The Hotel Investor Playbook
Welcome to The Hotel Investor Playbook, hosted by real estate investor and hospitality operator Michael Russell. Michael is the co-founder of Malama Capital and Howzit Hostels, where he has built and scaled a portfolio of boutique hotels, hostels, and experiential lodging properties.
With over $30 million in real estate investments across hospitality, short-term rentals, long-term rentals, and commercial assets, Michael brings a practical, operator-first perspective to hotel investing. On …
Recent Episodes
July 7, 2026
The Travel Influencer With 1.6 Million Instagram Followers Who Became a Hotel Developer | Jake Snow E88
Most hotel investors build the product first and spend years chasing an audience to fill it. This guest did the opposite, and it paid off big-time! In this episode, Michael Russell sits down with a former travel content creator who built a following of over a million people, then used years of staying in the world's best hotels to figure out exactly what makes a property worth sharing, and designed his own around it. That audience helped his first Bali hotel hit 80% occupancy in month one and pa
June 30, 2026
How a $800K Distressed Motel Became a $2.4M Revenue Machine | Michael Russell E87
Most people walk past the ugly deal. That's exactly why the ugly deal is where the money is. In this episode, Michael Russell sits in the hot seat as a guest on the Lights On Podcast, sharing the unfiltered story behind how he acquired a rundown one-star motel in Maui during COVID and repositioned it into the number one small hostel in North America, growing annual revenue from $500K to $2.4 million in just a few years. Co-founder of Howzit Hostels and Malama Capital, Michael has built a hosp...
June 24, 2026
The Wellness ROI Audit Every Boutique Hotel Owner Needs to Run | Emily Johnson E86
In this episode, you'll learn how to diagnose whether your property is actually a candidate for wellness positioning, and if it is, how to implement it in a way that lifts ADR without blowing out your expense line. A hospitality strategist who spent 20 years in hotel sales and development before building a consulting practice around wellness revenue joins us to share the playbook she's used across independent properties worldwide. Emily Johnson's approach has helped properties drive occupancy...
June 16, 2026
The $0-Down Hotel Deal That Still Cost $1.5 Million | Christian Osgood E85
It took zero dollars of his own money to buy a $4.5 million waterfront resort. It took three years and over a million and a half dollars out of pocket just to keep it. In this episode, you'll discover the deal, debt, equity sequence he says has never failed to raise capital on a good deal, and exactly when a joint venture beats a syndication. A multifamily investor who scaled to over 600 rental units, and once raised $10 million without a following or a dollar from family, walks through the one
June 2, 2026
The Boutique Hotel Mistake Killing Your Occupancy (And the Fix That Took One Operator From 40% to 80%) | Hillary Folkvord E84
Most boutique hotel operators are leaving serious money on the table, not because of bad locations or bad products, but because of bad marketing fundamentals that nobody told them about. In this episode, you'll hear exactly how one operator diagnosed a 40% occupancy problem and fixed it, taking her Bozeman boutique property to 80% occupancy with a $3,000 monthly marketing budget. A sixth-generation Montanan who started running a historic hotel at 23, sold her first property after 18 years for a
May 26, 2026
From $50 in His Bank Account to a 140-Key Hotel in Italy | Emanuele Pani E83
What happens when you find a deal that could change everything, but you've drained your bank account just to close it? In this episode, you'll hear exactly how one operator went from cleaning parking lots to owning the building, and what that journey taught him about risk, focus, and building a business that doesn't need you in it every day. A vertically integrated hospitality operator who built an 84-door portfolio across two countries and is now pursuing a 140-key historic hotel in Sardinia...
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