Ben Pundole Of "A Hotel Life" Introduces A New Way To Experience Travel

So that's where your idea for the site came from? "Well, I realized that a ton of my friends travel all the time, and a lot of people now, when they do travel for work, for the creative industry, they seek out more interesting places to stay. So I thought, let's see if my friends want to document some of the places they've stayed at. They really embraced the idea of reviewing the hotels they were in, so that was the review component." Who, exactly, did you reach out to? "I've been in the hotel business for a long, long time, and so I contacted some of my friends in the industry, and they thought 'what a great idea,' to have a portal to have a voice. So that's where we've got the Insiders section, and it started with friends, but now I've got loads of people contacting me, all over the world, asking if they can be involved with the site. It's really exciting, because I don't think there's anything like it." What are the other competing sites? "There are travel sites, with hotel components, and hotel sites geared toward the industry, but there's nothing that really celebrates the creative side of hotels, and we all stay in them - whether it's for SXSW, or Fashion Week, or general business.