Red Roof at AAHOACON: Growth Strategy, RIDE, and Franchise Support

Speaker 1: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. It’s your hospitality friend Glenn with my good friend Matt Hostetler, chief development officer of the one and only red roof right over here. We’re at AOA 2026. I want to thank the good friends at Oho for being here. How you doing, buddy? I’m doing awesome. Great to see you. Great to see you. This is one of the most action packed high energy events of the year. How are you thinking about AOA generally? Well, we always look forward to Hohocon every year. I mean this is an event, you know, AOA and a la there’s two of those organizations that bring everybody in the industry together. And when we think about a hohocon, we think about it as the biggest event, a hohocon. It’s like our Super Bowl. So it brings all of our franchisees, our partners, all of these hospitality industry professionals together, all in one space here in Philadelphia. And Glenn, what’s crazy about this, in 2014, when I joined Red roof, right? It was here in Philadelphia. That’s pretty awesome. Awesome. Yeah, I think I’m excited. I think I’m still working off a steak sandwich I had in 2014, but I’ll tell you. So outside your conference that you have every other year. This is really a big place for you to set the strategy. Tell people what’s up. How are you thinking about 2026? You know, we’re thinking we’re always thinking about growth. You know me. I mean, as the chief development officer you got to bring units in, right? So we were very privileged to have a great group.

Speaker 1: [00:01:18] We have a great brand. It’s all going in the right direction. We have a great franchisee base as well. So we’re out building our strategy around our current franchisees who like to do more than just one. We’re looking at all the right opportunities in the right markets to continue to grow and provide the right quality services. We have the whole team here. That’s right. And it’s, it’s huge. You can’t see it right now, but there, this booth is absolutely filled with people. But I love what you said about people getting engaged with the Red roof family and then doing multiple units, which is such an important strategy for you. But it’s also important to bring new folks into the fold. And I think you’ve been doing a great job with your ride initiative in order to be able to do that. Absolutely. You know, and shout out to Lina. About three years ago, Lina Patel joined our team here on the development side. And we we put together the strategy road to inclusivity, diversity and entrepreneurship. And we partnered with our she leads and we rebranded that. We’re very excited to say that we have over 40 women or underserved folks in our, in our on our Ride program last year, Lena brought in what we call six new riders. That’s amazing. So what we do with them is we, you know, we’re, we, we do the handholding and bring them through the whole process lending if there need to be connected with construction, our team is here to serve.

Speaker 1: [00:02:35] That’s why you franchise, right? Yeah. And I’m telling you, man, because one of the things like if I was ever to invest, I’m going through this with a book project that I’m working on. It’s like, you don’t know what you don’t know. Right? And it could be really intimidating and prevent you from making decisions that are going to help your career and your family. And I love that you’re really able to handhold them and give them the encouragement they need to be successful on their own. Absolutely. And we’re very excited about how the program has grown. You know, being out there, we’ve been in the press and we’re just so excited about the results. And we’re looking forward to growing, growing even more and being one of the best, one of the best, if not the best platform out there for underserved markets. That’s awesome. All right. So I’m a little stressed out. I know I look like I’m pretty good, but I’m a little stressed always like this. I know, but I’m like those of you who talk to me off air, know that I’ve been internalizing a lot of negativity about the state of the economy and what that how that’s going to affect all of us. And I know you guys have been thinking about that as well. How are you thinking about being there for these folks as stuff kind of turns not great on them? Well, well, you know, internally we’ve always worked to be the franchisor for the franchisee.

Speaker 1: [00:03:40] And what does that mean? What that means is you have to implement initiatives and programs and products and technology that are gonna are gonna they’re obviously going to have a cost, but maybe not to the franchisee. They may eliminate a cost. So we’ve been working very hard at finding technology that does eliminate that. That’s funny because I was just going to say that because it’s like it’s not good enough to just lower costs or change programs. That hurts the bottom line and the business at your business. At the end of the day, you need to find ways in order to help everyone move forward together, right? Got a great partnership with companies like Hotel Key, Hotel Key Sojourn. You know, in stay, we have tested room, you know, text, text to desk. Yeah. That’s a tongue twister. Yeah. You know, and it’s been that’s why I’m not going to say it. Right? And we, and we, we you know, we redid our app and we have 65% increase in revenues over last year. I mean, that’s a huge number from our app growth, right? So we’re very excited about that. I’m excited about that too, because like, I, I’m kind of overamped myself. So it’s great to see that people are really embracing it and booking your rooms. Absolutely. And you know, we’ve, we’ve also engaged with Zeta Global.

Speaker 1: [00:04:50] Yeah. Ai working with our marketing and helping convert guests into, convert opportunities into guests stays. So the, the, that’s just been watching it morph into something excellent is, is great. And it drives revenue to them, to the franchisees. So, you know, and again, we want to eliminate fees and drop more to the bottom line. That’s a that’s awesome. So let me wrap up with you on this one. Any final thoughts about being here, being amongst all of our great friends and people? I will just tell you this, Glenn, it is always great when when we walk the show early on. My greatest Stephanie with me, we always walk the show and time how long it takes to get everywhere. And it’s amazing how many times she has to stop the clock because I get to see people along the way. It’s funny you should say actually get places you can’t get anywhere. That’s why your booth is right next to the entrance door. Absolutely. That’s strategic alone, right? So we’re very we’re very happy to see we see so many old friends so many great customers. You know, our friends, our counterparts, even our competitors in the business. It’s great to be together and just continue the celebration of hospitality. That’s great. Well, congratulations on everything you’re doing. Thank you. And bringing so many more people along for the ride. Yes, I just thought of that. Like share, subscribe. That’s Matt, I’m Glenn red roof Franchising.com. See you all later. Bye.