The Power of Hospitality

Happy New Year, friends!

Tomorrow, we’ll return to short podcast summaries, but today, I want to share one more reflection on why hospitality matters as we head into 2025.

I am more convinced than ever of the power of hospitality to improve our lives and communities.

This past year, I've been working on a book about the impact of hospitality on our personal lives, often ending my interviews by asking guests about this. What I heard was incredible. Story after story about how working in the business of hospitality changed them and helped them show up more thoughtfully for their families, friends, and communities.

Hospitality has to be felt personally before you can provide it well. I'm experiencing this now as I’m writing this while staying with family in Colorado, providing my wife and me with hospitality that frankly feels better than any hotel we’ve stayed at. Feeling this inspires me to do my part in making hospitality better professionally. I hope you've had the chance to experience that kind of hospitality this holiday season, too.

Outside of the holidays, showing hospitality personally looked like a few different ways this year:

I got to host my dad for a week in San Francisco for the first time, taking him around and showing him all my favorite spots.

Usually, when I'm with him, other family members are there too, but having that one-on-one time to share why I love this city was really special. When I think about it, that's exactly what we want when staying at a hotel - having someone share what's special and personal to them.

It’s true on a bigger scale, too. In the weeks around the US election, I spent time with people across the political spectrum and saw everything from anxiety to happiness and every emotion in between. What was really cool was talking with all those people about how hospitality can bring people together. No matter where we are politically, hospitality can be a unifying factor.

I also started helping my church host homeless families for breakfast. My work there is just setting up chairs and tables - something anybody could do - but I see the power of bringing people together. There’s nothing I’ve done this past year that’s felt so meaningful.

My takeaway from all of these experiences? Yes, we want to get better at providing hospitality professionally, but we need to start by providing - and experiencing - it personally.

The power of hospitality is clear if we zoom out a bit as well. I see a huge opportunity for hospitality in communities in 2025 and beyond.

After interviewing several destination marketing leaders, including CEOs of Visit Napa Valley and San Francisco Travel, I saw how travel can drive financial outcomes that benefit everyone. It improves quality of life and brings vibrancy to our neighborhoods, cities, and regions. As someone who cares deeply about San Francisco, I'm focused on how hospitality can help bring this city back to life and keep growing.

And then there's the business of hospitality.

Hospitality has the power to be the most meaningful and rewarding work we can do. I shared specific opportunities in yesterday's post, but I'm more convinced than ever that there's no better place to work than hospitality as we head into 2025.

Jason Himber talks about hospitality as an "opportunity escalator" where anyone can start and accelerate their career - it’s unlike any other business.

Of course, it takes leadership to realize the potential. I think about Kara Bartelt at Hoxton LA; she's not just training her team but also helping them train others.

Operating this way has cascading benefits for individual people, teams, and businesses.

And this is what fascinates me about the business of hospitality: how many elements and opportunities there are to innovate and improve.

This past Monday, Zach Demuth (who leads JLL's global hotels research team) talked about why there's so much investor interest in hotels - it's because of the dynamic nature of this business. There are so many areas to apply creativity and innovation to stand out, serve people, and make money doing it.

So why does this all matter heading into 2025?

Hospitality makes lives better, communities better, and businesses better. There's no more interesting place to work with so much potential to learn, grow, and innovate.

I’m excited about what we can do with hospitality in the year ahead, and I am cheering you on as you live this out in every area of your life.

A few final things:

• If you have any thoughts, ideas, questions, or suggestions for Hospitality Daily, please reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you!

• If you have something that would benefit the hospitality professionals who read, listen to, and watch Hospitality Daily, let’s work together to help you help more people.

Thank you for reading.

-Josiah