Defining Hospitality

[00:00:00]
Dan Ryan: Welcome everyone. Today's guest manages the design and construction process for external hotel owners delivering transformational asset renovations for a wide range of clients, from REITs to private equity companies.
To you name it. He is a senior manager of Hospitality project management at C B R E, ladies and gentle. . Ethan
Ethan Gabany: Govan. Thanks for having me, Dan. Great to be here.
Dan Ryan: It's so good to have you here. And I think one of the things that I'm really excited about to have you here in person is we only met a little while ago,
a couple weeks ago.
Over dinner.
Yeah. Well actually before we met at a host, [00:01:00] um,
Ethan Gabany: Strategic supplier event.
Dan Ryan: Yes. Strategic supplier event. Um, but then we were having dinner and I was like, you look really familiar. Where did I know you? And we put it all together.
Ethan Gabany: It's such a small and sometimes incestuous industry, isn't it?
Right. You see a face and you're like,
I I know that person,
but I don't
know how or where. And then
people that
you mutually you touch
and suggest you connect. And I think that's what makes our industry so, so different and unique.
Dan Ryan: Yeah. And I think it's also just, um, for many of the people who are on here, like we're all just really curious.
We want to learn more, we want to do the best we can, and we always want to be growing. But, um, I was just very struck, um, by you as far as you. Just being out there, putting yourself out there, your network seems to be amazing. Um, you're very young, but you have a lot of experience and I really loved your story of how you chose hospitality.
Yeah. Um, so I guess as we begin, before we get into that, I just ask everyone who's here, how do you define [00:02:00] hospitality?
Ethan Gabany: I, think for me, I would define hospitality as anticipating a guest needs,
whether it's a
or a client or, someone that you're working with, whoever it is in life, you know, looking at. what their needs are before they have even realized them themselves and delivering a product or service to address those needs, with compassion and with empathy.
Dan Ryan: Fantastic. I mean, I have so many questions about. that Idea of anticipation and empathy.
Yeah.
How do you balance, um, that idea of anticipation and empathy and making sure everything is delivered well?
Yeah. Right. To also having to create accountability. on multimillion dollar projects, right? Yeah. Just, not just, it's for you, but for [00:03:00] all of your construction guys and gals and vendors, but also trying to keep your, your clients happy as well. And as you know, in doing a lot of these renovations or new builds, time is money.
Yes. Yes.
But you wanna make sure everyone is heard and
everyone's
everyone's good. Yeah. But you also gotta.
Ethan Gabany: So I, I think in the, in the way we approach projects in delivering projects, right.
I think. The empathy part and the understanding part typically comes up front, right? When we get together, we have our first walkthrough of a property. We might have a property improvement plan we're looking at, or just walking it with the owner and trying to understand what their goals are for an asset or what they wanna achieve in a renovation.
the moment where, We want all the ideas to come to the table, right? We want operations to weigh in with what their concerns are. We want the ownership group to weigh in. We want the designers and the brand to bring unique and different ideas to the table, right? But at some point that becomes a lot of data, right?
And often conflicting interests and things [00:04:00] that are, are not necessarily in alignment. And so our job as a project manager is to sort of cut through the noise and think. The ownership's interest and the asset, what their goals are as far as the investment that they're about to make in a really transformative, you know, transformational renovation and cutting through the noise and distilling it to the essence of what's nice to have, what's a must have, and how we sort of establish that early on so we can build a budget and a schedule that achieves those objectives, but lets everybody's opinions and voices be heard. It's an art, not a science, right? Like there's always some push and pull in it and negotiations and things that change. Even as design developed, you know, I can't tell you how many times in a first meeting we're like, no, we're not gonna do that. And then three months, four months later, we're sitting there at the design table and like, remember that idea we shelf four months ago?
Like maybe we should talk about that again, right? It, it's always an evolution.
Dan Ryan: So I love the idea [00:05:00] of it. It's not an art or a science, it's. Yeah. Something in between. Right? Yeah. So when on a typical project that you get your, your client hires you Yes.
Are you then hiring out all of your other consultants from design to architect to
Ethan Gabany: We are in a typical project.
There are exceptions. You know, we have some clients that we perform just construction management services for where. We drop a body on the construction site during the course of construction and make sure something gets built. But in the overwhelming majority of our projects, we are the first point of contact when a project's getting started.
We, you know, some clients sit down and say, Hey, I know these are the four or five design firms I want to engage.
and
perhaps hire. There are some clients that look to us and say, who do you like? Who are you having good experiences with? Working in the architecture world, design world, procurement world, you know?
And it's sort of that fun collaborative process for us that helps us build the right
project team.
And it's amazing. You know,
We
talked earlier a bit about how small the [00:06:00] industry is and how much relationships.
matter.
You know, we
a project right now that's an architect and a designer from different parts of the world that I put
together
on a project back in 2019.
The owner
actually
actually hired us after they hired those same consultants that we had paired together. It was almost like getting the band back together. Oh, wow. Um, in a way that we hadn't expected. And so, you know, I think. There's, there's a real, there's a really great circuit and a broad circuit of designers and architects and everyone in this industry, but it's amazing how small the world is when people start getting back together, um, and synchronizing on projects
again.
Dan Ryan: Mm. Yeah. Oh, 2019 back then, but, you know, we're here at Alice right now and all the seminars I've been going to, it's, we're now surpassing 2019 numbers, which was a banner year.
Ethan Gabany: It's
a great thing for us, you know, at C B R E we have really great, you know, research reporting and data that we've supplied to the industry and, and our research team this year is saying we're not against 2019 for first time.
We're comparing against 2022 [00:07:00] because we finally have solid year. Yeah. Of post
Covid. I use the air quotes here. Um, performance data that we can benchmark against. And if you look at last year's performance, we're talking roughly 30% improvement in RevPAR r
the past 12 months, which has been remarkable to see.
Dan Ryan: So,
uh, I forget the gentleman's name from is h c he was doing a, it was about the 4% capital reserves that a hotel, typically, as a rule of thumb, needs to put into capital reserves.
Yes.
Um, it was interesting cuz they plotted this graph as a percentage of revenue and in 20 20, 20. the percentage was off the charts cuz there was no, there was very little or no revenue.
Yes, but they were still spending money cuz that money's been baked in. But as they went to look forward and they're like plotting, continuing to plot the line, they did something really interesting. They're like, you know what, let's just erase. 2020, uh, 2020 and 2021 so that we can plot a smoother line.
And it, and plotting that line, it actually looks [00:08:00] like everything is back on track. Stable. Yeah. But the reason why I bring that up, especially for the hats that you wear, um, a few minutes ago you said something about things that we would like to have versus need to have, and that's where the art and science comes in.
Yes. And I'm always super intrigued and I know, I think we spoke about this, um, a while. , I'm always very intrigued by how you measure ROI on design because it's, it's
such a good a good question.
It's hard to do, but again, when you're looking at the nice to have, need to have, like, what's your, what's your processor?
What's your, you know, rule of thumb or how,
Ethan Gabany: I, if I had an answer to that one, I, I don't,
don't, it's crazy, you know, you're right.
It's really hard to qualify. There's a good ROI on design. I, I firmly believe that at my core, right? When a. Looks better, it performs better. And if you look at, you know, where the conference has gravitated and where people go for dinners outside of the conference, like[00:09:00]
not
picking to eat in a very commercialized setting, they're picking the cooler design
oriented,
trendy places.
And that's where people are gravitating. If they're not staying on site at one of the host hotels, that's where they're.
gravitating to
stay in the local market. So I do think there's an appeal for good design. You're right. It's
hard to
quantify that. Right. And to put that into metrics, we always look at it as what's the investment thesis for the hotel?
Right?
And
are some hotels that we work on where if we really elevate the design and
the offering,
we can drive an add. 30, 40, $50 a night of rate, and we're gonna
push it
to level. Mm-hmm. , you know,
well then it becomes easier
to
to quantify whether that design's having an impact in achieving its its desired outcome
for
us. You know, there's also on the opposite end of that spectrum hotels where you can pour all the money into the world, but you're not gonna drive raid, and you're not gonna drive occupancy. And so those are the assets that are maybe a little bit, um, a little [00:10:00] bit.
less
Customize and a little less personalized as far as the design approach goes.
In more
one
size fits all. Do the renovation that you have to do,
Reposition
the asset as you need to, but realize you're not gonna get any major lift
out.
it. So,
Dan Ryan: Yeah. And then do you, do you ever do like after action what? What's the once, cause oftentimes, you know, you're done with the project, you move on. Yeah.
Right. You're on to the next one. But do you ever look at, once you're done with the project, kind of look back on performance of some of those decisions?
Ethan Gabany: it's funny because we're third party, you know, we don't hear that story too much unless it's either really bad or really good. Right? and the owners call us back and they're like, Hey, remember that investment we did there?
You know, I worked on a project with an old firm that
we poured a lot
money into renovating the asset, and a few months later it got sold and became a homeless shelter. Right? That was a poor ROI investment.
I
also think about projects where, you know, we knew the investment thesis going. we knew what we had to spend on a renovation, and then we [00:11:00] hear anecdotally from our brokerage side or another part of the business, Hey, that hotel just transacted for X, Y, or Z.
And we're Like
wait.
Like
the goal
was it was gonna
sell for 700, a key post renovation. It sold for a million. A
key.
like,
where we pat ourselves on
the back and say, wow. Good job.
Dan Ryan: That's amazing. So with your, to quote Liam Neon with your, um, particular set of skills, , right. You could manage projects in, within any real estate class.
Right. . So Why hotels?
Ethan Gabany: That's
a great question. I was always drawn to the industry since I young,
Mm-hmm
So
it's kind of hard to answer that question without giving a little bit of And speak too much to it, but up,
Dan Ryan: no, speak to
Ethan Gabany: I grew up in rural western Pennsylvania.
Oh
Dan Ryan: Johnstown. where my mother-in-law's,
right
Ethan Gabany: Yep. Famous flood, uh, in 1889 and and I grew up on a street that was sort summer vacation for the Barrons the 18th century, Andrew these [00:12:00] old mansions that became dilapidated. And center of of it
was
Fork and Hunting Club, which is abandoned clubhouse.
That's still one day the back of my mind.
love to reinvent
some meaningful way. It's the pipe dream down the
road,
but I sort of, I grew up my, my dad owned a gas station. It was a full service gas station in small town, and so when I was probably 11 or 12 years started pumping gas and
that
innate human interaction connection with people their stories who your regular, regular customers are and building relationships people is something I always gravitated toward.
so I always loved being like,
the
vacation planner. So when we would
take that once
year, summer vacation, I always wanted to pick out where we were going, where we were staying, what were seeing, and the where we were staying thing became increasingly interesting to me because vacations an escape from reality of your day-to-day life.
Right. so, um, I remember being 12 and I was a huge [00:13:00] history buff at the time, and wanted Philadelphia just to see Independence Hall
and the Constitution
Center. you know All history of that city. And we stayed at the Carlton in
Philadelphia, which is an old converted
building.
Really
Yeah. It's beautiful, asset.
Right. And I wanted to be chef at the time, and I remember having breakfast in the restaurant and
the cook,
know, wouldn't chef, breakfast cook, the
and asked how everything
was,
but he was wearing a white chef's jacket and the white hat. And I was just mesmerized as a young kid and seeing
somebody that
I aspired to be one day and my mom sort poked and prodded me to
express
my interest in culinary arts and be
a chef
to him. long story short, he invited me back into the kitchen and it was an open kitchen, He's come back in
today and you can be a
chef with me.
And
I don't think I did any real cooking. like
threw the chocolate
on the pancakes or something. But as 12 year old, like it was such a
trauma. That's huge.
experience. Right. And when we checked out of the hotel, [00:14:00] whole staff of the restaurant signed the Ritz Carlton
cookbook and they all left nice little encouraging messages
for me.
And I took that home and I, I remember having an under my years to
come. It was
like constant
source of inspiration and
something.
that, that I remembered and had a great memory to. And to me, know, we talk defining hospitality.
like
that's hospitality. Right. And I feel jaded part me feels that interactions like that are increasingly rare in this day and age.
Right. But you can let somebody somebody have feeling, you know, that was a moment that I knew I wanted do
hotels. Yeah.
Dan Ryan: And you'll never forget it
Ethan Gabany: and I'll never forget it.
Dan Ryan: That's like your origin story.
Ethan Gabany: It is, yeah. Truly.
Dan Ryan: and then, okay, so that's from when you're 12, Yeah. So then, you know, you make your way through high school, and then what, what were your next steps?
Ethan Gabany: so I, I was going to college and I was very split about two things, whether I wanted to do hospitality right from that experience in loving hotels or entrepreneurship.
Hmm.
Um, I started business when I was in high school
selling frite[00:15:00]
linens
online, and
I remember. not knowing which I wanted to do. So when I was applying to colleges, I applied to Cornell
for
hotel program and I applied to Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, small little entrepreneurial business school.
Um, was very
by their entrepreneurship
program.
And Cornell deferred me and then waitlisted me and Babson
accepted me.
And being
someone who
just doesn't deal well rejection, I said,
grew Cornell, I'm gonna go to Babson
And,
and I went there for a year and then, Ultimately felt like the hospitality part that I loved was missing from the education I was getting there. And that
propelled to transfer to Cornell as a sophomore and continue my studies there specifically
in the hotel space.
Dan Ryan: Wow. Okay. So as a sophomore you moved to Ithaca? I
Ethan Gabany: I moved to Ithaca,
Dan Ryan: yeah. And bringing your entrepreneurial baggage? Yes. And then, uh, what kind of course load did they serve you up with? I'm sure you have so many [00:16:00] choices from hotel operations to finance, like how did you choose your way through Cornell? How
Ethan Gabany: you So I, I worked in operations since I was in high school. My first job was in the housekeeping department of an omni resort in rural western Pennsylvania where I
grew up.
I interned at a, what's now a Rosewood property in Washington,
DC where I lived today.
And I always was fascinated by the operations
piece.
Mm-hmm.
What I learned, you know, after working a few summers in operations is
that it's
7 job, 365 year. really hard have great
balance.
You're always moving. If you're at a luxury hotel company, especially, way that you advance. And for me, the one common thread through all the I
worked in
was that felt
as an operator, like they were designed and built by.
people.
Who didn't understand or have empathy
for how the operators needed them to function. Mm.
And so thought,
I took a course my sophomore year at
Cornell, um, hospitality development and planning, it totally [00:17:00] transformed my career trajectory. Cause I didn't even know that that was
a
Right? The idea that like there were people
who spent careers designing renovating building
hotels.
I had. , I guess
it had to get done. I just never thought about it.
you know?
I always thought of hotels as what I saw people working
in operating them,
and I thought if there was a way that I could sort of leverage that skillset I gained as an operator, but apply it
to making hotels being built and designed better for their end users, that could someplace that I could sort of those two loves of still working hospitality, but being in the creative process of hotels become what they
are
Dan Ryan: and within.
Cornell. So if you're, if you're doing that, are you taking classes over at the architecture school or, yeah,
Ethan Gabany: I definitely took some classes outside of the hotel school program, um, because I transferred in, I spent that first year at Babson. I was playing catch up so much Right. On all the core classes
and just totally overloading myself and overwhelming [00:18:00] frankly.
Um, but
there was a good number of the, the hotel school in recent years has
become much
more real estate
focused. Mm-hmm.
So there was a real estate minor, there was a development concentration, a
design concent. .
were so
many courses, like I took a, even in the hotel school program without being an architecture, a drafting course, right.
Where we,
you know, had drafting boards and
paper and
everything, and we're designing hotel rooms and lobbies. And it was a really creative course, you know?
Dan Ryan: Wow. I'm surprised that they would give you, um, a straight edge in
Ethan Gabany: oh, yeah. It, it was old
school. you know, and I think,
Dan Ryan: that in Rand Hall?
Ethan Gabany: Uh, no, it was in, it was in Statler Hall, the Sta Cornell.
Yeah. But I, I took some courses over in Millstein in the architecture school next to Rand and yeah, it's, it's, it was a really great education and,
and it helped shape I wanted to become
in a way that I didn't when went there.
So
Dan Ryan: when you found this hotel planning and development? Yeah. Was there a, a teacher that stood out out of all the teachers that you had?
Ethan Gabany: Yeah, I had a [00:19:00] few people at Cornell that, that really, um, impacted me. One was my advisor, Renita McCarthy. She always sort of pushed me to,
to new heights and to explore different things
and put myself out there. She was my advisor since I joined the school.
And then in the development world, two professors, um, Stephanie Robinson and Brad
Wells. I for them for many
semesters in that development course. I took all of their electives that I could squeeze into my
my schedule,
and I just learned so much from both of them. Both of them were, you know, developers by background and, and had that expertise, and
so just took every piece of knowledge
could from them while I was there.
Dan Ryan: Wow. And then, so I'm, I'm sure that on all of these tracks at Cornell, you'd also have guest speakers come in
Ethan Gabany: all the time.
Dan Ryan: Do do any of those really stand.
to you?
Ethan Gabany: That's a question. Yeah, there were,
so many great
speakers.
Um, during my
there, I remember Ron [00:20:00] Harrison from Marriott
when he came he global design
division at Marriott at the
time.
And I
remember hearing speak and,
and not really
realizing all the standards and the brands and, and all
the creation behind that. And they showed us when Marriott was at its old headquarters, it was the basement, right? Like
the creative labs. the
way they had prototypes of all the different rooms and the way they finess
Every last detail of what makes
courtyard
a courtyard or a
in a
residence Inn. I remember just being baffled like
a company
has 31 spent that
time on
every last detail of, of
really core brands.
Um, so Ron's,
Ron's speech definitely stands out in my memory. Um, bill Walsh from Viceroy Hotel Group is probably one of the
of the,
most
speakers I've ever
heard present.
His passion
for hospitality and for associates. It wasn't so
much design related, it was just hearing him speak
was like, that's why [00:21:00] I do hospitality.
You know? really has a way to sort of, yeah, he's
people passionate about
things. He's captivating.
He is. Totally.
Dan Ryan: And then are there any, um, are there any people that, guest speakers that came, that you're working with now as a, as a.
client?
Ethan Gabany: Guest guess speakers. I'm trying to,
think. Not, I
wouldn't say so much guest speakers. It was more so like when I'd be looking for summer internships or I'd be, you know, pursuing what my
path post-graduation was. Mm.
You know, the faculty and the peers that I had connected
me to along from the school that worked different organizations, be it public companies, private companies, and so, of the
that I
developed Cornell, , you have
through their
careers places and different organizations like we talked about small the industry is.
Right?
You see a name
pop up and you're like, oh God, I, I
reached out to you in 2013 for a summer internship.
You [00:22:00] probably don't remember me. But things like that have led to some, you know, great client
relationships that were now really fortunate to work with
at C B R E many
years later.
Dan Ryan: Awesome. Um, okay, cool.
you've got to explore and kind of work in this laboratory of all these different ideas at Cornell. Now you're out working on these crazy, huge projects. Yeah.
Yeah. Delivering them.
Um, what's most exciting to you about where you are right now as you look to the future?
Ethan Gabany: Well, I think,
you
know, I'd be lying if I said there, there weren't moments in
Covid, right?
Where I. Of pinched and like asked was, was I on right career trajectory? Was I
doing what I should be doing? Right. And I remember at the onset of Covid when people,
you know, I remember I, I won't name
but there were some
naysayers out there that said, you know, corporate travels, dead group travels, dead
are never
getting together.
You
know, you and I are sitting here
at the
most well attended [00:23:00] Alice.
Conference
Ever in the history of Alice, right?
To
that this could happen. Now
when two or three years ago people that's all
be happening over a Zoom call. You know, I love Zoom. It's a great way we connect. We all use it as part of our business. Now.
it makes many things a virtual meeting that may have previously required lot of travel and something. , but it's no replacement for in-person connection. Mm-hmm.
makes our industry so special,
Right? And when you ask about what excited about, I'm just to see happening again, right?
people
getting together, spending time together, relationships.
Um,
and I that as move forward
this sort
of new normal in post covid, , it's how we design hotels. Mm-hmm. , you know, when we look at future of, know, work setups, I remember when we were eliminating desks from rooms because people weren't working in rooms and we wanted push 'em downstairs.
Yeah.
we still probably want to have a great active food and
beverage scene makes people want to [00:24:00] spend some time downstairs, but I to take a zoom call in room now everywhere I go. And I like having real desk a thought my
generat. Wouldn't need
Dan Ryan: the losing of the desk. I was like, I, I, I went with it, but I, I was like, no, I need to have a place to spread
Ethan Gabany: till you stay in a hotel room and try to work for two or three days from a sea table, you know?
Dan Ryan: Yeah.
that's when
my back, my neck. And as I get older it's worse and worse and worse. Yeah. Yep. Um, okay. So when I'm in any city in North America, and maybe even globally, but I'm just speaking North America, okay.
And. walking down the central business district. There are so many C B R E signs. Yes. Right. From a commercial real estate perspective. I mean, they're massive, huge, powerful organization
Ethan Gabany: this.
Yes.
Dan Ryan: Yes. How, like, just to give us context, how, how big of, of the whole commercial real estate Yeah. Size like.
what's the segment? That's hospitality.
Ethan Gabany: Yeah, that's [00:25:00] great. So CBR E is a firm of 105,000
Dan Ryan: people. God, globally we have
Ethan Gabany: offices, I think. So the, the size and the scale of it can be
Dan Ryan: daunting. Mm-hmm. , we talked
Ethan Gabany: little bit earlier about my entrepreneurial
Dan Ryan: tendencies. Yeah. And the fact that I gravitate toward that.
What
Ethan Gabany: love about the firm, despite that size,
Dan Ryan: it's incredibly entrepreneurial. Right? And so the CVRE hotels. Was a
Ethan Gabany: separate company that C B R E acquired probably
Dan Ryan: probably 10 years ago now, most of that core team, about 250 people in the Americas are based out of our Atlanta office.
Ethan Gabany: then we have resources spread around through all the different markets that we operate
Dan Ryan: in.
Um, truthfully, when I joined C B R E,
Ethan Gabany: I wasn't sure that I wanted to join what I viewed as
Dan Ryan: a brokerage firm, right? Mm-hmm. . And having
Ethan Gabany: been on the owner side, I had this
Dan Ryan: really sort of convoluted view of what a broker was. Maybe not necessarily the most positive association of the word.
Ethan Gabany: then when I came to C B R E, I met
Dan Ryan: folks like, you know, Bob [00:26:00] Webster comes to mind, and really great brokers in the hospitality space who are client advocates,
Ethan Gabany: And that
Dan Ryan: sort of idea
Ethan Gabany: I had in the back of my head.
Dan Ryan: Scummy used car salesman. I'm sorry. People are probably flinching hearing me
Ethan Gabany: say that, but like I couldn't be more baffled by the night and day
Dan Ryan: difference I saw. Yeah. The people who
Ethan Gabany: are truly successful in
Dan Ryan: the brokerage world, you know how relentlessly they service
Ethan Gabany: clients.
Dan Ryan: right?
Yeah. And so,
Ethan Gabany: you know, one of the things we always work with our brokerage colleagues on is
Dan Ryan: understanding the cost of property improvement plans, right? Because that dramatically impacts. What the asset's gonna sell for, if it's a $50,000 key renovation, a hundred thousand dollars key renovation. And so, you know, they always
Ethan Gabany: to us and they're like, what's the real number for this?
I'm
Dan Ryan: like, do you want
Ethan Gabany: real number? Or like, if we veed everything, how cheaply we could achieve this? And like, no, no, no. Like,
Dan Ryan: Like we want to be realistic.
Ethan Gabany: the only
Dan Ryan: way they build trust with their clients mm-hmm. is if they're accurate. Right? That's how people come back for the next transaction and the[00:27:00]
Ethan Gabany: transaction and the next
Dan Ryan: transaction. So you. , that totally changed my perception of what a brokerage shop like C P R E was.
Ethan Gabany: Um, as far as the hospitality vertical,
Dan Ryan: you
Ethan Gabany: like I said, we're probably,
Dan Ryan: I don't
Ethan Gabany: don't know the exact
Dan Ryan: number, 300, 400 people through the Americas and our hospitality project management team has grown pretty organically.
It, it started in 2021. Mm-hmm. in the depths of Covid. You know, the leadership team at CBR
Ethan Gabany: really pragmatic and realized
Dan Ryan: There
Ethan Gabany: a backlog
Dan Ryan: of
Ethan Gabany: coming
Dan Ryan: and property improvement plans that were delayed because of Covid. There was
Ethan Gabany: A really great opportunity
Dan Ryan: to acquire great resources from the market that were available because hotel companies weren't renovating in the way they once were,
Ethan Gabany: And a lot of hotel
Dan Ryan: companies, you know, greatly reduced the size of their internal project management resources.
And then a year or two down the line, we're gonna be needing to renovate and
Ethan Gabany: all of these assets and not
Dan Ryan: having the [00:28:00] resources in house to do it. Yeah. And so they were pretty pragmatic in investing in that, in the growth of that business during Covid, you know, really putting the right team in place even before the revenue was there, and then giving us
Ethan Gabany: mandate to go out and grow the business.
Dan Ryan: Um, and it's been a really fun process. I'd say we're about a team of 20 now working throughout the Americas on the hospitality project management front. Um, largely
Ethan Gabany: and down the eastern seaboard.
We've just
Dan Ryan: added some great talent to our team in Texas and pushing out to the west coast. So we really wanted to sort of dominate the eastern side of the US and then start making our way westward and
Ethan Gabany: we just took on our
Dan Ryan: first project in Hawaii, which is exciting.
Oh, great.
Ethan Gabany: really growing the platform from there.
Dan Ryan: Wonderful.
Um,
And then as your team is growing and you're looking at all these projects and trying to get the right people to the right clients so that you're filling your pipeline with projects that Yes. Make sense for [00:29:00] you Yes. And your clients. Yes. Um, what kind of similarities are you seeing in, in that, in those efforts?
Ethan Gabany: I, in what sense,
Dan?
Dan Ryan: In the sense.
that
You're not, you're not going after every hospitality So like, if you were to like create a target for your, your audience, it. Yeah.
is it do? Yeah.
Yeah.
Ethan Gabany: So I would, this is a good question. I would say you.
know, we have different offerings for different clients and we, know, public, the public version of try to craft solutions that meet different clients' needs, right?
What
I would say we do the most of is, you know, service, upscale luxury branded hotel renovations
and independent
boutique luxury lifestyle hotel projects.
Dan Ryan: And then we don't
Ethan Gabany: that many select service hotels on a one-off basis, but where we've, we've actually grown a lot of interest is
Dan Ryan: is on
Ethan Gabany: rollouts and large program renovations. So we have one [00:30:00] project right now we're working on, which is a portfolio of
Dan Ryan: a roughly 20
Ethan Gabany: service assets.
Dan Ryan: 2,400 hotel rooms scattered through 15 different cities across the us. And
Ethan Gabany: of our size and scale, right, we can have a core team at the program level that
Dan Ryan: understands the nuts and bolts of hospitality paired up with
Ethan Gabany: regional expertise
Dan Ryan: in
Ethan Gabany: of those
Dan Ryan: different 15 cities where we have boots on the ground physically.
Working with
Ethan Gabany: our program team to execute a program like that.
Dan Ryan: Great. And then for you personally, what's, what would be like the ult? Like if, if I could give you a magic wand and you're like,
I get to work on that
project, on that project, what project would it be?
Ethan Gabany: Ooh, that's a really good question.
Um,
I think I like the
Dan Ryan: more creative projects,
Ethan Gabany: so things where you're sort of in the upper upscale luxury.
Dan Ryan: space.
it's
Ethan Gabany: either unbranded or a soft brand where there's a little bit more leniency to
Dan Ryan: the process mm-hmm. than where we get to sort of have a cool design
Ethan Gabany: bring together a really unique concept and execute it. I don't know [00:31:00] that the market or I don't, I don't know that that's as important to me. I think it's just the creative
Dan Ryan: freedom and the ability to like work with our owners and, and figure out what would make a hotel like that sink.
Okay, cool. So leeway, creativity, like kind of a, a.
Ethan Gabany: uh,
Dan Ryan: a white canvas, if you would. Yeah. Okay.
Ethan Gabany: Definitely. But there, of course, there's hotels that like you gravitate toward that like you love
Dan Ryan: on a personal
Ethan Gabany: intrinsic level, right?
Dan Ryan: It's like, oh yeah,
Ethan Gabany: would be a dream to
Dan Ryan: renovate that particular asset. Right?
Because there's such a
Ethan Gabany: personal
Dan Ryan: connection to it. You know, for me it's probably four seasons. Uh, Costa Rica and Peninsula Papa Guy is one of my favorite resorts. Just the landscape of everything about it is such a unique asset. If I
Ethan Gabany: waved the magic wand, like that'd probably be the one,
but it got renovated and a lovely
that Meyer
Davis did.
Yeah. Meyer Davis did that one.
Dan Ryan: awesome. Yeah. Oh, cool. Um, so we're at this time of year where all like high school seniors [00:32:00] have submitted their
Yes.
waiting to hear back. Yep. Right. If they didn't get in the early decision or whatever, um, if you were to speak to. , those students who are waiting to hear back from the ho from different hotel schools.
Yeah. Right. Um, what would you say to them about Cornell?
Ethan Gabany: Well,
they rejected me my
Dan Ryan: first time, . So if it happens to you,
Ethan Gabany: not the end of the world. Right? There's still light at the end of the tunnel. Um, there's so much pressure for, for me, like throughout, throughout high school, like getting into a good college.
Dan Ryan: Sort of my,
Ethan Gabany: I forget what it's
Dan Ryan: called, but like your locus
Ethan Gabany: control, like what you're aspiring to when you have your site set on. Right. And then when I
Dan Ryan: finally got
Ethan Gabany: like I had to readjust what
Dan Ryan: motivated me in life, right? Mm-hmm. . Cause it was like, okay, I'm doing this and
Ethan Gabany: taking the right classes and I'm in the right
Dan Ryan: extracurriculars and I'm taking the exams.
And like everything is about getting into
Ethan Gabany: for
Dan Ryan: two or three years of your life, right? And then you actually get there and you.
Ethan Gabany: [00:33:00] like,
Dan Ryan: Now what?
Ethan Gabany: Right? Like you have to hit that reset.
Dan Ryan: button. And
Ethan Gabany: so I think you know where, where you go. There's a great book by an author. I love Frank Bernie.
Dan Ryan: Where you go is not who you'll be.
Ethan Gabany: I think that's so true. I mean, I realize it's rich of me to say that I have
Dan Ryan: the great author. He's the New York Times. Right. Okay. I didn't, I wrote that columnist. Okay.
Ethan Gabany: in the New York Times. Um, but I think it's so true, like you are in control of your destiny no matter where you go to school or what you study or where
Dan Ryan: you.
How much you put yourself out
Ethan Gabany: how much you build relationships,
Dan Ryan: how much you network and connect with others. You know, we talked about
Ethan Gabany: a little bit over lunch yesterday. Like, it just feels natural to me because so many
Dan Ryan: of my, like I've built my closest friendships in this industry with whether it's designers or procurement agents or like,
Ethan Gabany: these aren't just my colleagues, like they're people I wanna spend my weekends with and see outside of the office.
Of
Dan Ryan: Meaningful friendships and relationships within life. Mm-hmm. . And it's,
Ethan Gabany: that's cuz I love what I [00:34:00] do and I love working with them and they're fun,
Dan Ryan: great people to work with. So
Ethan Gabany: work doesn't really feel like work. Right. Like, it feels fun and enjoyable.
Dan Ryan: And so,
Ethan Gabany: um, I have friends of mine who
Dan Ryan: totally disassociate themselves
Ethan Gabany: their work.
Right. It's
Dan Ryan: like 5:30 PM and they turn their phone off and they're like, Ethan, you know you can do that. Right. I guess I can, but like I don't want to. Yeah.
Ethan Gabany: what I mean? Like my personal life and my professional
Dan Ryan: life overlap in so many ways, and that's really fulfilling to me. I don't know how people can
Ethan Gabany: lead
two separate lives in that sense.
I'm jealous, so
I'm with you. Yeah, I'm jealous too, but I'm, I'm, I'm there with you too. I, and that's, I think, a testament to our industry, right? It's, if you go back to what you were saying just on. anticipating knowing how others are feeling, you know, connecting with people. Um,
kind of do it with each other
Yeah, we absolutely do. And then to be around all those people, it's [00:35:00] uh, it's this really amazing, supportive fraternity, sorority, just like way of life, will. Yeah. And um, that's why often sometimes I'll be like, how did you choose hospitality or how did it choose you? Or when did, when did the. Get into you.
Um, so also if you're speaking to that college or high school senior that's looking to go to whatever hotel school. Um, would you say live in the dorms or live in the hotel?
Okay.
So that's a funny a funny transition. Look, I had had a very
different collegiate experience than most, right? So,
Dan Ryan: I,
Ethan Gabany: I studied at Babson for a year.
I lived in the dorms. I was in a force triple with two guys who actually became probably my closest friends
Dan Ryan: in life now, and we,
Ethan Gabany: neither of them work in hotels. One of them works
Dan Ryan: in trains, one of them works in biotech
Ethan Gabany: and we travel together and we're great lifelong friends now. Um, so I say live in the dorms for a year at least, right?[00:36:00]
Dan Ryan: Um, the funny
Ethan Gabany: for me was when I transferred to Cornell, they didn't
Dan Ryan: guarantee on campus housing for sophomore transfer students, which is what I was,
Ethan Gabany: I went to Ithaca to tour
Dan Ryan: apartment.
Ethan Gabany: and try to find where I was going to live. And I was staying at a brand new Fairfield Inn by Marriott that
Dan Ryan: had just opened and on campus it was
Ethan Gabany: was not, it was.
Dan Ryan: was dreadfully inconvenient in many senses to
Ethan Gabany: campus, but it was in Ithaca. And Ithaca is a small enough town and, and it's actually the
Dan Ryan: eighth most expensive rental market in the, in the United States when I was a student.
And it's gorgeous.
Ethan Gabany: And it's gorgeous, right? So it's easy to see why. Um, and so I was staying there.
I was staying there and, and the GM of this hotel was like 27, 28
Dan Ryan: years old. He was a surfer from Southern California. The hotel had just opened in the
Ethan Gabany: of winter. I was looking for apartments and I wasn't having any
Dan Ryan: luck finding anything at all reasonable.
Everything in Ithaca actually rents out like a year in advance, and I made the [00:37:00] decision to come in May, and I was starting in August. So I was, I was
Ethan Gabany: really struggling to find anything and the GM asked how my search was going and I said, you know, honestly, like, can I just live here? And he's like,
Dan Ryan: what? Like what do you have in mind?
Ethan Gabany: and I was just joking when I threw it out there.
And then I went back to the hotel room and
Dan Ryan: I was like, Hey, what if I lived here? And I was like, are you nuts? And I was like, well, they
Ethan Gabany: open to the idea. So like, I drafted up a contract of what I wanted.
Dan Ryan: like. I paid a very
Ethan Gabany: low rate in New York State. Like all the
Dan Ryan: taxes dropped off. I think it was after 30 nights, so
Ethan Gabany: taxes
Dan Ryan: went away. Um, I wanted my room cleaned once a week. Oh, wow.
Ethan Gabany: Yeah. I like, just like I made a wishlist, right? I wanted all my nights to be Marriott Rewards qualifying. I wanted to pay with an American Express card so I could earn
Dan Ryan: membership rewards points, right.
And I took it
Ethan Gabany: them thinking they were gonna say, this is [00:38:00] ludicrous, but what you have to know about Ithaca, right?
If you know it's gorgeous, you also know it's a very
Dan Ryan: seasonal market. Yeah.
Ethan Gabany: in the dead of winter, um,
Dan Ryan: when I was making the decision,
Ethan Gabany: They hadn't seen a successful
Dan Ryan: summer yet. Hotel just opened.
They were selling rooms for $69 a night on third party booking agencies.
Ethan Gabany: And so, you know, knowing what I did about hotels and the commissions they were paying, I sort of backed into what I thought
Dan Ryan: was a really reasonable number, and they
Ethan Gabany: back
Dan Ryan: to
Ethan Gabany: and they said, look, we're okay with everything
Dan Ryan: except you're gonna be like a young college guy.
We want to clean your
Ethan Gabany: twice a
Dan Ryan: week, . Oh, even better. They threw that in . I was like,
Ethan Gabany: well, you guys are really hard
Dan Ryan: negotiators. But so, so,
Ethan Gabany: um, the way that it was written,
Dan Ryan: I could live there. I had to live, I basically was semester long reservations and I could leave at the end of
Ethan Gabany: semester,
Dan Ryan: but they had to honor the rate the whole way through my time at Cornell.
Oh my God. And so at the end of one semester, Basically we come Marriott Platinum Elite, and I called [00:39:00] to cancel my upcoming reservations cuz I was gonna get a place off campus with some friends and I got transferred to some like elite
Ethan Gabany: line
Dan Ryan: and they were like, what can we do to keep your business?
And I was like, well he could give me, you know, a hundred thousand extra Marriott points every semester. That might
Ethan Gabany: my business.
Dan Ryan: And it actually
Ethan Gabany: actually worked out with the
Dan Ryan: promotions they do every fall and every spring in Bonvoy that it sort of worked out to be
Ethan Gabany: pretty much meeting that request. I said, I, I can't walk away from this. Like, I left college with
Dan Ryan: basically
Ethan Gabany: million Marriott
Dan Ryan: points. Wow. And
Ethan Gabany: lifetime platinum status. That, uh, was a very unique and different story.
So in some senses I loved it. It was a really
Dan Ryan: atypical
Ethan Gabany: experience. Right. In some ways though, it did disconnect me a little bit from some of the social elements of collegiate life that I wish.
Dan Ryan: had partaken of more fully.
Wow. That's amazing. That's super entrepreneurial.
Ethan Gabany: I guess you, you can't shut it [00:40:00] off,
Dan Ryan: Yep.
Ethan Gabany: it's a switch that you either have or you don't, and once it's on, it's always sort of on.
Dan Ryan: Oh man, that's, thank you for sharing that, that. I actually didn't know that whole thing. You just gave me the, the cliff, the bullet of the top.
But
Ethan Gabany: that, yeah.
Dan Ryan: That's amazing. Wow.
Ethan Gabany: It was a different experience, you know, and it's funny.
Dan Ryan: like
Ethan Gabany: I literally, when I was in college, like I lived breathe, slept eight hotels, you know, and it was funny, like the staff that worked there, having spent that much time there, like I got to know all of them
Dan Ryan: personally.
You know,
Ethan Gabany: we're still friends to this day. When I go back to campus, one of them works at the
Dan Ryan: on-campus hotel at Cornell now that I often stay at when I'm. You know,
Ethan Gabany: I keep in
Dan Ryan: touch with all of them. They're like my
Ethan Gabany: family in
Dan Ryan: a way. My sort of collegiate family. Could you,
how far was it from the hot truck?
Ethan Gabany: Uh, 15 minutes, you know, not bad. You know, we spent a lot of time out there in some nights in college town that we would, you know, wander over and might not always make it back to the Fairfield end.
Dan Ryan: Wow, that's amazing. Wow. So cool. Um, [00:41:00] alright. I mean, this has been so fantastic. If, if people wanted to learn more about.
like how can they learn more about you or cbr e
Ethan Gabany: Definitely, well, you know, there's a lot of great information about our firm and our services and offerings on CBRE's website. Um, but feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, or I believe my email address will be in the show
Dan Ryan: notes. Yeah, if you like, we could do that.
Ethan Gabany: We can do that. And feel free to reach out.
We'd be happy to connect and discuss more about what we do.
Dan Ryan: Okay. Awesome. Oh, you know what? I forgot one question. Okay. That I ask everyone.
Ethan Gabany: Um,
Dan Ryan: the Ethan, I'm talking to you right now. It's a time machine question. Okay. So the Ethan, I'm talking to you right now.
Um, I, if you were to magically IMP appear in front of your 12 year old self pumping gas at that gas station okay. At your dad's gas station, um, what advice would you have for yourself?
Ethan Gabany: That's
a really good question. I guess it's not as far back in my memory as it is for many of your show guests, right. Um,
Dan Ryan: I
Ethan Gabany: it would just be, [00:42:00] don't stress, everything works
Dan Ryan: out. You
Ethan Gabany: there's so much pressure put on you to achieve great things, especially when you're young in those
Dan Ryan: formative years. And you know, my, I
Ethan Gabany: really fortunate to grow up in a family that placed a lot of value on education and
Dan Ryan: supported me in those endeavors.
Ethan Gabany: Um, but with that comes a lot of stress around all those other factors.
Dan Ryan: Like if
Ethan Gabany: work hard and you follow what you love doing,
Dan Ryan: I think you'll have a successful life.
Ethan Gabany: Yeah,
Dan Ryan: I totally agree. And it's almost so cliche where it's like, oh, just follow your passion. And I'm like, okay, well what does that really mean?
But if I really step back and look at my trajectory and I'm sure your trajectory, we found this world. Yeah. And everyone can find their own world, but uh, Sometimes it feels like work, but more often than not it's not. Yeah. It's just, this is our family.
Ethan Gabany: Uh, you know, when you have like a really poignant memory and you can
Dan Ryan: remember
Ethan Gabany: where you were, what [00:43:00] you were wearing, where you like, all
Dan Ryan: that kind of thing.
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Gabany: I, I think of one on that note when I was in my
Dan Ryan: sophomore, sorry, junior year, summer
Ethan Gabany: my internship,
Dan Ryan: which is like
Ethan Gabany: typically the most important internship that you get when you're an undergrad.
I,
Dan Ryan: I had
Ethan Gabany: two opportunities in front of me. One was at Hershey
Dan Ryan: Hospitality Trust in Philadelphia. The other was with
Ethan Gabany: an investment bank that I'll leave unnamed.
Dan Ryan: And there was so much
Ethan Gabany: pressure around me to choose the investment bank. Right? Like salary, respect, prestige, everything about it, you know? And, and when people heard the name of the firm, they were like, you don't say no to them.
You know?
Dan Ryan: so many people told. And I remember
Ethan Gabany: exactly where I was, exactly where what I was wearing. I was on the phone in my. Talking to Bennett Thomas, who was a senior Vice President of Finance and Sustainability at Hersha,
Dan Ryan: and
Ethan Gabany: I had both offers on the table and I [00:44:00] was talking to Bennett. He was actually an investment banker by background.
Dan Ryan: And I said,
Ethan Gabany: I'm really split, like my heart tells me to do this, but my, you know, pressures around me in force is that B are making me feel like that's kind of a bad decision and maybe a selfish
Dan Ryan: one, you know? And
Ethan Gabany: he was the one, he actually didn't sell me that I should go to
Dan Ryan: Hersha. He's
Ethan Gabany: you have to think about what you wanna do in
Dan Ryan: life. Mm-hmm. And
Ethan Gabany: And I thought about that and I thought about the investment bank and I couldn't quantify what good the investment bank did for the world.
Dan Ryan: but
Ethan Gabany: knew the joy of hospitality and I knew the impact that hospitality had
Dan Ryan: to make a positive and meaningful impact on people's lives. And
Ethan Gabany: not, look, we're not curing cancer over here.
It's not rocket science. Right. But there is something very humanistic about our business. And in that moment I was like,
Dan Ryan: I
Ethan Gabany: go work at
Dan Ryan: her.[00:45:00]
Mm-hmm. you.
Ethan Gabany: and I've, I've spent time with them professionally working and with other firms since, but I've always sort of known from that moment, cut out the noise and be who you want to be.
Dan Ryan: Yep.
It ties into Frank Bruni's book.
Ethan Gabany: It does. Where you go is not who you'll be. And
and now
by extension of that, only you can control who you'll be.
Dan Ryan: And now you're Ethan Bringer of Joy.
Ethan Gabany: Bringer of joy God,
I think a lot of
Dan Ryan: people would fact get differ with you on that
Ethan Gabany: my friend.
Dan Ryan: Well,
You know, it's that joy of hospitality. Right. And I, yeah, that's funny.
Ethan Gabany: Somebody said to me at a party last night, they're like, you know the thing I love.
Dan Ryan: about they joke the C B R E crew, but you know, the people that I work with, they're like, you guys
Ethan Gabany: just always smiling. And I said, you know, we've realized that. Can I swear? Yeah. I said, you know, being a jackass doesn't achieve better results.
You know, it just makes people not wanna work with you.
Dan Ryan: That's not a.[00:46:00]
Ethan Gabany: It's not a curse. I think it's a good thing.
Dan Ryan: Yeah. It doesn't achieve results. And life is too short to be a jackass.
It is. Right. We're all,
Ethan Gabany: not nearly as much fun.
Dan Ryan: Yeah, totally. Um, well, hey, I just wanna say thank you for your time. I'm, I'm honored th to have you invest your time here, um, and to share your story because I think, um, this will inspire and impact a lot of other people out there who are at a decision point.
And thank you.
Ethan Gabany: for
Dan Ryan: Filling in the blanks
Ethan Gabany: for lot of
having me. It's been a lot of fun,
Dan.
Oh, it's my pleasure. And thank you to our listeners because without you and the growth we're getting every single week, we wouldn't be doing this, or I still might because I really, this brings me joy, so you know what I still do, but it's, it's growing and it's bringing me joy.
So it's checking all the boxes and, uh, maybe I should have Frank Bruny on. That would be
Dan Ryan Bringer of Joy. Yes.
Dan Ryan: Uh, hashtag bringer of Joy. Thank. Cheers.
[00:47:00]