Based Camp - Hotel Manager： How Different Ethnic Groups Use Hotels

00:00:00.000 And where I basically shared the story about what actually happens when the Swedish, I think it's called emergency service in English, rescue service.

00:00:10.500 They gave us a phone call and they said that, would you like to house 30 Afghans and you'll get paid at that time about $320 per night per child and do that year round.

00:00:29.540 now he received 30 of them okay that's like what 90,000 90,000 dollars a day crazy yeah it turns

00:00:38.120 it it basically your most profitable day becomes every day of the year yeah and most of it is

00:00:44.500 profit and hard to say no yeah you're basically earning millions of dollars to accept mostly male

00:00:51.480 uh between the age of 14 and 26 afghan boys afghan males wow now this village has about

00:01:00.760 350 people would you like to know more okay hello everyone i'm so excited for this

00:01:06.780 we'll say more off the record episode in which we interview david lorenson about his experience

00:01:12.200 with different cultural groups from the perspective of a hotel manager i will say that

00:01:18.340 when we have worked in the travel industry, we've been exposed to some really stark cultural

00:01:24.320 differences, even just from like working in different parts of the world. Um, and definitely

00:01:28.860 from working with different groups as, as travelers, it's kind of amazing. I think we're

00:01:33.920 mostly raised to believe that everyone's kind of the same. Everyone does the same thing. We all

00:01:37.360 like get up and we eat breakfast and it's all the same. Like, and it's a broadly like cereal and

00:01:41.720 croissants and fruit. Um, and like, we don't realize that people actually live very different

00:01:45.400 lives, have very different habits. And that becomes very clear when you get to see a sampling

00:01:50.500 of people go through a specific pace. David Lorenzen is able to speak to this. He's going

00:01:55.660 to explain to us why. And then we're just going to, I would love to dive into some things that

00:02:00.020 you've observed about different behavioral patterns or habits you've noticed from different

00:02:04.740 groups that you've been exposed to through the nature of some of your work. Yeah. So about 13

00:02:10.220 years ago my family decided to buy a hotel that was for sale and we had never ever done anything

00:02:17.520 like this we my parents were from the tech industry basically oh wow we wanted to change

00:02:21.820 uh in lifestyle something healthier than sitting in an office all day and we bought it when i was

00:02:27.680 18 years old so for my entire adult life i've had i've been deeply involved with running hotels in

00:02:35.140 the tourism industry and i'm a hotel and i'm a hotel manager and the reason i can talk about

00:02:40.420 this is because it's a family-owned business and they can't fire me so i got freedom of speech

00:02:45.080 that helps so and i do have to say that you know 90 of all our guests in sweden here are

00:02:54.260 let's say germanic people germans austrians dutch scandinavians they are wonderful people

00:03:00.480 they do incredible they really do set the standard with like i i get happy when whenever

00:03:06.360 i see that they cleaned after themselves to make all the jobs easier which simone does and i get

00:03:11.820 so mad at her he gets super mad i'm like stripping the sheets i'm trying to clean up i'm putting all

00:03:16.060 the towels in a like folded pile and he's like what are you doing i'm just being correct malcolm

00:03:21.240 yes you're being correct and i do the same thing because i i want to be nice to the cleaners yes

00:03:26.340 and but but uh as we were talking to each other and says it says okay i'm having a really busy

00:03:34.240 time now we have to reschedule and so on you started mentioning i hope the guests are good

00:03:39.140 to you so like yep yeah we've had some bad people too and i started mentioning that the worst groups

00:03:46.140 we've ever had the bottom three are russian oligarchs chinese tourist groups and indian

00:03:54.800 families which is a very strange group to bundle together and i'll go through which one do you want

00:04:02.560 to start with let's start what surprised me the most because chinese stories are kind of famous

00:04:08.460 for being nightmares and especially like certain generations of chinese tourists but what i've not

00:04:13.520 heard about is russian oligarchs ever being a problem you'd assume that they would just kind

00:04:17.820 of like breeze through and barely stay in the room or something what's going on there yeah so we had

00:04:24.540 of russian oligarchs a couple of times and the moment this has happened multiple times the moment

00:04:30.800 they come in they check in they check they see the room they're not happy with it they come back

00:04:36.560 and they try to bribe us it's like okay we're willing to pay triple the price to get your best

00:04:44.160 room i'm sorry sir the hotel is fully booked we're not going to kick out our guests so and they

00:04:50.360 insist upon it no no we we want we're paying triple now in cash and it's like okay no sir

00:04:56.620 we're not doing that then the next the next problem is that over and over again they party

00:05:03.740 hard in the room they shoot champagne bottles all over the place they regularly smoke cigarettes

00:05:11.520 and cigars in the room which they're not supposed to do we tell people that it's illegal to smoke

00:05:16.840 indoors so whenever we go into the room after they've checked out it's like oh my gosh it's a

00:05:23.560 terrible smell there's mess everywhere oh no and when you have that kind of cigarette smell in a

00:05:31.240 hotel room you can't give it out to the next guest for the next three days because you have to open

00:05:36.880 the windows you have to make sure that the air quality goes up again and you basically run into

00:05:42.180 this really serious problem that, okay, we're just now going to get really bad reviews because

00:05:47.360 we can't give people this room. We're going to have to say, no, we can't give you this room that

00:05:52.580 you booked. You're going to have to refund and get bad reviews as a result. So even if they were to

00:05:58.120 pay a whole lot of extra money for that service, the cost in the long run is repeatedly bad reviews

00:06:05.020 on booking.com on other websites um that you're basically yeah yeah exactly it's huge and we are

00:06:12.740 you know really high rating we care a lot about it so it just means that it's bad business to

00:06:18.420 deal with russian oligarchs and ever since the war in ukraine began we've not had them because

00:06:22.640 there's been a bunch of restrictions on these people that makes it very difficult for them to

00:06:28.660 move around in the eu uh compared to before so so they they like to i mean it must be a higher

00:06:35.980 end hotel if you're getting russian oligarchs coming um they they come to the your country

00:06:40.980 to what to party to do what like yeah why are they there are you in the countryside you're in

00:06:45.440 the city you don't have to name names or anything it's a middle stop so we are in a in a strategic

00:06:50.180 location where we are convenient middle stop for a lot of travelers so it doesn't have to be high

00:06:55.740 end luxury it just has to be the most convenient uh middle stop and that's how we encounter these

00:07:01.140 people so we've had you know the lotus club the ferrari club the amphibious boat car club and

00:07:09.600 wait wait wait people wait club oh yeah oh yeah yeah there was a bunch of amphibious boat a car

00:07:16.000 club that came to our hotel from across the lake oh so they like we have a beach across the lake

00:07:23.060 Yeah, they drove up on the beach.

00:07:25.280 That must have been really fun to see.

00:07:27.760 Yeah, that was awesome.

00:07:28.660 That was absolutely awesome.

00:07:30.580 It's like, yeah.

00:07:31.880 So we've had a bunch of these various really cool car clubs

00:07:36.500 that has billionaires and millionaires in them.

00:07:39.260 So, but I do have to say that the rich people in the West,

00:07:42.960 you know, they behave really nice.

00:07:44.200 They behave really well.

00:07:44.900 It's just this particular group that seems to think

00:07:47.800 that once you have a sufficient amount of money,

00:07:50.620 ethics and being nice no longer really relevant anymore like you can just pay to be an asshole

00:07:59.040 and it's fine yeah but like yeah i guess no money no amount of money really makes up for the fact

00:08:03.700 that you will have to take cleaning fluid to walls and like scrub the sticky champagne off of them

00:08:11.140 like that if you're paying somebody else to do that simone still fucks for that person getting

00:08:17.280 paid to do i guess unless they wouldn't yeah but also the bookings right before that because we

00:08:21.540 have back-to-back bookings yeah so if you if you can't clean the room fast you're in trouble

00:08:27.480 so yeah so that's the reason why i say okay all russian oligarchs um not good for business yeah

00:08:35.500 give them the worst room give them like the utility closet and be like oh i'm sorry there

00:08:40.500 was a mistake with your booking yeah but you know regular russians are fine you know because they

00:08:45.380 can't afford to behave like this okay that's very interesting okay all right so russian oligarchs

00:08:51.200 yikes yes okay chinese tourists are these so first off because what what we've heard is that there's

00:08:58.000 this like particular generation of like older chinese tourists who grew up at a certain time

00:09:04.660 in communist china where they were just sort of given like carte blanche to be terrible people

00:09:09.280 who then like are famous for going on like boat trips they don't know how to swim they're told

00:09:14.560 not to get off the boat they jump off the boat they drown like that kind of level of pathologically

00:09:19.500 insane and that it's mostly that type of tourist but are you seeing also younger people being

00:09:24.040 problem hotel stayers or i don't know what have you seen with chinese tourists so here's a i have

00:09:29.840 to make a very clear distinction we we need to emphasize it's specifically chinese tourist groups

00:09:35.780 through these companies because the the kind of people the kind of chinese people that use these

00:09:41.400 tourist groups are those that don't speak English. So if, for example, a couple, a Chinese couple

00:09:48.080 were to travel on their own, then it's basically guaranteed that they know English. And if they

00:09:54.040 have studied English, on those English studies, you also learn about Western ethics, Western

00:10:00.380 etiquette. That's just a part of learning the language in English is that you learn about how

00:10:05.640 Western societies work. Now, if you have never studied English, you haven't even studied Western

00:10:11.100 etiquette oh and so this allows you i mean maybe through very uncomfortable means to understand

00:10:17.260 what the default etiquette is in china because yes most of us don't know chinese etiquette we

00:10:23.280 haven't traveled like into the deep rural links of of china where that exists right yes what are

00:10:30.200 you seeing so we we basically the our entire uh tourist region basically after a couple of years

00:10:39.080 said no to any tourist group that is organized from china and like you just met in your like

00:10:45.240 hotel club meeting and we're like these guys we're not doing this no no it was all independently

00:10:49.880 done because everyone had bad experiences there was no there was no essential communication on

00:10:55.400 this it was it just happened naturally so what happened is that with these chinese tourist groups

00:11:00.680 is that okay when they check in none of them speak english you can't communicate with them

00:11:06.200 so you can't tell them instructions you can't tell them it all has to go through the mediator

00:11:10.600 the translator so basically it becomes like herd mentality and the first thing that they started

00:11:17.080 asking for do you have rice it's like no this is you came this you came all this way to sweden

00:11:24.200 to eat rice it's like no we don't have rice so like okay and hours later we start noticing that

00:11:32.520 our metal pots are going missing and then we realized that they have stolen the pots

00:11:42.020 to boil rice on the floor in the hotel rooms

00:11:45.540 wait where are they getting heat sources to boil the rice they had the they had the other things

00:11:53.500 besides the pot so they had they're bringing like the hot pot like base yeah yeah they're having

00:11:59.200 in like a a cooker plate or something like or something like that but they bring plates yes

00:12:04.480 and then they we noticed that our metal pots and kettles went missing in other kitchen equipment

00:12:12.160 and they and we realized that breakfast and lunch and dinner was surprisingly thin like there's not

00:12:20.240 not all of them are here they're not showing up for the the included meals yeah yeah so imagine

00:12:25.820 like oh uh they're supposed to be 40 now there are only 30 of them so like where's the other 10

00:12:31.040 um and what we realized is that oh we found eventually found uh some of the pots in the

00:12:39.540 hotel rooms after they checked out so like oh and then we see in the pot that they have boiled rice

00:12:45.220 in it because it can get stuck it leaves yeah yeah yeah yeah so really also that's why they

00:12:49.980 didn't eat our food they were just buying rice and they were boiling rice on the floor in the

00:12:55.440 rooms somewhere some some preferred noodles um and what we noticed is that when they were eating

00:13:04.140 in the restaurant then they because they were the majority in the restaurant the big majority

00:13:09.780 they started behaving like they do in china and they started loudly uh farting and oh no

00:13:18.580 yeah yeah barfing like you know uh out of the throat you know um on purpose yeah just openly

00:13:28.320 farting and uh barfing through the mouth in the restaurant just repeatedly over and over again

00:13:35.860 um apparently it's more socially acceptable in china to just while you're eating not hold it in

00:13:44.860 and it was causing problems and disturbances for the rest of the guests presumably yeah

00:13:53.180 feeling like this is this is deeply uncomfortable to hear this group of 30 chinese people

00:13:59.580 all starting the starting the trumpets let's just call that's why well i mean dude they're

00:14:07.460 turning to rice because something is not working with their digestive tracts about europe it is

00:14:12.380 which actually makes a lot of sense i mean there's a lot of lactose intolerance in china right so

00:14:17.100 now speaking of lactose intolerance they were buying the pastries they were buying oh okay i

00:14:22.220 would think so yeah for the pictures they they took pictures of eating it then they threw it out

00:14:31.580 so they didn't even digest the pastries and the various lactose uh desserts and meals they just

00:14:39.340 liked the it seems like the main thing that they were concerned about with these with these kind

00:14:45.280 of trips is to take the best pictures possible and the actual experience of doing something

00:14:51.080 didn't really matter because all of the joy was in telling the about the experience once you have

00:14:57.260 returned home the status of having had the experience not the experience itself yes and

00:15:03.100 we noticed this because we have a beach we have kayaks and canoes and my brother yeah and my

00:15:09.800 brother is like the kayak instructor and he's supposed to be also their guide out in the water

00:15:14.880 and he got insulted and felt you know like he didn't really matter because all they wanted

00:15:21.160 was to go a little bit out in the water have the picture taken and then come back in oh

00:15:26.540 oh so they didn't actually want the experience they were afraid of the water too they're buying

00:15:31.980 the food they're not eating the food they're getting in the kayak they're not staying in the

00:15:35.900 kayak yes i mean i i love that it is the in state of influencer world influencer world eventually

00:15:42.840 realizing that you don't actually like going to a beach that no yeah in a sense it's like really

00:15:47.300 based because they're like look i'm not having fun i don't want the food you're not having fun

00:15:52.540 i just want to stay inside and play video games and watch chinese movies chinese movies right like

00:15:56.740 i'm not i'm not actually interested i need rice yeah i just want to stay aside and boil rice

00:16:01.740 yeah so much of travel is actually that without the baseness this this gives me a degree of

00:16:08.480 respect because of the number of people i don't believe that many people actually like be like

00:16:11.820 beaches beaches are incredibly boring um uh like the the people who think like having lived on

00:16:19.200 beaches for a large part there's just not that much to do at the beach um and it a lot of it

00:16:24.800 is gross and sandy and or requires a huge amount of time like scuba diving um you know uh so i i

00:16:32.620 think a lot of travel is just it's just that it's just in china they they just cut out all the rest

00:16:39.200 well they they don't care about performatively enjoying it whereas i think that what we've seen

00:16:45.380 more in our social circles is that you have to like pretend to like it that like it's not a

00:16:51.780 complete performance if you've not been like i just had the best time and like we're gonna sit

00:16:57.480 through this 12-hour tour and we're gonna enjoy every moment and pay rapt attention and and look

00:17:03.640 at every single museum plaque and and i feel like that is an even more punishing version of

00:17:08.780 performative travel than this chinese version i kind of like that they're like look this is gonna

00:17:12.940 suck okay we're gonna like walk to the top of everest it's we're gonna vomit we're gonna fart

00:17:17.920 we're gonna we're gonna like lose brain cells but like we're getting to the top they're doing

00:17:22.400 it the right way they don't go to the top of everest they just go to everest take a few

00:17:27.320 pictures and then they say uh i was at the top make a little ai image you know you have this

00:17:33.160 stereotype with like these older asian guys and women with this funny bag in the front with a

00:17:39.560 camera in it like this kind of old school camera yeah yeah so you know it was it wasn't even for

00:17:45.580 social media it was just for these you know paper pictures right yeah so that they were just not

00:17:53.880 there for the actual experience the experience that they enjoy was telling it talking about it

00:17:58.960 at home so i love that it's not even for social media it's to show off to other people people

00:18:05.600 in their stupid social circles that don't matter at all yeah yeah yeah you know if if you were you

00:18:12.880 know 10 years ago in your 50s you were not having instagram or social media or whatever alibaba

00:18:19.060 whatever they have in back in china so you know most it's just when this specific combination

00:18:26.100 happens when you have a bunch of people that have not learned english and as a result not even

00:18:31.100 studied western etiquette they come in this tourist group where you can't even communicate

00:18:38.580 with them we were trying to hold these people accountable who stole the pots and you can't even

00:18:44.580 talk to them they don't understand what you're saying yeah so you need a like an asian mediator

00:18:49.600 and the mediator didn't feel like he was cooperating at all with us letting them get away

00:18:56.580 with it so you just realize okay for us too this is ruining the experience for the rest of our

00:19:04.020 guest for us we are we don't want to be inauthentic we want to be the authentic place where you come

00:19:10.620 for the experience and not the photos so what all all of the hotels in our area did was that okay

00:19:17.420 we're not doing business with chinese tourist group now chinese can still come we're not

00:19:21.080 discriminating in that sense just not these companies just not the tour buses yet you're

00:19:25.020 not going to take you're not going to work with a tour operator uh and yes exactly because that's

00:19:30.540 that's when you get the chinese people that don't speak english yeah that's so interesting

00:19:37.240 because also the thing is is i i traveled in rural china a little bit and i went to a like

00:19:44.460 tourist trap destination in uh like more rural china outside changsha there was this national

00:19:51.760 forest park called zang jiajie that looks like what's that movie with avatar it looks like that

00:19:58.500 like with these craggy mountains um and it did bring in droves of um chinese buses tour buses

00:20:05.900 and i stayed in like a chinese uh hotel resort when i was there and i'm trying to think of like

00:20:12.660 how how does it work there for them i mean i think the big thing is that it's it's food they're

00:20:18.380 familiar with that they're eating and also in the actual forest park itself they had it set up

00:20:23.780 set up such that you could just take a lot of instagram photos but not actually walk into the

00:20:28.100 park so you could get the full like everything in while never really we saw this in korea that

00:20:34.840 gets a lot of chinese tourists do you remember in korea where there was like there was like the

00:20:40.160 arboretum we went to with the chinese people and they had all those places for like pictures for

00:20:44.600 like instagram and stuff yeah it was just yes like a line from like one photo location to another

00:20:51.620 photo location that's the way to be a good tourist destination you need to like be walking distance

00:20:57.120 from the parking lot have all the photo ops right there lots of of of actively like friendly like

00:21:03.760 familiar chinese food and then and like actual legit chinese food and then like just also in

00:21:11.680 cambridge so in cambridge there's this famous bridge that's in this poem that everyone's like

00:21:15.900 forced to learn in primary school in china right right everyone wants to see it when they go but

00:21:21.600 what's interesting is that as a student student when i was studying in cambridge i almost never

00:21:26.400 saw the chinese tourists and that's because they never stayed in cambridge they just went to that

00:21:31.900 one freaking bridge like got off the bus walked to the bridge got back on and like literally saw

00:21:37.620 nothing else of this historic city and it's amazing like libraries and sites exactly else

00:21:43.540 and i think that's the key thing so like i but i like it it's kind of based like i i haven't gone

00:21:50.340 on like all these really performative trips where like we we we got the the shot but then we kept

00:21:56.240 going it was like it was like having a being an actor and like being on set but no one's filming

00:22:02.240 and they're like keep acting keep going and you're like but wait you're not paying me anymore

00:22:05.840 and no one's filming anything and i feel like they're like cameras off great like let's get

00:22:10.920 out of here this sucks but like let's you know i'm hungry and i want to eat something that's not

00:22:15.680 gross european i get it i get it yeah yeah now the third group on my list

00:22:26.080 are Indian specific some specific Indian families we've had a couple of them where okay they come

00:22:33.560 they check in and they book let's say two double bedrooms so they okay that okay then there are

00:22:39.020 four people right yeah but their vehicle is huge and we notice okay they're having a great time

00:22:46.600 they're eating dinner but then some of our workers says like there is more Indians coming from the

00:22:53.980 car into the hotel and back out again and the locals were reporting that hey there's a bunch

00:22:59.900 of indian like people squatting on the side of the road out here like young people squatting

00:23:06.240 like indians squatting on the side of the road in the middle of sweden in a tiny homogenous village

00:23:10.500 physically squatting yeah yeah you're like just hanging out sitting on the side of the road just

00:23:15.820 doing nothing and we were and we were beginning to put all of the pieces together and realize

00:23:23.600 wait a minute this is not a family of four people this is a family of 12 and they're only paying for

00:23:31.140 four and then the rest are sleeping on the floor in the bedroom

00:23:36.220 and we've had this happen multiple times so i mean talk about

00:23:44.900 the the parents and one of their oldest sons and some other is enjoying a lovely time in the

00:23:52.500 restaurant eating hamburger so wait no one else like so they're they're really trying to keep up

00:23:57.220 the artifice they're like no we're four oh yes we're four so like you're you're four people and

00:24:02.460 they're enjoying a lovely time in the restaurant eating dinner and the rest of their kids are

00:24:07.140 squatting on the side of the road out there living on the streets and i realized like oh my gosh

00:24:14.460 talk about indian dad of the year award well but they still got to go to sweden which exactly this

00:24:21.740 is this is the funny joke i mean you're giving them two indian life lessons not only do the

00:24:27.200 kids learn young how to scam and get a lower price but you're also teaching them how to live

00:24:32.480 on the streets in any environment the streets of sweden unless in winter i don't know i like

00:24:39.640 the frugality i think that's that's uh you know i don't really as a family that's gonna have like

00:24:45.520 12 kids so many like hotels are gonna be like oh we only take x many we only take y many so we'll

00:24:51.420 just send the rest of you on the streets yeah you're giving us ideas david oh my gosh yeah and

00:24:57.520 i remember when we did that region the food was so stupidly expensive like everything with us

00:25:04.180 i was like i guess i'll get something from like a food vendor outside was no we bought like we

00:25:08.740 bought hot dogs one day and we're like well that's that's all we're gonna be able to afford

00:25:13.140 that's 12 bucks i remember it's 12 bucks for the hot dog even back then yeah and i have witnessed

00:25:18.120 this exact same behavior in barcelona as well with the buses so the parents would go in the

00:25:26.240 front go and distract the bus driver and there's usually a back door that you usually exit out of

00:25:31.620 oh and just get their kids on free and then the eight kids proceed to get into the bus through

00:25:37.500 through that back door while the indian parents are distracting the driver and said yeah we're

00:25:41.900 paying two people but they're actually like 10 poor kids so then again they're traveling

00:25:49.160 yes again you get to experience europe for a low price it's like i mean imagine being the

00:25:54.740 indian parents it's like kids we're going on vacation to europe very pro natalist they're

00:26:00.220 having lots of kids they're making it affordable they're making it also like i can't i cannot

00:26:04.900 travel to india because i cannot deal with like the poverty on the streets the like the just the

00:26:11.500 the it's rough and so you don't know necessarily like where they're coming from like it could be

00:26:17.880 that like they are hanging out outside at the side of the road anyway on any given night but

00:26:24.540 like your side of the road has the view of the lake and the kayaks and it's really pretty and

00:26:29.060 like although i don't know how they're affording food i couldn't afford food in sweden like we're

00:26:34.860 saving up for when we're like rich and then we'll go to sweden again um i mean you're welcome to

00:26:41.100 say we have um it sounds like a really nice as everyone can see from this video we're the worst

00:26:46.140 at being racist like we hear racial stereotypes and we're like well you know that actually makes

00:26:50.340 sense in context like that's probably a good way to save money i'd probably do that too you know

00:26:56.140 what i find to be interesting though is like i i'm not i don't think any of this is racist or biased

00:27:00.720 i think that like it's interesting to learn how different cultures travel differently and also

00:27:06.820 what you can learn about the the group dynamics because as david has pointed out it's not all

00:27:11.640 russians it's russian oligarchs it's not all chinese it's these specific chinese tour buses

00:27:17.180 of people they're clearly like tour operators that specialize in ultra low cost um trips for

00:27:23.420 chinese people who have zero hold on not ultra low cost because they're choosing his hotel which

00:27:28.880 doesn't seem to be one of the cheaper ones it seems to be ultra processed yeah like yeah ultra

00:27:34.460 processed ultra processed tour operators who are like we will sugarcoat the entire thing and actually

00:27:39.960 it's the white bread of travel they want the white bread and only the white bread of travel the most

00:27:45.160 processed well no we've worked with those tour operators that do the same thing thing for people

00:27:50.260 living in peru and columbia etc where it's like it's europe but you'll never have to speak any

00:27:56.320 other language but spanish it's gonna be fine we're only gonna see like exactly these highlights

00:28:01.140 and and you you will never need to like walk more than 15 feet at a time and like that kind of thing

00:28:06.840 yeah and that appeals to a certain type but it's like that format and that that's such an interesting

00:28:11.300 thing and then the same with like look it's not like an indian couple traveling or something or

00:28:16.400 like but specifically like this format of indian travel with families that i've never heard of

00:28:22.240 before like we haven't encountered that well actually maybe we have so here's the thing david

00:28:27.660 So when we ran, we're CEOs of the travel business that we had acquired earlier through like a different time in our careers.

00:28:35.180 The worst scamming we were ever subject to was from Indian travel agencies that worked under ours.

00:28:42.740 Like we were a host agency and they would buy travel through us.

00:28:45.540 And we got super screwed over a couple of times.

00:28:49.800 And the reason it always was, was that there would be chargebacks, credit card chargebacks, that someone would book a crap ton of flights.

00:28:57.140 And then sometimes even go on the flights and then they would charge like they'd say, oh, that was credit card fraud. And I wonder if like, who knows, you know, like one family that sent their sent their, you know, group of like their family of 12 to Sweden used our business and then submitted credit card chargebacks.

00:29:18.520 and like they're they're booking at your hotel and they're like look we're four people and there's

00:29:24.260 12 of them and they booked through our website and they're like look I will pay you and they

00:29:29.180 never pay us um and I do wonder like if what we noticed at least on our part was this clustered

00:29:35.540 around family groups um and it could just be that there are specific sub communities like this isn't

00:29:40.260 all of India but like there are very small groups that realize like oh there's this one small trick

00:29:46.620 and if i do it exactly this way i can actually get a ton of money or a vacation to europe but

00:29:53.940 like basically functionally not pay for it uh and i i wonder about that it's very interesting

00:29:59.160 i feel like in terms of innovation in fraud there are some great minds at work in india um innovation

00:30:08.600 in fraud well i mean they start teaching them young as i've shown with these examples so

00:30:14.960 and yeah well if you're exposed to it you normalize to it yeah if you normalize to it

00:30:19.820 if like this is this is how we get on a bus right like i i describe like you're not going to be like

00:30:24.800 oh that's wrong you're going to be like that's how it works you have to distract that's how you

00:30:28.740 save money thing yeah and and that's i think that's very interesting and it's it's um look

00:30:34.300 i mean it if it works it works and you have to develop a system that's smarter than that like

00:30:38.760 when when our kids pull something over on me i never blame them i blame myself like i shouldn't

00:30:44.040 have left that delicate thing on a table within reach of their grubby little hands because it was

00:30:49.720 my fault now that it's all broken on the floor because you don't leave it out um but it sucks

00:30:54.240 that in high trust societies that has to happen now because presumably you know sweden was nice

00:31:01.660 once there's you mentioned something hold on though that like yes yes there are retraining

00:31:06.140 communities yeah tell tell us about these david so i mean living this hotel life is it's incredible

00:31:12.420 and it's a healthy lifestyle it's a good lifestyle decent but it's very difficult to make a profit

00:31:18.980 and we've had offers to earn millions and millions of dollars but to turn the hotel into something

00:31:26.700 very very different um an asylum center so for like legal asylum seekers from other countries

00:31:34.620 Yeah, yeah. So back in 2015, I was a whistleblower for Stefan Molyneux's YouTube channel, where I broke information about the multi-million dollar refugee industry in Sweden at the time.

00:31:49.620 Wow.

00:31:50.620 and where I basically shared the story of about what what actually happens when the Swedish I

00:31:59.220 think it's called emergency service in English a rescue service they gave us a phone call and they

00:32:04.700 said that would you like to house 30 Afghans and you'll get paid at the time at that time about

00:32:14.200 320 dollars per night per child and do that year round now he received 30 of them okay that's like

00:32:24.260 what 90 000 a day crazy yeah it turns it it basically your most profitable day becomes

00:32:33.080 every day of the year yeah and most of it is profit and hard to say no yeah you're basically

00:32:39.680 earning millions of dollars to accept mostly male uh between the age of 14 and 26 afghan boys

00:32:47.660 afghan males wow now this village has about 350 people if that if they were to receive

00:32:57.100 suddenly 30 afghans that would be a huge demographic shift and we would not be able

00:33:02.700 to run a hotel at the same time and at the at during that time we were trying to sell the hotel

00:33:12.500 as well and we had these crazy offers basically triple the value that oh because they knew and

00:33:20.000 they were like look i want to do this okay and there was a whole mania around buying hotels

00:33:25.540 at the time because everyone had heard about these crazy offers from the government that you can earn

00:33:31.440 millions of dollars housing these refugees and so when we were trying to sell the hotel for let's

00:33:37.880 say a million dollars we had literally russian mafia boss drive his lamborghini all the way

00:33:44.380 from stockholm all the way to here it's a three-hour drive come here offer three million

00:33:49.880 dollars triple the value and then we ask him okay what are you going to do with it i mean we're

00:33:55.120 going to turn it into asylum center we're going to accept that deal so i'm sorry no we can't do

00:34:01.240 that we're only going to sell it to people who act to people who actually want to run a hotel

00:34:05.520 want to run a restaurant which is very difficult to find the right people you you can't just

00:34:12.360 i want to be honest whoever you want i would have sold out my community for a few million dollars

00:34:17.380 oh my god a few million dollars oh my god um i would have been like david we're super lucky

00:34:23.420 that you're running this hotel with your family i and this is something i noticed with um when i

00:34:29.140 read because this at 11 years ago that video received 100 000 views and as i was reading

00:34:35.100 through these anarcho-capitalist americans youtube comments most of them thought i we did wrong we

00:34:41.640 should have accepted the deal and i was like oh my gosh shocked because i realized oh yeah that's

00:34:49.260 because americans because you move around so much you don't form these centuries long communities

00:34:56.160 like we do in europe oh yeah yeah i wouldn't have thought i'd just like go to another community

00:35:00.120 that's not fucked up with all your money now you know you've got money now so you can live in

00:35:04.820 another small town it's really nice all our friends live here family live here you know if

00:35:11.140 what happened is that when we received that phone call um like a few months later our insurance

00:35:16.720 company called us and asked if we have accepted this deal we had no idea how they found out about

00:35:23.880 it but somehow rumors came and they said if you accept this deal we're gonna withdraw your

00:35:30.220 insurance because the risk of an asylum center burning down at the time was so high

00:35:36.700 that nobody wanted because when you have a bunch of afghans move into an area the property value

00:35:46.020 of everyone living in the vicinity of that goes down to zero and the crime goes up and there's

00:35:51.800 no police station nearby there's no police patrols nearby and there's literally no no schools no

00:35:56.820 education because it's a very it's a small village like there's no yeah there's no actual

00:36:02.040 infrastructure or uh services nearby so you're just going to have a roaming gang of afghans

00:36:08.380 in a small village right so they have nothing to do they don't have jobs there aren't job

00:36:12.440 opportunities really yes yes and also the industry there is hurting because the the tourists who

00:36:17.540 otherwise would be staying there and supporting local restaurants and creating local jobs aren't

00:36:21.460 there because the boys are there why then why would the government send people there it seems

00:36:28.360 like this yes so this is a story of two strategies on how to integrate people so one strategy is that

00:36:39.060 you try to spread out all the new immigrants as thinly as possible because then thinly as possible

00:36:44.060 because then you don't notice it as much if they start clustering they form ghettos they form

00:36:48.180 segregation they start forming gangs right so to break that build up you ideally want to try to

00:36:56.560 spread them out all across the country then you won't really notice that they can't form gangs

00:37:01.200 right well yeah you kind of we were just talking uh in a previous episode about denmark's policy

00:37:06.220 to sort of bust up uh slums or ghettos and immigrant ghettos and i guess sure it you can't

00:37:15.140 see it if there aren't immigrant ghettos it doesn't seem as bad but i guess this is the

00:37:19.320 counterpoint of that is this is what happens when you bust up the immigrant ghettos but don't

00:37:23.960 actually deport you shouldn't allow immigrants at all if you break a crime you're out or sorry

00:37:30.940 if you yeah if you break up the law you're out yeah yeah and but the problem with trying to

00:37:36.100 spread people out is that uh it becomes more difficult to integrate them because they need

00:37:41.980 translators for example and you maybe only have a few thousand translators across the country

00:37:47.060 so if you're spreading out everyone then your translation cost goes through the roof

00:37:51.820 and won't even reach these people they don't speak english they don't speak swedish or any

00:37:56.460 european language so you run into these various extreme costs with that okay they're getting

00:38:01.800 isolated and they're having struggling integrating they're becoming anti-social instead and how can

00:38:08.060 they not honestly like it's not a them thing i i would do the same thing if i were a kid isolated

00:38:14.780 with a bunch of other kids my age not a way who normally humans live right without their parents

00:38:20.300 without yeah and you're probably deeply traumatized and have some yeah serious cultural uh differences

00:38:26.300 i mean who among us would not turn to a life of crime yeah instance but for your integration to

00:38:33.840 be efficient you have to start concentrating people into areas where you can be more efficient

00:38:40.180 with your human resources so that your translators can translate for a whole group of them yeah and

00:38:46.040 that's when you come to these sort of mini sweden integration facilities where wait so they are

00:38:53.420 starting to do this they are starting to concentrate they basically have both uh tools

00:38:57.620 in the toolkit so they really what's happened is that they realize okay for some immigrant groups

00:39:04.420 it makes sense to spread them out and put them out in the country for example ukrainians you know

00:39:09.740 they know how to use technology they know how to use some european languages and english and they

00:39:15.100 maybe have some profession or skill that is actually useful for the job market so spreading

00:39:19.860 them out into the country actually works because they have some of the self-discipline yeah they

00:39:25.100 integrate they can get jobs yeah yeah in fact i think most people i've we've worked with ukrainians

00:39:30.740 we've talked with yeah it's weirdly like i think ukrainians are quite global too so that helps yes

00:39:35.420 but you have so so that actually works that strategy but what doesn't work is for example

00:39:41.680 with somalians or afghans where you know they don't maybe not have any schooling at all

00:39:46.920 and you don't they don't have a common language they don't even know how to uh use how to be a

00:39:55.200 swede and swede how to be western in a western society now sweden is you know more automated and

00:40:02.380 more advanced than the u.s like we have had a cashless societies for decades now we don't we

00:40:08.300 don't have cashiers we have you know you you register the product yourself right and we've

00:40:15.420 had you know articles and incidents where for example african migrants start a fire on the

00:40:23.200 floor because they were desperately hungry and then the fire alarm in the whole apartment goes

00:40:27.620 because they didn't know how to use a what is called semen's or electrolysis looks oven with

00:40:33.540 the digital display they didn't know how to use the oven so they started with firewood on the

00:40:39.640 floor in the apartment oh my god i've so been there this is so sad but we've stayed in some

00:40:45.860 luxury hotels like when we were guests of other people of other people where the microwave is so

00:40:50.840 advanced that i'm basically there man i'm like i don't know how to work this thing i so i can

00:40:56.320 relate to that actually like if you haven't been around certain appliances and you do not know how

00:41:00.640 they work you're like i'm out of i'm out of options malcolm you know that kind of microwave

00:41:05.620 I'm talking about right like the drawer microwave it took me a while to figure those out so basically

00:41:10.840 you realize that with some groups who have not had much exposure to the western way of life

00:41:16.700 any exposure any exposure they need to learn and study how to buy food in a grocery shop

00:41:24.920 with no cashier with no cash yeah they need to study how to use yeah they need to study how to

00:41:30.500 use on a digital oven in a microwave yeah they need to study how to swim because they've lived

00:41:36.500 in the desert the whole life they need to study these various basic things there are some groups

00:41:43.160 where whether or not they live in a desert they almost never learn to swim yeah yeah but you know

00:41:48.000 sweden has a hundred thousand lakes so you know there's water yeah so there's water everywhere

00:41:54.660 there's water all over the u.s and there's some groups that don't know how to swim

00:41:58.000 but it but um it basically meant that okay for for people to even some people to even function

00:42:04.780 in a western society you basically have to teach them from you go through these various steps but

00:42:10.300 when you do that they form gangs they start clustering amongst each other and it's basically

00:42:16.980 like a tutorial mission at the start of a game yeah you have to complete the tutorial before you

00:42:22.920 can actually play the game that's basically what these mini sweden facilities are to these people

00:42:29.380 like you you have to learn the various mechanics of the society so do people like go is it basically

00:42:36.340 like school like you you show up in the town you go through the training but then you like move on

00:42:42.420 to live and work wherever yeah yeah so um in in in this area that i've studied and looked at

00:42:48.260 like okay so they have you know the the grocery store that they regularly go to tours with and

00:42:54.580 they guide them through the shop to show okay this is how it works they have a swimming

00:42:58.860 they have a swimming pool in the school for these purposes they have a huge room for uh ovens where

00:43:06.860 they learn how to cook basically they have created a whole building where they can concentrate all

00:43:12.940 of these essential aspects to basically give them a crash course on how to be western

00:43:17.700 but when you do that and then you say okay congratulations you you you now know how to

00:43:23.020 function you now have the freedom to move out there are so many people in america that need

00:43:27.780 this school like i just kind of feel like we all not we all but like societally speaking

00:43:33.880 nearly every country regardless of the presence of migrants needs like this because to malcolm's

00:43:41.060 point a lot of my friends in high school like all the way up to adulthood never learned how to swim

00:43:45.700 yeah also never learned how to do their own laundry or cook meals like this actually sounds

00:43:51.840 amazing but also not just migrants but for like normal no like for actual like naturally born

00:43:57.380 people people um i that's it was just kind of sad like it's it's telling that like in in sweden

00:44:05.240 where you're like look society's falling apart people are like building fires on like the floors

00:44:10.020 of their hotel rooms i'm like dude relatable that happened in my dorm room freshman year like

00:44:15.740 no and literally it was very common for the fire alarms to go off in the middle of the night because

00:44:19.860 like some kid was literally burning something in the room yeah but when you do that okay you've

00:44:25.300 completed your crash course yes and then you get the freedom to move wherever you want in sweden

00:44:30.540 they basically talk amongst each other okay i don't know where to go and then they go look over

00:44:36.680 and then okay where are you going oh god of course no oh the integration is failed and then they all

00:44:43.220 cluster they all moved to these migrant areas where there's more of a community right like if

00:44:47.700 you were suddenly sent to afghanistan and sent to afghanistan culture school and like you'd like

00:44:52.480 turn to the the suite right next to you and you'd be like where are you going buddy yeah you're going

00:44:58.980 there too so this basically means that the level of segregation in this country is like jim jim

00:45:06.320 crow level yeah but totally like despite all efforts to the contrary yeah yeah and it's just

00:45:15.180 has to do with okay how do you integrate people that don't know how to function yeah you just have

00:45:19.100 to cluster them all together to be together to be efficient with your resources that you have

00:45:23.420 like you only have an x amount of translators if you and yeah even the education system do that

00:45:30.940 even if you do that it doesn't it doesn't work so yeah you just have to pick your poison you just

00:45:37.000 have to pick your poison on how to integrate people that are so far from it it's basically

00:45:41.560 a different planet sweden is a different planet to these people that's how it's past five so okay

00:45:48.080 yeah so yeah that's that is a a tale of two different strategies on how to integrate people

00:45:54.920 for some it makes sense it makes sense to just spread them out because because they can handle

00:46:00.920 the self-discipline they it's close enough for them to make that jump for some the jump is so

00:46:06.480 high and so difficult that they need a helping hand and a crash course in a tutorial and

00:46:13.120 what the problem is that you just don't you just have to pick your problem with how to integrate

00:46:19.780 afghans you're not going to get them integrated you're just going to have a disintegration and

00:46:24.680 You just have to choose which version of it.

00:46:27.140 Yeah, which I guess is why so many countries are now like,

00:46:30.840 you know what, we're just not going to do this.

00:46:33.340 I mean, 10% of the Swedish population can't read.

00:46:38.260 Yeah.

00:46:39.580 Literally can't read.

00:46:40.760 Like a quarter of the children,

00:46:44.460 there was a study a few years ago,

00:46:45.900 a quarter of the children in Swedish schools can't read.

00:46:49.060 Literally can't read.

00:46:50.460 Is this like the native-born ones or mostly the migrants?

00:46:53.180 None of the, it's the migrants because they didn't have a translator. If you're putting a 15 year old and never gone to school together with 15 year old Swedes that are learning algebra and geometry.

00:47:03.460 Oh God, that sucks.

00:47:04.980 And they, and they don't speak English and they don't speak Swedish, then they're going to learn nothing.

00:47:10.100 Yeah.

00:47:10.620 And the only way for them to learn anything is if they start elementary in their own language, but we didn't do that. So we have basically a whole generation of immigrants that can't read, that literally can't read.

00:47:22.720 yeah so they're not they're not being set up for success and it looks like a lot of it just requires

00:47:28.360 actually confronting face-to-face really really really uncomfortable truths and the problem with

00:47:34.060 modern society is that we have a predominating society that that is like the number one thing

00:47:40.000 the one thing that we're not allowed to do is accept uncomfortable truths like everything else

00:47:45.640 is in sweden no reason to take some of what's why did somalian immigrants need to be in sweden

00:47:50.140 aren't there other african countries they could go to like they don't they don't accept them no

00:47:55.300 one like in the middle east they don't accept migrants right like this is the connection

00:47:58.860 strangely enough somalians just love going into scandinavian communities in minnesota

00:48:04.920 and in the nordic countries oh my god you're right oh my god you're right yes easy to scam

00:48:10.740 something there oh no uh anyway yeah good having you on uh this has been this has been really yeah

00:48:17.620 that was very fascinating there's so much more to say on this but um another time another time

00:48:23.580 i'm looking forward to it so one of these days we're gonna come out and crash what are we doing

00:48:27.580 for dinner um i had to cook rice on the floor um i i was gonna get rid of mozzarella i was gonna i

00:48:35.440 was gonna yeah do bulldog with the mozzarella okay that works for me yeah yeah yeah yeah all

00:48:40.700 right cool david it has been such a pleasure thank you so much for after a long work day coming to

00:48:45.460 um share some insider gossip with us it's been so top tier really loved it yeah um so good night

00:48:52.740 i was so flummoxed by your claims of empty movie theaters i think a lot of it malcolm honestly is

00:48:59.100 just people want to be somewhere air conditioned and look at a big screen there's that novelty

00:49:04.980 i can't believe imaxes are still a thing though honestly how is that possible anyway okay david

00:49:11.420 I'm recording now Indy are you gonna crawl inside it

Based Camp - August 17, 2026

Hotel Manager： How Different Ethnic Groups Use Hotels

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