Pillow Talk Sessions
Pillow Talk Sessions is a podcast about modern hospitality operations and how guest experience is operationally delivered in a tech-enabled world.
Hosted by Jessica Gillingham, author of Tech-Enabled Hospitality, and produced by Abode Worldwide, the show features in-depth conversations with leaders building, operating, and scaling modern hospitality across hotels, short-term rentals, serviced living, and flexible living models.
Each episode explores how hospitality is evolving beyond traditional hotels. From the hotelization of real estate to the rise of platform-driven and automated operations, we unpack how technology, systems, and organizational design are reshaping how stays are designed, delivered, and experienced.
Pillow Talk Sessions goes deep on hospitality operations, technology, and strategy. Topics include new operating models, guest experience delivery, AI and automation, platform ecosystems, and the convergence of hotels, short-term rentals, and serviced living.
This podcast is for hospitality operators, founders, owners, and technology leaders who want to understand the future of hospitality beyond trends, and how modern hospitality actually works on the ground.
About your host
Jessica Gillingham is the author of “Tech-Enabled Hospitality – Strategies to Elevate Guest Experience and Operational Efficiency,” and is also an industry speaker, adviser, and the CEO of Abode Worldwide, a global strategic communications and PR agency for the tech transforming hospitality.
The podcast is brought to you by the team at Abode Worldwide.
Pillow Talk Sessions
Reinventing Hotel Standards with Adam Tuttle (Yipy)
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In this episode of Pillow Talk Sessions with Jessica Gillingham, Adam Tuttle, Co-Founder and CEO of Yipy, explains why hospitality’s approach to standards management has remained fundamentally outdated and how digitising standards can transform operational performance, team culture, and guest experience.
While hotels have embraced digital guest journeys and automation, internal standards often still live in binders, PDFs, or static intranets. Adam argues that without a live, accessible standards system, consistency breaks down, training becomes inconsistent, and decision-making relies too heavily on human bias.
Yipy transforms standards from passive documents into an active operating system. By defining, distributing, and tracking compliance in real time, the platform gives hotels measurable visibility into performance across teams, properties, and portfolios. This shift unlocks smarter budgeting, more precise training, and stronger operational accountability.
The conversation explores how standards intersect with culture, data, and emerging AI capabilities, and what must change for hospitality to evolve beyond outdated compliance models.
Key themes explored:
- Why traditional standards management systems fail to drive daily performance
- How digitised standards improve team confidence and operational consistency
- Replacing tribal knowledge with real-time compliance data
- How independent hotels can define identity and strengthen brand delivery through structured standards
- Why vacation rentals must mature standards to improve guest experience and reputation
- Using performance data to eliminate bias in budgeting and annual reviews
- How aggregated compliance data supports smarter capital expenditure decisions
- The role of AI in recommending training plans, budgets, and operational improvements
- Why transparent standards may eventually influence guest booking decisions
- How modern standards systems can align staff, management, owners, and guests
For leaders across hospitality, living, and operations, this episode reframes standards not as administrative paperwork, but as infrastructure. The next competitive advantage will come from measurable clarity, embedded culture, and intelligent data-driven execution.
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Website: https://www.pillowtalksessions.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pillowtalksessionspodcast/