Game changers discuss problems, solutions in hospitality

“Where you may have had teams of trades, or superintendents, who were perfectly fine to work on-site for three months at a time and go home once or twice, they want to go home,” she said. “Now they want to go spend time with their family. We’ve had to adjust that and there’s costs involved.”

Bagshaw also said during the ALIS DESIGN+ panel that there are new complications with development plans and documentation.

“There are gaps in the documentation, and where we used to pick up the phone and call a designer with whom we have a long-term relationship, they drew those plans. And they can say, ‘Oh, there’s a wall there because of this’ or 'That’s a mistake. Let me fix it and send a new sheet out.’”

“With some of the younger, more inexperienced designers, they’re afraid to make that call in real-time and on a quick RFI,” she said.

Bagwell said that turns into, ‘Let me check’ or ‘let me double check.’

“Every little change and delay compounds, and people’s time costs money. Everybody’s time costs money, from the executive running the project to the plumber," she added. “A project that is a 300-room renovation that happens in two months does not cost the same as that exact same 300-room renovation that has to be stretched out to three months or four months.” 

Bagshaw was part of the “Game Changers+: Women Executives Strategize the Future of Hospitality” panel at the ALIS DESIGN+ conference in Los Angeles.

The other panelists were Jennifer Collins, president of Procure Impact; Mary Beth Cutshall, founder and managing partners of Amara Capital Group; Tracy Prigmore, founder and managing partner of TLT Solutions and She Has a Deal; and Crystal Vinisse Thomas, vice president and global brand leader for lifestyle and luxury brands at Hyatt Hotels Corp. Andrea Dawson Sheehan, principal of Dawson Design Associates, was the moderator. 

TikTok = travel

Thomas said one of the things that shows how digital marketing has changed in the hospitality industry is the rise of TikTok as the top search engine when people are researching and making decisions on travel.

“When people are looking at places to travel, how to get ready for travel and how to pack for travel, they’re going to TikTok, they’re not going to Google, they’re not going to Pinterest,” she said. “We’re starting to see if we ignore those things, we’re not going to be where the folks are… What’s most important to me as a brand leader is that the content we create reflects the world we live in.”

That means that Thomas is passionate about every asset, every photo and every person they cast. 

“When I see a bunch of the same type of looking people, whether we’re talking about size, color, gender, or anything, that’s a red flag for me," she said. "I take personal responsibility to make sure that our marketing and creative are reflective of our world and our travelers so that those travelers see themselves in our content.”

Power of finance

Cutshall said she is passionate about advocating and encouraging women and people with diverse backgrounds to not only lean into the financial side of the business but also learn and understand how people can create wealth.

“I can’t tell you how many dear friends I have, women friends, that are successful in the industry," she said. "In other industries, when I bring this up, they just panic, and they don’t even know where to start… It makes me concerned because they’re missing out on the opportunity of compound interest and understanding how wealth is created.

“It isn’t that complicated if you start small, but you have to dive in, and you have to educate yourself. Because if you’re not, you’re doing yourself a disservice and your children and future generations a disservice.”

Cutshall said that lack of knowledge can also hurt business, too.

“I see so many women specifically not even wanting to understand, and I don’t think you can get to the c-suite without that skill set,” she said. “I would encourage people not to resist it so much and understand it’s a superpower.”

Lack of women in C-suite

When asked why there aren’t more women in the c-suite, Prigmore said it’s not just a systemic problem but also because the system is lazy.

“You always want the quickest and easiest way to get a good candidate. You go to your network, which tends to be a little siloed. People tend to look like you and have your life-lived experiences,” she said. “We have to be much more thoughtful when looking for and evaluating candidates… It’s just that a lot of us don’t have diverse networks. So we have to think about that.”

This is exactly why Prigmore has been advocating for women in hotel ownership.

“Capital is a big issue because the criteria for having capital is this net-worth requirement, this liquidity requirement, and if we talk about the population that we’re trying to bring into it, they don’t meet those criteria because of systemic racism, genderism and thing that have kept women and people of color from earning wealth,” she said. “If you don’t look at the criteria, change the criteria and come up with other ways that you can evaluate the risk for a deal or evaluate their ability to be successful on a board or in a corporate position, then we’re not going to make the changes that we want to make.”

Prigmore said she doesn’t just believe in hiring someone because they are a woman or a person of color, “you want them to be qualified, and you want them to be able to be successful.”

Emphasizing inclusion

Collins, who has worked in both hospitality and community development, thinks the DE&I conversations need to focus a lot more on the “I.”

“If you don’t spend time thinking about creating an inclusive work environment when you have a diverse workforce, it can actually be a fairly traumatic experience,” she said. “I would like to see a lot more emphasis on an inclusive work environment and what that looks like. How do you create psychological safety for your employees? How do you really encourage their strengths, gifts, talents, and treasures? How do you fail, and what does that look like?

“DE&I should be the way we do business. It shouldn’t be a silo within our business… I think we might be executing DE&I initiatives a little bit wrong, and I would love to encourage a little more inclusion and thought on those fronts.”