Hospitality Daily Podcast

Jeff Wielgopolan, Service Director at Meadowood Napa Valley & The Napa Valley Reserve and former Senior Vice President of Learning & Development at Forbes Travel Guide, joins us to explore what excellence looks and feels like in hospitality.  He explains why you often sense the quality of a hospitality experience within the first minutes, and how team energy, attentiveness, and simple acts of service shape the guest experience.  You’ll hear examples from Meadowood and Raffles Warsaw, plus Jeff’s story of a bartender who remembered him five years later and why those personal connections keep guests coming back.
Previous episodes with Jeff:
 The Fundamentals of Service in Luxury Hospitality: Listen here 
 The Experience That Earned Us Michelin’s Three Key Distinction: Listen here
A few more resources:
If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.
If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!
Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

This summer, Hospitality Daily founder Josiah Mackenzie did something he’d wanted to do for years: drive across the U.S. coast to coast. In this episode, he shares some of the experiences that stood out to him, what he appreciated as a guest, and how an evening gone wrong reminded him how important hospitality is.
Mentioned in this episode: 
evo Hotel Salt Lake City 
Conversation with Kevin Masse of Small State Provisions 
Share with Josiah what stood out to you about your travels here
A few more resources:
If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.
If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!
Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Drew Bridges, principal at JMI Realty, shares the process behind one of the hotel deals the Wall Street Journal recently covered, including how he uses AI to read thousands of guest reviews and understand what is actually broken in a hotel before buying it.
You’ll hear how Drew uses guest feedback to identify investment opportunities, how the same analysis showed him that the elevators at the Hilton Garden Inn Austin Downtown were a real capital problem while the air conditioning primarily needed better preventative maintenance, and how he evaluates the operator who will ultimately serve those guests.

Drew also shares why JMI is focused on distressed hotels right now, where he sees opportunity in urban markets, why he believes human service will remain essential as AI advances, and how his team is already putting AI to work across hotel operations.
Mentions in this show include: Avion Hospitality, Hotel Van Zandt, Hotel Indigo Nashville - The Countrypolitan, ElevenLabs, Twilio, and Claude Code.
A few more resources:
If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.
If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!
Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Emily Johnson, founder of Elevate Hospitality Collective; Erica Huss, creator of All Too Well; and Jen Veralle, founder of Mindful Drinking Movement and Sauna and Sobriety, share a practical approach to hotel wellness that doesn't start with a big CapEx budget.
They explore why the guest room may be the most powerful wellness facility on a property, how a thoughtful non-alcoholic beverage program can create incremental revenue, and how guided sauna and community experiences can give guests restorative ways to connect without depending on alcohol.
This is a practical look at building wellness into the complete guest journey using rooms, F&B programs, existing spaces, and the knowledge already present within hotel teams. The conversation also examines how owners and operators can connect those choices to guest feedback, incremental spend, loyalty, and repeat business.
Learn more about our guest experts:
Elevate Hospitality Collective
Erica Huss and All Too Well
Jen Veralle
Why We Should Rethink Drinking Culture, Jen's TEDx talk
Sauna and Sobriety
Jen's writing about sauna
Related research and examples:
RLA Global and HotStats 2026 Wellness Real Estate Report
How a dedicated NA menu changed beverage sales at Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia
A few more resources:
If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.
If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!
Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

What does AI adoption personally mean for a hospitality technology leader? In this episode, Sage Hospitality CTO Matt Schwartz explains how he is using AI to manage email, meetings, calendar demands, and other work so he can get back time for his company, family, and personal well-being.
Matt also shares how he keeps building AI fluency by learning from peers inside and outside hospitality, following technology companies and industry thinkers, and making continuous learning part of his routine.
Listen to our series with Matt:
Part 1: The Weekend Class That Changed My Career
Part 2: How We’re Leading AI Adoption With a Human-First Approach
Part 3: Our 4-Layer AI Framework: Data, Reporting, Insights, Action
Learn more about the Destination AI Forum in Washington, DC (where Matt will be speaking)
More resources:
OpenAI Academy
One Useful Thing — Ethan Mollick
TLDR technology newsletters
Destination AI Forum in Washington, DC
A few more resources:
If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.
If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!
Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands