Daniel del Olmo has been in the hotel business for nearly all his life.
The new CEO of Sage Hospitality Group, the real estate company that has been part of Lower Downtown’s largest developments in recent history, was born and raised in Belgium. His father worked at a hotel outside of Brussels and was promoted to corporate roles that had his family travel in del Olmo’s earlier years.
Now, he’s following in his father’s footsteps.
“I knew very early on that I wanted to travel the world and I turned, arguably, a hobby into a career,” he said in an interview with The Denver Gazette.
Last month, Sage Hospitality Group announced del Olmo will be the company’s third CEO in its 42-year history.
Former CEO Walter Isenberg — who oversaw the company when it brought The Crawford Hotel at Union Station to life, helped with McGregor’s Square development and transformed the Dairy Block — was named executive chairman of the board.
In a conversation with The Denver Gazette, del Olmo detailed how the company transformed after the pandemic, how it’s navigating a slowing travel market, downtown Denver’s recovery and even how he’s part of a rock band inside of the company — giving a peek into how he plans to run one of Denver’s most important real estate companies.
Before he joined Sage, del Olmo stayed at The Crawford Hotel with his now wife, who was amazed by the hotel built inside of Denver’s historic train station. It was one of the coolest places they ever stayed at, he recalled.
More than a week after their visit, a recruiter called del Olmo saying Sage Hospitality was looking for a new executive.
Inside the Crawford Hotel at Union Station in 2024 after its remodeling project. (Bernadette Berdychowski / The Denver Gazette)
He didn’t know it at the time, he said, but Sage was the same developer behind the hotel they stayed at. When he asked his wife if she was willing to move to Denver, he recalled her telling him “If it’s the company that is associated with Denver Union Station and the Crawford, you should absolutely talk to him.”
When he met Isenberg, del Olmo said they immediately clicked over their shared passion to run hotels based on creating the best experience and not the fastest profit. He joined in 2020, and not long after, the pandemic hit the hospitality industry hard.
Sage Hospitality Group had to furlough 91% of its nearly 6,000 workers, del Olmo recalled. The company’s revenues fell from $2.5 million to $25,000.
With Isenburg, del Olmo and a small group of staff met together at the office throughout the pandemic to discuss how to come back.
“That actually allowed us to really connect, collaborate, and make quick decisions,” he said. “What it allowed us was to sort of rebuild the company almost from the ground up.”
He now considers Isenburg one of his three mentors, following his father and former CEO of Wyndham Hotel Group Eric Danziger, where del Olmo worked for 11 years.
“What I take away from him (Isenburg) is that purpose is not a word or a slogan on the wall. It’s how you show up every single day,” del Olmo said.
Del Olmo said his ambition is to position Sage as the “most sought after experience company.”
But there are a flurry of challenges he’ll have to navigate in the current economy. The outlook for the hospitality industry showed stagnation heading into 2026 and now geopolitical tensions like the war on Iran will have an effect on gas prices, construction and, ultimately, travel.
“We are very cautious as it relates to top line growth, frankly not just for 2026, but for ‘27, considering the geopolitical environment is likely not going to get easier,” he said.
One of his main goals is to grow Sage’s market share as demand from consumers weakens, especially in the luxury market, he said.
“If the pie is not going to grow, the best thing you can do is continue to find a way to grab it from others,” he said.
Outside The Benson Hotel in Aurora (Courtesy photo, Sage Hospitality Group)
Over the last week, Sage Hospitality announced it took over operations for The Ben, an Autograph Collection luxury hotel in West Palm Beach, Fla. and The Benson Hotel & Faculty Club on the University of Colorado Anschutz medical campus in Aurora.
When asked about Denver’s Historic Brown Palace as a potential acquisition, del Olmo said the building has its “challenges.”
“It obviously needs a lot of investment. So whomever’s going to step in is not just buying the asset, but it’s going to have to be committing to a significant capital investment in order to really bring it up to the level that we believe it should be operating and delivering experiences at,” he said.
Downtown Denver, where Sage operates The Crawford Hotel, The Maven and The Oxford, is also still recovering from the pandemic — yet he’s optimistic about its future.
Del Olmo compared Denver’s market to a stool with three solid legs: it has business, travel and group demand. The fundamentals are “promising,” he said. But downtown Denver is still missing a few things. He said it needs to improve its cleanliness and safety and it’s still missing the vibrancy it had before the pandemic.
He commended Mayor Mike Johnston for helping to improve safety in downtown but there’s still a long way to go, he said.
And now that 16th Street has finished its yearlong reconstruction project, Del Olmo said he’d like to see more unique shops and restaurants fill in the spaces to make downtown come alive again for people to live in or visit.
Last summer, del Olmo said summer in downtown was weaker than expected. Though this year, he hopes it’ll be an improvement.
“We’re feeling better about what 2026 has to offer Denver, and we think summer’s going to be strong,” he said.
But as someone who has lived in many of the biggest cities in the world, he said Denver is a city that “punches above its weight” when it comes to value for residents and visitors.
Sage Hospitality’s new CEO Daniel del Olmo stands in front of Union Station. His company owns the Crawford hotel inside Union Station, and was a part of the station’s $54 Million revitalization project.
(Stephen Swofford, Denver Gazette)
When he’s not running nearly 70 hotels across the U.S., del Olmo is rehearsing with a band made up of people within the company. Sage Against the Machine, they call themselves.
Del Olmo started playing guitar when he was 6 and later learned to play the drums and bass. When a coworker said he wanted to start a band, del Olmo wanted to jump in. They put a callout in the company newsletter and were shocked when people were interested.
Sage Against the Machine recently performed at the company’s holiday party and a leadership conference.
“Somehow miraculously, people enjoyed it, so I think we’re going to continue to play,” he said.
Most of all, he’s loved getting to know the secret talents his staff has.
“I’ve known these people for years. I’d never knew they’d played instruments. So it’s a great way to create these little communities,” del Olmo said.
When asked if they talk shop at rehearsals, del Olmo said no.
“Nobody’s ever said there’s a spoken rule that you can’t talk about business,” he said. “But we are so engulfed in the art of music and everybody is so into it that business for that very focused time of rehearsals doesn’t exist.”