January 20, 2025 • 31 mins
How can technology enhance the human touch in hospitality without losing the essence of personal connection? In this episode, Scot Hopps, Senior Vice President of Operations at Lark Hotels, reveals the delicate balance between leveraging technology and maintaining genuine guest interactions.
Key Takeaways:
- Discover how Lark Hotels is revolutionizing the guest experience by integrating technology that enhances service without replacing the human element.
- Learn about the critical role of an effective accounting system, specifically HIA (Hotel Investor Apps), in driving operational success and improving financial reporting.
- Understand the strategic decision-making process behind migrating to a new property management system (PMS) and how it empowers staff to deliver exceptional service.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Knowing more about our guests in a non creepy way,
not like I know exactly whereyou are physically in the
building at every time, butconnecting the dots between a
guest preference. If the hotelknows something and the
restaurant doesn't know it andthey're connected, shame on us.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
On this episode, we chat with Scott Pops, the vice
president of operations at LarkHotels. We touch on a lot of
interesting topics in ourconversation, including the Lark
team's recent decision to moveto a new property management
system. We also explore the rolethat technology plays,
management system, we alsoexplore the role that technology
plays and will play in thefuture. Welcome to Hotel Tech
(00:49):
Insider. Great to be here withyou, Scott.
To get started, I would love foryou to give an intro about
yourself, about your company. Ifyou could explain your role and
what that responsibilityinvolves.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Absolutely. So Scott Hopps, I work with Lark Hotels.
We are a management company thatfocuses on independent boutique
properties on the smaller size,125 keys or less, has been our
sweet spot, often a niche thatother management companies don't
want to go after. And we haveabout 12 years now of working in
(01:26):
this space in, you know, a lotof leisure markets, and it's
been a bit of a growthtrajectory as a company. I've
been with Lark for going on 6years now, and I'm the vice
president of operations.
And so trying to make sure allthe cool things we say we do and
(01:47):
all the promises we make toguests, that we live up to those
promises on property and try andfind the right people that are
much better than me at doingthat and make sure they're well
equipped and informed andexcited to bring it to life on
property. We have about between4550 properties that we manage,
(02:11):
and I think in my role, thepeople on property side is
tremendously important to livingup to those promises to our
guests, but then our customersare owners. And so we need to
make sure that all of thoseefforts get translated to
business outcomes that ourowners want. So trying to live
(02:33):
in sort of two brains ofcustomers and business outcomes
for them and our team deliveringon the promises to guests is
where I live in between.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Could you tell me a bit more about maybe some
markets that you're located in,and what would you say the
differences between, property inthe Lark Hotels portfolio versus
competitors?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yes. So we were born in the northeast, very much a
New England based company formany years. In the last 4 3 or 4
years, we have spread thatfootprint. So we're now in 13
different states. We've gotproperties in California,
Florida, North Carolina, soon tobe Georgia.
(03:21):
We've operated in Louisiana, andwe'll, you know, have something
in development there. I said NewEngland, but upstate New York,
and we are still, I think, NewEngland heavy, but looking at
the other markets where our typeof model will fit really well.
And what's different about whatyou'll find when you come to a
(03:45):
property that's either brandedLark, because we do have a
number of brands under that wemanage, and also independent
properties that were just sortof the, you know, maybe white
labeled. The difference, I feelvery confident in saying, we
allow our people to be reallyhuman with our guests. Eye to
(04:05):
eye hospitality, we are servingyou, but we're not subservient
to you.
We are equals, and we are reallyexcited to welcome you into our
spaces, show you around thisincredible little town we may
operate in, give you greatideas, understand why you're
coming to Kennebunkport or Stoweor Camden or P Town and help
(04:30):
play our part. You know, there'softentimes where people are
traveling, they're not travelingto see us, or they're not coming
for our bed specifically. Weplay a role, and we try and
understand, do you wanna sit andchat us up at breakfast, or do
you want us out of your way andinvisible and and striking that
balance? But I think if you'reinterested, you'll always find
(04:51):
somebody there who cares.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Given the size of your portfolio, I'm curious,
what do you consider to be themost critical piece of
technology to keep everythingrunning?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I would say at different points in my career, I
may have answered thisdifferently. What I've observed,
especially just having so manytransactions now, so many
properties, so many things goingon, our accounting sort of ERP,
that is that being thefoundational source of truth has
(05:24):
proven to be the most importantpiece. There are a number of
other things that I think arevery important, but don't rise
to the level of this tool foroperational success, for, you
know, business outcomes, forcommunicating to owners. This
has really proven to be theplatform and the area where
(05:47):
we've said, this is precious. Wecannot break this.
If we break this, it better bewith something, like,
superhumanly great. But, yeah,our accounting platform, and and
it's a new tool to us in thelast little over 2 years. And I
think that's also helped changemy perspective on how important
that is and just navigating ourbusiness.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And which vendor are you using for the accounting
system?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
We use HIA, Hotel Investor Apps. It's a tool that
we adopted, like I said, alittle over 2 years ago. I think
with many companies, I don'tthink I'm saying anything new,
as you grow, you tend to breakwhat worked before. And so we
had a team in accounting thatwas hardworking, tremendously
(06:37):
passionate, really caring, andthey were using tools that
worked when we were 12properties, 13 properties. And
as we kept growing and growingand growing, we outgrew that,
like, almost like a teenager insneakers that don't fit anymore,
but we kept wearing them.
And it was an important momentwhen we decided to change out
(06:58):
that platform because what thatallowed for was, you know, sort
of open the door to we need newprocesses. We need to bring in
more people with different skillsets. It also exposed a lot of
the things that we needed to bedoing better. And, you know, so
we had sort of quick evolution,and it's never without
(07:20):
disruption to come up to speedwith the new tool that had all
these new capabilities. And thatchanged our financial reporting
where I'd say in the lastsomeone will be angry at me no
matter what I say, but call itthe last 18 months.
We've been on time and accurate,and it's helped our sort of year
(07:44):
end process. It's helped taxfilings, like, a lot of the
unsexy stuff that go on behindthe scenes, but are tremendously
important. If we don't get thisright and if we can't
communicate it properly, timely,accurately to them, we don't get
their next project. We don't gettheir big investment in the next
5, 6, 7 things they're doing.And this HIA got us there with,
(08:11):
obviously, a lot of human powerand brainpower invested on top
of it.
And they are, as a group,continuing to evolve that
platform to give us morecapabilities. We're getting
closer to a live p and l. We'reworking to incorporate daily
payroll metrics into that. Andso I get really excited because
(08:32):
I know how important this is forus as a group, us as a business,
to be able to have the theinformation, have it clean, have
it accurate, have it timely, butI'm, at heart, an operator.
Every role I've held inhospitality has been on-site
operating until just the lastfew years, and so I get excited
(08:53):
about how incredibly helpfulthis is if I'm running a small
business, if I'm the GM at aproperty, even if I'm the
housekeeping manager, the frontdesk manager.
The information that this canprovide back to me to
understand, you know, what we'reaiming for for GOP targets or
what I'm aiming for for my labormetrics. The information back is
(09:14):
really, really helpful, and Iget excited about how you can
use it because I've grown uphaving to create my own
spreadsheets and, you know, doeverything manually. And if this
information can be fed rightback to an operator, if I'm a
regional manager who'soverseeing a portfolio of
properties, how much moreeffective I can be if I can see
(09:35):
6, 8, 10 properties stacked ontop of each other with their
metrics, and I can find theoutlier, and I know where to
focus my time. It feelsincredibly empowering to have
the information that we have nowand that I've never had as
quickly, as easily, and I'veworked through a number of other
accounting platforms where I'vehad similar access, like, able
(09:57):
to see whatever is available.What's available here is great.
What's coming next is really,really gonna be exciting. And,
hopefully, will they will helpus be more valuable to our
customers. I always try toensure that I, like, viscerally
believe the connection betweenwhy we need to do a good job
(10:18):
running a business back to,like, what it allows us to do in
what gets me passionate abouthospitality. It's like take care
of this person in front of me.And if they can connect those
dots, and it'll come from goodquestions.
Like, I'm my housekeeper. Why doI care about GLP? Oh, well,
remember last month when we hadto reduce your hours? Right?
There are so many directconnections that can be made
(10:41):
from that.
And, yeah, like, if there aredashboards that they can see
which were being developed andwhich we're gonna be utilizing
and sharing with our team moreand more, it really helps
connect them to why does itmatter how long it takes me to
clean a room? Why does it matterwhether or not I convert that
person over the phone to adirect reservation? Why does it
(11:03):
matter if I sign them up for ourloyalty program? I mean, if you
can trace that back to why itmatters in the business, it's
really powerful.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
So it sounds like a big advantage of using this
accounting system is also thebusiness intelligence portion of
it, like the reporting, givingdifferent folks in the
organization access to thedashboards. Do you have a team
or a person internally whobuilds those dashboards and is
kind of the subject matterexpert on the data?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
No. Not yet. That's a little bit of the growing pains.
That would be a tremendouslyuseful person. I mean, we have,
as a group managing smallproperties, I think the data we
have through our revenuemanagement system and just,
like, the 12 years of ourrevenue team aggregating
(11:53):
information on assets thatrarely report to Star.
You don't have a clean comp set.That data that we have and that
we we use constantly to, like,check our own assumptions, to
create budgets, to understandmarkets. But if we had that
role, that business intelligencerole internally would be really
(12:17):
empowering. We just need tostill live within our means. And
so a lot of times, we rely onand and right now, we're relying
on a couple different groupsthat HIA is building out
dashboards and helping uscustomize those so we have the
the information faster and more,like, actionable.
Don't just show me, like, thepretty graph. Like, what can I
(12:39):
do about this? And what should Ido about this? And we have some
great business intelligence thatcomes through our revenue
management tool, Flyr, f l y r.The analytics that are captured
in that, like, down to the roomlevel detail and what it can
roll up and show us as aportfolio, as a segment of our
(13:02):
portfolio, as a market, that'sbeen really, really helpful.
And there's a couple otherelements that are similar, but
part of the next step is gonnabe how many of these things can
feed into one platform. And myambitious goal on behalf of the
HIA team, not to make this allabout them, but how much can we
(13:23):
feed into that platform that hasour financial data, that has our
budgets, that has, like, payrolldata? Let's get it all into 1.
Give me a display unlike anyoneelse has yet. I think that's
where I'd like to see it go.
The phrase that I've heard overthe last couple years is
invisible service, invisibleservice. It's like, okay. I get
(13:45):
it. That's you wanting to run ahotel with fewer people because
people cost money. And I think Isaid on the outset, you know,
what you'll notice about us iswhen you show up, there's
someone who cares.
And I think that's an importantdistinction. There are plenty of
things that we can leveragetechnology tools to reduce
expense and reduce justunnecessary people standing
(14:09):
around. But those people needaccess to the information so
that they can be super effectivein the time that they are there
and be ideally not distractedwhen they're dealing with a
guest and, like, bringing tolife the core of what make
people travel to our properties.If I'm a single entity, I don't
(14:30):
want somebody sitting and justhaving to manually plug things
into an Excel spreadsheet andthen figure out the best blue
and red graph that charts it.It's like, we don't need that.
If we can use tools, we canleverage, you know, the AI
computer learning that's bakedinto these tools now to do that
faster and quicker. And quitehonestly, I've got high
(14:51):
expectations of our new PMS newsthat we're switching to. We've,
at this point, launched it in 2live properties and a couple of
properties that are underrenovation, but I expect the
information and reporting thatcomes from Muse to further do
that for the team on-site. Andwe're expecting a lot of that to
(15:14):
still flow into HIA and leveragetry and use one place to look
for information would be my goaland eventually get that so
owners can look in that sameplace for information. So that
takes away the step of Joeexporting one report to an owner
and Susie exporting anotherreport to an owner.
Like, if they can just see it inthe same platform we're looking
(15:35):
at it, I think this feelstremendously important. It's,
like, the transparency thatwe're looking at these same
exact numbers from the sameexact source because there's
always that tension of, youknow, an owner, an asset
manager, or owner's repscrutinizing us. I'd love to
just have the books bare, andlet's look at the same thing. So
there's the way we operate. Wedon't have that need for
(15:59):
obscuring the data.
It's just a matter of, do wehave a platform that can give it
to you clean, accurate,consistently? And so I think
that's that's another piece, andthat sort of democratizes that
data even more. We're allpointing at the same thing.
We're evaluating budgets. Great.
That's sort of what's going onright now. We're evaluating
budgets. Here's all the data welooked at. If we miss something,
(16:21):
let us know. We'll incorporateit.
And that's another empoweringpiece of just having all this
information and having that sortof single source of truth that
we can rely on, we know is cleanand accurate. I will say it's
only clean and accurate byfunction of a whole bunch of
hardworking people that take themessiness that, you know, all my
(16:43):
teams from operations inevitablycreate and clean it up, work
back between multipledepartments to make sure we
understand what was spent, weunderstand what we earned, we
understand what marketing sourceit came from, and that we feel
really good about it beingactually the truth.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
So you touched on the PMS migration. I'm really
interested in hearing how thatcame to pass. Can you talk me
through maybe the purchaseprocess first or the decision
process? What was the impetus toswitch PMSs, which is a huge
decision? And then how did youend up settling on one system?
What was that kind of shoppingprocess like?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
It was one of the scarier decisions to make. I
mean, my whole time with Larkhas been on one system, and mind
you, a system that has beentremendously helpful, like, a
great partner. We've been usingClock Plus, and they have been
great over many, many years andstill have a great development
(17:47):
road map ahead of them. And thatdevelopment road map is a little
bit of what finally helped usmake our decision because we
felt like it was time to have amore nimble partner with more
integration capabilities, likefaster, quicker integration
capabilities. There areimplications downstream,
(18:09):
upstream of our websites and ourbooking engine and our revenue
management system and ourcustomer relationship
management, like, our loyaltyprogram.
There's so many pieces that areout there and that they're great
platforms for. But as we wereevaluating the different
(18:31):
property management systems,figuring out which one would
allow us to sort of pick andchoose the components that we
wanted and needed to operate ourbusiness, and we are again,
they're small assets. Some havef and b, some don't. We have as
small as 6 rooms, currently upto 95 rooms. They're mostly
(18:53):
leisure driven, not a lot of bigbanquets and events.
We don't have an amusement park.There's only one time we got
into animal husbandry, and thatdidn't last that long. So, the
needs we have, you know, we dowant to drive that loyalty
program. We do wanna make thatboth a benefit to our
properties, but also a sellingpoint to potential new new
(19:16):
owners for us. And so we knewwhat we were we knew what Clock
had for us, and we knew theirsort of development timeline for
when different things could plugin that we had talked to them
about.
We evaluated a few other operas,sort of the big behemoth and
used that and, you know, sort ofused its predecessor. I go back
(19:38):
to Fidaglio days and thatconversion many, many years ago,
and we looked at Stay in Touch.We looked at Cloudbeds. We
looked at Muse. I'm sure therewere a few others, and we sort
of got it down to 2 that,ultimately, we would compare
back to the one that we knew andthe one we had been working
with.
And the decision really camedown to the other one we were
(20:03):
evaluating that we didn't decideon. They had a very exciting
and, arguably, like, somerevolutionary things on their
road map, but it felt more of,like, their road map that was
going to be the driving factorin it. And if we had one
property or, like, a smallportfolio of similar assets,
(20:26):
that may have been the rightchoice, but we felt like we
needed more flexibility andpotentially more, like, to
constantly evaluate the best inclass technology for the
supporting pieces. We expectMuse as the platform will be
what we work off of for a whilebecause, you know, we can change
(20:50):
out different components thatfeed into it. We can use their
native guest messaging platform.
We can plug 1 in. We can usetheir native booking engine. We
can plug 1 in. And so we canpick and choose based off of
what we're observing in themarket, what works best for our
assets, and that was theultimate selling point or at
(21:10):
least the piece that we feltreally good about as we I mean,
this was a months long process,a lot of checking under the
hood. There was I don't know.
At High-tech, I felt like I hadbrought two dates to the prom
because I was, like, shopping 2PMSs, and I was the only one
from our company there thisyear. So I was like, am I
allowed to be seen over there,over there? And it was a great
(21:32):
process, and there's a lot ofgreat products out there. And
even after we made the decision,one of our owners that I respect
a ton said, Oh, yeah. I don'tknow about that.
I would have chosen this otherone. And I'm like, Great.
Lovely. Appreciate that. And Isaid back to him, I was like,
I'll let you know.
We haven't started yet, and thiswas, you know, this summer. And
(21:52):
I was like, but I I have greatconfidence in why we made this
decision and the componentdecisions that we made around
it. But if something's notworking for us in 6 months or if
we see somebody, like, wildlyinnovating in a certain area in
6 months, we have thatopportunity to figure out that
timeline that's independent ofwhat Muse may be developing
(22:18):
internally or with partners.Like, we can plug and play in
most circumstances, and that inan integrated way that guests
don't feel a clunky process. I'dsay what we left, we had cobbled
together in the best waypossible, what we are leaving,
guest messaging, keyless entry,and online check-in.
(22:42):
And it's, like, some stuffthat's standard right now felt
very tenuous. Like, it you know,it could break at any time. And
that also goes back to if it'sgonna break at any time, we need
the human resources to fix it,the attention, the time it
takes, the downtime that wewanna avoid. And so I'll be
(23:02):
honest, I have not gone throughall the Muse University courses
I'm supposed to, but standing atthe front desk last week of the
first property that was goinglive, I'm like, oh, I could
check somebody in. I couldfigure out, find their profile.
I can, like, it's intuitive, andthat is gonna be great for
training new people, onboardingnew team members, getting the
(23:24):
housekeeping team to use thesystem. If it's very intuitive,
translates into multiplelanguages, I can use my the
device we give you and bechecking off rooms are inspected
so you're not getting 17 radiocalls of house 217, is it there?
So that was still a dauntingprocess. Now that we've made the
(23:45):
decision, then the planning toturn it on in 45, 50 places was
the next really scary task aheadof us. How do we do that so that
we don't break?
And in all honesty, I mean, alot of work, a lot of
preparation on their end, like,great project management on
(24:06):
their end, like, guiding usalong. And the first one that we
went live on, there were 2 or 3holes that were, like, very
noticeable holes in our process.We knew we'd find something, but
we were up. We were running thesame day. Great.
Figured out, okay, which thingsdo we need to go back and fix?
(24:27):
Took a lot of brain pain, but welearned don't forget to, you
know, tick this box or or runthe report the right way. And
now knowing that, the next one'sgonna be cleaner. We're gonna
discover something that wescrewed up there, right, or all
good intention, but we're gonnadiscover something we missed.
We'll clean that up, and then Ifeel like each subsequent
(24:47):
onboarding, as we overlay, like,the same structure, will will be
cleaner and cleaner.
Our team's really excited aboutit. So far so good. The
experience as a a guest on thewebsite already, like, it's
like, oh, yeah. So a lot of goodpieces that are dovetailing
together right now.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
You mentioned also the focus in your organization
on that human interaction, thehuman connection between your
staff and guests. What does therole of technology look like in
the guest experience?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
The one getting away like, the transactional moments.
Let that be tech driven. Thesimple where do I park and AI
pumps out the directions becauseit has your GPS location and can
tell you sort of Google Mapsstyle how to get there, the
check-in, the standard I show upto the front desk and have to
(25:44):
give you my license, a lot ofthose things that get in the way
of human interactions, these,like, transactions, if tech can
wipe all that out, great. What Iguess I want to protect our
industry from doing is thinkingthat it can replace somebody
that recognizes the differencebetween someone showing up
(26:05):
because I'm traveling for afuneral, someone showing up
because I'm traveling for myson's birthday, somebody showing
up because I'm just on anadventure, need to get away,
like, looking for some andallowing me to react differently
based on that energy that theybring that I don't know that you
could digest and feedback theright response in AI. But behind
(26:31):
the scenes, like, all the thingsthat don't bring anything extra
from a human connectionstandpoint to either the person
working there or the personshowing up, Tech plays a great
role there.
Right? I never lose my key againif I can, you know, if it's on
my phone. If my phone dies, oh,there's a keypad, and I know the
(26:51):
last four of my phone number.It's like these things that
create friction. I mean, I thinkthe other piece that this is not
necessarily aspirational, maybethis goes a little bit to what's
in my wish list.
Knowing more about our guest ina non creepy way, not like I
know exactly where you arephysically in the building at
(27:13):
every time, but connecting thedots between a guest preference.
If the hotel knows something andthe restaurant doesn't know it
and they're connected, shame onus. And it can't be running with
a sticky note to go give it tothe host stand. That level of
integration where I know aboutthe preferences. I mean, it's
what we all experience.
(27:34):
It's why we think our phones arelistening to us. It's what the
ads that come to us. It's anattempt to push the things that
resonate with us in front of us.And so if I'm the server, and I
know that you love SauvignonBlanc from New Zealand because
that's what we put in your hotelroom as an amenity every time
(27:54):
you come stay every 2 weeksbecause you travel for business,
wow, I wouldn't it be great if Icould just offer you that glass
of wine, show up with it at thetable, ask how your meetings
went today, and then take yourorder? I think that allowing us,
like empowering the team to knowabout you in the appropriate
(28:15):
professional way.
Like you'd know about yourfriend. Like you would know if
your friend came over, you knowwhat he drinks. You know he
prefers an IPA versus, Corona.Like, you'd know that about your
friend, and if you can empowerus to create that same warmth
and that same connection throughinformation, I think there's the
(28:36):
opportunity. I know it exists inmany ways, and our loyalty
programs work to create that,and, you know, feedback that we
ask for works to create that.
But where does that go? Youknow, we can aggregate that, and
we have guest responses on everyonline platform, but how does
that world of informationsurrounding a guest and his or
her preferences, how does thatmake it back to me making your
(29:00):
experience better next time?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
One last question before we wrap up. I am curious
to hear from you if there's onething that you believe about
technology in the hospitalityspace that you think competitors
or peers might disagree with.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
That it could all go away tomorrow, and that'd be
just as good. We wouldn't beable to scale it the same way,
but we come across a lot ofowner operators that have, like,
passed on property fromgeneration to generation. And
when you hear the questions theyask about any version of
technology, but then when yousee the way that people resonate
(29:40):
with that, the guests resonatewith their property even though
they didn't have you know,they've got an old school key,
and they always forget to giveit back, and they have to mail
it back, and they make theirreservation before they leave.
Like, we can get as complex andas techy as we want, but I don't
know that that replaces howsomeone feels. You can still
(30:00):
create that amazing feelingwithout any of it.
Now can I scale it? Can I do itover 50 properties? Would I have
a job if that was the only wayof doing it? Probably not. And,
you know, here I am talkingabout tech and being the one
that thinks the humans are stillthe important piece.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Well, thanks so much for the time. Great chatting
with you. Thank you for sharingall of the exciting things that
are happening in your world.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Thanks, Adrianne.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Thanks, Scott. Take care.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by hoteltechreport.com.
Our goal with this podcast is toshow you how the best in the
business are leveragingtechnology to grow their
properties and outperform theconcept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our listeners
to go try at least one of thesestrategies or tools that you
(30:49):
learned from today's episode.Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Do you know a hotelier who wouldbe great to feature on this
show, or do you think that yourstory would bring a lot of value
to our audience? Reach out to medirectly on LinkedIn by
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
(31:13):
follow Hotel Tech Insider on allmajor streaming platforms like
Spotify and Apple Music.
Knowing more about our guests in a non creepy way,
not like I know exactly whereyou are physically in the
building at every time, butconnecting the dots between a
guest preference. If the hotelknows something and the
restaurant doesn't know it andthey're connected, shame on us.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
On this episode, we chat with Scott Pops, the vice
president of operations at LarkHotels. We touch on a lot of
interesting topics in ourconversation, including the Lark
team's recent decision to moveto a new property management
system. We also explore the rolethat technology plays,
management system, we alsoexplore the role that technology
plays and will play in thefuture. Welcome to Hotel Tech
(00:49):
Insider. Great to be here withyou, Scott.
To get started, I would love foryou to give an intro about
yourself, about your company. Ifyou could explain your role and
what that responsibilityinvolves.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Absolutely. So Scott Hopps, I work with Lark Hotels.
We are a management company thatfocuses on independent boutique
properties on the smaller size,125 keys or less, has been our
sweet spot, often a niche thatother management companies don't
want to go after. And we haveabout 12 years now of working in
(01:26):
this space in, you know, a lotof leisure markets, and it's
been a bit of a growthtrajectory as a company. I've
been with Lark for going on 6years now, and I'm the vice
president of operations.
And so trying to make sure allthe cool things we say we do and
(01:47):
all the promises we make toguests, that we live up to those
promises on property and try andfind the right people that are
much better than me at doingthat and make sure they're well
equipped and informed andexcited to bring it to life on
property. We have about between4550 properties that we manage,
(02:11):
and I think in my role, thepeople on property side is
tremendously important to livingup to those promises to our
guests, but then our customersare owners. And so we need to
make sure that all of thoseefforts get translated to
business outcomes that ourowners want. So trying to live
(02:33):
in sort of two brains ofcustomers and business outcomes
for them and our team deliveringon the promises to guests is
where I live in between.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Could you tell me a bit more about maybe some
markets that you're located in,and what would you say the
differences between, property inthe Lark Hotels portfolio versus
competitors?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yes. So we were born in the northeast, very much a
New England based company formany years. In the last 4 3 or 4
years, we have spread thatfootprint. So we're now in 13
different states. We've gotproperties in California,
Florida, North Carolina, soon tobe Georgia.
(03:21):
We've operated in Louisiana, andwe'll, you know, have something
in development there. I said NewEngland, but upstate New York,
and we are still, I think, NewEngland heavy, but looking at
the other markets where our typeof model will fit really well.
And what's different about whatyou'll find when you come to a
(03:45):
property that's either brandedLark, because we do have a
number of brands under that wemanage, and also independent
properties that were just sortof the, you know, maybe white
labeled. The difference, I feelvery confident in saying, we
allow our people to be reallyhuman with our guests. Eye to
(04:05):
eye hospitality, we are servingyou, but we're not subservient
to you.
We are equals, and we are reallyexcited to welcome you into our
spaces, show you around thisincredible little town we may
operate in, give you greatideas, understand why you're
coming to Kennebunkport or Stoweor Camden or P Town and help
(04:30):
play our part. You know, there'softentimes where people are
traveling, they're not travelingto see us, or they're not coming
for our bed specifically. Weplay a role, and we try and
understand, do you wanna sit andchat us up at breakfast, or do
you want us out of your way andinvisible and and striking that
balance? But I think if you'reinterested, you'll always find
(04:51):
somebody there who cares.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Given the size of your portfolio, I'm curious,
what do you consider to be themost critical piece of
technology to keep everythingrunning?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I would say at different points in my career, I
may have answered thisdifferently. What I've observed,
especially just having so manytransactions now, so many
properties, so many things goingon, our accounting sort of ERP,
that is that being thefoundational source of truth has
(05:24):
proven to be the most importantpiece. There are a number of
other things that I think arevery important, but don't rise
to the level of this tool foroperational success, for, you
know, business outcomes, forcommunicating to owners. This
has really proven to be theplatform and the area where
(05:47):
we've said, this is precious. Wecannot break this.
If we break this, it better bewith something, like,
superhumanly great. But, yeah,our accounting platform, and and
it's a new tool to us in thelast little over 2 years. And I
think that's also helped changemy perspective on how important
that is and just navigating ourbusiness.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And which vendor are you using for the accounting
system?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
We use HIA, Hotel Investor Apps. It's a tool that
we adopted, like I said, alittle over 2 years ago. I think
with many companies, I don'tthink I'm saying anything new,
as you grow, you tend to breakwhat worked before. And so we
had a team in accounting thatwas hardworking, tremendously
(06:37):
passionate, really caring, andthey were using tools that
worked when we were 12properties, 13 properties. And
as we kept growing and growingand growing, we outgrew that,
like, almost like a teenager insneakers that don't fit anymore,
but we kept wearing them.
And it was an important momentwhen we decided to change out
(06:58):
that platform because what thatallowed for was, you know, sort
of open the door to we need newprocesses. We need to bring in
more people with different skillsets. It also exposed a lot of
the things that we needed to bedoing better. And, you know, so
we had sort of quick evolution,and it's never without
(07:20):
disruption to come up to speedwith the new tool that had all
these new capabilities. And thatchanged our financial reporting
where I'd say in the lastsomeone will be angry at me no
matter what I say, but call itthe last 18 months.
We've been on time and accurate,and it's helped our sort of year
(07:44):
end process. It's helped taxfilings, like, a lot of the
unsexy stuff that go on behindthe scenes, but are tremendously
important. If we don't get thisright and if we can't
communicate it properly, timely,accurately to them, we don't get
their next project. We don't gettheir big investment in the next
5, 6, 7 things they're doing.And this HIA got us there with,
(08:11):
obviously, a lot of human powerand brainpower invested on top
of it.
And they are, as a group,continuing to evolve that
platform to give us morecapabilities. We're getting
closer to a live p and l. We'reworking to incorporate daily
payroll metrics into that. Andso I get really excited because
(08:32):
I know how important this is forus as a group, us as a business,
to be able to have the theinformation, have it clean, have
it accurate, have it timely, butI'm, at heart, an operator.
Every role I've held inhospitality has been on-site
operating until just the lastfew years, and so I get excited
(08:53):
about how incredibly helpfulthis is if I'm running a small
business, if I'm the GM at aproperty, even if I'm the
housekeeping manager, the frontdesk manager.
The information that this canprovide back to me to
understand, you know, what we'reaiming for for GOP targets or
what I'm aiming for for my labormetrics. The information back is
(09:14):
really, really helpful, and Iget excited about how you can
use it because I've grown uphaving to create my own
spreadsheets and, you know, doeverything manually. And if this
information can be fed rightback to an operator, if I'm a
regional manager who'soverseeing a portfolio of
properties, how much moreeffective I can be if I can see
(09:35):
6, 8, 10 properties stacked ontop of each other with their
metrics, and I can find theoutlier, and I know where to
focus my time. It feelsincredibly empowering to have
the information that we have nowand that I've never had as
quickly, as easily, and I'veworked through a number of other
accounting platforms where I'vehad similar access, like, able
(09:57):
to see whatever is available.What's available here is great.
What's coming next is really,really gonna be exciting. And,
hopefully, will they will helpus be more valuable to our
customers. I always try toensure that I, like, viscerally
believe the connection betweenwhy we need to do a good job
(10:18):
running a business back to,like, what it allows us to do in
what gets me passionate abouthospitality. It's like take care
of this person in front of me.And if they can connect those
dots, and it'll come from goodquestions.
Like, I'm my housekeeper. Why doI care about GLP? Oh, well,
remember last month when we hadto reduce your hours? Right?
There are so many directconnections that can be made
(10:41):
from that.
And, yeah, like, if there aredashboards that they can see
which were being developed andwhich we're gonna be utilizing
and sharing with our team moreand more, it really helps
connect them to why does itmatter how long it takes me to
clean a room? Why does it matterwhether or not I convert that
person over the phone to adirect reservation? Why does it
(11:03):
matter if I sign them up for ourloyalty program? I mean, if you
can trace that back to why itmatters in the business, it's
really powerful.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
So it sounds like a big advantage of using this
accounting system is also thebusiness intelligence portion of
it, like the reporting, givingdifferent folks in the
organization access to thedashboards. Do you have a team
or a person internally whobuilds those dashboards and is
kind of the subject matterexpert on the data?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
No. Not yet. That's a little bit of the growing pains.
That would be a tremendouslyuseful person. I mean, we have,
as a group managing smallproperties, I think the data we
have through our revenuemanagement system and just,
like, the 12 years of ourrevenue team aggregating
(11:53):
information on assets thatrarely report to Star.
You don't have a clean comp set.That data that we have and that
we we use constantly to, like,check our own assumptions, to
create budgets, to understandmarkets. But if we had that
role, that business intelligencerole internally would be really
(12:17):
empowering. We just need tostill live within our means. And
so a lot of times, we rely onand and right now, we're relying
on a couple different groupsthat HIA is building out
dashboards and helping uscustomize those so we have the
the information faster and more,like, actionable.
Don't just show me, like, thepretty graph. Like, what can I
(12:39):
do about this? And what should Ido about this? And we have some
great business intelligence thatcomes through our revenue
management tool, Flyr, f l y r.The analytics that are captured
in that, like, down to the roomlevel detail and what it can
roll up and show us as aportfolio, as a segment of our
(13:02):
portfolio, as a market, that'sbeen really, really helpful.
And there's a couple otherelements that are similar, but
part of the next step is gonnabe how many of these things can
feed into one platform. And myambitious goal on behalf of the
HIA team, not to make this allabout them, but how much can we
(13:23):
feed into that platform that hasour financial data, that has our
budgets, that has, like, payrolldata? Let's get it all into 1.
Give me a display unlike anyoneelse has yet. I think that's
where I'd like to see it go.
The phrase that I've heard overthe last couple years is
invisible service, invisibleservice. It's like, okay. I get
(13:45):
it. That's you wanting to run ahotel with fewer people because
people cost money. And I think Isaid on the outset, you know,
what you'll notice about us iswhen you show up, there's
someone who cares.
And I think that's an importantdistinction. There are plenty of
things that we can leveragetechnology tools to reduce
expense and reduce justunnecessary people standing
(14:09):
around. But those people needaccess to the information so
that they can be super effectivein the time that they are there
and be ideally not distractedwhen they're dealing with a
guest and, like, bringing tolife the core of what make
people travel to our properties.If I'm a single entity, I don't
(14:30):
want somebody sitting and justhaving to manually plug things
into an Excel spreadsheet andthen figure out the best blue
and red graph that charts it.It's like, we don't need that.
If we can use tools, we canleverage, you know, the AI
computer learning that's bakedinto these tools now to do that
faster and quicker. And quitehonestly, I've got high
(14:51):
expectations of our new PMS newsthat we're switching to. We've,
at this point, launched it in 2live properties and a couple of
properties that are underrenovation, but I expect the
information and reporting thatcomes from Muse to further do
that for the team on-site. Andwe're expecting a lot of that to
(15:14):
still flow into HIA and leveragetry and use one place to look
for information would be my goaland eventually get that so
owners can look in that sameplace for information. So that
takes away the step of Joeexporting one report to an owner
and Susie exporting anotherreport to an owner.
Like, if they can just see it inthe same platform we're looking
(15:35):
at it, I think this feelstremendously important. It's,
like, the transparency thatwe're looking at these same
exact numbers from the sameexact source because there's
always that tension of, youknow, an owner, an asset
manager, or owner's repscrutinizing us. I'd love to
just have the books bare, andlet's look at the same thing. So
there's the way we operate. Wedon't have that need for
(15:59):
obscuring the data.
It's just a matter of, do wehave a platform that can give it
to you clean, accurate,consistently? And so I think
that's that's another piece, andthat sort of democratizes that
data even more. We're allpointing at the same thing.
We're evaluating budgets. Great.
That's sort of what's going onright now. We're evaluating
budgets. Here's all the data welooked at. If we miss something,
(16:21):
let us know. We'll incorporateit.
And that's another empoweringpiece of just having all this
information and having that sortof single source of truth that
we can rely on, we know is cleanand accurate. I will say it's
only clean and accurate byfunction of a whole bunch of
hardworking people that take themessiness that, you know, all my
(16:43):
teams from operations inevitablycreate and clean it up, work
back between multipledepartments to make sure we
understand what was spent, weunderstand what we earned, we
understand what marketing sourceit came from, and that we feel
really good about it beingactually the truth.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
So you touched on the PMS migration. I'm really
interested in hearing how thatcame to pass. Can you talk me
through maybe the purchaseprocess first or the decision
process? What was the impetus toswitch PMSs, which is a huge
decision? And then how did youend up settling on one system?
What was that kind of shoppingprocess like?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
It was one of the scarier decisions to make. I
mean, my whole time with Larkhas been on one system, and mind
you, a system that has beentremendously helpful, like, a
great partner. We've been usingClock Plus, and they have been
great over many, many years andstill have a great development
(17:47):
road map ahead of them. And thatdevelopment road map is a little
bit of what finally helped usmake our decision because we
felt like it was time to have amore nimble partner with more
integration capabilities, likefaster, quicker integration
capabilities. There areimplications downstream,
(18:09):
upstream of our websites and ourbooking engine and our revenue
management system and ourcustomer relationship
management, like, our loyaltyprogram.
There's so many pieces that areout there and that they're great
platforms for. But as we wereevaluating the different
(18:31):
property management systems,figuring out which one would
allow us to sort of pick andchoose the components that we
wanted and needed to operate ourbusiness, and we are again,
they're small assets. Some havef and b, some don't. We have as
small as 6 rooms, currently upto 95 rooms. They're mostly
(18:53):
leisure driven, not a lot of bigbanquets and events.
We don't have an amusement park.There's only one time we got
into animal husbandry, and thatdidn't last that long. So, the
needs we have, you know, we dowant to drive that loyalty
program. We do wanna make thatboth a benefit to our
properties, but also a sellingpoint to potential new new
(19:16):
owners for us. And so we knewwhat we were we knew what Clock
had for us, and we knew theirsort of development timeline for
when different things could plugin that we had talked to them
about.
We evaluated a few other operas,sort of the big behemoth and
used that and, you know, sort ofused its predecessor. I go back
(19:38):
to Fidaglio days and thatconversion many, many years ago,
and we looked at Stay in Touch.We looked at Cloudbeds. We
looked at Muse. I'm sure therewere a few others, and we sort
of got it down to 2 that,ultimately, we would compare
back to the one that we knew andthe one we had been working
with.
And the decision really camedown to the other one we were
(20:03):
evaluating that we didn't decideon. They had a very exciting
and, arguably, like, somerevolutionary things on their
road map, but it felt more of,like, their road map that was
going to be the driving factorin it. And if we had one
property or, like, a smallportfolio of similar assets,
(20:26):
that may have been the rightchoice, but we felt like we
needed more flexibility andpotentially more, like, to
constantly evaluate the best inclass technology for the
supporting pieces. We expectMuse as the platform will be
what we work off of for a whilebecause, you know, we can change
(20:50):
out different components thatfeed into it. We can use their
native guest messaging platform.
We can plug 1 in. We can usetheir native booking engine. We
can plug 1 in. And so we canpick and choose based off of
what we're observing in themarket, what works best for our
assets, and that was theultimate selling point or at
(21:10):
least the piece that we feltreally good about as we I mean,
this was a months long process,a lot of checking under the
hood. There was I don't know.
At High-tech, I felt like I hadbrought two dates to the prom
because I was, like, shopping 2PMSs, and I was the only one
from our company there thisyear. So I was like, am I
allowed to be seen over there,over there? And it was a great
(21:32):
process, and there's a lot ofgreat products out there. And
even after we made the decision,one of our owners that I respect
a ton said, Oh, yeah. I don'tknow about that.
I would have chosen this otherone. And I'm like, Great.
Lovely. Appreciate that. And Isaid back to him, I was like,
I'll let you know.
We haven't started yet, and thiswas, you know, this summer. And
(21:52):
I was like, but I I have greatconfidence in why we made this
decision and the componentdecisions that we made around
it. But if something's notworking for us in 6 months or if
we see somebody, like, wildlyinnovating in a certain area in
6 months, we have thatopportunity to figure out that
timeline that's independent ofwhat Muse may be developing
(22:18):
internally or with partners.Like, we can plug and play in
most circumstances, and that inan integrated way that guests
don't feel a clunky process. I'dsay what we left, we had cobbled
together in the best waypossible, what we are leaving,
guest messaging, keyless entry,and online check-in.
(22:42):
And it's, like, some stuffthat's standard right now felt
very tenuous. Like, it you know,it could break at any time. And
that also goes back to if it'sgonna break at any time, we need
the human resources to fix it,the attention, the time it
takes, the downtime that wewanna avoid. And so I'll be
(23:02):
honest, I have not gone throughall the Muse University courses
I'm supposed to, but standing atthe front desk last week of the
first property that was goinglive, I'm like, oh, I could
check somebody in. I couldfigure out, find their profile.
I can, like, it's intuitive, andthat is gonna be great for
training new people, onboardingnew team members, getting the
(23:24):
housekeeping team to use thesystem. If it's very intuitive,
translates into multiplelanguages, I can use my the
device we give you and bechecking off rooms are inspected
so you're not getting 17 radiocalls of house 217, is it there?
So that was still a dauntingprocess. Now that we've made the
(23:45):
decision, then the planning toturn it on in 45, 50 places was
the next really scary task aheadof us. How do we do that so that
we don't break?
And in all honesty, I mean, alot of work, a lot of
preparation on their end, like,great project management on
(24:06):
their end, like, guiding usalong. And the first one that we
went live on, there were 2 or 3holes that were, like, very
noticeable holes in our process.We knew we'd find something, but
we were up. We were running thesame day. Great.
Figured out, okay, which thingsdo we need to go back and fix?
(24:27):
Took a lot of brain pain, but welearned don't forget to, you
know, tick this box or or runthe report the right way. And
now knowing that, the next one'sgonna be cleaner. We're gonna
discover something that wescrewed up there, right, or all
good intention, but we're gonnadiscover something we missed.
We'll clean that up, and then Ifeel like each subsequent
(24:47):
onboarding, as we overlay, like,the same structure, will will be
cleaner and cleaner.
Our team's really excited aboutit. So far so good. The
experience as a a guest on thewebsite already, like, it's
like, oh, yeah. So a lot of goodpieces that are dovetailing
together right now.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
You mentioned also the focus in your organization
on that human interaction, thehuman connection between your
staff and guests. What does therole of technology look like in
the guest experience?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
The one getting away like, the transactional moments.
Let that be tech driven. Thesimple where do I park and AI
pumps out the directions becauseit has your GPS location and can
tell you sort of Google Mapsstyle how to get there, the
check-in, the standard I show upto the front desk and have to
(25:44):
give you my license, a lot ofthose things that get in the way
of human interactions, these,like, transactions, if tech can
wipe all that out, great. What Iguess I want to protect our
industry from doing is thinkingthat it can replace somebody
that recognizes the differencebetween someone showing up
(26:05):
because I'm traveling for afuneral, someone showing up
because I'm traveling for myson's birthday, somebody showing
up because I'm just on anadventure, need to get away,
like, looking for some andallowing me to react differently
based on that energy that theybring that I don't know that you
could digest and feedback theright response in AI. But behind
(26:31):
the scenes, like, all the thingsthat don't bring anything extra
from a human connectionstandpoint to either the person
working there or the personshowing up, Tech plays a great
role there.
Right? I never lose my key againif I can, you know, if it's on
my phone. If my phone dies, oh,there's a keypad, and I know the
(26:51):
last four of my phone number.It's like these things that
create friction. I mean, I thinkthe other piece that this is not
necessarily aspirational, maybethis goes a little bit to what's
in my wish list.
Knowing more about our guest ina non creepy way, not like I
know exactly where you arephysically in the building at
(27:13):
every time, but connecting thedots between a guest preference.
If the hotel knows something andthe restaurant doesn't know it
and they're connected, shame onus. And it can't be running with
a sticky note to go give it tothe host stand. That level of
integration where I know aboutthe preferences. I mean, it's
what we all experience.
(27:34):
It's why we think our phones arelistening to us. It's what the
ads that come to us. It's anattempt to push the things that
resonate with us in front of us.And so if I'm the server, and I
know that you love SauvignonBlanc from New Zealand because
that's what we put in your hotelroom as an amenity every time
(27:54):
you come stay every 2 weeksbecause you travel for business,
wow, I wouldn't it be great if Icould just offer you that glass
of wine, show up with it at thetable, ask how your meetings
went today, and then take yourorder? I think that allowing us,
like empowering the team to knowabout you in the appropriate
(28:15):
professional way.
Like you'd know about yourfriend. Like you would know if
your friend came over, you knowwhat he drinks. You know he
prefers an IPA versus, Corona.Like, you'd know that about your
friend, and if you can empowerus to create that same warmth
and that same connection throughinformation, I think there's the
(28:36):
opportunity. I know it exists inmany ways, and our loyalty
programs work to create that,and, you know, feedback that we
ask for works to create that.
But where does that go? Youknow, we can aggregate that, and
we have guest responses on everyonline platform, but how does
that world of informationsurrounding a guest and his or
her preferences, how does thatmake it back to me making your
(29:00):
experience better next time?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
One last question before we wrap up. I am curious
to hear from you if there's onething that you believe about
technology in the hospitalityspace that you think competitors
or peers might disagree with.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
That it could all go away tomorrow, and that'd be
just as good. We wouldn't beable to scale it the same way,
but we come across a lot ofowner operators that have, like,
passed on property fromgeneration to generation. And
when you hear the questions theyask about any version of
technology, but then when yousee the way that people resonate
(29:40):
with that, the guests resonatewith their property even though
they didn't have you know,they've got an old school key,
and they always forget to giveit back, and they have to mail
it back, and they make theirreservation before they leave.
Like, we can get as complex andas techy as we want, but I don't
know that that replaces howsomeone feels. You can still
(30:00):
create that amazing feelingwithout any of it.
Now can I scale it? Can I do itover 50 properties? Would I have
a job if that was the only wayof doing it? Probably not. And,
you know, here I am talkingabout tech and being the one
that thinks the humans are stillthe important piece.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Well, thanks so much for the time. Great chatting
with you. Thank you for sharingall of the exciting things that
are happening in your world.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Thanks, Adrianne.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Thanks, Scott. Take care.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by hoteltechreport.com.
Our goal with this podcast is toshow you how the best in the
business are leveragingtechnology to grow their
properties and outperform theconcept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our listeners
to go try at least one of thesestrategies or tools that you
(30:49):
learned from today's episode.Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Do you know a hotelier who wouldbe great to feature on this
show, or do you think that yourstory would bring a lot of value
to our audience? Reach out to medirectly on LinkedIn by
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
(31:13):
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!