{"podcast":{"title":"Behind the Stays","slug":"behind-the-stays-3506810","podcast_index_feed_id":3506810,"rss_url":"https://feed.podbean.com/behindthestays/feed.xml","website_url":"https://www.behindthestays.com/","image_url":"https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/10635360/BTS-Artwork-1400x1400.jpg","author":"Zach Busekrus","episode_count":368,"summary":"Welcome to Behind the Stays — a podcast that shares the stories behind your favorite boutique hotels, short-term rentals, and hospitality brands and the hosts, operators, and entrepreneurs who’ve brought them to life. Every Tuesday and Friday you’ll meet the military veterans, retired flight attendants, tech entrepreneurs, school teachers, single moms, hoteliers, and real estate investors who are all, in their unique ways, shaping the future of travel and hospitality. Discover how these visionaries — from all over the world — have built stunning landscape hotels in the mountains, designed bohemian bungalows on the beach, erected eclectic off-grid and nature-immersed escapes, and so much more. Behind the Stays is brought to you by Journey — a first-of-its-kind loyalty program that brings together an alliance of the world’s top independently owned and operated stays and allows travelers to earn points and perks on boutique hotels, vacation rentals, treehouses, ski chalets, glamping experiences and so much more. And I’m your host, Zach Busekrus, Head of the Journey Alliance. Alright friends, enjoy the show!","last_synced_at":"2026-07-22T04:18:26.153492+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810"},"episode":{"title":"Why Luxury Hospitality Is Optimizing Itself Into Irrelevance — And What To Do About It (with Colin Nagy)","slug":"why-luxury-hospitality-is-optimizing-itself-into-irrelevance-and-what-to-do-about-it-with-colin-nagy","published_at":"2026-07-21T13:00:07+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810/why-luxury-hospitality-is-optimizing-itself-into-irrelevance-and-what-to-do-about-it-with-colin-nagy","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810","url":"https://behindthestays.podbean.com/e/why-luxury-hospitality-is-optimizing-itself-into-irrelevance-%e2%80%94-and-what-to-do-about-it-with-colin-nagy/","audio_url":"https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/8ijkyjjxkbkue4ev/BTS_34365wn1.mp3","summary":"Connect with Colin: linkedin.com/in/colinjamesnagy/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/ — The luxury hotel boom of the last decade produced more five-star rooms, more high-end brands, and more capital chasing premium travelers than any period in modern hospitality history.It also produced a lot of hotels that feel exactly the same.Colin Nagy has spent nearly a decade covering the business of luxury travel for Skift while leading global brand strategy for Instagram and Threads at Meta. He sits at a rare intersection — deeply inside the world of brand, culture, and consumer behavior, and deeply inside an industry he genuinely loves. That combination makes him one of the most clear-eyed observers working in hospitality today.In this episode, Colin and I dig into why luxury has optimized itself into sameness — and more importantly, what the brands getting it right are actually doing differently. We get into the role hospitality plays in a world where AI is accelerating isolation and people are hungry for real human connection. We talk members' clubs — the ones worth betting on and the ones burning through capital without a clue. We get into the macro disruption question most operators aren't asking loudly enough. And we talk about what world building actually requires — and why so few brands are willing to do the work.Colin isn't cynical about any of this. He's demanding. There's a difference. And if you care about where this industry is headed, this conversation will sharpen how you see it. — Behind the Stays is brought to you by Journey — a first-of-its-kind loyalty program that brings together an alliance of the world’s top independently owned and operated stays and allows trave…","meta_description":"Connect with Colin: linkedin.com/in/colinjamesnagy/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Apply to join the Journey Alliance: ht…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3358,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/behind-the-stays-3506810/episodes/why-luxury-hospitality-is-optimizing-itself-into-irrelevance-and-what-to-do-about-it-with-colin-nagy/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810/why-luxury-hospitality-is-optimizing-itself-into-irrelevance-and-what-to-do-about-it-with-colin-nagy.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}