Thomas Magnuson, co-founder and CEO of Magnuson Hotels, talks to TravelDailyNews about hospitality today and his participation as a speaker at the Digi.travel EMEA Conference & Expo which will be held in Athens from 22 – 23 November.
Coming up next week in Athens, the Digi.travel EMEA Conference & Expo will be held from 22 – 23 November at the National Hellenic Research Foundation. The event is dedicated to online travel trends, developments, hurdles and their solutions, and features some of the world’s top experts in hospitality, media, marketing, PR, and hotel technologies.
Among the featured speakers, Tom Magnuson, co-founded Magnuson Hotels, America’s fastest growing hotel brand, brings to Athens a wealth of expertise from the independent hotels developmental-operational standpoint. Magnuson’s Top 10 global hotel chain is comprised of more than 1000 hotels across 3 continents, and his story is also inspirational from a singular and a corporate operator’s standpoint. We have the chance to catch up with Magnuson last week. Here are some of his key insights, and a primer on his Digi.travel contribution upcoming.
TravelDailyNews: You’ve been praised/accused of being a very “old school” CEO. Some take your strategies to mean that “change is not change”, but do you think that digital technologies have not changed the way the tourism industry operates nowadays?
Tom Magnuson: Of course tech has changed it! Every little man can operate with the same firepower as the biggest chains now, in large part thanks to the OTAs. We could never do that 20 yrs ago. Underneath it all however, the fundamentals are still the same. Success is still largely determined by location, quality, service, and price.
TDN: You have built up Magnuson Hotels at a very fast pace. Given your successes so far, what are the things that you worry most about now?
T.M.: Well, even though Magnuson is a technology leader in the industry, what keeps me up at night is staying ahead of the curve. I worry about the unavoidable necessity for continual technological adaptation like most hoteliers do.
TDN: If you were starting your company today what you would do differently?
T.M.: Nothing, except that I would be more fearless sooner in the game.
TDN: For a company in the hotel industry to succeed in this digital era, what are the key things to focus on in your experience?
T.M.: The clear basics-clean content that clearly displays what consumers want/need. The aforementioned location, differentiation, ratings, amenities and price are crucial always. And despite all the tech being sold to us, there are only 3 metrics we need to focus on 80% of the time. These are:
o Rates – Am I above or below comp set
o Reviews – same
o Rooms sold-how many do I have left, and how do I change reviews and rates to drive rooms sold.
TDN: What should a hotel do in order to attract the younger and more homo- digitalis generation, or Generation Y?
T.M.: People are people no matter their age. In my 51.9 yrs of hotel experience, you can always drive in the middle of the road and pick up most market segments. This does not mean the margins should not be engaged, but we are seeing a convergence already, where guest expectations are concerned.
TDN: Do you believe that sharing economy services are a threat or an opportunity?
T.M.: They are if the traditional hotel industry if they ignore them. As for consumers, there is huge opportunity, which is great! The world cannot legislate change away though, as some are trying to do in New York for instance.
TDN: What do you think about the Greek market? Are there any opportunities that a company like Magnuson Hotels would care to explore?
T.M.: On this I humbly submit, I do not know enough yet. This is one reason I wanted to be in Athens, to deepen my understanding of the needs and potential. As always, learning how we can help our fellow hoteliers is key to our business.
Magnuson, who is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Pepperdine University School of Business and Tufts University, started off with his father at the small 44-room Stardust Motel in small mining town Wallace, Idaho when Tom was 8. Tom and his wife Melissa started Magnuson Hotels from their home in 2003, and now Magnuson Hotels has just formed a global alliance with Chinese operator Jin Jiang Hotels that forms a consortium of over 6,000 hotels worldwide, equal to the size of a top 5 global hotel chain.
Tom Magnuson will be joined at Digi.travel Athens by: Conference Chairwoman, Dr. Marianna Sigala; Panos Paleologos, President and Founder of Hotelbrain; Henri Roelings, Chief Executive Officer of Hsyndicate media; and Alexandros Vassilikos, president of Athens – Attica & Argosaronic Hotel Association, just to name a few.
