If it’s true that opportunity is borne out of crisis, then Josh Ramsey and his cohorts at startup Prosper Hotels might be on to something big. Comprised of former executives at Hilton who found themselves unmoored in the early days of the coronavirus crisis, the team at Prosper Hotels believes it can draw on its collective expertise in pricing strategies and customer experience to navigate small to medium-sized hotels to profitability now and post-pandemic. In this episode of Lodging Luminaries, Ramsey, founder and managing partner at Prosper Hotels, talks about how hotel owners and operators can blend rate, technology and customer service into a money-making enterprise.

Mitch Patel, president and CEO of Vision Hospitality Group, is repositioning his 25-year-old company to identify and execute on opportunities to grow its new management subsidiary, Humanist Hospitality. After forming Humanist in early 2019 to manage VHG’s boutique and lifestyle hotels, the company in September announced a shift in strategy in which Humanist is managing all of VHG’s assets as well as seeking third-party agreements. In Episode 13 of Lodging Luminaries podcast, Patel shares the reasons behind the move, including teaming up with real estate developers in mixed-use projects. He also talks about how he’s parlaying his close relationships with hotel company CEOs and other top executives to redo brand standards and rewrite such things as cancellation policies to increase profitability for all owners.

As the hospitality industry recovers from the devastation of the pandemic, advocates for diversity in leadership say now’s the time to shake off obsolete methods of building executive teams and deploy more inclusive strategies. Lodging Luminaries Episode 12 spotlights Peggy Berg, an industry veteran, entrepreneur and founder of Castell Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the career trajectories of women in hospitality industry leadership. Berg talks about how the pandemic crisis has affected Castell’s mission; how it’s changed the way women view their careers; and how employers need to respond.