LOS ANGELES — While the long-term trends around automation and artificial intelligence point to a future with fewer employees on property, today hotels remain a people-intensive business that requires a focus on culture and shared values, according to experts.
Speaking on the "Boardroom Outlook: People and Culture" session at the 2025 Americas Lodging Investment Summit, Sloan Dean, president and CEO of Remington Hospitality, said for the time being at least, the rise of artificial intelligence might actually make the hotel industry more attractive for potential employees.
"As other industries are intermediated, and it's happening right now, and job replacement is happening, that younger generation will think about 'Well, where can I go and not have my job eliminated?'" he said. "I think hospitality is one of those places."
Dean estimated that the hotel industry is still at least a decade away from reliable automation for many on-property jobs, particularly housekeeping, but there are some elements of corporate positions, such as roles in revenue management and legal, that can be supplemented with AI.
"We're increasing productivity, making people more efficient," he said.
That represents something of a role reversal in terms of what people typically think about job security, Dean said.
"I actually think the fixed-salary positions are going to be intermediated faster than the unskilled, variable hourly positions, just because of the way large language models work," he said. "You already have it when we talk about the death of the concierge. Eventually it will replace some sales jobs. It's already making revenue managers more efficient."
But unless and until the industry is able to find a way to fully automate, executives say happy and empowered employees are a key aspect of the business, particularly as they're often the key differentiator for guest experience.
John Cohlan, CEO of Margaritaville Holdings, said his company was built with a specific culture in mind that continues to drive the experience both employees and guests want.
"In our case, culture really created the business," he said. "Of course, before it was a restaurant chain, it was a song. The song became a cultural, iconic phenomenon, really, and there was a person who wrote the song, obviously Jimmy Buffett. The attitude is his attitude towards living, and the importance of vacation and life before work really is the core of the entire business. So more than most businesses, it's not just a sense of work culture. The actual business is based on a culture."
Cohlan said it's his job as a leader to make sure that culture is felt in all things Margaritaville does, but that job is made easier by that core ethos.
"What's nice about it is there's a genuine feeling that while all businesses exist to run efficiently and generate profit, there is slightly a sense of higher good in what we do because everybody really believes they're performing a value service, which is to provide that time of escape in everyone's lives," he said.
For other companies, the idea of culture can be more ephemeral. But Jim Merkel, CEO and co-founder of Rockbridge, said enriching people's lives has to be a core tenet of the business.
"We celebrated our 25th anniversary this year, which was a big milestone, and from the beginning of Rockbridge, we focused on the people that were part of the organization," he said. "We had four partners, and each one of us made Rockbridge Rockbridge. We really worked hard to make sure that the people we hired shared the same philosophy."
While the core of working at any business is about making sure both the business and the people involved in it enjoy financial success, Merkel said it's important to not lose sight of the fact there are other measures of success for individuals.
"One of the things I'm most proud of is that one of the things I personally wanted to do was build a culture where people were building lifelong friends, because we work really hard at what we do, and you're in the trenches, so to speak," he said. "You want to be able to spend your time with people that you care about. You also go the extra mile for the people that you care about."
Dean said the hotel industry should never stray far away from Bill Marriott's iconic advice of taking care of employees so they can take care of guests.
Zack Gharib has had his role of president of 51-year-old hotel brand Red Roof for less than a year, and helping to establish and improve culture is one of his key challenges as a leader.
He said a big part of achieving that goal is making sure all employees feel like they are heard.
"We built our core values based on what our employees really want to see," Gharib said. "So we had the buy-in and the culture that we delivered from day one and our employees were part of the culture."