Introducing The Curious Concierge: My Journey Into Hospitality and Why Asia Matters

Justin Sun (: 00:33

Welcome to episode one of the Curious Concierge. I'm Justin Sun, and truly, if you're listening right now, thank you. You could be anywhere else doing anything else, but instead you're here, curious about hospitality, which means you're my kind of person. So what is this podcast about? This podcast is not a travel guide, not a list of top 10 hotels. This show is about the soul of hospitality, the ideas, the people, the philosophies,

shaping the next decade of how Asia travels, lives, and gathers. You'll hear from hoteliers to wellness pioneers, designers to startup founders, and the quiet geniuses building the emotional infrastructure of our cities.

Beyond check-ins and keys, there are legends and legacies, and this show is about those stories.

This episode is different. It's just me sharing my origin story on why this show exists, why hospitality matters to me, and why I believe Asia is entering its most exciting era yet. I grew up between Singapore and Hong Kong, two cities that feel like they're in a constant race with the future.

If you grew up in a place like that, you understand this. The skyline wasn't a backdrop, it was a living thing. New malls appeared like overnight pop-ups. Train stations connected in ways that felt magical. Escalators carried entire childhoods. And the malls, well, the malls, weren't just shopping centers, they were ecosystems. Urban living rooms where real estate and human psychology collided. I still remember sitting on a bench inside Takshimaya Mall with my friends.

eating Auntie Anne's pretzels, just watching people and wondering where they were going.

That was the first time I realized buildings create emotions, not just square footage. And if a space could make someone feel something, comfort, excitement, belonging, then that space had power. Growing up Asian, service wasn't a job description. It was a cultural value. We were taught to help before being asked, to notice needs before they became problems. And that's servant leadership. And even though I didn't know the term back then,

that philosophy has guided every decision in my career. Because hospitality at its core isn't just about service, it's about philosophy.

So people ask me all the time, why hotels? Why hospitality? and I realized the answer is simple. Hotels are where some of life's biggest emotional shifts happen. A honeymoon, a long awaited reunion, a solo trip after heartbreak, a new beginning, a goodbye.

We spend so many meaningful moments in places designed and run by people we'll never meet. Yet they shape how we feel, how we heal, and how we remember.

And I wanted to be part of that. Even behind the scenes, even quietly, even invisibly.

Fast forward, I moved to the US for high school, then attended Cornell's hotel school where everything

minored in real estate, and fell in love with the alchemy of hospitality, where design, finance, operations, and human emotion all collide. After university, I jumped headfirst into hospitality startups, and that chapter shaped me in ways I never expected.

There were roles where I was underwriting real estate deals, looking at NOI, RevPar premiums, market comps, trying to see if a building could become a hotel or a hybrid or something entirely new.

There were also many late nights during acquisitions where we were integrating multiple property management companies into one operating system.

Merging cultures, SOPs, owner expectations, financial models, all while praying the guest satisfaction scores didn't tank. There were also nights walking construction floors at 11 p.m. with the team, debating things like whether an outlet should be hidden or visible, or if the backsplash felt emotionally wrong for the brand. I learned how to scale teams,

build systems from scratch, restructure supply chains, refine SOPs, standardize service ritual and debug operations while still keeping the guest experience intact. And somewhere in that chaos, I realized hospitality is emotional labor disguised as real estate. And the people who do it well carry a level of care most industries never see.

And I learned that the glamorous hospitality industry is built on deeply unglamorous labor, the real work no one sees.

Now, somewhere in the middle of all of this, I became an Airbnb host myself. Now let me tell you, nothing humbles you faster.

was one moment when a guest messaged me early morning,

say, 6.40 a.m., saying...

the vibe of the living room felt slightly off. Not dirty, not broken, just off. Nothing was wrong, but something didn't feel right. And that's when I understood the quiet truth of hospitality. Guests seek emotional certainty, not just physical comfort. A space isn't just a space. It's a container for someone's state of mind. Hosting taught me to respect the people who deliver that emotional certainty every day.

the cleaners who reset a room, the operators who troubleshoot quietly, the frontline teams who carry the pressure of someone else's experience. They're the heartbeat of this industry.

Today, I'm back in Hong Kong and I co-founded Fourth Space Hospitality, a consulting studio where we help developers, hotel owners, and operators bring meaningful concepts to life, from feasibility and positioning to operations and experience design. It's the work I love most because it blends strategy, design, operations, and emotion, everything that made me fall in love with this industry in the first place.

I'm so excited to bring you on this journey with me where we explore the visionaries, dreamers, and innovators shaping the future of hospitality across Asia. If you made it this far, sincerely thank you. Starting this podcast has been equal parts thrilling and terrifying, and it means the world that you're here for episode one. I'm Justin Sun. This is the Curious Concierge.

And together, we're going to ask better questions and uncover better stories. So stay tuned for the next episode. Let's explore together. And as always, stay curious.