How small properties can outrun chains with tech ft. Elise Roberts of Happiness Hospitality

[00:00:00] Elise Roberts: The tech is selected to serve what we do. If you have the

right tech, it helps you with efficiency, so the team can focus on doing what they do

really well, human connections.

[00:00:23] Matt Welle: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Matt Talks Hospitality. Today,

we're talking about technology in the boutique hotel context. How do you build a tech

stack when you have a small team, a seasonal market, and limited data? Where do

economics stack up, and where can AI deliver for an independent property? My guest

today is Elise Roberts. She's the general manager of The Gallivant, a beautiful boutique

hotel on the coast of East Sussex, which holds a Michelin Key and a VisitEngland's

Small Hotel of the year. Before The Gallivant, Elise worked in sales and marketing at

various hotels, including Aviator and Hilton. And she knows what technology looks like

at scale, but then also in the independent environment. And I think that's a really

interesting kind of perspective to get. Thank you for joining us today.

[00:01:03] Elise Roberts: Thank you, Matt. Really pleased to be here.

[00:01:06] Matt Welle: Elise and I know each other really well because 22 years ago,

when I started in hospitality, and I think it was also your first job 22 years ago, at the

Hilton.

[00:01:14] Elise Roberts: Yeah.

[00:01:15] Matt Welle: We were sitting next to each other as very junior people at the

Waldorf, in the Hilton, and we've kept in touch since then. But like, I wanted to make

sure that we put a disclaimer out that I know you very well. So, before we get into

operations, I wanna understand his philosophy around The Gallivant because you've

clearly won a number of prizes. So, you're doing something really well. And I also heard

you have the head of happiness. Is that a thing? Head of happiness staff?

[00:01:38] Elise Roberts: Absolutely. A very important thing. I mean, I think for us, it's all

about experience. So, not hospitality or hotel in the traditional sense. So, everything we

do is built around the idea of happiness. So, happy team, happy customers. And for a

customer, that can be anything from a great night's sleep or a meal with food you

actually want to eat in our restaurant, Harry's, or sharing a bottle of English sparkling

wine in the sand dune with your partner and watching the sunset. And that's why we

have a head of happiness because it really guides our brand, and it's a real rule and a

very deliberate one. So, everything we do centers around that.

[00:02:29] Matt Welle: Because, like, the awards are almost the output of a strategy

that you said probably years before to get to the stage of getting an award or Michelin

Key. But how do you strategize around kind of culture and building that guest

experience? Because it doesn't just happen overnight.

[00:02:45] Elise Roberts: No. It really doesn't. I suppose, I mean, partially that's where

the tech comes in. The tech is selected to serve what we do. So, if you have the right

tech, it helps you with efficiency, so the team can focus on doing what they do really

well, human connections. And, I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer that if you build a happy

team, then they're probably gonna want to make customers happy, or it enables them

to make customers happy.

[00:03:15] Matt Welle: So, you said the word tech, and I immediately wanna go down

there. But actually, before we go there, I actually would love to hear more about The

Gallivant. What's the hotel? What's the experience you're trying to create?

[00:03:23] Elise Roberts: So again, it's not a hotel. It's an experience. So, it's where

people can come to slow down, to reconnect, and fundamentally feel like themselves

again. So, “Happiness is a place” is our brand tagline, if you like. And it's something that,

Harry, the owner, actually came up with during COVID. He was thinking about what are

people gonna want when we come out of this? What are they gonna need? And really

started leaning into that kind of childlike nostalgia of being on the beach, running up

the dunes, paddling in the waves. Like, these kinds of relatively simple things are really

all anyone's looking for, whether it's in food, you know, who doesn't like French fries

and mayo, or the simple connection with the beach, getting outdoors when we were all

cooped up for so long. So, fundamentally, happiness is simple, but actually it takes

quite a lot of work to really create the environment.

[00:04:33] Matt Welle: I think because you know what you want to achieve, but then

you're not around to create all of those experiences. So, you have to have a team that

has the freedom to make some of the decisions and, like, do they feel like they can

sometimes do something that's unexpected?

[00:04:46] Elise Roberts: Yeah. I think so. Absolutely. And they need to if they're gonna

be happy. Otherwise, they feel completely constrained. I mean, so yes, we have

frameworks that people operate within. We have all the boring black and white stuff.

We're not overly heavy on SOPs. Fundamentally, certain things like how to operate the

POS does need some guidelines. But then, once people have learned the basics, they

can be free to add their own personality to it. And, you know, they're much closer to it

than I am day to day. They know what's making guests tick in real time. So, what we

find is really important is constantly getting their input so we could help evolve the

guest experience and what we're focusing on.

[00:05:36] Matt Welle: And being a UK-based hotel, obviously, I think the hotel industry

has struggled in the last few years. At least we see that from the data versus other

destinations. How do you keep your head above water when the economy is struggling

and, you know, people are making hard decisions on travel? Like, how do you

differentiate yourself enough to be able to succeed in this environment?

[00:05:56] Elise Roberts: I mean, it's really hard. Hospitality right now is, you know, it's

actually really upsetting looking around, reading the headlines in this country, how hard

people are finding it, how most hospitality businesses are either closing or cutting

back, cutting corners, streamlining, whatever it is. But for us, we work incredibly hard.

We have to. We look for efficiency all the time. We iterate the product. So, there's no

kind of this is what we do, and it sits stagnant for the next three years. We're

constantly refining and iterating. And sometimes it drives the team nuts because, you

know, as soon as they've learned something, we're changing it again.

[00:06:48] Matt Welle: Here comes Elise with another great idea that I have to now

implement.

[00:06:51] Elise Roberts: Yeah. Or Harry, particularly, the owner. You know, both of us

work very closely together. And I think it's a great balance, the working partnership.

[00:07:02] Matt Welle: What's an experiment that didn't work, and what's an

experiment that did work?

[00:07:06] Elise Roberts: Good question. I mean, something we're looking at right now,

and this is, you know, not a very, I guess, exciting one or experiential one. But we

relaunched the restaurant in February last year. And we were quite tunnel vision

focused on driving and building our local following. And in doing so, we priced our

menus from what we considered to be, I guess, the right position for the local market.

And as a result, we've really quite negatively impacted our average spend. The menu

pricing range is more narrow. So, when people want to splash out, they can't. And that

was clearly a mistake. So, we're addressing that now because what we've learned is the

local market really loves coming to us during the daytime. Whether that's a walk on the

beach with your dog, and then coming and having a great lunch. And that's some more

day-to-day trade. And then when they come and have a meal in the evening, it's more

of a special occasion that aligns very much with the experience our hotel residents

want as well. So, actually, we need those premium dishes and the ability for people to

go a bit wild and treat themselves. Because even though people are perhaps traveling

and eating out less, when they do, they wanna have a great time.

[00:08:40] Matt Welle: I love that. And I love how you, like, how you try things, look at

does this actually profitably make sense? And then you iterate again. I think too many

hoteliers are not iterating. And I think that's the only way you get it right if you just put

yourself out there. You acknowledge that sometimes we do something wrong, but

actually an iteration of that first try is a better one than the original plan that you had.

Right?

[00:09:04] Elise Roberts: Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, it's tech, isn't it? Don't be

afraid to fail.

[00:09:08] Matt Welle: Yeah. So, let's talk about technology because we're obviously a

technology podcast. That's what we have to talk about. So, I'm imagining that a smaller

hotel doesn't have an advanced IT department that is setting up all the systems for

you. Like, who does this at your hotel?

[00:09:22] Elise Roberts: I do, and the owner does. We work together. You are looking

at the co-head of IT.

[00:09:28] Matt Welle: How do you go about setting a strategy for technology then?

[00:09:32] Elise Roberts: As in a documented on-paper strategy for IT or tech? No. But

fundamentally, tech has to do something, doesn't it? It has to help drive efficiency and,

for us, free up time for the team to do what they're doing well. And we're constantly

looking at the tech we use and improving it.

[00:09:59] Matt Welle: Because we started at Hilton together, and there's this

assumption in the world that the big brands have the best technology because they've

got unlimited budget, they’ve got IT departments up the wazoo, and independent

hotels struggle because they don't have access to great technology because they're

small independents. Do you agree with that statement? Or actually, do you think that

independent hotels can thrive because of their independence?

[00:10:21] Elise Roberts: I think so. And I think modern tech has given much more

opportunities to independent hotels. I mean, fundamentally, technology is for hotels of

every size. I think the big groups, and I'm being very generalized here, but I think they're

strong commercially with their data loyalty and driving repeat behavior to their brands

or their partners. And that's heavily incentivized. But where they probably feel less

evolved for me operationally is that they have tech stacks like everyone else, and

they're layered. But it can often be, and it's changing now, but at the core of their tech

stack are legacy systems. And then they're bolting on newer tools on top. So, while on

the face of things, it may look and feel a bit better. I don't think it's actually making life

easier for their teams. And therefore, I don't think it always translates into a better

guest experience. So, as an independent, we're certainly not more polished. But we can

be more agile. We can be a bit scrappy, and we can try to fit things and move on

quickly if they don't work. And I think that's also supported by neurotech because what

we're seeing more and more is that contracts are shorter. You're not being locked into

the kind of three years. So, when you've got a contract that's a year, if it's not, or less,

some are even on a rolling 30-day basis nowadays. If it's not working, you can just flip

it, and that speed is an advantage.

[00:12:04] Matt Welle: Have you ever done that? Have you ever started with a tech

vendor, and I'm really within a couple of months, that this doesn't work for me, and I've

switched it off and moved to something else?

[00:12:12] Elise Roberts: Rarely within a couple of months. But when we're upgrading,

we will often leave a contract before it runs out. So, we're paying for a few months or

more at the end. And that happens, not that regularly, but we just did it with our

restaurant booking tools. So, I think we paid for three months at the end. You know, we

were doubling up. And it was worth it for improving the guest experience and the

commercial opportunity.

[00:12:44] Matt Welle: What does your tech stack look like today?

[00:12:46] Elise Roberts: Big. So, we've got about 18 systems.

[00:12:53] Matt Welle: Wow. That is big.

[00:12:55] Elise Roberts: Yeah. It's a lot bigger than you would think for a small

boutique hotel. But everything is carefully chosen and has a purpose. And if it doesn't,

or if it's not adding the value that we thought it would or that it once was, then we

would change it.

[00:13:21] Matt Welle: Do you have an economic framework within which you think

about it? Because there's a real cost to software, right? You have to pay a monthly

subscription fee. But how do you calculate whether you should have it or not?

[00:13:31] Elise Roberts: I guess fundamentally, it comes down to two things. So, is it

genuinely adding more value than it costs? So, whether that's revenue, efficiency, or

better decision making, and will the team actually use it?

[00:13:47] Matt Welle: Yeah.

[00:13:48] Elise Roberts: So, ease of use is critical. If it's not intuitive and the team can't

just pick it up and use it, then it's not gonna land, you know, particularly in a small

business. You know, we just can't justify kind of two weeks of classroom training to

learn a new system. I mean, I remember doing that back in the day. It's wild now.

[00:14:12] Matt Welle: I did that.

[00:14:13] Elise Roberts: Yeah.

[00:14:14] Matt Welle: Learning DAWs. “Like, where's the mouse?: I'm like, there's no

mouse. Okay. Great. How do you deal with training, though? Because we do have

turnover in hotels. So, I'm assuming that you do sometimes have new team members.

So, how do they get comfortable with the technology?

[00:14:26] Elise Roberts: I mean, some things you really can just pick up and go.

Obviously, something like Mews. It's a little bit more involved. There's a serious process

in there that people have to follow. And that's a key factor, actually, in decision-making

now as well. Do they have good resources so the team can self-teach? Because we

can't do that, you know, we don't have an HR or a training department. So, there has to

be something that I'm confident the team can learn what they need to learn. And then,

of course, when they start in their first couple of weeks, somebody's assigned to buddy

them and coach them in the process. And we had checklists which are designed for

people to use in their first, you know, 2 to 3 months of a job, while they remember

everything they need to do, which is key because hospitality is way more complex than

anyone appreciates outside of our world.

[00:15:21] Matt Welle: It is. But, like, I always wonder, like, because we used to hire

people that had skills on the legacy systems, because, actually, that gives them a head

start, because then we don't have to put them in the classroom for two weeks. But

then you don't always get the best hospitality, and it sounds like you're leaning into the

experience side more than can they type data into my system very fast. So, I don't

think you necessarily look for the skills to operate the different systems because they

can learn that pretty fast. But you look for different skills nowadays than we did 10

years ago.

[00:15:49] Elise Roberts: They do need the capability to learn it, though. So, we try and

understand what people have used, what they're using in their personal life, because

somebody who is just not kind of comfortable with the digital world is probably going

to struggle a bit.

[00:16:06] Matt Welle: What's your favorite interview question to ask a candidate to

discover this?

[00:16:09] Elise Roberts: I feel like I might have stolen this one from you or someone

else. But at the moment, we're asking, I'm always asking people how they're using AI.

So, how they've used it at work and how they're using it in their personal life, and to

give real examples. Because what I was finding is everyone's saying, “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I use AI.” So, okay…

[00:16:32] Matt Welle: Which means I've asked really dumb questions to AI, but that's

not using AI.

[00:16:37] Elise Roberts: Yeah. Exactly. So, talk to me about that. And that's becoming

more and more important. You know? I spend most of my day using my AI tools now to

help me output more, and it's really helping.

[00:16:50] Matt Welle: How do you use AI? Sorry. I'm gonna flip this interview question

on you now. What's your actionable advice for hoteliers who are not yet using AI? What

should they do?

[00:17:00] Elise Roberts: Use it. I don't know why anyone wouldn't be using it because,

for me, I say I'm a fairly heavy user of ChatGPT and Claude, and I'm constantly flipping

between the two. And I use them for slightly different things. I think they both have

their strengths. But I use my ChatGPT for meetings. I record, transcribe. I have meeting

notes. It enables me to be the manager I want to be in that respect. So, for example,

you know, having a proper regular one-to-one with a team member and following up

with minutes and all of the stuff that sits around, that was impossible before because I

don't have a PA who can take those notes for me. So, that's how I'm using ChatGPT.

Claude, I use for much bigger projects. We recently embarked on a bit of an HR and

payroll restructure, and could turn the task that would have required, you know, an HR

team, a finance team. And I don't know who else to support me with it into something

that I could actually manage and output myself. And that's wild.

[00:18:31] Matt Welle: Like even that experiment that you talked about in the

restaurants where you had the original menu, then you changed the menu, you can

feed in the financial results, and you can ask Claude to analyze and give

recommendations.

[00:18:41] Elise Roberts: And Claude helped me do that.

[00:18:42] Matt Welle: Love that.

[00:18:43] Elise Roberts: And it got me, and your AI is only gonna be as good as you

are. And the information you're feeding it and the context that you're giving it around

the information, if you just dump a load of information, then it's gonna make incorrect

assumptions. That is a certainty. But where I got to, and the time it took me to get

there, is so much quicker, so we can move faster. And my team are also using it very

similarly, so I try to be completely transparent about how I'm using it, and I share it with

the team as examples. And I coach them, setting things up for themselves. And, you

know, I'm still a Claude rookie. Someone recommended it to me, but it's, you know,

really impacting. And the more and more you figure out how to use the tools within it,

the more valuable it becomes. I mean, the only problem is you build so much data, or

you add so much data to it, you become, it's impossible to leave.

[00:19:46] Matt Welle: Well, you actually now have better export tools. I recently

migrated from OpenAI to Claude because we've got an enterprise subscription to it.

So, you can actually export some of the data and migrate it much, much easier than it

was, like, what, two months ago. Like, it's so fast-moving. Yesterday, I had, because we

have way smarter people in our business than I am. So, I was listening to a meeting of

one of our VPs, who talked about how do you teach Claude basically to get better?

And he said initially, when we use it, we ask it a question and give some output, and

then we'll take that file, and then we modify it because it made a few mistakes. And he

said, “No, no. Never modify the output.” You go back to the inputs, and you teach what

the agent got wrong so that he's like, you got this thing wrong. And we have to

constantly keep teaching the input part so that it gets, eventually, you should never

touch the output because the output needs to be 100% correct, but we have to keep

training the upside so that you're not constantly fixing the output because that's a one-

time thing. And then next time you ask a question, you have to fix it again. And it was,

like, such an eye-opening moment because I was like, yeah, I'll just get it 90% done,

and I'll fix the last 10%. But, ultimately, we should just be managers of agents, like in a

tech company more probably than a hotel. But I thought it was a really interesting one.

[00:20:56] Elise Roberts: I mean, I don't think so, actually. I think that's the

misconception, perhaps. I mean, I think certainly, and maybe this goes back to the

conversation. I don't think you have a chance of effectively managing a small boutique

hotel as well as you can unless you embrace all of these tools, and they are integral to

what you do.

[00:21:24] Matt Welle: I totally agree. I think because your team can't be everywhere all

the time, because you know, you have limited staff, so you wanna cover the baselines,

right?

[00:21:33] Elise Roberts: Yeah. Absolutely. And in the kind of back office management

function, if you're not using it, you can't deliver the hospitality you want to.

[00:21:42] Matt Welle: Yeah. How do you think about cybersecurity and protecting the

data of your hotel? Sorry. This is a wild question, but I know you have a story there.

[00:21:51] Elise Roberts: It terrifies me. I mean, it's the scariest thing. And keeping on

top of it with a team who are, you know, they're sharing hardware. And it's way easier

for them to log in to, or to stay logged in, use somebody else's password, and so on.

So, therefore, your two-factor authentication falls off because they can't do that if

they need to text their colleague to get the passcode or whatever it is. So, I mean,

that's something that recently I've been spending time on, like, you know, chatting to

the team individually, helping them set up the pass keys and explaining why it's

important.

[00:22:41] Matt Welle: Because it doesn't feel important in the day-to-day. That's the

problem. Right? It doesn't feel like a priority in the day-to-day.

[00:22:46] Elise Roberts: Well, it's a pain for them. And they just wanna get on and start

doing their job.

[00:22:51] Matt Welle: Yeah. They just wanna log in with, like, a simple password or

even no password. That would be even better for them, I guess. But…

[00:22:58] Elise Roberts: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:23:00] Matt Welle: We've all been at the reception desk. Well, you know, when they

have post-its on the screen with their passwords on it, like that doesn't feel like the

greatest security.

[00:23:08] Elise Roberts: No. Absolutely not. I mean, I remember years ago, post-its all

over the reservations off of different guests' credit card numbers.

[00:23:18] Matt Welle: That's scary.

[00:23:19] Elise Roberts: At least that doesn't happen now.

[00:23:21] Matt Welle: Yeah. But the challenge is, like, when I talk to our security teams

about how do we build solutions. And it is, you know, we're all sharing the computer at

the reception desk constantly, and you have to, you know, different people jump on

that computer, and then you have to log out, and you have to log in, and two-factor

authentication is an absolute nightmare for usability. But at the same time, the cyber

attacks keep happening in our industry, and we see it consistently across different

platforms. And that's why I keep raising it as a topic. We have to figure out how do we

get people on passkeys. Passkeys are like biometrics, super safe, for single sign-on. But

the smaller, I would never have single sign-on set up.

[00:23:58] Elise Roberts: And then, yeah, I mean, if it's not, people will keep getting

hacked. I mean, I can't remember what I was reading the other day, but it was really just

reinforcing the message: stop using passwords.

[00:24:11] Matt Welle: What in your tech stack could you not live without?

[00:24:14] Elise Roberts: That's an interesting one. Well, Mews, obviously.

[00:24:15] Matt Welle: I was waiting for it. Like, it took you a while to get there.

[00:24:20] Elise Roberts: Yeah. I mean, of course, Mews.

[00:24:24] Matt Welle: But besides Mews, I don't want you to talk about Mews,

because you feel like you're obliged to, but are there parts of your tech stack that

you're like, for an independent hotel, this is a really critical component to success.

[00:24:32] Elise Roberts: No. I mean, I think fundamentally, it's how they all integrate

and work together. And you know, we're now a relatively long-term user of Mews. And

we wouldn't, we genuinely wouldn't be doing that if you didn't keep iterating and

adding value to your product. And what you've been doing, I guess, more recently, is

adding tools like Atomize and Mews POS. And for me, and how I'm looking at our tech

stack, 18 systems is a lot. So, when I can bring more in under the Mews umbrella, that

actually makes Mews even more invaluable to us.

[00:25:29] Matt Welle: If you think about your tech stack, is there something missing

today that you'd love to add in the next year?

[00:25:35] Elise Roberts: No. I think we're more looking at streamlining and replacing

some things that we've been using for a while that perhaps we can do better. So,

coming up in the pipeline over the next, kind of, couple of months is that we've actually

got quite a lot planned. So, we want to move to Mews POS. We're going to replace our

yoga class booking app with something simpler and more cost-effective. We're also

planning a migration from Microsoft to Google Workspace. And, actually, I think where I

can answer that question with what we need to add is some automation and sales

process. So, at the moment, we're really quite manual, I think, because our offer is really

very personalized. So, lots of our event bookings are taking the hotel exclusively for

leadership retreats or brand launches, and therefore, it's difficult to do a one-size-fits-

all proposal and so on. But I think there's definitely an opportunity at the early stages of

the sales cycle to get that appointment locked in, whether it's a kind of show around

on property, or at least just a conversation with our sales team to take it on to the next

step.

[00:27:14] Matt Welle: Is there something that you can't do today, but you wish that

Mews would build as a feature or products that you'd like to see solved in hospitality?

[00:27:23] Elise Roberts: Well, fundamentally, our yoga classes being booked outside

of Mews is one kind of fiddly little extra, which I guess is not frustrating because, you

know, it works. And then alongside that, we have a membership. So, we have a yoga

membership, and membership of The Gallivant for people who want to come in and

spend more time, you know, we have a room where people can work, spend the day

treating it as their home office, and connect with other people.

[00:27:59] Matt Welle: And you're setting that up in Mews as a co-working, or you have

a different solution?

[00:28:02] Elise Roberts: I mean, currently, we take the subscriptions, just simply via

Stripe, which is, you know, it does the job. It's not very sexy. So, we do want to do that

in Mews. So, I think that's something you're working on. Yeah?

[00:28:18] Matt Welle: Yeah. You can actually set up the subscriptions in Mews

nowadays. So, you can create. We've got the hotels that are testing this, where you

can set up a subscription in Mews so you can have members, and then you can set up a

recurring charge, for example. So, if every month you have to charge the credit card of

the person, it should be able to collect it. And we've been building this recurring

charging because it's quite complex, because you have to think about, okay, mid of the

month, this person's starting. So, what do we do with that first month or when they're

terminating? But we've been working through that in the last few years. So, this is

definitely something we can help you with.

[00:28:48] Elise Roberts: I know. Great.

[00:28:49] Matt Welle: A sales call I'm on.

[00:28:50] Elise Roberts: We can talk about some other product challenges if you like.

[00:28:54] Matt Welle: I love it. Actually, I would. If there's something that you would

love to see us build because we're obviously constantly building, and it's hard

sometimes to keep up to date as a hotelier with some of the stuff we're doing. But

what are some of the things, as an independent hotel, you'd love to see solutions for?

[00:29:09] Elise Roberts: Interesting. Well, so what we're, and actually, I think your

product team have really helped us. Agnes, who I think you've met my reservations

manager. She's had some really good calls with your product team about the way we

can better utilize the booking engine because we use Mews distributor. Interestingly,

what we want to do came from Harry, the owner, seeing a new property in France. I

think it's called Susie Blue, and they're using the booking engine much better than we

are, and you know, it's the feature releases that we miss because we're all too busy

doing other things. But it's great. They've talked us through how to do it. And it's just a

little neat solution that they've got to driving direct business rather than people

booking via OTA. So, you go into the booking engine, and it's a pre-populated promo

code that says book direct on the booking engine and get 10% off. Probably more

snappily worded than that, but that's effectively what it is. So, you know, that was a

key thing for us. And we were having quite a clunky workaround with OTAs to get

around the genius discount, and you know, so yeah. They've clearly figured it out, and

the functionality within the booking engine is much better than it was. And I

understand the pressing piece along the calendar range is something that's coming

along soon as well. So, it's all happening.

[00:30:51] Matt Welle: Yeah. Yeah. It's been asked by a lot of customers before. Yeah.

Like, always the hardest thing is how do you prioritize between, you know, we've got

15,000 hotels on the platform and, you know, for a boutique hotel, the needs are very

different from a 1000-bedroom hotel that we have at an airport. But we wanna make

sure that we do constantly keep moving all the products and that we keep iterating,

and that feedback is very valid. As we release things, and it sounds like you're at the

heart of the tech stack together with a colleague. But how do you keep up to date with

some of the stuff we're releasing? Because, like, some of those pop-ups that happen,

you're like, yeah, I'm busy checking someone in. So, it's really hard for us to

communicate. How do we communicate better some of the exciting features? Or are

we doing an okay job so far?

[00:31:37] Elise Roberts: I mean, it's difficult, isn't it? I always look at the little feature

panel of the, what is it, bottom right of the dashboard. And I'm very rarely looking at it,

when I see it, but I always kind of click the link, copy the URL, and put it in my never-

ending to-do list, or share it with the relevant team member who I want to have a look

into it. So, I think that works actually. And, you know, within the team, it's about trying

to build that culture of discovery and improvement. And I'm sure they really tire of me

suggesting, you know, every time they ask a question, my response is, “Well, Mews can

probably do that now. Find out.” But it's difficult to keep up with, and I wish I had more

time.

[00:32:39] Matt Welle: Thank you for sharing all of these things so openly. I've put you

on the spot several times, but it's because I know I can with you, because I know you

so well. Tell me about The Gallivant. What's next for The Gallivant in the coming years?

[00:32:49] Elise Roberts: Site two. So, the builders are about to get started with an

open date for, oh, exactly a year today. Yeah. Really exciting. It's been in the pipeline for

a while, and it's super exciting that we're gonna start moving forward now.

[00:33:14] Matt Welle: Are you doing things differently in the second property that

you've learned in the first property?

[00:33:18] Elise Roberts: I mean, definitely. And that's one of the exciting things to

implement everything that you've learned, whether that's from how your housekeeping

storage is arranged through to, you know, the dream tech stack without anything in

there that's clunky, not working for you. But fundamentally, it's going to be another

Gallivant. So, this Gallivant will be well, and it’s The Gallivant Camber Sands, and that

will be The Gallivant Littlestone Beach. And it's literally just 25 minutes. I'm looking up

the coast from here. You know, that's great for property too, because you can really

benefit from the economies of scale of having both sites close together and

manageable for me and other members of the senior team who'll be working across

both.

[00:34:16] Matt Welle: Exciting. Congratulations. Thank you for joining me today. I

really enjoyed all of your answers, and I can't wait to see you again soon. But thank you

for the insights.

[00:34:26] Elise Roberts: Great. Thank you, Matt.