One Sunday in Year 1 of running Onera Fredericksburg, I almost threw my laptop out the window. I couldn’t bear to: Look at another unbooked weekend Play another game of “drop the price” chicken with my competitors Wonder if I should discount now or wait closer to the date Sound familiar? As Modern Hospitality operators, we’re constantly walking the tightrope between charging more and being 100% booked. We’re all looking for that single magic bullet, especially when it comes to making pricing...
about 4 hours ago • 3 min read
One of the most overlooked, yet highest-impact content upgrades I’ve seen (after 500M+ views across profiles we manage): Content Hooks. So we did a hook-writing workshop inside our Modern Hospitality Accelerator to help our clients write Reel copy and captions that consistently go viral. Since then our Accelerator clients have been churning out hooks that: Consistently reach their ideal audience (and converting them into followers) Cut their creation time by 50% (without compromising on...
about 4 hours ago • 1 min read
A few months ago, a two-unit glamping operator about 90 minutes from Dallas was struggling to fill his calendar. At the time, he was at: 60% occupancy Discounting to book more guests Generating ~$5,000 per unit per month (with an ambitious goal of $10,000) So, he knew he was drastically undercharging. But the problem was he had no idea how to raise his rates while still getting consistent bookings. 3 months later? His ADR and occupancy rate have increased by 10%. So what changed? He made 3...
about 4 hours ago • 2 min read
Back in June, I was on a direct booking audit with an Accelerator client. They owned Pioneertown Motel, a historic 19-room Western lodge built in 1946 for film crews (yep, actual Western film crews). So I pulled up their Instagram and… Their biggest Reel had 957K views (but nothing in it said you could stay there.) It was Jason Momoa playing bass at Red Dog Saloon, their sister bar. Here's the Reel and a snippet of it below: Getting that kind of virality — that’s the part most hospitality...
about 7 hours ago • 3 min read
Happy final day of October :) As of today, you only have 60 days left in 2026. So, what are you going to do with them? Are you going to wait until 2027 to start building your content-first marketing system that attracts your ideal guests and turns that attention into direct bookings (and revenue)? Because if so... Why? Why not get started this week so that come January 1st, you've already got the systems up and running? Because if you take the step with us today... You could have: Organic...
2 days ago • 1 min read
"Should we build a variety of units or more of the one that's already working?" I hear this a lot from operators planning their property’s next build phase. And, I've asked it myself more than once. But there's a bigger question you need to ask first: How can you build a unit that doesn’t compete on price? Most operators spread the budget evenly across their property. Every unit gets the same finishes and the same hot tub. So every unit is nice. But none of them is nice – the one that people...
7 days ago • 4 min read
Hey, Ben here. One reel at Onera Wimberley hit 1.7M views and drove $78,400+ in direct bookings. How? Making direct booking the easiest path for a guest who’s already interested. Especially on mobile. Every week inside the Modern Hospitality Accelerator, members bring their property to a hot seat and get live feedback from me and our advisors. Recently, that was Pioneertown Motel, a historic 19-room Western lodge near Joshua Tree. We pulled up their site and went through it the way a guest...
9 days ago • 1 min read
Short email today. Since this is the last week of October, we’re looking to fill the last 5 seats inside our Modern Hospitality Accelerator (MHA). But rather than tell you all the ways we can help you: Fill your rooms Raise your rates Increase your direct bookings Instead, I’m going to just show you a bunch of wins that’ve been happening inside MHA. Like this busy cabin getaway operator that’s increased their Average Daily Rate (ADR) by 10% with a 70% occupancy rate (even after just having a...
10 days ago • 2 min read
Hey there, Ben here. Sam Shankman (@samtravels) is the journalist behind farm hospitality, with over 59,000 followers as of this writing. Back in 2021, Sam started telling her farm's story on Instagram, and that year, her farm in Spain booked out. And one of the key content types she used to grow her own bookings is called Base Camp Content. Sam’s a rockstar who introduced me to farm hospitality years before we started building Baya. So a few weeks ago, she agreed to join me and my Content...
14 days ago • 4 min read
Hey—Ben here Over the last 5 years, our team has scaled a portfolio of unique stays to $50M+ in property value. How? We got extremely clear on how much revenue we were losing by relying on OTAs like Airbnb. And once we calculated that number, we knew we needed to shift to a direct booking strategy. When you do this for your own property, you’ll see: What you’re really paying OTAs in commissions every year (many don’t actually want to know this). Your NOI today vs. what it could be on...
16 days ago • 1 min read