Jeremy Wells: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Future Hospitality podcast. I’m your host, Jeremy Wells, joined today by co-host, Dustin Myers. We are partners at Longitude Branding, a hospitality branding and experience design agency. At Future Hospitality, our goal is to interview the brightest minds in the industry, gathering insights, ideas, and inspiration to share with you. 

Today, we’re joined by Annie Quisenberry, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at Columbia Hospitality. Columbia Hospitality leads the industry with dozens of unique hotels, resorts, golf clubs, and convention centers around the country, including brands like The LARK in Bozeman, Montana, and Smith Tower in Seattle. 

Today’s topic is the power of rebranding an underperforming property. Annie will share some of the methodology, vision, and mission behind the team at Columbia Hospitality. She’ll also share some great stories and valuable lessons that she’s learned over time. So, let’s go ahead and dive in.

Annie, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Annie Quisenberry: It’s my pleasure. 

Jeremy Wells: We always like to ask out of the gate just a first question. We’d love to hear a little bit more about the journey and hospitality that you’ve taken over that time and just hear a little bit of the backstory about you.

Annie Quisenberry:  Sure. So, I actually started my career in hospitality, but I did not recognize it at the time. I was fresh out of college, and I went to work for a company that manages retirement communities. At the time, I thought I was in healthcare. But as I’ve learned throughout my career, the business you’re really in is not necessarily how your industry is categorized. So, retirement living is extremely competitive. While the healthcare aspect is absolutely crucial, people choose their retirement living organization or where they’re going to place their loved ones or live themselves is also very much based on lifestyle, entertainment, opportunities, social activities, and of course, the service, which, as I’ve come to know, are all elements of hospitality. 

And from there, I went to work for a full-service advertising agency where I worked with clients, spanning a lot of different industries, including telecom, gaming, automotive, sports marketing, grocery, and hospitality among several others. I worked at that ad agency for nine years before deciding to transition to client-side corporate marketing. Because I had garnered so much knowledge and experience in gaming over the nine years, it was a natural next step for me to go to work for a tribal casino resort, and I was fortunate enough to be hired as the Director of Marketing for a local tribal casino resort to where I was living at the time. 

While I was at that casino resort, they hired Columbia Hospitality for some consulting. And that’s where I began to form a relationship with a contact from Columbia. So, when I decided I was ready to move on from the casino resort, that contact suggested I consider Columbia Hospitality and made an introduction on my behalf. The timing was serendipitous, and they were looking for a Director of Marketing to help them oversee and grow Columbia’s marketing program and manage the growth that was already rapidly occurring. Through several meetings with many of the leaders there and those conversations, it became very clear that our values were aligned as my experience was with what they were seeking. So, it turned out to be a great fit for both of us.

Jeremy Wells: That’s really cool. I love the idea of hospitality without even knowing it. As we’ve seen even ourselves in what we do, there’s a lot of different ways. A lot of people think hospitality, they think hotels, resorts, et cetera. How often do you think people, maybe like you just said, aren’t realizing that they’re in the hospitality industry in a way just because it can span so many different types of industries and all sorts of cultures and a lot of different ways?

Annie Quisenberry:  I think it’s very often that businesses don’t recognize the business they’re really in, and there are so many entities out there who are in the hospitality business without realizing they are. Airlines are one that may think they’re in the transportation business; I think they’re in the hospitality business. I think people choose which airline to fly on based on the service they receive and the experience in getting from point A to point B. 

Colombia, in partnership with the clients that we’re privileged to serve, have helped pioneer the expansion of the idea of the hospitality industry. Columbia got to start with conference centers, but now we’re in six verticals including residential, golf courses, and residential including condos and apartments. We are in bars and restaurants, hotels and resorts, and a category that we call distinctive venues, which includes tourist attractions, live performing arts venues, cruise terminals. So, it’s really any industry where there is a service element that an owner desires to elevate, and we can bring that aspect to that business.

Dustin Myers: Yeah. I love that journey of how you cut your teeth and learning how to take care of people, how to make people feel cared for, then moving into the advertising side and all of the mindsets that go with that. And then now, we’re getting to combine both of those at Columbia. That’s a really cool story. So, how long have you been at Columbia?

Annie Quisenberry:  I have been there just over three years now.

Dustin Myers: That’s awesome. So, tell us a little bit more about the values and the culture at Columbia.

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah. So, our values are really the guiding principles of our business. And I’ve never worked for an organization that walks the talk of their mission, vision, values more than Columbia. I think a lot of organizations have them and they’re words on the wall that are intended to inspire, but the actual application of them is lacking. At Columbia, the application is at the forefront of everything we do. We have three primary stakeholder groups that we identify at Columbia, which includes team members, guests, and owners. Our philosophy is that if you take care of team members first, they’ll take care of your guests, which will produce returns for your owners. So, the application of our values starts with recruiting and hiring. We have to find the right people who embrace and embody the values and having a natural inclination for service. We also apply our values with our client partnerships and our contracts. We have a values statement that is actually part of our management contracts. So, the person or business entity that we engage with has to review that and sign that they agree to upholding those values.

Jeremy Wells: I love that commitment in how it drives what you guys do day in and day out with everything. We fully agree. When we talk with this with all of our clients, it’s like, you have to let these guiding principles, these values, this mission not only drive a lot of people just think that’s going to drive your marketing or your communications here, your customers, but really it’s going to drive your business decisions. It’s going to drive your standard operating procedures, your team culture, and all these different areas. And I love that you guys live and breathe that for yourself. 

Dustin Myers: Yeah. And even taking it one step further that the people that you partner with have to agree to that and get on board with that as well. I think that’s a really cool pull through of the brand culture.

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah. Thank you. And for the benefit of people listening, I should probably share that our values, an acronym that we use to help remember our values is SEARCH. So, our values are: Sincerity, Enthusiasm, Accountability, Respect, Honesty, and Creativity. I got honesty and creativity out of order for how you spell SEARCH, but I remembered them all. 

Dustin Myers: That’s awesome.

Annie Quisenberry: And those have not changed in the 25 years that Columbia has been in business. Our leadership revisits them periodically and asks the question, should we add one? Should we remove one? And every time, they withstand the test of time. 

We also have a mission and a vision. Our vision is creating exceptional experiences every day, which is really what it boils down to in hospitality. And then our mission is something that we do evolve with the times and work to keep it more relevant. So, our current mission is the acronym OMG. We’re considering refreshing this currently, but OMG was established a few years ago and it stands for: the O is for Own the values, M is for Make it fun, and G is for Get it done.

Dustin Myers: Yeah, that’s great.

Jeremy Wells: I love that. I love what you said also a minute ago about the order of operations as far as where you put the priority; the team being first, the guests being second, and the owners or stakeholders third. I think I remember reading this in Danny Meyer’s book Setting The Table, and he kind of runs all of his operations in that same way. And I remember Jeff Bezos from Amazon. He even mentioned in a popular interview about customer interests and stakeholder interests. Those will always be aligned. And I think that that’s really important for a lot of people to make sure they understand, is if you can align your team first, like you said, they’re going to take care of your guests. And then your guests, if they’re happy and they’re having a great experience, then stakeholders and owners are going to be benefiting from that. How have you seen other companies or other brands go, maybe go the wrong way and see putting those in the wrong order and the detriment that that can have to a brand?

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah. It’s interesting. I’ll tell you a little story from one of my first jobs in college. I worked for a hotel that I will keep unnamed, but I was in the banquet department working as a server. And in my training and onboarding there, I remember being told that I was not allowed to use the same restrooms as the guests, that I had to use the restroom in the basement. And I thought that was such an odd rule that we were essentially servants. And I get that in hospitality, your role is to take care of people and serve your guests, but that just took it to a whole different level for me. And so, I think that’s an example of how some organizations take it too far with putting team members in hospitality in too much of a different class almost than their guests. And our goal at Columbia is to treat our team members just as well as we treat our guests.

Dustin Myers: Yeah, that’s really good. The more people feel respected, the more they’re going to reciprocate that. So, I think that that’s a really good mindset to have. So, I know that one of the ways that Columbia helps can be through rebranding and repositioning existing properties. Can you tell us a little bit about that process? Some of the principles and guidelines that you go through when you’re looking at trying to reinvent somewhere?

Annie Quisenberry:  Sure. So, when we either acquire a new property or even have one of our owns that over time becomes more challenged, we take a deep dive into any kind of analytical data. We have our market positioning in terms of pricing as well as brand positioning. And oftentimes, there’ll be things that come to light through that process of maybe the demographic of customer that’s coming to our website is not matching the demographic we’re seeing on our property, and why are we seeing that gap? Why are the people coming to the website not making the reservations? Or, we’ll find that our price position is not appropriate to our product, either it needs to go up that we’re diminishing our value because we’re priced too low so people don’t think that our property is worth the price point or vice versa that we’re priced too high for the particular product that we’re offering. And so, out of a lot of those deep dives, we will find that we need to reposition or rebrand our property in a market and attempt to relaunch it and change that consumer perception of the brand.

Dustin Myers: Yeah, that’s really interesting. So, just like a really deep dive of an audit to see where you’re at. You mentioned–

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah, I was just going to add real quick. And there’s a lot of listening involved as well, right? We have the benefit today of a lot of listening channels between review sites like Expedia and Yelp and TripAdvisor as well as social channels. We do a lot of post surveys or post-event surveys in all of our entities, so we have a lot of feedback from our guests as well that we can glean for those insights.

Dustin Myers: Yeah. You mentioned maybe a property being under-priced and giving off the wrong perception. That sounds like a more fun challenge to solve than the opposite.

Annie Quisenberry:  Absolutely.

Jeremy Wells: Annie, I was going to ask, as you’re repositioning these properties, and then you mentioned that it might be something that a property you currently own that just needs some updating or one that you’re bringing into your portfolio and you needed to go through a lot of that groundwork again. One thing that’s I think is really important is, even as you go through that repositioning and rebranding process, oftentimes, again, going back to what you were saying earlier, making sure that you’re operationally supporting that positioning and that brand and that mission, what are some ways that you help your team and everyone involved throughout all of Columbia Hospitality and in all your properties, making sure that they’re staying focused and staying on track with that overall, those values and that mission. As you’re going through progressing through the years, what happens a lot of times, we’ve seen is, you can kind of, even just off a certain degree on something where you’re going down the wrong path, and you might not notice it early on, but over time, you’re getting further and further away from that overall mission and those values. So, how do you guys ensure that you’re always staying on that right path or right journey?

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah, that’s a great question because our CEO, John Oppenheimer, will tell you that that’s what keeps him up at night, especially with Columbia’s rapid growth. In our 25 years, we’ve become a much, much bigger company with around 4,000 employees now in our peak seasons. And, just ensuring that we can continue to instill those values in each and every team member is critical. And so, it has to come from every level of the organization and start with the orientation and onboarding. Or even before, in the interview process, I talked about the importance of aligning the values with whomever we hire in that recruiting process. And so, our values are interwoven into so many aspects of a team member’s path, their work journey. So, starting from their interview or even when they look at a job description, our values are at the top of the job description. So, when they’re deciding whether it sounds like a good fit for them, that’s part of it. 

And then it starts with the interview process of asking them. Why Columbia? What is it about this organization that resonates with them? Why do they want to work with us? And we hope that the values are part of that response. And then our team member orientation goes back through vision, mission, and values. And we have collateral. We have postcards that we give to each person. We expand upon our mission, vision, and values with guiding behaviors, so giving them ways to activate these values in their engagement with guests and other stakeholders. And then it’s just that continued mentorship of their supervisors, their property leaders. It’s hearing messages from our CEO, our COO, and their peers. So, it’s modeling. It’s walking the talk. It’s making sure that they’re talked about often.

Jeremy Wells: Yeah. That’s great. Well, as you guys are considering whether or not a property needs to be updated or rebranded or repositioned, have you noticed any early signs that are red flags for a property where maybe you can make some adjustments early on to save yourself from needing to do a complete rebrand or complete repositioning if you can catch these things early on? Have you ever noticed that or are there any ideas there?

Annie Quisenberry:  Absolutely, and I’d love to tell you two stories. So, one of them is with a property that we have up near the Canadian border called Semiahmoo Resort, and it is a full-service resort with almost 200 rooms. And it’s an example of us digging into website analytics and finding that guests that we were receiving visits the website, skewing female in the demographic of roughly 25 to 54. Yet, most of our brand positioning and our marketing efforts had been targeted at that baby boomer, that retiree audience. And it was positioned as more of a luxury destination when, in reality, the product probably would not be considered a luxury. And we weren’t seeing conversions from that age demographic coming to the website. That’s not who we were seeing on property. So, we quickly realized there’s some kind of a disconnect here. 

Younger women, in particular, coming to the website, they were interested enough to get there and poke around, but they weren’t converting. So, we decided to reposition the hotel to be more family-centric and use much more family targeted marketing strategies and tactics. And that saw vast growth at the property, particularly, in the summer months when families have more time and flexibility in their schedules. But even with that repositioning, we’ve continued to evolve that positioning into what is now operated as a three-season model at Semiahmoo. So, we have distinctly different approaches to our marketing tactics and our target audiences, whether it’s July, October, or January, because who can come to that resort changes. When families go back to school, it becomes much harder for them to break away outside of school breaks. And so, we intentionally repositioned to the boomers and the retirees, empty nesters, people like that, or maybe dual income, no kids, younger couples who have the income to be able to come up and visit but don’t have the obligations that come with children. So, that’s one example. 

The second example is a property called Smith Tower, which falls into our distinctive category, distinctive venue vertical. And Smith tower is an observatory that’s housed in a historic building. It was the first and tallest skyscraper in Seattle built in 1914 and it has this great storied history from prohibition and rum-running in the basement to corrupt police officers and radio broadcasters. And it’s fascinating if you ever have the chance to visit and dig into a little bit of the story there. But we partnered with the owner of that property who renovated the visitor experience about three and a half years ago and relaunched it to open publicly back to the market. And it has three really great things going for it. One, the historic aspect. Two, we have an incredible bar program there. Our craft cocktails are awesome. And then three, it’s 35 stories up in the air. So, it has amazing views of Puget Sound in downtown Seattle and the Olympic mountains. 

So, when we went to launch this brand, the branding agency we were working with advised us to lead with the history, thinking that that’s going to be what drives the intrigue of tourists and visitors and locals alike. So, we launched putting the history first and trying to tell the story of prohibition, and our bar was designed in a speakeasy-style. And we really led with that. And we noticed that as we were out pitching in the media, they kept covering stories about the bar and we’re going to go, “But we want to tell the story of the history, right?” And so, it quickly became apparent that what people cared about was the bar, the bar program, the fact that it’s this bar with an incredible view because there aren’t a lot of rooftop bars in Seattle. And so, we quickly reorganized our hierarchy of brand pillars to lead with our bar and our cocktail program first and then having the history and the observatory aspect as it pertains to straight-up observatory third. But the bar and observatory is number one.

Jeremy Wells: Yeah, I think that’s so cool. And for those of you that are maybe listening, I would definitely check out Smith Tower because it is a really, really unique and interesting property and building. And I love that you brought this up. And I think it’s kind of almost a de facto thing for branding agencies or just people who are helping in the early stages of a property like this where it has some rich history. It has some unique story behind it. And it just defaults to this. Well, let’s just focus on the history and lead with that. And I love that you brought that up as like, your positioning, it has to be something people will latch onto and they’re going to about and they’re going to resonate with them. And oftentimes, that might not be what’s obvious. And like you said, it takes kind of that learning, that social awareness as you’re launching a brand to be able to really pivot quickly as needed. And sometimes you can mitigate that with early on with maybe a little bit more surveys or research or whatever if you can do that. But I think you’re spot on. And I think that’s a really cool story of how you guys launched that brand. And I would love to visit that property someday. It’s really, really unique.

Annie Quisenberry:  It is. It’s a great destination and a great experience.

Dustin Myers: Yeah. I think good branding is part art, part science. But I love that, how you were able to pivot based on the feedback. Maybe things weren’t as they appeared, but figuring out what it is that people really enjoy and being in tune enough to make that change.

Jeremy Wells: Yeah. And on that first story too, I think that really shows the power of being able to capture customer data and insights and actually be able to turn that into action. And I think that’s a big need, especially in a lot of hotels and hospitality brands. They’re capturing all this data but they’re not really doing anything with it, or using it, leveraging it to its fullest. So, I love that you guys were able to capture that data about the purchasing behavior, the booking behavior on the website and turn that into an action step for you guys. So, that’s really cool. Thank you for telling that story.

Dustin Myers: So, I assume, as Senior Director of Marketing and Communications, when a property is going through a repositioning, you’re working with ownership, with your internal team, maybe an external branding agency or marketing agency. How have you been able to successfully create a unified vision and make sure that everything from interior design and architecture and print collateral and just all the different touchpoints of a brand come together to tell the same story?

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah. In doing several of these over the last few years, one of the keys is to establish the vision for the brand early. Get all the stakeholders together, have discovery sessions, get that input, and distill it down to a concise and clear brand statement that doesn’t have a bunch of marketing lingo, marketing speak because you have people from all different marketing savviness coming to the table who have to be able to understand and own that brand promise. And then from there, it’s building it out into much more definition. 

A good example of this that I can apply to a property is Sage Lodge. And Sage Lodge is this 50-room, fly fishing inspired high-end lodge that’s set at the base of the Rocky Mountains, not far from Yellowstone National Park. And this is a fun story because the ownership of Sage Lodge hired Columbia Hospitality to go purchase them a fly fishing lodge in Montana. And after our due diligence, we couldn’t find one. And we came back to them and said, “Unfortunately, we weren’t successful in finding a lodge that in good faith we could recommend you purchase. But we did find you a piece of property that would be absolutely incredible and you should build a lodge.” And they bought into the idea. 

And so, that was the impetus for the vision of what would become Sage Lodge. And that particular ownership was extremely instrumental in developing the brand because they had such a vivid vision for what this place was going to be and what that experience was going to look like. And so, we worked at least a year in advance to establish what this brand promise and the brand vision for the property was going to be. And out of that has come probably the best brand book that we have in our portfolio. And I can just share a few tidbits from it. So, you can see how we have tried to distill a brand that can be sometimes elusive to people into a pretty clear and straightforward and ownable mantra and aspects of it. Would that be helpful? 

Dustin Myers: Yeah, that’s really awesome.

Annie Quisenberry: Okay, cool. So, Sage Lodge, you can envision it based on what I’ve described. But when you look out the front window, the front window is this massive floor-to-ceiling glass. And directly out the front window is this gigantic mountain called Emigrant Peak that is in the Absaroka Range of the Rocky Mountains. And it’s set on 1200 acres of a ranch. And it has this pond that is stocked with trout so people can try their hand at fly fishing on the property. So, it is true and pure Montana designed to take advantage of the beautiful landscape and the nature around you. And it also has the benefit of being close to Yellowstone National Park. 

So, the brand promise that we landed on is to be the most memorable hospitality experience in the greater Yellowstone area, connecting guests to true Montana. Very simple, very straightforward. And from there, we built out brand pillars. And like I said, Sage Lodge is a high-end lodge, but it’s set on this acreage and it’s in Montana. So, our brand pillars are very simple – real comfort, real adventure, real Montana. Authentic has become a marketing buzzword, right? I’m sure you guys grapple with that a lot as well. But there was something about this property where “real” was the better word than “authentic”. “Real” just has a little bit more grit to it and we’d liked that for this brand. So, real comfort – speaking to the beds and the guest rooms and even the food, and the fact that there’s this beautiful wood-burning fire in the lodge and hot tubs and a spa. So, there’s a lot of comfort elements to it. 

But real adventure is natural in Montana. You want that to be part of their experience because that’s what Montana is known for. You want to get out into the wild. You want to see the wildlife. You want to go fly fishing on the Yellowstone River. So, there had to be an adventure aspect. And then real Montana, this is a big sky country. So, everything is big. Everything is overdone in the best possible way. You have to go big or go home when you’re in Montana. So, those are the brand pillars that came out of that exercise. 

And then another aspect that we find to be very, very helpful is doing some “is” and “is not”. And this I find especially helpful when you’re trying to write in a brand voice, so your “is” and your “is not”. And a few examples from Sage Lodge are that Sage Lodge is refined but not arrogant. It’s intimate but not private. And it’s guided but not directed.

Jeremy Wells: I love that. Yeah, that’s really unique. It’s oftentimes just as important to know who you’re not and what you’re not trying to be than what you are trying to be. 

Annie Quisenberry: Absolutely. 

Jeremy Wells: I think you oftentimes will need both of those to really paint the full picture. 

Annie Quisenberry: Absolutely. And then, the last element of this is personality because I think some of the most successful brands are those who are able to distinguish a personality and connect with people. So, for Sage Lodge, we not only define their personality, but we defined their persona. And the persona of Sage Lodge is this fictional character that we named Carson. And I’ll just share one excerpt from this persona that we crafted. So, Carson is a well-traveled, respected, yet humble friend. While once a rugged and extreme outdoorsman sleeping in his car at the best fly fishing put-ins, he built a business behind his passions and grew to enjoy the finer things in life. So, you can just see how this brand is now personified in Carson.

Jeremy Wells: Yeah, makes it someone that you want to hang out with.

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah, totally. 

Dustin Myers: I’m ready to book a trip.

Annie Quisenberry: Please do.

Jeremy Wells: Well, Annie, we’re coming close to our time here, and we always have a couple of questions. The theme of the podcast is Future Hospitality, so we’d like to ask a couple of questions towards the end here. The first one is, basically, as you see the hospitality industry and just the idea of hospitality moving forward into the future, what do you think are going to be some elements to that that are going to define what the future looks like, whether it’s some sort of technology or new trends or something else? What do you think are maybe one or two elements that are going to change the future of hospitality?

Annie Quisenberry:  I think it’s a combination of tried-and-true and evolving trends. And this is something we talked to our team about often is, the tried-and-true is there for a reason because it’s been proven effective to drive revenue and to grow brands, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t take our eye off the ever-changing technology landscape, in particular. We’ll also try not to be too distracted by the shiny new ball until we know really how consumers are going to adopt it and engage with it. So, in my mind, it’s a combination of, one, continuing to create brands and experiences that connect with guests on an emotional level. The competition to break through the clutter of brands is getting more and more fierce all the time. So, you have to work to stay relevant and demonstrate an understanding of your guests. You have to know how and where they consume media so that you can stay top of mind, and you have to make your communications and guest service personal and convenient, which leads to more of the second item of leveraging technology. It’s evolving so fast that you have to be committed to constantly learning, testing and refining while not getting too distracted always by that new thing coming down the pike that you need to wait and see how it’s going to be adopted or how it’s going to prove to be effective. 

Webchat and on-property text communication with guests. While those aren’t brand new, they are certainly still in that adoption curve where more and more properties are starting to implement that live web chat and texting with their guests on property. And now, they’re implementing more and more AI management of those. So, I think that’s something that’s going to help improve the future of hospitality and the brands that guests choose to stay with. 

And I think the other part is keeping your eye on what’s next. 2020 seems to have voice search at the forefront of a lot of the conversations. And voice search is certainly being adopted more and more. But the capability and the sophistication of it has a long way to go before it’s going to replace desktop search or other channels for getting information. But it’s certainly something we’re keeping our eye on.

Dustin Myers: Yeah, for sure. So, at a more personal level, what is the future of hospitality for you look like? What are you excited about? What challenges or projects are coming up that you’d like to share?

Annie Quisenberry:  Yeah. For me, personally, now as the leader of our marketing and communications department at Columbia Hospitality and the growth that our organization is experiencing, it’s really focusing on how I can continue to help our team improve our marketing strategies and practices. We have an incredible team of passionate hotel marketers who are always eager to learn and try new things. But it’s me trying to temper that enthusiasm and excitement with not abandoning the things that have worked so well for so long. And then, I think for projects specifically relating to Columbia Hospitality, we have two really incredible projects in the pipeline. We have several but two that I’ll speak to you today. One is a property that’s in construction in a city just north of Seattle called Kenmore. The property is called The Lodge at St. Edward Park. What makes this project particularly fascinating is that it’s a historic renovation and preservation project of a building that used to be a Catholic seminary. So, the bones of it are absolutely incredible. The developer is very passionate about historic preservation and he’s renovating it to be an incredible, high-end luxury hotel. And that hopefully will open sometime next year. And then secondarily we’re working with a–

Dustin Myers: That building is beautiful. 

Annie Quisenberry: Oh, you’re familiar with it? 

Dustin Myers: Yeah, we’ve seen it. 

Annie Quisenberry: Okay, awesome. And then the second one is working with a family who’s rebuilding a hotel after an unfortunate fire in 2018, and it’s called Mary’s Lake Lodge after Mary’s Lake, which is located near Estes Park, Colorado. Estes Park is home to the entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park. So, it’s an absolutely stunning area, and we’ll be really excited to launch that project next spring.

Dustin Myers: Some exciting stuff coming up for you guys.

Annie Quisenberry:  Yes.

Dustin Myers: They were really cool. 

Annie Quisenberry: Never a dull moment.

Dustin Myers: We love what you’ve shared, love what Columbia is doing and getting to hear more about behind the scenes look at the culture and the brand. If somebody wants to follow along and stay connected with you and Columbia, how could we do that?

Annie Quisenberry:  Absolutely. So, you can follow our social channels on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Just search for Columbia Hospitality. Our web address is columbiahospitality.com or you can always reach out to myself directly. I can be found under the leadership section on the website, or you can email info@columbiahospitality.com, and we’ll make sure your inquiry gets routed to the right person. 

Jeremy Wells: Awesome. Annie, I appreciate your time, and thank you so much for sharing a lot of these interesting stories and getting a little peek into you and Columbia Hospitality and the way that you guys create these amazing properties.

Annie Quisenberry:  It’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

[End]

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