A Texas multi-property operator on what it takes to build a hotel tech stack from scratch. Ft. Matt Marrs of Llano Real Estate Group

[00:00:00] Matt Marrs: We've got a dinosaur that comes out for breakfast. We have a mermaid that sits by the pool. I mean, it is just an experience when you come to the Cactus Cove, but really, we couldn't do it. We could not do it because it all starts with the PMS. You can't run a hotel without the correct operations, and that's how we're blessed to be working with you guys.

[00:00:32] Matt Welle: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another Matt Talks Hospitality. And, actually, it's two Matt Talks Hospitality because my guest is also called Matt. He is an operator in Texas, and I'm very excited to speak to him because he runs a very diverse business. So, he is the owner and operator of Cactus Cove Inn and Suites in Amarillo, but also part of the Llano Real Estate Group. So, they've got extended stays. They support RV parks. So, it's a very diverse business, and they moved this springtime to Mews. They migrated the entire portfolio onto Mews, and, like, they changed the entire tech stack. And this is kind of an operator that I love because within weeks, it was already beta testing some of the new solutions that we talked about at Mews Unfold: the messaging hub, the automations hub. I think you're testing out some of our point of sale features as well, which we're launching in the U.S later this year. So, it sounds like you're an innovator. Thank you for joining me today.

[00:01:21] Matt Marrs: I'm so excited to be with Mews and on Mews. And I think my account rep, a little bit, is like, “Hey, hold your horses, brother.” You know, it's coming. We got you. And I'm like, no, no. If it is available for me to try and test, I see the positives in Mews, but I'm like, “Okay, is this available?” And they're like, “Actually, it's coming.” And I said, “Well, let me test it. You know? Let me be the guinea pig.” And so, my account rep, she's been wonderful to allow me to jump on those betas and pilots. So, it's been a joyride.

[00:01:50] Matt Welle: Like, that is so valuable because a lot of hoteliers are afraid, and they're like, let me let other people test it before I test drive these things. And then once we get full market adoption, then I'll look at it potentially. But it's like people like you that are unafraid, and they're like, yeah, I wanna be at the forefront of innovation, are actually the people that we love to hang out with because the feedback we get from you is so valuable. And it really shapes the product.

[00:02:12] Matt Marrs: Well, I mean, on my side, thank you for allowing folks like me to be able to jump in. And, you know, I'm new to Mews. I'm not a long-time customer yet. Even before I got off onboarding, I was like, can I test that? Like, you said something about guest messaging. And I think my onboarder was like, I don't know if, you know, and so she said, “Well, let's get through onboarding, and then we'll get you.” And then the POS side of it, you know, again, I hope I'm not spilling any beans, but, you know, it wasn't available in the U.S. Like, it's like, hey, we're launching it over here. And so, I don't know, I was one of the first, I think, in the U.S., and we're fully implemented. It's up and running. It's great. We've got the hardware, and it's been very useful for the team because previously, in our other old PMS, we had our PMS system, but then we had a whole different POS system. So, it's like, “Hey, I need your card to run for your room. I need to charge you for your room. Oh, you wanted a Coke? You know, I need to get your card again and put it in this other system. You're gonna get a different receipt.” It was just clunky. It was clunky. And so, when I heard Mews, it's like, yeah, it's gonna be embedded in Mews. And I'm like, “Sign me up.” Do I need to pretend that I'm in Europe or whatever? Because I know it's not in the U.S, but, like, bring it on.

[00:03:31] Matt Welle: Tell me about the business. Like, you run a hotel, and you support RV parks, extended stay. Did it organically grow like this or, like, inorganically?

[00:03:41] Matt Marrs: Yeah. Very organic. So, we started in the short-term rental game. We started with one single-family house that we just listed on Airbnb, and that was it. But in our market, we quickly learned, holy moly, this could be a business. And the one that we had was just performing so well. And it really wasn't in that great of a situation, but it was still performing well. And we're like, okay, what if we amplify this? What if we multiply it? And so, we turn 1 into 9, 9 into 25, 25 into 50. We were the largest single operator of short-term rentals in our city at one point. It was kind of the height of Airbnb. I mean, it just kicked off, and it was, I mean, literally, skyrocketing to the moon. Oh, we said, “Shoot, if we could take this model, this idea, this strategy, and apply it to a motel, would it work?” And what we did is, we took over the Big Texan Motel in May '21, so it's almost 5 years ago, and we quadrupled their revenue by implementing self check-in and all these integrations and the PMS. And so that motel needed to come into this day and age, and that's what we did. We took it and brought it to, you know, today's world through technology. But then we said, “Man, okay, we're doing that for someone else because we just manage that motel. We don't own that.” And we said, if we can do that for someone else, can we do it for ourselves? And so we bought an old hotel that was run down. It was a shabby place, and we rebranded it, remodeled it, and reopened it as the Cactus Cove Inn and Suites. And now for the fourth year in a row, we've been a finalist for best hotel in Amarillo. Hopefully, this will be the year that we actually win the award. It's been a beautiful ride because here at the Cactus Cove, it's kind of my baby. I mean, I office is here, and I spend a lot of time here in focus, but it is by far the most family-friendly hotel in Amarillo. And I don't know if you've seen it. I won't take too much longer explaining it, but, you know, we have an arcade, a bar, a restaurant, a putting green, a pickleball court, an indoor heated pool, a game room, a park. We've got Killifish they can feed. We've got three indoor slides. We've got a dinosaur that comes out for breakfast. We have a mermaid that sits by the pool. I mean, it is just an experience when you come to the Cactus Cove, but really, we couldn't do it. We could not do it because it all starts with the PMS. You can't run a hotel without the correct operations, and that's how we're blessed to be working with you guys.

[00:06:03] Matt Welle: It sounds like a reality TV show that I wanted to watch, like, you buying up some old building that you convert, and suddenly there's a dinosaur serving you breakfast in the morning. Where do you start? Because it sounds like there's no lack of creativity. But what was, like, the first thing that made you stand apart when you launched a hotel, and you're like, yeah, but we're gonna do it differently? Like, what are the first ideas that we're gonna put in that make us distinctly different?

[00:06:24] Matt Marrs: Yeah. So, I'll be honest. I don't come from hotels. I grew up in a trailer house outside of the city. I graduated middle of my class in high school; like, I am just an average show dude. I don't come from hotels. I don't come from money. But when I got into hospitality, I didn't know it was a career path. I didn't know it was a job that you could do, you know? As soon as I got into it, I knew it was meant for me because I have the freedom and flexibility to do what I want, when I want, how I want, and be creative. There's another side of hospitality where it's like the flagged hotels and branded; like, I also know that's not me. Like, I can't have someone, you know, saying, "Hey, you've gotta do this.” I just can't do it. And so I knew combining all of that together was like, this is where I am supposed to be. So, the Cactus Cove, specifically, being that I wasn't from hotels, I didn't know what I was doing. You know? I knew that this was a bad place, and I needed to change its reputation. That was the goal. And so we started with a rebrand. Obviously, the new logo, new signage, new personnel. If it wasn't a good place, we've gotta change all of that so that we could change your reputation. It wasn't until about a year and a half, maybe two years into owning the property where it clicked in my head was like, this is actually a very good opportunity for families to get out of their car and for the kids to just run and scream. We're not, like, in other hotels, if a kid's being loud, just kind of screaming down the hallways, you know, you're like, shh, shh, shh, you know, stop. People are, you know, in the rooms, whatever. That's not this place. If you tell one of my kids at my hotel that, shh, shh, shh, you're at the wrong hotel, and we set those expectations, I get it wrong, like, if you want the Holiday Inn where you got your room and everything's peace and quiet, cool. You know, there's a time and place for that. That's just not the Cactus Cove. Like, you know, at check-in, we deliver and bake fresh cookies. There are bounce houses every day in our atrium, and I can hear kids right now screaming in the hallway.

[00:08:31] Matt Welle: So, is your customer actually children and then the parents are like, you get the parents with the kids, but, actually, if you please the kids, then everything else will come?

[00:08:40] Matt Marrs: Yeah. So, the target market is the family. Right? Now the parent is making a decision, but if we can get the kids' attention, we know where they're gonna wanna stay. If the kids are having fun and they're making memories and they know where they're gonna stay, the parents are gonna fall in love. I have a five-year-old girl. Right? She loves Daddy's hotel, and that's my indicator. Like, did I do that right? Does she like it? Do you know what I mean? And so the parent, they're the buyer. Right? They're the one paying for the room. But if the kid is enjoying themselves and they get to hang out and relax, one thing we do pretty strategically, and you'll see this if you come to the hotel - maybe someday you will - is that every amenity that we have, we designate, you know, pretty strategically, a sitting area for the parent. Because as a parent, you're getting tired; it is like, I need a place to hang out and sit down. So, by the jump house is a sitting area. By the playground is a sitting area. So, we try to do that pretty strategically.

[00:09:31] Matt Welle: So, what's an experience that customers talk about? Because often we've got lots of things, but what's the memory that people tell you about, saying, “Oh, I experienced this one crazy thing at your hotel that my kids keep talking about?”

[00:09:43] Matt Marrs: Yeah. I think it's the new addition to the dinosaur. So, we just introduced Carl. Carl's our Covasaurus Rex. What other hotel have you ever been to that you could eat breakfast with a dinosaur? I mean, seriously. You know what I mean? And so we took a page out of two people. We've learned, if you're familiar with the Savannah Bananas and Disney World. So, the Savannah Bananas, they wanna entertain always. And so I started thinking to myself, okay, every hotel has breakfast. How can we make that an activation? Right? But then, secondly, we just went to Disney World, and my daughter's favorite part of Disney World, out of all the rides, all the parks, all things, was that she got to eat breakfast with all the Disney characters. And so they would come around your table, and they would take a picture of all the things. But I'm like, ding ding ding ding, I need a dinosaur, and so it's a realistic dinosaur suit; someone actually gets in it. It's like this big 10-foot-tall - I mean, it is really, really cool - and so we introduced him; we've got music that, you know, “And now, welcome, Carl”. You know, it's like this exciting music, and he walks out, and he roars. That would be the one.

[00:10:50] Matt Welle: It's pretty good.

[00:10:51] Matt Marrs: That'd be the one.

[00:10:52] Matt Welle: Really, really smart.

[00:10:52] Matt Marrs: Yep.

[00:10:53] Matt Welle: Those are memories, and those kids wanna come back next year because that's what they wanna experience again. Right?

[00:10:58] Matt Marrs: Absolutely.

[00:11:00] Matt Welle: So, we're a tech podcast. We should probably talk about technology at some point, but I'm really enjoying the experiences.

[00:11:06] [AD]: Thank you so much for listening to Matt Talks Hospitality. I really enjoyed these conversations. I did wanna take a moment to talk about the Mews Revenue Management system. Two years ago, we acquired Atomize, and we then, from that moment, started rebuilding the whole platform from the ground up at the core. So, the idea was that the Mews operating system becomes the core platform that everyone in the hotel lives in, but we had to rebuild the whole user experience inside that same platform whilst we optimize algorithms. That product is now live. Hoteliers and revenue managers love it because once they log in to Mews, they get their business intelligence insights. They can manage the rates and the connectivity to the channel managers. And now, all the price recommendations are sitting in that same platform. And this makes the life of revenue managers much more interesting because it turns them into revenue strategists. You can see this demo straight away, directly inside the system. We can get it to you live by tomorrow, and we can get recommendations flowing to instantly make your business a better business. I hope you enjoy it.

[00:12:00] Matt Welle: Tell me about your tech stack before Mews and what it's like now.

[00:12:04] Matt Marrs: Yeah. We were happy-ish with our old tech stack, and you are probably very familiar, but tech is kind of sticky. Right? Once you get established to one, it is very, very, very difficult to then get someone to switch because you get comfortable, and it's such a heavy lift. And we were there. We were there. We were like, okay, well, it does okay, and it does know we want. And, ultimately, there were two deciding factors that got us to switch. A, it was more price-effective. So, even though it did more, it was less expensive, which was nice. Secondly, Mews is better set up and built for hotels. Right. So, like, I would talk to my old PMS. I was using Guesty; I don't know if I’m supposed to say their name or not, but that's who we were using. And they're mainly built for short-term rentals, but that's where we started. Right? So, we started with short-term rentals. We grew into hotels, and so Guesty was just kinda growing with us. You know, they're trying their best. But I'm like, I would give an example of, like, “Hey, we have a group coming in of 30 people. Like, do I have to put these in individually every single time? Like, each individual reservation.” And they were like, “Well, yeah. Why would 30 people be checking in to an Airbnb that sleeps 3?” You understand what I'm saying? So, like, they were built for short-term rentals. Mews is built for hotels. Between the price and the fact that we wanna grow in large hospitality, our growth strategy where we want to expand in the future is hotels. We think it's way more efficient and easier to scale. So, Mews fits where we wanna go in the future better. There are still some things that Muse didn't quite have yet, but the fact that you guys said, "Hey. I know we don't have our own messaging system right now, but, a, you can integrate with one; so we integrate with Akia right now, but, b, we're building it, and we wanna get you involved with what that looks like and how it works, and, you know, we'll get you in the early stage of the beta.” So, it was very convincing to move over to Mews when, a, it was gonna save me money, b, it was built for what we wanna do, and then you guys were easy to work with as far as, like, hey, we might be missing this one piece or this, you know, this thing that you really want, but look, it's in the pipeline. We’ll let you try it, test it, and use it.

[00:14:26] Matt Welle: And now that you're live, are you seeing any impact of the different systems, or actually, it’s business as usual?

[00:14:33] Matt Marrs: Yeah. I'll say I do not enjoy having to use a third-party integration. Like, the more that I can use within Mews, the better. And I'll give an example of what I was doing previously. I'll give an example of Mews and take this with what you will. But previously, in Guesty, we used a third-party RMS platform called PriceLabs, but it was outside of Guesty. So, it's a third-party and integrated. It worked fine, but it's not built-in. You know, it's not easy. I’ve gottta go to a different website. So, when we went to Mews, another cool piece that caught me and moved over was the Atomize piece; like, it's in Mews. Mews owns it. It's built by Mews. It's not a third party. It's gonna live in Mews. So, that was, like, I love that. Now, vice versa, in Mews, there's not a way to just directly integrate into QuickBooks. We use QuickBooks for our accounting.

[00:15:30] Matt Welle: Your accounting?

[00:15:31] Matt Marrs: Yeah. P&L's and stuff. And so, we have to use a third-party connector to connect Mews, to connect to that, and then to connect to QuickBooks. And so, anytime I have to use a third party, I'm like, oh, God.

[00:15:43] Matt Welle: It breaks.

[00:15:44] Matt Marrs: I hate it. Yeah.

[00:15:45] Matt Welle: Yeah. It breaks the flow.

[00:15:46] Matt Marrs: It does. But then also, too, it's like, okay, I've gotta talk to the Mews support, and I've gotta talk to Omniboost support, and I gotta talk to QuickBooks because it's not working like it's, anyway, but if it's Mews, like, if like, it's in Mews, lives in Mews. It is like, okay, I can just talk to Mews, and there's not this weird, you know what I mean?

[00:16:03] Matt Welle: And you talked about revenue management, but you still do extend it. Say, you do hotels, you support RV parks; is it significantly different how you do revenue management for those three different concepts?

[00:16:13] Matt Marrs: No. And the reason is because Atomize does a great job of being able to select not only your base rate. Like, okay, I know I want my base rate to be, but then let's compare it to these comparables. Let's compare it to these comps. And based on those comps, let's run a rate strategy. And Atomize has done a great job. Our ADR has literally - I'll put a percentage; I wish I had the exact number, but it probably increased 15%, 20%. And so, not only is it, you know, a little bit cost-effective to be on Mews, but then I'm generating more revenue because my ADR is being maximized better by our RMS system.

[00:16:52] Matt Welle: You'll see it because you're right. Let's say you said 15%. We saw an average of 13.2% uplift for hotels that weren't using an RMS to the extent before, but you'll see the real uplift in month 10 when we've had 9 months of data where we're just learning. Like, we're doing price experiments, and we're just testing what's working. And sometimes you've set the price too high, and then it learns, right, that's too high. Let's try a little bit lower. Month 10 is when it consistently starts to deliver those kinds of results.

[00:17:20] Matt Marrs: That's really cool. I am excited for month 13 because then I can compare it to last year's.

[00:17:26] Matt Welle: Year on year.

[00:17:27] Matt Marrs: You know what I mean?

[00:17:28] Matt Welle: Yeah.

[00:17:29] Matt Marrs: Just like right now, I don't have any data from last year because there's, you know, Atomize. Was it? So, come March, April next year, as it loops back around.

[00:17:37] Matt Welle: We'll be calling you.

[00:17:38] Matt Marrs: Yeah, let's do that call because it'll show us historical data, and it'll compare to, well, this is what it was last year today, and this is what we're computing. So, that's what I would set it for.

[00:17:49] Matt Welle: So, you talked about being on another system, and you're like, well, it kind of works. Should I move? But then you decided to move. Was it as painful as you envisioned it to be? Because I think you signed in January. By March, you were live everywhere. Right?

[00:18:02] Matt Marrs: Yeah. Not a good decision on my part. And it was rough. And I'll tell you why. Yeah. We did not just do one property. We did - I said, I wanna do them all. Like, I don't wanna do one and another and another. And I said, let's just rip off that band-aid.

[00:18:17] Matt Welle: Get it over.

[00:18:18] Matt Marrs: Let's get it over. Let's do it. But I decided to launch because I was trying to get it done quickly, the day my account went on maternity leave and the start of spring break. And so not only are we trying to, like, get all of our reservations moved over, or all this money figured out, but now the accountant's gone and we don't know where the reporting is, and then now it's spring break, so we're sold out completely, and we're like, okay. So, it was my fault. It was not anything on Mews's side. The onboarding specialist that we had, I really, really, really, really wish that I could just pay a little extra and keep her on, like I actually asked her. I said, “Did you do any consulting on the side?” Like, if you, you know, maybe…

[00:19:00] Matt Welle: You know, maybe on your Saturday, Sunday.

[00:19:01] Matt Marrs: Yeah. Just on the weekend, let's, you know, maybe you can still help me. And she's like, “Dude, I've got so many people to onboard.” Anyway, so she was absolutely phenomenal at getting me onboard, getting it set up, getting it all sorted out because…

[00:19:16] Matt Welle: What's her name? I wanna give her a shout out because, like, I love it when you…

[00:19:18] Matt Marrs: Yeah. Janice. No. I won’t forget her.

[00:19:21] Matt Welle: Janice. There you go.

[00:19:22] Matt Marrs: Janice. #you'reamazing.

[00:19:24] Matt Welle: I love it.

[00:19:25] Matt Marrs: She's awesome.

[00:19:26] Matt Welle: So, you've gone live, and, yes, it was painful the day you went live. But after how many, like, days or weeks did it settle and did you get into a normal rhythm? Did you actually start to experiment with it?

[00:19:36] Matt Marrs: Oh, yeah. Five days in for each property.

[00:19:39] Matt Welle: Oh, fast.

[00:19:40] Matt Marrs: It was fun. Yeah. It was just the initial shock of, okay, well, wait. We did Mews University, but how do we make a reservation again? Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, we used to do it like this over here, but, you know, how do we do it over here? And so, five days in, our team - it was simple. Now we did a kind of rollout where, okay, we did the Cactus Cove first, and then we did the Big Texan, and then we did the RV Park. And so it was a little bit of a rollout, but we just staggered it by a week. So, this week is the Cactus Cove, and next week is Big Texan's turn. So, it was a big, heavy lift, but five days into switching, we were good. The team was comfortable.

[00:20:17] Matt Welle: Brilliant.

[00:20:18] Matt Marrs: It's very user-friendly to understand the flow of it all. Now, the finance piece was tough a little bit for us because it was different from our old PMS. But, ultimately, altogether, it was great.

[00:20:29] Matt Welle: Super. And then you started signing up for Betas. Yeah. So, you've done more Betas than any customer, I think, at Mews. Like, you're like, yeah, I'll just do all of them, and I'll tell you. Like, a lot of customers, we announced this, like, a couple months ago that we're gonna be bringing these products to markets, but they haven't actually seen it. So, what can you tell customers about messaging or automation or point of sale? What’s the thing that you like about it? What works well?

[00:20:53] Matt Marrs: Well, listen. It's gonna live inside the Mews. That was my biggest thing. And they are all built so well that it creates these efficiencies within your operations that you realize, dang, we had to do it that way before, but now we get to do it so much more simply. For example, guest messaging. Now this is brand new to us. I mean, we're still learning. So, if, let's say, something is wrong, you know, maybe over the head, but it's new to us. But something that just came out, again, if I spill the beans - I don't know. But they have a broadcast feature. So, for example, I can send a message to everybody that's checking in today. It says, “Hey, sorry for the inconvenience, but the pool is closed today for maintenance.” Or I can blast that out all at once to everybody that's checking in today? Or if everybody goes checking out, I could say, you know, blast a message, or if we can broadcast a message to everybody in a certain time frame or who's coming, who's going. That is really cool. So, we're on the automations Beta. Now, again, we are brand new to it. We are still learning. But being able to automate things within Mews, I didn't realize that there was a plethora - I mean, a plethora of things that you can connect to and automate. I mean, I haven't even scratched the surface. Like, you can just scroll, and it's like, yeah. We have all of these integrations and connectors that you can automate all day. So, right now, we're just trying to automate our messaging. Right? So, like, okay, check in, send this message, and check out, send this message. So that's what we're focused on: how do we automate the messaging side of it. But once I get to actually dig into the automations thing, it is. So, if you haven't heard of automations or tried automations or other Beta, ask your account rep because it's pretty slick.

[00:22:43] Matt Welle: It's because we're like an industry of corner cases because we're dealing with humans. Right? So, you can standardize only to some degree, but at some point, you know, humans have different workflows. And it's really complex to be at a front desk in a hotel because of the questions that come your way; you need to figure them out. And if these questions are suddenly coming in through chat instead of, like, someone calling the reception, we should pick up on it. We shouldn't have to inject the human to automate some of these things. So, this is where automation comes in, saying, you know, if we're a family with kids and if the kid is, like, below three years old, then we should have this, like, VIP amenity for them or something. And those are workflows that we can just build in the moment that you update the profiles, recognize that the kids are below three, and you can have a custom experience for them. And I think that's really what we're trying to solve with, like, the automation workflows to make sure that every hotel can build these really, really specialized custom experiences because I hope that more hoteliers will create custom, like, experiences rather than the very, very standardized big brand experiences because that's not how you stand out. That's not how you earn return customers.

[00:23:46] Matt Marrs: Absolutely. You know, one more piece about the messaging in Mews: the guest messaging is there's an AI piece. And so the AI is actually reading the messages and will reply back if they know the answers. So, you train your AI within the messaging, and you get all of its data so that if someone asks a, you know, question that they can answer - what time, what are the pool hours - they’ll just automatically respond. Like, you don't have to take the time and energy and effort to dive in, type it out.

[00:24:18] Matt Welle: Yeah. You're clearly a hotelier who loves their guests, and you're trying to build these guest relationships. What's a piece of technology that you would build if you were in charge of Mews?

[00:24:28] Matt Marrs: So, I mentioned to Savannah Banana earlier, and we try to emulate our culture in what they’ve built, and it's “entertain always, guest first.” I call it fans first, actually. And so anytime that we're on a call with someone, our guest, or we're messaging them, and they might say, you know, “we're coming through town for a family vacation.” So, we kind of dig in. Here, where you're headed, we try to ask more questions. So, then we might get the piece of information that's like, well, it's John's birthday. Well, okay, how old is John? And, you know, what is John into? So, we'll try to surprise and delight our fans first, this guest, by, you know, maybe putting a birthday present in a room or a signed card with a cookie or, you know, just go the extra mile. And so if there was something to help us manage that, like, and Mews might already have it, and maybe it's through tasks. You use tasks. Maybe that's…

[00:25:25] Matt Welle: Well, I really like where you're taking this. So, right now, the AI semantic layer, which is the level of understanding of your hotel - like, everything we know about your hotel - we're learning. We're self-learning. So, if you respond to a question, if a human responds saying, “The parking is closed at this particular time”, we've now learned this. However, what you're saying is actually, “But you're also getting to know the customer. Why are you not automatically updating the guest profiles with that information so that next time they come, we know that they've got, you know, young kids that love dinosaurs, for example?” And I love it. So, I'm gonna make sure that our product people listen to this thing, and they learn from you because I think it's really powerful what you just said, and we hadn't even thought about that.

[00:26:02] Matt Marrs: That's cool.

[00:26:04] Matt Welle: So, is business in hotels in Texas good? Like, is hospitality in a good place?

[00:26:08] Matt Marrs: It's beautiful. So, Texas is so big. So, like, you know, as a whole state, I don't know. But for my city and my region, it is booming. We've got a lot of large construction projects going on around us. But then, secondly, we are the Texas stop for Route 66, and it's the Centennial celebration year for Route 66. It's the hundredth birthday of that road. And so, as people are traveling that road, I mean, literally, Amarillo, Texas, is the place to stop to see cowboys and eat a big steak at the Big Texan Steak Ranch and see Cadillac Ranch. I mean, like, we have so many iconic things for Route 66, and it being the birthday of that road, it has just generated a lot of demand for our area, and we are soaking it in. I mean, every ounce of demand that we could get here, I mean, we are taking advantage of it, and so it's been exciting.

[00:27:04] Matt Welle: I love it. So, we have quite a - we're an international hospitality company. So, the audience is a lot of hoteliers dialing in from all over the world. So, all the way from Australia to Europe. What's one piece of advice you would give other hoteliers that you've tested in your hotel that you're like, I don't think you know about this. I think you should know about it because it's actually added a lot of value for me.

[00:27:24] Matt Marrs: I'll say two things. I think there's a technology piece and then just some advice. And I'll start with the advice. Be the hotelier that takes the next step and says, “Man, I really wish that we would do this, or I really want to do that.” Like, be the person that says, I did that. Right? Now, it might be trial and error, and it might be, man, I really fell on my face that time, and that really didn't work out. But guess what? You tried it, you learned from it, and let's move forward because I think that's where innovation's gonna come from, is if you at least step out of your comfort zone and quit saying, "Hey. I really wish that, you know, we could do that.” No. No. Tell the story of when we did, you know what I mean? And I'll give two examples, just real fast. We held a micro wrestling event in our atrium of the hotel. Okay. So, that is little people wrestling in a little ring. I was skeptical at first. I didn't know how the community was gonna take it. I didn't know how our guests were gonna take it. It was the most visited and attended event we've ever hosted at the Cactus Cove. Now wrestling at a hotel - why? Like, what's the, but it was such a good organic marketing moment. I mean, like, there are still people, and this was last year. There are still people that will, you know, run into, and they're like, didn't you at the Cactus Cove, like, have this wrestling thing? And I'm like, we sure did. You know what I mean? On the flip side, recently, we agreed to host a rave in our pool. Now our hotel is an atrium-style hotel, so, like, all the rooms are, you know, you can, phew, not family-friendly. It was not family-friendly, and I learned my lesson very quickly, and we will not do that again. Thankfully, you know, people aren't running into me in the community and saying, “Weren't you the girl that did the rape?” You know? Anyway, you just have to try things and see if they work. And if they don't work, move on and, you know, try something else. So, get off your butt and do something. That's my advice.

[00:29:25] Matt Welle: Where do you get inspiration from? It sounds like you do a lot of out-there things. Where do you get inspiration from?

[00:29:31] Matt Marrs: Oh, boy. So, in our company, I am the visionary. Some of the guys are looking up and out. You know, how can we gain attention? That's really what I'm after because you can market all day long, you can post on social media, but if you're not gaining someone's attention, you're not really doing anything, and we kind of have to. So, the Cactus Cove Inn and Suites, there's not another hotel in the world named the Cactus Cove Inn and Suites. We're not a recognized brand. We're not a notable brand. We're literally just some dunes in a hotel that have a name, and that's what we are. And so I have to think outside the box of, like, how are we gonna get people's attention to then give us a shot, try us out, talk about us. Because let me tell you, it has really worked. We were named the most outstanding small business in Amarillo last year.

[00:30:21] Matt Welle: Congrats.

[00:30:22] Matt Marrs: This is the fourth year in a row that we've been a finalist for Best Hotel Amarillo. In the last two years, there have been three finalists. The last two years, it has been two branded luxury brands that beat us. I mean, it's luxury brand A, luxury brand B, Cactus Cove Inn and Suites. You know what I mean? And I'm proud of that. Like, I'm proud to be in the conversation with, you know, probably, like, I'm not supposed to be in that category. I'm not supposed to be in that conversation. We are more of a mid-scale to economy brand, really. It's kinda what we are. But to be able to compete against the luxury brands, it was cool.

[00:30:58] Matt Welle: I love it.

[00:30:59] Matt Marrs: The organic exposure has really excelled our business.

[00:31:04] Matt Welle: You're such a good storyteller.

[00:31:05] Matt Marrs: Oh, boy. Natural.

[00:31:06] Matt Welle: And I can see why you run a hotel that has families with kids because, like, yeah, I would listen to you. I'd take all of your ideas, but, like, thank you for joining me today and sharing all of these amazing stories.

[00:31:17] Matt Marrs: Of course.

[00:31:18] Matt Welle: I hope I get to visit soon. Like, I don't love driving cars, which is a problem in America. So, like, I try and take public transport. So, I don't know if there's, like, a bus that stops at the road, but it sounds like a place I actually must go and see at some point in the future.

[00:31:33] Matt Marrs: I'll come pick you up, okay? You can sit, passenger. I'll drive you where you need to go. It'll be good. It'll be good.

[00:31:39] Matt Welle: Love it. Thank you for joining me today.

[00:31:40] Matt Marrs: Thanks, Matt.

[00:31:41] Matt Welle: I hope that you're enjoying this episode because if you do, make sure that you press that subscribe button. It really helps grow the audience and keep you informed whenever a new episode drops. We have some of the best hoteliers on this platform, and I love asking them the hard questions so that hopefully you can improve your hospitality business as well.