The Heart of Hospitality: Bashar Wali on Emotion, Belonging, and What AI Can’t Replace

Most leaders talk about transforming hospitality. Bashar Wali actually walked away from a $150 million hotel portfolio to do it. The founder of This Assembly, Wali is building a new kind of hospitality ecosystem, one centered on emotion, belonging, and human connection rather than automation and efficiency. In this episode, Dean Arun Upneja speaks with Wali about why the future of hospitality isn’t just digital, but deeply human. From challenging the idea that loyalty can be bought with points to exploring how AI should enhance emotional intelligence, Wali urges leaders to rethink what makes hotels truly memorable. 

A celebrated thought leader and frequent speaker at BU SHA, Wali is known for his powerful TED Talk on why “humanity matters more than material luxuries” and for his keynote at the 2024 BU Hospitality Leadership Summit. With more than 20 years of leadership experience at companies like Wyndham International, Starwood, and Provenance Hotels, he continues to inspire the industry with his conviction that hospitality isn’t a transaction; it’s a feeling. And in an AI-driven world, that feeling may be the most valuable asset of all. 

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. 

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Executive Director of Strategic Operations and Corporate Relations
Research and Content Creation: Lu Lan
Editing: Isabella Laikin
Sound Engineer: Andrew Hallock

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Transcript

Welcome & Guest Introduction: Bashar Wali and This Assembl

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Most people in hospitality say they want to transform the industry. Today's guest walked away from a 150 million portfolio to actually do it. Bashar Wali didn't

What Is This Assembly? Building the Memorable Hotel Business

SPEAKER_01 0:18

just launch another management firm. He created a living ecosystem of five companies designed to eliminate the silos that fragment our business. He's betting that the way forward isn't more automation or asset light efficiency, but soul, story, and the longing for belonging. Now that's either a visionary model for the future or a romantic ideal in an industry obsessed with margins, not meaning. Today we are going to explore how creating memorable, meaningful experiences drives profitability, not only on the PL statement, but also in lasting value for guests and employees alike. I'm Arun Upneja, Dean of the Boston University School of Hospitality, and host of the Distinguished Podcast. Thank you for joining us today, Bashar. Delighted. Thanks for having me. So first let's talk about the firm that you founded, This Assembly. So what is its mission and what are the services that you provide?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Everybody tries to be everything to everyone sometimes and fail miserably. I sort of tell people I'm just a hotel guy. And my hope and goal is that if you've never done a hotel in your life and you wake up one morning and you say, I want to do a hotel, I want to be one of your first calls that you make, to hopefully talk talk you out of it first, but then hopefully set you on the right path. And if you've done it for 20 years and you're thinking, I really need to do something different, I also want to be one of those calls. So think of all the services you need from inception to disposition potentially. Real estate advisory, real estate syndication, hotel operations. I hate the word management, by the way. I could go for hours about how passive that word is and cold for an industry built on caring for humans, whether they're teammates or guests. You don't manage your kids, you don't manage your friends. So I hate that word. I just want to get that out there. I have a hotel, uh, hotel design studio, I have a food and beverage concepting and management business, and hopefully more things under that umbrella, but I'm never gonna sell you furniture, I'm never gonna do any of that. So think about it in the soft skills in hospitality that are arguably more art than science. There's a lot of great scientists out there, that's the space I want to play in. And I and it's exclusive to we talk a lot about what kinds of hotels and we segment them into upscale and luxury and upper upscale and select service. I say I'm in the memorable hotel business. If you say to me, I really want to create a boring commodity hotel so that if someone needs a bed and a shower, I could sell them a bed and a shower, I'm not your guy. There's a lot, plenty more people more qualified in that space with me. But if you believe that a hotel is more than a bed and a shower, then I'm your guy. I want to be able to help you create that magic that we talk about. That's far more art than it is science. So broadly, soft skills in the hospitality industry. I say that into your earlier comment, the PL is quintessentially what we're in for. But there's not just one way to get to a great Ebida. There's lots of different ways to get there. And I think we're learning the hard way that what we've done again and again isn't working anymore.

An Integrated Ecosystem: Separate Companies Under One Umbrella

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Okay, so we're gonna uh come back to that, the PL, which is obviously very important. But uh, so you are integrating real estate design, uh, management, which you hate, but okay, F and B. So all of these things under one umbrella. Most firms specialize. You're doing an all-in approach. Um, that obviously leads to efficiencies, but it also leads to high fixed costs. And in this margin-obsessed business, how do you convince investors that this is worth paying for?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

And to be clear, those companies operate separately. They may reuse the same back office services, the inconsequential things, but it's different teams doing them because I agree with you. You Jack of all trades, master of none. There are specialists in the real estate side that are different than the operation side, because those are two different mindsets. Food and beverage is a whole other animal. I've historically always said hotel people do only one thing to food and beverage, and that's screw it up. So having a specialist who understands that, I view myself as the common thread between them. They're under the same umbrella, but not the same company. So that's an important distinction because I agree with you. Then you have all these bodies sitting around waiting for the work to come, and you either end up losing a lot of money in the process, or you end up trying to cut cost and then not delivering the kind of service that you want. So it's not an easy task, but because I treat them as separate companies, where again I'm the common thread, helps me make it more efficient and helps me make it more specialized. So that's really the distinction. It's not just one company, they are different companies under that umbrella. And from the name you could gather this assembly, it was about saying, I don't know everything. I want to find the F and B person who's gonna complete that piece that's missing of my puzzle, or the real estate person, et cetera. So it's about assembling a great collection of incredibly talented people and bringing them together.

À La Carte Services: No All-or-Nothing Approach

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Now, would you require companies who want to avail one services from one side of your business to either all in or nothing approach?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Absolutely. You could it's it's a la carte, you pick what you want. And the design studio that I have won't design every hotel I do either, because I also believe in chemistry. Some projects need their own separate teams. Just because I happen to be an investor in that company or control that company doesn't mean it's the best company to do the work, even for me. So I really think of them as completely separate entities. But if I come to you or you come to me, I'm happy to offer you the services. You pick what you want. One doesn't make the other necessary or mandatory. You could pick and choose.

"Longing for Belonging": Bridging Emotion and Institutional Investment

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Okay. So you've now trademarked the phrase longing for belonging. I have. But your lead company is called future-proof investments. So how do you bridge the gap between that the the thought behind that phrase versus this company? How do you pitch sold to institutional investors who want spreadsheets, not sentiments?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Uh it is puzzling to me why we keep thinking of those two things as mutually exclusive of each other. But there's this idea also in charity that you can do well by doing good, right? And I'm saying just because I am focused on the soft emotional part of hospitality doesn't mean I'm not after the same end result. It just means I'm taking a different path to it. And my proposition is when you go to a hotel, even for one night, my job is to make you feel like we are your people. You have arrived, because I think that begets loyalty. And we could talk about points and nausea, and my definition of points being bribery, not loyalty. I win your loyalty if I make you feel that even for one night, you've arrived your home. We are your people, you belong. And the only way I can do that is through the emotion. And to me, loyalty, now now let's flip to the other side of our brain, the mathematical capitalist side. Loyalty means you're gonna come back to me and book direct, you're gonna forego the OTA, you're not gonna shop around for the cheapest because you feel that I'm your guy, right? When when you go home to your families, you're not looking for the family who's gonna give you the most, you're going to your family only because you're loyal to them. So I think fundamentally I'm taking a different path to get to the same place, and arguably a better place, because I'm eliminating this need for shopping around, so to speak, because I truly am focused on loyalty. Loyalty out of love and belonging, not out of bribery and points. Challenge me. I want you to challenge me. I

Can a Hotel Create Connection in a Single Night?

SPEAKER_00 8:01

see it in you.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Well, well, you know, the you know, so okay, um, let me switch back to, and I was gonna ask you later, but I'm gonna ask you right now. Um everyone knows about your uh passion for hotel industry in Manhattan. You go to a different hotel each night, um, and you never stay at the same hotel every night. So is that how how does, and you know, let's say that you check in a hotel at 4 p.m. and you have a meeting across uh town at 5 p.m. So you go dump the stuff in your in your room and you're out, come back at 11 p.m. and you're checking out tomorrow morning. How does the hotel have an opportunity to create a connection with you? And sometimes I don't want a connection, I just want a room to stay because I've been traveling, you know, 20 hours and I just don't want any connection. I just want to go sleep and go out my way the next day. So if that's what I want, then you trying to create a connection, isn't that like counterintuitive to what the customer

The 64-Degree Room: What Personalization Really Looks Like

SPEAKER_01 9:02

wants?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

All you need to do is make your hotel memorable enough, because if you make it memorable enough for me, I will go tell the world about it. I will become your biggest advocate and your brand evangelist. So loyalty to me and belonging to me is about touching me in a way that enables me to take your example and use it elsewhere. But for guests day in and day out, your job is to create long-term loyalty. And again, people keep confusing this idea of connection with time and hugs and spending time telling you about the spa and doing it. It doesn't have to be any of that. I it could be invisible. Let me give you a real life example. I like my room, I call it morgue temperature year-round. I want it 64 degrees. I don't care if I'm in the North Pole, I want my room 64 degrees. I travel obsessively. You would think once ever, and I'm top status on almost all the brands. And with that naming one, I'm very top status on one of them. I've probably stayed in 500 of their hotels. They always brag about their databases and they know their guests and they have all this information on their guests. You would think once ever in 500 plus stays, once ever, one of those hotels would remotely from a desktop, they don't have to go to the room, change the temperature on my room to my temperature that I like and take credit for it. Leave a little note that says, You're crazy, it's winter, but your temperatures on 64 degrees enjoyed. If they ever did that once, I would literally be standing on public stations globally talking about how incredible they are and how they are my people because they cared about me and they showed that they took the time and effort to care about me. Not once, not once. Now, it's been done other places, mostly independence, and I could share some of those stories, but that's ultimately what it's about. And again, people confuse this. I tell people, back to the longing for belonging. I've been happily married for a long time. I go to a hotel sometimes, and I don't want to hang out in my room, but I have work to do, I don't want to go out. I want to go sit in the lobby next to you or next to anyone, because there's warmth in that sort of human thing. We're sitting next to each other. I may never say a word to you. But the idea of a connection, that's a connection. I think of that as a connection. And I think that's where hotels fail is we want to automate it so much, great, because that's what you want after a long day of travel, but I could still find a way to touch you electronically. By the way, I can do it with a bot if I'm smart enough about it to make you feel that certain thing. But we fail at it miserably because we owe, look, the world is no longer binary, right? We used to think everything was black and white, wrong and right, brand versus independent. It's not like that anymore. And what is meaningful to you is different than what's meaningful to me. So as long as I can push that, I love Maslow's hierarchy of need, as long as I can push that transcendence or self-actualization in any way, and I guess give you a simple, very automated example with the temperature, that's the kind of connection I'm talking about. Because that tells me we see you. You matter, you're somebody. You're not just another check-in, you are somebody. And that's a distinction because I agree with you. Some people don't want it. They want the fully automated, great. I can't force what I want on you. I have to be emotionally intelligent enough to read my audience and give them what they want.

The Failure of Big Brands to Use Their Own Data

SPEAKER_01 12:21

What an indictment of our industry. All of these big chains, we won't name any of them, and not a single one is able to give Bashar his 64 degree. So next time he's checking into your hotel in New York City, please, please fix his temperature in his room before he shows up. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so um so that's that's um I that's I'm kind of uh like I said, it's it's pretty bad for all of these companies with huge databases. Um that actually points to another um uh sort of complaint I have, which is even for highest year guests like you, who have stayed repeatedly and have the highest status, they don't really book the rooms or they don't really reserve or hard uh you reserve the rooms before you show up. So when you come in, whatever the best room available, they'll give it to you. That's pretty sad.

Emotional Intelligence and Common Sense as Hiring Criteria

SPEAKER_00 13:17

That they aren't reserving the rooms. I mean, look, I'm an I'm an operator, I get it. It's not that easy, right? The the room type isn't ready. There's lots of excuses as to why. And again, I want to be sensitive and smart and not romantic as you suggested earlier about this whole thing. There are practical implications. Labor is really hard, we can't fill the positions, and if we do, it's a transient audience, they come and go. You can't really train them the right way. But in 2025, in the golden age of technology, we had the dot-com boom, now we have the AI boom. You would think these big companies, back to the data for a minute. I am shocked the big three, big four, big five, don't have literally five MIT PhDs, data scientists sitting there saying, okay, let's see everything we can find out about this guest, and how can we use that information to his or her advantage, but then in a way that benefits us to create long-term loyalty. By the way, all these people that are top status on this one, they're also top status on that one and that one and that one. So ultimately, they're not making their decision based on their loyalty, they're making it on convenience. But if you could find a way to understand their behavior and act upon said behavior, so again, I'm shocked that they don't have data scientists in departments studying how to dissect the data. But ultimately, being able to understand your guest thoroughly and figure out how to accommodate what they want is what's gonna build that loyalty. And ultimately, the only way to do that is through really understanding guest behavior. It's less about what kind of mint I want on the pillow and more about what are the pain points. And I was gonna mention when I look to hire someone for any position, literally, I have two boxes I need to check. That's it. No offense to your school or my school or all the fancy schools. I have two boxes I want to check. I want you to have common sense, which sadly is exceedingly uncommon, and I want you to have emotional intelligence. And the idea behind emotional intelligence is when you walk in the door and I see you, the only training I want to give that employee is to look at you and judge what this guest, this human want. If I'm showing up holding my credit card and my license, dashing to you, don't tell me about anything. You should be smart enough to know this guy wants to be moved along. Someone else shows up with their bag and they're shuffling through their stuff looking for the credit card and they're complaining about their flight and their Uber and all of that, that person needs empathy. So if we can find a way to really hone in on this idea of emotion, by the way, which is relevant to every aspect of our lives. It's relevant to relationships, it's relevant. When I walk into a store and I'm talking to a clerk in a store, I want to be emotionally intelligent to him and her like I would want them to me. I just think we focus on the wrong things. We've we've come to the world where we want our people to be robots, ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen, rather than being humans. I tell my people, your job is to make someone feel welcome. How you say hello? Who am I to tell you how to say hello? Because the ladies and gentlemen serving, ladies and gentlemen, if I'm all formal and good afternoon, sir, you may turn me off versus someone who wants to be greeted warmly. And ultimately, again, those are the moments that I think create loyalty.

Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

You know, it's very interesting. Um, this talk about human connections and emotional intelligence. So you probably believe that common sense and human uh emotional intelligence cannot be taught.

Micro Expressions and Reading Your Guest

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Common sense, I believe, cannot be taught. But you and I need to have a work session to say, can we create an emotional intelligence aptitude test? I don't think it can be implanted in someone who doesn't have it, but I think it can be refined. So I would like you and I would like BU to be the school that creates the first test for emotional intelligence aptitude. And when you take that test on the application, if you fail it miserably, you're gonna rank very low in my hiring criteria. There's another interesting thing I learned recently, and I forget her name now, the scientist who says, We humans, you could be a CIA agent for 50 years and you still cannot help yourself. There are micro expressions we make in our faces that are just common to all humans, regardless of language. And if you truly understand those and learn from them, it's a game changer. For example, the one I remember, if I'm talking to you and I'm selling you something, selling you anything, by the way, including myself, even in relationships, the minute your pupils dilate, you've already bought what I'm selling you. And if I can look intently in your eyes and not be distracted on my phone or thinking about the next sentence, the minute your eye, your pupils dilate, I should stop talking because you've already bought what I'm selling you. Our problem is we don't and we keep talking, and then you gloss over and I lose you. And there's a hundred of those micro expressions, like literally how your nose moves and how your lips and eyelids move. I would rather spend my time focusing on that. Assuming again, technology has become so easy, you don't really need to. People are checking in themselves. I don't think you can teach common sense, and I don't think you can implant emotional intelligence if it's not there, but you can refine it if it's there. All I need is a hint of it, and I'll help refine it. And the best way to do it is to model the behavior. And I say, if I expect you to be warm and friendly to everyone who walks through the door and you work for me, what message am I sending to you if I don't treat you that way? And if I'm not paying attention to your microexpressions and your emotions. And I love the simple example where I we tell our employees that bathroom floor in the lobby, I better be able to eat off the floor, but your bathroom can look like a war zone. Again, what kind of message are you sending? So often we preach, but we don't practice, and that's lost. And generationally now, like this next generation, Z or Alpha, they're not gonna listen to you, right? Like don't expect them to unless you treat them like they want to be

Will AI Ever Replace Human Emotional Intelligence?

SPEAKER_00 19:07

treated.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Right. Okay, so um I've got to be careful here. I'm getting so wrapped up in your answers, I'm um I'm I'm uh forgetting. But but so so when this uh I want to get back to the human connection. And interestingly, with LLMs and AI coming in, I think a robot uh will you will be able to program a robot to have that common sense and to and to be able to read those expressions much better than human beings. So the micro increase in the pupils, the the small twitching of the nose or the skin, dilation, whatever, which we cannot even, I think they'll be able, they'll be more perceptible to these than any human being can.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

My theory on this, and again, I'm an early adopter, like I talk about tourism by the way, and I say, look, we're relatively AI immune for the time being, for the time being, not not never, for the time being, you can't feel the sand between your toes or ha feel the ocean water spray on your face unless you go there, stand there, and experience it yourself. Someday we will lie in bed, put a VR set on our head, and we will get that feeling. Someday, not today. I, for the time being, say somewhat disagree with you. Yes, you can have a camera that can read that expression and tell you pupils dilated, alarm, alarm, stop talking. I get it. I think for the time being, emotional intelligence, not common sense. Common sense is easy because common sense is fact patterns. If one plus one equals two, then do this, right? That's fact to me, is how I think of common sense. Emotional intelligence, in my opinion, for the time being, is exclusive to mammals. I don't think we'll ever get the kind of warm and fuzzy I get for mammals, a dog that I would get from a robot dog, from a human that I would get from a robot human, even in human skin, dolphin for that matter, right? So it's really exclusive to mammals. I'm not saying never, but I think it's gonna take a long time before robots, and if robots now have emotional intelligence, we don't need humans anymore. Right? I mean, ultimately that's a bigger conversation. But I will say for the next 10, 15, 25 years, until the technology becomes so advanced, we can use AI to help us mitigate the need for humans to pay that much attention because we have a transient population. And maybe there's cameras as you walk in the door that immediately give me a warning that says this guest coming in is not happy, right? I treat them accordingly. But I think emotional intelligence, for the time being, is exclusive to mammals. I hope.

The Hotel of Tomorrow: Technology That Serves the Guest

SPEAKER_01 21:43

So I hope we can probably use technology. In the old days, I used to say when a guest is approaching you, let's say you are in a restaurant in a hotel, and they have the key in their pocket. And so on your host stand, it'll display what room this guest is in.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Better yeah on that subject, if I may. Um, I have friends at Getty's design group working on uh a project called the Hotel of Tomorrow. This can happen today if we decided to make it happen. My phone is in my pocket. Literally, when I'm pick a distance, half a mile away from your hotel, you should know I'm coming. There is a system that will tell you I'm coming. Retail, by the way, I no longer look at hotels for inspiration for what's next. I look at retail. Because retail was at the verge of dying and they had to reinvent themselves. And back to what I was saying earlier, necessity is the mother of all of all inventions, is they really had to survive and created all these things. You think about Instagram, we jokingly talk about it. I think about skis, I get skis in my feed, I press a button, I've bought skis. Brilliant what they've done. So this hotel of tomorrow, the idea behind it is my phone is in my pocket. You know I'm approaching. When I walk into the lobby, you know who I am, a photo of me pops up. You shouldn't tell me anything. You should say, keys on your phone, done, keep walking. When I walk down the hallway, I like the smell of gardenia. Gardenia will spray in the air. The art on the wall will change to my liking. The lighting will change to my liking. When I walk in the room, the temperature will go down automatically. The TV will come on on BBC, which is what I like, and it'll be on. That technology exists today. As you know, as an industry, we're generally late adopters. I think all these things are coming and it's going to make the experience better and better. The fundamental problem with all of this, however, in my opinion, kind of like cool design. So I was early in the indie hotels, and all we had to do is serve you local coffee in the lobby, and your mind was blown because no one else was doing it. While now the Hampton Inn has rotating art galleries. Captioned by Hyatt has a tattoo artist in the lobby. Cool has been has become ubiquitous. The playing field has been leveled. All these simple little things that we used to do to make us different are no longer relevant. They're expected now. Like back in the day, farm to table was a thing. Now imagine a restaurant that has a big sign on the front that says, we get all our frozen stuff from Cisco, come eat here. No one would even walk in the door. So what was once special has become a table stake. So the only way, in my opinion, that we can differentiate is that the one thing that we control the most, and that's the emotion. And making some hospitality isn't what you do or what you deliver. That's service. It's how you make people feel.

Hotels Are in the Retail Business

SPEAKER_01 24:22

I I know that you've said at one point that we are in retail business. Now that's a provocative statement for someone who champions vulnerability and human connection. So is that your candid truth? Or is that somehow you're trying to future proof hotels? How do you reconcile those?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

I love these tough questions. Well done. Uh, we are absolutely in the retail business. We erroneously keep saying we're in the guest service business. Guest service is what we do to accomplish the goal of selling my perishable inventory. I have a room for sale tonight. If I don't do not sell that room, it is gone forever. It's not like a t-shirt that if I don't sell today, I could always sell tomorrow or the next day. That room on this date is gone forever. Now, in order to be a successful retailer, you need an angle because everybody's selling t-shirts. How is your t-shirt different? And the only way you can make your t-shirt different without losing your behind on the bottom line by keep by throwing more marketing dollars and more quality and more and more. And you're seeing this in some of the brands, by the way, now. Like some of the brands that were solid three and a half star, they're not happy with three and a half star, and they keep wanting to upgrade and upgrade and upgrade, and it all gets diluted at the top and everything becomes the same. So if you want to sell a t-shirt, well, I use I'll use this example from retail. And please, ladies, don't hate on me for this. And if the boyfriend's husband's spouse's partners are hating, don't blame me for it. What is the difference between a Birkin bag and a coach bag? It's a vessel that holds your things made out of leather. One is $30,000, one is $300. But when you hold that Birkin, it makes you feel a certain way. What's the difference between a BMW and a Toyota? It's the same thing. It provides the same function. It takes you from point A to point B, but one makes you feel a certain way when you're in it. So we've managed to sell the emotion of the thing more importantly than the thing. And I think similarly, a hotel becomes more valuable if it made you feel a certain way. Not just on the quality scale, but even broadly. When you have two hotels side by side, equally qualified, equally designed, equally, equally, equally, the one you're going to go to is the one that resonates with you more. When you make friends, you can take two, you can take twins who are identical in every way, including education, and they're going to be different personalities. So the way you sell more of your t-shirt is the personality and the feeling that t-shirt gives someone when they wear it. That's how I think about how you differentiate yourselves. Because otherwise, we're having this race to the Ibida bottom to zero, because the only way we know how to compete with the next person is to throw more things, which is unsustainable ultimately. Yet the one thing that really doesn't cost us anything, we continue to ignore, which is again focusing on our teammates. Marriott's quote, by the way, has never been more true than today. Take care of your people who will take care of your customers who will take care of you. We've forgotten the take care of your people part. We're only focused on taking care of your customers, but everybody's doing the same thing. So how do you win?

Longing for Belonging Applies to Employees First

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Okay, so um, so I'm assuming just a quick follow-up on this. So when you say longing for belonging, you're obviously also including employees.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

100%. More importantly, than guests. And forgive the French. I'm working on this. I love quote, I love coining terms. Give us shit ability. You and I have two hotels side by side, equal in every way. In every way. What you pay and the benefits package and all that stuff is market driven. You can't pay less than market. You kind of have to float with market. And if you do more than market, you're resetting the market and driving yourself and your competitors down to zero. So I say, similar to the idea of how do you make a guest feel when they come in, why should I pick you over his hotel? Your values need to align with mine. I need to know that you stand for something more. I love Simon Sinek and the idea of don't tell me what you do, don't tell me how you do it, don't tell me where you do it, don't tell me any of that stuff. Tell me why do you do what you do? And if you don't give employees a reason to care, you're just a commodity. You're, I need a job, he has a job, and he has a job. Or I'll just pick the one that I feel. But if you resonate with me through your actions, not your words, this is not a marketing campaign. And you can't please everyone, obviously, but you have to stand for something and believe in it. People use the word authentic too often. I hate that word, it means nothing anymore. Authenticity to me is an unapologetic point of view. If you're gonna care about the environment, do it. Don't talk about it, do it. If you're gonna care about your local community, do it. If you're gonna care about your employees and read their micro expressions and read their emotions, do it. Because that that becomes so it creates inertia and it becomes reputationally the place to go to. So ultimately, everything we're talking about, I don't distinguish between a guest and an employee. They're the same. I'd argue the employee is far more important because without them, the guest doesn't get anything. So yeah, all that applies to the employees absolutely. And it's a value system. But you just have to have a set of value that you practice, not you preach only. You have to practice that people were will connect to and not everyone, but at least now you stand for something.

Rebel on the Inside: Disruption vs. Critical Thinking

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Okay. Uh let's move on to um you've built your brand on being a rebel, but rebels stare down from the outside, whereas you are now building from the inside with capital partners, staff. And so are you still disrupting or are you laying a new foundation for how we need to do our business?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

I hate the word disruption. We use it too loosely, and what does it really mean at the end of the day? What we do is not rocket science, right? I mean, really think about what we do. It is definitely not rocket science. So I do not think of myself as a disruptor. I'm just a loud mouth who says things that others are afraid to say. When I call, again, the demise of big brands and the ubiquity of everything we do and this sort of copy-paste mentality that everyone does. I think being more open-minded about doing things differently and not doing the same thing we've done for the last hundred years and accepting expecting different results, the traveler profile is changing. Like for I'll give you another example. Young families are affluent. They want to travel with their kids, and they're now relegated to either amenity less Airbnb because it's more conducive to their travel, or so less extended stay. Yet they have lots of money and discretionary might to spend. Why aren't we focusing on it? Well, because we've never done kids before. We're a business hotel. Well, what does that mean? Why aren't we focusing on that group? Why aren't we focusing on women travelers? Why aren't we? Why aren't we? Why aren't we? So we use the word disruptor. This is very elemental. There's nothing disruptive about it. The only times our industry has been disrupted thus far, in my opinion, since the beginning of time. Airbnb, which taught us how to be more on our feet. And I think AI will, in due course, is the next sort of internet. It will disrupt what we do. But ultimately, nothing we've done because the business at its very base, it's simple. We have someone who needs shelter. We provide shelter, but shelter is a commodity. We've learned that we can't be in the commodity business because we'll lose. So we've become experiential. And that's what we're after now. So I don't think I'm a disruptor. And I think I'm just sort of saying I'm on the inside. I didn't study this academically only. I went to hotel school, but that's not where I'm on the ground watching what's happening, and I'm a keen observer of human behavior. I hate trends. Trends by definition have a shelf life. I'm just watching how generationally people are interacting with this hotel experience now and what they're looking for. And I have my eye on what they

AI as the Next Major Disruptor in Hospitality

SPEAKER_00 31:51

want.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

I want to go back to AI, and you said that that'll be the third disruptor in the future. Um so over time, AI is replacing human labor. Um even at this point, uh, a huge percentage, 60-70% of hospitality tasks can be done by AI. Uh so but but but you are saying that tech should serve humans and not replace them. But my question is, at what point does that become unsustainable, where human beings are just so expensive in terms of you know labor that you know you have AI doing better jobs. So at what point do you think that'll happen?

SPEAKER_00 32:33

I've often said and continue to, technology should remove friction. If I today need three people at the front desk, I know I won't need all three soon enough because technology is AI is as you know, AI has been around, machine learning, et cetera. We're just using that term broadly. Robotics, by the way, are real. I was talking to someone earlier about how this company is finally figured out the issue with dexterity with robotics, because they can't carry a lift, they're using octopuses, example, and doing this sort of tentacle kind of thing that folds around, that can pick up an egg and move it around. There will be a robot who will make the bed one day and clean the bathroom. Like they're already there, but it's gonna get further and further refined. But the idea eventually is if I literally can walk into a hotel that has zero people in it, and I think ultimately removing the humans completely will eliminate the idea of feeling and emotion and Maslow's transcendence. So I think technology will substantially reduce the number of people you want, but I hope that then it allows me to what few people are left to hire highly emotionally intelligent people, highly engaged people, so that for those who want it, and to your earlier comment, and I don't disagree with you, this is not one size fits all. To those who want it, they can have it and engage with it. I mean, listen, you can go to a bar today and have a robotic bartender. Is that a bar you want to go drink at? Part of the magic of going to a bar is chatting with the bartender. Do I go to Starbucks or my coffee shop and spend $8 on a latte that I can press a button at home and get because I need caffeine, my drug? No, I do it for the experience of going to the coffee shop. Sean McPherson, one of my hotel heroes, uh, he's responsible for our great hotels in New York, said, Look, we go to these places, restaurant, coffee shop, hotel, because we need a respite in our day. And a respite in our day that is completely humanless, it's not a respite anymore. It's a commodity. That coffee that I'm gonna go to the coffee shop and press a button to get, I'll do it at home, press a button and get it. So, what's interesting about AI for me, removing the friction, the most interesting thing I'm spending time on right now in AI is true dynamic pricing. Let's use this example. I want a latte at 10 a.m. It's eight dollars. You want a latte, but you can't afford to pay $8. That latte should not be $8 at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. You should be able to buy it for half price. And if we deploy dynamic pricing the right way, I'm happy because I got it when I want it, because I'm willing to pay for it. You're happy because you got it, you got it when you can afford it, and the establishment is happy they're selling more lattes. Uh, you want to sit by the window at 7 p.m. on Saturday with your wife for dinner, your price that you pay should be different than the price my wife and I pay sitting by the bathroom at 5 o'clock on Monday. That's the exciting part about AI for me. Removing the friction, true dynamic pricing to the benefit of all, those who have it, those who don't, and the establishment. But this idea of becoming fully automated, you're like a hotel is like a vending machine. I need a bedroom, I go get a bedroom. If that's what you want, and some people will want that, that option should be available. But when we talk about experiential, to me, experiential is human. Think about this. You could right now, I was at a baseball game on Saturday, Yankees socks, and this girl sitting in front of me, who saw me looking at her eventually, was literally talking to an AI bot, lovey dovey. Is that the future you want to live in? And I am not being romantic about my Gen X or anything like that. I get it. Technology is great. But if that's the word we're getting to, then it's the end of the human race because we don't need ourselves, we don't need humans anymore. And that's the romantic part that I hang on to is this idea that there's warmth in human-to-human that a robot for the foreseeable future, not never, will not replace.

Red Lines: Which Jobs Should Never Be Replaced by AI

SPEAKER_01 36:23

I was right. You have a romantic streak in you. Um okay, so do you have a red line, at least for now, that in the foreseeable future you will not replace that one particular job profile with an AI or a robot?

SPEAKER_00 36:38

I think the we'll call them, I hate all this terminology, but sort of the reception, the welcome staff, the bartender, the waiter if you want an experience or waitress, if you don't want to just press a button and get some and have a robot deliver it to you. I think again, those the places where I want to interact with someone because I want to talk to them about their opinions. I want to, I want to ask them about their hopes, dreams, and aspirations, because that's part of this magic of human connection. I think those front-touch person, but you know, do we need five people in accounting anymore? Do we need seven people in revenue management anymore? Do we need five people in SEO and PPC anymore? Probably not. But I am a believer also that our business is far more art than it is science, right? So I think there's always this human touch that has to come into play. We used to talk about it all the time in revenue management. I don't care what the um RMS tells me, there's an art to it sometimes. You know, you make adjustments accordingly. But I think a lot of the sort of repetitive accounting, data entry, all that will go away. And part of the magic, again, if I need five people to help me understand who's walking through the door, I don't anymore. I need one person to act on what the system gives them and verifies it. So for those who believe a hotel is a commodity, and there are those who believe that, they can have it. But anyone else who wants more than just a commodity, I think you still need that. Knock, knock, who's there, give them a big hug and welcome them in, and then let them do their thing.

Human Connection Drives Better Returns

SPEAKER_01 38:09

So at the end of the day, um what I hear from you is that uh if it becomes a commodity business, then it's just going to be okay, what is the cost? What is the return on capital you want, and that's the price. But you think that with this human connection, you can drive better returns?

SPEAKER_00 38:27

100% because the value proposition increases and you're willing to pay more for something that makes you feel a certain way than just again, back to the fashion example and the car example. If if you think of, and some people do, and again, there's no no binary here. Some people say a car is a vessel that takes me from point A to point B. I don't care what it is, what year, what color, what brand, what make. I just want it to be real reliable, and I want to understand my cost of ownership. If that's what you want in a hotel, price and location, how about it? That's okay. Anyone else who wants more is gonna look for that. Because what else, remember, when you're buying a hotel, $100 or $1,000, you're taking nothing home with you. Maybe you steal some towels, but you're taking nothing else home with you. And if I don't leave you with a memory, what's the value? Like a car you buy, you have something, you buy a watch, you have something tangible that you keep with you. But going to the theater, really that is the example, right? I think of hotels as theater. You're going to the theater for the experience. You're not taking anything home with you, not one thing but that memory and the experience. And a theater without actors, why are you going there? Right? I mean, that that's sort of how I think of it.

Attracting and Retaining Talent in a Difficult Labor Market

SPEAKER_01 39:41

So I wanted to turn back to um when I asked you the question about uh longing for belonging for employees, and you gave this uh passionate response, but why you so strongly believe that applies to employees as well. But then you also highlighted that uh the the wages that are being paid to employees are kind of sort of determined by market. So you can go to above, too much above, too much below. Uh, with the demographic challenge facing our country, um, you know, we uh the wages we provide are pretty much on the lower side of what you can get in many other industries where you are able to leverage um your labor into much higher return. So, you know, simple example is you take um Google's revenue and divide it by the number of employees, you get the revenue per employee, it's gonna be many orders of magnitude higher than uh the average revenue per hotel employee that you can get. So how do we then in this demographic marketplace attract and retain high-quality employees, those with common sense and those with uh emotional intelligence?

SPEAKER_00 40:51

This is a very big question, as you know, that inevitably is gonna go political. We've in the United States of America, we've created this culture that everyone insists their children go to school, college, and they in and now when they go to college, they all want to be investment bankers and lawyers. Nobody, nobody, I've never met a person who said, Oh, I really want my kid to graduate and go clean hotel rooms. So the answer to our labor woes today, unfortunately, the only answer is immigration. We are desperate for them, we want them. No one in our country wants to do it. We're not having enough kids in this country anymore, so the labor pool here is shrinking. So until we fix immigration thoughtfully and methodically, and I'm an immigrant, I came to this country legally. I think legal and thoughtful immigration is the way. I do not want wide open borders, come one, come all. We need immigrants in this country to do these jobs because we're not doing them. We don't want to do them, our children don't want to do them. So that's on sort of the lower end of the market scale, and it is a market wage, and it is a very complicated question because in a lot of these cities, even at the living wage that we pay, I, you know, I'm on the West Coast, we pay very healthy living wages, forget the minimum wage, it's not even a conversation anymore. It's not enough. And this goes now to the demise of the middle class and the cost of housing and all these issues that I'm not even remotely smart enough to address. But again, back to my example of you and I have two hotels side by side, we pay the same, we give the same benefits, we do, we do, we do, we do, do. The only thing I can do different than you that doesn't cost me any more money is to actually care for my employees, treat them with respect, ensure that their needs are attended to. So we're starting to think about it in different buckets. And we say there's generally three buckets. There is the person who wants growth and career and loves this industry. There's the person who wants a stable job. They want to know the reliability of the schedule, the reliability of the work, the reliability of the pay. That's all they want. On demand, go to work when you want, stop working when you want, go back when you want. That's what they're getting used to and what they're seeing out there. And back to AI and technology and disruption, we keep using technology, always thinking guests facing, but we ignore the teammates facing. So I believe, and again, by the way, I want to be clear, what I preach isn't what you find at everyone in my hotel. This is all aspirational for all of us, me included. These are complicated issues. But I really think we need to figure out how to use technology to attend to our different, you can't make everyone happy, but I sort of, in my opinion, broke those buckets for you, how I see them. And now let's say, okay, how do we deal with each one of those buckets? And how do we create care for those who now, the aspiring model who says, I love this job, they let me go when I want to. If I have a last-minute audition, they let me, blah, blah, blah, blah. She's gonna stay loyal to you. You can't pay less, right? You can always pay more and reset the market. But I think it's the soft skills back to hotels and commodities. If I make you feel like you belong here, you've arrived, this is your family, you're gonna be loyal because it's the same room here or here, it's the same job here or here. So I think it's all about this idea of feeling cared for. I can't say this enough. This is about self actualization. And transcend us, and that comes, in my opinion, from being seen. We don't see people anymore. You're an employee or a statistic. You're a guest, you're a VIP. A VIP is a statistic, that's not a person. I want to know that person individually, not just that they're employee number 702 or guest VIP number seven.

Immigration, Demographics, and the Future Workforce

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Aspirational goals for all of us. Very laudable. But let me also say, I'm also an immigrant. I came to this country. I think the point you made about the demographics, if you look at the replacement, you know, the number of babies born per um, we are below replacement. And we just have to look at other countries that are way below us to see what's happening in those countries. Japan, South Korea, and pretty much all of Western Europe.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

So And again, immigration is we're not gonna go make people all of a sudden have seven kids. That's not gonna happen. Legal, thoughtful immigration. This country is built by immigrants from its very inception, and we need them to continue to grow and continue to be the great power that we are and the great bastion of hope for the world that we are. We we should be all honored and lucky that so many people are knocking on our doors and want to walk in. We want them, we need them. Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

Okay, so after this heavy discussion, let's loosen things up with a quickfire round. Um, first thing that comes to your mind, a word or a phrase, doesn't have to be a long answer. In fact, it shouldn't be long. What's the strangest hotel amenity you've ever seen that has actually worked?

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Walk of shame kit at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Don't bring your kids there. I think it's a brilliant idea. Well done, except when you bring your eight-year-old daughter and she asks you what a walk of shame is. It has a t-shirt, a toothbrush, flip-flops. I thought it was brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

If you were a hotel role, GM, bellhop, concierge, housekeeper, who would you be and why?

SPEAKER_00 45:57

I loved being a front office manager because it was the most guest-facing, guest-engaging. It was never a dull moment. I got yelled at a lot. I got things thrown at me a lot, but it was such an incredible experience. And I had a rule with valets that if there are 10 kinds of cars that showed up, I'm the one who procs them. That was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

One thing almost every hotel gets wrong, other than not getting the 64 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Overthinking what we want when what we guests want is really, really simple. We just want empathy. When I show up off of a red eye and you tell me, check in is at three. I just want you to care that I'm exhausted and I've been on a red eye. You don't have to do all you have to do is convince me enough that you care. You don't actually have to do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Yeah, you're being very polite. Um my reaction would have been a little bit more extreme. Um okay. The last question hospitality buzzword or phrase you would ban forever, and what would you replace it with?

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Disruption. And I would replace it with critical thinking and innovation.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Fantastic. Bashar, thank you so much for sharing your vision and challenging us to think differently about what hospitality can be. It is a true pleasure having you on Distinguished, as well as your multiple visits to our school. We are grateful.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Delighted to be adopted by you guys.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Thank you. Whether Bashar's approach proves to be the future or a philosophical outlier, one thing is clear. He's forcing us to reckon with what hospitality is really about. That's the purpose of Distinguish. To ask sharp questions, hear bolder ideas, and provoke the kind of thinking that reshapes our industry. To our listeners, no matter where you are in your journey, let this be a reminder that hospitality is more than service. It's about how you show up, connect, and lead every day. Join us next time on Distinguished as we continue learning from leaders who are reshaping hospitality from the inside out. If you want to join the conversation and share your thoughts and suggestions, email me at shardeen at bu.edu. That is shadebu.edu. This episode was produced by Mara Littman, marketing by Rachel Hamlin, technical assistance provided by Alex Deanst and production by Jason Jose of Cocoon Media. Special thanks to the entire team at BU School of Hospitality. To keep up with distinguished podcasts, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You can also learn more about experience innovation in our undergrad and graduate programs by visiting BU.edu slash hospitality. I'm Arunupneja, Dean of the BU School of Hospitality. Wishing you a great day.