A Career of Storytelling | with Kevin Osterhaus

The Modern Hotelier #54: Tapping in to the Art of Storytelling | with Kevin Osterhaus === Kevin Osterhaus: [00:00:00] We have to change the way we get people leadership has to change the time, that the attention and the amount of, focus on creative recruiting. And especially companies my size competing with, larger companies. We we have to be innovative if we're going to win. David Millili: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier. I'm your host, David Millili. Steve Carran: I'm your co host, Steve Carran. Jon Bumhoffer: And And I'm the producer, Jon Bumhoffer. David Millili: [00:01:00] who do we have on the program today? Steve Carran: David, today we have on Kevin Osterhaus, president at Graduate Hotels. Before coming to Kevin worked at some of the most exciting hotel groups like Bunkhaus, The Standard Hotels, Sixty Hotels, and then Ennismore. Welcome to the show, Kevin. Kevin Osterhaus: Thank you. Great to be here. This is, this is great. David Millili: Thanks, Kevin. So we're going to go through three formats. We're going to get to know you a little bit better, talk about your [00:02:00] career, get into industry topics. Sound good? Kevin Osterhaus: sounds perfect. David Millili: Okay, here we go. What was the worst job you ever had? Kevin Osterhaus: of my first jobs was a summer working for a veterinarian, and all I remember is is spaying and neutering animals this summer as a kid. That was my very first job. David Millili: you a morning or a night person? Kevin Osterhaus: right now I'm very much a morning person. David Millili: So if you had to delete all the apps on your phone and you can only keep three, what three apps would you keep? Kevin Osterhaus: would keep the Airlines app. I would, I would keep the, um, I hate to say this, the Instagram app, and I would, um, right now I would keep Solitaire. David Millili: So what is your most used emoji? Kevin Osterhaus: My most used emoji is the, um, the explosion. It's the boom emoji. It's, you know, I, I, for some reason, I think it adds emphasis to anything when you hit the boom emoji, set, followed closely by the mind blown emoji. David Millili: Got it. So if you're not grilling, what's your go to [00:03:00] restaurant? Kevin Osterhaus: if I'm not mistaken, my go to restaurant is, a restaurant here in, East Nashville called Wild Cow. I am. Definitely not vegan, but it's a, it's a, it's a restaurant that I love. David Millili: What's your favorite vacation spot? Kevin Osterhaus: Italy. Full stop. David Millili: So if you had your own talk show, who would your first guest be? They can be dead or alive. Kevin Osterhaus: Uh, if I had my own talk show, my, my first guess, that, that is a great question. I would probably invite, um, at risk of being controversial, the sitting president. No, no one in particular. I, I, I just, let's, let's start with a bang. David Millili: Alright, this is the last one here. If you had a time machine and you can go into the future or into the past, which way are you going and what year are you going to? Kevin Osterhaus: Oh, that's a great question. If I had a time machine, I'm, I'm going forward. No, no sense lamenting the past. You know, I'm, I'm moving forward and, you know, let, you know, let's [00:04:00] take it, let's take it ahead 15 years here and see what AI has done to all of our, all of our industries. Yes, Steve Carran: that. That was great. So now we're going to get more into your personal details, a little bit about your background and what makes you tick. So you grew up in Peculiar, Missouri, right? Outside of Kansas City. Is that right? Kevin Osterhaus: Yes, you've done some research. Steve Carran: yeah, of course. So, so how did growing up in Peculiar kind of shape who you are today? Kevin Osterhaus: peculiar, at that point, was barely a dot on, a map, considered the first non suburb of Kansas City, the first small town outside of Kansas City, and, um, I, I just have to say, our sign when you drive into town says, Welcome to Peculiar, where the odds are with you. Um, Steve Carran: My next question was, do you know the logo of Peculiar? And, uh, or not the Kevin Osterhaus: I know it's a The slogan. I assume this line is still there. It's as catchy as it is. [00:05:00] Um, listen, I love growing up in the Midwest. I, I, you know, the, older I've become, the further I've come from, from Kansas City and, and Peculiar, the more I've appreciated being a part of really understanding rural Missouri, rural life in the U. S., um, the opportunity to come back to graduate and spend time in such iconic college towns has been wonderful, but it's, it's, you know, really affected me because I think that Midwest, the Midwest mentality, my ability to, roll with it at times and, and, you know, just take everything in stride. But I, I've, you know, really come to appreciate my Midwest upbringing. David Millili: great. So you got your bachelor's from the University of Missouri in hotel management. how did you know that you wanted to get into hotels? Was there something that happened? Did you work into a hotel? How did you know that's what you wanted to do? Kevin Osterhaus: Yeah, it's an age old story. My father was, was in hotels. He was in resorts, actually. and I, I used to, I remember in college, I was a journalism student, [00:06:00] by the way, in, at the University of Missouri in semester one. I wanted to be a DJ. David, I sit right where you are there now. Um, so what, what could ever happen with DJs? That's, that's a foolproof industry, um, radio. so I was a broadcast journalism student and I visited, my dad. He was, he was running a resort on the coast of Puerto Rico, beautiful resort. And some conversation about getting a degree in hospitality and working with him or doing something. I went back in semester two long, I was a hotel and restaurant major and thought, you know, if I can live in interesting places and work with interesting people throughout a career, then, then that's about as good a rationale as I need. Steve Carran: I love that, I love that. So, now we'll get into your career a little bit. So, when you graduated Missouri, did you get into hotels right away? Or, did you kind of do other things before, started doing that? Kevin Osterhaus: one of those rare hotel people that had a [00:07:00] plan, stuck with it, and I wouldn't say that since then I've had a plan, I've just kind of been shuffled about, but I spent a couple of years in restaurant supervisor in college as I worked my way through a hotel curriculum. When I finished, I went to work for Hyatt. Spent the better part of a year in their management training program. Did this in Kansas City. and then spent, another year as an assistant front desk manager at a 750 room Hyatt. And then I got a call, from a company that had just acquired a resort off the coast of Hilton Head Island, on Daufuskie Island. And they were looking to renovate and reopen, and they needed a night manager. And so I, you know, packed bags and... In the middle of January in Kansas city and headed to the South Carolina coast. since then, as I've said, been shuffled around. Steve Carran: I love that. And, and you've been more focused on the operations side of things. You're the director of operations, and I might [00:08:00] not say this correctly, but Casa, Casa Arena, which was formerly the, the Versace mansion. And then you were the VP of operations at Bunkhouse, EVP of operations at The Standard. What really made you attracted to the operations side of things? Kevin Osterhaus: don't know that that just kind of happened naturally. I mean, I, I went into operations, my, my roles continued to, to evolve in operations. I, I will tell you, I was in Austin. the same company that brought me to South Carolina owned a resort. called Barton Creek, just outside of Austin, the hills outside of Austin, and I I was the hotel manager there for six years and it, during that time, thought, what in the world am I going to do with my career? I don't know that I want to keep doing this. Um, I was, you know, what, what's, what's next? It was as simple as that. I, I then discovered a little hotel in Austin called Hotel San Jose, that Liz Lambert had, had opened. Fell in love with it, reached out to her, [00:09:00] started a relationship and, you know, through that, over the next couple of years, Ended up having the opportunity to jump into, the creation of, of Bunkhouse and focus on these little experiential hotels that, you know, Bunkhouse is known for and had an absolute blast and discovered that, That is a path that excites me, you know, creating something that surprises people, creating, putting stories in place that people discover when they travel, and I didn't feel like I was doing that as much early on, and it was perplexing to me as I, as I grew, and through that, I just, to your question, you know, continued to be the person that could kind of on. the crossroads vision and storytelling and how to operationally execute and throughout my career how to do that at certain levels of of scale and so it it was always operations for me. David Millili: So when you became president of 60 hotels, what was the biggest change for you moving from the operations side to being president? Kevin Osterhaus: you know, 60 wa was a a pretty natural switch for me, but [00:10:00] I would, I had been over the operations at Standard Hotels. We had, projects in the same markets, New York, LA, a few in New York, and, and, at that point planning for our London expansion. And I, I got, The call, from Jason Pomerantz. They were looking to find somebody to head up the collection of hotels that they had extracted from. At that point, you remember the Thompson, the, you know, all, all of that, they had extracted their own assets, owned assets from that. And we're looking for somebody to, to what would then be, you know, a new platform called Sixty, And it was pretty. Similar at that point gave me the opportunity to jump into something that I considered at that point pretty label. We can do anything we want with this. We, you know, we can, we can define our, path here. And I think, I think similarly in that case. You know, I had had experience working with with founders, working at a at a smaller, almost startup platform, um, that allowed us to do unique things, allowed us to brainstorm and, [00:11:00] you know, yes, we were chasing what growth would be and looking for what was next, but had a lot of fun doing that. The biggest change, I think, would be Really getting creative and how I put a team together, what initiatives I'd like to see executed, implemented into a brand to drive a multitude of things. In that case, you know, building, uniqueness in the guest experience, driving team loyalty, how we can create a foundation that we build on as we grow in the new markets. Those were the biggest differences than purely focusing on the operation side. side. David Millili: That was a cool group. I actually, when I was living in New York, I actually had an apartment at, Thompson in Houston, right above a Kevin Osterhaus: Okay. David Millili: and I remember we were pitching Thompson. Yeah, we were pitching Thompson. And it was the clo closest meeting I ever had in my life to where I lived. Kevin Osterhaus: Okay, yeah, perfect. Great neighborhood. David Millili: that was amazing. Yeah. So from 17 to 21, you were COO at Smore, a lifestyle company in London. What was different about not only being in Europe, but also the [00:12:00] restaurant side versus just the hotel side, Kevin Osterhaus: well, I mean, on the operation side, we always had the restaurants, right? Either in house, in every case, there's there's third party partners we've worked with, kind of a hybrid of all of it. Moving to, to London and, you know, taking on the role in, in And it's more specifically with Hoxton, there were some independent restaurants, some other projects that, you know, at that point, were part of the Ennismore scope, but really focusing on the global growth of Hoxton, opening in the U. opening in Europe, more throughout Europe, and, a really fundamental understanding of what drives food and beverage. These are packed lobbies that Hoxton had created, continues to create this amazing community. Thank you. Public space experience kind of democratizes the public space as opposed to maybe some earlier brands that, you know, created the exclusivity of the public space. This is Everybody Feels Welcome and Food and Beverage, as a result, has always been very vibrant, so [00:13:00] for me, really focusing on guest experience, what drives through a public space experience, driven primarily, if not entirely, by food and beverage has been the focus, and you know, it's, you know, sure, you've got a really So, you know, I'm not going costs and what drives success what drives success financially, but more more, how do you focus on volume? How do you, how do you drive revenue when you've got the built in, the built in market? And by the way, I'd say at that point, early, early on, So, you know, Soho House was a partner of Van Ness Moore Hoxton. You know, Soho House was. Doing the food and beverage. We had the opportunity when I came in as we, you know, Paris had just opened, the U. S. was opening, we'd been working with Soho House, we created and took over all of that food and beverage, and that was a huge opportunity to really focus on the fundamentals of, of building a food and beverage program. I love that. Steve Carran: And then in 2021, uh, you came over to graduate to be president. What made you come over to graduate and, and [00:14:00] what's, what are you, what's your role now? What are your main focuses as president? Kevin Osterhaus: Yeah, I, in 2021, in 2021, I, I had made it, my wife and I were still living in the UK, very odd time for all of us, for sure. And, you know, e e emerging from this, this period, Ennismore had a, just a massive opportunity with, with Accor at that point to, to form a Ennismore, to, to, to become the umbrella of. What's now 14 brands and everything they've done, in London with, with Accor, which is an aerospace company. and I had the opportunity to take a step back and say, look, it's, you know, I'm not sure, you know, this is the right place and time for me. My wife had an opportunity to come back to the States. We, wanted to be closer to family and just made a decision at that point that is a good crossroads. This is a good opportunity. explore what it would take to get back really do some soul searching on, on what a opportunity [00:15:00] would look like if I were to tackle one in the U. S. And, I got the call from Graduate, started to hear, I I mean, hard not to have Graduate on your radar in 2021. In 2019, we had 13 hotels. In 2021, we had 32 32 hotels. So, you know, it, it had grown exponentially, you know, from, from 19 to 21. Forget about the fact that there was a pandemic happening at the same time. It's, it's, it's unbelievable. So I saw a, a really massive and exciting opportunity. I talked to Ben Weprin, talked to the the team here, just a huge opportunity to focus on the excitement post pandemic of a, brand and a collection of hotels that had never really been taken out for a test drive. You know, it it was fun. Now, understanding that. that... You know, there, there, there's no doubt that consistency and process and the scale that had been, that had been applied during COVID, you know, was going to be a priority. how are we consistent with our guest [00:16:00] experience? How are we consistent with our expectations, our team initiatives, all that? So I just saw it as a huge, exciting opportunity. it has been, it's been, it's, it's been something I've, I've really enjoyed doing because similar to what we've discussed, the opportunity to implement. Programs that drive loyalty. We now have 2, 200 team members throughout the US and the K., the opportunity to really focus on a guest experience that's about direct storytelling. It's about the, the, the collegiate, the university stories in these markets and what drives. graduates concept and, and our ability to, to continue to be, we are all students company, it is just a lot of focus on those types of things and certainly the, just as exciting, the ability to, to continue to ensure that as many people as possible, now that now that we are at this scale about graduate as as colleges come back post pandemic. As for instance, last year, [00:17:00] 800, 000 more people walked through the doors of graduate than at any other point in our history. So this, this, was an exciting time of growth, and a lot of initiative certainly surrounds that. But that, that was, that was something I was very excited to David Millili: So since you've been president, do you have a like a proudest accomplishment since you've been at the head and also what's next for graduate? Kevin Osterhaus: few things that I'm particularly proud of that pop into mind. You know, as I mentioned, it was. It was clear we, we had to, to focus our, our, our vision, our initiatives over the last couple of years. We had to be disciplined and really started to focus on the three areas that I've referenced. What, what will drive team loyalty? How do we get, now that we have 2200 team members, how do we... How do we really drive home what it means to be a part of graduate hotel brands? This brand that has exploded, has almost tripled in size. how do we focus on initiatives that really solidify the guest experience? Our [00:18:00] storytelling to a guest? The, how the design shines through? What, what does that mean and how are we consistent there? And certainly, as I mentioned, How do we continue to be innovative in our, in our brand story, in in our ability to introduce this to people, you know, that if the mission is anybody in a household talking about college should know what a graduate hotel is. So some of the things I'm particularly proud of, um, we launched last year, David, a program called Graduate Academy and Graduate Academy, believe, especially at our size, is a best in class, is a best in class offering to our team members. That, you know, allows them to pursue higher education. They can pursue their undergraduate degrees. We will pay for it. you know, when I got here, thought it was important that we put our money where our mouth is in terms of education, in terms of, you know, certainly the support in the universities that, that, that, that we work closely with. How do we do the same thing for our team members? How do we ensure that there are opportunities to develop both with us and certainly [00:19:00] develop in ways personally? for our team members while they're with us. And I wanted to It challenged the team to go back and find some ways to do this. So, Graduate Academy allows us to pay for undergraduate, education for any of employees. it allows us to pay for high school education for any of our employees or their families. the same program includes English classes for any of our and their families. It includes any one of thousands of university certifications. If they want to go get certified in something not related to even their role with us, we'll pay for that. So we've got, people working in, in human resources that are, or or sorry, in housekeeping that are pursuing their human resources certifications. We've got people in our finance teams that are getting their CPA certifications. We've got people on our engineering teams You know, these are getting certified in different trades in order to grow their careers with us, to become more skilled and grow their careers with us. Really happy about Graduate Academy and what what we've seen so far in a very short time in terms of retention, in terms of. the [00:20:00] offering as a benefit that people appreciate with us. Very about that. Similarly, we launched, last year, a program that allows all of our general managers to access, you know, a, global network of executive coaches, right? We, I wanted to provide a way for general managers to find advocacy outside of, outside of graduate. We partnered with a company that, has done a brilliant job in connecting them with these executive coaches so that, so that they had that. and, you know, excited to continue to build on, to build on that as well. So. that's been a lot of fun. Um, second part of your question, what's next? we are actively working on getting Princeton open. graduate today is 33 Hotels. Palo Alto was the one we opened in January and it continues to grow and grow and grow. Very excited about that project, but now focused on, uh, the next few. So, the first two thirds of Princeton will open in, in March. We've got a new addition that will open and by graduation. of next year, we'll [00:21:00] have, we'll have that project open. That's 180 rooms right in the heart of Princeton that will double the amount of inventory in Princeton. Believe it or not, David Millili: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, Kevin Osterhaus: that project. We will then, we, we have a great hotel, it's called the Lumen. just across the street from, from SMU in, in Dallas. and we will be renovating that project, over the course of next year. we won't shut it down, but it will be a graduate by the end of next year. And lastly, probably in Q3 of next year, we hope to open a big project in Auburn. the Graduate Auburn that we'll be opening, hopefully, hopefully by, by fall. and that's a ground up project that we're pretty excited about. You the other one that we've announced at this point is, is the um, Graduate Austin, which will open hopefully by the end of 2025. Steve Carran: awesome, exciting things happening. So now we're going to get to the point where we kind of talk to you about industry trends and your thoughts on what's going on in the industry. So one thing that you [00:22:00] mentioned earlier is you got into hotels because you wanted to live in different places and work with unique people. What advice would you give to folks that are either thinking about getting into hospitality or maybe just got into the industry? Kevin Osterhaus: that's a great question because, you know, I'm not sure we're seeing as much flexibility. People aren't getting into this industry with as much flexibility of moving around like I used to think you had to in order to it. But my first bit of advice is that if you're serious about an exciting career in hospitality, there's gotta be some flexibility in where live and, you know, in what you're willing to on. taken advantage. I've done that. I've, you know, and I feel as if I've benefited from that. but think it's important. The other, you know, thing is, you know, in, in this business, with it. This is how many industries can you, can you boast that you, you you can be a dishwasher? or a bellman and, end up running a hotel or, a company, this an industry of [00:23:00] disproportionate reward if you stick with it as a career, and I firmly believe that. I, also believe, and I've said this before, that we do a horrible job as an industry getting people excited about careers in this industry, how many industries made, you know, news continue to make news consistently. about how hard it is to find people to work in their industries. We have to change the way we get people excited. leadership has to change the time, that the attention and the amount of, focus on creative recruiting. And especially companies my size competing with, larger companies. We have to do, we have to be innovative if, if we're going to win. So, for people looking to get into this business, looking to grow their careers, certainly people in leadership roles, continuing to be innovative, continuing to focus on keeping teams engaged and growing. We've got, you know, turnover with our leadership, general manager's long. We've had to go back to the drawing board on how we develop people internally, on how we focus on growth [00:24:00] and how we work to create. longevity with, with us. So I would tell them just stick with it, be flexible and, really focus on, teams and innovation. David Millili: you stole our next question. You led right into it. mix it up then, so we know that there's a staffing issue, we know that there's an issue with attracting talent into hospitality. You're absolutely right, I mean my first job was, I was a busboy at a Hyatt, and a union busboy, and when I took that job, never did I think I would be, stay with hotels and get into tech, but what else do you think is challenging the industry besides staffing? Kevin Osterhaus: a lot that, you know, because I think our role is often to criticize some of the things that we want to improve in this industry. Um, I think we're a very slow industry, to react from a technology standpoint. I, you know, I, in fact, I would, I would overemphasize just like I said with, Ava, I think we are, awful to adapt in terms of technology, and a lot of that has to [00:25:00] do with legacy systems, different owners, spending on technology, and certainly, continuing to align on whether it's a priority, but we we need to focus on different ways of meeting guests, where they're at with technology, and I don't think we've done that yet. asked this question, Steve, a couple weeks ago, and, you know, I, I believe that, that, one the ways we can continue to innovate is through our storytelling. Graduate, for sure, continuing to tell our stories, but, we were featured a company that has deliberately stayed analog recently. And so I would love to innovate in technology if it makes the guests experience with us better. And so far you just continue to see a lot of spend on clunky systems that become outdated. keyless entry is an example. I've yet to find a keyless a keyless entry system that that's worth investing in, you know, because of its, you know, application. So I think technology is an area we're very slow. Certainly I mentioned [00:26:00] labor. I'd love to see us as an industry. Continuing to focus on getting people excited in the experience. I think it's, easy to get away from that as it becomes more mechanical, as we're all focused heavily on financial results. how are we motivating people to surprise our guests? How are we motivating and getting people excited to tell the stories that make us special? And that's where, I'd love to continue to focus both at Graduate and in the industry. It's, necessary. Steve Carran: I think you got a hold of our questions before we actually did this podcast, because you knocked out the next two with that one question. I had a quote from you from ILC about technology, so that one's gone. But I do want to talk to you more about storytelling, because you have worked with some really cool hotel groups. I mean, you've worked with the Standard, Bunkhouse, that do great Jobs of storytelling, and now The Graduate. I mean, that's an experience in itself, self staying there. Can you tell, like, what storytelling, what role storytelling plays into hotels, and also [00:27:00] maybe an experience that you've had that's just been awesome, that, you know, kind of had a storytelling experience? Kevin Osterhaus: Yeah, I think it's two things. Getting team members excited about their journey with us gets me very excited. And seeing a guest discover something that we have worked so hard, up until that moment to ensure. they discover is, something that gets me real excited. Bunkhouse, standard, great with storytelling, great with thematic, consistency, experience, but subtle, nuanced. It's, it's it's about the environment. Graduate? is about storytelling. We are about magnifying, we are about shouting about the stories of these universities, what makes the history so special, what makes these, the heroes from these different towns, the team pride, the, you know, certainly the competition. We've got this, very unique relationship with [00:28:00] university in the U. S. In that we've got 50 countries competing each other every Saturday for bragging rights. got so much, so many storytelling when you think about the reasons people are visiting us. you know, a parent to visit their, kids school, their alma mater, dropping their, children off for the first time at, at college, or, you know, coming to root their alma mater on in a big football game. It's, huge, the amount of emotion. And if we can introduce You know, different components, very directly, very ominous, get to direct with a graduate, with the stories we tell about why these markets are special. Not just the universities, but the towns in, and the legends that have evolved over time. I think that's pretty special, and I that's, graduate has tapped into. Especially in these markets that, very few have been able to do and very few could, keep up with it's been a great part of this experience for me, mentioned a couple there. There's so [00:29:00] many times over the last, year a half where I've been blown away by the I was just in Seattle last week and above the bed, there's a picture. of these, rowers from the 1930s, these, there's a movie coming out on Christmas, a George Clooney directed movie, I think called The Boys in the Boat, and it's about the rowing team from the Olympics in the 30s in Germany and Berlin. and how this, team, this completely underrated team became the best and, know, huge pride for the University of Washington competing against these Ivy Leagues globally and then going to the Olympics. I would not know about that story had it not been for the picture above our beds in every guest room. the lamps that are custom made, I referenced in Cincinnati, we've got a restaurant called Fiona's, which is about a. Hippopotamus at the Cincinnati Zoo, which sits immediately next to us, the whole world was captivated by this, this premature hippopotamus that they couldn't save. A really well known children's hospital also sits directly next to us. The children's doctors were the ones that figured out how to save the hippopotamus. and today [00:30:00] people come from all over the world to visit Fiona. and I'm learning this as I'm sitting at the, in the lobby bar at our hotel for the first time. You know, texting wife, who's bawling, you know, about this little hippo that wasn't supposed to survive called Fiona. But... The stories that I learn, you you the hotel and there's a mural of action figures because the person that created the Star Wars action figures was from, since the company was in Cincinnati when Star Wars came out, and they they got the rights to distribute them, and walking into our lobby in Bloomington, Indiana, bleachers, half of the lobby is bleachers that pull out from the wall like if you're in a basketball welcome to Indiana basketball. We're learning about the when you, when you walk into any of our hotels and seeing, see pictures of the different people. We've got, lamps in every guest room that are custom made for that property that, that tell the story. So, Bruce Lee is lamp in Seattle, you know, or, um, You know, walk into um, our new hotel in Palo Alto and [00:31:00] see the different types of, of alumni time capsules that each class does. you know, learning about the traditions, learning about what we're doing, here in Nashville, we've just as much of a A story that weaves through this, property about rise of a young, woman's country career as she, she works her way up from sleeping on couches and playing dives to our rooftop called White Limousine, but just as much we've got Attribute to, to Vanderbilt throughout the, got 180 watercolors about all the bushes and trees you'll find on the Vanderbilt campus. We've got, this is a funny one, drawer with squirrels on them in the rooms, on the dressers in the rooms, because there is a 3 to 1 ratio of squirrels to students on the Vanderbilt campus. So, you name it, I, you know, it goes on and on and on, the details we work through. The graduate hotels and the storytelling we do, but it's, it's, these are exciting, you know, exciting nods to, to the campus and some very big overt nods to the heroes that make these, communities [00:32:00] amazing. David Millili: that's great. So those, those stories, I believe lead into this question. So when I started, I finished school, I started working in New York and it was predominantly independent hotels. And I very quickly knew that I wanted to be a guy who worked in independent hotels because I didn't want to have to. Follow the brand's path or a management company's path per se. And, and what we've seen over the years now is a lot of these really cool independent brands have been sold or independents have been sold to brands. So do you think that's, you know, has been a goal of some of these brands or that's just kind of a, the natural evolution as you get big enough and financially makes sense that, you know, when you look at a core Hoxton, like we're just going to keep seeing that as these independent brands grow and do a great job that you're just going to get gobbled up. Kevin Osterhaus: Yeah, I mean, I, I certainly won't say anything definitively, but I think the short answer is. Probably, there's economic pressures as as you grow. I think [00:33:00] what I love about small, independent experiential platforms is our ability to be creative, our ability to become a Discovered, you know, certainly the media contributes to all that with so many fun projects that I've been a part of in my career that people just fall in love with. At some point in scale, you know, there is a much bigger and broader way to introduce your brand to the masses and often that's, you know, has to do with whatever generation of, financial construct you're in and, so I, I think it's it's natural to think that if you can find... A big brand to live within you, you know, it makes a lot of sense. Um, you know, selfishly, I, I love the independence and you know, like I've worked some companies that I think still remain fiercely independent and even Ennismore is, an attempt at remaining fiercely independent with the support of a uh, kind of an arm's length bigger brand. you know, and I [00:34:00] realize fully saying this, we're probably the largest portfolio of independent experiential hotels out there at this point. and you know, there's, there's a lot of pride in that. So, I think David, the answer to your question is probably. You know, a little bit of both. We'll continue to see people innovate, we'll continue to see people, you know, look to find new ways, and I think the internet has allowed us a more level playing field, and I think access to design has allowed us a more level playing field, but as things continue to evolve in the macroeconomic climate, I think we'll also continue to see brands look to, look to some of the, some of the big brands for, for support and for wider distribution. Steve Carran: well that was great Kevin, so our producer Jon has been sitting by listening here, so we're gonna kick it off to him for the final question here. Jon Bumhoffer: All right, so at so at the very beginning you said your favorite vacation spot was Italy. You said full stop. I'm curious what about Italy makes that that answer so easy for you? And then two parter, what from those [00:35:00] experiences from Italy do you, does that impact your personal philosophy and what what you bring to your work at Graduate? Kevin Osterhaus: My wife and I've had an opportunity to spend a lot of time in Italy. Her family is from Puglia. When we lived in England, we would a lot of time in Puglia. We had an opportunity in 21 to spend a month in northern Italy, in the mountains, and along the way, you know, just different locations. Without exception, I have... aside from how beautiful Italy is, how good the wine is, and how much I like the food, natural hospitality that you experience, without exception, throughout Italy, is, is mind blowing to me. I, I think it's It's a lesson we can all learn. It's, it is a cultural thing, you know, but the willingness to share the about getting people down. there, Not all countries are like that. You know, it's not always please come. I've always felt, familial amongst the chaos in Italy. I I love it. And I I thoroughly enjoy it. [00:36:00] the level of hospitality and how welcome, no matter how busy they are, how welcome you always feel in, in, in Italy. And that's, that's what, what drives that answer, certainly. It's a beautiful place to be. for me, you know, I, mentioned earlier, I get really excited. When people discover an experience, I get really proud of people, I really proud it clicks, when people walk in and they discover this is what graduate is, this, this is what they have set out to accomplish, and for me, that's a host, you know, same thing if, if the lights and the, aroma and the music and the design and the team that's proudly standing there providing what we've worked so hard to do, when it all comes together, I get, I, nothing gets me more excited and, you know, and I, I think we could all learn a lesson especially, you, you know, as we struggle with, you know, teams and labor and, you know, all of these things on the level of hospitality that just seems to be extremely, become extremely natural in Italy And I've always David Millili: [00:37:00] Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is where, Kevin, we'd like you to let people know how they can find Graduate, how they can get in touch with you. Plug away. Kevin Osterhaus: Sure, feel free to reach out to me directly, I, uh, graduatehotels. com, it's on there, and you know, feel free to track me down. Very excited, to have talked to you and appreciate the time today, this was fun, thank David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. Thank you for joining in and we hope to see you next time. Thank you.