Transcript: Episode 139: Sleepless in Vancouver

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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor, episode 139. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/139.

[00:00:13] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.

[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Before attending university, Oliver Winter spent six months traveling around the world on a budget of next to nothing. Once a week, he would fold up his tent and splurge on a shower and a bed in a hostel. Certain that the marketplace could support a hostel concept that was a step up from the YMCA, Oliver turned the idea over in his mind until a fortuitous meeting with a real estate developer and soon to be co-founder, gave birth to A&O Hostiles in 2000. 24 years later, A&O is Europe's largest chain of hostels with 40 properties in 25 cities. Today, we are going to talk about backpackers and travel shame, but before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.

(Call button rings)

[00:01:32] The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals who have burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text it to me at 850-404-9630. Today's question was submitted by Seema. Here is what Seema has to say. My college age daughter plans to backpack through Europe this summer and stay at hostels. Is that safe? Should I forbid it? Oliver, what do you have to say to Seema about that?

[00:02:10] Oliver Winter: I think she should not have any doubts. Um, so all the hospitals I know in Europe is very, they're all very safe and Europe, uh, entire Europe is, is a safe place. So it's, um, I wouldn't have any doubts and just say, have fun and go.

[00:02:27] Susan Barry: I totally agree, number one. Number two, even if they are a little unsafe, like people need to have experiences in adulthood. So, you know, let your kid go. She's a grown up. She'll figure it out. You went around the world for heaven's sake with like, what, $10 in your pocket.

[00:02:49] Oliver Winter: Right. Right. I was 19, 20 this time.

[00:02:55] Susan Barry: So you were a student essentially when you had the idea of a chain of professionally operated hostels. You had never worked in real estate or in hospitality. So I have to know where did the confidence to start this business come from? Um,

[00:03:13] Oliver Winter: Yeah, good, good question. So I, I think first of all, I was really young and, and if you are young, you, anyway, you, you don't care about the confidence you have, but, and you think you can do everything.

[00:03:26] Susan Barry: Yes.

[00:03:27] Oliver Winter: Yeah. That was helpful. And, and even the advantage of being young in this time was, uh, I, I, I could take the risk to fail because I had not to take care for kids.

[00:03:37] Susan Barry: Oh, good point.

[00:03:40] Oliver Winter: Yeah. What is helpful if you, if you start a business and, and you just have to take care for, for your own. So the second, um, when I remember, so it, um, it was a few years after wall came down and Berlin was a fantastic environment of the spirit of the city was in this time was freedom, liberty, and full of opportunities.

[00:03:59] So, and everyone tried out something new in, in, in, in this fantastic environment. So the city was a spirit like, “If not now, then when?” Yeah? And so that, that was even driven by environment. And third point I like to make here is, is, is my mother. She, she, she was an entrepreneur and she gave me even obviously confidence to say, if you have a dream, if you, if you have a desire to do something and you believe in, and you think that something market needed and it's good service, good idea, good product, go for it and try it.

[00:04:34] Susan Barry: Oh, that's so cool. I love what you said about the sort of spirit of trying new things that was afoot in Berlin at that time. It's, it is very similar to what I felt like when I started my company, which was in 2009 and it was after or during the financial crisis. And I sort of felt the freedom to try something because. Everyone was doing unusual things at that time because everyone's getting laid off or joining startups or, you know, sort of having to rebuild their careers. So that's something interesting like that cultural moment of the freedom to try something new. Very interesting.

[00:05:18] So the financial story of A&O is also interesting because as I understand it, banks in Germany considered hostels a really unproven business concept, which I think is funny because they've been around forever. Um, but that was a challenge for a long time, I think, and you had to work around it. Can you talk a little bit about that? How you worked around it? Has it changed or is it still the same bad situation?

[00:05:46] Oliver Winter: Now you are, you're absolutely right. So that, that was big challenge in, in, uh, for the first 10 years of the company. And, at first unknown. So I had to explain everyone what is a hostel. Yeah. And what does it mean and what is different to traditional hospitality concepts. And then, as you mentioned, unproved as well. And so my biggest luck here was, was that my co-founder, he was 20 years older than me, successful entrepreneur and, um, he fund the needed investments, uh, in the first years. So what allows us to grow? And in the first -

[00:06:24] Susan Barry: Oh! So find a rich guy is what you're saying. No, I'm just kidding.

[00:06:26] Oliver Winter: Yeah, yeah. It is helpful. Yeah. And so, um, and the first 10 years, our, our model to grow was a, was a pure lease model. What means all the new assets we had to lease and, and what we, what we tried and even we achieved quite successful that the land, we asked the landlords for contribution to convert their buildings into A&Os.

[00:06:49] Yeah. Because the biggest cost, it's for the construction. Yeah. And, and then we say, it's your building. We are, we are just the tenants. We can't invest in your building. We need your money to convert it. And, and that, that worked out. And after 10 years, it was, yeah, quite exactly 10 years, um, after first opening, the first bank started to, to, to trust in this idea and financed us, uh, uh, to, to acquire an asset.

[00:07:18] And from this moment, it's like always, if the first bank is doing it, then other banks, uh, followed this. And from this time, it was much, much easier. And maybe one, one comment, even here, what was different to the kind of startups I saw left and right of a lot of tech and, and, uh, biotech and all this stuff, we never had a burn rate. So we always from every opening money from the very first day. So the cash we needed was really for new add ons, for new hostels we like to open, but the existing ones had really, really quick, positive cashflow.

[00:07:55] Susan Barry: You weren't pre-revenue, which is what so many startups say about themselves now. Like, “We're pre-revenue.” What, how do you have a business if you're pre-revenue? That does not make sense to me, but okay. What are some of the early mistakes that the company made?

[00:08:14] Oliver Winter: Yeah. Probably many, many, uh, little ones. Yeah. We doing every day, but it's a big ones. Uh, fortunately not so many. So, um, I remember two bigger ones. So the first one was, it was two years after we opened the very first one was our second, second lease in Berlin.

[00:08:33] And we, we signed this lease for 10 years because we thought really in this time that it's a long, very long period. And, and, um, so after 10 years, the city changed. So. dramatic, so dynamic, um, that there was no chance to, to extend our lease anymore. Yeah. Because everything was a new environment. So rent rent prices doubled or tripled.

[00:08:56] Um, so the fail here was not, not doing 20 years or 25 or whatever. So it was much too short and to learn how quick 10 years, 10 years in the business time is nothing. That was one learning. And the other learning for A&O was one, and that was about around 2005, 2006. Um, we, um, we've been so keen to, to, uh, uh, to enter the Prague market in Czech Republic.

[00:09:24] And we signed a lease for 30 keys, so 30 rooms, 180 beds asset in Prague. And that was for our business model. It was much, much too small. So that was our first opening. Yeah, we never been break even. We never, never could make money. And we learned, okay, A&O is something with needs, bigger volume needs, and our average size are 800 beds, 200 rooms. So this small operation was, was, was a really big fail. And, and, and later we had to find a way to get rid of it, of it again.

[00:10:00] Susan Barry: Why do you think that is like, why is the model more effective at the, that larger size? It would seem like maybe it's just scalable, but is it just not that scalable?

[00:10:13] Oliver Winter: Yeah. I think A&O especially it's, it's a volume player. And, and, um, so you, you can run and operate smaller hostels without any doubts. If you are more boutique and you, then you can ask for higher rates. But, but what we always try is to undercut the market and, and offer really the most affordable rate.

[00:10:34] Susan Barry: I see.

[00:10:35] Oliver Winter: And for this, you need scale, you need size.

[00:10:37] Susan Barry: Understood. So during the pandemic, you and your family took a trip to Dubai and at the time you felt like you couldn't really tell anyone that you were doing it. How did the experience of travel shame in that context lead you to a wake up call about sustainability?

[00:11:01] Oliver Winter: Yeah, that's, that's really, really good question. I remember very well. Yeah, that's this time of, um, we've been asked from the politicians, stay home. Yeah. All the time, stay home. And that was exactly what, what you're saying. We, we, we traveled and decided for two weeks not to stay home, um, but go to Dubai and, and we saw that, um, the society around us was, was in, yeah, really in a mode of, of, of shame.

[00:11:25] It was shameful not to stay home. And then I considered, um, Wow, that's, when did this happen? And that was just in a few weeks time that it happened, that people really, really followed this, this model stay home and developed really as entire society developed. Uh, yeah. This travel shame during this time because of pandemic reasons.

[00:11:50] Yeah. And if we think about the time after pandemic, yeah, if we come back to our normal business and, and what, what being the biggest concerns of society, especially the European society before pandemic, that was climate consciousness, climate concerns. If this comes back to this topic and it will come back and it is back, of course, what will happen over maybe a year time or 10 years time?

[00:12:16] If a society even develop a travel shame because of climate concerns, and this was for me really this wake up call where I said, okay, there's probably to tell us a company, my answers, I'm, I'm climate-neutral by 2045 or 2050. That's something what is not delivering the right answer. And we have to do.

[00:12:38] Something we have really to speed up here and, and, and, and deliver something, what is not only affordable and cheap and, and, and safe, what, what, what we did before all the years, what even is at best climate-neutral or climate-friendly. So we need even here to bring an answer that, that was the wake up call.

[00:12:57] Susan Barry: It's so amazing to me that you were able to sort of extrapolate from that feeling of feeling travel shame to seeing what your future guests would feel around sustainability or lack thereof. I mean, I think that's a pretty insightful and powerful, uh, wake up call that you had and your company, A&O has made remarkable strides in reducing its carbon footprint. Will you walk us through that, what your goals were and how you got there?

[00:13:32] Oliver Winter: Yeah, I'm really happy to do this because that's one of our biggest passions. And to give you an idea, um, an average, um, or economy scale hotel overnight, produce 20 to 25 kilogram carbon uh, uh, carbon footprint per overnight. Yeah. So that, that you have half a number. So 20 to 25 is something, it's even the same footprint, uh, for, for European household if you stay at home and, and, and sleep at home. So that's something in 24 hours, that's your, your footprint. And in 2015 we started first time really to ask experts to help us to understand our footprint and, and, and tell us what, what is our footprint? We had no idea. Is it, is it below this 20? Above the 20? And we, we came up with 10 kilogram in 2057. That's great. That's half of what is the average of, of economy scale hotel overnight.

[00:14:28] Susan Barry: And is that, was it lower because more people share the room?

[00:14:31] Oliver Winter: Exactly.

[00:14:32] Susan Barry: Okay.

[00:14:32] Oliver Winter: Yeah. Yeah. Higher bed density, less space needed. That's the biggest, biggest factor. And then no spa, no minibar, stuff like this. Yeah. Um, and then we say that we are really sitting on a treasure, so to say, because we, we have from, from our model, from our structure wise, we have, we have a big advantage to other other, uh, players in the, in, in our industry.

[00:14:55] And then we decided, okay, if we can hammer this more down over the next year, that would be a great story. And then we started really to, to think about how can we bring it, uh, bring it more down. Yeah? And, and we started on one hand to collect ideas from our team and most came inside of the A&O group from, from, uh, yeah, all our workforce. Um, and cross over all departments. We collected about 170, 170 action points. Yeah. And 2030, we said, okay, that's forget it. That's too expensive. I can’t do this. Yeah. And about 50, we said, we have to defer maybe later. Yeah. Not now because quite heavy to do or a lot of effort needed or a lot of resources in general.

[00:15:44] But about 100, uh, we said, okay, let's, let's, let's, let's get started. Yeah. And let's see that, that, that we, um, do, do this, uh, uh, actions. Yeah. And, and take this challenge. And then we had many, many questions on many paths and parallels. So learning about, um, how to set up a controlling about footprint, yeah? The reporting, find the right auditors for this process. Yeah. Um, who's best, best expert in, in this field to, to help us, which experts we have to hire. And we did all this in, in, in parallel. And of course, what we did with, with these 100 remaining action points was to say, let's do the first, the low hanging fruit, uh, fruits first.

[00:16:24] So to say, um, what we did, for example, we, uh, easy, easy task, reduce number of, of delivery stops, purchase energy from renewables, um, or skip plastic items, stuff like this. Yeah. And, and, um, so many things more, of course, and, um, by 2023, so that's eight years later now, uh, 15, we remember we had this 10 kilogram and by 2023, we had a remarkable three kilogram.

[00:16:53] Susan Barry: Wow.

[00:16:54] Oliver Winter: So 70 percent less where we are very proud of. So that's, that's, that's the road behind us. And the road to go is now to say, okay, let's bring this three kilogram, hopefully less or down to two kilo. And then the remaining socket, we like to offset by next year.

[00:17:13] Susan Barry: Got it. So was the journey from ten to three a result of those 100 or so ideas from your team? Or were there other things that you had to do, like change construction practices? I don't know. I made that up. Something like that.

[00:17:30] Oliver Winter: Yeah, it was, was, was, let's say, started and initiated from, from the 100 points by team. And then, of course, we had learnings from experts, but we even could do better. The other was collected over the last eight years. Yeah. And, and in today, even if we, if we today plan and construct a new A&O, it looks different even by ESG or environmental wise than, than an A&O eight years ago.

[00:17:55] Susan Barry: Got it. And across your 40 properties, I know that you probably know this, but how many keys would you say that is?

[00:18:05] Oliver Winter: Um, say, you know, uh, inventory is, is, uh, about 6,500 keys.

[00:18:13] Susan Barry: Got it. So I'm just thinking about the comparison to midsize management companies or midsize hotel brands in the United States. And it's about the same number of keys. And uh, you know, seems like it would be possible to do something similar in a shorter period of time than what companies have announced. So it's interesting to me. It just seems like European businesses are so much more fast and so much quicker to both acknowledge and take action on climate change. And I'm wondering without creating a geopolitical incident here, why do you think that is? Like, why do you think Europe is so far ahead of the United States?

[00:18:56] Oliver Winter: Um, I've not, not the clear answer. I've just my, my, my guesses or my, my feeling, I think that maybe three, three factors. So, uh, regulatory, uh, uh, regulatory, uh, cultural, and the economic factors. Yeah. And by, by the regulators, if you see, I think in Europe, especially in the Nordics and, and, and, and in the entire EU, um, we have very tough regulations since many years in place. Yeah. I think many years longer than in the U S um, maybe comparable a little bit with California state. Yeah, which is even ahead in the regulations about, Versus versus the other states in the U. S., and we have this for all sectors like construction, transportation, et cetera, that we have really this tough regulation becoming tougher and tougher every year.

[00:19:52] Um, cultural, um, I think, um, so in, in Europe since, since the late 60s, we, we, we saw in, in all the countries, uh, green parties, uh, or initiatives, um, been established and growing and, and, and be becoming more important and, and even being voted in, in, in, into the federal governments, et cetera. So I would say climate consciousness is part of the European DNA since centuries. And, uh, if you, if you've for example, remember we had big discussions in the 80’s about this forest dieback or the ozone hole. Yeah. So stuff like this, what, what was really like a wake up calls for, for the societies in Europe. And, um, the last thing I think the economic factor, so, um, that ESG on the one hand, since the last five years, at least as, um, uh, it's really pushed, uh, the, yeah, ESG, um, demand, or ESG conform, uh, investments from, from investors, from banks.

[00:20:58] And, um, in general, I would say versus the States, Europe is not as rich like the States on, uh, own commodities, yeah, those resources. And that's, that's why energy, especially energy, but even raw materials are much more expensive than in the States, yeah. And this make, for example, energy saving measures much more attractive in Europe to make a insulation of a building in New York is probably another payoff time than to do the same in Berlin.

[00:21:35] Susan Barry: Interesting. We like to make sure that our listeners come away from each episode of Top Floor with some specific and practical tips to try either in their businesses or in their day to day lives. So, you I know you gathered more than 100 ideas from your team for how to reduce your carbon footprint. What were a few that maybe were the low hanging fruit that you mentioned are the easiest to implement that other hoteliers might try in their properties?

[00:22:06] Oliver Winter: Yeah, happy to share some examples. So, for example, um, easy one is to, uh, avoid bad chemicals in for, for your room cleaning. Yeah. In your housekeeping and, and just shift this to a organic, uh, uh, cleaning, cleaning materials. Um, usually it's even not, not more expensive than, than, than the traditional is a bad one, so to say, that keeps tons of water clean, yeah, or more clean, at least, and then the chemicals you're using, um.

[00:22:35] Switch, um, switch your lightning, your, your, your bulbs, uh, um, into to LED that, that even that saves a lot of money. Um, they have a longer living time or time, yeah. Uh, life cycle and much, much less energy consumption. Um, we, um, what we did and what is even quite easy is to, to work on your reduction on ways by, for example, in, in the food sector and for your breakfast buffet, for example, using bigger packaging and dispensers, for example, for your honey, for your marmalade, for your yogurt, bigger portions biggest spenders to avoid a lot of plastic and disposable packaging and all this. Yeah.

[00:23:17] And maybe another small, small item. Um, this costs pennies. It's, it's a reductor for your, for your shower heads. Yeah. It's reduce the water flow. And, and brings in more air into your, in the water stream, yeah? So under the shower, you have the same feeling, but it reduces by, I don't know exactly, but 40, 50 percent the water flow and, and, and, um, it, it costs pennies and saves a lot of money.

[00:23:44] Susan Barry: Ooh, I'm going to look into that for my house. That's a good idea. What about advice for a startup founder. I mean, 24 years in, you're not a startup founder necessarily, although every time you open a new property, it must feel a little bit like a startup. What advice would you give to someone who is feeling discouraged at the beginning of her journey?

[00:24:07] Oliver Winter: Um, I would say first, um, it's always the right time to do a, to do a business and to start a business. Yeah. Because you quite often hear, yeah, it was maybe 10 years ago, it was easier or whatever. And, and we say same for, for starters, uh, or entrepreneurs started even 10 years before we started. It's always the right time. It's never too late and never too early. Yeah. It's now is the right time to do something. And then I think you, you'd really need a clear mission of, of what is the advantage of your product or service? Yeah. Is it making the life for your consumers, for, for, for, for your clients, easier, for example, more easier accessible, is it, is it give it more comfort or is it more affordable, for example, better for the environment, whatever, but you need to clear, clear mission, um, why you are doing it. And then, um, I think, yeah, just get started and, and, uh, have passion, have patience as well, because many things will need longer than, than you're expecting in the, in the beginning. Yeah. Time is your biggest enemy. Yeah. It's not money. It's time. Always.

[00:25:18] Susan Barry: Yes.

[00:25:20] Oliver Winter: And sometimes good, even good to have a mentor. Yeah. That would be my advice. Yeah. Um, it's always good to have someone because especially in the beginning, but always you, you have difficulties you don't see before and, um, to have a sparing partner to speak about, uh, uh, this and get another view, so be open to feedback.

[00:25:39] Susan Barry: I love that you said now is the right time. Honestly, if people listen to this episode and hear nothing else, hear that. That is brilliant advice. So we've reached the fortune telling portion of our show. You are going to predict the future and then we'll come back later and see if you got it right. What is a prediction that you have about sustainability in air travel.

[00:26:07] Oliver Winter: I think, uh, first of all, I think the peak of cheap flights that's behind us. I think that that was pre pandemic and it ends with the pandemic, I can especially speak for Europe. But, um, so of course, there are still these, what we call low cost carriers, but we don't see any more 30, 40, 50 euros for, for, for ticket it's 100 or 200 today. So it's, it's. dramatically more expensive. I, I even think people will even fly in the future and that's, that's absolutely okay.

[00:26:38] Um, and, um, what, what, what I hear or can, can read in studies, it's interesting that, that these Gen Z today is 20, about 20, 25 percent of the today of the Gen Z is saying we, we try to avoid planes and we will not enter planes. Because of climate consciousness and the 70 to 80 percent of the Gen Z that still using planes are more heavy users than any generation before. So very interesting. Yeah?

[00:27:05] Susan Barry: So they’re making up for the ones who aren't taking a flight.

[00:27:09] Oliver Winter: Exactly. And so what, but what, what I, what I think, what, what would be really a game changer is, um, if you think about this autonomous driving of cars, and if this happened maybe in 10 years from now, or 15 years or whatever, then, I don't know exactly, but if you, if you imagine you can, I can go on my, in my car here in the Friday evening and lay down in my car, tells the car, drive me to Venice overnight, and this car is driving me to Venice, autonomous. Yeah. Waking me up in the morning and say we arrived. Yeah. And the same on Sunday night back in the Monday morning. I'm fresh back to Berlin. So that will give us absolute environmental friendly way to travel for mid, shorter and medium, medium distances. Um, and I think that will come for sure. Maybe it's five years from now, 10 years from now. Yeah. But that will change, change, change a lot. And, and that maybe avoids even a lot of, a lot of flights.

[00:28:18] Susan Barry: Interesting. What about, would you do that? Would you get into an autonomous vehicle and just crash out and go to sleep and wake up in your next destination? I don't think I could do it. I think I would be like, what's happening? What's going on? I'm nervous.

[00:28:38] Oliver Winter: Yeah, but what I, what I could imagine is that I drive out manually out of the city, but if then reaching the highway, why not running down the highway 10 hours and sleeping and then tell the car, wake me up before you drive into Venice or wherever I like to go. And I do the last mile. Yeah. Um, I could imagine this. Yeah,

[00:29:02] Susan Barry: Okay, that's a good way to mitigate the risk. If you could wave a magic wand and create a new product or a new service for the hospitality industry, what would it be?

[00:29:13] Oliver Winter: That's a good question. Um, I, I think what, what I really would like to have for, you know, what would be a, a, a flexible movable hostel, a big one. Like a cruise ship on land. Yeah. So a hostel, 800 beds I could bring to events. Yeah. To wherever our beds are needed. Yeah. During the season, I would bring it through to the city centers or, yeah, to an event. Um, and, um, I could always go where our beds are most needed.

[00:29:44] Susan Barry: I love that idea. A core tested something sort of similar to that. It wasn't 800 beds, but it was like four beds at a time in shipping containers that they would add to a place that was experiencing high demand, maybe a music festival or a big sports event, something like that. There definitely is something there around that elastic supply idea.

[00:30:12] If you look just at short term rentals and vacation rentals through Airbnb or Vrbo or whatever the case may be that supply changes based on the demand in the market. So you're on to something. I completely agree with you. Now we just have to figure out how to make it mobile. What is next for you and what's next for your company?

[00:30:37] Oliver Winter: Um, so I would say it's both, both, both same because the next year's I'm, I see me as a CEO of the company and hopefully we can achieve really by next year or, um, or fulfill this message or this promise to operate net zero by next year. I think that's, that's, that's even personal, my biggest aim for the company and, um, um, to open 2 to 3 new hostels every year, every each coming year. That's, that's, uh, that's the main one. And, um, automation so means for us, um, the automation of the check in process. So rolling out all the check in kiosks, um, to reduce the waiting times and the queues. And, um, same for, um, um, rolling out the digital orders for, um, everything you, you, every needs in, in our places that you can do all, all this stuff, uh, digital.

[00:31:35] Susan Barry: Okay, folks, before we tell Oliver goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.

[00:31:48] Elevator voice: Going down.

[00:31:49] Susan Barry: Oliver, what is the story you would only tell on the loading dock?

[00:31:54] Oliver Winter: My experience, um, to, to sleep by myself in a 36 beds hostel dorm. Yeah. That was when, when I traveled, it was 19 or 20, I traveled around the world and that was on Vancouver Island in Victoria. Um, I stayed in an, in an hostel with 36 beds in, and I could not found any hour of sleep during the entire night. And that was for me, the decision, okay, there's something like maybe eight, 10, 12 beds what should be the maximum I personally would accept and what You can be great as a product. Yeah.

[00:32:28] Susan Barry: So 36 people sleeping in the same room?

[00:32:32] Oliver Winter: In the same room.

[00:32:33] Susan Barry: Oh my goodness. And did they hand out earplugs and sleep masks for you or anything like that? Or you were on your own?

[00:32:40] Oliver Winter: No, on, on, on your own. The only, only thing you had was, was that each bed has a number so that you could really find your dedicated bed. So that, but as you could imagine all doors from the bathrooms from the from the main door that was always the door was never, never quiet and never closed.

[00:33:03] Susan Barry: That's like sleeping in a prison. That's sounds terrible! Well, good. I'm glad it was inspiring to you to start your company for sure. Oliver Winter, thank you so much for being here. It's been a pleasure and I hope our listeners got some inspiration for making their companies more carbon-neutral and I really appreciate you riding up to the top floor.

[00:33:29] Oliver Winter: Thank you so much, Susan. It was a pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Top Floor Theme plays

[00:33:34] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/139. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer and all around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.

[00:34:10] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.