Behind the Stays

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This Week’s Guest:

Noelle Homsy, Co-Founder, ENVI Lodges
Website: envilodges.com (live-checked October 26)
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noelle-homsy
Email: hello@envilodges.com

 

Your Host:

Zach Busekrus - Journey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/

 

Noelle Homsy's friends still aren't sure how she ended up in hotels. She studied architecture, and at 24 found herself the one left in charge of a construction site with four hundred workers. Then came years in dispute resolution, managing egos, reading the fine print, planning for the worst, before an MBA at INSEAD, weekend trips through Southeast Asia's locally run eco-lodges, and a hotel operator job in Dubai eventually led her to co-found ENVI Lodges with Chris Nader in 2021.

ENVI is an asset-light brand and operator of luxury eco-lodges: long-term management agreements, villas-only, low-density properties designed to disappear into their environment. The first lodge, ENVI Paje in Zanzibar (22 keys), opened this summer as proof the model works. Guests choose community excursions over the tourist menu, pack donations for local schools through the Pack for Paje program, and leave, as Noelle puts it, a little kinder than they arrived.

We get into why she believes sustainability is the byproduct of experiences that make people happy, not the goal; why taking care of the local community creates more impact than protecting a single plot; how ENVI wins owners away from the big brands; and what it takes for a lodge to earn the ENVI name. Plus: two lodges coming to Saudi Arabia, one on the shores of Oman, and where the brand goes next.

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Fifty episodes in, we're skipping the news and handing out the hospitality awards nobody asked for.

Zach, Ben, Edwin and a returning Scott Eddy each nominate, defend and vote across five categories. For "The Hotel I'd Steal," Scott and Edwin both take Marina Bay Sands - Edwin to bankroll a portfolio of tiny rural hotels with its profits - while Ben makes a play for Vermejo, Ted Turner's half-million-acre New Mexico reserve, and Zach stays closer to home with San Antonio's Hotel Emma and the Pearl District it anchors.

For "The Biggest Bet," Edwin backs Soho House's post-buyout second act as a wellness-driven lifestyle community, Ben doubles down on farm hospitality, Scott picks Ennismore's ecosystem approach, and Zach makes the case for Sloan Dean's AI Hospitality Group and its plan to rebuild the hotel management company from scratch.

The "Most Overrated" round goes after membership clubs, loyalty programs that measure points instead of genuine loyalty, brand proliferation nobody can explain, and the industry's obsession with capturing demand instead of creating it.

"Sleeping Giants" covers hotel staff as personal brands, the 45-to-65 first-time independent hotel buyer, the industry's missing attribution layer, and the day-guest economics of ResortPass.

And on "Hills We'll Die On": hospitality brands built on belonging rather than hotels, every hotel company thinking like a media company, ripping out the front desk, and why tech talent should be pouring into IRL experiences. Plus Edwin's Airbnb ad read that is absolutely not an Airbnb ad read.

 

Your Hosts:

Zach Busekrus — Journey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/

Scott Eddy — Global Travel & Hospitality Expert @MrScottEddy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrscotteddy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrscotteddy/

Ben Wolff — Founder of Onera & Oasi
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-wolff/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iambenwolff/

Edwin Kramer — Luxury Hotelier Consultant & Former GM
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinckramer/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edwinkramer/

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This Week’s Guest:

Connect with Janice Stitzer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janicestitzer/

 

Your Host:

Zach Busekrus - Journey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/

 

Four cabins had private saunas and cold plunges. Three didn't. And within the first few months, the bookings were telling Janice Stitzer she'd made a mistake.

So she ordered three more saunas.

I love that story because it gets at what this conversation is really about. You can have the beautiful renderings. You can have the cabin that looks incredible on Instagram. But at some point, the guest has to choose you, and the business has to work.

Janice is back on Behind the Stays, and she is one of my favorite people to talk to about the actual work of building these places. She comes from finance, including time at Disney and Fox Studios. She and her husband, a third-generation contractor, have spent years buying, renovating, and building real estate. Then they built Backcountry A-Frame in Colorado, and that opened the door to something bigger.

Her latest operating project is Frontcountry in Salida: seven micro-cabins on one acre. And that one acre came with some very expensive lessons. A well, parking requirements, setbacks, and septic all competed for the same little piece of land. The septic system alone ended up costing ninety thousand dollars.

We get into all of it. Why she chose an established destination over a more remote piece of land. What she learned about the amenities guests will actually pay for. And why, when someone asks her how many cabins they should build, she starts with a different question: what revenue does this business need to support the life you want?

Her starting point is roughly a million dollars in annual revenue, then working backward. That's her planning framework, not a promise that every project can get there.

We also talk about Vista Meadows Ranch, the farm-and-workshop experience she's building next, and why she's starting with the experience before the overnight stays.

If you've ever looked at a beautiful little resort and thought, "I could build something like that," this is the conversation I'd want you to hear before you buy the land.

Please enjoy my conversation with Janice Stitzer.

This Week's Guest:

Alex Cabañas
Executive Chairman, Pyramid Global Hospitality
Founder and CEO of Astound Ventures
https://astound-ventures.com/

 

What happens when the hotel front desk disappears, but hospitality gets more personal?

This week, Zach Busekrus, Ben Wolff and Edwin Kramer are joined by Alex Cabañas, executive chairman of Pyramid Global Hospitality and founder and CEO of Astound Ventures, for a conversation about the changes that could actually improve hotel margins.

Alex explains why he's investing in hospitality's own problems, from energy management and distributed power to the workflows that keep hotel teams buried in admin. His test for innovation isn't whether it sounds impressive. It's whether it helps owners make money and frontline staff do their jobs better.

They explore a future with lobby hosts instead of agents stuck behind screens, AI tools that put repair answers in an engineer's hand, and automation that connects sales contracts with banquet operations. They also ask what hotels should build themselves, what they should buy, and who has time to sort through the endless startup pitches.

Then the conversation turns to Expedia's rate-parity lawsuit. Ben explains why his direct guests generate higher average daily rates without a lower direct price, while Alex challenges the parity model and considers what AI-driven recommendations could mean for intermediaries.

Finally, Minor Hotels' Life Longevity concept sparks a debate about wellness beyond the stay. Should hotels collect guests' health data, connect with their wearables, or leave diagnostics alone? Alex closes with a different vision of personalization: guests control their data and share it when they want a better experience.

 

Your Hosts:

Zach Busekrus — Journey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/

Scott Eddy — Global Travel & Hospitality Expert @MrScottEddy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrscotteddy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrscotteddy/

Ben Wolff — Founder of Onera & Oasi
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-wolff/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iambenwolff/

Edwin Kramer — Luxury Hotelier Consultant & Former GM
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinckramer/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edwinkramer/

This Week’s Guest:

Shawn Cioto - Vice President of Operations, Dovetail + Co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-cioto-914264b/

Your Host:

Zach Busekrus - Journey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/

Shawn Cioto, VP of Operations at Dovetail + Co, explains why the owner of seven hotels is taking management in-house: large management companies often miss the small, on-brand details that make independent lifestyle hotels special, from coffee sleeves and key cards to scent, lighting and music. He describes how Dovetail decides between growing its Wayfinder brand (Waikiki, Newport and Bishop) and launching new concepts like its high-design pod hotel, and the whirlwind three-to-four-week takeover of Collective Retreats in New York. With guest acquisition costs climbing through OTA commissions, accelerators and paid media, Shawn's focus is monetizing guests once they're on property. One example is adding a casual second restaurant concept at a remote hotel so guests stay the second night instead of leaving for dinner. He talks about leaning on specialist marketing partners, a creative director and a brand lead, a viral video with their Catskills pizza chef, and surprise-and-delight touches for kids like Tiny the Turtle. With co-host Ben, he digs into balancing brand standards with fun content: standardize back-of-house processes, never the soul of the hotel.