James Hansen (BSRPT ’04)

For over 20 years, James Hansen (BSRPT ’04) has worked in nearly every role in the hotel industry, from weddings coordination to housekeeping to business development. Hansen, now the vice president of business development at Reeco, the only AI-driven procure-to-pay platform created for the hotel industry, credits much of his success to the education and field experience he gained at the University of Florida. 

At the suggestion of his UF advisor, Hansen enrolled in an introduction to tourism and hospitality management course at the UF College of Health & Human Performance. Having grown up with parents and family that worked in the golf/country club and resort management space, he already knew the basics of the industry and was intrigued to learn more.

“I took a liking to the industry as a whole and was intrigued to learn that UF offered a degree program in Tourism and Hospitality,” Hansen said.

Shortly afterward, Hansen switched his degree from business to recreation, parks and tourism. He recalls that professors with industry background, including a former event planner and recreational law attorney, enriched his experience.

“The individuals who were the professors at the time were coming with professional backgrounds in the space,” Hansen said.

He also emphasized the value of his required internship, working under the director of sales at the Holiday Inn West and Ramada Inn in Gainesville, Florida.

“The field experience was huge [in] that [it] allowed me to take the academic field and apply it to a workforce environment,” Hansen said. “They [his supervisors] allowed me to work a couple of weeks at a time in the different departments at the hotel to see how it ticked.”

After graduating and job hunting near his home in West Palm Beach, he accepted a position at the Crowne Plaza Oceanfront in Singer Island, Florida. His career soared from there.

“In five years, I went from coordinating weddings to leading revenues as the director of sales,” Hansen said.

As Hansen’s career advanced, he was approached with an opportunity to establish a hotel operations and management company from scratch. In 2011, Hansen helped launch Kolter Hospitality, serving as vice president of sales and marketing leading revnue growth for the company. After 14 years of overseeing revenue and expanding the portfolio, he decided to focus on the hotel real estate market.

“I love hotels, but I wanted to be on the development side – hotels being built, sold, transacting and management agreements being executed really excited me” Hansen said.

Reconnecting with a former colleague led him to Hotel Equities, an award-winning hotel management company, leading the development teams based in the U.S. and Canada.

“I took over a significant role that was responsible for the growth of the company – we were buying hotels, selling hotels and adding management agreements via strategic partnerships with hotel owners,” Hansen said.

Hansen later joined OTH Hotels Resorts, an upscale hotel management company, as chief development officer and served on the advisory board of Reeco, a startup revolutionizing hotel purchasing.

“I was so excited about the solution they [Reeco] were bringing to the market,” Hansen said. 

Though new to understanding AI’s use in the hotel space, he saw its potential to address unmet needs in hospitality and accepted a role at Reeco in 2024.

Hansen shares how Reeco’s product “addresses a large pain point” by simplifying a marketplace for hotels, offering transparency and automation in the procurement process while saving hotel operators time and dollars.

“You just have to embrace that technology and AI is moving otherwise manual processes forward – it’s the future,” Hansen said. “I’m constantly learning about innovation and AI.”

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