Building Emotional Loyalty Through Data with Claudia Infante of Margaritaville

In this episode, Claudia Infante, Chief Data Officer at Margaritaville, joins us to explore how emotional loyalty drives data strategy at one of hospitality’s most iconic lifestyle brands. Claudia shares how her team manages guest data to deliver consistent, authentic, and trusted experiences across hotels, restaurants, cruise lines, and beyond.

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Key Takeaways:

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(02:12) Margaritaville grew from a song to a lifestyle brand, starting with a t-shirt shop in Key West.

(06:26) Hotels handle more complex customer and operational data than restaurants.

(11:56) Margaritaville is an emotion, creating deep connections and lasting memories.

(17:27) Strong brands build community and connections beyond just products.

(20:43) Intentional data collection focuses on purpose and meaningful use over hoarding.

(27:03) Clear data purpose reduces risk and aligns with business goals.

(31:23) Marketing focuses on storytelling and letting customers engage on their terms.

(37:36) Margaritaville offers diverse experiences, letting customers choose their own path.

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Resources Mentioned:

Margaritaville website

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Claudia: [00:00:00] We offer our guests that have stayed in multiple places or that are fans of the brand, is access to that information in a very easy way as opposed to us pushing it down onto them. 

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Anthony: Welcome to Data Masters. Today we're diving into a unique world where data meets fins up relaxation. Of course we're talking about Margaritaville. It's more than just hotels and restaurants. It's an emotion, an escape. But how does data power this lifestyle brand, especially when its core business [00:01:00] is licensing.

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To help us navigate these choppy waters, we have Claudia Infante, chief Data Officer at Margaritaville. Claudia is a 28 year veteran of the hospitality industry and has recently been honored with the. HTF Lifetime Achievement Award. She's passionate about using data to drive strategy and service excellence.

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Claudia, welcome to Data Masters.

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Claudia: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for having me.

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Anthony: Awesome. So Claudia, I think a good place to start here and certainly was true for me when I was, introduced by you to the Margaritaville business and brand is, maybe just explain a bit about the basics. I think a lot of people know Margaritaville, they know Jimmy Buffett, but they probably don't understand.

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and the business structure. As I understand it, you primarily license the brand. and so I have a feeling that the business model of Margaritaville has a [00:02:00] big impact on your role as a CDO and how you think about data, but maybe, again, help people on ground us a little bit in the business and how we should think about it.

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Claudia: Sure. so Margaritaville started as a song obviously in 1977. It's,a. It's an institution of the Americana movement in the United States. And obviously Jimmy Buffet had,a big boom in the eighties and nineties and two thousands in terms of, growing and establishing this lifestyle that is now Margo Vita. In the eighties, there was a call for the experience of the song being put into brick and mortar stores, right? People would ask, well, where's a cheeseburger in paradise? Where can I go get that margarita? that is gonna make me,forget all my troubles and escape. And so it started actually with a, T-shirt shop in Key West because people were bootlegging his, concert t-shirts, Jimmy's [00:03:00] concerts, t-shirts, and misspelling his name and would put only one T And he was adamant that his last name had two T's and so there were a bunch of people walking around with Jimmy Buffet,t-shirts. So he started this t-shirt shop saying, well, at least I can spell my own name. and so he started that with a couple of friends of his. Then they put up a restaurant because again, people wear, well, where's a cheeseburger? Where is the margarita? And so it started all in, Key West. the company grew. Kind of slow at the beginning. they had a couple of other restaurants and then they opened a big, the big opportunity came when, universal, studios had a space available that was not ready to be occupied by the person that was supposed to be having a restaurant there.

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And so they came to Jimmy and Jimmy said, well, we'll put it up there. we'll start a restaurant. And basically they started this restaurant company almost as a test. and so this restaurant, [00:04:00] became so incredibly popular. And so, iconic, if you would, in the Universal Studios,here in, in Orlando, that it just kind of expanded, right?

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So it created this new movement of restaurants where you can go fun, relax, have a good meal, talk to your friends, and become this lifestyle. And so that started,a company for Jimmy Buffett, along with, John Cole, our CEO. Fast forward. many years, about 17 years after that. and then the first opportunity for a hotel opened. so at that point, the company, had grown from being an operating company to actually being a licensing and franchising organization. So instead of us operating all the restaurants, what we started doing was franchising and licensing ip, the brand. And so the company. The fundamental function of the company changed from being a [00:05:00] operations all in company to being more of an oversight ip,and in licensing company.

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And then obviously with the hotel and the diversification of the different businesses that we've now, launched. That came, the franchising model that we now have.

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Anthony: So, and I think the very beginning of that story is actually really telling because, Jimmy starts the business. Because he struggles with what amounts to, a licensing infringement or at least a licensing mistake of spelling his name wrong. so his first intuition, it seems, is that the asset to protect here is in a very literal sense, his name.

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And then extending from that, the broader idea that. Margaritaville and Jimmy Buffett represents. So I think it would be fair to say that your, as a chief data officer, your primary job is to protect the license, is to protect the value of that experience. And so, [00:06:00] maybe if you can connect this idea of brand consistency and promise back to.

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The data challenge from, the, so how do we make sure that this, fun, escapist chill idea is actually delivered across, what amounts to a lot of different, to your point, a lot of different businesses I.

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Claudia: Yeah, it is definitely challenging. on the data side, we experience different challenges depending on the type of business that we're dealing with. Some business, gather more data than others. Right. The restaurants are probably not as heavy on the data side because you record a transaction, you record, you know,a purchase, or you record a meal and a ticket a hotel environment. That is a little different. You have a lot more customer data that is involved a lot more,business data because you are also managing inventories and rates and availability and restrictions and blocks of groups and names [00:07:00] of people, and now you have credit card information that is being held in a single system.

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So for us, the consistency of the service is based on the brand Making strategic decisions about having,partners in the vendor side on the technology side that have very solid business and data practices that are very well reputable and stationed in a very, firm security and privacy posture.

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And we, are , continuously. Adding to that security and,privacy posture through annual, assessments. We ask all of our vendors to provide us with annual, certificates or statements of compliance. We have, very specific steps that someone who wants to be a vendor or a partner, a technology partner with Marco Vita, has to fulfill in order to be part of our, stack of [00:08:00] solutions.

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Anthony: Now I know you, came from Hard Rock Cafe. and as such, I'm curious, if there are similarities or differences in the business that maybe reflect themselves in the way you approach your job. and also, I. Data.

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Claudia: Yeah. I actually worked for Hard Rock International for 10 years. so not on the cafe side. I worked on the hotel division, hotel and casino division. But it was, a very similar understanding and it was a very similar infrastructure, which is actually interesting because the reason I came to Margaritaville is because Hard Rock was moving their offices out of Orlando.

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I lived in Orlando. I had a life in Orlando at the time, already kind of set and I didn't wanna move down to South Florida. And so. I started doing some consulting and then in talking to people, they said, no, you really need to go talk to Margaritaville. they need someone that can help them do what you did at Hardrock.

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So it's a little, it's almost like a repeat, like this is like the repeat story for [00:09:00] me. in terms of establishing,the same infrastructure and the same. layers of systems and the stack of systems that we've created for Margaritaville are not necessarily at this point. Margaritaville, I think is in a different league. But it started very similarly then. Then Hardrock and Hardrock has the same setup. They have properties that, except that they do have properties that they manage, they have properties they own, they have properties that they own, manage and franchise at the same time, believe it or not. So the squares and the blocks, are even stacked.

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A little bit more complicated at Hard Rock, if you can imagine that. So.

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Anthony: Great. and I think that does help. 'cause again, to your point, Margaritaville has this very, such a focused model around really just licensing. And I think that creates this purity of, Opportunity and problem. and so let's connect this back to the customer. in our conversations, you've described the incredibly intense, loyal [00:10:00] following that your customers have, for the brand and the experience, and, Maybe just share that and as context and maybe to bias your answer slightly,I'm aware that the Margaritaville is launching or has launched retirement communities, and you,told this wonderful story of, how excited people are for that and, and how they're sort of lining up to, to share all this really, detailed information about themselves.

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So yeah, please.

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Claudia: Yeah, well, our CEO says is be, says these better. and he always kind of refers back to these, right? He, he talks about big brands and he. Uses the example of Coca-Cola or Marriott, right? if I tell you that you're staying at a Marriott and you close your eyes, you kind of picture in your head what that is, right?

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What Marriott is, we all know what Marriott is. it's a wonderful hotel company. they have great rooms. [00:11:00] Good beds, good showers, clean towels, clean rooms, great service. If I ask you to close your eyes and say, Coca-Cola, and you immediately picture, the flavor, the bubbles maybe in your nose, the sound that it makes when you open that bottle of that or that can the logo. And so those are brands that stand. For the product that they represent and they have attached to that product and they stand for that. If I ask you to close your eyes and say, Margaritaville, that it could be anything So for some people, Margaritaville is by the beach reading a book on a hammock for other people, Margaritaville may be a restaurant with a lot of music and balloons and steel walkers and their kids running around. For other people, maybe up in the mountains where they can breathe fresh air and,look at the trees. I mean, Margo Ville is an emotion and it is [00:12:00] not about the product. So what that does is, one, it creates a connection with a consumer that is far beyond the product they can buy and is more about the way these brand makes them feel. Number two, it sets a promise for that consumer that what they are going to experience when they go to Margaritaville or when they buy a Margaritaville product is all about the fun. It's all about the escapism. It's all about getting away from whatever they need to get away. We all need a, we all need a getaway. It doesn't matter what you do or where you are or who you are. We all need a getaway at one point. And number three, creates true anchors memories and relative, way to your memories. Because when people come to see us, [00:13:00] they don't say, oh, I'm going to Orlando. They typically say, I'm going to Margo, Vita V in Orlando. going to in San Diego. I'm going to Margaretville on a cruise. So Margaritaville is a destination and an emotion in your mind and the consumer's mind. That creates a very different, commitment for us in terms of delivering that emotion. So. People who know Jimmy, people who heard of Jimmy or were fans of Jimmy were always kind of the first ones that came around when something was happening about Margo Beville. But eventually that became not about Jimmy turned out to be an emotion. A lifestyle that had less and less to do with Jimmy and more about what this brand meant. And so it's important for [00:14:00] us on the data side to recognize and understand that people who have followed this brand for years, and I mean years before I even was here, or before this even was a brand. The people have followed this brand for a long time and that they trust this brand, they trust this company, they trust the people that have been the guardians of this brand for years, that they feel safe and they feel welcomed and they feel included. And we focus very heavily on that. So, when I first started here, and this is eight years ago, company that had started a, 

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resort lifestyle community for 55 and older. had these 3,400 homes in Daytona Beach, that they were selling, and they called it D Oasis. Well, they went and did marketing and a bunch of stuff for about a year and had [00:15:00] like 300 people that were interested in buying these homes. Again, we are the brand of opportunity and our CEO is incredible at making connections.

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So he somehow met these guys. That own this place. And they said, Hey, we have this place in Daytona, we call it Oasis, is for people who are, 55 and older and we think that maybe collaborating with Margaritaville to do a marketing campaign or something could help us sell more homes. And so John and his incredible vision of opportunity came back and said, okay, let's work together. Let's figure it out. We'll brand the whole community. And then we'll change basically, radically, by the way that this community is going to be presented to the consumer. And so they changed the design, they changed the homes, and instead of making them these cookie cutter, Homes that you find in these retirement, communities. They made him very markville. It's almost like you're walking into, I don't know, Bahamas or Bermuda, right? And you see all these cottages and you see all these kind of areas of common, common [00:16:00] areas where people can gather, where people can bring their golf cart and play.

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And they made the pool bigger and they put a restaurant and they put a gym and they put all these places where people can gather and create community. and then they called it Latitude by Margo Ville. So an announcement goes out, pr goes out, right? One announcement on the, in the press, like we always do. lo and behold, it gets picked up by, every outlet that you can think about in the media from serious newscasts, I mean from a, B, C, and CBS nightly news. the way to the comedy, the comedy, the nighttime shows, right? So Colbert and Jimmy Fallon and all these people were saying, oh, like, you wanna go waste away, like if you're 55 and better, And so we turned it into these plays where people who love the brand already could as our john, our CEO says could go back. live the back nine of their lives, [00:17:00] right? so they announced this place. They announced when the sales are gonna go on sale. the lots are gonna go on sale. And people started camping out, camping outside of the place. They brought their RVs, they brought their trucks. They started tailgating as you would in a Jimmy concert. Tailgating outside of the sales center waiting for this place to be opened with, by the way, a check in their hands saying, I wanna pick my lot.

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I wanna live here. And so our brand marketing team, which is incredible, and they do so, so amazing work in creating this emotion and these events. they go in, they tailgate with everybody. They brought bunches of pizzas. They put up movies. They put up concerts. they started playing music.

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They spent the night with all of these people that were waiting for the sales place to open, and the next day they walked in with the residents that wanted to pick their lot. and by the way, during the night while they were. Tailgating and whatnot. People started meeting each [00:18:00] other and going, oh, I wanna live next to you.

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And so they started picking lots next to each other. And so brand is so much more than just a. A name that you slap on something, right? it's a symbol and it's a synonym of community and people who you have affinity with that are looking for the same thing that you are, whether it's relaxation or fun or family or safety or whatever it is, you are basically in, in good companies.

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people trust this brand. People trust this company, people trust this name and we take that very seriously.

[00:19:00] 

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Anthony: what I appreciate you, sharing there is the degree to which the brand is so central. To the business. I mean, in a very literal sense, because you're a licensing business. That's all there is. but it is what the brand enables That I think is so fascinating because now you've created this trust relationship with the customer or even the prospect.

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Where they have an expectation of what they're gonna get out of a Margaritaville experience, whether, again, that, and what I love about this is that experience spans everything from, getting a drink at a bar through to deciding where you live and retire. I mean, that is a, an incredibly wide range of different experiences.

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and so, [00:20:00] so you create this high level or high value trust experience, and as a result. your prospects and customers share a lot of data and a lot of very personal data with you. so let's connect that to the data and data infrastructure that you've pioneered and,built here.

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So. How do you think about your data operations? one extreme of this would be to say it's just a brand licensing exercise. You don't need to collect any data. It is just let the businesses do as, as they will. But you haven't, you've created this very central data operations with a bunch of core infrastructure.

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So share a little bit about what you've created and

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also why. the answer to that. It goes, it's almost like the brand, it's, it stretches the entire spectrum. we do collect a lot of data in many different ways from the many different businesses that we work with, but we are also very intentional as to what data we collect. [00:21:00] And one of the first exercises that we did when we started this program and when I first started, kind of taking over the data structure here in Ville was to have very honest conversations about what data we have, what data are we collecting, and why are we collecting this data?

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Claudia: What's the purpose of us knowing this about this one customer or that about that one customer. Those are difficult conversations at any level because over time I think we've all become data hoarders where organizations somehow I think get overly in love with the idea of having a lot of data in understanding or quoing this data, I don't know, storing all this data. But when you look back and you take a look at how much that data is actually. Utilized how much of that data is democratized so that people can understand it and use it [00:22:00] in meaningful ways, how much of that data is used to make decisions? realize that,that's not a lot. a lot of data sits there and collects, I don't know.

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I don't know what dust bunnies are called in the cyberspace, but they collect dust bunnies For no reason because we just have data that we think we should keep. and now we don't wanna delete it. And,we go through purging exercises and it's almost like letting go of, I don't know, your grandma's socks or something.

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Right? so those are tough conversations that you kind of have to be very pragmatic and. Realistic as to what you can actually accomplish you are trying to put together a data infrastructure and a data management program. The second thing that we had to do was to understand what our data models look like, because we have, as you said, six or seven different business lines. What you call one thing in a hotel, you don't call that in a restaurant. You don't call that in [00:23:00] a cruise. You don't call that in a,foods, you don't call that in alcohol or spirits. we don't have that business anymore, but we call the same thing. These banana was called different things in different places, so bringing data into a single. instance, whether it's a data lakehouse, we call ours, our Lakehouse. whether, it's our data lakehouse or just in general, trying to build APIs. an exercise. and it's by the way, it's a very intense exercise because every decision you make when you are, categorizing your data become an issue or will become a point of discussion when you are reporting on that data and where you're democratizing that data. So it's intense work and in our case. The reason that we took the time to do things the way we did, and we, it took, I mean, it took us almost five years to get from when we started to, when we actually had data ready to be put into a lakehouse [00:24:00] or into a data lake. It's because we took the time to go source by source, identifying, cataloging all the data, understanding where that data was useful and where that data could be democratized so that. ultimate user can take it. Can use it. And so our users in the case of Marco Ville as a company, we have two different clients. We have our corporate clients, so we have our C-suite, we have our,brand or company users. And then we have our franchisees who also require data to make decisions.

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So have to always have almost that. Division of church and state, we can't always combine data. For example, fact that we don't own these properties or we don't own our business, assets, means that we can't necessarily share data from one business onto another 'cause [00:25:00] they're owned by different entities. And so we have to have very clear division of, in a very clear, Governance program of data between these one hotel and the next hotel because they may be owned by different entities. And so it puts a lot of effort and it puts a lot of kind of strain on the infrastructure it also makes it, Vital that you understand what your data flows look like, where your data is originating, who owns that data by right of the agreements or by right of the, of that data point, where you have to store that data and who gets to access it. So in some cases, data will be democratized at the macro level so that you get reports. The big picture, but if you want micro reports or you want your reports on your own customers, then only certain people have access to those.

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Anthony: So, first of all, I wanna go back to something you said at the [00:26:00] beginning. this issue of what data you keep. And this tendency for businesses to try to keep all the data 'cause they're not quite sure. I think that's a really interesting insight for people because the, just to make this very plain, if Margaritaville is selling trust, I.

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Then keeping too much data has the risk of eroding that trust,heaven forbid you, well, the extreme case would be you lost access to the data or somehow it leaked. But even if that data is used in ways that, Begin to, encroach on that trust relationship, then the very thing you're selling, which is this experience that you trust and believe in, becomes eroded.

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and so I think that it's a really interesting way to frame the challenge of so, so to be. Clear and pointed about it. What you're saying is if you don't have a clear reason for keeping the data, if it's not actually making the customer experience better, then really think carefully about it because it also exposes [00:27:00] you to a bunch of risks.

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Claudia: Absolutely.

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And italso brings additional liability, right? every time you collect a piece of data that you have no explanation for, there is another risk point, right? So, so we are a very risk adverse company when it comes to data. we are very careful and very, again, very intentional to. What data is collected for and what is used for something else that I think it's interesting and important for us, at least as a company, is we have very clear business objectives are supported by data or by technology. It's not the other way around.

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Anthony: yeah. So you're starting with the goals you have as a business and also presumably, the experiences and emotions you want, your customers to experience.

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Claudia: Yes. So it's not like, oh, we have this piece of data. What can we do with it? [00:28:00] No,

that's not how we operate. we go the other way around. we say, okay, this is the business objective we want to achieve. What data do we need? Do we either go gather. Or understand or democratize and put in a report so that we can either support that business case or eliminate that business case and go, yep, nope, that's not gonna work.

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we don't have enough data to support this one particular objective.

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Anthony: so let's just jump to the second piece of what you said, which is, one way to think about the Margaritaville business is that the actual customer is the franchisee. and I know it's not entirely, of course you have multiple constituents here. but fundamentally, one of your goals is to make the franchisee.

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a better business because they're working with Margaritaville than if they were just running a random restaurant in Key West or whatever, you know, wherever it is. how do you think about, and again, the point you made before, I just wanna connect these two, is that you have to balance that requirement [00:29:00] with, desire, a need to protect the brand.

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So, and the obvious. Case here is cross all and upsell. Like, the extreme and probably poor example of this would be that when I, have a Margaritaville experience, whatever it is, I'm immediately cross all and upsell hundreds of other experiences in products that I sort of feel like I'm being inundated with.

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That, which is the opposite of chill, I would think. and yet. one from a business objective perspective, you want to give people access to other experiences. And so how do you think about balancing those two competing desires, especially from a data perspective? And it also, again, through your licensees, it's not you that necessarily are doing it.

Anthony: it's your business partner.

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Claudia: our data governance program. places that desire or that choice in the consumer. So we as Margaritaville, the brand, [00:30:00] do not engage customers in cross-selling, um, campaigns unless the customer that choice. So if you go and stay in Pigeon Forge, in one of our hotels, we have five hotels in that area.

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If you be, if you can believe it or not, five hotels. So if you go and stay in one of them, none of the other hotels get to know that you stayed in that hotel you make a reservation at another hotel. Then those two will share your data and they will understand that you're coming and who you are, and if you're a loyalty member, whatever. And then when you go to Hollywood, then Hollywood gets your data. And then when you go to San Diego, then San Diego now shares your data. So it is an environment that grows only as the consumer makes that choice to go to different places and experience the brand in different places that they get to do that.

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And by the way, every time they go to a new location, they get to say, yep, I wanna hear about this [00:31:00] location, or, Nope, I don't wanna hear about this location. So I think you kind of hit it on the nail a little bit there when you said, The consumer has to make that choice. It is about the consumer. It is about the consumer wanting to hear from us, not us pushing down content on our customers.

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So our marketing in general, and you'll see through, different if you go to or if you get our campaigns or if you see, we don't do a lot of advertising. We don't do a lot of, Hard sales. Our, philosophy around marketing is quietly making noise. And so we are a magnetic brand that people, when they wanna hear about, they come to us, they ask questions, they interact with the brand.

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There's plenty of ways for them to find out, but more importantly. We offer our guests that [00:32:00] have stayed in multiple places or that are fans of the brand, is access to that information in a very easy way as opposed to us pushing it down onto them. So, it's interesting that you mentioned that we, last year we did a marketing campaign, we call it our favorite summer moments or Margaritaville moments. I think it was in the summer or summer Margaritaville, something like that. It was an email that, basically took stories from our customers, from our guests at different hotels throughout the portfolio. And we had probably 16 different stories in this email. It was a really long email, let's just say had a lot of photos and UGC and, photos of people with their dogs or swimming on the beach or whatever. But it was a really long email. It had CTAs link anywhere. That said Book Now sale. None of it. It is by far The most successful email that we've ever launched in [00:33:00] terms of sales. It immediately turned into bookings, into just people just flooded and for us it was a really interesting. Experiment that we did with one of the agencies that we work with. it reaffirmed that conviction that we have, that our guests want to know about us and that they'll make the decision to come to Mark Vanderville when they are ready. So we are very respectful of that. We are very mindful. As a brand, especially the properties, the hotels, the crews, they do email and they do send campaigns to their customers or their guests, on a regular basis. Right. Just offers or whatever. At the brand level, we keep it very much aspirational.

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Anthony: Yeah. And what, again, what I love about this is the brand itself is about, being, chill and having fun. And to say it in a funny way, you [00:34:00] can't force people to be chill and have fun, like that's.

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Claudia: hard. It's hard to do that. Yeah,

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Anthony: I think that's something probably Jimmy Buffet fundamentally understood, right? That the experience must be a pull experience.

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Claudia: it

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Anthony: And as such, you've made the data experience map to that. So rather than creating this feeling of being, well, frankly, just being marketed to, it becomes a pull experience of like, these are the kinds of experiences we, to your example, these are the kinds of experience people are having.

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Wouldn't you want some of these experiences? and also the sense of access. I think one of the things you point out is that. Being on the inside of these experiences means that, you have first dibs you're getting access to something that, as a non Margaritaville person you don't have access to.

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And so being on the inside of that creates this trust relationship. But it also makes me feel like I'm in control of my data experience. Like I'm sharing the information I [00:35:00] want to share with you, and you're, I can trust you with it because I'm, you're gonna give me back, the brand promise.

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Claudia: Yeah, we're very intentional. Like I said, that's probably one of my favorite words is we are very intentional in how we use the data, but we also, make all of our messages timely and relevant and valuable. because our guests may be in different times. I mean, we, if we just, we are very aware that we are not a brand or we are not a hotel. Company where people are going to stay 16 times a year, is not you don't go to Margaritaville every other weekend. that's just not, I mean, maybe you can, unless you live there, you really can't. so we are very aware that we are an experience that people not only look forward to and wait for, but a lot of times save for. We're not, we're also not not to our own horn, but we're not a cheap brand. We are a luxury brand. We [00:36:00] are a casual luxury brand. So coming to Markville is not something that you just kind of do in a whim sometimes. some of our guests do. But for the most part, it it's an experience.

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It's a vacation, it's something you plan, it's something you think about. It's something you get excited for. And so. For us, sending you an email or an offer every two weeks makes absolutely no sense. Why would we know you're, if you already came this year, we are probably not gonna see you for a couple of months or maybe next year. So we wanna be very mindful of how we are also, using what we know about you. To understand where you are in your vacation time, where you are in your planning process, where you are in your life cycle with us. Right. Because we also don't wanna turn you off to say okay enough. I've stayed with you four times and,I've had it we don't wanna get to that point.

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So, there's also a very, um.[00:37:00] Pointed exercise in understanding what that lifecycle looks like for our customers and our guests and how often they come to Margo Beville.

I mean, you'd almost. Do better to have a customer who, increases the amount they spend on their annual trip by 20%, then creating an experience where they come to 20% more trips. Right? You're more likely to actually, if you're looking, if you wanted to be, coldly ruthless about it, your data strategy needs to encourage, a more premium experience. One you save up for to your experience, to your point, rather, over simply more experiences. Or different experiences, we do have the ability to kind of spread the message around where. If you came to the hotel this year, you're probably not gonna come to the hotel again, right? But potentially you will, know, maybe you'll, go have dinner one night, or maybe you'll take a two day cruise, maybe you will buy a new pair of shoes, you know, hey dudes or Crocs or, So [00:38:00] there are other things that we can do, but again, we do it in a very mindful way where we're not. we're not pushing the brand on you. We know that you have options and we wanna be that option for you, but we want that to be your option, not ours.

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Anthony: So, I think that's a good place, to end. And I really appreciate how you've, so thoughtfully, and I, again, your word intentionally, created this deep connection between the business model that is Margaritaville, the brand strategy that is marville, and then also the data strategy, the, that is Margaritaville.

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So thank you very much for those insights.

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Claudia: Thank you. Thank you for the invite. it's been a pleasure.

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