Podcast
Good Morning Hospitality
The hospitality industry is constantly growing, changing, and innovating! This podcast will bring you the top news and topics from industry experts in different hospitality fields. Good Morning Hospitality publishes two thirty-minute weekly episodes, starting Monday and Wednesday at 7 a.m. PST / 10 a.m. EST.
This podcast is a part of Skift. Go to Skift.com to hear and see more industry-leading content!
- Business News chart
- #108
- Episodes
- 557
- Releases
- Twice a week
- Typical length
- 33 min
- On air since
- 2020
- Latest episode
- 1 day ago
Episodes
557 episodes, newest first
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15 min
Chad Rowe on Why Luxury Vacation Rentals Still Need Human Touch
Show notes
In this GMH Bonus episode, recorded at Skift Global Forum, Brandreth Canaley speaks with Chad Rowe, COO of Moving Mountains, about the company’s award-winning luxury vacation rental experience and the role of personalized service in high-end hospitality. Rowe discusses Over The Edge, a premier ski-in, ski-out property in Steamboat Springs that recently won a Skift Idea Award, and how two decades of property management have helped build lasting relationships with homeowners and returning guests.
The conversation explores why luxury vacation rentals require more than seamless technology, how local teams and hands-on service differentiate Moving Mountains, and where AI can support hospitality operations without replacing the human experience.
Connect with Skift
Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry.
00:00 Meet Chad Rowe
00:37 Skift Idea Award Win
02:39 Inside Over the Edge
03:36 Luxury Needs Humans
05:29 Guests Become Owners
06:40 Conference Takeaways AI
09:10 Growth and Differentiation
10:36 Culture and Team Pride
12:09 Vacation Plans and Wrap
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35 min
Airbnb Changed the Rules. Amex Picked a Side.
Show notes
On this week’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Michael Goldin and Jamie Lane get into four stories hitting the industry at once. Airbnb is telling hosts what a reasonable checkout looks like and what happens if they disagree. American Express made Airbnb its exclusive vacation rental partner and shut down its curated homes program the same day, displacing eight professional managers overnight.
Michael and Jamie break down what that deal means for Expedia Group and Vrbo. And BWH Hotels is renaming itself after a brand most of its guests have never heard of. -
14 min
GMH Bonus: AI Could Threaten Expedia and Booking.com
Show notes
In this Good Morning Hospitality bonus episode, host Brandreth Canaley sits down with Roman Pedan, Founder and CEO of Kasa, at Skift Global Forum to discuss how AI is changing hotel operations and travel distribution. Pedan shares how Kasa is using AI to improve engineering productivity, automate guest communications and financial reconciliation, support revenue management, and improve staff training. He also explains why AI could benefit online travel agencies like Expedia and Booking.com in the near term, but potentially challenge their dominance as AI agents make direct hotel bookings easier.
Connect with Skift
Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry.
00:00 Welcome to GMH
00:28 Conference Vibes
00:57 Staying Durable
01:51 Kasa Operating Model
03:03 Institutional Owner
03:54 AI at Kasa
06:45 Data and Digital Twin
08:24 AI and Distribution
12:04 Next Vacation Hawaii
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11 min
Pavilion’s Lino Maldonado on a New Model for Vacation Rental Growth
Show notes
In this episode of Good Morning Hospitality, recorded at GuestyVal in Madrid, Brandreth Canaley and Michael Goldin speak with Lino Maldonado, co-founder and CEO of Pavilion, about a different approach to consolidating vacation rental businesses. Pavilion acquires companies while allowing founders to roll significant equity forward, giving them a stake in the businesses’ future growth.
Maldonado discusses Pavilion’s first 20 acquisitions, plans to accelerate its acquisition pace in 2027, and why preserving local brands and keeping founders involved are central to its strategy. He also shares his perspective on technology consolidation, company culture, and the growing role of AI in the vacation rental industry.
Connect with Skift
Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry.
00:00 Intro: Lino Maldonado at GuestyVal in Madrid
01:04 A Third Model for Vacation Rental Growth
02:48 Pavilion’s First 20 Acquisitions and Plans for 2027
03:47 Building a Company Culture Around Founders
04:42 Preserving Local Brands While Scaling Operations
06:13 Technology Consolidation and the Cost of Switching Tools
07:41 AI and the Biggest Takeaways from GuestyVal
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31 min
Vrbo’s Subscription Exemptions Are Secret. That’s the Story.
Show notes
On this week’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley and Michael Goldin break down Vrbo’s quiet grandfathering of some subscriptions while blocking others from renewing, with no criteria disclosed. Then Airbnb’s new dynamic pricing tool and what Bernstein says it signals about platform control. Plus, protests across France are already disrupting travel with the Christmas market season weeks away.
Connect with Skift
Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry.
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23 min
GMH Bonus: Sam Shank on How AI Could Reshape Online Travel
Show notes
In this Good Morning Hospitality bonus episode, Wil Slickers sits down with Sam Shank, co-founder and former CEO of HotelTonight, at Skift Global Forum to discuss how AI agents could reshape online travel distribution. Shank explains why AI-driven booking could challenge the sponsored search model that has fueled major online travel agencies like Booking.com and Expedia, while creating new opportunities for specialized agents and booking infrastructure.
The conversation explores how hotels and vacation rentals can maintain visibility as travelers shift toward AI-powered discovery, why Shank would reposition HotelTonight as a specialist agent for last-minute accommodations, and how trust, privacy, and security will influence adoption. Shank also shares his perspective on the future relationship between general-purpose AI assistants and specialized travel agents.
Connect with Skift
Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry.
00:00 Welcome and Setup
00:52 AI Agents Threaten OTAs
02:36 Google Search Dependency
04:53 Timing and Tipping Points
07:01 Brand Discoverability Problem
09:07 Master and Specialist Agents
10:58 Reimagining HotelTonight
13:17 Headless OTAs and APIs
15:28 Agent Optimization Marketplace
16:29 Trust and Security Concerns
20:36 Wrap Up and Thanks
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13 min
Back in STR. Going Deeper, Not Wider. Ashley Horsley on Avari.
Show notes
Recorded live at GuestyVal in Madrid, Ashley Horsley, COO and President of Avari, joined the show for a quick conversation about coming back to the vacation rental industry after five years in sports, and what she found when she got here. Avari acquired 27 markets from the Vacasa and Casago footprint, backed by Thrive out of Dallas. Ashley talked about the strategy behind going deeper rather than wider, what rebuilding owner and employee trust actually looks like after repeated ownership changes, and how much the industry has changed since she left five years ago.
This episode is presented by Guesty. Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skift/ WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaAL375LikgIXmNPYQ0L/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/skiftnews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skiftnews/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@skiftnews Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/skiftnews.bsky.social X: https://twitter.com/skift Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry.
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34 min
Vrbo Is Raising Commissions. Airbnb Is Rebuilding Luxe. A Big Week for STR.
Show notes
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley and Jamie Lane open with a fresh Vacation Rental Management Association (VRMA) recap before getting into three stories reshaping how STR operators think about distribution.
Vrbo is restructuring commissions and drawing blowback from the property manager community, while also reconsidering the rate parity language in its new terms. Airbnb appears to be rebuilding its Luxe program with quality standards and an inspection process for high-end homes.
And the CEOs of KAYAK and Skyscanner make the case that metasearch is not dying; it is becoming infrastructure for the AI agents rewriting how travelers find and book everything
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52 min
GMH STR Live From GuestyVal: AI, Acquisitions, and What's Next.
Show notes
On this special sponsored episode of Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley and Michael Goldin bring you a compilation of conversations recorded live on the ground at GuestyVal in Madrid, Spain earlier this month.
The episode opened with breaking news: StayTerra announced its acquisition of Gather Vacations, surpassing 2,000 properties and expanding to Hawaii, California, and Washington. Then Amiad Soto, CEO and co-founder of Guesty, announced Guesty's acquisition of Smily, its eighth acquisition, and made the case that what used to take a year to build now takes a week. From there the episode featured Sarah from AirDNA's Barcelona office on European STR market data, Ashley Horsley, COO of Avari, on what it looked like to rebuild owner trust after the Vacasa collapse, and Wil Reynolds, founder of Seer Interactive, on why less is more in the AI era and how STR operators can take back market share from the OTAs through authentic content and smart review strategy.
Presented by Guesty.
Connect with Skift
Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry
0:00 Alex Cisneros, CCO of StayTerra
4:00 Amiad Soto, CEO of Guesty
7:00 Sarah Nan Dupre Stategic Partnerships Director, AirDNA Barcelona
20:00 Ashley Horsley, COO of Avari
31:09 Lino Maldonado, CEO of Stakeholders VR Supergroup
39:00 Wil Reynolds, founder of Seer Interactive
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43 min
Final Episode of GMH Hotels: A Big Week for Hotel AI and Resort M&A.
Show notes
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into two stories that have real implications for hotel operators heading into the fall.
The conversation opens with what hotel CEOs are actually deploying with AI right now, from voice agents handling a meaningful share of front desk queries to digital twins being used for executive decision-making. Then Sarah and Steve get into Royal Caribbean Group's reported talks for a 50% stake in Sandals Resorts International and what a cruise line buying into a Caribbean resort brand would mean for the broader leisure travel landscape.Join us for their final episode on GMH!
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34 min
Uber Is Coming for STR. Airbnb Has an AI Agent Coming.
Show notes
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane recap sessions from Skift Global Forum that every STR operator should be paying attention to.
First up is Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, who confirmed that Uber plans to add vacation rental content through its Expedia Group integration and that 80% of its hotel bookings already come from UberOne members — demand that bypasses Google entirely.
Then the crew gets into Brian Chesky's commitment on stage to launching an Airbnb AI agent in 2027, which he called the most important product the company has ever built, and what that means for how STR listings get discovered and recommended going forward.
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30 min
Airbnb Said ‘Forget Hotels.’ Now It Wants Them Everywhere.
Show notes
On this episode of Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Sarah Dandashy, Katie Cline, and Brandreth Canaley are on the ground at Skift Global Forum to unpack Airbnb’s increasingly serious push into hotels and what it could mean for the balance of power in hotel distribution.
Airbnb now has nearly 4,000 hotels using its new listing format, is reportedly charging some operators a 13% commission, and is funding a 15% guest credit as it tries to prove it can bring hotels incremental demand instead of simply shifting bookings away from Booking.com, Expedia, or direct channels. The bigger question: If Airbnb’s endgame is eventually “hotels everywhere,” how different does it remain from the OTAs it once positioned itself against?
Then the conversation expands beyond Airbnb into what Sarah and Brandy heard across day one of Skift Global Forum week, including conversations from the Creator Summit, Live Tourism Summit, and the broader themes shaping where hospitality and travel are headed.
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25 min
Guesty's CEO on AI, Acquisitions, and What Comes Next.
Show notes
On Monday's episode of Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley and Michael Goldin, recording from GuestyVal in Madrid, open with breaking news: StayTerra has acquired Gather Vacations, adding Hawaii, California, and Washington to its portfolio and surpassing 2,000 properties under management.
Then they share their live session with Amiad Soto, CEO and co-founder of Guesty, recorded on stage at GuestyVal. Amiad announces Guesty's acquisition of Smily, its eighth acquisition to date, and makes the case that consolidation in the PMS space is only accelerating. He talks about Guesty's 65-plus AI agents live today, why what used to take a year to build now takes a week, and his belief that the best property managers of the future are not necessarily the biggest ones. He also shares why AI slop is really just human slop in disguise and what it actually takes to get great output from the models everyone is using
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27 min
AI Isn’t the Problem. How You Manage It Is.
Show notes
AI adoption in hospitality isn’t just a technology problem — it’s a management problem.
In this bonus episode of Good Morning Hospitality, Wil Slickers sits down with Vered Raviv Schwarz, COO of Guesty, to unpack her “Hybrid 2.0” vision for teams built around humans and AI working together.
They debate whether today’s AI models are actually good enough, where operators should automate versus keep humans in the loop, how AI changes hospitality jobs, and why trust may determine how quickly the industry can adopt it.
Plus, Vered shares how Guesty is already restructuring its own teams and workflows around AI.
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35 min
GMH Hotels: Dorchester Said No to Scale. Here Is What That Cost.
Show notes
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into where hotel differentiation actually comes from.
The conversation covers why creator content drives awareness but rarely converts to bookings and what hotels can actually do about it, how Marriott is wiring Bonvoy directly into corporate booking tools in a way rivals will have to match, what Starlink's cost structure means for how guests now think about hotel connectivity, and Dorchester Collection CEO Jennifer Fox's case that cookie-cutter luxury is the real threat to the category.
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31 min
Meta Just Entered Travel. STR Operators Should Notice.
Show notes
On Monday's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane get into three stories shaping where the STR industry is heading.
Meta's AI is now completing travel bookings and the platforms it chose to integrate with tell a story of their own. Jamie Lane shares what is happening at AirDNA with their new dynamic pricing launch. And the crew looks at how short-term rentals are playing a surprising role in communities that traditional hospitality has largely left behind.
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30 min
GMH Hotels: Banks Now Lead Travel Loyalty. Small Hotels Beat Big Brands.
Show notes
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk dig into where competitive advantage actually lives in hospitality right now.
The conversation covers what great luxury GM leadership actually looks like, why banks are quietly becoming the most powerful loyalty players in travel, and whether a small collection of iconic independent hotels can genuinely out-earn the global brands. -
35 min
Vrbo's Biggest Product Push Yet, and What Hosts Need to Know
Show notes
Vrbo just rolled out its largest-ever product launch, with 12 new products and features spanning advertising, pricing, promotions, payments, guest operations, and property management.
On this episode of Good Morning Hospitality, Michael Goldin, Brandy Canaley, and Jamie Lane sit down with Tim Rosolio, VP of Vacation Rental Partnerships at Expedia Group, to unpack what the expansion says about Vrbo’s strategy for the vacation rental market.
They dig into Sponsored Listings and the economics of paying for premium search placement, new pricing and promotional tools, One Key member deals, Expedia package distribution, and whether AI-powered search is already changing how travelers discover vacation rentals. Tim also addresses concerns around hosts effectively buying their way up search results, Vrbo’s new Host with Confidence program, and why Expedia continues investing in Escapia as the property management technology landscape becomes increasingly competitive.
It’s a look beyond the product announcements at how Expedia Group is building a broader demand, merchandising, and technology ecosystem around professional vacation rentals.
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41 min
GMH Hotels: The Hire That Changes Airbnb's Hotel Story
Show notes
On this week's Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk are joined by Jason Gamel, President and CEO of ARDA, to talk vacation ownership, where the industry is headed, and what the data actually shows about owner satisfaction and sector health.
From there, Sarah and Steve get into AI-generated video giving small hotel operators a marketing edge they never had before, why boutique hotel founders almost always sell and the ones who plan for it win, and Airbnb's appointment of a former Booking.com hotel executive and ex-president of Viator as its new Chief Business Officer.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
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33 min
Airbnb Makes a Play for Direct Bookings
Show notes
On Monday’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Brandreth Canaley, Michael Goldin, and Jamie Lane break down major shifts in travel distribution, pricing, and short-term rental strategy.
The crew starts with Airbnb testing lower host fees for bookings generated through hosts’ own links, with some reportedly seeing rates of 6% to 10% versus the standard 15.5%. The booking still happens on Airbnb, raising a bigger question around direct booking economics and channel mix.
They also dig into an analyst estimate that Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) B2B room nights are way higher than Expedia Group’s, Google completing hotel bookings inside AI Mode, and Delta Air Lines using AI-driven pricing to cut some fares by 20 to 40%.
This episode is presented by StayFi & Bilt.
If you’re ready to start turning today’s guests into tomorrow’s direct bookings, head to stayfi.com/goodmorninghospitality and use code GOODMORNINGHOSPITALITY to get 50% off your first three months.
And for hotels with restaurants and restaurant owners, Bilt Hospitality is finally here. Go to joinbilt.com/gmh to learn more for GMH listeners!
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