This show is brought to you with support from Actable, the company that helps more than 150,000 hoteliers run more efficient and profitable hotel businesses every day at every level. See why more than 90% of the top 50 management companies in the US use Actable at Actable.com. That's A-C-T-A-B-L.com. So I was working for an owner operator, management company and I'm seeing the constant squeeze of profit, labor and expenses are going up and we're iterating on some of the same solutions. I think it's time to start getting a bit more creative. So how can we maybe drive profit in a different way that doesn't even touch the expense life? What are the things that we can do with even the platform that we already have in place? This felt like the right time. Now that I have really a better understanding of working on the PNL side and the acquisition side, I felt more well-rounded to launch something like this. We've got to begin thinking differently. That's Emily Johnson, founder of Elevate Wellness Collective. Over the past couple weeks on the show, we've talked a lot about the economic outlook, how it's affecting hospitality and what you need to do operationally to succeed. All of that is essential if you want to win this year, but there's another side to the equation growing the top line. I'm doing that in creative ways that delight guests and keep them coming back. Today there are big opportunities to do this through improving guest wellness, which is why I wanted to bring Emily on the show. While she works in the wellness space today, she comes from the world of hotel investment and development and understands what it takes to drive real financial results. We made an intentional choice in the production of this episode to keep it very conversational and so keep listening to get to know Emily here what she's learned in her career so far, including what hotels often get wrong about wellness and guest experience. There's a lot to learn here, so let's get into it. Hospitality. Hospitality. Hospitality. Hospitality brings people together. This is Hospitality Daily, the show that helps you stay informed and inspired each day by the most interesting people in hospitality. My name is Josiah McKenzie and my goal is to help you reconnect with why you work in this industry and get fired up to go out there, delight others and reach your goals. Let's get started. You've been going to Alice for years and so you're very familiar with that financial side of the business. I'm curious maybe just is a way to warm up and get into it. I've never been to the global world in the summit. What is it? What's stood out to you there? It's the global wellness summit was in New York, so it's also be honest. It was a little bit more convenient for me than Alice, although we had the blizzards here. I wanted to go to the global wellness summit this year because even they recognize so much of what's going on does affect the real estate industry as a whole. At the end of the day, Alice is a summit about real estate in hotels. It's the lodging investment summit. Really what's happening is we're all seeing even at Alice that the luxury segment is one of the highest producing segments and wellness is a big part of that. How do we integrate this wellness in what's happening in wellness beyond a spa into hotels? That's why I wanted to do the global wellness summit. It's thought leaders from all over the wellness industry. They also do a big presentation on trends, which I talked about a little bit. I'll link in some of the big trends that are coming out. I'm trying to decipher that for the lodging industry. The hospitality is my passion in my industry. I think there's a lot of things happening that if we integrate it correctly, it could make hotels money and also help our guests. Huge opportunity there. Absolutely. I'll link to that. LinkedIn posts where people can read it all. Just high level. Was there any sort of observations or data points that you've been thinking about since the event that have stayed with you? No, that's a great question. I think, again, I almost need to bring up my post too. I feel like every day there is another post coming out with trends. I'm going to do a piece today about a core. A core came out with something as well. I think it really is just that folks are looking for experiences more now, which I think we do talk a lot about in hospitality. We say, "Oh, they're looking for an experience." What does that really mean? What experience? It's funny because, again, going with the global wellness summit and then the piece I'm going to do from a core, a core basically called out that there's vibes that people are looking for. And then, you know, we might say, "I really need to relax," or, "I want to do something exciting and once in a lifetime experience." That's what kind of influx with both the wellness sector and the way people are booking travel and booking hotels now, especially outside of business when we're going on our own leisure time. We want to look for these experiences. So, at the global wellness summit, I do think they talked a lot about what does that look like? And the statistics about the search results and what folks are actually, you know, queuing up when they're saying, "Okay, this is what I want as an experience and how does that translate." That makes a lot of sense. So today, just to find the author of the Experience Economy, which is sort of a landmark book in this whole space, I think, changed the conversation in many regards. Came out a while ago. Today, he has a new book that just came out around the transformation economy. I can't wait to read it. I just saw the notification on Kindle. Yeah. I'll have to get on that. I love that. I wanted to get into that, but I think there's something there. I want to get expansively into all the different dimensions of this, but just to open up the aperture in terms of how your work covers so many different aspects. You have a great piece on "Well, the Find" recently around kind of moving beyond the spa and integrating mental health into the guest journey. And I think just a way to illustrate how you're really opening up, how we think about experience, how we think about transformation. I wonder if you could speak a little bit to that because it might give people a little bit of a sense of, you know, again, this isn't just a spa. It's not even just like experiences. You're trying to take people on a journey at CMT sometimes. And you know, this is actually a good story. And I want to tell this story about really why I started thinking about this as a mental health perspective. So, Josiah, like I mentioned, like I've been interested in sort of this wellness and hotel space for 20 plus years. I did a paper back when I was a student at Penn State about wellness friends and hospitality that, you know, went on. But, you know, it's always kind of ruminated for me. And then about nine months ago, close friends, her sister actually is a psychologist herself, went through her own sort of, you know, mental health roadblock and was overcoming that. And then mental health as a whole is impacted my personal life, my family's life. And I think again, one of the issues I have with this wellness space is that people do just think of a spa and getting a massage and getting a facial. And I'm like, well, I love those things. But what really is wellness and wellbeing. And so the mental health stuff was coming up a lot. And I had this friend who went through it and then we really sat down. And again, I am not a psychologist. I am not a social worker. She is. And we spend some time chatting about her journey and her process. And it really made me think, you know, when we're designing hotels and we're designing these experiences that we're talking about, when do we really stop and think about, you know, how that helps emotionally regulate people, how that affects the nervous system? If I check in and there's a long line and there's friction with my app, doesn't work, like already now I've been put into a different, you know, space mentally before I've even necessarily checked in, right? So I think that we have to start thinking about that as designers, as operators, as owners. But then to another level, as folks are really getting into this wellness space now and you're seeing big brands like six senses and Merevall's expanded. You know, I think some of them do have programs built around mental health. And I think we're going to continue to see that being a profitable avenue where we create these transformational retreats and experiences that people can walk into and say, I'm burnt out, you know, I think every woman mother, you know, at this point might be burnt out on some level or another and hitting some of them are hitting walls, some of them already hit the wall, but don't know what to do with it. So how do we as an industry adapt and create programming or lodging experiences, even at the most basic level that helps people in this regard. And so when I did the piece for well defined, I was thinking about, should we be partnering with psychologists when we, you know, create programming when we design hotels, especially if we're going to lean into calling ourselves a wellness hotel, you know, who are the professionals that we're working with to make this a real wellness experience? I appreciate you showing that because this is something that I have, you know, had to navigate in my own life, same, same with, you know, my family and sometimes it doesn't get talked about. But it's important and also I think that what you just described is really interesting bridge into this because a lot of great hospitality providers obviously are thinking about that guest journey, they're thinking about the guest experience, all the touch points. And as you were saying that, I was just thinking this just kind of raises the stakes. It's sort of, you know, adds a new dimension to it where, you know, for some people, it's not just an inconvenience. It could be bigger than that or they could have, you know, things in their life that they're navigating things inside them. They're navigating and hospitality can be a form for helping people kind of get to a better place. I am interested though, Emily, to get a little bit into your own story. I always like with my guests to get into, you know, was there an early memory? You can go back as far as you want an early memory where you experienced hospitality in some format and it stayed with you and it made a big impression on you. Anything come to mind for you there? Now my hotel nerds self is going to come out. You just opened Pandora's box, Josiah. So my family traveled very locally. We didn't have the giant budget when we were younger. So we stated a lot of, you know, embassy sweets was our go to, right? And my family would like laugh at me because even in an embassy sweets, like we would check in and I needed to go like look around. Like I needed to go like look around. This is before apps and everything. I wanted to know what the hotel had and oh my gosh. I don't know if you remember, but some of these embassy sweets had like macaws in the lobby. And then they would be like a macaw like shouting out, do you remember this? Yes. Wow. Yes. And I mean like in Boston, like they'd have a macaw in the lobby. Anyway, again, things were different back then, I suppose. And so I just, I got interested in hospitality. And when I went to Penn State, I was signed up as almost like a double major psychology and hospitality. And part of me really quickly felt like well, hospitality is like the fun side of psychology. This is like we're dealing with people every day still. But like in a way to give them a break and even on a business travel, like we're welcoming them into our home or welcome them into a stay. And so I just, I fell into hospitality that way. And I've always been very into fitness to be honest with you. I've always been sort of into fitness. And I'll tell you why is again, for me, fitness has never necessarily been about like, oh, you know, what macros am I doing? And like how much are my lifting today? It has been for me a solution to some of my own mental health and how I take care of myself. So I think about my time as a student, I was a high performing student, what a surprise. And working out almost on a daily basis was like a way to give myself a break instead of ruminating and everything else. And so when I was in the honors college and when I came time, we do a thesis as part of the honors college, when it came time to do that, I wanted to really look at like how much travelers at the time and this is 2005, 2006, I'm aging myself. Here we go. I wanted to look at like was fitness even really a demand driver within leisure and business. And I, you know, looked at stuff like at the time, all there really was was Miraval on Canyon Ranch, like in the United States in terms of like these are the only pioneers, like already leaning into like this space. So I did some research on what they were doing at the time. Weston had just come out like the West and work out like that was the thing back then. So I remember touching on that. And so I did this research and at the time my, you know, hypothesis was this was an impact on how people selected hotels and funny enough like it really wasn't so much like my hypothesis was sort of proven wrong. Like at the time people were so like no, like locations still front and center and then maybe hotel class and and then maybe like fourth in the line was like doesn't have a gym or something I can work out at. So you know, again, at the time it wasn't really a hot topic. So fast forward to I would say like post pandemic when people were starting to really get out again and then starting to be like we need to get out and connect with each other and working out became one of those areas. Now you're seeing social saw as like, and I'm like, okay, this is starting to really happen. Our industry is a whole started really picking up on this. I personally want to say sure we were talking about a pre pandemic, but I'd say post pandemic is when developers started seeing this is strategy for revenue. And so I was following it and sort of kept an interest in it. And I would say it really wasn't until nine months or a year ago where I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm just hearing about wellness in every single forum. But what does that even mean for people? You know, some of the leading brands that talk about wellness have an incredible spa. What else are we doing? So even in the fitness front, like are we engaging those guests at the front and saying, here's a program we can develop for you while you stay here. How do we lean in now? We're in AI tech revolution. How are we looking at that guest preference as entailoring that experience? It seems like some easy stuff that could happen that I don't really see fully happening. Some things that are really low cap X, right? So that's why I started really talking about this a lot more over the past year and then launched my own business, elevate wellness collective. It's a part of my elevate hospitality collective brand really focusing on, I love this space. I think it's a great area for us, but how do we evolve it beyond the spa? And that's where I'm kind of at today. Okay. So I'll link your LinkedIn in the show notes as well as your website. You have had so many interesting experiences over your career. And I wonder if we could spend a few moments talking about that. You have this line on your website where you say your goal is to make wellness a profit center for hotels by helping guests heal deeply and hotels gain loyalty from that from the language on your website from what you just said, you're talking cap X, you're talking profits. You speak the language of every stakeholder of the business. You clearly know this business inside and out. I want to talk about some key moments in your career that led up to you starting what you're doing now. But first off, why did you decide to start working in the world of hospitality? I think you kind of touched on this in a few different dimensions, but was it a single moment what led you to your first role in the world of hospitality? Oh my gosh. My very, very first like hospitality role in a sense, I guess, was 16 years old. My first job was Starbucks. And again, like I like to mention that I grew up in Staten Island. Here we go. And the New Yorkers coming out. But we were the only Starbucks in an entire borough of New York City. Like it wasn't. Starbucks was already huge, but it wasn't like ubiquitous like it became. So here I was like thinking about heading into college and I was already working in this, you know, front people facing role. And I just enjoyed like I had customers that I saw every single week and we were chatting, what's going on. I had these two gentlemen. I still remember them. They would come in and they were asking me about my college applications because they, they were older and they meet every Saturday morning for coffee. And it really was like a coffee shop vibe a little bit at that point. So I got to know my customers. And so I think again, going into college, I was thinking like I love working with people. That's what it boils down to me for his hospitality. It's like this is a people industry. We say it all the time. Well, so again, is wellness in so many ways and mental ones. There's so much overlap. But my passion has been working with people and my passion still is not just to working with people, but how can we help people there? That's what it is. Like we're supposed to be people helping people, which again, so much overlap with the mental health space and hospitality. I still feel like my goal is to help people. And even when you think about owners, as you said, as I talk about Capac, well, I want to help owners too. Those are also people who need to want to make more money, right? And I think we can do that. I think we can help people help our guests help make more money. I think we can do all those things. I think it's possible. That's why the business of hospitality, so beautiful because I think I had a somewhat similar journey and that is attracted to that feeling, you know, kind of working on a property interacting with people. So I love the feeling of it. And then I learn more about the business and it can be a virtuous cycle where you're able to create that great feeling. You know, that has positive financial implications, which allows you to reinvest and do more of this. And I think sometimes people miss that element and there's just like owners are making money. It's like, yes. And also like it takes money to do this kind of stuff. You know, so and I think like there's a positive cycle here. I want to get into your business board, but just like as you kind of reflect on your career, was there a pivotal moment on that journey when you're working at another company and you realized, you know what, I need to start my own business. There's something here. There's a big opportunity. Does anything stand out in that regard? I think, you know, my most recent role. So I was working for an owner operator management company in my most recent role in development. And I think, you know, again, I'm seeing this constant like squeeze, right? Like the constant squeeze of profits, profits, there's all the names going down labor and expenses are going up. And we're iterating on some of the same solutions. And now, having a great operator is definitely a part of that solution. I wouldn't knock that. You know, finding ways to basically increase profit and lower expenses is the same solution that anyone is trying to have at this point. But I think it's time to start getting a bit more creative. That's really why I think this felt like the right time for me to kind of go on my own here because you call any great management company and they're trying to all do the same thing, right? And so to me, it's, we got to think outside the box. I have always been that sort of leader and salesperson is the salesperson who comes in and says, this is what we're doing, you know, well, which was great. Let's expand on that. But where can we think creatively? And some of it won't work by the way. You have to be okay with some failure. That's different. So how can we maybe drive profit in a different way that doesn't even touch the expense lie? Like what are the things that we can do with even the platform that we already have in place? And so that's always been sort of the strategic thinker that I am and this felt like the right time. Now that I have really a better understanding of working on the PNL side and the acquisition side, I felt more well-rounded to launch something like this instead of just saying, hey, I was a salesperson for hotels and consulting companies, which we're again, interesting experiences. But having the real foundations of underwriting these deals and seeing what was going on, led me to feel like, okay, like I see how everyone's sort of thinking the same way we've got to begin thinking differently. I find this so fascinating. I think just coming off the Alice conference, there's everything you said. Frankly, this is kind of what we were talking about at the beginning of 2025. And we try to make these episodes, these conversations pretty timeless. But like I think it's also very timely and the fact that, you know, now people are saying, like, hey, isn't this kind of the same conversation we were having a year ago or maybe a couple of years ago? And what's interesting is I interviewed a lot of CEOs there and they kept coming back to this. They were running a really smart operation, but, you know, you got to, you got to drive that top line growth. And to do that, you got to do something creative. If you enjoyed today's conversation, I just have one favor to ask. And that is to take out your phone now and text or email this episode to someone you work with or an industry friend and tell them what stood out to you. The reason I produce this show is to help you in your business. And it takes teamwork to do that. So I encourage you to move this beyond just being an idea, something you listen to to sharing it with your team so that you can implement it in your hospitality business. And the ideas we heard today drive actual results and improvements for you. I'd also love to hear what you thought about the episode today. You can email me,
[email protected]. HospitalityDaily has become the number one podcast in hospitality thanks to you and the tens of thousands of hospitality providers around the world that join us each day to learn and grow together. So thank you for joining us. And if you have something to teach or share with our community, I'd love to hear from you as well. So please email me or send me a message on LinkedIn. And let's talk a few more things before we go. First, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app to stay inspired each day by actionable insights from the most interesting people in hospitality. If you'd like to listen to more conversations like the one that you just heard, visit this podcast website at podcast.hospitalityDaily.com. I spent a lot of time building out this website because I want to make it really easy for you to listen to the topics and guess that you are interested in whether that's culture and leadership or operations or technology or something else. You can browse and search the entire library of more than 650 episodes from some of the top leaders and innovators in hospitality at podcast.hospitalityDaily.com and get ideas for delighting the people around you in reaching your business and career goals. And finally, if you prefer to read a recap of these ideas each day, I'd be happy to send you my top takeaways by email. You can subscribe at hospitalityDaily.com. Thanks for listening and I'll see you here again tomorrow. [Music]
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