Outrigger Is Reinventing Its Hotels. Here’s the Strategy.

Glenn: [00:00:01] Hey, everybody. It’s a hospitality friend. Glenn, here on the floor of the lodging conference where I found my friend Jeff Wagoner.President & Chief Executive Officer at Outrigger Hospitality Group. But first, I want to thank my my sponsors Unifocus workflow management redefined. Do me a favor, check them out unifocus.com. Not only is he CEO of Outrigger, but CEO of the year from Hawaii, I. I’m following the social media.

Jeff: [00:00:23] Congratulations. Thank you so much, Glenn. You know, it’s it’s awesome. You know, but we have such an incredible team at the at outrigger I love it. You know, they’re so good. They’re they’re amazing. It’s all a team effort to be able to get something like that.

Glenn: [00:00:36] Well congratulations. I know you put a lot of work in. I followed your career. So I’m just so happy for you. Thank you. So big congratulations. Also, congratulations. You guys have been really doing incredible portfolio refresh reimagining, bringing the brand into the modern era. You’re wrapping up. Tell me a little bit about what’s going on. You said some big numbers. I want you to say I don’t want to steal your thunder.

Jeff: [00:00:57] So we yeah, two of our innovations we’re finishing up right now. Our outrigger peepee Island in Thailand is finishing up this month and our Kauai properties finishing up this month as well. We’re also renovating the Outrigger Waikiki. We’re spending $100 million dollars on that property. It’s amazing. Started on January the 5th. We’re going to finish at the end of the year. The entire property. Literally all the way down to the concrete.

Glenn: [00:01:20] Wow. Renovating. That’s a that’s pretty impressive to be able to get that done. And that’s probably that efficiency, probably, even though you spend $100 million, would have probably cost a lot more if it went on even longer.

Jeff: [00:01:30] I think so. I think our team did a really great job to be able to prepare. We used interior design firm Power Strip out of California, did a fantastic job. Got great contractors in Hawaii. So they’re doing a super job for us.

Glenn: [00:01:43] Awesome. So tell me a little bit about what this means for the company, where you’re going and how this informs you of your future strategy.

Jeff: [00:01:49] Yeah, Glenn, it’s really transformational. You know, every single property has been touched and renovated in some way. So we’re excited to be able to not only have these renovated properties, but to relaunch the brand. You’re able to now take these really improved assets and relaunch what outrigger really is. So we’re excited to be able to do that. We’ve got a new marketing agency coming on a new PR firm to assist us as well. I think you’ll see a new voice coming out of outrigger soon. So you have a new voice. What is the customer that you think is going to best respond to what you are today. You know, the the brand is very authentic and it’s authentic in a way that that truly is real. It’s about each property being curated in its own right based on what happened on that land, what happened with the people there, what happened in that particular locale. So to me, it’s exciting to be able to go in and look at the art that we’ve been able to put in. We’re using recycled materials, we’re using rope pulled out of the ocean, different things that are very unique, and they tell a story about the company as well as what’s going on in Hawaii. Yeah.

Glenn: [00:02:54] And I think that makes that’s what people are really looking for, that authentic feeling, that connection to nature. And it sounds like you’re, you’re bringing that type of design in. I saw some of the pictures. They look absolutely gorgeous, I should say. So that’s really, really awesome. Now, last year when we were here, we had an interesting conversation. And I still remember it because you were the first one to really tell me about how people are going to be booking differently with AI and stuff like that. So I was curious as to a year later, how are you thinking about the consumer side of connecting with your brand in that mechanism?

Jeff: [00:03:25] Yeah. You know, you think about what’s happened since then. Yeah. Before when we were talking about it, we said That the AI environment was using Wikipedia to be able to render something back. Now you’ve got Reddit on the scene, but it is being used to be able to render things back. That’s going to continue to evolve and you have to stay in front of it. So I think every company out there right now has people that are specifically working on what’s the evolution of AI that we do as well, and hopefully we can all stay in front of it.

Glenn: [00:03:53] How do you, when you say stay in front of it, how do you know what the front is going to be? Right?

Jeff: [00:03:57] You know, we’re all I think we’re not AI experts yet.

Glenn: [00:04:01] No, I don’t think anyone is.

Jeff: [00:04:03] But there’s a lot of people out there who are jumping into that with both feet to be able to help support. So you can see directionally where things are going and you’ve got to follow those trends, but you’ve got to get there very quickly.

Glenn: [00:04:13] Yeah. Awesome. Anything else that you wanna add?

Jeff: [00:04:16] No. I’m excited to be here in Phoenix. The lodging conference is such a great conference. So Harry and the team do such a great job.

Glenn: [00:04:22] Yeah. And I’m gonna try to. I’m pulling it all out with AI sound, but there’s a there’s a lot of noise going on with that Atari talking right now. So if anything’s wrong with this video, his fault, not ours. He’s. Jeff. I’m Glenn. Thanks for watching. Check out our friends over at Unit Focus CEO of the year over here. See you later everybody.

Jeff: [00:04:40] And thank you brother. Appreciate.