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Lights On Most hotels run pricing, distribution, and marketing as separate vendor relationships that never talk to each other.

We run the full commercial system as one operation. 40+ hotel partners across the US.

10/06/2026

A full hotel is not always a good hotel.

Jan Freitag, National Director of Hospitality Market Analytics at CoStar, puts it simply: you can make money two ways. Sell another room, or sell the same room for more money.

Selling another room means more cleaning, more front desk time, more maintenance. That extra $10 on your rate is almost pure profit.
The best GMs know their sweet spot is not 95% occupancy. It's the mix of rate and occupancy that actually makes the most money.

🎙️ Full episode with Jan Freitag on the Lights On Podcast. Link in bio.

Last Chance!One conversation about why every department can hit its number, and the property still misses budget.Doors a...
09/30/2026

Last Chance!

One conversation about why every department can hit its number, and the property still misses budget.

Doors at 4:00 for pau hana. Panel at 4:30 pm.

$30, one drink and pupus included. Hosted by Lights On and SiteMinder.

Registration closes soon!

https://luma.com/v4njzgb0

09/26/2026

Before you measure whether your distribution is working, you need to know what working actually means for your hotel.

Brian Reising, Market VP at SiteMinder, keeps it simple.

If you're already running high occupancy, the goal is rate. If you're struggling to fill rooms, the goal is visibility. The metrics that tell you whether you're winning look completely different depending on which problem you're solving.

Start with the goal. Then build the distribution strategy around it.

🎙️ Full episode with Brian Reising on the Lights On Podcast.

We're glad to welcome Kyle McMullin to Lights On as our new Revenue Analyst.Kyle joins us from Expedia Group, where he b...
09/24/2026

We're glad to welcome Kyle McMullin to Lights On as our new Revenue Analyst.

Kyle joins us from Expedia Group, where he built a strong working knowledge of the OTA side of hotel distribution.

That view from the inside is valuable to the independent hotels we work with. Most owners only see the OTAs through commission bills and search rankings. Kyle understands how those channels actually operate, and he'll bring that perspective to our clients' revenue strategy.

He's also relocating from Boston to Oʻahu to be closer to friends and family.

Kyle enjoys connecting people. You'll likely find him at industry networking events, meeting operators and bringing the right people together.

Welcome to the team, Kyle!

09/18/2026

Booking a vacation for yourself takes five minutes online.

Booking 20 rooms for a group takes days, sometimes weeks.

The hotel has to confirm availability. Then build a custom rate. Then respond. And if they take too long, half the group has already booked individually at full price.

Everyone loses. The group pays more. The hotel loses a predictable revenue block. And nobody stayed together like they planned.

That is the group booking problem. And it is still broken at most properties.

🎙️ Full episode on the Lights On Podcast:

https://www.lightson.co/posts/your-group-inquiries-dont-need-a-salesperson-they-need-an-answer-with-mina-singson-brightman

09/14/2026

45 rooms. 9 room types.

Neil Shah spotted that immediately when underwriting his first Sedona deal and knew exactly what it meant.

You split room types to squeeze more ADR out of a property that is already running strong occupancy. You do not do it when you are still trying to fill rooms. That is just diluting your own sellable inventory.

The previous owner had the strategy backwards. Neil fixed it and doubled revenue in three years.

🎙️ Full episode with Neil Shah on the Lights On Podcast:
https://www.lightson.co/posts/the-only-real-estate-whose-value-changes-every-morning-with-neil-shah

Your revenue manager and your marketing manager both hit their numbers last month. The property still missed budget.That...
09/11/2026

Your revenue manager and your marketing manager both hit their numbers last month. The property still missed budget.

That's not a performance problem. It's a wiring problem.

Revenue builds a rate strategy. Marketing never sees it. Sales books a group at $40 under it. Paid search sends traffic to a booking engine nobody has opened since the last redesign.

Four teams, four scorecards, one bottom line that doesn't add up.

On October 1, we're putting four Hawaiʻi commercial leaders on stage at the Surfjack. One from pricing, one from sales, one from marketing, one from the GM's chair. Lights On and SiteMinder are hosting.

No slides. What they tried, what broke, what finally worked.

Doors at 4:00 for pau hana. Panel 4:30. Q&A and networking until 6:00.

$30. One drink and pupus included. 60 seats.

https://luma.com/v4njzgb0

We'll announce the panel over the next two weeks.

If everyone on your commercial team is hitting their number and the property still misses, the problem isn't inside any one of those numbers.

09/04/2026

Anthony Tokosky had a 10-year plan to buy a hotel.

He did it in 14 months.

The skepticism was there. The price tag for the mastermind was real. But he figured if he was willing to pay that much to a wholesaler for a single-family home, he could justify paying it for a shot at something much bigger.

So he joined, met his partners, learned to underwrite, and became a GP on The Marlo before the year was out.

Sometimes the fastest path forward is just paying for the shortcut.

🎙️ Full episode with Anthony Tokosky on the Lights On Podcast: https://www.lightson.co/posts/renovating-a-1-1m-hotel-without-ever-closing-it-with-anthony-tokosky

Our Hawaiʻi Tech Week session has one prerequisite: none."I'd come, but I don't code." You don't need to. That's the poi...
08/25/2026

Our Hawaiʻi Tech Week session has one prerequisite: none.

"I'd come, but I don't code." You don't need to. That's the point.

We replaced a report that ate 25 hours a week across our portfolio, and nobody on the team is an engineer. The build took a few tries. Some of it we still check by hand.

That's the version Kin's showing on September 4. Not a polished product pitch. The actual build, including the parts that broke.

If one recurring report on your team lives inside one person's spreadsheet, come sit in.

Thanks again to Hawaiʻi Tech Week for putting this week together. Worth browsing the full lineup.

Friday, September 4, 4:00–5:00 PM HST
Ilima Hotel, Waikīkī. Free, 40 seats.

Register: https://luma.com/gdbw5qh5

Address

1357 Kapiolani Boulevard , #1110
Honolulu, HI
96814

Telephone

+18082133010

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