MetLife Investment Management

Senior Analyst - Real Estate

Analyst - Hotels

Principal Global Investors

Acquisitions Intern

Selected as one of 38 student leaders to gain insight into UBS business teams and their wide-ranging financial products and career opportunities

UBS Virtual Professional Development Program

Clickstop, Inc.

Finance Intern

Solaris Hospitality Investments

Real Estate Intern

SpringHill Suites by Marriott

Guest Service Representative

3½ years ago, I left the University of Wisconsin-Madison, no longer able to pursue a path that didn't fuel my passion. 

I returned to my roots: hotels, a cornerstone of my childhood.

At four, my life revolved around the family-run motel in Iowa; we lived there, and I immersed myself in its operation. 

This upbringing taught me the hospitality industry's intricacies and the value of stellar customer service.

Fast-forward, and the former biology student pivoted to economics, joining a commercial real estate firm, taking my childhood pastime from nostalgia to career. In under two years, without formal education in the field, I landed a Senior Analyst role - proof that passion, knowledge, and experience are formidable assets.

Now, I’m committed to sharing what I’ve learned and helping others learn about this powerful asset class.

If commercial real estate, hotels, and hospitality pique your interest, follow my content for weekly insights and career boosters.

-Hemal

Hemal Patel

Ben is Co-founder of Onera, an upscale landscape hotel brand, and Co-Founder & CEO of Oasi, an experiential hospitality marketing, management and development firm. 

Onera’s first landscape hotel in Fredericksburg, TX sold to Summit Hotel REIT in 2022, representing the first public REIT exit of its kind. Onera opened its second location in Wimberley, TX in October 2024 and is currently under construction on a 23-key expansion to Onera Fredericksburg opening Summer 2025. 

Oasi is a pioneer in the hospitality services industry offering best-in-class social media marketing, revenue management, guest experience and design-development for upscale to luxury hotels and experiential resorts. Onera and other Oasi-managed properties drive 75%+ direct bookings through organic social media content marketing. 
 
Prior to Onera, Ben grew Blink Hospitality a short-term rental management company from 8 to 200 units under management in less than two years. 

McKinsey & NYU Stern alum.

Ben Wolff

Farm hospitality is an $8 billion market today.

By 2033, it'll be $21 billion. Here's what's driving the growth.

I talk about agritourism and farm hospitality a lot.

And the data is finally catching up to what we've been seeing on the ground.

The global agritourism market is growing by a compound annual growth rate of 11.9%.

North America dominates with 46% of the global market share.

But here's what the numbers don't show – why it's actually working.

People care about where their food comes from. They want to know the story. They want to know it's ethically and sustainably sourced.

99% of consumers want transparency in their fresh food. 98% want it for packaged foods.

Farm hotels remove the need for certifications or opaque supply chains. Guests walk into the field. They see the production process. They interact with the farmers.

That visual verification builds instant trust and it justifies premium pricing.

The properties leading this category are absolutely crushing it.

Blackberry Farm in Tennessee. The Newt in Somerset. Babylonstoren in South Africa. Southall Farm & Inn. (pics below)

These aren't just farm-to-table restaurants. They're operating on a "seed-to-soul" continuum. 

The farm itself dictates the menu, the spa treatments, and the educational experiences.

And all the while they’re able to optimize for revenue as well.

High-margin F&B from hyper-local ingredients. Hands-on workshops like beekeeping and foraging. On-site retail. Large-format events.

Another trend I’m seeing is that corporate travel is integrating wellness and agritourism.

(But this is a wider topic that I’ll break down more in another post…)

The model is also bleeding into residential real estate.

Agrihoods – master-planned communities built around working farms – are one of the fastest-growing ideas in residential development. There are 200 operating across 28-30 states.

These communities include farm-to-table restaurants, co-ops, event calendars, and yes – farm hotels.

Farm hospitality is where regenerative agriculture meets hospitality, agrihoods are where farms merge with residential real estate.

Both are equally exciting and built on the same thesis.

Transparency. Wellness. Community. Connection to the land.

Consumers can't get enough.

And the properties treating this as core product – not just a sustainability marketing claim – are the ones winning.

What’s your take on agritourism and farm hospitality?

Unlocking growth for hotels through social media, revenue management & unique experiences | Drive 80%+ direct bookings | Co-Founder, Oasi & Onera | Join my newsletter navigating the future of hospitality 👇

This is my pick for the most innovative hospitality project of 2025.

Luxury villas carved into Saudi Arabian mountains. Spaces embedded in rock instead of sitting on top of it.

This is Desert Rock Resort in Saudi Arabia.

Winner of the Forbes Gold Key design award for Luxury Resort. Set in a hidden valley in the Hejaz mountains at The Red Sea destination.

64 keys – 54 villas and 10 suites – with spaces embedded within the rock and landscape.

The design philosophy:

"Built with the land, not on it."

I talked to architect Chad Oppenheim years ago about working together. He showed me renderings for this project and I couldn't believe my eyes. Honestly didn't know if it would ever get built.

Then in 2025 I saw it pop up. Watched a full stay documentary and couldn't look away.

Stone quarried during construction was integrated back into the architecture. They used modern, harsh lines that frame and accentuate the beauty of the naturally curved rock – doesn't try to copy nature, just complements it.

Over 700,000 cubic feet of rock and sand excavated from the mountain were reused on site. The structures literally contain the same minerals and colors as the surrounding cliffs.

The resort achieved LEED Gold certification for eco-friendly construction.

Here's what's wild though…

They're arguably sitting on one of the most Instagrammable properties I’ve ever seen.

Their social media could use some work as their content isn’t doing them justice.

But the property itself? Absolute innovation in landscape hospitality.

When you design hospitality that's THIS integrated with the natural environment – where the architecture becomes part of the geology – you're pushing the industry forward.

This is what innovation looks like in 2025.

Would you stay in a villa carved into a mountain in Saudi Arabia?

Photo credits: Ema Peter, John Athimaritis, Red Sea Global, Desert Rock Resort

A 333-year-old farm is showing why farm hospitality is exploding right now.

This is Babylonstoren in South Africa's Cape Winelands.

A working farm dating back to 1692. In 2007, Karen Roos and Koos Bekker purchased the property and brought in French garden architect Patrice Taravella to design a 5-hectare garden that would become known as "the Versailles of vegetable gardens."

What sets Babylonstoren apart?

They started with the farm.

Most properties build a traditional hotel first. Add a spa. Landscape the grounds. Maybe plant a garden. Then figure out how to make it profitable.

Babylonstoren did the opposite.

The garden isn't decoration. It's the entire operation. Over 300 varieties – all edible or medicinal. About 70% of the food served across three on-site restaurants comes directly from the property. Lettuce moves from field to plate in one day.

The philosophy is "pick, clean, serve."

Guests don't just eat from the farm. You can harvest your own vegetables for dinner. Press olives into oil. Help milk their water buffalo herd. Learn beekeeping. The estate has a head gardener who teaches soil biology. Composting systems turn garden waste back into soil.

The Garden Spa sits among the gardens with a hammam, vitality pool, and salt room. Treatments use botanicals distilled daily from farm-harvested ingredients in their Scented Room.

This is wellness woven into operations, not siloed as an add-on.

Babylonstoren won the World Culinary Awards 2024 for Africa's Best Farm-to-Table Restaurant. Condé Nast Traveler voted it #1 hotel in Southern Africa. It's the only Royal Horticultural Society partner garden on the African continent.

The property is part of a portfolio that includes The Newt in Somerset, Vignamaggio in Italy, and other sister estates. All follow the same model: build hospitality around existing land and culture.

This is the future. Not how to add wellness amenities, but how to make the entire property a regenerative experience.

Would you stay at a 333-year-old working farm in South Africa's Cape Winelands?

This farm hotel was built around a 1694 homestead in the Cape Winelands.

Today it's ranked #11 in the world's best hotels.

This is Sterrekopje Farm in South Africa's Franschhoek Valley.

Dutch founders Fleur Huijskens and Nicole Boekhoorn spent years searching for the perfect retreat location.

They found a 1694 Cape Dutch homestead on 50 hectares and spent two years transforming it into a healing sanctuary that opened in 2022.

Sterrekopje is a working biodynamic farm. Over 100 varieties of indigenous plants. Their own olive oil, vegetables, fruits, and medicinal herbs.

Every morning, you can join the harvest with the chefs. Pick vegetables that become your lunch. Forage herbs that go into your spa treatments. The kitchen has no printed menus – the chef designs each meal around the day's bounty and your cravings.

The Bath House sits in the original 17th-century manor house. They built a proper Moroccan hammam inside. Treatment rooms where medicinal herbs hang dry from the ceiling. Your spa products are made from plants grown on the property.

Yoga happens in a Mongolian yurt decorated with oriental carpets and a wood-burning stove. You can bake bread in the wood-fired oven and soak in an antique copper tub placed outdoors under the stars.

Just 11 suites total. Each one uniquely designed with handcrafted furniture, four-poster beds carved in Zanzibar, and outdoor showers for bathing under open sky.

Farm-to-table cuisine served family-style around long tables under olive trees or by the fireplace.

Most ingredients are grown on-site or sourced from local Franschhoek farmers.

This is what regenerative luxury looks like at its absolute best. 

Where healing the land and healing yourself happen together.

Would you stay at a working farm in South Africa's wine country?

Photo credits: Emma Jude Jackson, Inge Prins, Elsa Young, Gary Van Wyk, Daniela Zondagh,

In 2025, we locked up 25 acres of tropical fruit farm for 99 years without buying the land.

Here’s why this lease model works but master lease arbitrage companies keep collapsing:

Sonder shut down operations and filed for bankruptcy. LuxUrban filed in September, fully liquidated by October. The Guild and Lyric were also the same story... 

Fixed-cost leases they couldn't sustain when revenue dropped.

But there is a lease model that does work.

For Baya, my next project, we're using a 99-year land lease on 25 acres of tropical fruit farm in South Florida's Redlands.

The lease is structured as 3-7% of revenue. Variable based on actual performance, not fixed costs.

Why this works:

The farmer keeps the property. Continues farming. Gets 3-4x what they'd make just from agriculture. We get significantly reduced cost compared to buying land outright. Capital goes into the actual hotel build instead of land acquisition. The partnership is a win-win for all.

The key difference is aligned incentives.

When we perform well, the landowner performs well. When revenue is down, our lease payment adjusts accordingly. We're rowing in the same direction.

With a 99-year lease, we can still sell the property at a cap rate like we own it. We can finance with traditional debt. We get most benefits of ownership with way less capital upfront.

This model works particularly well for landscape hotels and farm hospitality projects where land costs are prohibitive and the landowner wants to preserve existing agricultural use.

For Baya, it's what made the project possible.

And it lets us build a multi-location roadmap without tying up millions in land acquisition for each location.

I'm writing up the full breakdown of how land leases work, when they make sense, and what structure you need for this model to pencil.

Drops in this week's newsletter. If you want it when it goes out tomorrow, subscribe using the link in the comments 👇

P.S. Our bigger vision for Baya is we’re expanding the roadmap and taking this model to farms across North America and beyond.

If you have a farm or property that could work for this concept, DM me or comment below and let’s have a chat!

My 2025 wrap-up: biggest wins, what didn't work, and my contrarian bets for 2026.

Farm hospitality goes mainstream. Equity capital flows again. Travel rebounds when everyone expects flat growth.

2025 was all about execution.

Launched This Week in Hospitality podcast. Grew my Instagram from 3K to 40K followers in 8 months. Founded Baya with an incredible team and raised the equity for our first location in South Florida.

At Onera Wimberley, October produced $326,000 in revenue compared to $196,000 last year – 66% growth year-over-year. ADR climbed from $433 to $460. Occupancy grew from 60% to 76%.

We opened Onera Fredericksburg's expansion on time and on budget. The Monolith unit with its 40-foot cantilever wrapped in floor-to-ceiling glass is my personal favorite design we've ever done.

For Oasi, we stopped chasing revenue and started being ruthless about only partnering with the best hotels in the world. We expanded from a social media content agency to a fully outsourced CMO and CRO partner with specialists for every function–content, social, ads, email, seo, pricing/rev mgmt and beyond.

The biggest lesson: just do the thing you keep putting off.

Looking at 2026, I'm betting big on three trends most people are sleeping on:

Farm hospitality goes mainstream. It's already the hottest trend in luxury for those who know, but 2026 is when it hits center stage. Big brands will try to slap on gardens and menus, but properties that build the hotel around the farm will win.

Content becomes core strategy. More hotels will finally wake up to how far behind the industry is on social media and content marketing. Full-time in-house content teams become the gold standard.

Equity capital flows again. By mid-2026, we'll see capital flowing like we haven't since 2022. Interest rates coming down means more projects pencil and investors are hunting for yield.

My contrarian take: 2026 will be a rebound year for travel after a slow 2025. Most experts are calling for flat or declining growth. I see the opposite.

Millennials and Gen Z are moving into peak earning years, and travel is a life priority for these generations – not a luxury. Many skipped or shortened trips in 2025. They'll want more in 2026.

I'm currently writing up the full breakdown – everything that worked, what didn't, and my complete 2026 playbook.

Drops in the next newsletter tomorrow. If you want it when it goes out, subscribe using the link in the comments 👇

Hotel occupancy fell for the 9th straight month in November.

Meanwhile, unique properties are still performing. The undifferentiated middle is getting crushed.

Here's what we discussed:

We just dropped Episode 8 of This Week in Hospitality.

US hotel occupancy declined for the 9th consecutive month in November. Occupancy hit 57.9%, down 2.8% year over year. ADR was basically flat at $153.77. RevPAR declined 2.3%.

Hotels are trying to hold rate, but demand isn't keeping pace.

Here's my take: independent, story-driven properties creating one-of-one experiences are still performing. The mediocre, undifferentiated middle is struggling.

2025 was tough for many hotels.

But I expect a bounce-back year in 2026 as interest rates drop, we see some revenge travel after people reduced trips in 2025, and Millennials and Gen Z continue growing their share of the travel market.

We also covered Expedia's turnaround under CEO Ariane Gorin. In Q3 2025, revenue was up 9% year over year. Gross bookings up 12%. But the real story is B2B – their B2B gross bookings grew 26%.

Expedia isn't just winning as an OTA. They're building a broader travel infrastructure business that powers banks and loyalty programs. That makes them a more durable distribution force for hotels.

American Airlines announced Basic Economy flyers will no longer earn loyalty points on tickets purchased after December 17. You still get the flight, but you opt out of the loyalty economy entirely.

My take? It's a nothing burger.

People buying Basic Economy aren't who American is trying to cultivate as loyalty members anyway. They aren't flying enough or spending enough to have status either way.

And Delta opened their first non-airport lounge at the Sphere in Las Vegas. An airline planting a premium experience outside an airport – it's about brand ownership and staying present in customers' lifestyles even when they're not traveling.

But airport lounges by and large aren't that cool. Free buffet, beverages, diner booths. It works in airports because your alternative is terminal chaos.

At the Sphere in Vegas though? It better be pretty damn cool to compete with everything else Vegas has to offer.

We cover all of this and more in the full episode.

If you're enjoying the podcast, leaving a review on Apple or Spotify would help us out a ton!

Join us (Zach Busekrus, Scott Eddy, Edwin Kramer) as we break down the week in hospitality.

Link to the podcast in the comments 👇

My 2026 prediction: urban experiential properties break out this year.

And Janu, Aman's first new brand in 36 years, will lead the charge.

Since 1988, Aman has dominated ultra-luxury hospitality. 34 resorts worldwide. $2,000+ per night. Ultra-private sanctuaries built for escape and solitude.

Then in 2024, they launched Janu – their first new brand in 36 years.

30% cheaper than Aman. More social. Targeting a completely different traveler. And signaling a fundamental shift in luxury travel.

Instead of isolated retreats, Janu creates vibrant cultural centers built for social interaction. Group fitness classes. Wellness experiences. Social dining. Same luxury design standards. Completely different philosophy.

Why now?

Modern luxury travelers want experiences over escape. They want experiences that become stories they can share for years. And they crave social connection to local culture – to be at the heart of their destination with authentic connections to the local energy.

Janu Tokyo opened in March 2024 in Azabudai Hills, one of the city's most energetic neighborhoods. 122 rooms with private balconies. 8 restaurants designed for social dining. Tokyo's first hotel boxing ring.

The concept immediately proved it works.

And they're not stopping. Janu plans to add 8 new hotels within the next 10 years. Dubai and two Saudi Arabia properties open in 2027, with 12 other locations under consideration.

When a brand this powerful launches their first sister brand after 36 years of operations, you pay attention.

Janu signals what Aman sees in the luxury travel market that they can't ignore anymore. Travelers don't just want luxury – they want meaningful connection.

This is urban experiential hospitality. Social and community-led luxury. Immersed in bustling neighborhoods in prime city locations, not far-flung destinations. Authentic local experiences like doing crafts with local Japanese artisans.

It's the company I'm watching most closely in 2026.

Which would you visit – Janu or traditional Aman?

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