Welcome to Behind the Stays — a podcast that shares the stories behind your favorite boutique hotels, short-term rentals, and hospitality brands and the hosts, operators, and entrepreneurs who’ve brought them to life. Every Tuesday and Friday you’ll meet the military veterans, retired flight attendants, tech entrepreneurs, school teachers, single moms, hoteliers, and real estate investors who are all, in their unique ways, shaping the future of travel and hospitality. Discover how these visionaries — from all over the world — have built stunning landscape hotels in the mountains, designed bohemian bungalows on the beach, erected eclectic off-grid and nature-immersed escapes, and so much more. Behind the Stays is brought to you by Journey — a first-of-its-kind loyalty program that brings together an alliance of the world’s top independently owned and operated stays and allows travelers to earn points and perks on boutique hotels, vacation rentals, treehouses, ski chalets, glamping experiences and so much more. Behind the States is hosted by Zach Busekrus, Head of the Journey Alliance.
Episodes
Friday May 09, 2025
Friday May 09, 2025
Khalid Meniri didn’t come from hospitality — but maybe that’s exactly why he was able to see its most obvious blind spot so clearly.
A designer and technologist by trade, Khalid is the founder of Selfbook, the beautifully elegant booking platform that’s quietly powering the next generation of high-end hotels.
In this episode, you’ll hear the remarkable story of how a glass cube on Fifth Avenue (yes, the Apple Store) first inspired Khalid’s obsession with design — and how years later, that obsession led him to reimagine the broken booking experience plaguing even the most beautiful hotels.
We unpack:
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Why the legacy booking flow is fundamentally broken — and why most hoteliers don’t even realize it
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How Selfbook is thinking about dynamic pricing, personalized rates, and the future of “invisible tech”
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Why the most exciting guest journeys of the next decade won’t start on a hotel website — they’ll start in a chat window
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And how Selfbook’s new partnership with Perplexity could reshape hotel discovery at the point of inspiration
If you care about hospitality tech, design-led products, or the future of direct booking, this is a must-listen.
Behind the Stays is brought to you by Journey — a first-of-its-kind loyalty program that brings together an alliance of the world’s top independently owned and operated stays and allows travelers to earn points and perks on boutique hotels, vacation rentals, treehouses, ski chalets, glamping experiences and so much more.
Your host is Zach Busekrus, Head of the Journey Alliance. If you are a hospitality entrepreneur who has a stay, or a collection of stays with soul, we’d love for you to apply to join our Alliance at journey.com/alliance.
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