Episode
This Week in Hospitality: Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit on The Great Hotel Owner Squeeze, Aman's YouTuber Fiasco, & Marriott's Owner Concession
- Podcast
- Behind the Stays
- Published
- Aug 7, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4370
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Summary
Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUyApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality This week we're joined by Sarah Kopit, Editor-in-Chief of Skift — the publication that fuels basically every episode of this show — and she came ready.We open on the story all of hospitality shared this week: Aman's brand-new, $6,000-a-night Amanvari turning away independent reviewer Ryan Walker at the gate on night two, then calling the cops on his driver. Scott and Sarah are inclined to give Aman the benefit of the doubt. Ben isn't — he thinks it might be the canary in the coal mine for a brand scaling faster than it ever has.From there we get into The Squeeze, Sarah's reporting on the crisis crushing America's small and mid-scale hotel owners. Record brand profits, owners barely cash-flowing, and a franchise model showing real cracks. We dig into why owners are revolting, what deflagging really costs, the financing fears keeping them locked to their flags, and the gut-punch of learning the Google reviews you spent eighteen years building don't belong to you — they belong to the brand.Then Marriott's new rebate: a real concession, or breadcrumbs tossed to the good boys who hit their guest-satisfaction scores? Sarah makes the case that the credit card companies are now the biggest force in travel, and that Amex and Capital One are building their own soft brands in plain sight.We close with a game — the hotel accounts winning on social, and the 99% still getting it wrong.This one's loaded. Come hang. —This Week in Hospitality is presented to you by Journey. Journey is a loyalty platform built s…