go look into it, and it's about, its people. We're going on stage and discussing their real experiences with meeting Bigfoot.
Not, Hey, we're going out to hunt Bigfoot. We'd like to go find them. They already did, apparently. Right? And they're talking about their real life experiences meeting Bigfoot. There was Bigfoot experts, um, and we were like, are we seriously selling out for this ridiculous conference? Apparently Bigfoot people.
Can pay the rate. Exactly. I mean, they're paying five, 600, a hundred bucks a night at this point, and I'm like. Wow. There's always something, but that never came back. And now you've gotta explain to your owners next July why your ADR R is down a hundred bucks to go, oh, the Bigfoot convention. The what?
Right. And then, then you have to go figure out what the convention center or wherever's being held like are they coming back? Right. It is one time. Right? Yeah. Are the aliens coming next year? Like, what, what is the next thing? Because yeah, it is just you, you, you just never know. That's, that's how complex it is.
And I, I remember trying to explain that to certain entertainment providers because they're just like, you know what? We are the ones who drive them out. I say, you do to a certain extent. It just depends on which dates and which dates. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So if Beyonce comes into the garden, but it's over the same time as UNGA.
Yeah. Like it does, it doesn't matter. I actually, I, I got schooled on that, um, on Instagram. Uh, so this is when Taylor Swift first announced her, like her, you know, the original cycle Yeah. Of her, her concert and, um, everybody was talking about it, right. The, the. Taylor effect or the swift effect, whatever they're calling it.
Mm-hmm. Um, and I saw a post on Instagram and I just resha it to my story about, Hey, Taylor Swift bought X amount of dollars into Chicago that weekend. Yep. I had every revenue manager. In Chicago, responding to my stories, telling me that, well, we also had this conference. We also had this conference, so it wasn't just Taylor Swift.
And I was like, my bad. Ah. And I got, you know, I, I'm somebody who fact checks, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there on social, of course. Like I take pride in not posting anything that's intentionally, you know, not checked, you know, just to mess with people unless it's April Fool's Day. A couple of years ago, I told people that Marsha was, was canceled and they got really excited on, on April's full day.
Sure. But yeah, I had everybody checking me on that one. Um, to the point where the last Explorer conference I went to, a guy came up to me and was like, Hey, you remember? Yeah. I DMed you about that. You know, I was like, trust me, you and everybody else in Chicago. Well, no, because it was part of a, a national, I forget what, who covered it, but they used Chicago as the Yeah.
As the example that I think she increased occupancy, you know, uh, market wide to like 96%, which was a record. Yeah. And then, yeah, there was probably something else going on. 'cause I think it was in, in the summer or maybe it was like on the tail of a Lollapalooza or something else. That was big. It was some, yeah, there were a couple other major conferences that were, that were annual, that were always there.
So yeah, she contributed, but it wasn't, um, wasn't all her. Yeah. Right. Was the message, you know. Yeah. Um, so. We'll, we'll, we'll give it, we'll give it to Taylor. You know, she's, I mean, look, she, she's done it in a lot of other places. You know, maybe Chicago wasn't all her, but it was all her in a lot of other places.
Right, right. No, it is great, man. I, I'm enjoying the conversation because, uh, I kind of miss having these kind of chats with revenue managers because, you know, they, they truly do know what's, what's happening because the, the numbers right, the, the revenue depends on them knowing. Yeah. Um, because you, you know, when people do have RevPAR problems, for example, and they, they miss it completely.
And I think it's good to communicate that to. Uh, anybody who's in the entertainment space, that one, if you're gonna run an event. Find a shoulder, find a, a dead time. Right. That's gonna, hopefully it's indoors and not affected by outdoor, you know, uh, weather. 'cause that seems to be an issue on the event side.
But that's a a, a good way to kind of get a good comradery within a market is that you're helping out a gap. Right. And so, you know, I think one of the takeaways here is I found an event producer, depending on what type it is, if you talk to the hotels and kind of understand, um, because. As a OTA or a contractor, we would sort of share that with them and say, Hey, no, the hotels are telling us this is a bad weekend, right?
Yeah. You should do it on this weekend. Or you know, these are the other factors, because from an entertainment perspective, especially if there's professional sports team, they're competing against other things that are within that market and right. Their event would not be as successful if it's let's say over, you know, I don't know, the Super Bowl or playoffs or whatever it might be.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think you, you hit that on the head. Yeah. I, so you, you have this, this, um, this account that's be, that's really kind of hits right in the middle for people in revenue management in particular. So what's next for you? What, what are you, what are you working on right now that, um, will grow your audience?
Uh, um, you know, I gotta get, I wanna get more into, um, kind of creating more skits on that. Okay. On that platform. Um, like a YouTube channel? No, I think I'll still do it on Instagram. Um, as far as, as far as that content, you know, but just kind of getting more into maybe, maybe diversifying the content a bit.
You know, we've been, I've been making mostly just, um. Reels and some, some static stuff for a while. Um, getting more, maybe like putting myself into more of the content and maybe acting out some of these situations that I've been in. Um, I think that's where it'll change. But, you know, I. It is one of those things where, you know, I, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I feel, you know, I've been, I've been consistent with this for years. People seem to still love it. So, uh, we just, we keep giving the people what they want. That's what you gotta do, man. You just gotta give them, keep giving 'em what, what they want. Um, yeah, I think there's, you know, I think there's other applications that you could probably do, you know, 'cause you have directors of sales.
Um, who have a whole different set of humor. You've got, you know, operations people. I mean, if you had a housekeeping problems account, I'm sure it would just blow up, right? God, yeah. I mean, I, I do try, I do try to address every, um, every department with the content. You know, all the jokes are not revenue jokes.
Um, I have, I've been fortunate enough to work in a few different departments and, you know, throughout my career I started in reservations. Um, and worked my way up into, into revenue, but I've, I've worked at the front desk, um, you know, prior to, you know, full-time work. Um, I was kind of a, in my first job I was a reservations manager slash front desk supervisor.
You know, I was telling someone this story recently where I used to do this is how, how old I am, we would. We had a a, we had a hotel buyout, so it was, um, the, the, uh, it was a, a Masonic group. Okay. So they would buy out the entire hotel. That hotel was 447 rooms. Um, and each room needed to be confirmed with a deposit.
So this is in the day where they would, they. Could write their credit card number on this. They would send in a Regi registration form, or they would send a check on money order. So I would literally have 447 of these in a binder that I needed to go through myself. It was, I'm a one man team. There's only one reservations manager on this property.
Um, so either run the credit card if it runs great. Confirmed. Write down your room number or whatever confirmation done doesn't go through. I have to call these people, give them a certain amount of time to call back. Otherwise, you're, you're not gonna get in because it's not like they're only sending, you know, 447 registration forms.
I might get 600 of 'em. Sure. You know? So then, okay, then it's time to open up a wait list and all of this, this other stuff, you know, go to the, you know, money orders, file these, take it to the accounting office. So I've got this giant binder of, you know, forms. That I have to put in alphabetically, and then of course, on the day of check-in, I'm just around because somebody's all either gonna have a question or they pretend that they sent in a form, they didn't.
They're gonna go at the the front desk and I've gotta back 'em up. You know, so I've got so many of those situations where literally have a guy screaming at a front desk agent. They come back to me, oh, this guy's saying, okay, no worries. Let me come get the book, come out with the book. Oh, Mr. Johnson. Sure.
Uh, is this your form? Yeah, but I could have swore I said, two rooms. It says one. Right. Okay. Move it a long buddy. You know, you know. But yeah, you're just, um. It's w it's wild to think of how the technology has changed. Right, right. Because I, I'm old too, man. Um, and from an OTA perspective, I used to fax in the rate changes.
I. Sell and report, right? Yeah. Like we used to have to do that. And um, you know, I always also say, 'cause you're probably of, of that time period too, where we're talking like 2000, 2001. Mm-hmm. Maybe pre nine 11, but into that world where there weren't any revenue managers. Oh, I didn't know what it was. So I graduated college in oh one.
I never took a revenue class. It wasn't a thing. Yeah. You you were a reservation manager. Yeah. I, I fell into revenue. Yeah. Um, and funny enough, that was the one thing when I was your, I. Working your first job, you try to assess, okay, where do I want to take this thing? That was the one thing I said I would never do because my first director of revenue was a miserable human being.
Was constantly stressed, constantly upset. Yep. Always just in his office, his hair's messed up and taught me absolutely nothing. Never took it a a moment to develop, you know, me or anything like that. I'm like, that job sucks. I'm not doing that Right. Um. And, you know, I took a couple different routes and got back into hotels.
And then I had a different, much different, uh, revenue manager at that point. And she was much more of a teacher. Yeah. And, uh, when she kind of broke it down to me, she said, uh, you know, it's like a puzzle and you've got a final, the right pieces to put it together. And that instantly sparked my, that opened it up for you.
Yeah. Yes. It's like Tetris. It's, and it really is even, so even back then, right? Like. People used to contract with us and just give us, you know, two rates. Right, right. Weekday, weekend, and then maybe it changed every quarter, you know? Mm-hmm. Maybe, you know, whatever the season was. I'm, I'm thinking, you know, back in the day I was managing Florida, but then because of, there were other wholesalers who were online where they would give them the net rate, but they wouldn't allow them to flex.
The margin over the top. Right. And that was kind of the Expedia secret sauce. Is that because it was a set percentage margin? Mm-hmm. Call it twenty five, twenty eight 30%, which is pretty steep back then. Mm-hmm. We were then going back into that same reservation manager and saying, looks like you're getting a bit of demand on Friday and Saturday nights.
Why don't you raise the rate. Raise the rate, I can raise the rate. 'cause it didn't matter to us. It was better for us. Right, right. 'cause it was just percentage dollar amount would actually increase. And they're like, well, fantastic. We're still getting a higher net rate to you. Right, right. Then that's, that's perfect.
So that was a calculated. Response from our perspective was to go mm-hmm. And convince reservation managers to yield rate. And then we would sit down with them and say, what's going on in the market? Like you tell us and okay, let's, and then those people morphed into revenue managers because I think, right, like the guy who you're describing, he was more of the asset manager, not a true revenue manager in the sense that it is now, where now you've got.
AI automated stuff, but back then it was just us as people trying to understand the best ways to generate as much revenue off of the demand coming into a particular market. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I always tell people I. I'm old enough to, I was pre on queue for, for Hilton people, right? So like I was there when they went from something called System 21.
That was, that was the program. And so I took all the initial on queue training and RNI and I had to learn that because they were wiping out System 21. And moving into this, you know, so the, I have worked at hotels before there was any kind of, uh, r technology or yeah, that kind of technology, you know, any of that stuff.
It just didn't exist. Expedia was just a place we put a couple rooms on the internet if we weren't selling out, you know, hey, let's pop a couple on there, see if we could sell. It was like a, a last minute thing. And then it became. 20% of the house. 30% of the house. Yep. And it, and then it, it just grew from there.
And then you're over there partying at the Explorer. Exactly. Everybo every, exactly. Is this still in December or did they move the dates? No, they've moved it. It's um, it was in May. Oh, in May. Oh man. They're really doing it up then. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so like for the, uh, for the RevPAR problems account, like, what, what does, like, what do you think is the, the best post?
Like if you had help, 'cause you're gonna do skits and stuff, like if you had a celebrity or like, what, what do you think is gonna like, take off to where all these hotels are gonna sign up and say, I gotta work with RevPAR Media? What do you, what do you think? What's the dream post? That's, um, that's an interesting question.
I've never been asked that before. Um, the thing is, you know, I think if you're talking like hospitality celebrities, I probably could get a couple of them to do it and get like Anthony Melchiorri. Oh yeah. He's always around. You could get him, I'm sure. I'm sure he'd love to jump into his ski. That's actually a good idea.
I'm gonna write that down. No, you should. Um, you should. I think I got his number. I, I'm friends with, um, David Mully. Yeah. You know, David? Yeah, of course. So they're, they're buddies. So if you call David and you say, Hey, I'll do something with, uh, yeah. I, 'cause they're what? Modern ho Hotelier. Hotelier. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I've, I've been on no vacancy a couple of times. Um, oh yeah. The first time I ever went on a podcast was no vacancy. I'll, I'll tell you a quick Anthony story. Yeah. Um, so this was during, this was during quarantine, during COVID. Um, I was at home doing probably not a whole bunch of anything Right. And their producer, who was a fan of my account said, Hey.
Um, we just, uh, we had a guest drop out. We're doing like a fun Fridays thing on a vacancy. Do you wanna come on? And I was like, sure. I've never even heard of this thing. I'm like, yeah, I'll say yes, right? You say yes and figure it out. Um, so I, I get on the podcast, we're in, I'm in the, in the backstage or whatever, and Anthony's quiet, he's.
Just said hello or whatever, but doesn't say anything to me. Um, you know, Glen was all, Hey, welcome, blah, blah, blah, right? Whatever. So we go live and uh, I'm still backstage and you know, him and, uh, him and Anthony are like doing that thing. And Anthony just goes into this. He's like, so apparently today we got some guy who makes memes.
Right. Some, some kind of, you know, makes these silly memes on Instagram. So they tell me about this yesterday and I'm like, what the hell is this? You know, I'm going to, you know, I'm gonna like just roast this guy today. Like what is this nonsense? But then I go look at his account last night. And I find myself just cracking up post after post, after post.
And I was like, oh, thank God. Right? That's a compliment. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's how he welcomed me into, into the show and into the, the, into the podcast world. Um, but yeah, no, he's, he's a good guy. We've, we've done some things together over the years. Uh, but yeah, I mean, going back to the original question, it's um, really what has that, that platform has helped me bring business in the sense that.
People who know hotels can understand that I truly do because of the content that I make. Um, you know, my, my content is all based on. Either real experiences that I've gone through or seen people go through, nothing. I don't just make up stuff, you know? Um, and I think they're done to a level that anybody who follows it understands like, yeah, this guy's worked at a hotel.
He gets it. He, he gets what my day is like, he gets this business. Um, and I think I'm pretty rare in the sense that I have not too many revenue managers. Are creative in this, in this sense. Um, you know, I'm, it, it's a pretty unique skillset where, you know, I have a data analytical mind, but I'm also very creative and I.
It's led to, it's opened doors for things like this, you know, whether it be podcasts and obviously, you know, some of my, uh, my, my accounts and my clients because they know that I know the business. And they also know that hey, he's creative. He comes up with ideas. And if, you know, to be able to merge those two things, that that's gonna help our hotel, social media, our hotels, branding and marketing, looking at it from that perspective, and they have that comfort that.
This guy knows hotels. So yeah, we could hire an agency that knows social, but this guy knows what we are about. He knows what we are doing. He knows how to do this. That's gonna actually be impactful for a hotel as opposed to just content. Yeah. No, no, that, well, that's what attracted me to say, Hey, I want to have a conversation with you because you actually know you.
Right? Like, yeah, you, you could come up and we've gone over a few of the things today just in our, our quick conversation. And I, that's even important for me because. You know, it's hard to convey to people that I understand online travel distribution better than most people, but it's having conversations like, like this to where, um, it resonates with people from a B2B perspective, which is exactly what this is.
So, you, you also mentioned that you, um, you're working on a podcast. What's the podcast about? So the podcast is called Socially Awkward, and it's a, it's a hospitality marketing podcast. Um, we have, uh, have conversations with people, um, just about their experience in hotels and also, uh, how they, how they view marketing.
And you know, we always try to have that conversation about. Where that's going. So recently I've had on, uh, Christine Trippy the, the Wise Pineapple, um, in hospitality. Uh, she has a very strong brand, so we talked a lot about, about her brand, how she developed it, how she continues to just really own that space.
Um, and I've got an upcoming episode. I'm really excited to, uh, to record with an influencer that I've worked with over the years, um, through my agency. 'cause influencer marketing is a big hot item in the industry. Right. You know, it's got, it's kind of levered or, or hated type of thing. Um, but she's very successful at what she does and, you know, getting her perspective on what an influencer partnership I.
Uh, looks like and feels like and what makes it successful for her. Does, does, does she look at certain types of hotels to partner with? Um, you know, how does she position herself as somebody who is somebody to work with? And just kind of getting that conversation from the other side. 'cause we always hear from the hotels about.
You know, influencer marketing, but actually hearing from an influencer who is good and has, um, has, has done quite a bit of good content for us and I'm sure you know, for other hotels as well. Um, that's gonna be interesting conversation. So that's what the show is about, really just hospitality conversations, but with a more of a focus on marketing.
Awesome. Yeah. If I, if I can help out at all. I mean, 'cause I think that there needs to be kind of a strong community of B2B content producers. Mm-hmm. Um, because I, I think people are looking for it. I mean, I just, just from the performance of this particular podcast, I know it's the right people, you know?
Right. And either the online travel, hotel, uh, ticketing, distribution and live events. These are the type of people who sort of tune in and. And I know that because they tell me, right? They tell me that they're, that they're listening. And so, um, if I can help out at all, uh, I'm, I'm happy to do so, um, with you as well.
Appreciate. Um, I guess the last question is, you know, if there's an event planner, uh, a promoter of a festival mm-hmm. Who wants to work with hotels to create packages, what, what are some helpful hints, maybe the top three things that they should consider? Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, one, a big one, uh, we've already touched on is, um, seasonality, right?
I mean, uh, you know, a big thing with with revenue management is we don't need you when we already got business. Right? Right. You know, that's, that's a fight you'll have. You know, we have what our sales people all the time is, uh, oh yeah, we've got this great group and it's like, I could sell the rooms to transient for a hundred bucks more than this.
I don't need that now when I need it. Is these dates. You know, I needed the week leading into Thanksgiving, right? Or, you know, that week after Christmas, you find me a group, then you're a hero. Um, so those, and you're gonna pay a pretty good rate as well, right? Yeah, we can give you a much better rate. I. And, um, you know, because we need it, the hotel's gonna be 20, 20% occupied.
Y you know, you know, I'll give it to you for 99 bucks, or whatever it is, you know. Um, so the, yeah, the biggest thing is seasonality and, um, trying to plan these things around when the hotels. Needed because then you are gonna get, you're gonna get yourself better rates, um, better terms. Um, and if that's something you could do, say every year, they, they'd be happy to lock you in for a couple of years.
If they know that they can, they can consistently rely on that. Um, you know, and I think, you know, and something else we touched on is. Um, just the, the nature of these groups as well. You know, I have worked at hotels that had entertainment business. Nobody as big as a Taylor Swift or anything like that, but you'll, you'll get a lead and it's for, oh, this band wants to stay with you.
Great. And then you come to find out it's, it's the roadies that are staying with you. The actual band is staying somewhere else, you know? You know what I mean? And it's like all that, the backup dancers. Right. Yeah. So you want them to be transparent, like be be honest, like, who's gonna be here? Yeah. Yeah.
Let us know. And, you know, because also from a, from a marketing standpoint, that's something that hopefully the hotel would look to leverage. Maybe not, obviously while they're in house, but if there's some way for, for that band or that, that, that artist to, sure, you know what, we'll take a couple pictures in the room and you can use these on your, on your social media afterwards.
That is, that's, that's huge, right? For, for marketing for a hotel that's certainly worth, um, worth some money, you know, as far as, hey, maybe we do leverage the rate a bit. That's interesting. They, they could come and pitch you and be like, Hey, the band's gonna take some photos that we can do in exchange. Can we get an extra 20% off the rate, something like that, or whatever it is.
Right. So you can negotiate that. Yeah. Interesting. I would, I I think if I was still in revenue manage matter, I would absolutely be into that. Imagine, I mean, this is Pine Sky, I would imagine if Taylor Swift said, sure, I'll, I'll take a picture at your hotel. Um, you can't post it while I'm staying there for, you know, safety reasons, blah, blah, blah, but Right.
You can post it between these dates and these dates. Tag me. What do you think that would be worth to a hotel to get that kind of exposure and that type of an advocate? Yeah. For, for your, for your hotel, for your brand. Yeah. I mean, one day, I mean, anybody with a, with a following, that would be worth some, I mean, Taylor's like gonna be up here, obviously, right?
Yeah. But yeah, it could be an athlete, could be someone, you know? Yeah. It, it's just a matter of, uh, just an event promoter in general, just to tie the brand with it would be interesting. Yeah. And, and even, yeah, like on a smaller scale, we, you know, I have hotels where we have, we've hosted, um, tennis players that are, you know, at the US Open mm-hmm.
And things like that. And, um. In exchange for us giving them a room, they'll do a meet and greet in the lobby, maybe sign some, some tennis balls, take some pictures and stuff like that. Right? And you guys can promote it. We can promote that event and we can also use those, that photography, you know, going forward.
And I. Um, you know, we were fortunate enough at this particular hotel to host, um, the two, two winners from the last couple of years. So we kind of say, Hey, this is where the winners stay y, you know? Mm-hmm. That type of thing. Um, but yeah, that's certainly worth it, you know, for that type of collaboration.
And if it's a, on the music side, if that's a band, an artist is something that's larger scale, um, yeah. You know, hey, maybe we'll instead of. One for 40 comp will give you two for 40 or whatever it is. You, you get a discount on the rate or some other part of that contract that, um, that you're negotiating.
Those type of things will be certainly attractive. Amazing. That's great advice. Um, Calvin, thank you for coming on the podcast. Um, look forward to seeing more of your success and for everybody out there follow at RevPAR problems. Instagram and anywhere else you guys have, are you on other platforms as well?
Uh, I, I'm on TikTok. I don't, yeah, I'll be honest. I, I, I don't post a lot on TikTok, but you, you could find me, uh, on TikTok if you want that content as well. Um, I do a little bit more travel stuff there. Um, some, some travel reviews on TikTok, but, um, yeah, LinkedIn, Calvin Alki, if I, me on LinkedIn. Um, that's my more buttoned up persona of course.
Um, you know, uh, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's all, it's all intertwined and, um, you know, we, we bring a lot of fun to obviously the memes, but also, um, you know, it's our, our, our creativity to the marketing as well. So find me on LinkedIn at RevPAR Media and. It was. It's been a pleasure being on the show, man. Great conversation.
I could talk about this kind of stuff all day. Me too. That's why we're here. We'll do it again at some point, but thanks again. Appreciate it. For sure. Absolutely.