Hotel Marinas Turn Boat Traffic Into Revenue

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2:04And I want to learn all about this kind of stuff. How they operate with hotels, how they get managed. What are you going to do if you don't know what you're doing, but you still got a marina, all of that kind of stuff. So I brought on our expert over here, Jeremy Parks, who's president of Trident Marine Group. And just so you know, also a hotelier at heart, owner and operator. How are you, Jeremy? It's great to see you. Great to see you again. Appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you. Yeah, great to see you. So obviously, I've been to hotels here and there that have had marinas. I'm a long Island guy. And we got marinas out east and stuff like that. But I'm not a boat person. So I don't know how any of this kind of stuff works. I don't know what works for hotels. I don't know any of this stuff. But I do know occasionally people pull a boat up to a restaurant and they eat and they have a good time. And then it go on their way. So I guess there's some connection with people either taking boats to hotels or want to use the amenities at hotels. I don't know. Could you do a sub-diver, share a little bit about what this world is like so we can understand what's

3:06going on over here? You know, Glenn, I think you hit the nail on the head with part. I mean, there's plenty of opportunities where you look around and there's hotels that have a marina at them. People will take their boat from their home court, go out, visit them, whether it's just for the day or a lot of times it's for the weekend or beyond. And the crossover experience, and we both know it. It's all about customer experience and delivering on that. And so somebody gets off the water, has an amazing time with their boat side of it. But then goes up to the property, has an incredible time as well. And there's just a simple flow that goes together is important. Yeah, it sure is. So more people are definitely boating these days. And I see it. And I also see it's a great way to connect with guests in a new way. If you have these facilities, in fact, Jeremy, I've seen a couple of places that are on the coast that are adding marinas and stuff like that.

4:06How did you get into the world of marinas? And what is this experience like? Then we'll drag a little bit down. It's more of the specifics. So my family's been to marinas, almost my entire life. So I guess question is that. I have one to ask in the questions backwards over here. Yeah, I mean, we got into it back in the early 70s. Built our first marina. We've been doing marine ownership and consulting since then. Unfortunately, we own three marinas. We've done consulting. And people talk about it done it around the world. I mean, we have actually done it around the world. Really, we focus on US-based stuff now. But it's the passion of my families and loving around the water. But just the businesses and the commonalities of business of boats and marinas, as well as tying back into the hospitality from the true hospitality sector of hotels and resorts.

5:08I think it's really cool because I'm thinking, for example, you're down in Annapolis with the property. I'm up on Long Island. And I know there are people that are going to take their boat down there. I think it'd be pretty cool to stay at the hotel where my boat is parked. I think it's pretty neat idea over there to begin with. What's the percentage of people that are staying in the hotel versus people that might just be coming to utilize the marina for parking purposes and maybe to grab a meal or something? I think that it is a higher number of people that are using it for just tying up for the day in that instance. Generally speaking, if someone's going to come in by boat, they're going to want to stay on their boat, use the amenities at the hotel, use whether it's the pool, the spa, the restaurant, and then come back out. And one of the challenges that we always have and see in that crossover is, how

6:09do we make sure that that experience is consistent across it? Because as we can appreciate whether it's on the marina side or a hotel side that cost for shows up, all of a sudden, they get handed off to another entity within the property. And they're left with a different experience. And their memory doesn't say, oh, I was at this component of the property. It's the property. The property was the problem. And so we don't get that chance to make a man's and say, oh, that wasn't us. So they're just not coming back. So how that delivery is. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with you. As bad as bad as they're going online and putting something up there that we have no way to be able to explain away. Yeah. So you've been operating marinas. And now you're partnering with companies like Trune

7:09and you're starting to offer management services. Tell me a little bit about what the knowledge base that you folks are bringing to the table and how this relationship with Trune is working. I think it's pretty interesting. So we've been in the marina management business for, God, feels like forever, Friday, and Maria Roops have been around since 2018. The relationship with Trune was really that we want to stay in our late. And we really want to focus on delivering that customer experience on the water at the docks and ensuring that that side is good. By bringing in someone like Trune and the vast nature of what they're able to do, now we're able to really start delving into the other areas, whether it's club management, whether it's the restaurant side of it, things that we just made a conscious decision that we're not going to get involved in. Now we're able to come to the table, sit down with ownership and really deliver a cohesive experience that's seamless for the customers and makes life easy for ownership.

8:09Yeah, really like this idea in the sense that owners out there are always looking for different ways to maximize that experience. And when you have a hotel, you're obviously limited to the number of keys that you have. But if you have that marina, you're unlocking additional value with those day guests. And I love the answer you gave me that. Most of them are staying on their boat, because then you're not selling to the groups that same customer also has a birth, right? It's another group. So how are you helping develop that sort of business to get people to come to your hotel and then the hotels you partner with? How does all of that kind of work in order to help owners drive more income and help make you guys more successful? You know, you think about my hotels or Marionne hotels. So you get your bond point. You get the discounts by staying at the same hotels, time and time again. So working with our customer base, and right now we've got, we touch about 4,000 slips around the country.

9:10And we're able to then tell our customers, hey, XYZ Hotel has a special going on. We're able to create reasons and value ad for a customer to come. They spend the night at the marina. They can get a discounted slip up in there, or maybe it's a special dinner that the restaurant is putting on. And so we start driving occupancy, driving really those reoccurring dollars that you're not counting on, per se, time and time again, from those extra slips. You look at your hotel rooms and you figure, there's a dollar value for your customer going down to your restaurant. You've already got that marked in your budget every year. But now we add essentially extra bedrooms or extra keys into the component here. And we're not tied to just two or four people in a row. I mean, some of the boats that'll come in will be six, eight births on them. And that's a big number, especially because quite frankly, you get the boaters who come up.

10:11They want to sit down at the bar, have a drink, enjoy it. Then they're able to swing over to the pool. And it's just a great way to value ad. Hey, I'm going to say, and I'm basically this on apropos of nothing. But if you got people who are sleeping in six different bedrooms coming on a boat after they paid for all that boat fuel, I'm sure that they don't have a problem buying a lot of nice food and drink at your place. And I'm going to guess the per check average is pretty healthy at these types of locations, which probably why Trune wants you to come in and have your expertise so they could focus on what their experts at. While you focus on what your experts at, to how do you make sure the cultures combine and become one, as opposed to there being that culture clash and service gap that you might see in other experiences? You know, as I shared with you earlier today when we were talking with the ownership hotels, I'm familiar with the daily standup. And so we take it one step further,

11:13that not just the internal team, it's now all of these other components that we're sitting down and on a regular basis having meetings to make sure culturally, do you understand what the property is? What's the deliverable that we're expecting to be delivered to our customers and ensuring that everyone's trained in the same way? And as well as people are coming in, if there's a big group of boaters coming in, we want everybody at the front desk, each of the different restaurants to know this group is coming in, here's who they are, here's where I they're here, and so that they can expect it and are able to help cross sell and deliver that same experience. So it becomes really, I'm gonna say honestly, it's a lot of fun. People say it's stressful to train people, but when you're able to sit down and say, look, here's why it works. And you know, fortunately for us, the relationship with Trune, their background and their underlying component is exactly where ours is. It is all about the customer experience, right? And if we can drive customer experience,

12:14we can drive bottom line at the end of the day. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of overlap between like the golf kind of vibe and the Marina boating kind of vibe as well. I would, I would argue, you know? I would be fine. So what do you want people to, what do you want people to leave this conversation with? Because what I'm taking away from it is not only that you offer great services, but you could always rethink ways in order to drive more business to your hotel. You know, and I think that's a key component that, you know, as owner, as hotel owners, we're always looking at, okay, how do I compare myself with the guys up the street? Thanks, you know, thanks to the Star Report. We have a pretty good understanding of what's going on. But I really tell people, get away from that. Stop worrying about what's happening up the street. Stop looking at your next big cap X or renovation. Look at your property. How do you make sure your property is operating at its peak performance? How do you take the team that you have in place, Trune them in what you want delivered for experience to your customers? And at the end of the day,

13:16that's going to result in a higher return rate, because we know that's important. It's going to, the cost per head or dollar spend per head is going to go up. And there were a mouth, which, you know, it used to be that it was, you know, you make someone happy, they're going to tell a couple of people, well, now you make someone happy, they're going on the internet and they're posting everywhere about how great the experience was. And you can't add a number to that anymore. So it's, look at your property. Don't look at how you spend more money. Make sure the team that you're working with is aligned with you to make sure that you're delivering on what you want, not what they want, and have fun at it. Yeah, because if you're not having fun, then really what is the point of any of this kind of stuff? Right? It seems to be a complete waste of time. One thing though, I gotta be honest with you, Jeremy, one thing that's not a waste of time, I would say, is checking out this website right here. Try to, that's marine.com. Right? That's how we can find you and learn more. That is, it's an easy way to find us.

14:17We'd be happy to talk to anybody about what we're doing and how we can help support them. And always just up for a good conversation and getting to meet new people. Yeah, I love it, man. And you, your family and you've been in this business for so long. Don't do stuff that you're not great at. I'm going to take a moment and try to learn the lesson that I'm giving out. Right now, because that would really be helpful. Focus on what you're really good at. Make sure people that are experts in the category do what they are good at. Jeremy Parks, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate you. I want to thank all of you guys for being here today. Thank you so much. Be sure to like, share, subscribe. All of that kind of good stuff over there. Remember everyone, you've got one life. So blaze on and I'll see you next time right back here on Novit, you can see.