Technology has been a clear driver for many sectors and the hospitality industry is no exception. On this week’s episode of The Playbook, host Mark Collier, business consultant for the UGA Small Business Development Center, sits down with Ken Patel, CEO and Chairman of EV Hotel Group, the world’s first crypto and technology hotel brand, to share some exciting news.
Transcription:
Mark Collier:
Welcome back into the Playbook Ken.
Ken Patel:
Thank you for having me Mark. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Mark Collier:
I’ve heard a lot of buzz around the EV Hotel concept. Give me the basics. How is EV Hotel creating a disruption in the hospitality industry?
Ken Patel:
I’ll give you one answer, it’s so boring. Two words, right? Well, I wouldn’t say anywhere close to being boring, but with cryptocurrency, with NFTs, with Blockchain, all this is revolutionizing the world. We have the Bitcoin City in El Salvador. Miami has created their own coin, Miami coin. You have crypto.com being named the Arena, that was so called the Staples Center. You have a lot of these different things that are happening. Why isn’t it in hospitality, the world’s largest industry? What I’ve done and it’s been about a two and a half, three year journey, as I was here last time, we’ll go more into that. What EV Hotel is, it’s the world’s first crypto and technology hotel brand.
Ken Patel:
I’ve created on the technology piece, two different IPs that are revolutionary. EV Hotel has its own smart devices called EV Smart. There are about 15 in each guest room. Then, we have EV Human is the world’s first and you probably know, as your guest knows, I was on last time with EV Human, is the world’s first contactless back office operation, all in one PMS and a mobile PMS. The crypto, we have our own ballroom. It’s a crypto ballroom. We have our own experience center that teaches people about cryptos, NFTs, blockchain. That’s on the third or fourth floor of each location, and the crypto ballroom is a trade floor just like the New York Stock Exchange. Projections in the back, buy, sell, trade. We have deal rooms. It’s a two floor ballroom overlooking the balcony with suites on the second floor.
Ken Patel:
All of those people are like, “Who came up with all this?” You’re looking at the guy right here, 141 page journal, and I designed it myself. I get with our interior designers, they’re like, “We want to know your vision.” So this is not something I just put somebody in and said, “Oh, give me the ballroom.” I have my finger on every single pulse of this brand. I want to design it the way I want to have it look. I have this, being in the industry long time. I’ve seen the operational deficiencies. I’ve seen the failures. I’ve seen the processes. All of it to me, I call it one word, it’s garbage. Right now, we need to lay that garbage out, and that’s what I want to do, I want to revolutionize this industry just like Tesla did, just like Airbnb did. Now you have Saunders, Mint House, all these people coming in, we need to change this industry and it needs to be done now.
Mark Collier:
I like it. I’ve seen some of the—the drawings for the hotels, its phenomenal look, very clean concept, and I know you’re going to phase the rollout of the hotels in different cities. How many EV hotels are planned for the first development phase and what cities will they be located in?
Ken Patel:
We’re expecting 25 right now by the end of April, that’ll be signed on. By the end of 2022, we’re expecting anywhere from a hundred to 115. We’re on track already. We’re at 11, so we’re 14 away from our goal of 25 at the end of April. Then from there on, we have a quarterly goal that we’ll be up with these, and we’re just not talking domestically.
Mark Collier:
That’s—next question. Just domestic, tell me some of the other countries that are embracing this groundbreaking concept.
Ken Patel:
Costa Rica, Dominican, Dubai, India we already have bunch already signed on there. Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, UK, you name it. China is coming up as well. We’ve had some conversations now in China as well, and we knew China was going to come. They’re like tech, give it to us. Crypto, there might not be that huge believers because bitcoin and some cryptos band in China, then we got El Salvador. As I say, Bitcoin city, with the new president there created Bitcoin city, huge influence on sustainability. Cancun is another player that has come on as well.
Ken Patel:
Domestically, what has happened here is you have 86% of hotels in this country, are operated by the top five brands. When you leave this country, that number is only 34%. We always felt that globally, we were going to have a bigger influence. Whether you talk about Germany, there’s now hospitality companies that are partnering with private aviation. What happens is, if you use private aviation to say these greatest hotels in Germany that they have, they give you a $500 credit, if you book it with a hotel for that private aviation. If you book it with private aviation, they give you a $600 hotel credit. It’s a vice versa relationship. People ask me, where’s the EV hotel with that? We already have that. We already have a partnership with the private aviation. We’ve triggered all these sorts of partnerships even with the world renowned chef. Even with esports, even with a live 24/7 TV channel.
Mark Collier:
Well, you’re taking the co-branding concept and you’re really kind of taking it to the next level. I love it. Differentiation is the holy grail of all business models, share with me how EV hotels are going to be different from other hotel brands that are out here already outside of the obviously technology aspects of it.
Ken Patel:
You just think about it and I’ll go back to the Tesla reference. How is Tesla different from a Mercedes BMW? What’s so different about Tesla? You talk about technology. You talk about design. You talk about an annual innovation period. There’s always innovation. That’s what EV hotel is. You’re constantly going to see innovation. You’re constantly going to know that new technology, our brands and our locations, we don’t have what we call a design PIP in the industry. All the brands have a design PIP that says, you got to change your furnitures, fixtures and equipment every five years, six years, they call that a PIP property improvement plan. Even hotel doesn’t have that. We wipe that out. We said we have an annual technology PIP, property improvement plan on technology. Not on design and that’s annually. That’s how I tell people that we’re always going to have new technology. We’re always going to have new innovation.
Mark Collier:
That makes perfect sense. Technology is accelerating at an almost an exponential rate, and for you to say, listen, we’re going to have a PIP on technology and it’s going to be done annually. That tells people you’re going to be, continue to be on the cutting edge of the hotel industry. Period. Makes perfect sense. Describe for me kind of the target profile of the EV hotel guest. Are you going after business traveler, the leisure traveler, combination of both? Share with me your strategy on that.
Ken Patel:
You’re going to love this because I would tell you, and I talk about this quite frequently, more with the wall street guys. The industry has only had two segments for a hundred plus years. What I’ve done here is, I’ve created a third segment and that third segment is what I call a TT, technology traveler. You have a BT, that’s a business traveler, and then you have an LT, that’s a leisure traveler.
Ken Patel:
I’ve created TT, that’s a technology traveler that splits both the business traveler and the leisure traveler into one, and I’ll give you a reference to that. Right now you have about 42% of the revenue, comes in from an age group under 42. Under 42, how much of it are technology people? Probably I’ll tell you 96%. 96% are technology driven. When you speak about technology travelers, they’re leisure travelers and they’re also corporate travelers. They talk Apple, Google, IBM, you talk Tesla, and take even Walmart. Walmart’s a technology company. I don’t know if people want to hear that, but with Walmart plus what they did is they want that online e-commerce.
Mark Collier:
Yes, they do. They’re going after that market.
Ken Patel:
There’s no more front facing retail stores. Even though retail companies are technology companies. Whether Amazon bought whole foods, whole foods is a technology company. You take a shopping car, you put things in, you don’t even have to go to the cash register’s, already ringing. With Walmart, you can buy anything in the store. They say, we’ll deliver it to your house. They don’t want you to come in the store. That’s what this technology traveler is. It’s a little bit of everybody, and that’s where, if you… I’ve had big companies reach out to us already, I can’t name who it is, but I’m sure everybody can figure out when I say big companies, big technology companies, and they’re like, where do we sign up for our employees to stay? People ask me that question. How are you going to get revenue coming in? We’re not going to get revenue. Revenue is going to come to us.
Mark Collier:
That’s the technology traveler component that, what you’ve created, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. You’ve created an entirely new blue ocean. You’re not competing in the red ocean with everyone else. You’ve created a blue ocean where you’re sitting there all by yourself. That’s groundbreaking.
Ken Patel:
It is, and we feel it’s much needed. I think for so many years that this industry’s kind of followed this straight path. Where it’s like, oh, you’re going to do this. I’ll go follow you and I’ll do it too. It’s never been… There hasn’t been a visionary mindset with it. It just hasn’t been. People haven’t thought about, how do we do this? Or how do we get this done? It’s been done this way, why do we have to have it this? It’s like, the airlines keep innovating. Hotels are always stuck. We can’t even get a digital key. There’s still a front desk. Why do we have to have a front desk? Our brain doesn’t have a front desk.
Mark Collier:
Very good point. We talked about airlines and they’ve kind of improved incrementally, but what you’re taking here quantum leap, that is just going to blow the competition away. I love the concept. Love everything about it. Talked about cryptos in the first crypto hotel, describe, or detail for me the relationship between EV hotels and crypto.
Ken Patel:
We have a physical partnership with the crypto exchange. This is where we’re going to be working with them directly. They’re in charge of creating the wallet, when you check in, you can load your wallet. You can use that crypto wallet throughout the hotel, for any items you want, whether it’s the NFTs you want to buy in the lobby, whether you want to rent the NFT guest room, that’s all only a percentage of our inventory of every location, whether you want to go in the crypto ballroom and use your crypto wallet as well. For people to know, we’re not the first one to do the crypto wallet inside of a hotel, you can go to resource world casino in Las Vegas, and they’re already utilizing the crypto wallet for the casino floor. We came up with it first or did they come up with it first? Who knows? But it’s not about who came up with it first. It’s about let’s revolutionize the industry.
Mark Collier:
Who is putting the technology into practice in the most effective and efficient manner, and that’s where you’re kind of taking the lead there.
Ken Patel:
I think people need to understand, is that sure the future is now.
Mark Collier:
I like that. Is that the tagline of EV hotels?
Ken Patel:
Pretty much is, I talk about it all the time, I think you know that on LinkedIn. As the future is now. Look, if you’re going to be behind. I just tell people, people are like, do you have to be a smart user? Let me ask you a question. Do you have a cell phone? Is it a smart cell phone?
Mark Collier:
Everyone does.
Ken Patel:
If it’s a smart cell phone, then you’re a smart user. Unless you got a Nokia flip phone in your pocket.
Mark Collier:
Lot of buzz out here about labor shortages, across industry, and the hotel industry has been hit extremely hard by that. Does EV hotel have a strategy to address extreme labor shortages in the hospitality industry? Share with me your thoughts on that.
Ken Patel:
I’m probably going, not only say yes, I’m going to say absolutely yes. My main focus with this hotel brand, were… and I’m not going to say the top two, but I’m going to say really the top tier was labor and how do we help our hospitality students? I’ve tackled the hospitality students with the global partnership with Arizona state university.
Mark Collier:
Love it. Because those are your employees of the future.
Ken Patel:
We haven’t done that for many years. I’ve tackled that aspect and the labor, the industry average is about 16 to 20% globally of revenue. That’s the percentage of labor. What EB hotel is doing, is we have it at 10 to 12%.
Mark Collier:
That’s a phenomenal savings.
Ken Patel:
How do we do that? It’s called automation, and what is automation? It’s about lessening the task. It’s not about eliminating jobs. Why do we have Alexa? Why do we have Google home? It’s a reminder of things that we have to do. It lessens our task where our brain now focuses on better and more influential things that we have to do.
Mark Collier:
Remembering the mundane tasks each day.
Ken Patel:
With us, we don’t have a front desk. We have KIOS in the lobby and you have apps to check in, check out, tip employees, whatever you want to do. Okay. Does the whole nine. What do the employees do at the experience desk? And every employee of the hotel has one title, it’s called an experienced employee. That means every employee understands every department, understands what every department means, what the goals of every department is, what does every department need to do on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, annual basis.
Mark Collier:
Those are not just employees, they’re ambassadors, they’re experienced ambassadors, this is what they are.
Ken Patel:
We’ve hired the best training company out there. To create the culture training, the culture aspect, and that’s what Arizona state loves so much, and where we focus on. Going back to that experience desk, the guest is already checked in, we have two portions, we have the EV hotel member line and I don’t want to call it a line, but it’s just one person’s for the EV hotel member, and the other person’s for the non-member. Our focus is to make sure we deliver the best of the best service, and that comes from my Dubai experience, four years there. I want to make sure we’re not focused on pointing. We’re focused on hand service. With that hand service, our members are going to be able to, once they’re fully checked in, they go to the experience desk and the experience desk knows them, and it’s a desk like this, it’s touchscreen. Everything is touchscreen.
Mark Collier:
Again, technology first.
Ken Patel:
Technology first, and that’s where our team members are experienced employees are going to know, Mr. Smith is in this room, he’s an EV hotel member. They’re going to guide him, take him up to his room, show him his room, everything is to their satisfaction. So what does that do? That eliminates the courtesy call. That saves time on labor there. What does that else do? Provides the best, exceptional, phenomenal out of this world service.
Mark Collier:
I love it, service first.
Ken Patel:
That’s only one component. Our smart devices we call PMs. I don’t know if you’re familiar with PMs in the hospitality industry.
Mark Collier:
I am not. What’s an acronym for?
Ken Patel:
It’s on the maintenance aspect. They actually kind of audit the rooms one room, every quarter. If it’s a hundred room hotel, you would’ve 400 rooms to PM annually.
Mark Collier:
Just a random sample.
Ken Patel:
Right. That costs money. Every room takes about two hours to go through. They have a checklist of all that. We’re able to save money on that because our smart devices have live energy management tools and all the smart devices, whether the water leak detector, flood detector, PTAC detectors, all of these things control that operational deficiency. We save 400 hours there. The engineer or the house men can focus on doing better things.
Mark Collier:
Well, fantastic. Ken Patel, CEO and chairman of EV hotel, the world’s first crypto and technology brand. I want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to come in and detailing this groundbreaking concept, hotel concept. I think it’s going to be wildly successful. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action.
Ken Patel:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me Mark. It’s a pleasure.
Mark Collier:
Thank you.
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