The Power of Choice: Michael Dominguez’s Journey from Restaurant Manager to Hospitality CEO

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Michael Dominguez, president and CEO of Associated Luxury Hotels International or ALHI. With over 30 years of experience in luxury meetings and events.

Michael leads a global sales organization known for representing more than 250 of the world’s most prestigious hotels, resorts, cruise lines, and destination management companies. Al Hi’s mission is to foster innovation, share best practices, and maintain high standards in the meetings and events industry. Under his leadership, they have provided personalized service through more than 80 sales professionals across 26 offices worldwide. Michael has earned multiple awards,

including the Smart Meetings 2016 Lifetime Achiever Award and recognition as one of the top 25 most influential people in the meetings industry. He is also passionate about elevating personalized service in every program that Ohio supports. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line.

Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription meds in a way that actually puts more money in your staff’s pockets and the company’s too. As an example, a recent client with over 450 employees boosted net profits over $412,000 a year. Now results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today.

Michael Dominguez from Al High. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Michael Dominguez (01:56)
Yeah, thanks for the invite Anthony. I always love the conversations and I don’t, know, life moves so fast. I don’t think we take enough time outs just to converse and reflect. And these are always important to be able to do that.

Anthony Codispoti (02:08)
Love it. Let’s jump in and do it. So what first brought you into the hospitality industry? You’ve been in it for decades.

Michael Dominguez (02:10)
Absolutely.

I’m one of those and you I tell people back in the day when I started, we didn’t have hospitality schools. They weren’t, it wasn’t a curriculum in most universities. So like many of my peers, mine was by accident. I started at the Hyatt San Antonio busing tables when I was 15 years old and I’ve never left the hotel business. And that literally was the path and ⁓ bus tables for two years on the weekends while I was going to school.

because mom wouldn’t let anything get in the way of my grades. So was just weekend spending money. And then when I graduated high school, I started waiting tables as I was going to college. And from there, shortly after, within six months, I was an assistant manager in a restaurant. And I did food and beverage and operations for about nine years. And it just kind of took off from there. And the one thing I share with everybody, Anthony, especially when I speak to students is

There are going to be people that really take an interest in your life and your career. And you have to have a small enough ego to accept what they’re telling you and knowing it’s for all the right reasons. And, ⁓ you know, I was fortunate. I had a mentor that started me at that high at San Antonio. He was our food and beverage director there. And he moved me three times. And on the third move, we’re having a beer as he picked me up at the airport and moved me to Palm Springs. And he goes, it’s my third move. We’re done. Like it’s all on you. Like I, I’ve got you going.

but it’s all on you at this point. And he was probably the hardest person you could ever work for, but it was all done out of love. And I think it’s one of the reasons I succeeded because I had that kind of grounding to start with and that kind of expectation. Pat Donnelly, and he is the actual, he’s the general manager at the High Origins Chicago, which is Hyatt’s largest hotel and their flagship hotel there in Chicago.

Anthony Codispoti (03:51)
What’s his name?

Pick

just one lesson that you learned from him. Pull it out.

Michael Dominguez (04:05)
⁓ All about never letting people get comfortable from a management perspective. And he was the one to say that ⁓ routines and patterns are the worst thing to keep people on their toes. And what I meant by that is, you know, we used to watch and it was funny because our restaurant, we could see the parking garage across the street where I ran this restaurant and he had this white Porsche and it would always be parked in that first spot. And then when we’d see it leave, it’s like we had a rule.

You couldn’t be in the restaurant without your sports coat or your jacket and your suit coat, regardless of what was happening. You always had to have your coat on. Well, when we saw the car was gone, okay, the coats came off, we’re cleaning up, nobody’s around. And all of a sudden he’d come flying through a back loading dock on property because his car wasn’t there because he had moved the car and he’s somewhere else and he’s still on property. And his point is always keep people on their toes.

because people will always look at, you coming in the same time? Are you coming in the same way? Is everything so habitual or do you just kind of keep it a little bit loose so that everybody is not getting comfortable on what a routine looks like? It was a valuable lesson. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (05:14)
while the cat’s away, the mice will play kind of a thing. so

pretend like you’re away and then come storming back in.

Michael Dominguez (05:21)
He used to say something that always stuck with me. You we put rules in place to keep the honest people honest. And he goes, and if I didn’t need, if I didn’t need people holding people accountable, I wouldn’t need management. He would just let people free, free ball it, you know? And he’s like, that’s not the way it works. You, you have to have people that are holding people accountable because we’re all human beings. And at times that’s why you’ve played any sport. You’ve learned any instrument. Somebody’s pushing you. Somebody.

a coach or an instructor, somebody’s pushing you to be better and he always taught us that was our responsibility.

Anthony Codispoti (05:54)
Okay. So speaking of sports and coaches, there’s a large Jersey behind your shoulder. And I cheat a little bit because I’ve already been given a sneak peek, but there’s also a small rock on your desk and you kind of talk us through what these are there for.

Michael Dominguez (06:00)
Thank

Yeah.

Yeah, very much so. I’m, I’m everybody who’s known me and my wife says, you know, they’ll get sick of hearing about the San Antonio Spurs and my love for their organization and their culture. And I think I mentioned, you know, they were actually featured in a book called Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. That’s one of my favorite reads that is really looking, it was a best seller in 2017 and it took a look at organizations and cultural organizations and how they’re built. you know, San Antonio is a small market team.

Nobody really pays any attention to them. They’re not LA, they’re not Chicago, they’re not Boston, they’re San Antonio. But they’re the most winning franchise in any sport over the last 30 years. They’re the only team, as I told you, to win the most winning franchise in any sport over the last 30 years. And Anthony, the thing I didn’t even share with you, 24 straight playoff appearances, 24 straight winning seasons. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (06:53)
Say that again. Say that again.

Michael Dominguez (07:08)
20 straight, 50 win seasons in the NBA. It’s unheard of of how long it lasted. And it’s their culture that drove it. It’s not, yes, they had great talent. But you have somebody, yeah, that’s Tim Duncan’s jersey that sits behind me. But I have Manu Janoblis that you can’t see sitting on the front of me. And it takes somebody like Manu Janobli, the most decorated international player in the history of basketball, who came off the bench his entire career for the Spurs.

because it made them better. That’s the culture I’m talking about. There’s not an NBA player today that is a superstar that you could actually think would say, yeah, I need you to come off the bench because it’ll make us a better team. It doesn’t happen, but everybody with the Spurs, it didn’t matter if you started or came off the bench, you’re going to play about the same minutes. And that’s how they run the team. And they call it the factory when you hear other NBA players talk about it because it’s a machine.

And what I think is really important for this is where I bring some of it into our organization. My first interview for any new employee coming in starts with my head of HR. And I’ve told her, you don’t know if this person has the competency or not for the job we’re looking at. Your job is to be my minister of culture. Your job is to interview them and understand do they fit who we are? Because if they don’t, Anthony, candidly, I don’t care about your resume.

I don’t care how talented you are. If you can’t…

Anthony Codispoti (08:39)
So what is he or

she, your head of HR, actually looking for?

Michael Dominguez (08:43)
The literally a sense of authenticity when we talk, ⁓ a sense of truly not just talking about it, examples of tell me how you are part of the team. Tell me how your mission is to make the team better. And when I say some of that is driven by the Spurs, the Spurs will tell you they have ⁓ an NBA card like any other team where you’re evaluating talent, it shows you.

you know, free throw percentage, three point percentage, how high you jump, how fast you run, all that stuff. But the Spurs, and it was in one interview I saw, ⁓ it was RC Buford, their general manager, and he just said, we have one question above that. Spur? Not a Spur. Because if they’re not a Spur, it doesn’t matter how talented they are. We have a system, we have a program, and that system is about every night, the reason the Spurs don’t, as good as Duncan was.

You didn’t see him ever leading the league in scoring or in rebounds because every night they moved it based on the matchup. It wasn’t based on your superstar. It’s where can we most effectively attack a team? And everybody bought into that. So on certain nights, Duncan would be anchoring the defense and it would be Tony Parker and Janobli tearing it up on the scoring side of it. On other nights, it would be Duncan going off for 25 or 28 points.

That’s where this team is unique because they do that without any kind of pop and circumstance. And the way pop says it, and I love it, their coach Popovich, the way pop says it is very simply, we win, we lose, we go home and we do it with class. And he always said, I work with a bunch of people that I like to say got over themselves a long time ago. The one thing I’m looking for Anthony is very low ego.

Anthony Codispoti (10:17)
package.

Michael Dominguez (10:34)
And my team asked me often, tell me what success looks like. I go, when you were celebrating your teammates success as much as yours were there. That’s what success looks like. But I told you about the rock. ⁓ The rock is the only thing in the Spurs locker room. And here’s the funny thing. In the Spurs locker room, I was fortunate to see it. The only thing there is this story that’s called the ode to the stonecutter. It’s a poem by a 1920s immigrant rights activist named Jacob Reese.

Anthony Codispoti (10:44)
Yeah, let’s hear about the right.

Michael Dominguez (11:03)
And the only thing in that locker room, most boring locker room in the world you’ll ever see, by the way, it has a refrigerator for Gatorade. It has that story. And then it has their little stalls with their name on them. And that probably has the, an office chair looks like the one you’re in, but probably not as expensive or not as fancy. It is the cheapest office chair you would ever see. And when I’m looking at it, I’m like, so what’s the deal with the chairs? They go everything the Spurs they do, they do with purpose.

said the chairs are telling the players, this is the office, get ready to work. You’re getting paid millions of dollars to do a job. This isn’t about games. And I made the joke, I said, I had read that Cuban has Gameboys and all kinds of Sony stations and everyone. the head of marketing for San Antonio just said, you know what they don’t have? Five championships. And I was like, touche, really I get that.

And this ode to the stonecutter, the story is a story of perseverance and it’s how they’ve looked at the organization over the last 30 years. ⁓ Here’s the funny thing. Spurs came into the league in 1950. They’ve missed the playoffs 10 years since 1950. How many sports organizations? So it’s not just this run. It really is. And it’s not just this run because it was before it. Many coaches before him, many players before him. And the interesting thing is this ode to the stonecutter simply says,

Anthony Codispoti (12:10)
Wow.

That’s an impressive run, right?

Michael Dominguez (12:25)
When all hope fails, I think of a stone cutter hammering away at a stone more than a hundred times with no success. And on the hundred of first strike, the stone splits. And I know it’s the hundred split strikes before it that split the stuff. So when you hear the spurs and they’re being interviewed, they, hear them say, we’re just pounding the rock. We’re just pounding the rock and pounding the rock. And I tell our team what the message is. ⁓ Founding the rock is a mantra. Are we better today than we were yesterday?

Anthony Codispoti (12:35)
Yeah.

I always thought that just meant that they were dribbling the basketball real hard in practice.

Michael Dominguez (12:55)
because that’s another knock on the rock and eventually that rock will split.

Anthony Codispoti (13:00)
So how do you think the Spurs future looks going forward with new coach Mitch John? I mean, Pop was there a long time.

Michael Dominguez (13:05)
Well, this tells you what is most important culture and continuing it because you’ve got Mitch Johnson, who’s been part of that team as a player and as a coach for over the last 12 years. So what they found, cause again, you’ve got Wimby, you’ve got all these stars, you’ve got a young team. You had Boldenhausen who’s part of the Spurs network. That’s a free agent. You know, they have every option to bring in a veteran Spur.

a veteran coach and what they ended up doing was saying culture matters most. And I’m bringing, I’m going to turn it over to somebody that understands the way we do it. Understand they always talk about the corporate culture within the Spurs. like, you know, most people don’t know this. Janobly is still part of it. Now Janobly is part of it because his job is with these young players for them to understand the corporate culture. What are the Spurs all about? He works with all the young talent.

Anthony Codispoti (14:01)
He’s the minister of culture there, huh?

Michael Dominguez (14:03)
He really is, and

they’re a family. That’s what’s so unique about this. know, Pop had his stroke, and when he was having his press conference, what most people didn’t pay attention to, the two people sitting next to him that walked him to the podium were Tim Duncan and Manu Janobili. The two people standing behind him to make sure he didn’t fall were Tim Duncan and Manu Janobili. And Popovich says they have been at every rehab session he’s had since he’s had his stroke.

That’s unique and that’s what makes this very simple. And what I didn’t share with you, Anthony, is that story, the Ode to the Stonecutter, as you’re walking up the hallway to the locker room, that story was repeated four different times because every time they have an international player that doesn’t speak English, they translate it into their language. That’s how intentional they are about this culture. It’s phenomenal. I mean, it is a phenomenal analysis when you start to look at the team.

Anthony Codispoti (14:51)
Powerful. I love it.

Okay, so let’s bring it back to you in present day. How did the opportunity to join All He Come About?

Michael Dominguez (15:07)
Well, you know, it’s funny. I was working with MGM Resorts and I was the chief sales officer at MGM and our board with MGM had been one of the longest term members because we’re a membership driven organization with the hotels. So I had been a member for seven years with MGM, a member with seven years with Lowe’s hotels when I was with them prior. And there was an opportunity, the job was open, our chairman

And he’s part of the ownership group and we’re private equity. So he kind of did a worldwide tour of talking to planners, talking to clients, talking to current members. And ⁓ he, since we were a member, he comes to Vegas. He wants to talk to me about MGM. talking. And then he asked me to join him for a cup of coffee the next morning. And he says, to a person when I’ve asked if I could wave a magic wand around this job, he goes, your name comes up.

And he says, would you have any interest? And this is the funny, true story, Anthony, we’re sitting in the middle of Bellagio. We’re having a cup of coffee, right? And then he goes, and I told him, you know, thank you, but I’m not really interested. And he goes, are you sure? Because it’s a really cool job. And I go, look around. Cool would not be the selling factor here. You know, we’re sitting in the middle of Bellagio. Like, I’ve got all the cool you could imagine being in Vegas. That’s not what’s going to sell me on the job.

Anthony Codispoti (16:27)
Hahaha.

Michael Dominguez (16:32)
And candidly, I got there through the help of my wife and then through a client that has been a long time friend and is one of my brothers, truly a brother in life. ⁓ just happened to be, he happened to be in Vegas to run that timeframe and he’s done business with Al Hi. He knew it well. He knew me, but my wife told me, you get to be the CEO of a sales organization. How cool is that? Like, you know, think about that. Where you are in your life, it’s all about sales and that’s cool.

running a team and dealing with clients and being involved. Perfect. And then I talked to my friend and we’re having brunch with him, me and my wife and we’re talking and I said, so what do you think? He goes, Mike, as long as I’ve known you, he says, you like building stuff. He says, what else are you going to build? And I had been at MGM seven years. We had built out a leisure program and arm that was that last three years that I had been there. And, you know, it’s like, it’s kind of like status quo now. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there’s always going to be new stuff, but it’s not having to

Anthony Codispoti (17:14)
Mm.

Michael Dominguez (17:30)
build or rebuild, this was a full building and rebuilding. he’s right. He reminded me of what makes me tick. The only time it’s hard is when I get bored. You know, I like to be challenged mentally. I love the grind, Anthony. I’m not one of these that I am probably one of the most active CEOs in this space that you’re going to see. And I’m on the road every week.

Anthony Codispoti (17:35)
So they convinced you that you were ready for your next challenge.

Michael Dominguez (17:57)
meeting with clients or meeting with members or speaking in the industry because I still love the grind. I love being around people. I love this industry. I love learning about

Anthony Codispoti (18:06)
So help us better understand what Al Hi does. It’s a member organization, you guys do sales, how does all this come together? Who are your members? What kind of sales are you doing for them?

Michael Dominguez (18:13)
Yeah.

So very simply, ⁓ Alahai for the most part is a representation company for independent hotels. So non-flags, a non-Mariott, non-Hilton, non-Hiatt. And we become a, have 45 global sales executives. So we’re the global sales team for the independent hotels. If you had a flag, you would have a global sales team attached to that flag with one of the main brands.

And the reason that matters, that allows us, play in the convention space. So it is us on behalf of our hotels that could be an independent hotel with three to four salespeople on property and that’s their entire sales existence. By being a part of us, I have 45 executives that are out there trying to bring business to their property from a convention perspective.

Anthony Codispoti (19:03)
Explain to me what that means. So like ⁓ a group has already decided that they’re going to have their convention in Minneapolis and or do you get involved even before that and trying to convince them to go to Minneapolis? Okay.

Michael Dominguez (19:15)
Yeah, yeah, it’s that.

There’s very few groups that know exactly where they’re going. So what we end up doing is, know, our industry is pretty mature. So there’s RFP mechanisms, the largest one is C-Vent, and our clients will go into C-Vent, and they’ll be saying, I want to look at Orlando, California, and maybe somewhere in the Midwest.

And it’s kind of an open range. Here’s my group. got 500 people. I need to bring them together. I’ve got three nights. That’s what we’re playing with and trying to get them there. And I have my super tankers, the one that are thousand rooms at a time. And, but literally half my business are a hundred people or less. A lot of small gatherings could be corporate, could be association. Associations meet ⁓ quite often and it’s in their bylaws to meet. So.

We have people dedicated and we’re very relationship driven. We’re only in the luxury set. So we only have four diamond, five diamond hotels and we only deal with luxury meetings. So ⁓ that’s a higher end client that somebody who still expects very high touch. And I think that’s always a challenge for some people. How do you continue to be high touch in a high tech world?

Anthony Codispoti (20:29)
So you’ve got a close relationship with a lot of these different groups and associations out there that are looking for these high end events. And then if they come to you and they’re like, hey, we want, I don’t know, an option in Florida, an option in California, some of the Midwest, give us some things to pick from. You’ve got members that, multiple members in some of those geographies. How do you sort of think about who you’re going to try to steer them towards?

Michael Dominguez (20:52)
Well, the biggest thing for us is that we are you there? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say the biggest thing for us is that, ⁓ you know, our GSOs our global sales team, they’ve been through every one of our buildings. So they know the buildings inside and out. And it’s not as simple Anthony as like throwing out an RFP. It’s okay. What’s the profile of the group? What are you trying to accomplish? What does that look like? Cause every hotel has its own personality.

Anthony Codispoti (20:54)
we lost your…

Go

Michael Dominguez (21:21)
So our job is to steer it to be, and the way we phrased it, because we went through this whole exercise of trying to figure out like, what is your story? What does that look like? ⁓ Wear a sommelier for a meetings experience. You can have a great dinner, but pairing it with the perfect wine makes it something you’ll remember forever. And I can give you a great hotel, but giving you the perfect hotel that matches what your meal looks like.

will make that experience really special and something you’re gonna remember forever. So that’s kind of our goal. We’re very high touch in that perspective, not transactional at all. And that’s what I think separates us. It’s a lot, my entire company is, if you look at my entire P &L, it’s all labor because we’re a people-driven organization. Human capital is my asset and…

⁓ I’ve got the best of the best in that and I do mean that because they’re very relationship focused, but that requires a lot of sweat equity and that requires being in front of people all the time. Thus me being on the road all the time.

Anthony Codispoti (22:30)
So it’s a member organization, so your members are paying some kind of a fee. Are the groups that you’re assisting also paying you some kind of a fee? No, okay.

Michael Dominguez (22:34)
Hmm?

No, no, no,

we’re just a service to those groups and, and, but we’re a trusted resource to those groups. And, and something we did Anthony that I think is really important is during the pandemic, I was, ⁓ I was co-chairing a COVID recovery task force for the industry through the Events Industry Council, EIC. And what’s interesting is when people didn’t know, depending on where you lived,

But people didn’t understand. mean, I still had groups that were meeting in the middle of a pandemic and everybody, depending on where you are in parts of the world or parts of our country, you thought the world is shut down. It’s like that wasn’t accurate, but there were protocols on how do you do this? How do you do this safely? How do you keep six feet of separation and change to everything on how we did this? And we started and I’ll tell you two points first.

Anthony Codispoti (23:10)
Yeah.

Michael Dominguez (23:33)
⁓ as the world was shutting down and realize if you’re in the hotel business, there’s, there was no industry more impacted than the hotel industry. When you shut down the entire country on March 16th and I got the team together in March 16th. We, ⁓ you know, we actually, sent an email out and told the team, this is what’s going on. We’re going to be okay. We’ll figure it out. And I had one of my GSOs that reached out and she goes, can we jump on a call? Because your voice is always soothing. And.

I would like to talk and I’m like, great, great thought process. So on that Friday, while we’re shutting down the country, I jumped on a call. We had a call with the entire team and then we made the decision right there or I made the decision. It’s like, we will have this call every day until we dump. And during the pandemic, the entire organization was on a call every day. And, and my orders to them was very simple is call your clients, call our members, see how they’re doing, see how we can help. And when you’re done.

do it again. I don’t care what we book. I don’t care what that looks like because it’s going to be a hot mess. It will be a dumpster fire for a while. That’s okay. Just check in on everybody. And that led to realizing planners have a lot of questions. The bigger brands literally furloughed or laid off their sales teams overnight. So I have clients like I got meetings booked. How do I

Anthony Codispoti (24:32)
Yeah.

Michael Dominguez (24:57)
do them. And I had clients calling me about brands. like, I don’t work for that brand, but let me see how I can help. Let me see who I can get a hold of. And we became like this only standing resource during that timeframe. So I started having a weekly call with planners to just come in and telling them. I was, I became, they, they teased me that I was the Dr. Fauci of our industry. I learned more about that Anthony than I ever wanted to, but it was only to help people.

And to know what are the guidelines, what are we seeing, trying to follow the spike trends to see what that would look like when it was all said and done. And if you’d started to look at it historically, you know, I actually took some heat because somebody is like, you know, are you a doctor? Because I kept saying, if you look at all the trend lines on that last spike we had, where we’re doing a million cases a day, I’m like, well, this will be done in about six weeks. And I think we’re And they’re all hitting me. I’m going, no, I’m not a doctor, but I do understand math.

And if you look at the trend lines, every outbreak we had had a six week bell curve and it spiked. after the end of six weeks, we kind of moved past it. And it was helping the planners like plan for that. Like I’ve got a program in October. What do you think? I think we’ll be done by April. You’ll be okay. We should be fine. so we started doing this. And the reason I mentioned it is we had 3000 clients joining us at the peak. All right. So I had to spread it to two calls a week.

Anthony Codispoti (26:06)
I

Michael Dominguez (26:23)
because there were so many people that were joining us. And as we got closer to the end of pandemic, well, those are clients. Those aren’t the members. My members are my member hotels, which are the 250 plus hotels. These are our clients. In my client pool, the people we communicate are in the tens. Corporate meeting planners, third party planners. I mean, it’s just, it’s very broad. My entire database that’s active is about 30,000.

Anthony Codispoti (26:27)
How many members do you have?

These are the associations, the people that are booking the meetings. Yeah.

Michael Dominguez (26:52)
So it’s a broad industry. And we had that kind of audience and it rotated, but know, there people came in, came out. That was the live part of it. You could also download, ⁓ download the information. And I always had a debt put together for that. So as we started to get to the mid to late 23, and you could see we’re kind of out of this completely, we changed that. And I still have now.

And it’s now in every two to three week call, but now it’s about the economy. It’s getting back to the old way, the old pieces of our business. You know, what’s happening with room costs, what’s happening with food and beverage costs? How should I budget for next year? What does that look like? So all of those pieces have come into play and we’ve kept this audience going and this community going. And I, that is to be said is we’re much bigger than a sales organization. We’re a resource for our plan. And I must say a trusted resource.

Anthony Codispoti (27:20)
Mmm.

Michael Dominguez (27:43)
because I’m never spinning it. I’m very data driven and I’m trying to tell them, you know, here’s the data. And I tried to not get over our skis.

Anthony Codispoti (27:50)
Well, and it actually sounds like you use this tragedy of the COVID ⁓ outbreak as an opportunity to strengthen and forge those relationships even more. You went above and beyond all of the services that you had been providing before, and it seems like it’s paying dividends going forward for you.

Michael Dominguez (28:11)
Yeah. And I think the important piece to that, Anthony, is there was no master plan. We did it because there was a gap. We did it because there was a need for it. And that authenticity of doing it for the right reasons is what I think makes it work. And probably the most rewarding comment I get from clients when I’m out in the industry, they always say, thank you for everything you do for our industry. And to know that’s their comment.

Anthony Codispoti (28:18)
There is a need.

Michael Dominguez (28:38)
they actually know that’s the lens I’m looking through. I’m not doing it trying to promote Al-Hi. not, I do, I am a believer. If you do all the right things, Al-Hi will get promoted the right way and will be looked at the right way. And I don’t have to promote that hard. The biggest point is do the right things, make our industry better. And people will recognize that and want to be a part of

Anthony Codispoti (29:00)
What’s the size range in properties? Max number of beds, minimum number of beds.

Michael Dominguez (29:06)
5,000 rooms at MGM Grand to 120 rooms at my smallest boutique hotel and everything in between.

Anthony Codispoti (29:14)
Okay.

And so MGM is considered an independent. They don’t fall under one of the big flags.

Michael Dominguez (29:19)
because they own and manage all their buildings. So that’s the differential. The independents, like I just came back from the Broadmoor. The Broadmoor is one of our longest term members. The Broadmoor is an independent hotel owned by an independent owner that owns that and Sea Island, which is both our members. Pebble Beach, I’m naming the ones that people would recognize. Pebble Beach, independent hotel by an independent owner. It’s never gonna put a flag on it. The Don Cesar down in St. Pete’s Beach.

Anthony Codispoti (29:22)
Okay.

Yeah.

Michael Dominguez (29:49)
These were those iconic, you know, independent hotels and the independents are still growing right now. There’s a lot of people because of technology and where you are with some of the larger technology applications, i.e. an Expedia or booking, there’s hotels that are like, can I do this without a brand? Because most of it with a brand, you either need a management company, but if you’re going to manage it yourself, you need something to pull in leisure, leisure traffic.

And that’s where the brand and the brand, the flag recognition comes in. And right now you have, ⁓ you do have lot of on the luxury side, a lot of independent hotels that are being built on the luxury side or flagged, non-flagged on the luxury side.

Anthony Codispoti (30:31)
And

they, their intent to sort of publicize and promote themselves is through these third party platforms like Expedia or hotels.com.

Michael Dominguez (30:39)
Well,

what I’m saying is because of the third party platforms, that is a leisure valve you can turn on and off. That didn’t exist 15 or 20 years ago. Now that was problematic for hotels because the fees for that when they first started were astronomical. And that is why there was always this little bit of a push in pressure, but as things have normalized and as those technologies have matured and the industry has gotten broader, those fees have gotten to a point that I think you have to do the math at certain times.

and just say, can I do it without a flag? And certain markets, maybe certain markets, no, you’re going to need these flags because of loyalty programs and how that all moves. just depends. But what you’re finding is there’s more options out there.

Anthony Codispoti (31:10)
Mm.

What do you think are the key elements of curating a truly standout hotel or resort experience for the event professionals that you’re working with?

Michael Dominguez (31:32)
That’s really simple. You know, I keep reminding everybody we forget about the human engagement and human, the human connection that the reason you’re bringing people together, it’s, it’s that human outcome. And we sometimes are so focused on planning the meeting. We’re forgetting why we’re doing the meeting. And that is what I think is so you have to be intentional. You have to be purposeful. ⁓ we do our own series of events and our executive events and they are highly rated.

and highly sought after by our meeting professionals. But it’s something as simple, Anthony, that we have sponsors that help sponsor certain pieces of our meeting. And you’ve probably been to meetings where you’ll see the sponsor come on stage because they’re sponsoring lunch or break. Every sponsor that sponsors with us knows you will never get stage time. Our purpose of being together is to educate and to form connections and to make sure we’re having the right conversations. And if that is a qualifier for you sponsoring that don’t sponsor.

But if you want to sponsor, you’ll get to be part of the program. You’ll be to be able to network and interact like everybody else. I’ll promote the heck out of you pre and post. But during the meeting, no, it’s all about education. It is all about connection. It is all about conversation. It is not about promoting. And I don’t even promote ALHI from stage. You won’t hear me talk about ALHI.

Anthony Codispoti (32:52)
So what goes

on there? What is discussed?

Michael Dominguez (32:55)
Pure education. So I can tell you like at our executive exchanges, we, it’s a two and a half day program. We always start, and this is something really different, Anthony. Usually if you go to a major program or a major association event, I can almost assure you, you start with a opening reception. That’s the first program of any event. We have an opening reception, but we actually have content and an opening education session for an hour before we get to the reception.

And that’s a little bit different. And we always say, we try to do this as a laboratory because we’re trying to teach them how you can do it a little differently. And the reason for that is it starts off with the right tone that it’s going to be purposefully driven with content to hopefully better you personally and professionally. But do you know how engaged the conversations are with somebody you’ve never met when you just heard a speaker and now you’re at the reception? Because you have something to talk about. You have a reason to connect. like, what did you think about what that speaker just said?

It’s so easy for the people that are uncomfortable to connect. So it kind of starts it with the right energy. And then the second day of our meeting is very meaty, very meaty. And I don’t like panels. I’m the first one to tell you that’s something else I try not to allow. I think the panels are the worst, most boring thing you can do in a meeting because…

Anthony Codispoti (34:17)
Is that because it

sort of lacks structure? Like there isn’t one person in charge of it? Why do you dislike them so much?

Michael Dominguez (34:22)
Well, one, we make

it too big. To me, a panel is two people. Even getting to three is too much, but you got to have some really diverse perspectives. And then what I think is the challenge is we don’t have always strong moderators for our panel. Panels don’t know how to interact and interject. They just answer the question and we’re kind of going down the gauntlet. ⁓ That’s what I mean. It’s hard to get a good flow.

unless you really, really know who you’re speaking to. So it’s not that I don’t believe they’re valuable. So normally you would have had a panel in the hotel industry, for instance, I’d have somebody from the airlines, I’d have somebody from the hotels, I’d have somebody from the destinations and we’re talking about our industry. I do the same thing, but we call them trend talks, Anthony. It’s 20 to 25 minutes. I bring up the person with the airline. Let’s talk about the airline industry. 20 to 25 minutes, bring up somebody from the hotel. Let’s talk about the hotel industry.

Instead of trying to say everybody has to put in their two cents, you know, on one question as we go down the gauntlet, we spend a lot of time and I, think behavioral science, when you say, how do you make it a good meeting? How do you bring behavioral science into how do you think about this? So why do I say that? All sciences told me I can’t keep your attention for more than 20, 20, 20 to 25 minutes at a time. Yet I’ve never not seen an agenda that says we’re going to meet for an hour and a half and take a break.

How does that make any sense when we know that’s not the human condition? So by me breaking up the trend talks, I’m making the mind have to reset again because 20, 25 minutes and 20 minutes talking about the airline industry, five minutes of Q and A with the audience. And then you hear a strike the music. I’m introducing somebody else. It completely resets your brain again to pay attention. That is such a simple exercise.

Anthony Codispoti (35:52)
Yeah.

I love that. Yeah, really smart.

Michael Dominguez (36:15)
And I don’t think people spend enough time on the content, on how it’s delivered, how it’s going to be most impactful, what makes sense. And Anthony, I would drive a meeting planner crazy. Thank God mine works with me really well, because we’re changing content and flow through the program. Like every night I’m changing it because of something else I heard. But if it should be a living and breathing organism instead of I have a plan and we have to deliver the plan.

Instead of, no, the plan just changed because of what just came up in a conversation.

Anthony Codispoti (36:48)
And you were talking about trends. I’d be curious to hear some big trends that you’ve seen during the time that you’ve been in the industry. What are some big things that have changed? And then kind of morph into what are some big changes that you foresee coming?

Michael Dominguez (37:03)
Yeah, I think one of the biggest things right now is we have a need and there’s more of an intention around white space in an agenda. And it’s the other thing that I’m always sharing with planners. You need to have more white space in the agenda. So, Anthony, if you came to my meeting, if I want your complete attention from 9 a.m. until 12 before we go to lunch and then we’re going to break the afternoon, you need to know you have the entire afternoon free.

Anthony Codispoti (37:13)
Mm.

Michael Dominguez (37:30)
to explore the destination or go do the phone call you need to, go catch up with emails. And what you find is by giving people a lot of white space, you own them mentally during the time you need them. That is a trend you’re starting to see. Old agendas used to go eight to eight or eight to 10, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. No breaks except for your restroom breaks and your mills. But there’s no other white space. It’s program after program after program after program.

Anthony Codispoti (37:58)
So does it make sense for that white space to be a big chunk at the end of the day or to sort of chunk it up where it’s like, okay, we’re gonna meet for an hour, then you got an hour and a half off, we’ll come back for another.

Michael Dominguez (38:09)
I think you could do it anyway. It depends on your group. You know, we cram it into the morning because in the afternoon we allow them to go explore the destination. We have activities set up for them or do nothing. And that’s what I don’t think enough groups do. So one of the things, and it is a trend right now where we call it club al high. Basically I’m running a couple of cabanas by a pole. have food and beverage. Come sit, do whatever. Just hang out if you want to. There’s no

programming. It’s just a place to hang out. I can’t tell you how many planners have told me, you know, the last time I had three hours to myself with no kids, no family, no work to just breathe. Those are the things that I think are coming into play. And I think everybody needs space to breathe because our responsibilities at home, in addition to what we’re trying to do in a career, it sometimes is hard.

And that is a shift, you know, and I do see another shift and it’s in conversation. There used to be this always this talk about balance. ⁓ and I’ve always been a big proponent of this, Anthony, but now I’m starting to see the drum beat and I tell my team, there is no such thing as balance and quit talking about balance. There, there is something called rhythm and you want to develop a good rhythm between your personal and your professional life, but it will never be balanced. And anyone that uses those words to me, you’re looking for an excuse.

based on your decisions that you were making. Because everywhere you choose to spend your time is a decision. And you want someone to blame when you’re talking about balance versus how do you get it into rhythm? And what I mean by that is like, I tell people, come on, work is going to win some decisions just because it’s work. And I’m trying to earn a living for a family. So sometimes that’s going to win. I just tell my team, just make sure.

that three out of 10, four out of 10, your family, you personally are winning those decisions. It’s not 10 out of 10 winning for work. And is it balanced? No. But do I start to get a rhythm on how I do it? Yeah. And you’re finding people starting to do that because it gives them the ability to, I just came from a program. You know how many people brought their families? That’s rhythm.

Anthony Codispoti (40:30)
Hmm.

Michael Dominguez (40:30)
That’s

not balance because during the day they’re still in a meeting all day, but their families are enjoying the resort. They get to go do activities they get to do. And then at night they’re all together. You know, that’s to me the little bit of rhythm versus balance.

Anthony Codispoti (40:43)
Do you find it challenging to manage such a large and I guess call it geographically diverse set of team members?

Michael Dominguez (40:53)
I think management is always hard, but I remind myself, my job is to lead them, not manage them. I have other people that have to a little bit manage their day to day, but I don’t think it’s difficult. I think where people make a mistake, Anthony, is they don’t clearly identify expectations and they don’t clearly inspire our team to do great things together. And if you can do those things.

I don’t think the rest of it is that hard.

Anthony Codispoti (41:23)
And how do you do that? How do

you inspire your team to do great things together?

Michael Dominguez (41:28)
⁓ Candidly, mine’s not by words, mine’s by actions. And I hear from my team and I had a conversation with one of my team members this morning, just checking in because they’ve been with us now a month and they go, you know how proud I am when I’m sitting at a trade show booth because they just went to one and I have people coming up and thanking us for what Al Hi does for them and what you do for our industry. And when you start to hear that, how do you inspire? You inspire by doing and knowing that they’re always proud.

to be in the market and know that that’s the comment they get back. That’s the feedback they get back. And I’m not asking them to do anything, Anthony, that I’m not gonna do myself. When I am committing the type of sweat equity into getting there and getting to our market and being with our clients, it matters. And I think too many leaders talk too much and don’t do enough as far as what they’re trying to show.

And that’s not a criticism. I understand that. I just think you have to be intentional. If you really want to inspire people, it’s not just your words, it’s your actions. Your actions have to mirror it, or it just doesn’t matter.

Anthony Codispoti (42:39)
So I gotta ask about AI because you’ve got a big view of what a lot of different players in the space are doing or talking about doing. How are you seeing it being used today? Where do you see it potentially go?

Michael Dominguez (42:55)
⁓ on, our side of the world right now, it’s a lot in marketing, ⁓ a lot in some accounting functions, back of the house functions. ⁓ I think the biggest piece you’re going to see in play in our industry is going to be around customization. Our ability to quickly process when Anthony’s checking in at the front desk and to know what your likes and dislikes are or what you purchased when you were here in the past with us. I mean, we’ve all tried to do that.

We’ve never had the computing power to be able to analyze that so quickly to know that I can give you an experience that when you walked in, wouldn’t it be nice that, no, you don’t have to push the button to request feather pillows. They’re already in your room because we know that’s what you want in your room. I think that’s where we’re headed and especially on the AI side of it from a marketing perspective. I mean, we’re doing some really cool stuff that just makes us more effective, you know, in that regard. I’ll give you an example, you know, sending out a note.

for one of the events that was coming up and all everybody that had signed up for us for this event. We tried an AI component in our marketing platform where it delivered to you. I hit deliver on one time, but it delivered to you at the time that is most optimal for you to read our stuff. In other words, it’s doing an analysis to say, Anthony usually reads your stuff on a Saturday, not during the week. You probably go into a folder.

until he’s ready to read it you’re one of those that’s going to be a weekend read. So you would be getting that same email on a Friday afternoon, knowing that it’s going to be fresh in your inbox versus it going out on Monday when I just sent it out on Monday. I, and what’s really interesting is it trickles through the week. ⁓ I get out of offices and bounce backs that come to my email when it’s sent from me and I see that the same email I’m starting to get triggered.

later in the week with the out of offices because that’s when it’s being delivered to a different timeframe. First time we did that Anthony, we had an 80 % open rate to that email, which is unheard of and even in our numbers and our click through rate was over 50%. Now that was a limited audience for an event, but even for our event emails, we don’t see that kind of connectivity at all or that kind of engagement. So I think those are the opportunities with AI. think we sometimes overthink it, but in the hotel side,

Anthony Codispoti (45:02)
Yeah.

Michael Dominguez (45:21)
I think AI is going to allow us to take away tasks that will allow our human capital to actually deliver and interact with our guests better because they’re not spending their time with a bunch of minutiae versus being in front of the customer that is standing in front of them and being completely present and trying to help and serve their needs. I think that’s going to be the shift that’s going to be phenomenal for us to take that off the table.

Anthony Codispoti (45:48)
What’s the timeline? Where do you, before, okay.

Michael Dominguez (45:51)
next 24 months. I mean, it’s

not that far. And I sometimes think we overthink it. When I was at MGM, for instance, I’ll give you a simple example of this. We have, and I’m talking about automation, not as much AI, but part of that is AI. If you’ve ever been on a casino floor and people serve you drinks and you’re gambling and they’re coming through and they’re serving you drinks, that’s all coming through your hotel bar. Like somewhere on the casino bar, the casino floor.

We ended up putting in a program when I was still there and it was called a robo bar. And the robo bar was literally a machine, you know, like the Coke machines where you go in and you hit the buttons and get the Coke you want. You can have a cherry Coke. you want to cherry Coke, same thought process, but think about your normal drinks. You’re serving well drinks. So it’s a gin and tonic. It’s a, you know, vodka soda. It’s those types of drinks instead of coming from the casino bar.

there’s now a service station with a robo bar in it. Literally a machine is spinning out your drinks to order as you’re punching them in. Now what that did was alleviate a bartender having to produce a whole bunch of drinks for the servers on the floor so they could actually take care of the customers in front of them that were sitting.

Anthony Codispoti (47:07)
And making sure that you’re getting

a consistent pour, which helps on the economic side of things too.

Michael Dominguez (47:11)
the cost side and all

of those pieces. But that is just a simple automation that made us more effective so that we could spend more time. And when we first were launching that, know what you heard people say is like, we’re just trying to get rid of bartenders. No, the opposite. We’re trying to let the bartender do their job, to actually engage and talk to the people in front of them.

Anthony Codispoti (47:30)
I hear this from a lot of my guests when we talk about AI is that the hope is that it frees people up from doing back office work, from doing sort of the minutia and being able to interact with coworkers, interact with their clientele, their patients in a hospital setting more because it’s that human element that really drives so many industries, especially yours.

Michael Dominguez (47:56)
Yeah, and Anthony, you know, how many companies have you talked to where when you’re talking to the people, they’ll tell you we have a bunch of people collecting data. We don’t have a lot of people analyzing it. And if I could take all this data we have and have great analytics so that I know I could put it into action, it just makes us all better. And that’s where I’m excited about AI. And you mentioned medical. My biggest excitement is what I’m reading and seeing on the medical front, because the you know, we’ve always heard, you know, ⁓

fell fast and move often, it’s going to allow us on medicine to fail fast and actually get there quicker. And you’re already seeing it. And it’s just the ability to analyze that kind of data that quickly. I think the explosion on the medical side personally is when you start to mix AI and quantum computing and that’s in another four to five years.

And when that happens, when we can do the quantitative computing at the same time, I think the things we’re going to be able to solve for medically is what’s most exciting for me to take away people suffering, to be able to heal people that, you know, we all know cancer is the biggest evil out there. And yet I think we’re going to be able to really, really attack it.

in a different way. like I have plaque buildup. I’ve always had plaque buildup over the last decade and monitor it and do all the things I’m supposed to. But one of those advancements I’ve seen, nano nanotechnology, basically many microscopic robots that will be sent into your bloodstream and will cut away, will literally cut away the plaque and take it with you. Take it with it as you basically flush it out of your system.

no more balloons, no more angiograms, we’re gonna be able to do that. That kind of stuff they’re talking about being five to eight years away, that’s encouraging. many people, know, heart disease is one of the biggest killers. How many people can it save if we can solve those kind of things? So I know that’s being a little Pollyanna, but that’s, that is what excites me more than anything is I think we’re gonna be able to improve the human condition in a dramatic.

Anthony Codispoti (50:06)
There’s a lot of exciting frontiers that it’s going to be fun to follow. Let’s shift gears a little bit here, Michael, I’d to hear about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome. How did you get through it? And what did you learn?

Michael Dominguez (50:20)
Well, I’ll go to my darkest day ⁓ and the hardest moment of my career from a leadership journey that hands down, I’ll never replicate again, God willing. But I was in Vegas during the shooting of Las Vegas and that is in our building. ⁓ The shooter was literally my office faced the same way and it was just a few floors up.

And that is real when it hits home and you’re in the middle of something like that. And the fact that from a leadership perspective, the only thing going through your mind is how do I lead the team? How do I get them through such a dark time? And it was dark for Vegas. ⁓ It was dark for everybody there. You had survivor’s guilt like you would never think of.

We had people that were there that said, why did I survive when the girl running next to me falls down dead? It’s that type of remorse that you’re feeling over months ⁓ and months and months. And how do you lead the team through it? And candidly during that timeframe, I told all of our leaders at our hotels, said, check in our teams and very similar to my message on COVID.

check on our teams, check on your clients and make sure everybody’s okay. And I go and the ones that tell you they’re okay, they’re the ones that are least okay. So realize that this is a lot of trauma and we’re gonna have to be there for people. I was telling them, just watch and learn and same thing. I don’t care what we book over the next three to four weeks, doesn’t matter. Just care about the human condition at the moment and how do we focus on that? And I cleared my calendar.

for three weeks and all I did was go from hotel to hotel to hotel because we had 13 hotels in Las Vegas. And I would go to a hotel and I would check in on the team and check in on the staff and I would go to the next one and go to the next one. And that was in between three days, three times a day meetings with the senior leadership at eight noon and five as we’re working through this. the one thing I tell people is the ability for me to tell everybody tomorrow will be a better day.

And the ability for them to believe that came from all the trust I had built up in the relationships months and years beforehand. And I think too many leaders don’t spend enough time being intentional with the leadership and build the relationships so that when it comes the time to have to lead in those hard moments that you’re believable and connected to everybody. I think that’s a miss.

And especially if you’re in a smaller company, mean, Anthony, we have 150 employees. have twice a year phone calls with every single one of them for 30 minutes. And the call is just to check in with them, not to check in on their work. How are you doing? How is your life? How is your family? And I learned so much about my team members. And what’s interesting is I have team members that tell me all the time, you’re the only CEO I’ve ever had a call with. And it’s just to check in on them.

And when I speak to leadership, tell people, if I was to ask you what your greatest resource is, most people will say, my team members, my team, my people. And I said, does your time reflect that statement? That’s all I’m saying. If you really believe they’re your greatest resource, are you spending more time with your people than you are in emails and meetings and all of the things that we think are so important? Cause that goes back to how do you inspire them? You inspire them by actually caring.

and showing that you care about your actions.

Anthony Codispoti (54:07)
So I want to go back to that day, because I’m hearing you talk about sort of the aftermath and going around and visiting each of the different properties in the Vegas area. So even people who weren’t at the property where it happened, I mean, the whole city, the whole country was affected by this to some degree. Your office was actually in the…

Michael Dominguez (54:27)
It was in Mandalay Bay. The shooter was in Mandalay Bay. So it was the same property. I was on the second floor. They were higher up. So the second floor were executive offices, but I had the same view of the festival grounds that the shooter did. I mean, it’s exactly the same corner. No, ⁓ Fortunately, that night was also a Vegas night hockey game. And my wife and I, we were supposed to be at the

Anthony Codispoti (54:30)
and you were just a few floors above, they were higher up.

Were you witness to the events as they were happening?

Michael Dominguez (54:57)
event. We chose to go to the hockey game. We were going to go by the event before we went home. And my wife’s like, let’s just go home. Like we’re done. It’s already 10 o’clock. And that was the reason we weren’t there. We just chose to do another event. And, Anthony, I think it’s an important note because coming out of that, you know, I, had to see, I can tell you the story that, ⁓ when our leadership team was meeting together, we had an ex, ⁓ ex-swat.

⁓ officer that was there helping guide in some discussions and actually told our CEO that everybody’s running on adrenaline and like you need to make sure that they’re all talking to somebody. And he was talking about the senior leadership that was just again from from the time the shooting happened for about three and a half weeks. We were just on and ⁓ he just said he said they’re suffering from trauma and they don’t know it and it’s all adrenaline that’s hiding it.

So you need to do that and yeah, yeah. And you’re just going nonstop. And the reason I say that is like two and a half weeks into it, I walk into my office and there’s somebody sitting in there and I’m like, who are you? And it was a doctor that was sent and somebody is supposed to talk to me. And I said, look, I’m fine. And they go, yeah, yeah, know, people say that Mike and you’re fine. I go, look, I am mentally exhausted. I am physically exhausted. And if I’m doing it the right way, I should be.

Anthony Codispoti (55:57)
That adrenaline going for weeks, for weeks long. Okay.

Michael Dominguez (56:22)
And I said, but I’m okay. And I go, I was supposed to be there that night, but I chose to go to a Vegas hockey game. go, my brain does not work with what if I made a different decision that put me in a different situation. My brain does not go there. That’s not how my brain works. ⁓ not that, I could have been there. I didn’t because I made a different choice in Candlelight. That’s how life works. Our choices put us in situations. And I said, I wasn’t there. I said, but

I am running and talking to everybody. I’m caring about everybody. And I go and guess what I have. And it was a Friday. I go, guess what I have tomorrow on Saturday. And she’s like, what? And I said, a two hour massage for myself. Guess what I had last week on Saturday, a two hour massage for myself. And I go and guess what I will have next week on a Saturday, a two hour massage for myself because I know I need it. I said, but I am mentally fine. I understand that tragedies happen and I don’t.

put my head into what if my brain doesn’t work that way. Now some people do and it’s just the way my brain works and it’s always freaked out my wife a little bit because I don’t think that way. She can, she can go down rabbit holes. I don’t go down rabbit holes. I’m like, I made a different choice and that choice put.

Anthony Codispoti (57:40)
So because of that,

you don’t have any of that survivor guilt that a lot of other people were affected by.

Michael Dominguez (57:44)
None. And

had I been there, I probably would have. You know, that would have been different. You know, why me, not them? If you’re at the situation, but or at the event, I wasn’t at the event because I made a different decision. That was that was where my mind works a little bit differently. And long ago, Anthony, there was a lesson we had. was a there was a guy named Ted Willie and he had a book out as Dr. Ted Willie and he had a book out called The Power of Choice.

And what he always talked and it always stuck with me is that everything you experience in your life, you choose to experience. Your choices put you there. Doesn’t mean you want to experience them, but it’s your choices that put you into situations. And it was a hard one because it’s like where he lost people. Now, like we’re doing this whole workshop. He says, if you’re on a plane that crashes, you chose to die. And people were like, time out, hold on. He goes, I didn’t say you wish to die.

You chose which airline, you chose which airport, you chose what time you were gonna fly out. He’s like, your choices put you into the situation. And that was probably the most sensational conversation because that was so, it created so much chaos with people that it was one of the healthiest conversations we had the whole week. And that’s why he said it that way, because he wanted to get us there.

Anthony Codispoti (59:04)
How did that

end up being healthy? Because I could see people be, and I have this initial reaction, like, you’re crazy. Yes, did I make those choices, but I would have made different choices if I had any idea how that was gonna.

Michael Dominguez (59:11)
Yeah.

Well, but you just said it. You’re talking about the result. His only message, your choices put you into the experience you’re experiencing. And the reason you’re having the whole workshop was quit blaming everybody. It is your choices that are putting you there. And he used an example, anybody who’s late to work, there’s an accident on the freeway, you chose not to give yourself 30 extra minutes. You chose what time you were gonna leave. There can always be an accident.

on the freeway, he goes, that becomes an excuse for you not to perform. And that is where he was trying to get people. It’s your choices. And the power of choice was saying, don’t be a victim. It’s your choices. And he took the most extreme with the airline situation. But what he was trying to explain is that I didn’t say you wanted to die. I didn’t say that was your purpose of the day. He’s saying your choices put you into any experience that you’re experiencing. And if you can get start to live that way.

you start to live a little less like a victim and understanding my choices map.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:18)
wonder if there is a version of that that I could use with my kids. Because it’s a hard thing for me as a grown adult to be like, okay, I’m starting to get there. But man, would I love for my kids to be able to start to wrap their heads around that kind of thinking.

Michael Dominguez (1:00:25)
I think they’re good.

I

think it’s an important lesson. And by the way, my youngest daughter is the least victim. My youngest daughter is 34 now and she is the least victim oriented child you will ever see. But you know what she remembers? Her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Bennett, and we do too, that from our verse parent teacher, she said, I believe in choices and I believe in teaching your kids that all choices have consequences. And she even in her kindergarten class said, we’re going to do English.

we’re gonna do writing, or we’re gonna do math, and then we’re gonna do reading. The kids have to do each one of those things, but she gave them the option in which order they had to do them. So she taught them choices. And there was no choice to not do them, but you had the choice on what order you did it. And she actually said, I’m gonna tell the kids, don’t run on the playtop, or the blacktop, don’t run on the blacktop. Somebody’s gonna fall down, no running on the blacktop. And she goes, and one of your kids is gonna-

run and fall on the blacktop. And when they skin their knee and they’re starting to whine to me, I’m going to send them inside and say, you know where the first AD kid is, go clean up your wound because you chose to run on the blacktop. And that was your choice. Now she said, if your kid cracks their head open, I’m taking care of them. That’s not my point. But she goes, your kid skins their knee. They need to learn that their choice to not follow instruction is what led to that.

And it’s something we used to tell our kids all the time, Anthony. You know, we would tell them one time, was A or B, these are your choices. This is it, make a choice. And they didn’t like either one of them. That’s not the option. Make a choice. And that gets them into the habit of making a choice. And these were, even in punishments we did this with my oldest daughter, she was on a soccer team, a club soccer team. And when she would get in trouble and it’s like, you know.

Let’s talk about what your punishment is going to be. Well, I’m not going to the tournament. I go, that is not an option because you have a responsibility to a team and they shouldn’t suffer for your stupidity. That’s somebody else. That’s you. So let’s try again. Like that is a non option. That’s where and what the question, but I didn’t let her make it up. I’m like, it’s a or B. Well, but I’m not, I don’t want to go to the term. That’s not your option. It’s a or B.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:46)
So she actually had a voice in what her consequences were going to be.

Michael Dominguez (1:03:00)
And I think that’s the important part. It’s not unlimited choices. Sometimes we don’t have unlimited choices as adults. And it’s important to teach kids young that, you know, the choices are sometimes hard and got to make them. And I think it’s important, Anthony, if you do it when they’re kids, you’re doing it when there’s not life and death circumstances at stake. They’re learning choices at a very young age when it really isn’t that, you know, it isn’t going to be that impactful to their life.

everywhere.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:31)
I just got one more question for you, Michael, as we wrap up. But before I ask it, I also want to let people know the best way either to get in touch with you directly or the brand or continue to follow your story. What would that be?

Michael Dominguez (1:03:33)
Yes, sir.

Sure. A couple of things. I’m mdominguez at alhi.com. It’s as simple as it comes. And I’m also on LinkedIn. And they can follow me as Michael Dominguez as well, or just go to our Al Hi website. I’m an open book. you’ll see on my, even on my signature line, I only have one phone number and it’s my cell phone. I don’t have any other phone. There is no phone number. And I used to have people say, I can’t believe you put your phone number on your business card. I’m like, why? Because I want people to call me.

I’m in cells, I want people to call me. So I don’t have a lot of gates. If you want to get a hold of me, you can get a hold

Anthony Codispoti (1:04:17)
love that. We’ll make sure we include links to all those things in the show notes for people. Last question for you, Michael, you and I reconnect a year from now and you’re really excited because you are celebrating something. One thing, specific thing a year from now. What is that one?

Michael Dominguez (1:04:22)
Awesome. Yes,

I’m gonna make it two just because yesterday was my 36th wedding anniversary, so I’m hoping I’m celebrating on 37th. I know I will be, and I always say hoping, because God willing, we’re both still here. But 37, I would wanna be celebrating. And outside of that, as an organization, we’re building out an entire leisure division, just like we have on our group side. And I’m hoping I’m a year from now.

Anthony Codispoti (1:04:41)
Congratulations.

Michael Dominguez (1:05:01)
celebrating that we have 50 members in our leisure program already. And that thing is starting to hit on all cylinders and we’re on our way to 150 hotels.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:09)
What does a leisure program

look like for you guys then?

Michael Dominguez (1:05:12)
So for a luxury, for anybody in the luxury space, if you’re in the luxury programs, it’s having a global sales team that can help you with those programs. Like everybody wants to be in American Express, fine hotels and resorts program, which is the platinum program from a travel perspective. Well, once you’re in the program, who’s dealing with the agents, who’s dealing with the three call centers that they have across the country, who’s making sure you’re adhering to all policy within that part. Cause that’s one of 50 programs your hotel’s.

So we’re building out a team that can help one with the handholding and education of the agents. And it’s probably a surprise, Anthony, people used to think that travel agencies were dead. Travel agencies has had a new re-emergence. And in the luxury space specifically, people want someone to take care of all the arrangements for them. They’ve got all the money in the world. They don’t care about, you know, paying for it. It’s like, here’s my credit card. Can you make the arrangements? That is still really a big…

big proponent of what we’ it’s a gap for our hotel do it themselves. That’s ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:20)
So is this

sort of managing the relationship between the travel agents and the hotels? Okay.

Michael Dominguez (1:06:25)
Yes, yes.

Yeah, but you’ve got Virtuoso, you have American Express, you have ABC Travel, you have Valerie Wilson, you have Altour Travel, and that’s just the top five. There’s hundreds of those that you have to manage. And it’s not being part of the program, it’s how do you leverage the program. And we’re trying to be a very strategic partner in that. And that’s where our hotels are excited because we want to help them analyze their market, where they can move share, what programs we think they can move share in.

and help them do that because when you’re running a hotel day to day, don’t have time. Like I said, it’s nice just to have a time out and think. And that’s what I think that allows you to do.

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:03)
There has to be a pretty big tech component to what it is that you guys are building out to manage all these different platforms. No?

Michael Dominguez (1:07:09)
Well, now that

the tech, the tech is on their platforms already. The rest of it for us is literally just a really good CRM system. We’re in Salesforce, you know, it’s managing that side of it and managing the notes and what that looks like. But, ⁓ the tech platforms already exists for the hotels. We’re just helping them and going back to what we said about AI, we’re helping them analyze all of that to try to make the best recommendations on what we should be targeting. And it’s more of a laser focus versus the shotgun approach.

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:13)
Okay.

Michael Dominguez (1:07:38)
to those type of programs.

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:40)
Gotcha. Michael Dominguez from Al High. I to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Michael Dominguez (1:07:48)
Now, thank you, Anthony. It’s a lot of fun and I could do this anytime. I enjoy these type of conversations.

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:54)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.