Given the ability to adapt quickly while following their own standards, executives with independent and boutique hotels are well-positioned to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Larry Spelts, president of lodging and lifestyle adventures at The Indigo Road Hospitality Group, said during an Independent Lodging Congress Instagram Live segment that hotels have a couple competitive advantages over the brands when it comes to recovering from pandemic losses.

"The first and most obvious, and still the most important, advantage for independent hotels is ... the freedom to be innovative, to be experimental, to try things that just are not possible with some of the restrictions that come with conforming to the consistency requirements that chains need in order to be successful," he said.

Independent hotels have the ability to adapt new types of technology without oversight from a brand, and the pace of innovation for hotels did not let up in 2020, he said.

There is a wide variety of new technologies available, and that presents opportunities for independent hotels, Spelts said.

"For a chain to be able to adopt a new piece of technology … they’ve got to develop it so that they can roll it out to thousands of units," he said. "So they either have to keep it really simple or they have to spend years getting it robust enough and flexible enough that it can be used at all those thousands of properties whereas an independent hotel or a group with a small portfolio of independent hotels can very quickly be an early adopter of all the best and newest technologies."

"I really think this gives a competitive advantage," he added.

One type of technology that The Indigo Road Hospitality Group has invested in is an app that delivers local, curated experiences to guests, Spelts said. Guests can download the app and plan their experiences before arriving at the hotel.

The Skyline Lodge is one example of a hotel that's implementing this app on-property. Spelts said the hotel's app includes curated experiences such as mushroom foraging, falconry and hiking led by locals.

"These locals get to make money through us, and we’re able to deliver to guests a unique experience," he said.

Viceroy Hotel Group is independent-minded in some ways, but CEO Bill Walshe considers it a brand in the sense that it needs consistency, he said in an ILC Instagram Live session.

He said his company is an oxymoron and exists at "that point of collision where consistency and individuality collide."

"What makes special moments is making sure that in your business you have a sufficient degree of consistency to allow for things to happen," he said. "We all need some consistent approach. You have to have technology platforms; you have to have operating practices and procedures; you have to have financial guidelines, and you have cultural consistency."

Consistency isn't a bad thing, but it needs to "stop short of suffocating individuality or spontaneity and energy and the willingness to make mistakes and the sense of absolute desire for exploration," he said.

Walshe said his job is to be the "ringmaster" for the brand.

"To be the curator of that moment [of exploration]. To make sure that the consistency that we have is appropriate, that it supports us and it allows us and it protects the company," he said. "But then I draw the line to make sure that consistency does not turn us cookie cutter and that we can do all of those other things that I just talked about."

Proper Hospitality was built on the idea that "everyone deserves to live well," and that resonates from top to bottom of the company and to guests staying in the hotel, president and co-founder Brian De Lowe said in a separate ILC Instagram Live webinar.

It's one thing to say everyone deserves to live well, but Proper aims to create an "environment where creativity and entrepreneurialism can flourish," he said.

Everyone in the company appreciates design, and that idea of living well is weaved into the aesthetics of each hotel, De Lowe said.

It's about stimulating the senses, which can be done through food-and-beverage offerings and cultural programming such as speaker series and talks, he said.

De Lowe said Proper is optimistic that the industry will return to the way things were in 2019 before the pandemic.

For that reason, the company is designing for the future.

"We're not designing for COVID at all," he said.

Proper is also working on a few tech innovations, but they are ideas that existed before the pandemic and were accelerated during the pandemic, he said.