How Choice Hotels uses technology to power its franchise model. Ft. Raul Ramirez

[00:00:00] Raul Ramirez: We reached a scale where averages were not good. Averages were in our way of growing with 7,500 properties, or if you want to think about the 6,000 here in the U.S., we realized we needed someone waking up every morning thinking about how am I going to get my brand, the Comfort brand, the Quality brand, the Cambria, the Ascend brand, bigger, larger and more effective for our owners.

[00:00:36] Matt Welle: Before we get into this episode, I love having these conversations with these innovators and these hoteliers that tell really fantastic stories about their businesses that hopefully you learn from. Like and subscribe so that we can inform you next time we have a great conversation coming out that you can follow along for.

[00:00:52] Matt Welle: Hi everyone. Welcome back to another Matt Talks Hospitality, and I'm really excited for this conversation because we have a friend from Choice Hotels. Choice actually started in 1939. It's so long ago, and it's incredible that they started back then. It was a small group of motels that formed that wanted to retain their independence, but they wanted to work together to get these benefits of, like, what you see in a franchise model. And it's incredible to see how this company grew from that small group of hotels to one of the largest hotel companies in the world today. I have Raul Ramirez with me today. He's the Chief Segment and International Operations Officer at Choice Hotels International. And we're going to get into the franchise model. He's going to explain how this all works because we have a lot of independent attendees listening, thinking, should we think about a franchise model? And of course, we're going to touch on AI and technology at some point as well. But Raul, thank you so much for making time for this.

[00:01:43] Raul Ramirez: Thank you, Matt. It's a pleasure to be here with you, with your audience and really looking forward to talk a little bit about franchising and technology.

[00:01:51] Matt Welle: Can you tell me about Choice? Like, how would you describe Choice to someone who has never stayed in a hotel before? And what makes Choice uniquely Choice?

[00:01:58] Raul Ramirez: You said it. Choice is an 87-year-old company. We are one of the largest hotel franchisor companies in the world. We have around 7,500 properties across 50 countries and territories. We are very well known for some of our 22 brands like Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Sleep Inn, Cambria, Ascend, Econo Lodge, Rodeway, and we also have the ownership and rights for the growth and performance of the Radisson brands in the Americas territory. What makes Choice unique, and what I take a lot of pride in being part of this company, is that we don't just think of Choice as a hospitality company. Choice is a company that sits in the intersection of hospitality, franchising and technology. The secret resides in our value proposition. When you are in this franchising arena in hospitality, you need to take a look at two types of customers: your franchisees and, ultimately, the guest that stays there. That's why our value proposition tagline is: we are built for owners and valued by guests. So, that's a little bit about Choice.

[00:03:05] Matt Welle: Love that. And you're a pure franchise model, right? So, you don't manage hotels yourself. You always allow the operator to manage their own hotels and decide on the management company. You're only the franchise, the brand and the distribution network that you create for the hotels.

[00:03:20] Raul Ramirez: That is correct. We provide the brands. The owners own the building, they own the operations, or they can have an agreement with an operating company, a PMC. And we provide the brand, the knowledge, the technology, the know-how, everything for them to be successful. Because we understand that these entrepreneurs go into the business to be by themselves, but we believe they shouldn't be by themselves; they're not alone. We’re here for them.

[00:03:47] Matt Welle: You have so many sub-brands, and I think often when I go to America, I see all of the brands that you name, but I don't always see them in Europe. Is there a differentiator between the U.S. and the rest of the world in terms of which brands you deploy where, and then within a brand, is there a difference? If I stay in a Comfort Inn in the U.S. versus in Europe, would I have a different experience, or is there a real focus on standardization of that?

[00:04:07] Raul Ramirez: You know what, that's a great question. I mentioned we have 7500 properties. Around 6000 of them are in the U.S. We have around 1500 outside of the U.S and when we go into the U.S., it's direct franchising. We have the direct franchising relationship with that owner. However, because we are present in 50 countries and territories with different types of footprint in terms of volume. Sometimes, we would go and leverage what we call the master franchise partner or a master franchise agreement. Someone that is an expert in operations, with regulations, with ways of working with culture. That is super important. And they represent our brands, and they are the ones growing our brands, operating and providing that service and interaction, either direct franchising, a hybrid, managed and owned, but they are the stewards of our brands. So, when you talk about that was the first question, how are we present and what are the two franchising models that we have. No direct franchising and master franchising. The second question you ask is about brand positioning. I talked about it. Our brand positioning, service culture, and experience. We started several years ago in the international division, right? We have been in countries for more than 50, 60 years out of our 87 years. We try and strive to have the same brand positioning that we have in the U.S.; however, in some markets, it's not feasible at this point just because of legacy situations that we had. However, they are very similar examples of those. Right here in the U.S., our Comfort Inns are positioned in the upper mid-scale arena. Quality Inn is in the mid-scale arena. Given the brand awareness, how these brands were launched several years ago in Mexico, that's flipped, right? You have a higher service or upper-scale chain on Quality versus what you would have on Comfort. However, those two are very similar from the offering perspective. But what you will always see is that there's one distribution engine, one technology, one loyalty program. We try to make sure that the whole engine firing the power of our brands is there for everyone around the globe.

[00:06:13] Matt Welle: And you always were a franchise model, right? So, from day one when we talked about those motels, they really had, like, that franchise model at the heart of it. Whereas if I look at some of the other big global brands, I think a lot of them used to manage their own. Like, if you look at Hilton, they always managed their first batch of properties, and they have now recently really leaned into the franchise model. Like, how do you look at that? Do you see them as a stronger competitor now because they're purely franchise, or they're focused purely on the franchise, or actually it doesn't really matter for you?

[00:06:44] Raul Ramirez: Look, we were asset-light first. This company, as I mentioned, sits in this intersection of hospitality, franchising and technology. We have a lot of firsts, and our business model was one of them. We go through these asset-light model that allow us to expand faster, to provide opportunities for owners and capture that entrepreneur mindset from those owners that then become operators to be successful. It's something that started; it's ingrained in our DNA. We started like that, as you mentioned with those 16, and with time some of the other large competitors in the hospitality arena knew that that was the way to go. So, they slowly moved from moving 100% or the lion's share of ‘operated’ and ‘owned’ to more franchising. So, now we are seeing more franchising competition around the globe. Certainly, here in the U.S., they have grown a lot through that model, and most of the properties of that chain now are really franchising in nature. So, there's a lot of competition, and that's where the differentiation comes. And the differentiation comes from understanding your franchisees, understanding guests and building those relationships with owners.

[00:07:53] Matt Welle: Like, I looked at your title, and I was thinking, what does it mean? Like, what does a Chief Segment International Operations Officer mean? And I was, like, then I went into your LinkedIn, and I was like, right, he's got a finance background. Explain to me what you do day-to-day, but also how you got there. Like, I was really curious about your background because it isn't your typical hotelier background. You've actually gone a different route to get to where you are today.

[00:08:13] Raul Ramirez: I have been with the company for, I want to say, a little bit more than 9 years. It was a great decision. I don't regret that one. What I'm responsible for here in this company is I'm responsible for our global brands and our commercial engine, our commercial function. I'm an engineer by formation. My entire career, early time since internship has been engineering. My first job, Matt, was driving around the streets of Mexico City to ensure that there was telephone signal. I was working for a telecom company there, climbing towers, cell phone towers. So, I started in engineering and operations. I had an opportunity to come to the U.S. I was working for a large multinational or international company. Came to the U.S., learned a lot from the corporate office. It was a company with presence internationally, understood finance, got my MBA, my M&A studies as well. Had an opportunity to work for private companies and public companies. Long story short, I'm here with Choice Hotels working on finance. But the company's amazing. It's a big company and a small company at the same time. It's big because what we do matters and impacts the industry. And it's small enough for us to raise our hand and say I want to do this, I want to do that. And yeah, we always have that growth mindset that allowed me to hold different positions in this company, from finance to operations. Prior to my current role, I was the Chief Strategy Officer for the company. And why the title segment and operations? Because we realized at a certain point in time we reached a scale where averages were not good. Averages were in our way of growing. With 7,500 properties, or if you want to think about the 6,000 here in the U.S., we realized we needed someone waking up every morning thinking about how am I going to get my brand, the Comfort brand, the Quality brand, the Cambria, the Ascend brand, bigger, larger and more effective for our owners. So, we created this concept of segments or lines of business. The company is separated into 4 lines of business, which I oversee. The core, as we call it, the core brands that is everything from economy all the way to upper mid-scale, and the extended-stay segment that have a very different need that we have product on the economy and mid-scale segments. Then we have upscale, where we have brands like Cambria, Ascend, the fastest-growing soft brand or one of the fastest-growing soft brands around the globe and, of course, the Radisson brands that we own and manage in the U.S. and lastly, the international division. So, that's what we have right here. We have leaders and brand leaders within those organizations waking up every morning thinking about how they can improve that and how they can tailor for the specific guest, the specific type of stay, the specific franchisee. Because even the franchisees are different from segment to segment. So, that's the magic of Choice, and that's what helps us get to know our franchisees better and do a better job driving performance.

[00:11:14] Matt Welle: And you split it into these segments because is that how guests book, like, do they stick within a segment generally, like they might dip out once every so often. But is it because of the guest experience that you have split these hotels into these segments?

[00:11:28] Raul Ramirez: There are two components. One is the franchise engine. The franchisee is very different from segment to segment. You have, on the franchisee base, on the core segment as we call it, the lion's share of these owners are owner-operators. That's where Choice started; that's where the foundation and the origins of Choice started in the economy, mid-scale, upper mid-scale arena. We like to think that by providing these opportunities out there in the market, we enable the American dream. We have a lot of franchise owners that came from abroad with aspirations, hard work, wanting to be successful. And we provided that engine. And together with their hard work, their responsibility, their motivation, they put not only their work but their heart into it. They were able to have a hotel, then 2, then 3, then 4, then subsets of hotels. So, that's our core: franchising, franchisor or franchisees. And upscale is the traditional hotelier. It’s whoever is there making sure that hospitality is at best; they have a management company that they operate. They are very savvy in terms of how a property needs to be run, revenue management, all these components. They have a larger team managing the hotel. Extended stay is a game of margins. You want to do that to satisfy your 14-day, your 7-plus-day stay, your extended-stay occupancy - a very different business model. The owner there tends to be institutional capital. They were savvy enough to figure out that was a good business model. Then they went and built their own management companies to maximize those. So, the owner base is very different, and they have different expectations. They may all want global sales, but they all want different types of global sales. They may all want loyalty but different types of ADRs or daily rates. So, that's one side of the equation. But then there is the guest. As you just mentioned, the guest has different needs, and the guest wants different types of things depending on their stay location. Sometimes they want to go and relax next to the beach, and maybe an upscale or a mid-scale resort would be best for them. But sometimes they are for work or a project base and they need a place with a kitchen and someone that can, that barbecue grill out there that they can spend 14 days, 15 days, 30 days. That's where extended stay comes in. So, we have, and that's why we take a lot of pride in our diversified portfolio. We have 22 brands that don't compete with one another but complement each other. So, that's how we make those decisions, man, taking a franchisee on the guest.

[00:13:53] Matt Welle: With that amount of brands, is it difficult to differentiate what the experience is for the guests? And how do you ensure consistency in the delivery look?

[00:14:01] Raul Ramirez: That's one of the biggest challenges, I'm not going to lie to you. Being a franchisee company compared to being an owner-operator, that's where the biggest risk is. Because when you control the whole experience, when you control from the booking experience, the booking process, the stay process, the post-stay process, the communication with the franchise, it’s easier to have alignment and service culture. We go into franchising, and we rely on the owner-operator or property management company to deliver that service. That's when different controls come into place. Things like quality assurance: if they want to fly a Comfort brand, we need to make sure they meet certain standards within quality assurance. We want to make sure that the product that we bring in follows a very complete product improvement process to make sure that they are up to standard. So, product health is one avenue of things that we take or manage through processes, internal processes from a franchisee perspective. But then there's the service culture component, right? That's where we create things that ensure that we create that differentiation on the brand. You are known for a brand to be reliable, consistent. That's what you do. You have a soft brand where you are looking for uniqueness within a certain framework, right, within a certain chess framework. That's like the soft brands that we have.

[00:15:17] Midroll: Hi, it's Matt from Mews, and I hope you're enjoying this episode. Before running Mews, I ran hotels, and I remember what it was like on the weekends when you're trying to create the best experiences for your guests. Also worrying about setting the right rate and dealing with all of the demand changes that are happening. This is a thing we've solved with Mews RMS that lives inside the core of the Mews Operating System. You now have access to all those tools in the same screen. You can even switch on autopilot. So, all of the recommendations, we will just adapt those and communicate those to the online channels for you. We've seen hotels that have deployed the Mews RMS see an uplift of about 13% in revenue per available square meter versus hotels that have no RMS at all. If you want to find out more, head to mews.com.

[00:16:00] Raul Ramirez: All hotels are different, but they all have a story. They all have a reason to be there. Right? And they all provide a different experience. So, that's how we work together. We have a very strong brand team that day in, and day out, they manage the brand, meaning product, health, service delivery, service culture, and of course, growth. Where is the right place to put a Comfort Inn versus a Sleep Inn versus a Cambria versus a Rodeway?

[00:16:26] Matt Welle: Because if I'm a listener today and I have a hotel and I'm thinking maybe I should get a brand. I've been independent, but maybe it's time to add a brand to this. How do I navigate that? Like, do you help me pick the right brand and then navigate whether reconstruction is required and what the uplift would be or like, what's the first step?

[00:16:44] Raul Ramirez: Correct. The first step is, look, every time a developer is engaged, or a hotelier has a property, and they are exploring whether a brand would be a better option for them, they need to figure out what are their needs: is it performance, is it brand, is it awareness, is it business delivery? What is it? Right? And then they would come to us, and what we will do is we'll tell them, “Look, there are things that cannot change. There are things that will always be like that, no matter how much product improvement. If you are a 2-floor building of a certain type, with no pool and X or Y capabilities or attributes, you are never going to be able to become this type of brand because it was not meant to be,” or, “If you don't have a breakfast room, you don't have a meeting room, you don't have X or Y, you cannot become this full-service hotel brand.” So, we help you understand, okay, this is your property. These are the potential brands that you can go depending whether we have on that location or not. Because we want to protect our existing owners or increase because we have one distribution engine. And we will tell them, “Hey, for you to become this brand, that is what we recommend. You would need to do these things to your product, and you would need to adhere to these standards. And we are here to help you, and we'll provide the distribution, the marketing engines, the brand that you need to be successful.” So, it's a partnership, and the partnership starts even before we sign a contract. It starts with the dialogue.

[00:18:08] Matt Welle: And I think, historically, I always thought of Choice as economy and mid-scale brands. Recently, obviously, with Radisson and some of your upper-scale brands, it feels like you've been going upmarket more and more. Is that a thing you're doing globally, or is that a U.S.-focused thing? Where are you moving that towards?

[00:18:24] Raul Ramirez: We are largely focused on our expansion in the U.S., that doesn't mean that we are not, in terms of brand expansion. In terms of growth, we're growing across the globe, however, most of these 22 brands are grown in the U.S. We tend to follow a structure where we started with economy mid-scale, and our expansion strategy has been from the core out. We don't do this barbell approach expansion, where you have something right here and something right here. No. We like to go from the center and out. That's how we have grown. That's how we entered into extended stay. That's how we then decided to go to the next layer of upscale that was sitting next to upper mid-scale. That's our growth approach over the last 5, 10 years here in the U.S. Internationally, we don't have as many brands present. Why? Because the needs are very different, the markets are very different, the competitive landscape is different and sometimes even the business model. Right? I'll tell you, for instance, Europe, Europe in particular, has a lower degree of adoption of the franchising model because there needs to be lease, there needs to be guarantees on the lease, variable rents, fixed rents - they all come into that process. That's very different from the asset-light model. So, that adoption and that cultural ability to get to growth hospitality also hinders our ability to do that. And when we are going to go and push for a new brand, we want to make sure we have certain scale, and we have the service delivery. As I always tell my international teams, getting a deal, signing a deal, selling the promise, it's relatively easier. Right? The real proof of our relationship comes on day one and a half or two, when it's business delivery, it's health in bets, and we need to make sure we have that capability. And that's why we have decided in some places not to go with certain brands, because we believe we won't be as successful as we could be with the ones that we have in place.

[00:20:17] Matt Welle: Super key. We are a technology podcast, so at some point I'm going to have to ask you technology questions as well. How does Choice think about technology and the decisions that you make on behalf of franchisees and the freedom you allow them to make their own decisions?

[00:20:32] Raul Ramirez: We wouldn't be as successful without our franchisees. Our franchisees play a critical role in understanding where do we go, how do we make technology decisions, and brand decisions. Some of our innovations come from the guest, some of our innovations come from franchisees, and they are all empowered by technology. So, what do I mean by that? Our value proposition here at Choice, regardless of the brand that you have, is based on three things. It's based on our ability and our goal to drive more revenue to the hotel, to increase their top line; number two, to reduce their operating costs. And number three is to provide tools through technology systems that allow them to be more focused on the guest and to do what they can do that a technology component won't be able to do. We need to do things that are simpler in nature. This is what we have learned. Answering your question on technology. When we go and select a technology component or an evolution of it, we make a decision: hey, should we build it? Should we buy and integrate, or should we just outsource? And it all depends based on what do we want to drive. We need to make sure that if we're going to do it, we can do it better than anybody else and that we can do it at scale because that's the game that we play. We need to make sure that if we go and outsource our work. Like, a partner with Mews, I remember we had this conversation several years ago because we have our own PMS, Choice Advantage, but internationally we wanted to expand, and we didn't have all the capabilities, or we didn't have all the belief that in certain regions we were going to be as successful as what our owners expect. So, we went and did a very good, thorough exercise, and we found you guys right. I think we found each other, and we're able to bring someone that can drive franchise unit economics - that is important for us - that can drive the capabilities that are required to drive the guest experience that we need, and guest information and guest know-how, so we can drive a better experience for them. And of course, a great partnership, someone that wants to grow with us and that wants to make sure that we continue to move in that direction. But none of that happens without input from the franchisees and understanding what the guests' needs are.

[00:22:47] Matt Welle: And then the central reservation system you have built - I believe you've built your own central reservation system today. Like, why is that important? Why is that such a critical component to success?

[00:22:56] Raul Ramirez: Look, I think now more than ever it's critical to success. The CRS, the central reservation system, we built our own; it's called Choice Edge. I'm a firm believer that the PMS and the CRS are the gateway to the future. They are the physical gateway to the hotel. That's how our hotel interacts. It has always been as relevant for a franchisee, or the most relevant thing from a distribution perspective, to drive room nights, profitable room nights. Right? And without that CRS, without control of that CRS, you may be hindered in the type of traffic that you want or the ability to drive that type of growth. You want to make sure you drive your own distribution strategy. And when you look at everything that is happening in the AI landscape and where everything is going, I do believe that hospitality will be decided on the distribution landscape. That's where the play and the battle for hotels and guests are going to take place. And the CRS is that I like to believe on this analogy of the human body, where the operator and the franchisors are the brain of the system. You have the muscles that will get the job done through several tools and systems that we have. But the nervous systems that activate those muscles and connect the brains - those are the CRSs of the world. Those are the PMSs of the world. That's what we need to make sure we continue to focus on, because that's the gateway to success.

[00:24:25] Matt Welle: Like you mentioned, AI, but also distribution. I agree that that landscape is about to get disrupted. We've seen, obviously, Meta launch Muse, and that had quite an impact on, like, the OTAs, because suddenly the agent will just make the booking end-to-end. So, does Choice tend to benefit from agentic AI, you think? And what's your strategy around AI?

[00:24:44] Raul Ramirez: I think everybody in the industry will benefit from the changes in AI if you have the scale and you have the technology and the discipline to make sure you capture that benefit, right? But AI is doing, of course; everybody talks, and we do it, we do it as well. We have productivity tools that help us be more efficient. We provide productivity tools for the franchisee to be more efficient in those labor-intensive activities that can be automated. But where we need to work together with partners like Google, the OTAs, and the LLMs is: how are we being presented out there? These LLMs and this information, this success in AI, will depend on our scale; of course, the loyalty programs that we have, the scale that we have. We have 72 million loyalty members on our end. But the other important thing is content, right, how the content is built. And it's not content that the company will put out there or the hotel owner. This is content that the guest will provide. And this is why, even us, as a franchising company, we put a lot of focus on the guest and the guest experience and that service culture, because those are the ones now saying, what is the experience. After COVID, I think the guest started hesitating a lot on what to believe or not. And they go to these sources of truth from other guests, call it TripAdvisor, Reddit reviews, and we need to make sure that we are there, that we're relevant with the right content so we can pop up and that we provide a good guest experience so they continue to come and visit us.

[00:26:17] Matt Welle: And once a customer has booked, within Choice, like, do you deploy AI chatbots or, like, for loyal members, how do you engage them through AI? Or do you still believe this is mostly a human factor to make that a successful relationship?

[00:26:32] Raul Ramirez: I think what we do here at Choice is we take a look at that service culture journey, right? There are things that can be automated, but there are things where the human element will always need to be there. And in some cases, the guest will choose. Depending on your stay, you may want to just get to your room, get your digital card and go directly there and not mess with anyone, right? I guess you and I have had those days in the past, but there are others where you want to go there and talk to the person at the front desk, ask what's around, what's going on, what's in the restaurant, where can I get food or X or Y. Our goal is to create that channel where we have these opportunities as we continue to evolve, where the guest will have an option and where we will provide the operators, in this case the franchisees, if they are operating, or the owners or the PMCs, an opportunity to do so. Like, sometimes just communicating with the owner could be an area where we can leverage AI. The other one is during the booking process, during the search process, but we need to make sure we maintain that flexibility, and where do we invest, and how do we do that? It's going to be critical for success.

[00:27:39] Matt Welle: So, what I'm hearing is that your central reservation systems, your PMS systems, property management systems are the core components because that's where reservations happen. And I think that's the critical component you bring in. But hoteliers have more freedom in terms of the rest of their stack. What they do locally, you know, you know how they run housekeeping, etc. That's where the freedom comes in for hoteliers.

[00:27:59] Raul Ramirez: That's where we want to go. So, ultimately, we want to make sure that the operator, the person sitting in the hotel, when there's a person in the hotel there are models where there's nowhere, there's link time for that that they are spending the time where it's best used. And sometimes it is most of the time with the guest when they need it and managing that operation. So, yes, that's the North Star that we're trying to get to.

[00:28:22] Matt Welle: I love that. The last question I always ask at the end of this is about the actual experience you have in hotels. What is something that frustrates you in hotels that you wish we at Mews or someone else would solve with technology?

[00:28:37] Raul Ramirez: I see that a hotel with different perspectives as a guest, as a franchisee. As a franchisor, when I go and talk to the owners, they want to just remove all the back office things. Every single thing. Simple as reconciliations from OTA, from chargebacks, make more efficient guest reviews. They spend a lot of time parsing through data. They have this model and we have this model of taking data, transferring into information, knowledge and wisdom. Everything we can do as franchise leveraging AI to accelerate that path and just give them the wisdom so they can operate it; it's the best thing. And that's where I want to continue to focus my efforts to help our franchisees. Now, from a guest perspective, no, there are some limitations; there are things I don't have to go that far or reinvent the wheel sometimes. Like, when you are in an upscale hotel you will have certain capabilities or in an upper mid-scale hotel you’ll have certain capabilities because the business models allows for it. But when you are in an economy or a mid-scale hotel, you want to have certain things that already exist. Think about digital check-in, Uber Eats through your app less transactional and more experiential. Sometimes, the economics for us to make that possible given the lower ADRs are not possible and they exist. It's not that they don't. So, it's not like something that doesn't exist that we need to create. I think now with AI, the playing field is leveled. Now, I don't need 200 associates to be doing this or developers to be doing this or that. Now we have AI; we can do this with more cost-efficient solutions for different types of chain scales. So, I think this is what AI will allow us to do: a different way of developing technology to bring things that were not accessible to certain chain scales or certain travel experience now accessible to them. Right? So I don't need to reinvent the wheel; in some cases, I just need to bring the wheel to where we need it.

[00:30:31] Matt Welle: I love that, and I love specifically that you mentioned the back office and the reconciliation. I think we often forget about what happens in that back office. But it is very painful - the paperwork, trying to match all of the data in your systems across, and this is definitely something I intend to fix with Mews like with our teams, like, what we're building, thinks very deeply about, about the accountants and the back office administrators because it is very painful.

[00:30:56] Raul Ramirez: I always say that this is like a theater, right? You go, and you see the marvelous play and the actors. But whoever makes that happen, he sits behind the curtain, and that's the back office. Those are the accountants, the housekeeping, the maintenance, the service teams, the owners. The easier we can do their jobs for them, the better we'll be positioned to provide the best guest experience.

[00:31:19] Matt Welle: 100%. Last question. Sorry, I did say it was my last, but this is my last, last question. What's next for Choice? Anything exciting that's coming up this year that gets you really, really excited?

[00:31:29] Raul Ramirez: Yes. We are constantly looking at how we can improve, as I said, performance, driving more top line, reducing cost or better tools. This year was a big year of rollout for us. We are focused, and we will continue to do that throughout next year. We are working on our loyalty platform. We are reimagining and refreshing our loyalty platform to be able to get to more customers, to talk to more customers, and to be much more personalized with our existing customers. And look, we don't have issues with OTAs. I think we need them. The key is bringing them in, then capturing them, and making them loyal Choice Hotels members. So, that's one avenue of growth that we are looking at, and the second one, just based on the nature of our business, is capturing the small and medium business arena. No, those guests, those travelers need certain types of characteristics at booking, they need some type of product enhancements that they need. They need classifications of the type of business when they do their RFPs. So, we continue to work and develop our tools to capture more of those SMB owners by giving them a better experience from the booking and the reporting because we believe that's a highly unattended area in the industry right now where we can capture more growth. So, those two things on the technology front, and of course the ongoing AI battle, I think, continue to evolve. Distribution. At the end of the day, it's distribution. How do we get orchestrators to manage where we appear, on what shelves, and at what price? And the more efficiently we can do that, the better it will be for us.

[00:33:05] Matt Welle: Well said, Raul. Thank you so much for joining me today. That was fantastic, and thank you for all these insights.

[00:33:10] Raul Ramirez: Thank you, Matt. Have a great day, and thanks for having me here.