Good Morning! Welcome back to another week chatting in the inbox!
Last week was a whirlwind for me, with both the first Unique Stays Summit kicking off and Onera Wimberley welcoming its first guests.
A big week of working out the kinks.
Luckily, both turned out to be a smashing success and it seems to have translated to our newsletter as well, with a ton of you joining our weekly chats this past week.
So, I first want to thank you for joining our community of unique stay operators, developers and just anyone interested in the future of hospitality!
And second, I want to take this week to re-introduce myself, Ben Wolff, my story and show you what you can come to expect being a part of this community.
Let’s get to it…
Kicking things off– my driving thoughts and beliefs.
Why would I not start at the beginning of the story?
Simple. These are the core values that shape what this newsletter is all about.
They’re my deeply held beliefs that every one of my decisions has led to and you will see why in the next few minutes together.
So, why not kick it off with the meat of the story?
1. The Modern Traveler is Shaping the Future of Travel
The Modern Traveler is the next generation of travelers. And they’re spending an exorbitant amount of their income on travel.
But not just any travel.
✅ They want unique, shareable experiences.
✅ They are willing to spend a large portion of their budget on where they are staying.
✅ They want to connect with a property and founder, not have a transactional interaction with a business.
And they are the foundation to the rest of my hospitality beliefs…
2. Unique Stays & Landscape Resorts Are the Future
Travelers are going out of their way to find the most unique, inspiring accommodations.
They are ditching the big box hotels and opting for more uniquely designed, inspiring stays that they can share on Instagram.
3. Instagram is the Next Big OTA
While the booking.com’s of the world will always have a place for someone looking to book with a strict set of criteria, the rest are shifting to Instagram.
Instagram helps travelers “feel” the property, get inspired and imagine the experience that they will have, something static photos on an OTA platform could never do.
Plus, hosts and operators save 14%+ on OTA commissions, attract guests who are less price sensitive, and own the customer journey from beginning to end.
4. The Hospitality Industry is Slow to Adapt
Unlike the massive sense of urgency and product testing in the tech space, hospitality seems to be stuck doing things “as they have always been done.”
There has been a massive lack of innovation in terms of hotel design, operations and guest experience.
This is something we are trying to flip the script on, helping each other break the mold of “what has always worked” and define the future of hospitality.
With that, here’s how exactly I arrived at these beliefs.
I started my career just after graduating from NYU at McKinsey. Shocker, I know.
Presentations and powerpoints were the story of my life, pretty much as far from hospitality as I can think of.
The true start of my soon to be hospitality career (though I didn’t know it at the time) was actually lease arbitraging apartments in New York City.
We had 8 units in the city that we were renting out for some extra income back in 2016/ 2017 before me and my partner started getting interest from other friends who wanted to get involved.
So, 2018 rolled around and I quit my day job to go all-in on a short term rental management company.
We grew to a couple hundred units by late 2019. (yep, right before covid hit)
Building this management company actually opened my eyes to a key operational efficiency that we still use to this day– leveraging overseas talent in hospitality.
I had been leveraging overseas talent ever since I was at McKinsey and was shocked at the quality of talent you could get at a fraction of the cost.
But, I had never thought it would be applicable in the “high touch” hospitality industry.
By 2019, we had about 20 people in the Philippines and in March of 2020 we decided to have our first team offsite over there.
Coincidently, right before the US decided to start shutting down the borders.
You can ask my wife about that story, it’s a sore subject…
This moment marked my plunge into the world of unique stays and landscape hotels.
Ever since my wife and I’s honeymoon road trip across the Western US in, my now partner, Jesse Comly’s RV, I re-fell in love with the great outdoors.
I had been in Manhattan for over a decade and honestly forgot about the amazing landscapes that we have right here in the US.
BUT, we were making good money with the urban STRs, so unique stays just lived as an idea in the back of my head.
Until covid, that was the nail in the coffin. I saw how fragile the landscape was for urban STRs and decided this was the time to diversify.
I wouldn’t have changed anything about starting our management business first though.
My track record with the management company both helped me raise my first fund as well as secure financing for my first project.
Then, my first landscape resort came into the picture– Onera Fredericksburg.
A small 10 unit project within walking distance to downtown Fredericksburg, TX, tucked into nature with unique tents, domes, hard sided units and even an Airstream at one point.
It was no easy feat getting my first landscape resort off the ground.
I learned A TON on the development side since it was my first development project:
☑️ What a bank was looking for to finance a project (I heard “no” from the first 20 banks)
☑️ Not to import cheap structures and amenities from China
☑️ What to look for in a piece of land for a landscape resort
☑️ How to find the right GC for these types of projects
Little did I know that my biggest eye-opener would come after opening–the power of social media.
In our first couple of months, we were only listed on Airbnb and didn’t even have a direct booking website.
A persistent influencer named Amanda “@texasexplorer” kept reaching out to work with us and showcase Onera. I finally relented and spun up a quick and dirty Instagram account and direct booking website.
Amanda came out to shoot some content and post a giveaway on Instagram which generated a whopping $15,000 in direct bookings. So, back she came a month later and we did another $15,000 in bookings.
We were hooked.
We went all in learning social media and the power of using Instagram to drive direct bookings.
Everything from how to shoot content to how to structure reels and even what onscreen text to use.
Onera Fredericksburg ended up being our “sandbox” that allowed us to test strategies that could be scaled to our future projects and beyond.
So far we have seen over $1,000,000 in direct bookings at Onera Fredericksburg alone and have built out our in-house social media team to produce viral content for our properties and our clients’ properties.
And that brings us to today, where are we at?
Well, by chance we happened to find the perfect piece of property for our second location in Wimberley, TX right in the middle of our build for Onera Fredericksburg.
That build ended up taking almost 3 years, with more unique challenges than the Fredericksburg build.
I wrote a whole post about the Onera Wimberley story here for anyone interested.
We are also underway with a $14m expansion to our current Fredericksburg location, adding even more unique units and options for the Modern Traveler.
Outside of opening Onera Wimberley & expanding Fredericksburg, we are also scaling out Oasi--our services firm for experiential hotels and unique stays.
Oasi offers social media growth, pricing, full service management and even development consulting for experiential hospitality projects.
We are living and breathing the unique stay space and want to see as many projects as possible brought to life.
What’s on the horizon for us?
As we scale out our Oasi services business, we are of course eyeing up our next development opportunities, which will also be branded under the Oasi name.
Taking our learnings from Onera Fredericksburg and Wimberley, we have one more project to bring to the Texas Hill Country, but this time with more amenities, F&B and a spa– a true landscape resort.
We are also looking at land for a South Florida development as we look to bring more landscape resorts to the US.
The US is primed for disruption in the hospitality space and we are glad to have you with us to be a part of this journey.
I can’t wait to chat more soon!
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Discouraged by your property's social media presence? Getting minimal direct bookings? Trying to get your project off the ground?
That’s our wheelhouse, we can help you drive 80%+ direct bookings and maximize the best booking engine in the world– social media.
Or just be a second set of eyes on your development.
Fill out an inquiry here and let’s see how we can work together.
See you guys next week!
-Ben Wolff
📸 Looking to Learn More? Check Out My Daily Content on Instagram
🎥 Check Out My Debate of Hands-on vs Hands-off Stays with Irene Wood and Nick Purslow
Ben Wolff
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