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Leigh Silkunas’ journey into hospitality started with a love for ceremony—think polished silverware and meticulously set tables—but her career quickly grew beyond the dining room. After graduating from Penn State’s hospitality program, she found herself on the front lines of a high-stakes industry challenge: she’d just started at the Sheraton Times Square when Lehman Brothers collapsed, throwing the hotel’s largest account into chaos. Rising to the challenge, she learned the ropes in revenue management, setting the foundation for a dynamic career that eventually led her to roles with brands like Kimpton and, later, the launch of Sonder—a pioneer in the short-term rental space.
Now, Leigh’s latest passion project, The Real Hotels, lets Bravo superfans book the iconic hotels featured on Real Housewives cast trips, while her agency, 1AX Consulting, specializes in creative hospitality marketing. In this exclusive Q&A, Leigh takes us behind the scenes of her bold career moves, shares insights on building her own consulting firm, and dishes on the top hospitality trends redefining the guest experience, from boutique markets to frictionless tech.
Did you always have a passion for hospitality?
I always loved being in the kitchen and doing things like planning my birthday parties. My family hosted a lot of gatherings and I would be enlisted to set the table and polish the silverware. I loved the ceremony of it. When we went on vacation, the first thing I’d do was look to see what the room service menu was. It wasn’t until later in high school that I learned that a friend’s older sister was going to school for hospitality management. I thought to myself “That’s a thing? They’ll let you do that?” The rest was history.
So you attended Penn State’s hospitality and management program. How was that?
It took me a little while to find my place. There is a hotel on campus and I had an internship cooking in the hotel’s restaurant. It was a very tough kitchen environment but I loved it. That’s when I started to feel more comfortable. But it wasn’t until my junior year that I took a revenue management class. And that was the moment I realized there’s a way to be in hospitality where you can be analytical and nerdy and super brainy. I was always really good at numbers and math. I would run home from revenue management class wanting to do my homework. That was a pivotal moment in my career.
What was your first job in hospitality?
After graduating from college I moved to New York City and worked at the Sheraton Times Square. At the time, it was Starwood’s largest owned asset. I started in August 2008, and they had just run their highest occupancy month ever.
Then in September, the Lehman Brothers collapse happened. They were one of the hotel’s biggest accounts. They ended up shuttering a whole stack of rooms, and there were a lot of layoffs. I was 22. It was “all hands on deck” with everyone asking “How are we going to solve this?” So it actually gave me a unique opportunity to have a seat at the table.
It was a crash course in revenue management, profitability, and decision-making. And people were asking for my opinion. I had a voice. A door had opened.
So you’ve probably seen a lot of cycles in the hospitality industry since then.
I was not in the hotel industry during 9/11, but at the Sheraton Times Square, many people were referencing 9/11, because it was seven years prior and it obviously had a big impact. So I think there was a bit of a precedent in the sense that we’ve been through tough times before and we can get through this. I was taught that mentality from day 1 of my career.
With the pandemic, I’ve been fortunate enough to have this broader perspective. The industry is cyclical. It always comes back.
What was the transition like from working in hospitality to starting your own consulting firm?
The thread through my career is that I started working for big companies and went to smaller and smaller companies. I went from Starwood to Kimpton (this was long before the IHG acquisition), and then from Kimpton, I went even smaller, to Commune.
I say that because I’ve always had this entrepreneurial spirit and desire to work at a smaller place with more freedom, autonomy, and flexibility. And I have taken what I’ve learned and gone into more hands-on companies that were a lot leaner and scrappier.
In 2016, I got a LinkedIn message from Francis Davidson who at the time was CEO of Flatbook. He had a company for alternative rentals. This was eight or nine years ago, and there is a lot of that now but this was an early model for it. They had just raised Series A funding and as part of the agreement, they needed to change their name and become consumer-facing. And I was hired as head of marketing to manage that process.
Had you done anything like that before?
I had done similar things under the guise of a big hotel company but never for a start-up. We had a shoestring budget and it was an intense 6 month period of calling everyone I knew and trying to make things happen. We changed the name to Sonder and launched in the Fall of 2016. And from that they went on to raise Series B.
And that started my consulting career. I knew that I didn’t want to do this for someone else anymore. I wanted to be in charge. The launch proved that I could do it – It was safe ground to practice. I thought ‘Okay, now I’m ready.’
What are the challenges of starting your own firm?
Probably the hardest thing, in the beginning, was developing a community of other entrepreneurs or solopreneurs. There are so many questions that you have about running a business. This includes both the technical stuff like setting up taxes, but also all these other things, like how should I scope this agreement? Or, what’s an appropriate hourly fee? There are a lot of opportunities to second-guess yourself and you can drive yourself nuts. You don’t have a built-in sounding board that you would have in a more structured environment.
Now, eight years later, I’m part of the Female Founders in Hospitality program, and they have a Slack channel. I wish I had had that then. Instead, I became friends with people who were doing similar things but not in hospitality – people like freelance copywriters, non-profit consultants, and Web designers. We built an extended network. We built community.
And what are the best things about having your consulting firm?
I love the big-picture thinking. I get to think about my business all day long and have all these ideas.
I like the variety. I enjoy having established brands with specific problems and start-ups with specific problems. And that helps me stay creative because I am taking best practices from larger companies and sharing them with start-ups. But I’m also taking the scrappy “break the rules mentality” and bringing that to a larger company and saying ” Why not try it this way?”
How did you get the idea for your passion project TheRealHotels.com?
I was on vacation with my husband in Hawaii and I saw Lydia McLaughlin, formerly of Real Housewives of Orange County, at the breakfast buffet with her family. She was on spring break. That’s when the wheels started turning. As a long-time Bravo fan, it is the cast trips, which tend to be two to three episodes long, where a lot of the most explosive moments take place. It’s a summer camp mentality – something is bound to happen.
Before Real Housewives became mainstream, the hotels weren’t really mentioned. They were an afterthought to the trip. So I brought it to my team and said, “I have this idea – what do you think? My operations manager, Elena, said, “Let’s chase this down and see what happens.”
How did you begin? What was the first challenge you ran into?
The first step was seeing “Can we find the hotels?” Would be able to identify them? And we discovered it was really difficult. We had to go into things like Reddit archives. And the harder it was to find the hotels, the more excited we got because we realized the information didn’t exist. If someone else wanted to know where the cast stayed in Season 3 of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, they would have to put some energy into finding that answer. We knew then that we could be providing a service.
How did you manage this project on top of all your other client work?
Once we had the concept and started to get the properties, I started to project manage it the way I would for a client. We used Asana. And then we said, Okay let’s source a great web developer. Now let’s find a great copywriter.
Your copywriter is amazing. The copy is laugh-out-loud funny.
Yes, she’s great. Her name is Katherine LaRonde. Her writing samples immediately rose to the top of our pile of submissions.
How long did it take to put it together?
From start to finish it took about 9 months. We started in January, 2024. There were stops and starts along the way. It was not a full-time project, but it was percolating in different senses for 9 months.
When you talk about it, you light up. You make it sound like it didn’t feel like work.
It’s been so fun. I felt like this was my purpose, that I was made to do this. I’m a Bravo superfan and I’m also super specific - a boutique hotel digital marketer who advises on websites, hotel marketing strategies, and positioning. So this was at the center of the Venn diagram!
Did you think about what you’d do when the website was finished?
Once we had finished it, I engaged Maverick Creative – Catherine Colford and I have known each other for years. And I said, “Can I ask your opinion on this thing – do you think this has legs?” We were trying to decide whether we put some energy behind it or just let it live and have people find it organically. She loved it and said, “Let’s try.”
What has the response been like?
Well, It’s brand new – the site went live on October 15th. But the first week we got press in Cosmo and Thrillist. And people are signing up for the newsletter. But the two things that are personally the most exciting for me was that our “In the Wild” section – inspired by my Lydia sighting – just got our first submission from a user.
(Note: the website features a Housewives in the Wild section for fans with receipts, proof, and screenshots to submit their own Housewife travel sightings).
I loved this because it meant someone gets it. That’s the user engagement piece. And that was exciting.
The second thing is that we had a call with one of the hotels that is featured and they wanted to talk about a package or a partnership or how we can promote them.
I can see both sides of this as the consumer and the hotelier and I know how valuable press can be for a hotel, especially a boutique, small hotel. And having that platform, that ability to collaborate with a property and apply revenue management and marketing, makes me feel that I can be doing a service to both - offering something to the consumer and amplifying a hotel’s message.
No matter what happens with TheRealHotels.com, this project has been a blast. To have the opportunity to build something that I think is really cool and share it with hotel fans and Bravo fans is so rewarding.
Let's get REAL, I have to ask: which is your favorite Real Housewives series and/or character?
My cop-out answer is whoever is on screen at the time. That said, I was introduced to Real Housewives when I was in my early 20s living in New York City, so the New York women always hold the closest place to my heart. Luann is a favorite – I’ve been to Luann’s cabaret.
TheRealHotels fits into the whole set-jetting trend (travel inspired by TV and movies). What do you think of that, especially as it applies to the hospitality industry?
How people find inspiration from travel grows or changes over time. There’s always word-of- mouth, print magazines, and social media and influencers. The TV part of it is just another layer to that. Perhaps because of these shows, hotels are really having a moment right now. At least that’s how it feels to me. There’s the coolness of White Lotus, or even Below Deck – or other luxury travel shows.
What are other travel trends you are seeing?
The resurgence of boutique tertiary markets. Places like Chattanooga, TN, and other more indie markets. Everyone from New York and Brooklyn is looking for the next Hudson Valley, the off-the-beaten-path properties. Maybe this was also fueled by the pandemic, but a lot of developers in more major markets want to trade in for a different life somewhere less populated, but also bringing their more urban experience. We’re seeing that with the trend of converting motels into boutique hotels.
Another trend is programming. It has such an important value-add to properties and is such a differentiator in the boutique hotel space. It’s no longer enough to have a great restaurant and pool…What else are you doing? Is it a Sound Bath? A Tarot card reader? An in-room cocktail program? The price at boutique hotels and hotels in general has gone up and the amenities and the programming have become more important.
Frictionless everything is another trend. From a digital marketing perspective, there’s a new wave of hotel technology (or hotel tech trying to catch up with retail and other industries). Apple Pay on your phone is so easy and buying a hotel room should be just as simple.
Same with mobile check-in. If a hotel has figured out how to text you their address on the day you are arriving…that’s meeting the guest where they are at and making it a more seamless experience I love the conversations with hoteliers who are thinking about that.
Do you think maybe Andy Cohen is going to hear about TheRealHotels.com and reach out to you?
I would love that! Manifesting!
Thank you, Leigh! It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.
For more information, visit www.TheRealHotels.com.