Back for the first time in five years, conference explores how business should embrace social media.
It was hard to tell that it was the Hospitality & Travel Club’s first conference since Covid. The day-long event, titled the “Experience Economy Conference,” garnered over 200 registered attendees. In true fashion to the industry at hand, guests traveled from around the world to join panels that discussed topics ranging from luxury to innovation and food. One of the core themes that emerged across panels was a challenging question: what role should social media play as hospitality brands seek to grow their presence while maintaining an authentic experience?
The conference opened with a panel focused on luxury experience. Gonzalo Undurraga, CEO of Explora Hotels, has built a brand that operates immersive trips to unique remote locations. The goal of their trips is to allow guests to get to remote locations in order to gain “perspective where [they] can admire their life.” The brand has built itself around three core pillars: first, a warm host; secondly, a curious guide; and third, a “passionate guardian of unique territories.” The company is betting that this combination allows guests to be fully present in their immersive adventures. Undurraga remarked that “some [guests] come only for the picture and once they know the place deeper, they connect with their hearts and want to do something different” and, in some cases, are inspired to “change their habits” when they leave the Explora property.
Loisse Herger, Founder & CEO of O:Live Hotel Collection, was inspired by an aunt who previously ran a 24-room guesthouse. Herger now operates three hotels in Puerto Rico and one in Italy. Given the city-set locations in which they operate, O:Live prides itself on adapting their offerings to the local environment. They even have an “experience department” which focuses on understanding why their guests are traveling and connects them with local opportunities, such as through partnerships with “chefs who are popular in the land.” Herger explained that this makes guests “feel integrated into the community.” In a time where AI is the hot topic across industries, Herger explained how the company is implementing an AI test pilot which allows for the gathering of info on guests and their past experiences at O:Live, along with 24/7 sales.
Per Bjornsen, CEO of V.Ships Leisure, leaned into his nearly 30 years of experience in cruising, explaining that the luxury cruising concept has remained largely unchanged for years with the exception of larger ships. However, the space is becoming increasingly dynamic with large hospitality brands such as Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, and Accor entering the cruise article. Relatedly, in the Investing in Experience panel, Douglas Prothero, CEO of Lucida Luxury Maritime and Former CEO and Founder of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, shared that it is more expensive to build ships in the design of a “super yacht,” but such ships allow the cruise line to charge roughly double that of a traditional cruising experience.
When pitching the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection for investment, Prothero shared that it only took “two slides [to] get [the] conversation going: an image of a super yacht and the brand’s logo.” In the push for luxury ships, there is an increasing effort towards more space per passenger and unique ships. However, the ability to quickly fulfill these requests is a challenge. Prothero explained that at present, a cruise line cannot get a new ship delivery slot until 2032. After all, cruising is roaring, with 2024 exceeding previously-record 2019 performance for most cruise lines – and the year isn’t even quite done yet.
In true business school fashion, investment returns and macroeconomic conditions were discussed. Steven Siegel, Partner & COO of KSL Capital Partners, shared the three questions that KSL asks themselves when considering new investments: first, do we think we can make money on this investment? Secondly, does the investment fit within our travel/leisure mandate? Third, do we think we or the management team can operate it better than the previous management team? Siegel remarked that after launching a new hotel, you “never expect to close it.” However, post-Covid, we now know that travel “can be taken away.”
The current landscape around spending on experiences shows no signs of slowing down, although it is hard to pinpoint exact numbers when so many variables are in play. Gabe Schwartz of Kent Hospitality Group revealed that there is increased spending per guest across their restaurants, but it is hard to know if this is due to increased demand or inflationary conditions. Relatedly, Schwartz stressed that a slowdown in inflation would be a “huge win for business.” That said, the drinks – both alcoholic and non-alcoholic – keep flowing across Kent restaurants and they are currently working towards capturing the opportunity to build a large-scale hospitality platform. Ryan Fiedler, also from Kent, shared that there is an important question in the food industry: “how do you get a chef to be in the numbers?”
An interesting juxtaposition presented itself on the Innovation in Experience Panel. Sarah Phelps, Director of Astronaut and Customer Experience at Blue Origin, shared how they work to provide a truly extraterrestrial experience for the six trips per year they run. Meanwhile, Jeff Voris, SVP of Innovation & Experience Design at Marriott, explained how they focus on maintaining service quality to the guests who stay over 257 million room nights annually. Voris shared that while technology can be an enabler, what really matters at the end of the day is service. Phelps also stressed the importance of service, which starts well before getting ready for takeoff. While the crew for each space trip – which lasts all of 11 minutes – do not meet in person until a couple days before takeoff, they meet online a few months before arriving at the site. Blue Origin is continually meeting one-on-one online with their tourist astronauts up to their arrival at the launch site.
The third panelist on the Innovation in Experience Panel was in-between the customer scale of Blue Origin and Marriott. Tom Marchant, Co-Founder of Black Tomato, serves 10,000 customers per year. They provide a 21 question guide for touring around a city and Marchant shared they have found that “this ‘get lost’ proposition [has become] a wellness proposition.” In the process, Black Tomato helps people put the camera down and build an experience that is all about “the exclusivity to the individual.”
The social media talk did not stop. Carmen Morrell, Chief of Operations at the Museum of Ice Cream, shared that her brand has achieved an impressive metric: the “most Instagrammed experience per square foot in the world.” There is a real tension they are facing: Instagram is the driver of so much traffic at virtually no marketing cost, yet the brand wants visitors to be present in the experience. To this end, they have established “free ticketed events for no phone days.” In other words, free ice cream awaits you if you do not take a photo. This social media tension will be a core emphasis as the brand continues their expansion beyond their current five locations in the US and Singapore.
The Hospitality & Travel Club, led by Co-Presidents Alexander Iley (MBA ’25) and Beatriz Gorostiaga Zubizarreta (MBA ’25) and CFO Michael Baldyga (MBA ’25), were thrilled with the outcome of the conference. Iley shared, “we’re delighted to have had such a fantastic turn out for the club’s first conference in five years, it was a testament to the monumental effort by the whole team to bring the conference to life and we’re immensely grateful to all the exceptional speakers who shared their valuable insights on the day.”
Gorostiaga Zubizarreta shared, “from luxury travel to innovation… our panels were a true testament to the creativity, passion and potential within the experience economy.” Iley quipped: “I’m sure cruise ships were mentioned more times in Klarman Hall today than ever before!” By virtue of their months of planning, the Travel & Hospitality Club leadership team has laid the framework to allow the conference to set sail for another voyage next year.
Chuck Isgar (MBA ’25) loves all things startups. He created and runs Above Board, a weekly newsletter which features Q&A's with investors and founders about startup investment, board management, and corporate governance. Most recently, he served as the Chief of Staff at Scenery, a Series A-stage startup backed by investors such as Greylock. Previously, he was a Schwarzman Scholar where he earned a Master in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Chuck co-founded and was the CEO of Intern From Home, a recruiting technology startup that served students from over 600 colleges and was featured in publications such as The New York Times. Chuck earned his bachelor’s from Brown University, where he served as the Co-President of the Brown Entrepreneurship Program. He loves to golf, cook, and go on long walks.
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