Pineapple Express - Lodging Newsletter November 30, 2025

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Lodging Newsletter by William May

 

Words are strange. They attempt to explain all manner of things but can be coopted and misused. Sometimes intentionally, often not.
 
For example, how come "Pineapple Express" storms which can actually sound semi-kinda enjoyable are nothing of the kind. Which is why in the early 1990s MIT researchers Reginald Newell and Yong Zhu, coined the phrase "Atmospheric River." As narrow bands of intense water vapor are transported in the atmosphere, the storms are similar to how terrestrial rivers carry water. Even if you love to swim, you won’t want to do it in a wild and raging river.
 
Over years of managing lodging for vacation rentals to inns and resorts, a reality becomes clear. Thing happen. That’s it. Things happen. Not unexpected things always, but everything should be expected. Wind storms, floods, icy roads, land slides, bridge failures, car wrecks that block roads, forest fire closures, heat domes, and even ruined ski seasons when the snow refused to fall.   
 
So how does a full stack lodging management company handle such things? It has been 18 months since this newsletter quoted the old Boy Scout motto "Be Prepared". But that is the secret to manage travel designations and (in fact) pretty darn important to most any other situation than can arise. 
 
For every managed property, we start by asking every question in our 50 page fine print preparation manual. A journal that took years to develop and is constantly expanding. Property owners may think some information we corral will never be needed, and we hope they are never needed. But it is better to be prepared and not need something, than to not be ready.
 
Having built our own software allows us to advertise wider, manage rates better, schedule staff well, and answer questions knowledgeably. But the information we gather is recorded into our systems so it’s readily available should the need arise.
 
Here is an example: the prep book has reminded us to record the exact precise location of the water shut off valve in hundreds and hundreds of homes. And we have never needed to know the answers among all of those homes. 
 
All except one. The home is in a winter cold climate town where, to avoid freezing, water valves are six feet underground, down narrow and hard fo find holes. At this very new luxury home in a planned unit resort community, one day the  landscape sprinklers exploded sending geysers of water over the exterior walls, soon to flood the house. 
 
A neighbor called in a panic asking, "Do you know where the water shut off is?" our answer, "Yes of course." We directed him to the exact spot so he could quickly find and turn off the water. Catastrophe averted.
 
The next day, that neighbor asked if he could hire us to manage his vacation home. It seems his manager had never even bothered to ask about the water, and failed to ask dozens of other questions all about possibilities unlikely to happen. His manager was not prepared and that convinced the neighbor he needed someone better.