Hospitality, explained through the people behind it.
Defining Hospitality treats hotels, restaurants, and guest experiences as human systems, not just businesses. Through long-form conversations, it follows people in hospitality into the details that make care visible.
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Defining Hospitality is a long-running interview show about the craft and business of making people feel cared for. Its center of gravity is hospitality, but its range is wider than hotels alone. The conversations move through design studios, ownership structures, restaurant concepts, analytics teams, brand strategy, luxury music direction, and the personal histories that bring people into the field. It is warm and unhurried. Rather than reducing hospitality to service tips or glossy project reveals, the show asks how good experiences get built, funded, staffed, designed, measured, and protected when reality gets complicated. Hotel asset management becomes a conversation about owners, brands, renovations, guest scores, and negotiation. Interior design becomes a study of anticipation, collaboration, materials, and the practical consequences of a poorly planned room. Cultural hospitality shows up in discussions of Korean-branded hotel and restaurant spaces, where cuisine, design, elegance, and welcome are treated as connected ideas. Other episodes follow the role of sound in luxury environments, the appeal of distinctive independent hotels, and the way data can make market behavior easier to understand. The show also has a strong memory for relationships. Guests are introduced through past meetings, trade-show encounters, shared meals, and professional admiration, which gives the interviews a lived-in quality. Dan Ryan functions as a recurring interviewer, often restating, circling back, and asking guests to make abstract ideas concrete. That makes the show especially useful for listeners who want the backstage version of hospitality: not just what looks beautiful, but who had to decide, build, revise, finance, and operate it. The pace can wander, but that looseness is part of the appeal. Defining Hospitality is strongest when a guest’s specific story opens into a broader principle about care, trust, teamwork, and the journey of the guest.
Made for: For hospitality operators, designers, developers, brand builders, students, and industry watchers who want practical context with a human tone. It also suits curious listeners interested in how hotels, restaurants, and guest experiences are actually made.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by treating hospitality as a lived operational practice rather than a polished slogan. Its interviews connect design, ownership, data, culture, service, and personal motivation in the same conversation.
Welcome to Defining Hospitality, the podcast focused on highlighting the most influential figures in the hospitality industry. In each episode we provide 1 on 1, in depth interviews with experts in the industry to learn what hospitality means to them. We feature expert advice on working in the industry, behind the scenes looks at some of your favorite brands, and in depth explorations of unique hospitality projects. Defining Hospitality is hosted by Founder and CEO of Agency 967, Dan Ryan. With over 30 years of experience in hospitality, Dan brings his expertise and passion to each episode as he delves into the latest trends...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Dan Ryan connects hotel service and design with the operating, ownership, and leadership decisions that determine how hospitality works.
Defining Hospitality treats a hotel as both a human experience and an operating business. In one-on-one conversations, Dan Ryan keeps asking how care, design, leadership, and ownership decisions meet in the same building.
That hotel shower that soaks you just for turning it on finally gets a hearing with Dan Ryan.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Hotel asset management turns practical when brands, CapEx, and guest scores collide.
Walter Paseski is presented as a hotel operations and asset management specialist with a clear owner-side perspective. The discussion stays close to the work that shapes the business: third-party asset management, hotel acquisitions, business development, and the push and pull…
A grounded look at hospitality as care, collaboration, and making spaces function.
Hospitality is treated here as a working discipline rather than a mood, and that frame gives the piece its shape. Ed Bakos comes across as a veteran hospitality leader with over 30 years of worldwide experience, and the discussion ties together high-end interiors, architecture,…
Hospitality comes through here as practical work, and that is what gives the conversation its weight.
Chelsea Hershelman and Dan Ryan spend their time on the parts of hospitality that usually get ignored: what happens when a building needs work, the schedule is tight, and the guest experience still has to hold together.
Hospitality is framed as care, purpose, and helping people feel cared for on their journeys.
Richard Wiese and Dan Ryan treat hospitality as more than hotels, widening it to the built environment, business, and everyday life. The clearest idea is also the simplest: hospitality is about making people feel cared for while helping them get where they are going with less…
Hospitality comes through here as a people-first business shaped by authentic service.
Tom Healy and Dan Ryan treat hospitality as a people-first practice, where the building, the service, and the people inside it have to work together for the experience to feel real.
Tyler Selhorn interviews remote-work founders and researchers on building distributed team culture.
Adi Ignatius and Alison Beard interview scholars and executives on management and AI.
Asset management gets pulled into the daily squeeze of running a hotel.
Dan Ryan opens by asking what hospitality really means.
This episode explores how Korean culture influences hotel and restaurant design through an interview with professionals Thomas Oh and Daphne Shin, focusing on creating welcoming spaces that showcase Korean elegance and hospitality.
This episode features an interview with Michelangelo Laqua, a music and lifestyle branding expert, discussing his work in luxury hospitality and creative strategy.
This episode features an interview with Saxton Sherrod, founder and CEO of Revival Hotels and Hideaway Inns, discussing how to transform hospitality for millennials through unique experiences and design.
Host Dan Ryan interviews Isaac Collazo, a hospitality data expert, about his career and insights into the industry.
Host Dan Ryan interviews interior designer Stephanie Hopkins about her career in hospitality design and what hospitality means to her.
Host Dan Ryan interviews interior designer Amy Margolis about her career and the role of design in hospitality.
Host Dan Ryan interviews Ian Shark, COO of Journey TV, about his career in hospitality and media.
Host Dan Ryan interviews architect and professor Glenn Nowak about hospitality design, innovation, and career insights.
Dan Ryan keeps the conversation focused on hospitality as care.
Dan Ryan introduces the guest as an entrepreneur, television host, author, speaker, world explorer, and Emmy Award winner.
Dan Ryan opens by tying hospitality to shortening people’s journeys and making them feel cared for.
Host Dan Ryan interviews restaurateur Jan DeRochefort about his journey building Boqueria and insights on hospitality.
Host Dan Ryan interviews Harzali Hashim, a director of engineering at Keoya Hotels and Resorts, about his career in hospitality engineering and sustainable practices.
Dan Ryan interviews Sebastian Torres-Calderon, CEO of Stay Unique in Spain, about managing short-term rental operations and stakeholder experiences.
Interview with Steve Fortunato, founder of Room 40 Events, discussing hospitality leadership and the Host Mindset Framework.
Host Dan Ryan interviews co-founders of Reset Hotel about their modular, design-forward, sustainable hotel concept and what hospitality means to them.
This episode features an interview with Eileen Madigan, Senior Vice President of Global Interior Design at Las Vegas Sands, discussing hospitality in design and business.
An interview with an architect about adaptive reuse and vertical integration in the hospitality industry.
Host Dan Ryan interviews Bruno Viterbo, VP of Design at Irvine Company, about his career in hospitality design and real estate.
Host Dan Ryan interviews hospitality leader Aggie Zamir about her career and the meaning of hospitality.
An interview with the EVP and Chief Customer Officer of Hilton Grand Vacations discussing vacation ownership and customer experience.
This episode features an interview with Alissa Klees, brand leader of Spark by Hilton, discussing the innovative brand's strategy, growth, and impact on the hospitality industry.
This episode features an interview with Chris Lenz, founder of La Compania Hotels and Resorts, discussing his journey from sailing worldwide to creating unique hospitality spaces in Panama.
Host Dan Ryan interviews Dr.
This episode features an interview with Dr.
Host Dan Ryan interviews hospitality executive Andrea Foster about her career and insights into the industry.
Host Dan Ryan interviews Nicholas Groff, a hospitality professor and advisor, about his career and the evolution of the NYU Lodging Conference.
Host Dan Ryan interviews hospitality expert Jensen Mounia about his career in F&B and launching a new venture in Dubai.
Host Dan Ryan interviews the CEO and chairman of Enzo Group about hospitality business strategy and capital allocation.
Host Dan Ryan interviews Sean Walsh, founder of Cali BBQ Media and owner of award-winning barbecue restaurants, about his journey in hospitality and media.