Transcript:
Alan Olsen: I’m visiting here today with Manish Gupta. Manish, Welcome.
Manish Gupta:Thank you!
Alan Olsen: So Manish you’re with the Shashi Group. What brings you to the conference today at Impact?
Manish Gupta: Well, I have known Eric for a very long time, Eric is a good friend, we actually went to school together, same business school. So then very, you know, kind of aware of what he’s been doing. And last year, I came in as a venture partner on the group. With impact venture, I’m fascinated by the stuff these guys are doing some of the companies they’re investing in, and just the team that’s there. So I’m very, I’m a big believer in Impact and trying to see what I can do to help.
Alan Olsen: So it just says, you know, for the listeners here, you have a background in not just venture capital, but also hospitality industry.
Manish Gupta: Yes! It’s kind of an interesting thing. I’m a computer engineer, by training. I actually kind of did the Silicon Valley life; I started companies, sold my companies, and then actually started investing in hospitality. It was supposed to be just a passive investment, which it was a small kind of a lot next to Apple, a company called Apple in 2007 when that just launched the iPhone. Actually did very well, so we ended up making a lot more investments. Today, we have a portfolio of about 10, hotels, mostly in Silicon Valley. So that just kind of was an interesting journey, from technology to hospitality. And then back to technology, because I’ve just launched a venture fund, where we’re actually going to invest in hospitality technology, which we expect to be about one to $3 trillion value creation over the next 10 years.
Alan Olsen: What do you see the hospitality industry going? When you’re looking at hospitality technology.
Manish Gupta: We actually believe it’s going to be dramatically different from what it is today. And it’s there’ll be some sort of leapfrogging. This industry ranks pretty much kind of at the bottom of the list when it comes to digitization. It’s behind mining, it’s behind government, it’s behind construction, it’s like one of the last industries to get digitized. So there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, the technologies are most of the technology is already there. So we got to adapt this to hospitality. So we think that is the hotel of the future would look very, very different. A lot of the touch points that you see today are going to go away, like the front desk, the check ins, the concierge, and all of that, and all the touch points will be around food and beverage is what we believe. And that’s what the subsequent be automated and on demand.
Alan Olsen: You know, bring us up to date through this last 12 months to COVID. How has that impacted this industry?
Manish Gupta: Well, it’s been quite interesting. Initially, we thought everything’s gonna come to a standstill, and it did for a few months. And then all of a sudden people, you know, just wanted to go out and travel. So the leisure market just took off significantly. To the extent that the prices have actually were just unbelievable. There was some people have told me that they’re getting prices today that they would have expected to get 10 years later. It’s just been that dramatic of a shift in the leisure market. The business market has been a little bit of a different story, because of a lot of the large corporations still not open. And business is being impacted in the suburban open markets. So we expect that to come back as well. Getting to about 80% in 2023 and about 100% in 2024.
Alan Olsen: Manish, it’s been a pleasure having you with us today.
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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.
Alan Olsen, is the Host of the American Dreams Show and the Managing Partner of GROCO.com. GROCO is a premier family office and tax advisory firm located in the San Francisco Bay area serving clients all over the world.
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