The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast

Hosted by Michelle Pascoe

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325

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Welcome to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast, where we explore the heart of the hospitality industry through conversations with leaders, experts, and innovators. Each episode brings you insights, practical advice, and inspiring stories that help you elevate guest experiences, enhance team performance, and stay ahead of industry trends. Whether you're an owner, manager, or passionate professional, this podcast will ignite your passion for hospitality. Tune in, learn, and grow with us!

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August 11, 202641 min

Are Clubs the Last Place Solving Loneliness?

Clubs remain one of the few places where four to five generations meet face to face. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert, and Clubs New Zealand CEO Lucy Waterreus discuss how clubs are helping rebuild social fabric and address a growing loneliness crisis across every generation, not just Gen Z. So if Gen Z is the most digitally connected generation in history, why are they also the loneliest, and what does that mean for the club down the road? Clubs work as a fix for disconnection because they put people in the same room on a recurring basis. Lucy Waterreus points to this directly when she talks about the small group of regulars who show up at the same time every week, the kind of connection Michelle Pascoe describes as a club's table of knowledge. That connection isn't limited to members. Lucy Waterreus also explains how New Zealand clubs are recruiting staff as young as fourteen through school partnerships, pairing them alongside staff in their seventies, and what that does to the myths each generation holds about the other. Michelle and Lucy also talk through what succession planning realistically looks like when one person is wearing the GM, CEO, marketing and finance hats at once, and why getting governance and management right matters more as regulatory complexity increases. Key Takeaways Why clubs remain one of the few places where four to five generations meet face to face, and what that does to the myths each generation holds about the other. How New Zealand clubs recruit staff as young as fourteen through school-linked programs, and what that means for building the next generation of hospitality leaders. Why New Zealand's club sector is heading into a wave of CEO and manager retirements over the next five years, and what succession planning looks like in a lean-run sector. How the blurring of lines between governance and management stalls progress in clubs, and what the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 means for club boards. Why club boards are shrinking and diversifying, and the tension between relying on good hearted volunteers and building governance expertise. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Lucy Lucy Waterreus is CEO of Clubs New Zealand, where she works across governance, advocacy and operations for the club sector nationally. She began her career working behind the bar in clubs and has spent close to two decades in the industry, giving her a rare view of the sector from the frontline through to the boardroom.  Connect with Clubs New Zealand: https://www.clubsnz.org.nz

August 4, 202632 min

How Gotcha4Life Is Building Mental Fitness in Schools

Gotcha4Life's Mentally Fit Primary School program is a whole-of-school, whole-of-community mental health initiative now running in 68 New South Wales schools, largely funded through registered club grants. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and 30-year hospitality industry expert, speaks with Gotcha4Life's Don Tilley about how clubs are building community trust and staff pride through genuine charity partnerships. So how does a club grant actually turn into mental fitness support for hundreds of families? In this episode, Michelle sits down with returning guest Don Tilley, who leads community partnerships at Gotcha4Life, to unpack what club-funded charity work actually looks like on the ground once the cheque has been handed over. The Mentally Fit Primary School program works because it treats mental fitness as a skill to build before a crisis hits, not a service to call in after one. Don walks through the three protective factors the program teaches children, why parents often leave information nights in tears of relief rather than distress, and why the program is deliberately built so schools can eventually run it without Gotcha4Life in the room. Listen to hear why Don believes the mindset in the club industry is shifting, and what that means for the CEOs and GMs listening right now. Key Takeaways Why Don didn't grasp the true scale of club community funding even after five years working alongside clubs. How the Mentally Fit Primary School program builds emotional skills and support networks for children before problems escalate. Why some charities have historically been wary of accepting money from clubs, and what that reveals about the trust gap still facing the industry. How Gotcha4Life designs its programs so schools can eventually run them independently, a key test for any charity partnership built to scale. Why more clubs are now employing dedicated community engagement staff, and what that shift means for the industry. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Don Don Tilley leads community partnerships at Gotcha4Life, a mental health charity delivering the Mentally Fit Primary School program across New South Wales schools. He spent 12 years at Learning Links before moving into the role, and has worked alongside registered clubs on grants and philanthropy for over a decade. Contact: don.tilley@gotcha4life.org or https://www.gotcha4life.org Download Mental Fitness Gym: https://www.gym.gotcha4life.org

July 28, 20269 min

How Do You Build a Leadership Pipeline in Hospitality?

Building a hospitality leadership pipeline means identifying your next leaders before you need them. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience, outlines a four-step approach: identify internal talent now, have honest succession conversations with your board, protect your leadership development budget, and broaden your talent pool beyond traditional club experience. Are the clubs around you already running out of leaders, and they just don't know it yet? In this solo episode, Michelle draws on a month of guest conversations to address one of the most pressing structural issues facing Australian clubs right now: the leadership pipeline gap. Senior retirements have already started. GMs and operations managers who built their careers through the club structure of the 1980s and 90s are retiring or burning out, and the generation below them has not been developed to step into those roles. Recruitment alone will not fix this. If you have not built the culture and developed your people internally, you will spend far more time and money recruiting than you would ever have spent on development. A leadership pipeline works because it creates a continuous supply of capable people who are ready to step up before the gap becomes a crisis. The next five years will reveal which clubs were building something and which clubs were just managing. The ones who act now, while they still have time, are the ones who will be ready. Key Takeaways The leadership pipeline crisis already unfolding in Australian clubs as senior retirements accelerate. Why recruitment alone cannot solve a development problem, and what clubs should be doing instead. What a real leadership pipeline looks like in practice, from frontline identification through to board succession. Four practical actions club leaders can take right now to protect their operational future. Why AI is raising, not lowering, the value of strong hospitality leadership development. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms

July 21, 202658 min

What Does It Take to Become a Club CEO?

Becoming a club CEO takes practical experience built from the ground up, not a straight line through university. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional, talks with Young Services Club CEO Lewis Butterworth about the journey from bar work in Manchester to running a growing regional club, and what it actually takes to get there. So what actually separates someone who spends a career behind the bar from someone who ends up running the whole club? Michelle Pascoe is a Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience helping clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues build service cultures that retain staff and delight guests. In this episode, she sits down with Lewis Butterworth, who started behind a bar in Manchester at 15, dropped out of law school in his early twenties, and moved to Australia with nothing more than hospitality experience and a willingness to work. Today he is CEO of Young Services Club in regional New South Wales. Becoming a club CEO works because Lewis treated every step of the journey as a deliberate skill building exercise, not a fallback career. He explains how interviewing for jobs he did not necessarily want gave him honest feedback on where he stood, and why he chased opportunities a pay grade above his own rather than waiting to be handed one.  The conversation moves through why hospitality's middle management pipeline has thinned since COVID, why staff have to ask for opportunity rather than wait for it, and why a club CEO's job is closer to custodian than owner. Lewis also makes the case for regional hospitality careers, comparing the real cost of a city apartment against a 115 acre regional property, and argues the industry needs to stop treating "club" as separate from "hospitality" altogether. Key Takeaways Why becoming a club CEO rarely follows a straight or predictable path. How interviewing for jobs he didn't want gave Lewis the feedback he needed to grow. What Lewis inherited from predecessor Dean Cave's 20 year tenure at Young Services Club. Why hospitality's middle management pipeline collapsed after COVID and how to rebuild it. Why a club CEO's role is closer to custodian than owner. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Lewis Lewis Butterworth is CEO of Young Services Club in Young, New South Wales. He began his hospitality career behind a bar in Manchester at 15, moved to Australia after leaving law school in his early twenties, and worked across private hospitality groups, cocktail venues and TV chef restaurants before building a full time career in the club industry. He has grown Young Services Club's community footprint to include the Golf Club, Sporties Bowling Club and the Federation Motor Inn. Website: https://www.youngservicesclub.com.au/

July 14, 202638 min

Why Boards Keep Hiring the Wrong Person for the Top Job

Boards keep hiring hospitality leaders for operational experience instead of leadership capability, according to recruitment specialists Ian Stazicker & Grant Taylor of White Now, speaking with Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert. The right club CEO needs strategic thinking, critical thinking and genuine leadership, not familiarity with gaming machines or years behind the bar. So what should a board actually be looking for when they hire their next CEO? In this episode, Michelle Pascoe sits down with Ian and Grant, the new owners of White Now Recruitment, the long-standing recruitment agency for Australia's registered clubs and hospitality industry. Ian and Grant bring something most recruitment consultants don't have: genuine operational experience inside a club, having turned around a struggling regional club together before taking ownership of White Now. That background changes how they work. The conversation also gets into why boards keep making the same hiring mistake. Boards work because they hire for leadership, strategic thinking, and critical thinking, not for familiarity with gaming machines or years spent pouring beers. That distinction matters more as clubs face a wave of senior retirements and a middle management gap that opened during Covid and never fully closed. If you're a CEO, board member, or people leader in hospitality, particularly in a regional club, this conversation will change how you think about your next senior hire. Key Takeaways Why accommodation is the first question regional club candidates ask, before anything about the role itself. How clubs can use spare land and repurposed property to solve the regional housing problem for incoming staff. Why boards keep hiring for operational familiarity instead of leadership, strategic thinking, and critical thinking. How the hospitality leadership pipeline is thinning as senior leaders retire and middle managers who left during Covid haven't fully returned. Why bringing in leaders from outside the industry, including regulated sectors like aged care, can solve the talent gap boards are afraid to address. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About White Now Ian and Grant are the owners of White Now Recruitment, the leading recruitment agency for Australia's registered clubs and hospitality industry, and operate under their parent company ETE Hospitality Solutions. Ian brings over 30 years of senior leadership experience across tourism, hospitality, destination marketing, luxury retail, and real estate development in global markets, and previously served as president of the Bermagui Country Club board. Grant has spent 20 years working in clubs and hospitality in regional areas, including a senior finance role in consulting, and now leads the operational side of White Now. Find them at https://www.whitenow.com.au

July 7, 202644 min

How Do You Manage Staff Who Won't Wait for You?

Managing Gen Z hospitality staff means offering skills and purpose instead of a career ladder, says business futurist Kim Seeling Smith on The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast. With 72% of Gen Z running a side hustle, old-school carrot and stick management only produces short-term compliance. Michelle Pascoe, a Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in hospitality, says leaders who replace it with purpose, community, and AI-ready skills keep people longer. So if the career ladder isn't the hook anymore, what actually keeps a Gen Z hospitality worker showing up on a Friday night? In this episode, Michelle sits down with business futurist Kim Seeling Smith to unpack the three disruptions reshaping hospitality right now: the AI revolution, the polycrisis, and the rise of the empowered workforce. Kim has advised organisations globally on the future of work, appeared on the Today Show more than 30 times, and reverse-engineered over 5,000 exit interviews into her Nine Currencies of Choice framework. Her point for hospitality leaders is blunt. Old-school management, built on the promise of climbing a ladder, does not land with a generation that has already priced that ladder out of reach. Carrot and stick works, in the sense that it gets fast compliance. It just doesn't build loyalty. Kim explains why that approach only ever produces short-term behavioural change, and what replaces it: consequences framed around real people, not policy. The conversation also covers what AI is already doing inside hospitality operations, from automating rostering to changing how job interviews are run and scored, plus Kim's practical first steps for any club CEO or hotel GM who wants to start using AI properly without an enterprise IT budget. Key Takeaways Why 72% of Gen Z having a side hustle changes what loyalty and career development actually look like in hospitality Why carrot and stick management gets short-term compliance but loses good people over the long term How AI is already automating the dull, dirty, and dangerous work inside hospitality operations, and what that frees middle managers up to do instead Why AI screening tools and real-time interview-cheating apps are already changing how hospitality venues need to hire Kim Seeling Smith's practical first steps for any hospitality leader ready to start using AI properly Next Steps Listen to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Kim Kim Seeling Smith is a business futurist who helps organisations navigate the AI revolution, the polycrisis, and the rise of the empowered workforce. She has held a seat at the table with Sir Richard Branson for her work on the future of work, was named a top 101 global influencer on employee engagement, and spent 15 years as a recruitment consultant reverse-engineering 5,000 exit interviews into her Nine Currencies of Choice framework. Kim appears regularly on the Today Show, in Forbes, Fast Company, Smart Company, CEO Magazine, CNBC, the Australian Financial Review, and the Sydney Morning Herald. Find her at https://www.kimseelingsmith.com or get Kim's white paper, The C-Suite's AI Playbook: From Pilot to Performance, at https://kimseelingsmith.com/the-c-suites-ai-playbook-b/

June 30, 202644 min

Why the Best Leaders in Hospitality Are Unforgettable

Real hospitality leadership reduces staff turnover, lifts team productivity, and builds guest loyalty — and according to Eoin Clancy, Principal Associate at Galileo Hospitality Consultants and a 40-year veteran of Hilton, Marriott, and the Cheesecake Factory, the clearest measure of a great leader is simple: would your team drop everything to work with you again? Would you pass that test? Michelle Pascoe is a Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience helping clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues build service cultures that retain staff and delight guests. In this episode, Michelle sits down with Eoin Clancy for a candid, experience-rich conversation about what servant leadership looks like in practice, why the hospitality revolving door keeps spinning, and what it actually takes to slow it down. Servant leadership works in hospitality because it creates the conditions where people stay longer, work harder, achieve their KPIs, and genuinely enjoy their jobs. Eoin learned this first-hand under a general manager at a 1,674-room Marriott in Atlanta who knew the names of all 1,800 staff members. Not from name badges. He actually knew them. That is what retention looks like in practice. Michelle Pascoe and Eoin also explore the multigenerational workforce challenge facing hospitality operators right now, and why blending age groups on the floor creates a stabilising dynamic that younger-only or older-only teams simply cannot replicate. Key Takeaways Servant leadership in hospitality is more aspirational than practised, and the gap between the two is costing operators staff, guests, and profitability. A leader who genuinely knows their team by name — not from badges — creates a level of loyalty and productivity that no KPI framework can manufacture. Reducing staff turnover starts with understanding the season of life each team member is in, and adapting how you support them accordingly. A blended multigenerational workforce is a deliberate retention strategy, not a compromise — experienced staff stabilise younger team members and reduce the speed of the revolving door. Consistency in systems, standards, and service is the foundation every successful hospitality operation is built on, regardless of format or price point. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry and Disney Institute Alumni credentials, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Eoin Eoin Clancy is the Principal Associate at Galileo Hospitality Consultants and a seasoned hospitality professional with 40 years of hard-won experience across Hilton, Marriott, the Crowne Plaza, and the Cheesecake Factory. He has designed, built, and opened operations across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, including his own multi-unit ventures. Eoin now brings that operational depth to hospitality businesses navigating leadership, culture, and performance challenges. Website: www.galileohospitality.co.uk

June 23, 202613 min

Why Poor Service Keeps Winning in Clubs (And What It Actually Takes to Change It)

Poor customer service keeps winning in registered clubs because the cost of inaction is invisible. Hospitality training expert Michelle Pascoe, a Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the industry, explains that until club leaders build a single service liability number, training investment stays optional, budgets stay cut, and service standards keep drifting.What would change at your club if the board could finally see what poor service is actually costing them?In this episode, Michelle identifies the structural reason service training doesn't stick: the environment it lands in was never designed to hold it. Training works because the culture surrounding it reinforces it. When middle managers aren't modelling the same standards, when recognition systems only notice what goes wrong, and when frontline staff intelligence never reaches the decision-making level, even the best workshop evaporates within weeks.The same revolving door that loses members also loses good people. Every time a service-oriented team member leaves, they take with them the member relationships they built, the institutional knowledge they developed, and the standard they were holding.Key Takeaways Poor service persists in clubs not because nobody cares, but because the cost of inaction never appears as a single number alongside the cost of acting. Service training fails to stick when the middle management layer hasn't been developed to reinforce and model the same standards on the floor. A recognition culture that only notices what goes wrong actively undermines what training is trying to build. The intelligence frontline staff gather about member experience rarely reaches decision-making level because the loop is structurally broken. Changing club service culture requires three things operating together: leadership that understands service as a commercial priority, a visible recognition culture, and training that is reinforced rather than delivered and forgotten. Next Steps Reach out to michelle@michellepascoe.com for a free copy of The Real Cost of Poor Service Calculation Guide - a practical tool for club and hospitality leaders who've ever hit budget or board resistance when making the case for training investment. Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprogram About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms

June 16, 202639 min

Is Customer Experience Dead or Just Changing in Hospitality?

Is customer experience dead? No -- but the way hospitality leaders have been managing it is. Rick Denton, host of CX Passport and a 30-year corporate customer experience veteran, joins Michelle Pascoe to explain why CX as a discipline isn't dying, but the branding around it is -- and what hospitality leaders must do differently to stay ahead. Are your venues investing in the right things, or are you cutting the very people who make the guest experience worth returning for? In this conversation, Michelle and Rick get specific about what hospitality leaders are getting wrong right now -- from over-relying on data dashboards without acting on them, to cutting frontline staff in the name of efficiency and wondering why revenue is falling. Rick's view is direct: CX will never die because customers and experiences will always exist. What's dying is the version of CX that couldn't prove its value in dollars. Key Takeaways Why the branding of customer experience is fading and what hospitality leaders should focus on instead. How AI is freeing frontline staff to spend more time with guests -- and how companies are getting that trade-off dangerously wrong. Why CX data and dashboards are worthless unless leaders take meaningful, revenue-linked action on what they find. How frontline teams hold the most valuable guest insight in any venue, and why most leaders never access it properly. What hospitality leaders must do to stay relevant as AI, cost pressure, and the polycrisis converge. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Rick Rick Denton is the creator and host of CX Passport, a global customer experience podcast with more than 250 episodes and listeners in over 100 countries. Before podcasting, Rick spent three decades leading customer-focused initiatives inside large organisations. He is also the co-host of The Loud Quiet, a podcast and community he launched with his wife Clancy for empty nesters navigating a major life transition -- which became the basis for their 2026 book, The Loud Quiet: Love, Laughter and Life in the Empty Nest. Rick is based in Dallas, Texas. CX Passport: https://www.cxpassport.com CX Passport on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cxpassport The Loud Quiet: https://www.theloudquiet.com

June 9, 202618 min

Your Guests Loved Their Stay. So Why Don't They Come Back?

Guest loyalty in hospitality breaks down when operators rely on third-party booking platforms and treat checkout as the end of the guest journey. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience, explores how hospitality operators can own the guest relationship, reduce platform dependency, and build the direct connections that turn one-time guests into loyal repeat customers. Are your guests leaving happy and never coming back -- and you don't even know why? In this episode, Michelle sits down with Carlos Castillo, founder of DirectBookMe, to examine the service gap that opens after checkout and what smart operators are doing to close it. Guest loyalty in hospitality is built or lost after checkout. When operators hand the guest relationship to an OTA or third-party platform, the guest remembers where they booked -- not where they stayed. The data to fix this already exists inside most hospitality businesses. It simply isn't being used. Michelle and Carlos discuss why the post-checkout gap is where loyalty disappears and how to close it with direct, intentional systems. Key Takeaways Why third-party booking platforms own the guest relationship -- and what operators must do to take it back. How checkout is the beginning of long-term loyalty, not the end of the transaction. Why existing guest data is worth gold and how to use it to drive repeat bookings through personal connection. How a shift in team mindset from delivering a stay to starting a relationship changes the entire guest experience. How hospitality operators can start building direct booking infrastructure without overhauling their entire business. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Carlos Carlos Castillo is the founder of DirectBookMe, a platform helping hospitality operators increase direct bookings, build stronger guest relationships, and move beyond third-party platform dependency. Based in Arizona, Carlos works with property owners and operators globally to create repeat, direct business. Website: www.directbookme.co | Email: carlos@directbookme.co