Service Over Structure: From #58 to #3 on Tripadvisor With Kiana Beimes

Kiana Beimes is the General Manager of the OUTRIGGER Waikiki Paradise Hotel in Honolulu, a boutique property known for authentic Hawaiian hospitality. Under her leadership, the hotel rose from #58 to as high as #3 on Tripadvisor and completed a ten-month renovation while maintaining guest satisfaction and keeping her entire 60-person team employed. Kiana was named the 2026 Hawaiʻi Women in Lodging & Tourism Woman of the Year, recognizing her leadership, community engagement, and impact on Hawaiʻi's visitor industry.

In this episode… How does a hotel climb from #58 to #3 on Tripadvisor while it's torn up by construction? For Kiana Beimes, General Manager of the OUTRIGGER Waikiki Paradise Hotel, the answer is service over structure: the team's service outweighs anything the building throws at a guest. Kin Sio and Keri Brown sit down with Kiana on The Lights On Podcast to unpack how she did it.

Kiana took over a 443-room property as a first-time GM and inherited a 10-month renovation with no buffer floors and no option to close. She kept all 60 team members employed, held rates and occupancy through the summer, and trained her hosts to treat every complaint as a chance to build loyalty. When a wedding group was stuck waiting on half-working elevators, she left a cultural ceremony, ran back to the hotel, and personally walked guests up through the back-of-house service corridors with cold drinks in hand.

The results show up in the reviews. The hotel moved from #58 to #3 on Tripadvisor, and guests now name individual hosts as the reason they'll return. Kiana breaks down the "problem solving, not problem reporting" culture she built, why she tells her team they have two goals (make revenue and earn good reviews), and the low-cost touches, handwritten welcome cards, shell leis, and lobby lei-making, that create memories without a big budget.

It's a practical playbook for any operator working with a fixed building and a real budget: service is the lever you can always pull, and it's often the one that moves rate and reviews the most.