The hotel-meets-club playbook is here.
But, why does it feel they all target the same ellusive "modern-day, curious travellers"?
Thank you for being here today. This week we explore why community-building is so freaking hard, an event for hospitality / community entrepreneurs and investors in Madrid, and the hotel-meets-club playbook after Aethos’ acquisition of Yayem.
Dare to connect,
Andy
NEW HERE? WE’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU.
👋 Welcome to Casa Cinco, where I explore how we can build a more connected world. It starts with curating connection—weekly resources, events, and dealflow that inspire and enable social well-being. But it doesn’t end there...
🪄 RESOURCES
Remember the statistic loneliness having a comparable effect on our physical health to that of smoking 15 cigarrettes per day? The scientist behind joins NPR for a conversation on building more social connections in our lives.
Why is community-building so freaking hard? For once, it can’t really be quantified. In this piece by GroupHug, the author explores the rise of ‘productivized’ communities and the risk that represents to, well, the quality of the communities themselves (i.e. if we focus on a pretty logo and drone footage for our events, do we risk missing out on the actual connections taking place?). The piece reminded me of Sam Pressler’s “Why Startups Will Not ‘Solve’ Loneliness”—a great read for ALL founders buildng startups to ‘solve’ loneliness. Thank you for sharing T!
NeueHouse: “The Work + Social Home for Creatives”. I had this on my notes for today, but I must confess I forgot why that was the case. The club has been around for +10 years and sounds Soho-Housish, doesn’t it? What I do love is they say they place Community, Design, Programming and Hospitality at its core, when most clubs seem to chose design only. If anyone’s a member, please reply to this or email me at hello@casacinco.co and let me know how you’d score the club on all those areas!
Recently, a friend and I discussed the nuanced role that ‘sacrifice’ plays in forging genuine social connections. That conversation reaffirmed my call to "dare to connect": building meaningful relationships demands courage, time, patience, and yes—sacrifice. Drawing on insights from the Greater Good Science Center, here are seven barriers to social connection and how you can dare to overcome them.
📅 EVENTS
Who’s around Madrid in April? We’re coming up with an event for entrepreneurs and investors in hospitality, experiences, and community. Reply to this email or email me at hello@casacinco.co if you’re interested in joining!
Feb. 26th: Looking behind the curtain of good communities and learning from them. Have any of you heard of Remote Daily? Think talk show meets Zoom.
Mar. 18th: Downshift’s Spring 2025 Decelerator Retreat kicks off. Apply now.
May 22nd: Unreasonable Hospitality Summit in Nashville, TN.
May 31st: Harvard’s Makarios conference in Rome, Italy. Exploring neighbor-love and its implications for human flourishing today.
Oct. 28th: The F4SC’s Social Connection Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Register for updates.
Join the latest Belong Circles across the U.S. here.
💭 AND MORE
Brian Chesky spoke on DOAC and The Jay Shetty show a while ago about human connection—and how Airbnb will “once again” put it at the center of its offering. Last week, the company beat earnings expectations for 4Q24 and announced it was working on becoming the “Amazon for all your traveling and living needs”. With Experiences relaunching in May 2025, I’m curious to know how much human connection is considered in the upcoming changes (if at all).
The recent acquisition of Yayem by Aethos pretty much sets a precedent for hotel-meets-club plays. Tl;dr: European hotel chain acquires digital-first members’ club. At a high-level, the transaction makes sense as an additional revenue stream for Aethos hotels: a membership-based approach for the use of hotel spaces provides a controlled way of increasing foot traffic and asset utilization. My only pet peeve—why would I join? Paradoxically, it seems a bit of the same (“modern-day explorers seeking more”) + I don’t fully understand the target market.
Brian Niccol wants to return Starbucks to its roots—a community coffeehouse where people, once again, connect with each other. The issue: by prioritizing mobile and drive-thru orders, the Starbucks experience has been less than optimal. Fixing this doesn’t mean that digital is out, but that physical is back in.
THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE.
Are you a founder or investor in social well-being? Interested in sponsoring Casa Cinco? Reply to this email and let’s connect.
Want to build a more connected world?
“The food, the service, and the design are simply ingredients in the recipe for human connection”
Will Guidara