In this episode, Alexi Khajavi, President of Hospitality, Travel & Wellness at Questex, joins the Suite Spot to give listeners a preview of the upcoming NYU IHIF 2025 event taking place in New York City on June 1-June 3, 2025. 

This industry event is one of the most elite hospitality investment forums in the world, so tune in to find out why you should attend and get your finger on the pulse of hospitality.

Ryan Embree:
Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining me. We’ve got an incredible, amazing episode with a very familiar face. If you’re watching us and subscribed to our Travel Media Group YouTube channel or hearing us on any of the streaming platforms. That’s Alexi Kajavi, Questex President, hospitality Travel and Wellness. Alexi, thank you so much for being back on the Suite Spot.

Alexi Khajavi :
Ryan, good to be here. Nice to see you.

Ryan Embree:
We almost have to credit you now as a co-host. You’ve been with us so many times. We’ve got even though it’s a familiar face, a new topic, which we’re gonna go get into. You’ve been on the Suite Spot before. We’ve had a couple conversations talking about your hospitality journey, some of the mentors along the way. I figured we’d start out today talking about your role. I see you, follow you on LinkedIn, your jet setting, all over the place, thought leadership everywhere. It’s gotta be pretty cool in that position. Give us a day in the life of your position and what you do.

Alexi Khajavi :
So Questex is a medium sized information services company. We’re B2B media at our core. We inform and we connect buyers and sellers, professionals across six industries. So the three that you mentioned, hospitality, travel, and wellness, are the markets that I have the privilege of running. And then I’ve got a counterpart that runs our life sciences, healthcare and technology. And we do that by publishing, daily editorial, writing about the industries, the trends, the topics we research. We have over 6 million first party data records. So these are individuals, names, titles, emails, contact information, but also really more importantly, their demographics and their behavioral, information. So what content they read, what are they engaging with, what are the premium pieces of content or research that they’re downloading. And we use all of that to inform us as to what are the trends and topics that are impacting that industry, or different segments or categories of businesses within a vertical. And then we use that in turn to develop our programs at our events, to develop our content strategy, whether that be in digital or print. And we then work with the brands, the sellers in those industries to connect with those buyers. So, you know, prime example in hospitality would be investors are, you know, looking for, you know, enhanced guest experiences. So what are the technologies and the solutions in, in hotels that can do that? We’ll position those brands specifically to buyers with buyers intent in the marketplace, looking for things like that. So that’s what we do, and it’s a really incredible industry to be in, and very exciting. And at our core, it’s a noble pursuit of informing and connecting professionals in these industries.

Ryan Embree:
Well, I’m sure, Alexi, you have a very unique perspective, getting to see really a 360 view of travel, hospitality, and wellness between all the data, the conversations that you’re having with you know, some of these buyers and sellers. And that’s really, is a great segue into what we’re gonna talk about today. ’cause we’re gonna turn our attention to the NYU IHIF event. Questex got involved with this event recently. You just preached the importance of using feedback and data. I’m curious, and we’ve talked about on the hospitality show, how crucial that was and creating programming. What are some of the feedback that you’re hearing about this particular event in NYU IHIF and how have you incorporated that into this year’s event?

Alexi Khajavi :
Yeah, so we acquired the NYU event two years ago. It was started and owned by New York University, and specifically the School of Professional Studies and of Hospitality, the John Tisch School. We were privileged to be able to acquire it. We still partner with NYU and we still every year support scholarships for students to attend the school, which then become, the future leaders of hospitality. So, we’re very privileged and very proud to be able to one, to acquire the asset, 40-year-old asset, iconic brand within hospitality investment, you know, one of the oldest, and most well known both here in the US domestically as well as internationally, but also really delighted that we can still support the students. So everybody that it, that supports NYU in turn, you know, is really supporting those future leaders of the industry, which is critical to the vertical and to the sector overall. What’s interesting about that, to answer your question specifically, Ryan, is, we have an advisory board in each of our events, and these are made up of the key supporters and key deal makers and you know, needle movers in the respective industries. So those are made up of top brands from Acord to Marriott, Hilton, Proskauer, CBRE, Colliers and the like, but also investors from the likes of Blackstone, Brookfield, KKR, KSL, so forth and so on. So these are individuals that give their own time to really help us shape the program and understand what are those trends and topics. This year specifically, it’s really interesting. I mean, the market’s in an interesting spot. I mean, the last three years of operating performance have been incredible. I mean, absolutely lofty RevPars, ADRs, and occupancies. And in the last sort of 12 to 18 months, it’s actually been firing on all cylinders, both on the leisure side, which was the first market to come back since Covid or even during Covid. Business, corporate and MICE has really been popular part in more, in some markets more than others. But, you know, this idea that corporate, you know, 50% of corporate travel will never come back according to Bill Gates. Well, he got that one wrong. It’s come back and it’s, it’s come back in, in just massively, robust in more in markets that were obviously popular pre covid that are outperforming, pre covid levels for the last, two years and so forth. So the market has been performing well on an operating level, but with the increase of interest rates, and because of that operating performance, sellers have been less inclined to sell. And if they are inclined to sell, the valuations on those properties have been higher than what buyers are willing to acquire those assets at the real challenge, in addition to the valuation have been the interest rates. So, debt is still it’s more expensive. It’s two to three times more expensive than it was pre covid. Now you could argue 0% interest rates are not a sustainable nor long-term model. So a bit of that was bound to change. But the interest rates have really put a dent on the marketplace of transactions. And it’s also increased the LTVs. So, you used to be able to get 60/40 you know, now you’re having to put in equity of, 70% depending on the quality of the sponsor. So it’s just become more difficult to get deals done. And that buy sell gap is certainly still wide. So the transaction market’s been quite muted, albeit there’s, according to data and research, around $300 billion of dry powder sitting on the sidelines, specifically geared towards real estate. And much of that is attracted to hospitality. Hospitality used to be less than 10% of an overall investment mandate, but now, because you can reprice a room on a nightly basis, it’s a hedge against inflation. And it’s also seen as being a long-term sort of securitized asset for sovereign wealth and family offices and so forth. So it’s a very attractive asset class. So two things that we’ve seen in that sort of contextual environment. One is that new exciting concepts like glamping and not necessarily service departs, but like this version of hostels and luxury apartments, branded Rezy, new concepts around popups or that are, you know, for concerts or these Coachellas and things like that. So there’s a lot of new hotel concepts that are out there that are, that are very interesting. You’re seeing alternative accommodations actually even be picked up by some of the major brands, which is exciting. So there’s a focus not just on a building with beds and maybe a restaurant, but it’s more of your outdoor, more of your experiential more of your combining the experience with a bed or a sleepy experience. So a lot of different ideas around that, frankly, sleep in and of itself is having a resurgence. So it’s not just the old mattress competition of 20 years ago, but it’s about, how do you best provide an environment for good sleep and REM. So there’s a lot of interesting M&A concepts around alternative combinations. And then the other bit is debt. I mean, just as a refinance. So rather than necessarily focusing on just purely transactions, there’s a lot of conversation about refinance and debt and how you use both private capital and, sorry, private, debt and retail debt, your retail banks and so forth to recapitalize with over a trillion dollars of CMBS loans coming to maturity in the near term. So we’re focusing a lot on debt. We’re focusing a lot on alternative co accommodations, and we’re focusing a lot on, on what’s called asset management, which is how do you run your hotels more profitably, which is becoming increasingly more complex. Now, there’s always major deals that are announced, and this is a relationship based industry. A hotel is not traded on an Amazon like platform. So at the end of the day, building those relationships, nurturing those relationships and making sure you get face to face at NYU will always be a cornerstone to the experience and to the value that it delivers.

Ryan Embree:
Well, that was gonna be one of my points, Alexi, is, it’s an event like this, you were talking about the buyer seller gap, right now. It’s events like this that really shrink that, and this is how deals get across the finish line is face-to-face. Of course when it’s buyer and seller’s market, you do not necessarily need these types of events, but the relationship building that you’re talking about is the cornerstone when things get really tight between both sides. And albeit with operational costs going up, construction costs going up in some, in some markets in some ways. So, a lot of fascinating things. Love the ingenious ways, like you said, that brands and developers are really capitalizing on some of these, these trends. And personalization is nothing. I mean, we’ve been hearing that in our industry now for like five to seven years, right? How can we get more experiential personalization? These are all the hot keywords. So to be able to go down this route, I think this, sometimes this ingenuity is born from times like this and where these people are really trying to get creative. I’ve looked at the NYU IHIF agenda/schedule. It is a powerhouse. Congrats to you and your team for building this. And I’ve always loved the intentionality of your programming. You kind of gave us a behind the scenes look of what it all takes, all the data, all the feedback and advisory board comments and feedback that you’re hearing. Give our audience a little bit of sneak peek of how you build out a conference agenda like this and, and maybe some of the things that you’re most excited about seeing.

Alexi Khajavi :
Well, again, the advisory board’s really critical to it. But we publish every day and we monitor what people read from our newsletters and on our websites, and then we also compare that to the wider web that’s anonymized, but we know first party data that investors are reading these types of stories. Lenders are reading those types of stories and brokers. And so we really, we have a huge amount of data in our data lake. And then our data teams provide the markets, in this case, the hospitality market, which is an incredible amount of insights, well, let me say, they provide us with an incredible amount of data, which then be based on our market knowledge in market. We’re able to turn into insights. So we really use that to put some things out. We will into the editorial. So we’ll try for example, we will try a story on Asian capital coming into the us There was a story on will sovereign wealth return in large form to the US into the European markets. Some of that was based off of what we had seen perform well. We put out editorial on that and measured its performance indexed against average page views and engagement and time on site. And it significantly outperformed. So that became a session, right? So it’s part art by the individuals. We have about 70 some odd people dedicated purely to hospitality at Questex. And they range from sales, marketing, content, conference producers, creative, and leadership. These are individuals that work in the industry, breathe the industry, and have deep relationships in the industry. So they’ve got this market knowledge. But when we combine that with the data that we get from our central service team, our audience team, our content teams, and our our insights team, it then becomes that special alchemy. And we get things, I’d say more right than wrong, hopefully. And, and thankfully not to say that we don’t get things wrong. And I think that that’s actually part of the kind of Questex DNA as well, is we’re very entrepreneurial and we love what we do, and we love the markets we serve. And we also respect the fact that five people speaking on stage in a panel moderated by another person is not how everybody learns. And it’s frankly not how everybody wants to learn these days. So we try and be really creative with the types of formats that we deliver and that we put up there on stage. Some of them are small boardrooms, just a small round table, you know, where we create kind of a more of a participatory back and forth type relationship or conversation. You know, we get it right. We sometimes get it wrong. To your question about what am I most excited about this year, we’re bringing a session that we’ve had in there’s two sessions I’m really excited about. So for everybody that’s at NYU in June, don’t miss this. So one is, we’ve had this session called Capital Talks in Europe at our IHIF, AMEA show, which is in Berlin 26 years. It is the event in Europe. It’s happening on March 31st, 1st of April and 2nd of April. And it is, it is purely of investors. So we will bring up all of the most active investors in, in hospitality. We’ll also combine that with the LPs, meaning the funds of funds, why are they attracted to investors or to hotel investment and funds that are geared towards hospitality. That’s moderated this year by Colliers, by Mark Owens. And it’s gonna be a great session because it is truly just a group of capital on stage that you don’t often hear, sort of, you see the CEOs all together, but this is all of the biggest players in capital and capital allocation and hospitality. So that if you wanna kind of just in a 30, 40 minute window, literally put your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the capital markets of hospitality, that’s the one. Capital Talks – NYU, do not miss it. And for those of you guys that are coming to Berlin, it’s also in Berlin, you’ll get a European perspective on it. So that’s a really love that session. We’ve got some incredible speakers on it. Second one that I would argue at NYU is the CEO panel.

Alexi Khajavi :
It’s really the only CEO panel that we still do. We’ve broken up the CEO panel in our other events in Asia and in Europe, and most of them are kinda one-on-ones. But NYC it’s moderated by Sarah Eisen, who is the broadcast journalist for CNBC. And she’s the one that’s reporting on the public markets and the equities and stocks and so forth. And they all have a very special relationship with Sarah because they often, during NYU will go down to Wall Street and have an interview about the share price. And so you have all of the top CEOs on stage at the same time. And it’s kind of like getting all of the all stars from the different teams on one stage and kind of talk about the game of hotels. They’re all on their own respective teams, and yet there’s this sort of collegial, but yet competitive spirit amongst themselves. And you see some trading of jokes and barbs a little bit. You see who’s agreeing with whom you see the European perspective in Sebastian Bason of Accor. You see the pure franchise perspective of Geoff Balloti of Wyndham. You see the very thoughtful, sort of almost analytical process of Chris. And you see obviously the scale of Tony at Marriott, that’s almost a fascinating thing. And if you’re, I guess if you’re a hospitality geek like I am, it’s just kind of, it’s kind of cool to see the goats all up there talking about the industry. So I like that one very much.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so cool. And, you know, to your first point, it was fascinating to hear the science behind that intentional programming. Again, trying things out. I wish hospitality, you know, in general, we’re constantly getting feedback. We’re constantly getting data from our customers, from our guests and your fresh perspective. I try to preach this as much as I can about embracing that feedback, no matter if it’s positive or negative, because it can lead you to a place that you didn’t, trying things out new, right? Trying even as simple as trying an exchanging a breakfast item for this or that, and then kind of putting your ear to the ground and saying, alright, what did that change make? Or something maybe a little bit more like a capital renovation or something like that’s really gonna have an impact on your property or portfolio. So again, very refreshing perspective to hear you embrace that feedback. And I really hope some of our hotel audience, even though it’s hard to hear sometimes, especially when it’s our personal business or we’re hosting someone, you know, kind of hears that feedback and implements it into the guest experience, hotel experience, those sessions sound absolutely amazing. That panel, that CEO panel, it is interesting because the biggest, when I attend the shows, you really can tell those overarching trends by what everyone on stage is typically agreeing or even talking about or rolling out from their brands. So to get one session where you could have a common, it’s been AI and technology in our industry for the last couple years, recovery a couple years before that, and see kind of the different paths or maybe strategies that these brands are taking without giving any secrets away. It’s always kind of like a little chess game. And we’ll be super interesting to see. ’cause typically you get them a little bit more separated in those other events. You don’t have a full panel of CEOs. So really looking forward to that. NYU IHIF event will be held June 1st to June 3rd at the Marriott, Marques, New York City, New York. I mean, in the heart of everything, what makes this the perfect location for this event?

Alexi Khajavi :
Yeah, there’s no question it is the perfect location for the event, and it is the proper location to have a hotel investment forum. If you were to think, frankly, globally, where would you put a hotel investment forum? I think there’s no other place. I mean, it would have to be top three and it would be my number one. New York City is the financial capital of the world. It’s the gateway to the American market, which is the largest hotel market in the world, and it’s one of the most iconic travel, recreation, and tourist destinations in the world as well. So from those three components, box is checked. I mean, there’s no better place to have an event. You’ve got Wall Street just downtown 20 minutes a ride. And if you’re willing to take the subway more like 15 or 10, although the congestion law that’s come into effect has really improved the above ground movement in the city here. But that being said, New York has performed extremely well. And when you think about five years ago, today, March of 2020, the city was absolutely shut down. It was just, I mean, it was hard to even think about. I mean, Times Square was empty, not a car, not a not a person in sight. And five years later, I mean, you’ve got occupancies and, and ADRs and RevPars that are just world leading, their eye watering. And so, for us to be able to have NYU IHIF in that market and for individuals like, David Solomon or Jamie Diamond, or John Gray from Blackstone, Robert De Niro from Nobu, and of course, all the Martin Scorsese greatest movement, to just be able to come down the street and literally just kind of show up, George Stephanopoulos, I mean, I could go on and on and on, but it’s also, everybody wants to come in to the city at that point, both from Europe as well as the us Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, because it is the capital of the financial markets largest gateway city to the largest hotel market in the world. And it’s a great town to spend time in. So we we’re very blessed to have it in the city. Marriott Marquee right in Times Square, centrally located, gives us the space and the opportunity to host 2,500 of the best and the brightest in the industry. And look, I mean, it’s really in this industry, deals get done by those that are in the room. And if you’re not in the room, then you’re not at the table and you’re not the one that are making deals. And I know that sounds maybe crass or somewhat brutish, but the reality is, is that most of the people come every year. We’re fortunate by that, but we get about 40% that come new every year. And since we’ve owned it, we’ve got a lot more European, Asian and Middle Eastern participation than it did in years past, because we have that database. So it’s a very diverse audience. There’s a lot of capital that are chasing deals and New York has been active, right? There have been some deals of significant size, and of course, small to medium size, depending on what you call that. But deals are happening in the city, but also it’s a market and a platform for the rest of the country as well. So it’ll be a diverse area gathering this year and New York City, we’ve got some fun planned, we’ve got an offsite reception, we’ve got some incredible speakers. And it’s also just very fun because you don’t have to walk very far to bump into someone that is either buying a hotel, selling a hotel, or pitching a platform concept, or looking to partner on a platform concept, all tranches of architecture, design, technology, brokerage, professional services, debt and equity that are there in full force. So if you’re in hospitality and you’re not in the Marriott Marquee on the 1st and 2nd of June, I’d really ask, \are you in hospitality?

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, I mean, you gotta be in the room, like you said, and Alexi’s point about that powder keg. The appetite is there, and you just have to be in the room like you said. So, you know, and I want to kind of speak to that because obviously we’ve talked about it before. There is a component there of deals getting done or across the finish line with face-to-face. I think we wouldn’t argue with that. How do you balance that in an event like this and making sure that there’s networking time so deals can get done, but also providing value, educational value, and some of these amazing round tables that you set up, like the CEO panel and capital panel that you were talking about.

Alexi Khajavi :
Well, the reality is that we know that the senior decision makers that are there in full force, I mean, they’re not, they’re seeing one session, maybe two or three at the max. Some are not seeing any, they may participate as a speaker or a panelist on one. But then they’re in meetings, right? They’re getting deals done, and they’re in the meeting rooms, they’re in the suites upstairs and they’re in all the sort of various networking sessions that we do. So we incorporate a lot of networking, and we provide a lot of F&B in a lot of areas to network. This year we are taking on the entire Broadway lounge, which is the lounge that sits over Time Square, a lot of seating. We’re turning that into another, an enhanced meeting area. So giving people a lot of space to sit down, do deals, talk, build relationships, nurture existing ones and so forth. So we absolutely don’t expect, and nor frankly see, the seniority of that audience attending all the sessions, but we know that there’s one or two or three that are critical to their business. And what we try to do is we try to really challenge the orthodoxies in the industry. To your point, you said that there is a lot of agreement. Well, we try and actually find different points of view. We try and find some perspective contrarian perspectives on each of the panel, and we always include equity on nearly every panel. There’s a few that we don’t and specifically built that way, but we really want to get to the core of who owns the asset and what’s their perspective on said topic. We then do a young professional at an under 30 in the industry, and we give them a highly discounted rate because those are actually the individuals that get most of the value out of the education. So we’re big believers in fostering, nurturing, and supporting the next generation of hospitality professionals. We certainly do that, every dollar you spend at NYU IHIF goes to supporting the scholarship fund. So that’s kind of one thing. But then there’s all the businesses, sponsors and others in the industry that maybe wanna send a couple of their junior colleagues to the event, one to take notes and provide sort of a post-event brief or synopsis to their teams. That’s a great thing. We’ve seen a lot of that happen, or for certainly their own education. So we give them a highly discounted rate to be able to bring their junior colleagues, give them the opportunity to hobnob and, and be cheek to jow with some of the best and the brightest, but also go to those sessions that are gonna help them educate themselves.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, it’s so great. And I was going to say, to your first point, I was gonna say, it’s always a good sign when someone running a conference says, we’re expanding for more networking and deal making. That typically means something is going right and going well and that appetite is there. But it’s so important what you said about younger professionals, we’ve had a staffing shortage over the last few years. So to be able to get more exposure so that people because we’ve talked about it on this podcast, about the mentors, the people that guided us in our hospitality journey. If we can create more of those to be mentors for young professionals coming out of the College of Hospitality for NYU, for example, you know, at the Suite Spot, we did a Hospitality Campus Crawl series last year, going to some of those universities. So the more we can nurture that, the more we can create paths, share stories, just the more positive effect it’s gonna have on our industry as a whole. One of the most fascinating things that, that I’ve learned since doing this is, again, everything, and you’ve shared the intentionality of some of this stuff, but everything has a reason, even to the smallest detail, including a theme. And this year’s NYU theme is engagement drives returnw. Talk about how the team settled on this theme, what it means, and how it’s incorporated through the programming.

Alexi Khajavi :
So we are big believers in a sort of mantra, if you will, of people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. So we try to always establish a purpose of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and then let the what follow and the what could be, what time does it start, where is it located, how much does it cost? How long do you suggest I stay there? Could you suggest I meet? Those are all very, very practical and very important value propositions or questions. But what matters most is, and we take this very seriously, is the price of attending NYU vis-a-vis the price of attending one of our spa events or one of our wellness events, is probably 10x. I mean, the cost of attending NYU as a delegate, it’s about $2,300 for a two day conference, two and a half day conference. When you think about the goodwill of it and that somebody that goes to scholarship, okay, great. I mean, that’s very, I think that’s a good footnote. When you think about the size of a deal that you could miss out on, or the size of a new job opportunity or the size of a new client, $2,300 is negligible. I mean, frankly, the cost of opportunity is 100x that. So, okay, footnote, that’s all practical information that we can continue to communicate. But what really matters and what really moves people, is if I’m there, why does it matter to me? And why does it matter to somebody else? And that’s because at the core of this industry, nothing gets done unless you’ve had human to human contact in everything. Guest to front desk manager, down to investor to investor, nothing gets done in hospitality. And believe me, I love technology as much as anybody, and I’m a big believer in AI and AI’s impact on us and the future. But I actually think AI is good for our industry, not because of all the stuff it will do and optimization and la blah, blah, blah, but because I think it’s gonna make human contact the premium. So if AI can start to do everything, it can be my executive assistant, there are gonna be options to say, do you want the AI option, or do you want the human customer service? And if you want the human customer service, you better be the centurion, diamond level, whatever, or you’re gonna pay for it. Well, in some sense, you’re centurion because you have paid for it, you’ve flown more, you stayed more and so forth. So what we’re our purpose this year and how we came up with that theme is that it truly is about the engagement. It’s not about, yes, we’ve got incredible speakers. Yes, there are huge amounts of deal makers and opportunities flowing up and down the Marriott Marquee over those two days. Yes, we’re gonna have a lot of fun. I mean, hospitality’s fun, the people are fun. New York’s fun, all that’s great. Yes, it’s $2,300 bucks. And yes, it starts on Sunday night with a reception. Okay, check, check, check, check. But it’s more about are you gonna be there and are you gonna lean into the industry that you’ve chosen as your career? And if you are, then that engagement will drive returns. It’ll drive returns for you, it’ll drive returns for your employer or your business, and it’ll drive returns for the industry. And we are big, big believers that 80% of the battle is just showing up. And if you don’t show up, then you’re not there and you’re not at the table, and you may not get the returns. So it’s a little bit of that sort of purpose of like, we all have to show up, we all have to be there, and if you are there, good things happen.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. And I love that perspective on AI too. Because I think, we talk a lot in our business about authenticity and how it rises. And you’re right, when there are connections that might have taken effort to make a connection with someone else, like an email, and now that’s being automated, when it is human to human, face-to-face, person to person, that’s when things can move in leaps and bounds and not maybe just baby steps, which we’re gonna probably end up seeing here is just a way to kind of get you, you know, hooked here with maybe a AI text message or an email here, or an AI response here, but it’s about those authentic feelings and sentiment that are gonna all of a sudden rise to the top be so much more valuable, especially in an industry like hospitality.

Alexi Khajavi :
Absolutely. And look at this conversation that we’re having. You and I have met three times, I think three or four times now. And so this conversation just feels very natural, right? ’cause we already know each other. But also the scheduling of this call and of this podcast was a lot easier because our teams know your teams and they can just get it done. So it was very practical and so forth, but it would’ve been harder if we had never met before. And so it’s a supplement, but it’s a virtuous circle. And so when you get the opportunity to engage and to meet the best and the brightest, take it, don’t miss out on that opportunity. So I think it’s, I don’t think it’s a replacement, but I think it’s certainly a compliment or a substitute. It’s not a substitute, but it’s a compliment.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, we’ve talked a lot about capital equity on this call, but what you’re talking about is trust equity, sometimes that trust equity can be the difference in a time right now where there is a gap that closes that gap, that trust equity. So in speaking of engagement, right? Questex and it’s many entities I think I saw on social media, you’ve got a huge following. A post the other day, said almost 21,000 in total on LinkedIn. I personally learned about this event a couple years ago when I saw my LinkedIn pretty much become an NYU IHIF event banner, right? Like, I just was scrolling and it was all the top industry leaders minds in hospitality, and they were all at one place. And I said, I need to get here. Talk to us about how social media plays a role in growing an event like NYU IHIF especially, maybe early on when Questex took it over.

Alexi Khajavi :
I mean, events are essentially the live example of social media. It’s social media in the live format, that’s all. That’s what it’s, and social media is as I think the movie’s called, or the book is a viral network, In a good sense. Not being stuck on an airplane with a bunch of people with pneumonia. So that’s pretty bad too. It is all about who else is there. And that’s the premise of what we do, and that is the promise of what we deliver on year after year after year. And there’s a real beauty in, in an event like NYU IHIF, when they reach this iconic status that the best and the brightest and the most active investors and the most scaled operators are saying to us, Hey, where’s my speaking opportunity? Let’s work together to find the best. We are working more to accommodate the demand of presence and demand for speaking opportunities and thought leadership and meeting rooms and suites than we are trying to fill it. And it’s more just about accommodating it all in, in a way. And the Marriott, Marque’s a big asset. So, we’re in a privileged position for that. And New York’s great, everybody wants to be there. June’s not too hot, it’s not cold. So it’s kind of a perfect time of year as well. So, we’re really lucky in that we don’t have to fight for it. Although we work very hard at making sure that the audience is the right audience. And so there’s two things that we do. One is we turn our advocates and our customers into the heroes. I mean we’re just the platform. That’s, that’s all we are. We inform and we connect, and that’s the platform. The heroes are our sponsors and our attendees and our speakers. And they are really excited to affiliate their personal brands with the brand of NYU IHIF, which is an iconic brand in and of itself. So really, they kind of do a lot of the marketing for us. We support that. We amplify it. We certainly have a lot of followers on LinkedIn and other social media channels. And then of course, our newsletters. We send a daily newsletter to 38,000 subscribers. And these subscribers are the most qualified investors and operators and brokers in the industry. Not like, they’re not, Joe that’s looking for a hotel deal on Priceline, nothing against Joe looking for a deal. But, so that sort of power of the community is really special because people get really excited to speak, to attend, but it are also then shows other people that haven’t registered or maybe are on the fence or didn’t know about. It’s your story that go, wait a second. The entire best and the brightest of this industry that I’m in is attending NYU in three weeks or 11 weeks to be exact. I’ve gotta be there. And so that’s a really powerful thing. That’s just like social media.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, again, it’s exactly what you said, Alexi, your marketing goes further when you’re just the facilitator and they’re kind of telling that story. The echoes very similarly to what we preach with social media for individual hotels. I mean, would much rather have a hundred posts from a hundred guests. Obviously those being positive telling your story than have a hundred posts that you would put out there, right? Because everyone, everyone doesn’t want to feel like they’re being sold. But when you can have your guest, your attendee, your speakers telling your story in an authentic way, back to authenticity, right? Circling back to that word that’s gonna really cut through and make an impact there.

Alexi Khajavi :
And it’s not just you and I that are in the information industry, but it’s hotels themselves. I mean, I ask my kids, where do you want to go? Or we’ll say, what hotel do you want to stay in such and such place? They don’t go to Google, they don’t go to Priceline or Expedia or Booking. They go to TikTok. I wish they weren’t on TikTok at all to be honest, but we limit it. We try to be good parents, but they’re going to TikTok and they are finding hotels. And it’s shocking how many hotels don’t have a TikTok or even an Instagram strategy because this generation, and look, my daughters are still teenagers, but they’re gonna be booking hotels pretty soon on their own, and they’ve traveled the world staying at some really nice hotels. So I know when they have their own income, their own jobs, they wanna spend a high proportion of it on travel and hotels. If they’re not seeing it on TikTok or Instagram, I can guarantee you they’re sure as hell not gonna go to Priceline.

Ryan Embree:
Well, that’s it. There’s your ROI of social media 101 from Alexi, right there. You’re, you’re absolutely right. You hit the nail on the head. And it’s something we, again, preach as a digital marketing podcast all the time. So, well, as we wrap up here, I’m super excited to announce that for the first time the Suite Spot will be attending NYU IHIF for the first time. We cannot be more excited, Alexi, we’re gonna be there in the room, like you talked about. We hope a lot of our Suite Spot followers and audience are there to join us for first time attendees like myself or maybe even some of our audience that could be considering attending the event. Paint a picture of what it’s like, what we can expect.

Alexi Khajavi :
First of all, we’re really excited to have you guys, I mean, I think you know, you guys have covered so many poignant topics and you’ve covered it from different perspectives and you always have really good guests except for this episode, of course. So, we’re really excited to have you there. And I know that you’ll be broadcasting and producing content right there from NYU, which is gonna be awesome. So, really delighted to have you. Look, the opening reception starts on Sunday night. And the reality is that we do that because we kick off early Monday morning. So I would come in Sunday and I would come to the reception at the Marriott Marquees, it’s a great opportunity to network meet first timers. We get about 800 to a thousand people there, so it’s really nice dinner. We do it on the 9th floor terrace, so you get views of Times Square, the really iconic Marriott Marquee with the elevator banks in the middle. The View has just reopened after five years of being closed, which is the rotating restaurant up on the 48th floor, if I’m not mistaken. So you can go up there, have a drink either before or after, and it’s just a great opportunity to kick off NYU on Sunday night. Monday morning, I would recommend get in that room in the general sessions. And really, that sets the stage. We got an economist that’s speaking. We’ve got data that’s being presented, and we’ve got some of our top sessions in the morning, which will be about two, two and a half hours in the morning session. I would then go out, mingle, we’ve got coffee bars on each of the floors. For those of you who haven’t attended, it is a very vertical building. It’s New York. So you end up sort of getting different experiences on each of those floors between fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. And I would really sort of start that morning off with the data and the information. What we find is that those morning sessions become almost kind of like an anchor to open up conversations with people that you meet for the next couple of days because it gives you kind of a good synopsis as to what’s happening right now in the industry with the big macroeconomic issues. And there’s a lot of ’em, geopolitics, but also specifically data in the industry. So that’s a really good session. We’ve got an offsite Monday night, which is really exciting. We’re about to announce that. We’ve got an incredible iconic speaker that is one of the most active, and I would say iconoclastic investors in the industry. I won’t say who, I would go in for that, so I can’t, I’m just teasing that out. But honestly, you could sit on any one of those floors and you could throw a quarter out and it will hit whomever it hits is active, senior and deeply embedded in doing something in this industry. And so you really can’t go wrong in getting value outta being there and being in the room. So that would be my suggestion, be there.

Ryan Embree:
Well, yeah, we’re excited to be part of it. Thank you, Alexi. I love that first day. You can feel that energy in the room, right when that’s about to kick off. I’m sure you’ve experienced that many of times. So, you know, we’re 11 weeks out, I think you said at this point, but, it’ll be here before we know it. We’re excited. Definitely have to catch up with you at NYU and to all of our Suite Spot audience members. Check it out, learn more about it and we hope you will join us at the Marriott Marquees June 1st through June 3rd. Alexi, thank you so much for spending some time with us today and, and talking through this.

Alexi Khajavi :
Thanks, buddy. Good to see you, Ryan.

Ryan Embree:
All right, thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time on the Suite Spot. To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.