Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

The Suite Spot travels to Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, to visit the historic Mission Resort + Club as the next stop in the Road Trip series. This property is renowned for its prestigious golf courses, natural environment, and rich Florida history dating back to the early 1900s.  Tune in to hear from General Manager Cindy Staley and Director of Agronomy Danny Parks as these two join the Suite Spot. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. If you're watching us on YouTube, you can tell we are not in our Suite Spot podcast studio, but instead, right in our backyard at the Mission Resort + Club. It's such a privilege to be here. I just got off a tour. It was fantastic. We're gonna talk all about it today. And now we're joined here by Cindy Staley, General Manager of the Mission Resort + Club. Cindy, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot. Cindy Staley: Well, thank you for being here. We appreciate you coming out to the resort. Ryan Embree: It's an incredible property you have here. Before we talk a little bit more about it, get in depth about its amenities, the guest experience here, talk to us a little bit about your hospitality journey and how you ended up here at the Mission Resort + Club. Cindy Staley: How far back do you want me to go? Just kidding. I actually always wanted to be in the hospitality industry, even in, believe it or not, high school. I wanted to be a chef. Went to college for it. Really just saw what the hotel arena and resort arena could bring to me. You're never bored. Yeah. There's always something new or something different to do. So I worked my way up. I've been in the central Florida area since 2005 working more in the Orlando market. This opportunity came up roughly three years ago. And that's when the prior owner purchased or sold the property and sold it to MMI Hospitality Group. With that, I was hired before they came to the hotel, and they actually took it over in December of 2022. So we've been through this transition of the prior owner to the new owner, both families and have been through the transition of what MMI has accomplished in the last two and a half, almost three years. Ryan Embree: It's incredible, and we're gonna talk about that today. But getting back to that point, a historic property like this with such a rich history, that's not something that just can hand over to something. It requires a lot of care, and I think that's a real testament to MMI hospitality that they're entrusted in this, this really, you know, jewel that has been around for, for so long. It's really, really cool to see. Talk to us a little bit about, we, we heard about the golf side. Obviously that in itself is, makes it a destination, but you know, as general manager, you're obviously managing over the guests that you host here. Talk to us a little bit about the property, the guest experience, and some of the incredible amenities outside of golf. Cindy Staley: Absolutely. MMI had had owned it for I think, 60 plus years, the King and Prince Resort, which is on St. Simon's Island in, in Georgia. So they're good at managing historical properties. Mission Resort, it has been here since 1964 when the prior owner purchased it. And they really recreated the property from the golf course that was built in 1917, which is El Campeon. And then throughout the years, created the resort building by building, creating 176 guestrooms. We also have suites and villas included in that. They built three restaurants very good reputation restaurants from La Hacienda, the Breakfast Restaurant, La Margarita is our lunch and dinner restaurant. And then the Golf Clubhouse, which is just going through a name change called the Grove House. And it was formally Knickers Golf Clubhouse. Ryan Embree:

The Suite Spot was live at the 2025 NYU IHIF conference last week, covering the event to bring hoteliers exclusive content and insight on the most prevalent topics and trends in the hospitality industry currently.  Tune in now to get the pulse on how investors, owners, hoteliers, and guests are feeling about the industry and where they see it heading in 2025 and beyond as Suite Spot host, Ryan Embree, shares the 2025 NYU IHIF key takeaways. Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. We are back here at our Travel Media Group headquarters in Maitland, Florida. Fresh off an incredible 2025 NYU IHIF. Uh, the conference theme was engagement drives returns. There was a ton of engagement. It was everything as advertised. And more. 2200 delegates, 400 plus investors, 20% of those being new investors. Almost every single brand, uh, major hospitality brand represented there, uh, with C-Suite leadership. It was an incredible couple days up in New York City. It was our first time covering the event. We got some incredible, amazing footage, exclusive interviews and insights, uh, and we're gonna share it all with you today. So, uh, thank you for joining me here on the Suite Spot for our five key takeaways. Uh, like I said, it was just an incredible couple days up in New York and really gave some perspective on how hotels are performing almost at the midway point of 2025, and what we have to look forward to. And that's really kind of my first takeaway, uh, is, you know, is is it really as bad as advertised out there? You know, one of the key sessions and, um, interviews that we spoke to was STR President, Amanda Het, uh, who, who really, uh, her message to the, the crowd out there in New York was, um, really don't read into the headlines as much as, uh, it's being said. Uh, you know, o obviously there are some, some, uh, outside major factors that are having some impact on our industry and, uh, will continue to impact the industry. But really year over year, there isn't too much of a difference there. Um, international travel did dip, uh, but there is a, a lot of, uh, positive sentiment that that seems to be returning. And hopefully in the future, those bookings will, will return here. 'cause that's obviously a major, major part of our, uh, domestic, uh, hospitality inventory and demand. Um, obviously there's also a lot of dependence on what market you're in, right? Amanda shared some incredible insights in our interviews of which markets are performing really, really well. She was talking about, um, San Francisco being one of those, uh, markets that little bit slower to recover last year. We've seen some headlines there, uh, but it seems to be, uh, really popping this year in 2025 up in the northeast. Some major bumps in New Orleans, obviously with the Super Bowl, uh, will continue to have to watch it, those big events as people can con continue to prioritize travel. But there is this bifurcation of demand between segments right now, and I think that speaks to maybe those headlines that of, of what's happening, um, tariffs, inflation, things of that nature, really impacting, uh, the economy and lower, um, lower middle class. Uh, maybe they are, uh, keeping their tight, their wallets a little bit tighter this year as far as travel goes, but the luxury, the ultra luxury segments are really, uh, enjoying those thousand dollar rates as we, we talked about, um, earlier in the year. Um, they're continuing to see growth. They're continuing to see, uh, incredible demand for their product, um, which is, which is fantastic. Now, hopefully, again, we can get a little bit, uh, more clarity and what our economic situation looks like so that people continue to prioritize travel. Um, but really, again, it, it's, it's not, it might not be as bad as it's made out to be right now.

Be sure to catch the debut episode of the all-new Suite Spot: Independent Hotel Show Series.  Suite Spot first-timer, and special guest, Kat Woods of NYC Women of Hospitality, joins the podcast to discuss critical topics including: The Importance of Women in Hospitality 2025 Independent Hotel Show Miami Social Media and Its Impact on the Hotel Guest Experience And much more. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, introducing a brand new series. We are here at the Independent Hotel Show series. Now this is a series where we're talking to independent hoteliers, advisory board members, and really getting geared up for Miami in September, all leading up to that incredible show that the Suite Spot is gonna be a part of. And so will my guests that I'll bring on with me right now, Kat Woods of Bridgeton and New York City Women of Hospitality. Kat, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot. Kat Woods: Thanks, Ryan. Excited to be here. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we've got a lot to cover, including that independent hotel show, uh, which we're gonna talk all about. But as it is tradition here on the Suite Spot, this is your first time. Would love to learn a little bit about your hospitality journey. What led you to Bridgeton in the New York City Women of Hospitality? Kat Woods: Sure. Thank you. So many years ago, um, I started my career with W Hotels. I actually started with W Barcelona in college and fell head over heels in love with the brand. I worked for about five years in rooms operations between the w New York Union Square and the w New York downtown here in New York City, and got a really great foundation for operating hotels in a nice corporate structure. But in the mid 2010s, the boutique lifestyle hotel scene in New York was really starting to grow, and 11 Howard was one of the hottest hotels opening at the time. I was able to join that team shortly after opening, and that was my first introduction into truly independent boutique hotels. I fell in love with it. There was so much creativity in the operation, so much creativity in the branding. Um, and that really started my career in independent and lifestyle hotels. After that, um, I was able to continue with, uh, l Howard up until the pandemic and throughout the pandemic I helped with a couple projects here and there, but ultimately landing with Bridgeton as the, uh, assistant general manager of their Walker Hotel, Tribeca Property, which is an incredible lifestyle property located in Tribeca. Um, and I've been with the Bridgeton team now in a variety of roles for about four years. Ryan Embree: That's awesome. And creative freedom is, you're right, such a draw for independent hotels and why some people like yourself Kat. Sounds like once you get a taste of that and the ability to really express and tell your story, which we're certainly gonna cover, and one of the, the foundational reasons why a lot of people are not just working, but also guests choose independent hotels is because of that, that story and creative nature. So it's, it's so cool to see. And again, this, this series is all about independent hotels and that that massive show that's gonna be happening in September. Now you're also the executive director of the New York City Women of Hospitality. For those who aren't familiar, talk to our audience a little bit about this organization and its mission. Kat Woods: Sure. So the New York City Women of Hospitality was founded in 2018 by Jolie Feld and Tiffany Perra. And the goal upon the initiation of the group was to create a supportive, safe space for women in the industry. It's no surprise that women are facing some battles that maybe their male counterparts don't. Um, and the idea was to create a community where we can bounce som...

The Suite Spot travels to the heart of Orlando, Florida, to visit the luxurious and one-of-a-kind property, Conrad Orlando!  This hotel and resort is unlike any other with its sensational amenities, lavish suites, breath taking beaches, and centralized lagoon right in the middle of the resort. General Manager at the property, Sean McCarron, joins the podcast to discuss the stellar guest experience offered to travelers, the Conrad brand, social media, and why this hotel is a must visit the next time you are in Orlando.  Tune in now. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree and I hope you are watching us today on our YouTube channel because as you can tell, we are not in the Suite Spot podcast studio. We are instead at the beautiful Conrad Orlando here with me, Sean McCarron, general manager of the Conrad Orlando.Thank you so much for being with me today. Sean McCarron: It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for coming and seeing us today. Ryan Embree: Yeah. Thank you for hosting us at this incredible property. We're gonna talk all about it today. This is our Suite Spot Spotlight series showcasing some of the most unique hotels. This one certainly fits the bill. But before we get talking about the property, what I love talking about, this is your first time on the podcast, hospitality people come from all different places. Sometimes they're born into the industry, sometimes they're jumping from brands. Tell us about a little bit about your journey behind the scenes. Sean McCarron: Well, I've been in the business for over 30 years, believe it or not and all in luxury. So I went to hotel school out in Switzerland, and once I graduated from hotel school, I came out and went back to the States and started with the Ritz Carlton. So I was with the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company in various different areas and opening hotels for about six years. And then went to Four Seasons and spent about 16 years with the Four Seasons hotel company, opening other hotels and again, you know, variety of different locations. And then started with Hilton Luxury at the Waldorf Astoria here in Orlando about nine years ago, and been on this project for the last three here at the Conrad Orlando. Ryan Embree: Incredible. And that taste of luxury from different brands, I'm sure that certainly gave you a unique perspective as your journey led you here at the Conrad Orlando. Sean McCarron: Oh, it certainly did. You get different viewpoints from every location that you, that one works in from urban environment to a resort environment to, you know, Las Vegas I spent some time in as well. Opening hotels, all of it kind of lends to a broader experience in order to open this beautiful property. Ryan Embree: Let's talk about the Conrad brand, right. It's unique, known for its design and how it's built. For those that may not be familiar with the Conrad brand, what's the flavor? What makes it unique? Why do travelers love this brand? Sean McCarron: Their main pillars for the Conrad as a brand itself, one of them is bold design, as you had, as indicated. Experiences are also a big part of what we do from a Conrad brand perspective. This hotel is no different than any of our others. I think it's quite unique in the fact that a lot of the design element is based upon water. So lots of blues and refractive lighting, very contemporary feel throughout the resort. Lots of natural light, floor to ceiling windows from a design element. From an experiences element, I mean, you walked around this resort, there's a stunning lagoon right down the middle of it with beaches surrounding it and a lot of activations and a lot of activities from a resort perspective here in Orlando that make it very, very unique. Ryan Embree:

The Travel Media Group digital solution has hit the monumental milestone of responding to over 2 million online guest reviews for our hotel partners. To commemorate such a major achievement, Chief Technology Officer, Jason Lee, and Director of Product - Respond & Resolve™, Jackie Avery, join the Suite Spot to discuss this accolade, what it means to the organization, and the future of review response. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, here for a very celebratory episode. Today we're gonna have two guests with me, our first Jackie Avery, director of Product - Respond and Resolve. Jackie, congratulations, as the title says of TMG hits over 2 million online guest reviews. Thank you so much for being with me on the Suite Spot. Jackie Avery : Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. It feels so good to be here. Just really excited to celebrate this. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I think it was August 2022, where we were actually in our older building, before we moved into our podcast studio. Hopefully you were watching us on YouTube and celebrating 1 million guest reviews responded to, um, which just seemed like unfathomable to even think about that amount. So now here we are at 2 million in 2025 before the summer, which we're gonna talk about that, that flux of reviews that come in during the busiest time of the year for hoteliers and for travel. But talk to me a little bit about what this accomplish means, to you and, and your team and network of professional writers. Jackie Avery : Yeah. I mean, honestly, this is just one of the many milestones for the team this year. So I guess, like full of transparency, what it means is continued momentum. I think, you know, we're feeling pumped up. We're doing what we love, and it feels so good to, you know, help our clients and really just connect, you know, in a really authentic way with travelers all over the world. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And when we talk about a number, again, like 2 million, that is reviews, online reviews from across all different platforms. Recently added Medallia surveys as well for some of the brands. But obviously it's not just you and a couple people doing this. You've got a huge network of US-based writers that do this. Talk to us a little bit about the training that goes into this, Jackie, because I don't think I've heard one GM, or front desk manager, whoever is responding to those reviews saying that I got into hospitality because I wanted to respond to reviews. Right. They're more focused on the people and guests as they should be on site. What type of training and nuances goes into responding to specifically an online hotel guest review? Jackie Avery : Alright, well, I'll tell you a little bit, but you're not gonna get all my secrets. Well, the team, when they join us, they come already with extensive education. I feel like that's talked about a lot, but in reality, that's actually just like the baseline. That's where we start. And then from there, right, they need to know about hospitality, they need to know about different hotel brands. But there's also extensive training in, specific person to person communication to be able to connect with someone, in a genuine way. Of course. Like with the main focus being in the written form. Because, you know, the team of writers. But yeah, so I'd say, you know, being highly educated and having those degrees and level of experience with different forms of writing is really where it starts. And then we build off that. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And we've been hospitality specific Travel Media Group that is for 40-plus years. Again, there's a lot of nuances that if you're that US hoteliers kind of take for granted things like, taking it a deposit at the beginning of a stay and maybe that deposit not hitting back or get o...

On this special episode of the Suite Spot, Managing Director at Green Key Global, Anick Levesque, shares insight on several new programs and initiatives that hoteliers can leverage to bolster their sustainability efforts across their portfolios to make a significant impact on the environment.  This episode emphasizes eco-friendly implementation to clarify how seamless the integration of these processes at the property level can be.  Tune in now. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining us today, recording here on Earth Day. Obviously not the day of release, but a very fitting day to be recording for this episode. In particular, I am very excited to welcome on our guest, Managing Director at Green Key Global, Anick Levesque. Anick, thank you so much for being with me, celebrating this 2025 Earth Day. Anick Levesque: Thank you very much for having me, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Very excited to talk about Green Key Global. We've gotten an exciting announcement that I've, that I've seen all over the hospitality circuit. You and your team have been doing a great job of putting that out. But before we get into that exciting announcement, this is your first time on the Suite Spot. Love to hear from our guests kind of about their hospitality journeys and what kind of led you to your role there as managing director at Green Key Global. Anick Levesque: Absolutely. Well, it's been an interesting journey as I embarked upon the next phase of my career, just about over a year ago now. I really wanted to leverage the experience that I had in helping businesses grow, which is essentially what I had done for the previous 30 years of my career. And apply that to purpose driven work. And so when the opportunity came to lead Green Key Global, an organization with an ambitious and socially driven mission, a strong legacy and deep roots in the hospitality sector, I just knew that it was the right fit for me. Green Key is a social enterprise that's focused on sustainability. It contributes to the ongoing well-being of our planet and our communities. While at the same time, companies who commit to sustainability and to certification, they benefit through tangible results. They benefit from increased bookings, lower operating costs, and higher property valuation. So that duality of being able to help businesses grow while also contributing to the wellbeing of our society, that's something that was very appealing to me. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I'm sure. And we're gonna get into detail about this, but it really is just a win-win for all parties with sustainability and really the way the future. It's very cool to, I'm sure be in a position. We talk about it all the time where, obviously there's equity and compensation out there. But you know, more and more people are now looking for that sort of fulfillment in their career. So to be able to be a part of a industry and program and organization that does such great work that obviously has such an impact on our world, I'm sure that means a lot. And it's very cool to and an honor to have you on and talk to us a little bit about Green Key Global. What I love about Green Key Global is there's so many just win-win scenarios in everything from the guest wins, with the sustainable practices, they feel a part of something. The hotel wins both with that intrinsic value, but also sometimes financially too, right? And savings and even just the expectations that it's setting now. Green Key Global's been around for decades, definitely heard of it being in hospitality, but didn't really know to the degree at some of the amazing statistics you and your team shared with me For our hotelier Suite Spot audience, share with us a little bit about the history of Green Key Global and ...

In the latest Suite Spot: Spotlight series episode, we travel to Atlanta, Georgia, to showcase the one-of-a-kind, AAA Four Diamond Hilton hotel - The Signia by Hilton Atlanta! Director of Sales at the property, Julia Austin, sits down with the Suite Spot to give travelers a keen look at why this newly built hotel not only broke new ground, but is also breaking records and setting the bar for guest experiences, being hospitality forward, and incorporating excellence in every square foot of the property.  Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, and we are here on our Suite Spot Spotlight series at the beautiful Signia by Hilton Atlanta. I'm so excited to be here. We just got a tour of this incredible property. I'm here with the Director of Sales, Julia Austin. Thank you so much for having us here and hosting us at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta. Julia Austin : Absolutely. Thank you so much for being here. Ryan Embree: So before we get into this amazing property, and there's so much to cover, by the way, it is a history lesson just walking in, I love the term that was used during the tour of this is a love letter to the city. We're gonna talk all about this amazing property, but in hospitality, we know it's a big small world, right? We typically work for sometimes different brands. Sometimes we work for the same brand. I love hearing hospitality leaders and their journeys through their experience, and what led them to a new property like this. Julia Austin : Yeah, absolutely. So it is, it is such a small world and hospitality and, you know, I kind of came into the world by a dear friend of mine from college. I graduated and was trying to figure out what exactly to do next, and she introduced me to the world of hotels and I fell in love. And 15 years later, here I am miles away from home. I'm born and raised in Arizona, living in Atlanta, Georgia, and getting to be a part of this amazing signature hotel within the Hilton brand. It's been a wild journey, but I can now, looking back, can't imagine the last 15 years doing anything else other than working in such an amazing industry that the hospitality industry really is. Ryan Embree: Yeah. So many pieces of your stories echoed with industry leaders. I talked to first, sometimes a lot of hospitality industry people don't know what they're gonna do right outta college, fall into it, but fall in love to it and also heard that wild journey, to get you here at this incredible Signia by Hilton Atlanta. Let's talk about this for those, audience members that might not be familiar with Signia, because this is the first new build Signia, and for this brand. Talk to us a little bit about the characteristics, that make up what a Signia by Hilton is. Julia Austin : Yeah. You know, so when Hilton was really looking on how to expand the company and what we were going to do next, we really kind of reached out to the people, you know, what are you looking for when you travel? What are you looking for when you're planning meetings and events, when you're hosting galas or social events? And the resounding, you know, feedback that we as a company received was, we want something that is elevated, yet still approachable. So, you know, we wanna have these beautiful views, floor to ceiling, glass windows, you know, state-of-the-art meeting space and high level guest rooms. But we still wanna be able to feel like when we come to this hotel, even with just under a thousand rooms that we're family and that, you know, we belong here and, and we are really embracing ourselves not only in the brand and the hotel, but the community and the city that we're in at the time as well. So, and that's really kind of how Signia became to be. Ryan Embree: I mean, it again,

In this episode, Alexi Khajavi, President of Hospitality, Travel & Wellness at Questex, joins the Suite Spot to give listeners a preview of the upcoming NYU IHIF 2025 event taking place in New York City on June 1-June 3, 2025.  This industry event is one of the most elite hospitality investment forums in the world, so tune in to find out why you should attend and get your finger on the pulse of hospitality. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining me. We've got an incredible, amazing episode with a very familiar face. If you're watching us and subscribed to our Travel Media Group YouTube channel or hearing us on any of the streaming platforms. That's Alexi Kajavi, Questex President, hospitality Travel and Wellness. Alexi, thank you so much for being back on the Suite Spot. Alexi Khajavi : Ryan, good to be here. Nice to see you. Ryan Embree: We almost have to credit you now as a co-host. You've been with us so many times. We've got even though it's a familiar face, a new topic, which we're gonna go get into. You've been on the Suite Spot before. We've had a couple conversations talking about your hospitality journey, some of the mentors along the way. I figured we'd start out today talking about your role. I see you, follow you on LinkedIn, your jet setting, all over the place, thought leadership everywhere. It's gotta be pretty cool in that position. Give us a day in the life of your position and what you do. Alexi Khajavi : So Questex is a medium sized information services company. We're B2B media at our core. We inform and we connect buyers and sellers, professionals across six industries. So the three that you mentioned, hospitality, travel, and wellness, are the markets that I have the privilege of running. And then I've got a counterpart that runs our life sciences, healthcare and technology. And we do that by publishing, daily editorial, writing about the industries, the trends, the topics we research. We have over 6 million first party data records. So these are individuals, names, titles, emails, contact information, but also really more importantly, their demographics and their behavioral, information. So what content they read, what are they engaging with, what are the premium pieces of content or research that they're downloading. And we use all of that to inform us as to what are the trends and topics that are impacting that industry, or different segments or categories of businesses within a vertical. And then we use that in turn to develop our programs at our events, to develop our content strategy, whether that be in digital or print. And we then work with the brands, the sellers in those industries to connect with those buyers. So, you know, prime example in hospitality would be investors are, you know, looking for, you know, enhanced guest experiences. So what are the technologies and the solutions in, in hotels that can do that? We'll position those brands specifically to buyers with buyers intent in the marketplace, looking for things like that. So that's what we do, and it's a really incredible industry to be in, and very exciting. And at our core, it's a noble pursuit of informing and connecting professionals in these industries. Ryan Embree: Well, I'm sure, Alexi, you have a very unique perspective, getting to see really a 360 view of travel, hospitality, and wellness between all the data, the conversations that you're having with you know, some of these buyers and sellers. And that's really, is a great segue into what we're gonna talk about today. 'cause we're gonna turn our attention to the NYU IHIF event. Questex got involved with this event recently. You just preached the importance of using feedback and data. I'm curious,

Tune in to the latest Suite Spot episode featuring TMG's very own Chief Technology Officer, Jason Lee, as he gives listeners the latest update on our newest innovation, SMART Response powered by TMG AI. Hear about the development, successes, and challenges of building a guest review response solution with the ingenuity of artificial intelligence. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. As you can see, if you're watching us on our YouTube channel, we are here in our Suite Spot podcast studio in Maitland, Florida, here with CTO, Jason Lee at Travel Media Group. Jason, thank you so much for being back on the Suite Spot. Jason Lee: Yeah, thanks for having me. In the seated position. Ryan Embree: Yes. I feel like we should be celebrating maybe like a 10th or 15th milestone of you coming on the Suite Spot or something like that. It's been a lot, but we're here to talk about a really important topic, something that's been bubbling up in conferences, conversations that we're having something that you're not a stranger to. You've been doing some research on this and, and have some updates for us. But AI, I mean, it seems to be the, obviously the, the hot topic, like I said, at these conferences or just in the industry, outside of the industry in general, and then pairing it with guest review response, something that Travel Media group obviously known for. We're coming up on the 2 million guest review mark. Which Is a fantastic milestone, really exciting milestone, but I figured we could start the episode by just kind of talking about how Travel Media Group got into guest review response. A lot of the stuff and solutions that we've talked about on this podcast have been through hotel your feedback. Talk to us a little bit about this journey in review response, and then we'll get to maybe where the state of the industry is now, and AI and guest review response. Jason Lee: Well, you know, working with hotels the way we have for a lot of years, almost 10 years ago, we were getting a lot of requests to do review response. And so, we're like, yeah, I think we can do it. And then as we got into it, we realized like, wow, this is complicated because every hotel's different. The vibe of the hotel is different, but also the amenities and policies, the quantities, the types of sites that are, have more text or less text ratings and like, I think even getting deeper into, you know, how a hotel wants to use language. And so like, it's even beyond voice, you know? So it's like it's literally grammar and also types of words. And so I think, so we started in this very simple place, very innocent, like, we can do this. This is gonna be awesome. And I think the first offering we had was 20 reviews. It was an SLA of 20 reviews a month. It was TripAdvisor only and . So we, like, we, we jumped to that and quickly, almost like instantly it was like, well, we need, we definitely need Google, and well, we definitely need Expedia. We definitely need booking. You know, so we had to adapt. And it went, the adoption was not just in the sites that we've brought on, it was also in the complexity of the response. It was also in then systematically creating a flow. So the review comes in, we have a writer that writes a response. That response goes to the property. So like, that stuff wasn't initially there. It goes to the property, the property can edit it, and then, and then it goes live back on the site. So that whole process was also sort of formulated during those first, that first year, and then has become very perfected over time where, where we've taken that and we have all sorts of mechanisms to make sure we capture hotel voice, make sure we're doing the right things, critical review pieces that we're doing. So all of these things to really sort of make it as authentic as possible...

Suite Spot host, Ryan Embree, breaks down the key takeaways from the 2025 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, which took place in Atlanta, Georgia, from March 17-19. This prestigious annual industry event provided valuable insights, numerous panels, and notable speakers from all across the hotel industry. Learn what critical factors are shaping hospitality in 2025 and beyond by tuning in now. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, fresh off our trip of covering the 36 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference. So excited to be, first of all, covering the event. It was an incredible couple days up in Atlanta, Georgia. Some exciting announcements, which we're gonna talk about that on this podcast. Some industry trends, insights, interviews. We brought it all to you. We came jam packed back with content, and really excited to share some of the key takeaways and issues that were raised. You know, we've talked about this before on the podcast. Love attending these events where we get all types of brands, owners, developers, hotel owners, individual GMs at these events, because all the ideas, topics, really important topics in our industry really float to the top. And, you know, you get a really fresh perspective about how everything, how everyone's feeling about our industry and this year maybe a little bit darker clouds than we hear in your years past, but also just how amazing our industry is. And, and, you know, I'm gonna start with my first takeaway. The theme, we talked about it on the episode with Sarah Moss, was Elevate your game. Love some of the programming that was involved. Molly Bloom, the poker princess who ran high stake poker games. The theme was incredible. Jesse Cole of the Savannah Bananas, everybody was wearing jerseys. He'd certainly brought the energy. If you've, if you've ever seen one of those games, there's a wait list now for a, a long amount of time to try to get tickets to those. But I think the, you know, there were, there were some receptions all around that, you know, gaming style and theme. But really, you know, my takeaway was that we're at a place where hotels really have to elevate their game too, and we're seeing it which is the really, really cool part. Hotels are getting creative with their f and b experiences, right? Utilizing different things sourcing because the cost has risen, the operational costs, the margins are becoming very thin for hoteliers right now. Whether it's the price of, of goods, whether it's the prices of wages right now hoteliers are elevating their game to get creative. They're getting creative to get deals done right? And it's events like Hunter and these investment conferences where you're in the room, so to speak, shaking hands, that really can be the difference between a deal getting over the finish line and not certainly a lot of talk about AI technology. You know, looking back on last year's takeaways and reading and, and listening to kind of some of my thoughts, I felt like we're in a much more comfortable place than we were a year ago. I still think our industry is still trying to figure out the best way to use ai, but I think what's happened is now our grand illusions of the transformation that AI can bring to our business, the expectations of those have maybe been just reeled in a little bit. And we're starting to take those baby steps in AI technology, and we're looking for things like operational efficiency to empower our employees, and even AI used by guests and travelers are becoming more frequent and prevalent. And really what that speaks to is the importance of a IO, right? And the what type of content about your hotel is out there. That's why UGC user generated content is so critical. It's so important because travelers are using this information on othe...

Tune in to the inaugural installment of the Suite Spot: Road Trip series!  In this episode the Suite Spot takes a drive to SpringHill Suites Jacksonville Beach Oceanfront to meet with Area General Manager, Alex Reitter, and Area Director of Marketing & Sales, Samantha Pritchard.  Alex and Samantha give viewers an inside look at the property's signature restaurant, The Sand Bar, and why this hotel needs to be the next destination on all traveler lists.   Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. If you're listening to us or watching us on our YouTube channel, you'll see that we are not in our content creation studio in Maitland. We have hit the road for a new series, the Suite Spot Road Trip, and we are here at the Spring Hill Suites, Jacksonville Beach, Ocean Front. And I'm here with two wonderful guests joining me today, general Area General Manager Alex Reitter, and Area Director of Sales and Marketing, Samantha Pritchard. Alex. Samantha. Thank you so much for hosting us on the Suite Spot at your beautiful ocean front property. Alex Reitter: We're happy to have you. Thanks for coming out. Ryan Embree: Very excited to be here. As it is, Suite Spot tradition. One of the coolest thing about hospitality, we were talking about off camera is just our, the history, the DNA that gets built over the years. Maybe different brands, different management companies that you've been a part of. Everyone has a unique story, but it all leads us back to people serving people, right. That that's why we love hospitality. So love to hear maybe your backgrounds in hospitality and what let you here to a brand new property, which we're gonna talk about here shortly. Alex, we'll go ahead and start with you. Alex Reitter: Okay. Well, thanks Ryan. Thanks for coming out. Of course. Again. So, yeah, I think I have an interesting start in Hospitality fell into actually start out on small cruise ships. Intercoastal, I'm not even sure if you knew that Samantha. Samantha Pritchard: No. New Skills. Alex Reitter: So it was definitely a interesting start. You know, uh, intercoastal cruising, seven night trips up and down the, uh, east coast after college. You know, we did trips in Maine, Chesapeake Bay, all the way down to Florida. It was, you know, amazing experience. But when you're working six to eight weeks on a boat, nonstop, you kind of look for other options. And hotel kind of was a natural fit for me. From there, I've had a chance to actually work a courtyard down the street from this Spring Hill. And then actually a little time in the Florida Keys, uh, most recently in a Marriott in Durham, North Carolina. The weather got a little cold. It snowed a couple times on us, and we said, let's get back to Florida. So excited to be here. And excited to work with Samantha. I've only been here a couple months and ready to get the ball rolling. Ryan Embree: Well, I think you're our first guest that has got their hospitality start. I've, I've heard behind the front desk I've heard bellman. I don't know if I've ever heard on a cruise, so that's very, very cool. But it's a story that resonates probably with a lot of our hotel audience, and listeners sometimes just kind of jumping from place to place. But again, people serving people, hospitality. Samantha, you've had kind of a different journey here. Talk to us a little bit about that. Samantha Pritchard: Yeah, so I started my hospitality journey in the Convention Visitor Bureau with Visit Jacksonville. It was, it was some of the best years just learning the business, being around people that have been doing it a long time. So then I left the CVB and went out as a director of sales. So my first job on property was a director of sales, just from some of the hotel connections made dur...

Tune in to this quarterly episode to hear from Chirag Shah of the American Hotel & Lodging Association to get the state of the hospitality industry. As EVP, Federal and Political Affairs & Counsel, Chirag, gives immense insight into challenges, patterns, and trends impacting the hotel industry and how the AHLA is helping hoteliers overcome the economic environment. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. As you can see, we are here with another industry check-in with AHLA. And we have a first time guest with us Chirag Shah, Executive Vice President, Federal and Political Affairs & Council at the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Chirag, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot today. Chirag Shah: Absolutely. Thanks Ryan. Appreciate you having me. Ryan Embree: Well, welcome to the Suite Spot. This is your first time. Before we get rolling, talk about some of the topics that AHLA and issues that AHLA is obviously advocating so ferociously for hotels all around the country. Maybe give us a little bit of background, your journey to AHLA and give our Suite Spot audience, just a brief glimpse of the role that you do there. Chirag Shah: I appreciate it. So I've been in the lodging industry, lobbying on behalf of hotels and hoteliers for about a decade and some change, 12-13 years. And previously my background is actually as a campaign and elections attorney. It's what my training is, and not perhaps a skill that folks are, a ton of folks are always looking for especially when you get relatives that want help getting outta a speeding ticket or something. But I spent time on Capitol Hill, worked on a number of political campaigns, and 2012, 2013 after finishing up my last campaign, got a call from a group. They were looking to open a DC office. And when I was on Capitol Hill, I used to meet with them quite frequently, and it was a group called AAHOA And, uh, they were looking to, to open their DC office. And it was great because I, uh, literally spoke the language that many hoteliers speak and, and figuratively spoke the language, of Washington DC. And so, uh, it, it was a, it was a great fit. And I came in and opened their DC shop and worked there for, for eight years. And, uh, then came over to AHLA and has been fantastic to represent a lot of the same people physically, actually the same people, but also the industry. It's such a wonderful industry where hotels, everybody loves going to hotels. Most public officials don't fully understand what the hotel industry is all about, but they love talking about their travel experiences. And so now at AHLA, I get to oversee the federal affairs shop, the political shop where we meet with members of Congress, have got one of the greatest jobs where we tell the story of the lodging industry to members of Congress, their staff, the presidential administration, every single day. And so getting time to understand what the challenges are that hotel leaders are facing, where the industry is going, what the economic footprint is, that's what we do. And so it's been a lot of fun. Ryan Embree: You know it's funny, Chirag, we have so many industry leaders on this podcast, and we talk to them about their kind of beginnings and they talk about maybe jumping from brand to brand and still having that tight-knit family. Because it all comes back to hospitality. It seems like a very similar path with you and the associations, right, starting with the AAHOA and then transitioning to AHLA. But at the very end of the day, it's all about hospitality and the hotels that you're advocating for from those small, independent hotels all the way up to the major brands. And here we are at the Q1, beginning of, 2025. Great time to reflect on,

A familiar face returns to the Suite Spot in this special episode. Richard Alberigo, CEO & President of Alberigo Hotel Management, joins the podcast to discuss what his hotel management group has been up to over the last couple of years, how the hospitality industry is rapidly evolving with AI technology, new guest preferences, and how to acquire top talent for your hotel staff. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. So happy to be sharing an incredible episode with you today. Whether you're listening to us or watching us on our official Travel Media Group YouTube page you will see and hear a familiar voice. It's been a couple years, but really excited to welcome in our guest for today, Richard Alberigo, President and CEO of Alberigo Hotel Management. Richard, thank you so much for joining me back on the Suite Spot. Richard Alberigo : Yeah, thanks for having me on, Ryan. It's gonna be fun. Ryan Embree: It's been a couple years. We're gonna cover a lot. You know, last time we heard a little bit about your hospitality journey, so fascinating to hear in our industry. We've hosted tons of industry leaders here on this podcast. Everybody got kind of have different pieces of DNA, whether it's, you know, they've worked for different brands, hotel management companies. You ended up founding your own Alberigo Hotel management company. But I want to kick off this episode, Richard, about talking about, you know, one of the common threads that I always hear when talking about hospitality journeys, which is the mentors or influences that really rose to the top for you and your career and really has lasted the test of time in your career. Richard Alberigo : Absolutely, Ryan. So I have a couple of mentors. My first one, the first manager job I, I received it was at a college station, full service Hilton Hotel, 303 rooms. And I was just a front desk agent. And I'll be honest with you, at the time, being a CEO of a company was not even in the realm of possibilities. And I really didn't even seek it. I was doing it for quote unquote beer money. That's what I worked freshly outta college. And so I had my mentor, her name was Kim Chapin, and she was the rooms division manager there. And she would, you know, recognize my accomplishments. She kept saying, I think you could do something with this job if you really put it together and you really focus. And, you know, she was very supportive. And I remember my promotion, we went to a team meeting, a front desk meeting, and she lined everybody but me on one side of the, of the field. We were playing volleyball. And then the other side of the field was just me. And she goes, you were looking at your new front office manager. So that's how I got the promotion. Believe it or not, there was no indication at all. There was like, this might, this announcement might happen. I was in total shock. But, you know, it was really cool that she saw something in me. And so obviously at that point I couldn't disappoint her. And then, you know, the rest is history. My next mentor later on in my career, I was a general manager of a Homewood Suites in Houston, and this gentleman's name was Mark Boulevard. He was the district manager for Reson Hospitality. This guy was rough. I mean every time he drove up, I just felt like I was gonna quit or I was gonna be be fired. I mean, he didn't take no, he was no nonsense and nothing positive. I would go to our team meetings and the other managers would be there and they'd be like, I'm so sicking of hearing about how great you are. And I'm like, what are you talking about? This guy beats me up every time, they'd go, no, he needs to say, you need to be more like Richard. Do you need to be more like Richard? And I mean, if I was 1 cent over in housekeeping costs,

Sarah Moss, Chief of Staff at Hunter Hotel Advisors, joins the Suite Spot to discuss the upcoming 36th annual Hunter Hotel Investment Conference and give hoteliers a look at what they can look forward to from the event.  Tune in to this episode to learn more about the live sessions, panels, notable speakers, and on-site entertainment at the 2025 HHIC. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining us. Wherever you are, listening to us, or maybe watching us on our official TMG YouTube channel. Got a fantastic episode for you, kind of becoming a little bit of an annual tradition. Uh, really excited, uh, to talk about this topic, subject, and, uh, one of the most prestigious events in hospitality. Um, hopefully we're not, uh, well, hopefully we are introducing this to our hotel audience, but you should already know about this event because it, it blows up. LinkedIn really shuts down that social media 'cause you hear everyone is there in Atlanta. I will introduce our guest, Sarah Moss, chief of staff at the Hunter Hotel Advisors. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me back here on the Suite Spot once again. Sarah Moss: Ryan, I'm so excited to be back and talking about one of my favorite subjects, the Hunter Conference today. Ryan Embree: Yes, we're excited. It's that time of year we're ramping up, right? It's everybody. There's hotels thawing out right now, right now in the, in the winter as we get ready for that busy spring travel season. Uh, really a perfect time for, for the conference, uh, in March. But before we get into the conference, you know, last year we kind of heard a little bit about your background. Um, and your shared kind of the journey that led you to Hunter Hotel Advisors and the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference ultimately. But I wanna kick off this episode. You know, last year we did a hospitality campus cross series and we talked a lot about mentors, right? We know hospitality, still struggling with staffing a little bit, but we talked about mentors and influences in our hospitality careers and journey. Wondering if you have any, you know, major mentors that have, that have, you know, really influenced you in your career or just people in general that have, have made an impact. Well, Sarah Moss: Thank you for having me on again, Ryan. Sure. I love telling my story about hospitality, especially here at Hunter. And I think everyone's journey is so unique in hospitality and the seasons that they go through in their life. I think there are many mentors that they find throughout their seasons, whether they're in new jobs, you know, life changes, new cities, whatever it may be. And so, um, throughout my journey, I think I've had many mentors along the way and I'm so grateful for them. I think about my time at Sea Island with Melinda Lasky and teaching me, you know, what excellence was and how hospitality at the highest standards should be held to at a Forbes five star resort. And I think about my time back at Georgia State with, uh, Dr. Debbie Cannon and Esther E. And just their wisdom that they imparted on me and their, you know, they just believed in me when, you know, I was a student and just gave me so much courage to go out and try to pursue my dreams. Um, and the opportunities to do that. They introduced me to Hunter. And so I'm so grateful for them to provide me this job here and now. I think, you know, in, in my job now here at Hunter, I have these other influential people like Rachel Humphrey and Lisa Lombardo in my life, who, you know, whenever I have the question or the, you know, the thing I'm stuck on, I, you know, go to my circle and I can ask them what's, um, in their infinite wisdom, what, what they would do or what advice they would have.

In this episode of the Suite Spot, we welcome Micajah Sturdivant, CEO of MMI Hospitality, as the newest addition to the TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. With a background in hospitality and hotel management spanning generations in his family, Micajah gives audiences a unique take on how hospitality has evolved over the decades and how MMI Hospitality has cemented itself as a pioneer in the industry. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. Happy 2025. This is your host, Ryan Embree. We are here back in the new year with a great new episode at continuing. I think we've been doing this for about two years now. This TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series, as a reminder of this is your first time, this is all about the hospitality trailblazers that have been blazing a path in hospitality. Our guests has been doing it for over five decades, we're gonna talk about in a second, but it's about those people and management companies and brands that are pushing our industry forward. As we get into a new year, I think this is the best way to kick it off. So without further ado, I'm gonna bring in our guest today, CEO of MMI Hospitality, Micajah Sturdivant. Micajah, thank you so much for being with me on the Suite Spot today. Micajah Sturdivant: No, it's a great honor. Thank you for having me. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're excited. We're gonna, we're gonna talk a lot because we got a lot of history to cover with your hospitality group, MMI. But before we do that, this is your first time on the Suite Spot. First time guest, hopefully first of many visits, but as, as I always like to do as is tradition. Talk about a little bit about your background and hospitality and the journey that led you to MMI Hospitality. Micajah Sturdivant: No, I appreciate the invitation and opportunity to share about our organization that originally was founded in 1956 when Kemmons Wilson was conceptualizing Holiday Inn. My grandfather and his roommate from grad school were early adopters to the idea of what the Holiday Inn and Internet Interstate system expansion could really provide, not only for the travelers, but from their perspective and specifically my grandfather. The opportunity for a Mississippi workforce that was going through a major transformation in the late 1940s and 50s where primarily agriculture focused economy was modernizing. In many ways, technology was being brought in and it was negatively impacting opportunities for workforce to have a quality meaning of quality lifestyle. And so saw that the opportunity within hospitality could be a great employer and so was one of the first Holiday Inn franchisees. That company has since grown to work with all the major franchisors as owner and operator, as well as adding a contract food service management company and a restaurant brand as well. So it's a mixed bag across the spectrum hospitality. But in many ways, they're businesses that were born out of one another or very much build off of the knowledge and information that our corporate shared services team is able to provide across the entire enterprise. Ryan Embree: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, hospitality, I mean, even 50 years ago, it was definitely a profession. I mean, we talk about hotels being the oldest profession out there. So a lot of rich history, storied history there. I'm sure you've seen a lot of evolution. I mean, there's been tons of changes just within the last couple years with this being part of your family. Talk to us a little bit about how you were first introduced into hospitality and how you ended up where yo...

Suite Spot host, Ryan Embree, and Travel Media Group Director of Product - Respond and Resolve™, Jackie Avery, break down the top 5 guest sentiment tags of 2024 and give explain what insights these tags hold for hoteliers.  Tune in to the first episode of 2025 and learn how to leverage this data for your hotel portfolio to kick off the new year. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you for listening or watching wherever you're joining us from, hopefully watching in our brand new Suite Spot podcast here in Maitland, Florida. Very excited to bring you another great episode, a very popular episode with a lot of hoteliers, wanting to know some of the top five sentiments of this last year. So it's one of my personal favorite episodes and a personal favorite guest, Jackie Avery, our Director of Product Respond and Resolve™, which is our review response solution, award-winning review response solution here at Travel Media Group. Jackie, thank you so much for joining me back on the Suite Spot. Jackie Avery: Yeah, thanks, Ryan. It's so great to be here. I look forward to this every year. I'm so passionate about this and just spending the time reflecting on the past 12 months and what really resonated with travelers. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. What do you think of the new studio? Jackie Avery: I love it. It looks so good. So comfortable here. You know, I am so happy to be back. Ryan Embree: Awesome. Well, we're happy to have you back. Let's get into it. Let's start talking some numbers. If you've heard this before, this isn't kind of an annual tradition that we do at the end of the year, but we look at all of the guest sentiment that travelers left. For those that might, again, this might be their first time listening to this style of episode, give us a quick definition of guest sentiment and reviews and maybe some numbers that go along with that. Jackie Avery: Yeah, absolutely. So, if it's your first time here, you just wanna refresh. Thanks for listening. You know, we love that you're taking this time to really, dig in and learn some, some of this stuff and kind of, you know, again, reflect on what travelers care about. So guest sentiment, these are things being mentioned in reviews, right? So, as Ryan mentioned, I'm overseeing the review response team here at Travel Media Group, and my team to kind of put it into perspective number wise, during our slower months, we're processing and looking at 25,000 reviews ish, during peak travel season. That number jumps up to mid to high thirties. So, as we're going through this and kind of sharing reflections and really, you know, deep diving, the information that we're going over today is coming from right around 41 million sentiment tags. Ryan Embree: WoW, that's absolutely incredible. You think about that 25,000 per month to about 30, you know, high thirties, but 41 million in sentiment tags. So not only are guests leaving the reviews at a record pace, but they're also talking about so much about the guest experience. And I think that's really important when we talk about this type of episode because there's so many elements to a guest day, things that can go right, things that can obviously go wrong that we hear about in these reviews and see in these reviews. And today we're gonna review the top five sentiments. Let's go ahead and start at number five. Jackie Avery: Yeah, absolutely. Before we jump in real quick, I wanna say, because you said there might be some people listening this year who weren't here last year.

Catch the 2024 TMG Year in Review episode with Travel Media Group President, Dana Singer as she joins the Suite Spot to discuss all the milestones and monumental achievements this past year and what hoteliers can expect from TMG in 2025.   Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embee. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining us. Wherever you're listening or watching us from. If you are watching us on our official TMG YouTube channel, you will see that we are in a brand new space. We're in a brand new area. I'm so proud to launch and announce our very own Suite Spot podcast studio. This is a long time coming, my guest here in a second, we're gonna talk about it. We're really excited. You know, we put a lot of time and effort into this podcast studio to bring you the listener, our hotel audience, the best quality and video, and hopefully we can have more and more guests come in studio and do these podcasts with you today. But for now, we've got a very familiar guest, an annual tradition, one of my favorites, President at Travel Media Group, Dana Singer. Thank you so much, Dana, for being on the Suite Spot once again. Dana Singer: Absolutely. Good morning, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're excited. We're here to, as the titles talks about, talk about 2024 TMG year in review. Again, one of my favorite annual traditions that we do here. We cover a lot of ground in 2024 as a company, as an organization, but more importantly for our hotel partners who've had a lot of success. Talk to us. We're gonna talk about 2025 and, and maybe some of the foundation that's been built for moving forward, but this is a great time of year to also reflect back on all those successes. Talk to us a little bit about 2024 and the journey for our hotel partners. Dana Singer: Absolutely. I mean, 2024 has truly been a special year for travel media group in so in so many ways. Most importantly, for the hospitality partners that we work with every day. You just mentioned the success that we were able to experience with all of them. And one of our most important milestones though, was really moving into our new headquarters. And it's not just about a bigger building, it's about creating a collaborative space that supports the growth of our teams. So we can continue to innovate and serve our partners at the highest levels of support and expertise. Internally, we've developed a number of exciting new solutions. We've enhanced our services and support, and we continue to find ways to better understand and meet our partner's needs. And to do that, we've intentionally dug deeper, into the challenges and opportunities our partners face, and we've created resources around them. We're so committed to giving hotels the tools they need to achieve their goals and succeed, especially as guest expectations evolve. Ryan Embree: Yeah, and that's key. We've talked a lot about on this podcast, you know, almost feels like technology in our industry is moving faster than ever. Something that maybe took a couple years to implement is now changing within the quarter that's due to technology, AI all sorts of different factors. Guest expectations certainly have changed over the past couple years. We've talked about it on this particular episode, over the years. Let's talk about those ever changing guest expectations and what Travel Media Group continues to do to innovate and kind of keep pace with those changes. Dana Singer: I mean, guest expectations are constantly shifting, so it's crucial for us to not only keep up, but stay ahead. And at TMG innovation has been at the heart of our adaptation. One of our significant advancements this year was the introduction of the Guest Experience Snapshot. And this tool has really been a game changer for our partners,

In this episode of the Suite Spot, the head of marketing at Springboard Hospitality, Jason Pirock sits down with podcast host, Ryan Embree, to discuss the incredible Springboard Hospitality brand, exciting hotel developments, social media strategies, and much more.  Tune in now to learn more about what makes the Springboard Hospitality brand one-of-a-kind. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embee. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. We've done quite a few of this, but if this is your first time hearing it to set up the series, this is all about those individuals, brands, management companies, all paving a way forward for our hospitality industry. Trailblazing a path, and we have a great guest with me. It's certainly an embodiment of a TMG hospitality Trailblazer, Jason Pirock, head of marketing at Springboard Hospitality. Jason, thank you so much for taking the time. Jason Pirock: Yeah, thank you for having me. Ryan Embree: Now, I asked this on every single Trailblazer episode. Always get a different answer. But since this is your first time being on the Suite Spot, we love to hear stories about how you made it into hospitality. Sometimes we just fall into it as a career. Sometimes we went to school for it. What was the hospitality journey that led you to Springboard Hospitality? Jason Pirock: Yeah, absolutely. So I probably have more of a non-traditional background when it comes to hospitality here. A lot of folks have sort of been in the industry for their entire career for a very long time. I actually started my career in retail coming out of college. I was recruited to work for Target Corporate in Minneapolis. And so I started off in merchandising there actually merchandise presentation, which was at the time their entry level marketing. They didn't really have an easy way to get into the actual marketing department, but that was the closest point. And then spent some time with Target and moved into marketing and then found my way through a, a few other companies throughout the years, Sears Corporate. I worked for a company called Brookfield Retail, formerly, uh, General Growth Properties. And then I had sort of a reflection point in my career where as much as I was having fun with retail and liked it that's all I knew. And that's all I had done. And I knew that I was super passionate about travel, I loved hotels, all aspects about it. The experience, the design just always gave me such a great feeling. And so I thought, I wanna try out hospitality, I wanna move into that space. And I was very fortunate to find an opportunity with Hyatt Hotels, their corporate office out of Chicago. And so spent some time there, then moved over to a company called a Perim Hotel Group and helped them build their marketing department and marketing team. And that actually is part of what led me to Springboard. Springboard was looking to sort of revolutionize their, their marketing department, really rebuild it, take it to the next level. And they found me as someone who had, had done that with Perim. And so here I am today. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And let's talk about that role that you have of head of marketing, this being a digital marketing podcast, I'm sure there's a lot of hotel marketers that are just getting started in their career. Talk to us a little bit about your role as head of marketing and really the story as marketers. We love telling stories, right? Of Springboard Hospitality. Jason Pirock: Yeah. Well, I'll start with with Springboard Hospitality. We own, operate, and develop hotels, restaurants, and bars all around the country. We've got about 50 hotels in 14 states, and we're predominantly in destinations, sort of urban environments as well. And we're truly across the whole U.S.

Tune in to the the latest Suite Spot episode to hear from Senior Product Manager at Booking.com, Laura Xhaferaj as she breaks down the guest review score update being rolled out by Booking.com and how this new innovation will impact travelers, hotels, and hotel management groups alike.  Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Very pleased to bring you another incredible episode here, a unique episode, exciting episode. As you can tell from the title. We've got an update with one of the major players in hospitality, Booking.com and with me today to kind of break down this all important update is Laura Xhaferaj, Senior Product Manager at Booking.com. Laura, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot with me. Laura Xhaferaj: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Ryan Embree: We're excited to share this news. I mean, this is a huge update that Booking.com is about to roll out that has a huge impact on hoteliers and travelers alike. But before we get into sharing this news, I'd love to start, since this is your first time on the Suite Spot, share a little bit about your hospitality background and your role at Booking.com as Senior Product Manager with our Suite Spot audience. Laura Xhaferaj: I am the Senior Product Manager for user-generated content at Booking.com. And you may hear me refer to my team as UGC, I have been leading initiatives that improve how we showcase guest review across the platform. My journey in hospitality started years ago, even before I joined Booking.com, and I've always been passionate about enhancing travel experience, whether it's helping hotels connect with guests or finding new ways to elevate guest satisfaction through reviews. Working with UGC, I got to build features that bring authentic travel voice into the booking experience globally. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I think this is one of those, I'm sure, an amazing role that you're in to be able to kind of look and see what travelers are saying about their experiences with the hotel partners that you're working with. Making sure that information is as accurate as possible so that guests and hotels alike can make the best booking decisions, make sure hotels are making the best operational decisions to improve the guest experience. So I'm sure it's a really cool role to be in. You get a lot of feedback probably from both hoteliers as well as guests. At Travel Media Group we do a lot of innovation and, and updates and rollouts, sort of like what you're going through and what we find is there's always typically a why behind making these changes. Right. So I think maybe the best way to understand and update like this is to maybe talk about the guest review score update and the why behind it. Laura Xhaferaj: Of course, we initiated this change based directly on partner feedback partners highlighted that on our previous system, which calculated overall score using a simple average of users from the past three years had some key limitations for those who had made significant improvements such as renovations, upgrades in services or new guest facilities. The all the reviews still had too much weight slowing down the reflection of their progress. In response to this feedback, we are introducing a weighted review score where recent reviews have bigger influence. This adjustment means that hotels actively enhancing guest experience will see those efforts reflected more quickly in their scores, rewarding their commitment improvement. And it's an update designed to encourage continuous progress and ensure travelers see the most relevant and recent experiences. Ryan Embree: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean this is what we talk to hotel partners all the time about, when they come to us and say, how can I improve my reputation?

In this special episode, Suite Spot Host, Ryan Embree covers 5 key takeaways from the 2024 The Hospitality Show that took place in San Antonio, Texas.  The industry event was one-of-a-kind and featured incredible panelists, vendors, guest speakers, interviews, and much more from the hospitality industry. Tune in now to get the latest details from the event and why you should be excited for next year! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today is episode 151. Just want a moment to recognize 151 episodes. Wanna thank our audience, uh, for being with us, uh, whether this is your first episode or 151, thank you so much for all the support and we are so excited to bring you another incredible episode. This, as you can see from the title The Hospitality Show, are five key takeaways. We just returned from San Antonio. In fact, again, just like last year's takeaway episode, I haven't even had the opportunity to do my laundry to get in my normal Travel Media Group attire. So, I was just so wanting to get these takeaways to you from the episode. First off, an absolutely incredible event. The Hospitality Show, this is the second annual one put on. The first one was last year. Inaugural show was last year in Las Vegas. This in San Antonio. Want to thank the city of San Antonio for hosting to our A HLA Questex. They put on an incredible show to all the sponsors. If you have not already looked into or are thinking about attending the hospitality show, it is a must attend event. So many interviews, so many insights, content. They had some incredible keynotes, guest speakers, so many cool activities. And of course, hospitality. You have to be able to throw a party and host people, right? And they absolutely nailed it in San Antonio, celebrating Dia de DEOs. Just did a fantastic job. So let's get into some of these takeaways that I got, and it's gonna start with one of the most prevalent topics and patterns, ai, in fact, in these top five takeaways, two of my key takeaways have to do with ai. The first is, from a hotelier's perspective, seems to be this just battle right now of where AI is best utilized with our industry. And there's this push and pull, whether it's for efficiency, reducing costs, which we know right now is really, really hurting a lot of hotels across the nation, whether it's rising construction costs, operational costs, staffing and wages continue to grow, uh, and get more costly. So is it for efficiency that it's best use? Or is it to drive revenue? Right? Top line revenue. And, and there was kind of this, this little just debate of, of what is AI best used for right now? And, uh, you know, there was a, a incredible panel on ai. There were several of them, but the one I had the pleasure, uh, there was one guest speaker who kind of talked through the stages of AI and where we are and actually broke it down into three stages. And we're on the precipice of, of the third right now. So go through the first one, which was predictive, right? That's your chat, GPT just kind of giving us maybe, hey, write me an email answering sort of questions for you. Uh, and then we kind of slowly moved into this co-pilot. You know, you see a lot of these big companies kind of roll out this co-pilot that was really supposed to do actions for you. And now the panelists has had kind of challenged that were into this third, which is assistive and, uh, autonomous and agent kind of stage of ai where this would be kind of the human touch mix with ai. And I think he's,

The Guest Experience Snapshot powered by TMG Oneview® AI is here! Tune in to hear from the Chief Technology Officer at Travel Media Group, Jason Lee, on the latest technological innovation being offered to hoteliers as a part of our digital solutions for hotels. This new offering uses generative AI in a unique way to help hoteliers interpret guest feedback and dial in on how they can improve the guest experience at their properties   Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. If you are watching us here on YouTube, we have a few announcements to make. First, we've hit an incredible milestone. This is Suite Spot, 150 episodes. Thank you all. I just wanna take a moment before we get started on this great episode that we have today to thank everyone for taking the time to listen to us for all of your support. You know, 150 episodes is something absolutely insane saying it out loud. So again, thank you. And we have a very familiar guest who I feel like we've been on quite a number of these episodes. Jason, our Chief Technology Officer at Travel Media Group. Jason Lee, thank you again for joining me on the Suite Spot. Jason Lee: Thank you, Ryan. Really excited to talk to you about this today. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're super excited. And if you're watching us, like I said on YouTube, if you're not, first of all encourage you go to our YouTube channel, you're gonna find some exclusive content there that you'll only find on YouTube. But if you are watching us on YouTube, you'll see we might have a little bit different feel and vibe. We have moved into a brand new Suite Spot. We are so excited to showcase this new space. It was custom built. You are gonna see all types of new looks from this space. New, exciting content, so be sure to follow and subscribe The Suite Spot. We've got so much jam packed for you. But speaking of innovation and new, that is exactly what we're here to talk about. Jason, we have had a number of episodes talking about the incredible developments that you and your dev team here at Travel Media Group and some of the innovation that you've put out there. This might be one of the most innovative, the guest experience snapshot powered by TMG OneView ai. Before we get talking about it, what we've come to learn is with these innovations, there's always kind of a story or a why behind it. Walk us through that with this guest experience snapshot. Jason Lee: Well, for a long time, I mean, we obviously accumulate reputation data. So we're, we get data from all the sites, we get it from all the hotels. And so we have been, anybody who's seen any of our stuff knows, we have lots of numbers, lots of ways of kind of creating different types of metrics, and showing those metrics in various forms. And I think that's really sort of industry standard where we get a metric or a KPI, we sit on that, we manage to that. And in some ways you sort of lose like what that KPI is for. So you're sort of like almost the purpose for your improvement of a KPI is the KPI. Instead of for what the KPI was originally for. And I think with reputation, we sort of get into that where you have so much data that you sort of lose, you lose track of what is most important. And so what we wanted to do is even going deeper than sentiment analysis. So sentiment analysis really was this natural language processing that we have been doing for quite a while where we take sentence chunks and we look at word modifiers and things like that to create positive, neutral and negative statements inside of a review and ...

The Suite Spot visits the Hyde Midtown Miami in the next episode of the Spotlight series. General Manager of the hotel, Henry Martinez joins the podcast to give travelers an insightful look into the guest experience and what makes the property one-of-a-kind for travelers. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. We are not here at our Travel Media Group studio. Instead, we are live on-site for another incredible and amazing edition of our TMG Suite Spot: Spotlight series. We've got such an exciting property to showcase today and an amazing guest to do it with. Henry Martinez, General Manager of the Hyde Midtown Miami. Henry, thank you so much for being on the podcast with me. Henry Martinez : Well, thank you for hosting me. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're excited about it. Before we get into this incredible property that I just had the pleasure of touring all around and seeing, let's talk about your hospitality journey. This is one of the most unique things in our industry. Everyone coming from all aspects of maybe not starting in hospitality, but ending up there. Uh, what made you fall in love with hospitality? Where's your journey and, and led you here to the Hyde Midtown Miami? Henry Martinez : Excellent. Absolutely. Well, first I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you and your audience a bit about our hotel. So how my journey started, I went to college unsure what to study and with very limited knowledge of the English language. So I took a career exploration test. Now I think it's called a career workshop, which is an aptitude test. And that test is designed to determine a person's ability or propensity to succeed in a given activity. Meaning there's really no right or wrong answer, and to no surprise hospitality came on top. So my career in hospitality truly expands over two decades, working at seven different properties and opening four hotels, beginning as a front desk agent. I quickly advanced through various roles within the rooms division, and eventually stepping into leadership positions such as director rooms and director of operations. In April of 2022, I was honored to take the role of general manager of Hyde Midtown Miami. Each step of the journey has prepared me to do what I love the most, which is interacting with people and trying to make a difference in their lives. Ryan Embree: Yeah, absolutely. It's a common story that we hear, is a lot of hospitality leaders didn't really think about hospitality as a career, and then once they get into it, they really find a passion for it and a love for it. So fantastic to hear. I came from very similar beginnings, front desk, work your way up. You know, that's what the stories that we love to hear about with this. So let's move on to this incredible property that we're at right now. Had the amazing privilege, like I said, to tour it with you this morning to show me the grounds. But before we get into talking about specific amenities or the room types, talk to me a little bit about the history of the project and how the Hyde Midtown Miami came to be. Henry Martinez : Absolutely. Hyde Midtown Miami is a true gem. It offers an intimate, welcoming atmosphere. Our location couldn't be better right in the heart of Byron City activity and only a 15 minute drive to the beach. Designed by the renowned architect, David Rockwell. The hotel reflects the essence of local art and culture, creating an ambience that resonates with both young professionals and leisure travelers.

The Suite Spot is spotlighting the beautiful and newly renovated Regent Santa Monica Beach with special guest and General Manager of the property, Younes Atallah!  This episode covers all the exciting things travelers can look forward to from their stay at the property including dining, amenities, local attractions, and much more. Tune in now! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, with another amazing episode for you today. Very excited to feature this episode. We are gonna be continuing our TMG Spotlight series, and if this is your first time hearing this, it's one of my favorite series that we do on this podcast. It's, it's taken us all over the world at this point, right across the country, and today we are headed to beautiful Santa Monica Beach. With me today is my guest, Younes Atallah, General Manager of the Regent Santa Monica Beach. Younes, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot. Younes Atallah : Thank you, Ryan, for having me. Good to be here. Ryan Embree: And this series, if this is your first time hearing, this is all about highlighting and showcasing some of the world's most unique new properties that we're gonna be talking about. Younes, your property over there, the region, Santa Monica Beach certainly fits the bill. But before we get talking about that, share with our audience a little bit about your hospitality background. We'd love to hear these stories and where we started, where we end up, and, which led you to becoming the first GM of the Regent Santa Monica Beach. Younes Atallah : Again, thanks for having me. It's great to be here and I was born into travel and hospitality. My family owned a travel agency growing up. And, I've told this story a few times. It was a rite of passage for all the kids to work at the travel agency as part of our indoctrination. It was about a 50/50 success rate and the kids sticking to hospitality and travel. But I certainly did and went the hotel route, went to hotel school in Florida. My first job was, picking up the phones at what was then the Orlando Marriott downtown. I don't even know that hotel still exists. But that was probably 30 ish years ago. I kind of jumped in with both feet and never looked back. I've been very fortunate. My career has taken me to some amazing places in the country in North America, actually. I've lived in Florida and Texas. I lived in Canada for a few years. And then more recently I was in Hawaii, in Arizona and then landed in California just about four years ago. So not terrible places to live, overall. So it's been, it's been a fun ride. Ryan Embree: Well, certainly. And that hospitality has taken you all over the country. We talk about all the time on this podcast how transferable, skills are, and I think that's one of the beauties that is lost in our industry is that people serving people, you can do that in Florida, you could do that in California, Hawaii, even in different countries there. So to be able to take your talents across the country, I'm sure you have some incredible experiences in the hospitality and started your hospitality roots right here where we are just north of Orlando, Florida. So that's, that's incredible to hear. But before we start talking about your journey to the other side of the country, let's talk about the Regent Hotel and Resorts brand. We got locations worldwide, but this is actually the first one in the Americas. Introduce our audience to this brand and what they can expect from it. Younes Atallah : Absolutely. This is really,

Check out the latest Suite Spot episode where President - Hospitality, Travel, & Wellness at Questex, Alexi Khajavi, sits down on the podcast to discuss the highly anticipated Hospitality Show 2024 in San Antonio, Texas! This special episode will cover what attendees can expect this year from the event, some urgent issues facing the hospitality industry, and how this event is bringing all the major players of hospitality together in one room. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have another incredible episode continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series, but we have an original TMG Hospitality Trailblazers, one of the first. Joining me again for the second time. Alexi Khajavi, President, Hospitality Travel and Wellness at Questex. Alexi, thank you so much for joining me once again on the Suite Spot. Alexi Khajavi : Great to see you, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we've got a lot to cover. Lots change since we spoke just last year. We've got a very fast moving industry with travel, a lot of positive changes, and we're gonna get to some of those a little bit later. But with this being the second time, we kicked off last episode talking about your hospitality and travel journey and what led you to Questex, but I wanna talk about mentor, right? We're still kind of combating this staffing shortage right now, and we wanna talk about maybe some of the mentors or influences in your career, and then speak to maybe the importance of mentors right now as we try to combat this staffing shortage, especially in an industry like hospitality. Alexi Khajavi : Yeah. I would love to. It's an important topic. Ryan Embree: You wanna go ahead and share some of maybe the mentors in your hospitality career, or influences in your career? Alexi Khajavi : Yeah, you know, I've had a really diverse career in travel and hospitality. I mean, it started out in San Francisco in the sort of the ".com" era of 1997 to, you know, 2001, 2002. And I had the fortune of joining an early stage OTA. There was three OTAs that launched ironically in 1997. One was booking.com and one was Expedia. And I joined the third one.

Join the Suite Spot in this quarterly series to hear from American Hotel & Lodging Association President & CEO, Kevin Carey, on the state of the hospitality industry and recent developments being made by the AHLA to move the industry forward. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. As always, thank you for listening. We've got a fantastic episode for you today. Another industry check-in with Kevin Carey, interim president and CEO at the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time and joining me today. Kevin Carey : Hi, Ryan. Good day. It's good to see you as well. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're excited to have you. You know, we're gonna jump right into it. We spoke last in the spring season, right before a busy summer travel season. Listen, the travelers have been busy traveling to hotels. Hotels have been busy hosting, but AHLA has been busy as well, advocating for hoteliers and everything that you guys do for our industry. Let's catch up with some of those big accomplishments and some of the most pressing issues right now. We know we, there's always those issues that rise up. What are some of those that hotels should be most aware of right now? Kevin Carey : Oh as you said, it's been an incredibly busy period of time. Certainly first and foremost for the industry. The support and the service our member companies provide for guests and the environment they create for our associates and workers is certainly first and foremost, our team here, both in AHLA and, uh, the foundation have been incredibly busy as well. Um, over the first half of the year, it's been, uh, a, a peak period of activity at a state and local level with state legislators and legislatures in session, uh, and certainly in Washington here, uh, as, uh, the Congress starts to look towards end of the year in the election. So, we've been advancing our work, uh, at a state level on short-term rental sets of issues in Washington here around the passage in the house, uh, of the Hotel Fees Transparency Act. Um, and, and also work to ensure that we defeated the, the joint employer rule as well. There's just a number of areas that we feel proud about as a team and that are really meaningful on behalf of the industry as well. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. And but there's still with all those wins, and congratulations to your team, there's always work to do as you know, and some of those pressing issues that are at the forefront right now for our hoteliers. What, what are some of those that, again, hoteliers, even though it might be something regional, they still should be aware of because it has, it's gonna have an impact on the entire industry. Kevin Carey : Absolutely. And really to identify two that are certainly getting a lot of our team's attention and the industry attention. So first and foremost, in New York City, a bill was introduced in the city council several weeks ago, approaching about a month ago at this point. And this bill, the so-called Safe Hotels Act, has been positioned by his proponents as a simple licensing bill. And the bill sponsors have represented that hotels are unregulated, and that there's an increase in crime occurring in hotels. This bill would do grave damage, not only to the hotel industry, to travelers, to workers, who represent and are employed by the industry and the city economy and the tourism economy itself. So this is bad for everyone. And we've been very actively involved in New York several times, meeting with members of the city council organi...

In the grand finale of the TMG Hospitality Campus Crawl, we visit one of the top-ranked hospitality programs in the country at UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management. The Dean of the college, Dr. Cynthia Mejia, joins the Suite Spot to discuss the hospitality school and why it is one of the most successful in the world!  Check out the conversation with topics, including:

Check out the latest TMG Hospitality Trailblazers episode featuring the  Executive Vice President of Development at Gibson Hospitality Ventures, Joseph Grieco! This episode takes a deeper look into the Gibson Hospitality Ventures brand culture, hotel portfolio, and company initiatives that are setting the stage for more organizational success. Get an inside perspective on topics such as:  The Explosive Growth of Gibson Hospitality Ventures How Gibson is Combating Industry Staffing Challenges Leveraging Guest Feedback to Influence Hotel Profitability The Importance of a Strong Hotel Digital Presence  Tune in now!    Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining us today. We have a fantastic episode for you today continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. If this is your 1st, 5th, or 15th episode in this series, it's all about the people and management companies that are pushing and moving our industry forward, the industry that we love so much. We've got a great example and guest with me to share his story and the management company that is recognized as an industry leader. We're gonna talk a lot about that today, but let me bring him in. Without further ado, Joe Grieco, executive VP of Development at Gibson Hospitality Ventures. Joe, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot. Joseph Grieco : Thank you, Ryan. It's a pleasure to be here. I love listening to your podcast and all the other guests you've had on in the past. And, quite an honor to be here with you. Thank you. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. And we're really excited to talk about Gibson Hospitality Ventures. You guys have a lot of exciting things happening right now at your organization, but before we get into that too much, we love to start these episodes with just a little bit of hospitality background, the journey that led you to Gibson Hospitality Ventures and your experience so far. Joseph Grieco : Sure, so I actually started on the food and beverage side. Grew up in a big Italian family where everything was always centered around the dining table. So the restaurant industry was always a passion of mine growing up and started as a dishwasher in the kitchen. Quickly learned that I wasn't cut out for the back of the house, enjoyed the front of the house a lot more. So I went off and worked my way around to bartending, serving, managing various restaurants. My first kind of crossover position was doing room service for a Hilton in downtown Knoxville. And it was a lot of fun. Had a blast down there, worked with a great group of people. But from there I realized the restaurant industry was always a passion of mine. And I met a gentleman when I was at the hotel restaurant program and the two of us went and opened a restaurant in downtown Knoxville back in 2002. I was 24 years old and very young, but we went off and, and started our first venture down there. So had a great time. The restaurant was called Pasta Trio. We were there for about seven, eight years in downtown Knoxville. But I had a baby on the way and kind of realized that having a restaurant and a baby wasn't gonna work out too well for me long term. So at the time, I was working commercial real estate and business brokerage focused on hotels and restaurants. That was in 08' or 09' when the market started to collapse. So I had a side job working for the Knoxville Marriott as a bartender and working in banquets as a banquet captain, and knew they were looking for a food and beverage manager.

TMG Hospitality Trailblazers continues with the Senior Vice President & Global Brand Leader of Hampton by Hilton, Shruti Buckley!  In this celebratory episode, Shruti joins the Suite Spot to discuss the 40-year anniversary of Hampton by Hilton by taking a look back on the brand's origins and where the franchise is headed in the near future with exciting expansion plans and technological innovations.  Tune in now! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. We've got another great episode for you today continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. If this is your first time, this series is all about the people and groups that are pushing our industry, our great industry forward, and I have such a special guest here to celebrate another impressive and awesome milestone. Shruti Gandhi Buckley brand leader of Hampton by Hilton. Shruti, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot today. Shruti Buckley : Well, thank you for having me, Ryan. I'm really excited about our conversation. Ryan Embree: Yeah, it is exciting. And before we get into that, some of that exciting news and the exciting, incredible milestone that this brand has hit. Let's talk to you, Shruti, this is your first time on the Suite Spot. We love hearing stories from hospitality professionals, the webs and weaves of how people got into hospitality, how it kind of infused into their DNA, as we have heard so much in our industry. Share with us a little bit about your experience and the journey that led you to Hampton by Hilton. Shruti Buckley : Yeah, of course. It's really interesting. I had somewhat of a unique path into hospitality, but at the same time, I actually had some exposure at a very young age. My uncle used to own a hotel in New Jersey, and I actually used to spend my summers there helping out at the hotel, sort of understanding the guest piece of it behind the scenes, stacking the coke machine and folding towels, things like that. And that's when I was very young in elementary school. Years went by and when I graduated from college, I actually started my career in consumer product brand management and marketing. So I led global brands and businesses in a variety of different industries. So I started my career out in the food industry with Nestle. I then moved to Luxury cosmetics and I worked for Unilever and Estee Lauder and Chanel. And then I loved to joke with my friends that I traded in my Jimmy Chews for Converse sneakers and Birkenstocks and actually made my way back to D.C. which is where I'm originally from, to work for National Geographic, believe it or not. So I went from Chanel to Nat Geo. They had a very large product division where they had branded merchandise and retail, and I had a really great opportunity to work there for many years leading many of those efforts on the product side. And being in DC as you know, it's known as the hospitality capital of the world, actually had several friends that were in the hospitality industry and for a few years they kept saying, Shruti, come talk to us. We think you'd be a really great addition to the team. You've got really interesting strategic brand background. A lot of our folks are on the operations side, and it would be really interesting just to talk to you to see where this might go. And that is actually what led me into hospitality. So I actually started that part of my career with one of Hilton's competitors just down the street, in fact, for many years running one of Hampton's competitors. And I did that for eight years.

Join the Suite Spot in this episode of TMG Hospitality Campus Crawl featuring Florida Atlantic University! FAU Professor, Dr. Peter Ricci, joins the episode to shine a light on the FAU hospitality program and tells viewers why it is one-of-a-kind and how it prepares its students for success in the hospitality industry.  Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, and this is the second part of our TMG Hospitality Campus Crawl series. If this is your first time listening to this brand new summer series, we just launched this, we've talked about it before. Right now we're going through somewhat of a staffing shortage. We're gonna get into that a little bit into this episode. But what we're trying to accomplish with this particular series is talk to the people and places that are educating and preparing the next generation of hoteliers, the next generation of hospitality workforce. So, very excited to just move a little on up I 95 North to Boca Raton. Im a bring in my next Suite Spot guest, clinical professor and director Dr. Peter Ricci of FAU's Hospitality and Tourism Management program. Dr. Ricci, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot today. Dr. Peter Ricci : Great. Nice to be here. Thank you. So I started sitting back here so you can see my lovely FAU owl. Now I can, move in a little bit. Thanks for having me. I love to see you and I know you're a Rosen grad. I did my doctorate there, so it's great, great to spend some time with you. Ryan Embree: Well, you have, you've got such an extensive and unique journey and, and I was talking to you off camera, how about that is one of my favorite things about our industry is, you know, sometimes our hospitality journeys take us all over the world. Sometimes we fall into hospitality as a career. Typically we meet a couple mentors along the way. And for your particular journey, you've been kind of in and out of academia. Share with our audience a little bit about your journey and the path that led you to FAU. Dr. Peter Ricci : You know it's interesting that I'm spending time with you today. Yesterday was 47 years since I moved to Florida. So I moved here as a little boy and tourism was a part of my life growing up. Always. because we had visited here first. My family also was in California, so we spent a lot of time traveling. And I've always had a love and passion for meeting people and traveling. But as a boy, you don't realize that. You just think Florida's cool because you can swim all the time and you can go play. And so my experience here growing up in middle and high school was fantastic. And, um, I started working as a teenager in a fine dining restaurant and happened to have an absolute amazing mentor who was a self-made millionaire and owned fine dining restaurants all over South Florida. And this was in the eighties when fine dining was all the rage with the flambe, tableside and fancy cocktails before they were called craft cocktails. And he was all about guest service. And of course I didn't know what that meant at that time. He was just instilling me like an etiquette. I'm kind of a casual guy, but I wouldn't say kind of, I'm a casual guy. I don't like suits and ties, but I'm all about treating people with the utmost respect, welcoming them, feeling warmly about hospitality and inviting you into my environment. So hospitality was like a natural thing for me. Undergrad, I worked food and beverage all through college. I fell in love with what they call trip directing, where you would go on a trip as the liaison to the confe...

In this inaugural episode of the TMG Hospitality Campus Crawl series, the Suite Spot takes a trip down to Miami to visit the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Florida International University to meet with the Dean of the School, Dr. Michael Cheng.  Host Ryan Embree sits down with Dr. Cheng to discuss the high-ranking academic institution and how it is preparing the next generation of elite hospitality professionals.  Tune in now! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello Everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. We are here in Miami, Florida, south Florida, introducing a brand new podcast series. We're so excited. This is TMGs Hospitality Campus Crawl, and we are here at our first stop at FIU's Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. And with me today I have Dr. Michael Cheng, Dean of the School. Thank you Dr. Cheng, for being with me. Dr. Michael Cheng: My pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very excited. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're very excited to be on here. This is an intro into a brand new series, a summer series that hopefully we are gonna be touring all around the state of Florida, the great state of Florida, where tourism, as we know, is very, very important to our economy. And what you and your team are doing over here, Dr. Cheng, is very important because you're creating the next generation of hospitality workers and students out there. But before we get into that, this is your first time on the Suite Spot. So welcome. We're gonna be talking a lot about hospitality journeys in this and the paths that are provided for hospitality students right now. But share a little bit about your story, your journey in hospitality, and what led you to FI'Us, Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism. Dr. Michael Cheng: Sure. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah, so the truth is, how I got here is spring break, literally my wife and I, came down for spring break one year same year that we ended up moving down here, which was 2014. And we go, man, this is March. And the world is beautiful. We should like relocate. We were living in the Midwest at that time. Yeah, we were living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and had been in the Midwest for oh boy like 23 years. Yeah. So it's been quite a while. But coming down here, the weather was very nice, but really I'm an international student. I was born and raised in Malaysia and came here to the US to study and enrolled at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. And my first major was not hospitality, it was MIS And I quickly realized that I'm more of a people person and less of a computer desk person. So I changed major, followed a bunch of friends who said "Hey, let's try business." So I did business for another semester, didn't like it because I couldn't find a direction. And then my supervisor at that point because I was working in the residence of food service, say, you should look at hospitality, I think you might be good at it. So I said, what is hospitality? Right. And went over and met the professor and goes, well, you know, there's restaurants, there's hotels, there's events, and you work in food service, anything you want, what you're doing right now is hospitality. I said, okay. I tried it, I loved it. And I found, I think I found my niche, finished my bachelor's, and she asked me to come for my masters. So I did, became a graduate assistant. And then I started working in the industry for three years as a food service manager. And really discovered, man, everything is true. This is the industry that you get to eat for free. Yeah,

The Suite Spot takes a virtual visit to Turks and Caicos in the latest installment of the Spotlight series, which showcases some of the world's most historic and iconic hotel properties. In this episode, viewers get a look at the highly anticipated property, Salterra Resort & Spa, which is set to open its doors in early 2025.  The resort's managing director, Michael Tibbetts, joins the Suite Spot to discuss what travelers can expect from the resort and how Salterra Resort & Spa is elevating the guest experience. Tune in now to hear all the details!  Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. We are here for another exciting episode in our Suite Spot Spotlight series. So, one of my favorite series that we've done so far on this podcast. It takes us literally all around the world, which I'm gonna, we're gonna talk about today. But for those that might be, this might be your first time hearing the Spotlight series. This is where we travel and showcase and highlight some of the industry's most unique and iconic hotels. This property that we're gonna talk about today, as it is the most anticipated openings in 2025. And here to talk about it with me is Michael Tibbetts, Chairman, CEO of JEM Worldwide. Michael, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot with me today. Michael Tibbetts : Thank you, Ryan. I'm really grateful to be here. Ryan Embree: We're gonna talk a lot about Salterra in this amazing project that you and your team have going on right now. But before we jump into this, this is your first time on the Suite Spot. We always love to hear kind of hospitality journeys, right? You know, how we got into this incredible industry and ultimately led you to working on this Salterra project, but to JEM Worldwide. So tell us a little bit about your background. Michael Tibbetts : I would say I have an unusual background for hospitality and development. Really, my origin story starts way back in the 1700's, believe it or not, my family is from the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory. Going back many generations, my great-grandfather was a ship builder, and my grandfather eventually immigrated to the United States. And through that connection in the Cayman Islands, our family started developing resorts there on the small islands of little Cayman and Cayman Brack. Although our family was in hospitality, I chose a different course earlier in my career. I actually went to medical school, studied molecular biology in college, became an eye surgeon, and wove a very strange path back to hospitality. Through some family circumstances, I decided that hospitality development and the team that we were building was just too exciting to forego. So I stepped out of my private ophthalmology practice about eight years ago and devoted myself full-time to helping to lead our resorts in the Cayman Islands, and then also in the Turks and Caicos Islands now. So an unusual path, but I'm really grateful, learned a lot of lessons as a physician that I carry forward now in team building and working together, learning to work hard and follow through. But it's definitely an unusual path, but I'm really grateful for the journey. Ryan Embree: Well, unusual paths in our industry really aren't too out of the ordinary, to be honest with you. I will say this was the first time that I've heard a hospitality journey start in the 1700's though. So, really unique fact. But that's awesome. And, and like I said, we've had a lot of industry leaders on this podcast talk about how they've made their way to hospi...

In this celebratory episode, Travel Media Group is celebrating a major milestone! TMG has officially surpassed 1,000,000 social followers created for our hotel social partners!  Join Suite Spot host, Ryan Embree, and Chief Technology Officer at TMG, Jason Lee as these two social media experts discuss the incredible achievement and what it means to the organization. For our hotelier listeners out there, go to our website to learn more about how you can be apart of the next milestone and increase your hotel's social followers by partnering with us. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, here for another incredible episode. We have a very familiar voice typically on to share a innovative, solution with us, or an upgrade to our solution. But we're here today to celebrate an incredible milestone. Jason Lee, CTO at Travel Media Group. Jason, thank you for joining the Suite Spot. Jason Lee: Thanks for having me back on, Ryan. For the first time in a while. Thought it was something personal , but glad to be back on. Ryan Embree: No, but we have a very personal, uh, milestone to celebrate. Yes. This is a great achievement. If you saw the title of the episode, we are celebrating 1 million social media followers for our hotel partners. It's an incredible milestone, something huge for this solution. We know the importance of social media, we've talked about on this podcast numerous times, but being able to pass this threshold of 1 million followers, that's representative of 1 million travelers that are following our hotel partners social platforms, whether it's Facebook, X, LinkedIn, or Instagram. So exciting. I'm sure you were here at the infancy of the social media solution for hotels. Specifically for hotels, mind you talk to us a little bit about that evolution of when that solution first started to, here we are here in 2024, passing this incredible milestone. Jason Lee: Yeah. When we started, it was really not on a lot of hotel's radar. So most of the pages that we were creating, you know, this was even in a lot of cases before there was even a place page on Facebook. So we were creating the first business pages for most of our clients. So you really taking from there to now where, you know, over this amount of time, pretty much every hotel has probably made a Facebook page, whether they're posting on it or not. Yeah. They probably have gone in after, you know, a conference or something and decided, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. But when we started, we were like really early on creating social media for hotel pages. And a lot of the kind of strategies that we started with have drastically changed based on how, how the social networks have actually changed. So they've actually there's an evolution inside of that, but there's also been an evolution in, while each platform, has its own type of audience, but then at the same time you've also had platforms combined. So back then it was Facebook and Instagram were two separate companies. Yeah. You know, X was called Twitter, but over time, that's as a strategy. You know, our strategy has changed as the travelers have changed their usage pattern. Sure and as hotels have needed it, but we went from, very kind of generic posting to now where we are on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, we're producing short form videos for hotels. We're producing great scheduled content out weeks in advance. Our platform has become extremely advanced. Our ad strategy has become extremely advanced.

The latest and greatest TMG Hospitality Trailblazers episode is here!

Chairman and CEO of Coury Hospitality, Paul Coury, is recognized as a TMG Hospitality Trailblazer!  Paul joins the Suite Spot to give viewers a look at the Coury Hospitality brand and how it grew from its humble beginnings of one hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a portfolio that contains the most extensive collection of Autograph Hotels.  Paul's story is one of perseverance and triumph. Tune in to hear the whole story and be sure to subscribe! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree with another edition of our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers. We've got a fantastic episode. First time guest, I'm gonna bring him right into the conversation. Paul Coury, chairman, CEO of Coury Hospitality. Paul, thank you so much for being with me on the Suite Spot. Paul Coury : Thank you, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're excited to have you here. We're gonna have a great conversation today, all about Coury Hospitality. But you know, as many times as we've done this TMG Hospitality Trailblazers, whether this is your first or 12th, 15th time hearing, this type of series, what this all about is about the pioneers hotel management companies, brands that are pushing our industry forward towards the future. We work in such an amazing industry, and certainly Coury Hospitality. And Paul, you've done some, some great things we're gonna talk about. But before, as many times as we've done these episodes, I can guarantee you one thing. This question is never answered the same way because no two hospitality professionals have the same upbringing or journey into hospitality. Share with us a little insight and background into your journey that ultimately led you to Coury Hospitality. Paul Coury : Well, thanks again, Ryan. I look forward to trying to enlighten your audience today. It's a great industry. I have heard this term by a lot of hoteliers, that they are accidental hospitality individuals, and I kind of fall into that category. I've never worked in a hotel. I never, you know, maybe a few restaurants when I was super young as a busboy or something, but mine was a journey of starting a real estate company in the mid eighties. And we, purchased a building and next door to this building was an old historical hotel in Tulsa that had sat there an occupied for many years. And we ended up purchasing that asset as strategical consolidation with the building and some land that we were buying. And then we set out on a journey to redevelop it. And I think at the time we were gonna, we were working with Hyatt to do one of their first suite hotels. It, it happened to be a bad time, like all cycles, right? We caught ourselves in the middle of the big oil bust that hit and lasted 20 years in Oklahoma. So while we never developed that hotel, it did subsequently get developed. We owned it for 10 years and introduced me to some people in the industry through some exposure, marketing exposure. And we ended up doing some consulting for a family outta Chicago that owned many hotels and golf courses around the country. And, you know, what I would say to you is that was my first exposure to the concept of a boutique hotel, because these were really small hotels that were very, I don't know if I would say run down, but they, they weren't, they weren't cared for. They weren't a true design or boutique, but they were great locations. For example, the Royal Palms was one of them. There were others like that. There were some ground leases the Phoenician Resort, the Harbor Beach, Marriott, things like that.

Interim President & CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, Kevin Carey, joins the Suite Spot in the very first episode of Check-In with Kevin Carey! Get the latest news, updates, and information on the hotel industry in this series, and find out what efforts the AHLA is getting involved in to impact hoteliers and hospitality at scale. From policy legislation to industry events and the rebranding of the Hospitality Show, this episode is full of content! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, with a very special episode today. We have a first-time guest, but I'm sure, widely recognized by the entire industry, Kevin Carey, interim president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Kevin, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot. Kevin Carey : Good morning. Happy to be with you. Ryan Embree: We're gonna cover a lot today, Kevin, so let's jump into it. Speaking of being busy, we are about to enter a busy summer travel season. I'm sure all the hoteliers listening to this podcast, wherever they're watching or listening from, are excited about that or reaching the halfway point of the year, which is crazy to say. I was there to witness live your keynote at the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference back in March in Atlanta. You shared some really great accomplishments so far, year to date that AHLA has been able to achieve. Could you share with our audience a little bit about some of the efforts and wins so far in 2024? Kevin Carey : Well, I'd be happy to and, I think your assessment is, is right on the mark. Uh, it has been a busy first four months of the year. Certainly, you hear that through, uh, we're in earning seasons now. You're hearing a lot of our member companies report out. Uh, so you'll hear some of the things happening across their scope of their operations in our environment representing the industry. It has been a very significant and busy first four months of the year, whether that's here in Washington, working with the Congress and the administration in so many state capitals, with the legislatures in session, and really across the scope of our activities whether that's, uh, the support we provide to our members through our many committees or events or, or the great work our foundation is, is doing a few key accomplishments. I point to one of real significance was the defeat of the, the joint employer rule. And that was significant, not only with action that the House took but the Senate as well as a favorable court ruling, in the Eastern District Court in Texas, blocking the implementation of that rule, because that posed some real challenges for the industry, and in particular the franchise operating model, and would've created complexities and uncertainty there in this environment. We also, a month ago, announced the rollout of our collaboration with the Hotel Association of Canada and our launch, uh, of the Green Key Global Initiative. And then finally, uh, we rebranded our, our very successful regional set of events as the Hospitality show supporting, uh, our trade show and conference, uh, which will take place in San Antonio this year, October 28th to the 30th. Uh, and we've got a number of those events planned over the coming weeks, uh, alongside the seven that we've held thus far this year. So it's been busy, as you said. Ryan Embree: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Super busy. And we're gonna talk about some of those things that you mentioned. I wanna go back to Green Key Global rather. Uh, we just celebrated Earth Day.

The Suite Spot takes travelers to Rhode Island in the latest Spotlight series episode - The Beatrice Hotel! As one of the most iconic and historic hotels in the nation, the general manager for the property, Jennifer Curtin, gives travelers an inside look at why this hotel should be their next destination.  From the rich backstory behind the name, the local attractions in the area, and what the guest experience is all about, this episode covers it all. Tune in now! Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining us. We are here in the content creation studio in Maitland, Florida at our Travel Media Group headquarters, and have another fantastic edition of our Suite Spot: Spotlight series. This time with a fantastic property that we're gonna be showcasing and in with me today to talk about this beautiful property is Jennifer Curtin, the general manager of The Beatrice. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot. Jennifer Curtin : Good morning, Ryan. Thank you so much. Really happy to be here. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're excited to have you. And you know, we're gonna get to The Beatrice and your beautiful property here in a second. But as we do with all of our new guests, this is your first time to the Suite Spot. Talk to us a little bit about your background and hospitality journey that led you to The Beatrice. Jennifer Curtin : Yes, absolutely. Happy to and actually it's, it's quite a full circle story that I have. So my career actually started right here in Providence, Rhode Island. I attended Johnson Wales University, majoring in hotel management, and that's actually located just steps from the Beatrice Hotel. And so this is where I started, I was working in multiple different operations through school. So I worked with Hilton Hotels. I worked in a luxury residential community here in Providence. And then in the summers I used to live on Cape Cod and I worked at an amazing it was a five star resort, Chatham Bars Inn down on the Cape. And so, really for me throughout school, I wanted to get exposure in multiple different operations and environments and really get a sense of what it is that I wanted to choose for a path outside of college. And so for me, it was really that luxury boutique space. That's really where my heart lies. And so upon graduation, I started with Kimpton Hotels first in Boston, Mass, which is home for me. So that was a natural starting point. And then from there I moved with them to Aspen, Colorado and then to Seattle, Washington. And it was when I was in Washington, Seattle that I got the call and moved back to open the Beatrice again, you know, back here in Providence, Rhode Island. Ryan Embree: I'm sure that was such an exciting call to be called back to your hometown where it all started and you went to school for hospitality, which I will tell you of all the hospitality industry experts that we interview on this series in others, it's rare, but I'm seeing more and more of it. I mean, you're talking to another grad of a hospitality management program down here at UCF. More and more people are going to school to get into our industry, which is amazing because most of the time you're gonna hear people say, well, I just fell into the industry, or I was doing a job in college and fell in love with the industry. So it's so great to see and hear stories like yourself, Jennifer, where you knew you had a passion for it, but also finding and having a journey within it and finding a segment and space that you really, that you really cared about. And the fact that you got to do it in your own backyard, I'm sure also benefits you because you know a lot about the local area. Jennifer Curtin : Absolutely. No, it's wonderful. And I will say,

Global Brand Head at Embassy Suites by Hilton, Bonnie Campagnuolo, is recognized as a TMG Hospitality Trailblazer as Embassy Suites celebrates its 40th anniversary!  This episode gives viewers an inside look at what has made the brand successful over the last 40 years and what is on the horizon for Embassy Suites. Ryan and Bonnie go in depth to highlight key initiatives and characteristics of Embassy Suites that contribute to the brand's hospitality dominance. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embee. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Emre, here with another edition of the TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. As we get geared up for a busy travel summer, we are here with another hospitality trailblazer, another Hilton brand leader. I am very excited to introduce our guest for today, Bonnie Campagnuolo brand leader of Embassy Suites by Hilton. Bonnie, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Bonnie Campagnuolo : It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Ryan Embree: We got several things to celebrate today. I don't wanna give too much away, but before we start talking about your incredible Embassy Suites by Hilton Brand, I wanna talk about your background and journey that led you into hospitality. As we know, it's always unique to kind of see these paths, which get us to where we are. Where did you start? Was it behind the front desk? Did you just kind of fall in it? Tell us a little bit about your journey to Embassy Suites by Hilton. Bonnie Campagnuolo : So I never worked in a hotel. I started in ad agencies in Orlando, Florida and had a number of travel and tourism clients across the years and across different agencies. I moved to the client side, marketing teams first at Walt Disney World, and then with a vacation ownership company also here in Orlando. And then moved up to DC for a job with Hilton, uh, almost 14 years ago. And I was director of Resorts marketing for the Hilton Hotels and Resorts brand, which was an amazing, amazing ride. From there, I worked on all of our full service brands in marketing and then went over to the brand side and, uh, did what we called, uh, customer experience and innovation for full service brands. And then I have been in this role since July of 2020, and it's, it's a great job. I love my job. Ryan Embree: Yeah. Well, it's interesting that, you know, we get a lot of, a lot of people that I interview on these hospitality trailblazers and they come up originally from operations. So I'm wondering kind of, you know, what do you think mindset, maybe lessons learned that were a little bit different being in hospitality a little bit later in your career? Bonnie Campagnuolo : So I think understanding how we get messages out to guests, how we establish who we are is part of what Embassy Suites needs right now. And I, I don't kid myself about knowing how every little thing happens in a hotel, and I'd surround myself with people who do, and I'm not shy about asking our hotel leaders, if we were to think about doing something like this, how does that affect you? If we were to make a change like this in a guest room, how does that affect what the housekeeper's life is like? Or did we just create something that's really cool, but a pain in the neck to clean because it, you know, creates a little ledge or something that we're not never gonna get, right? So I really, we have tons of folks who know more than me and I love all of them, and we make sure that we have those conversations. And I'd also say my experience on the customer experience and innovation team really taught me how to a...

Brand Leader of Home2 Suites by Hilton, Talene Staab,  is named a TMG Hospitality Trailblazer and joins the Suite Spot to discuss Home2 Suites and the incredible developments taking place for the brand.  From designing the hotel to finding new ways to improve the guest experience, this episode covers the key aspects that make the Home2 brand special. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. So excited to bring you another episode in another part of our Hospitality Trailblazers series. If this is your first time, we've been running this Hospitality Trailblazers series for almost two years now, and we are interviewing some of the best and brightest in our hospitality industry, some of those people that are trailblazing a path forward, and we certainly have a guest today that fits the bill. Talene Staab, Brand Leader of Home2 Suites by Hilton, Talene, thank you so much for being on the podcast with me today. Talene Staab: It's great to be here with you today. Thank you so much. Ryan Embree: And we're excited to talk about the Home2 Suites brand and all the innovative and exciting developments that are happening with that brand that you were the head of. But before that, although this is not the first time I have met you, we were just talking off camera about how we met at the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, had the pleasure to meet in person even though we're doing this interview virtually. With this being your first time Talene, tell us a little bit about your hospitality background, the journey that led you to Hilton and ultimately the brand leader for home two suites. Talene Staab: Sure. My family, my parents had a little diner that was like a breakfast lunch diner in the Boston area, and I worked there in high school and it was one of those places that was like, cheers, where no one ordered their food. They kind of like walked in and everybody knew, oh, Ryan's here. We might not have known your name, but we knew what you would eat for breakfast. And it was like that sense of building community around a small business really stuck with me, even though it was hard work and I just loved it. But I started working in hotels and then my family actually moved from Boston to San Diego and relocated, and they stayed at this Embassy Suites and they called and they were like, you will not believe this hotel. And this was like 30 years ago. So the brand was relatively new. They were like, you get a suite in every room, you get free breakfast and free cocktails. And I honestly didn't believe it. They're like, you gotta work here. So I did. I actually was a smart sales manager there, um, became a DOS and then eventually joined the corporate team. And then when the corporate office moved to McLean, I moved back east with my family, young family, and we kind of looked at it as like an adventure. Let's just see what happens. And it ended up being a really good move because from there I took on a ton of different jobs that kind of took me out of the brand and sales world into more operations. I got to be on the Canopy team. I joined like a week before we launched the brand. So learned about new brand development, learned about owners. Development was the big learning curve for me, which was really exciting. And then that set me up to be, the VP of owner relations owner experience. And that was really cool because I got to see what Hilton looked like from the owner's point of view, like the whole elephant, you know. Ryan Embree: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna talk about that.

The Suite Spot takes a trip to Atlanta to visit the Reverb Downtown Atlanta by Hard Rock and uncovers how the unique property is one-of-a-kind and gives travelers a rocking guest experience during their hotel stays. From modern amenities like a reverberation room to a rooftop bar that sets your sights on the breathtaking ATL skyline, this episode covers all the exciting developments and why this destination should be your next booking.  Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello Everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. If you're watching us on YouTube, as you can tell, we are not in the content creation studio. So that must mean we are here on site, part of our Suite Spot Spotlight series. I'm here with Derek at the Reverb by Hard Rock Atlanta. Derek, thank you so much for inviting us here. Derek Sumpter : It's absolutely my pleasure. Happy to have you here. Thanks for coming. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. And let me tell you, there's just an energy walking into this place. We're gonna talk a lot about this because this, this is really fits the bill with this series. And if you're listening or watching us for the first time, our Suite Spot Spotlight series is all about highlighting those unique and historic hotels in our industry across the country. This property certainly fits the bill, but this is your first time on the Suite Spot. Yes, it does. We like to talk to hospitality professionals and hear their stories. We know it's such a sometimes career paths. Take us all over the place where we start. Tell us a little bit about your journey to the Reverb. Derek Sumpter : Alright, sounds great. Well, I've been in the hospitality business since I was roughly 10 years old. Growing up my family had restaurants. So from the time I was seven, eight years old, I was washing dishes in my family's restaurants. With that being said, went to college, was not planning on being in the hotel business. I happened to get a job as a room service waiter at a hotel, and kind of fell in love with it, fell in love with the day to day, fell in love with something different. I liked the energy of it all. And no two days were ever the same. So with that being said, just really kind of worked my way up the ranks and wound up here in downtown Atlanta at the beautiful Reverb by Hard Rock. So, you know, it's been a long, it's been a long journey. You know, Florida, uh, New York City, Little Rock, Arkansas, and I worked, did 20 years with Marriott. So this is kind of my first stint with Hard Rock, and with this brand, but definitely happy that I found them. They found me, I should say. Ryan Embree: So, yeah. Well, it certainly matches the energy. Let me tell you that the property does, and, you know, a couple couple things we always hear, right. Not expecting to be in the industry. Fell in love with the industry. Those are two common threads that we hear all the time from people that we interview. That's true. Just like your yourself. And it's just all about people serving people. And we need more of these stories. I talk to industry leaders all the time. We need more of these stories so we can share what a career in hospitality looks like. Because there are a lot of people out there that might not be thinking about a hospitality. They fall into it and all of a sudden you're here at the reverb. Derek Sumpter : I would say most of the people that I know that are in the hospitality industry, were not planning to be in the hospitality industry before they started into it, you know, so it, it's amazing how everybody,

Managing Director at the Caribe Royale Orlando, Amaury Piedra, checks in to the Suite Spot in our latest Spotlight series episodes to give viewers the 4-1-1 on the $140+ million dollar re-imagination of the resort and what guests can expect from the remarkable expansion and transformation.  This episode covers some key digital marketing topics like social media for hoteliers and gives insight into the traveler's journey through the Caribe Royale Orlando property experience. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining us wherever you're listening or watching us on your YouTube. Hopefully you are watching this episode because we are live on site for our Suite Spot: Spotlight series at another amazing, incredible hotel. But before that, I'm gonna bring in our guest Amuary Piedra, Managing Director of the Caribe Royale Orlando. Amaury, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot. Amaury Piedra: No, thanks for taking the time to be here. Happy to have you here. Ryan Embree: You know, I had the pleasure of walking the grounds and having a tour of this amazing resort. I feel like hopefully in that app that you provide, you got a map in there because there is so much to do. But before we get talking about this hotel, which, which we're certainly gonna do today, tell us a little bit about your hospitality background. One of my favorite questions to ask because in this hospitality world we're in, you can start any which way as a bellman you can be born into the industry. Tell us a little bit about your background. Amaury Piedra: Sure. I grew up in south Florida and I actually got my first hotel job at the age of 15. So I'm not gonna give my age away, but let's just say it was over 40 years ago. And, uh, it was valet parking, and that's where I started in the industry parking cars and I've done a multitude of positions and up to, and I wanted to get to my goal of being a general manager, managing director. And that happened around the time I was 30, but it was fantastic. It's, it's what I've done my whole life. Ryan Embree: You know it's funny, I started as a bellman valet over here on the other, the side of me. I feel like if we wanna get a good gauge of maybe the hoteliers of the future, go to our front desk or go to maybe those frontline and there's gonna be a story there. But I think it's so important and critical that you have that background too, because when you do get in this, this managing, you know, GM, you know, we have front desk managers, now you've got an idea of what the job is and the day ins and day outs and, and that really is gonna serve you in your hospitality career. Amaury Piedra: Well, you know, I always tell our associates when we're doing new hire orientation that you can go as far as you want to go. And I use myself as an example. So it doesn't matter what position you're in now, if you apply yourself, you can go to whatever you wanna get to. You can achieve whatever you want. And, I enjoy speaking with our hourly associates because they're really the ones on the ground, you know, taking care of our guests and whatnot. So yeah, it's a great industry that's provided, you know, great opportunities for myself, my family, and many others. Ryan Embree: Those frontline employees definitely have their ears to the floor. We'll talk about the guest experience here and how you prioritize that at the Caribe Royale, let's get into this property, right? So the reason we're here, this is the Suite Spot: Spotlight series.

Check out the top 5 takeaways from the 2024 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference and what they mean for hoteliers. Host Ryan Embree gives insight into key topics and conversations from the event for listeners so don't worry if you weren't able to attend or mis. All the must-know details are right at your fingertips. Tune in! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. We are back here in our content creation studio in our Travel Media headquarters in Maitland, Florida after a busy week at the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference in Atlanta. If you're watching us on our YouTube page, you could see I don't have my normal attire because that is how quickly I wasn't even able to do laundry before I got back to the office to record this episode as this was just such an insightful, jam packed event. I wanted to make sure to get these key takeaways to you as quickly as possible. What such a great event. We're gonna talk about that later in this episode, but wanted to spend some time just giving some key takeaways from the event, what we were hearing from our panelists, some of the interviews that we're gonna be putting out there on our social content over the next couple weeks. So make sure if you're not following Travel Media Group to do so, to get some exclusive insights and interviews and everyone we talk to at the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference. But let's jump right into it because we've got five key takeaways to review. The first one is obviously the name of this is the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, right? So everyone wants to kind of know what is the state of investment right now. There was a lot of cautious optimism, I would say, from this event and some of the panelists that were speaking so much so that, you know, when asked straight out, you know, whether they would invest right now, a lot of the panelists, majority of them would say yes and answer different types of markets. But it is interesting to see with all these kind of looming factors, whether it's geopolitical inflation, interest rates, this is an election year, still this type of optimism. And I think what this comes from and stems from is right now to invest in hotels or in properties. If you wait until interest rates are going to fall, everyone's gonna kind of jump into the ring. So people are trying to be the first one to jump into the pool, get an advantage right now, because again, if interest rates do fall in the second half of 2024, like their expected do, and our panelists are expert panelists had said, you might be late to the party or in a very crowded party and might not have the leverage right now. So I was really surprised with all the optimism, but great to see in a conference like that, the energy strategic partnerships announced, Hotel Equities with trust hospitality have made a big announcement. We actually have an interview with a key stakeholder from Hotel Equities kind of talking about that strategic partnership. So keep an eye out on that. But it was fascinating to hear the opinions on which markets to get into. And I do think that is an interesting trend that we're seeing right now because some markets, like, Miami and Nashville, we actually spoke to an asset management company that has a couple assets in Nashville saying that they were running so hot that the growth is just not there like it used to be. And it's interesting because everyone at you know, since the pandemic has been on this steady rate of recovery, but markets like Miami, Nashville,

Former CEO and President of the AHLA, Chip Rogers, joins the Suite Spot to discuss the state of the industry and how hoteliers can make 2024 a successful year. This episode is filled with expert advice, industry insights, and trending topics so tune in to get the 411 on what developments are going to impact your hotel business! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree, welcome and we've got a great guest, a guest that needs little to no introduction. He's checked in with us several times on the Suite Spot. Chip Rogers, President & CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Chip, thank you so much for being on Suite Spot. Chip Rogers: Yeah, always glad to be with you, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Ryan Embree: Yeah, and last time we were together Chip, was before the new year, so Happy New Year by the way. Very, very busy time for hoteliers. They're getting their budgets together, they're looking at data projections, all that good stuff. I wanna give a little bit of insight to our audience on maybe the planning process from the AHLA team. You guys have, have started off just really, really quickly. Lots of events. Obviously, every issue is important, but how do you kind of prioritize that, put your calendar in place, you know, around this time of year? Chip Rogers: Yeah, the biggest priority for us is always advocacy. I mean that's the core of what we do at AHLA is we're the voice of the hotel industry to make sure that policymakers are doing things that help the hotel industry not hurt the industry. And so this is a critical time of year for us because while we do a lot in Washington D.C., that just kind of keeps churning at a, at a steady pace again and again and again. It's the state and local level that is hyperactive at this very moment because most state legislatures go into session at the beginning of the year, and then most of them are done with session by early spring. And so this is really prime time for us when working on state and local legislation. And again, this year we've got a whole host of issues that we're dealing with at the state level. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia right now, probably two blocks from the capitol. We had a really big event here yesterday, about 300 hotels for our Georgia Hotel conference that we share with the Georgia Hotel Lodging Association. We had the Attorney General, we had one of the key members of the Georgia Senate join us. And we talked a lot about the policies that are impacting people. And we do these type of events really all around the country. We have 20 of these on the road events this year. And so yesterday was the second one we had. The first one was in Honolulu last week, which was wonderful, but we've got 18 more to go. And then of course we have our really big show, the Hospitality Show, which will be happening October 28th through the 30th in San Antonio, Texas. Ryan Embree: I'm sure it's so important, Chip to kind of hear, you know, get feet on the ground and talk to hoteliers face-to-face about some of these pressing issues in our industry. You get a unique perspective there. One of the things that AHLA just released recently, which should be good and and exciting news for everyone, is 72% of American travelers are likely to increase or at least maintain their level of hotel stays in 2024. So excellent news there, right? But there's always those looming, some inflation, economic uncertainty, obviously we got an election year. What can hoteliers do to make sure when they look back at the end of this yea...

The 35th Hunter Hotel Investment Conference is only weeks away, taking place on March 19-21 in Atlanta, Georgia!   Join Suite Spot host and TMG Director of Marketing Ryan Embree as he sits down with the Chief of Staff at Hunter Hotel Advisors, Sarah Moss, to discuss the upcoming event and what attendees can look forward to from one of the biggest conferences in the hotel industry. This episode has something for every hotelier, from best digital marketing practices to everything related to the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining us, wherever you are listening or watching us on our YouTube channel from. I've got a great guest with me today that I'm gonna introduce in just a second, but this is a part of our Hospitality Trailblazers series. If this is your first one, or your fifth one or your 12th one. This series is all about highlighting and showcasing some of the individuals or companies that are pushing our industry forward into the future. So without further ado, it's my pleasure to bring in Sarah Moss, Chief of Staff at the Hunter Hotel Advisors. Sarah, thank you so much for being with me today. Sarah Moss: Thank you so much, Ryan, for having us. We're so excited to chat about the conference today. Ryan Embree: Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes being a Hospitality Trailblazer means that you're actually putting a lot of the people in the same room together to help move our industry forward and Hunter Hotel Conference does such a fabulous job of doing that. But before we jump into all the exciting things about the conference, since this is your first time on the Suite Spot, it is always a little ritual to ask, you know, kind of about your background in the hospitality journey that led you to Hunter Hotel Advisors. Sarah Moss: Sure. So my journey in hospitality started when I was really young. My first job was in a restaurant in my hometown. Then going into college, I worked at a hotel property, really fell in love with hotels and the operations of them and was so fortunate that Georgia State is a partner of Hunter Hotel Advisors in the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference or our co-founder of the conference. And we place an intern every year with the company to give the students a really immersive experience to teach them what goes on through a conference and here at the advisory firm as well. And I was lucky enough to be one of the students that they placed here at Hunter. And so that's really how I got my journey here to Hunter today. But it's really unique and I love it. But I've been here for almost five years now and did my internship for two years before that, so seven total. Ryan Embree: That's such a cool story to hear that background that you were just an intern starting at the Hunter Hotel Conference and now you're already Chief of Staff here just several years later. It's super exciting and you know, your start is very much like a lot of these Hospitality Trailblazers that I interview, you know, started somewhere line level with myself. I started as a bellman at a hotel. But I think that's one of the unique things about our industry is that we just, we start in these places, all of us are travelers at heart, right? I haven't run into one person in hospitality that doesn't like to travel. So we're travelers at heart. But when we start our journey in hospitality, typically it starts, you know, just serving people and you know, you get to see that evolution, which is so cool.

In this episode, Suite Spot host Ryan Embree sits down with TMG Director of Product - Respond & Resolve™, Jackie Avery, to discuss the top 5 guest sentiment trends of 2023. It has become an annual tradition to take a look back each year and analyze which guest sentiment tags were mentioned the most and what aspects of the hotel guest experience resonated with travelers. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio.   Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, here for the first episode of 2024 and one of my favorite annual traditions. We've got the same episode, but a new face and voice that's gonna be joining me today. Jackie Avery, Director of Product for our Respond and Resolve™, which is our review response solution for hotels. Jackie, not the first time on The Suite Spot, but this is the first time we're going through this list together. Jackie Avery: Yeah, I'm so excited. I can't wait to kind of talk through everything with you. We had a really busy year, so in slower seasons last year, I'd say our team was responding to and analyzing anywhere between 18,000 and 20,000 reviews a month. And then, yeah, once we got into the busy season, we were hitting, you know, over 26,000 reviews. So it was a great year, and I can't wait to share some of the exciting things that we saw. I think everyone's gonna be happy to hear that. Last year after looking at the sentiment, not only were more people traveling, but they were happy. They left positive sentiments. You know, everyone just kind of takes a sigh of relief when they hear that, and it's really fun to think about. They were making informed decisions and then they were pleased with those. So I think we all just kinda take a second to celebrate that there was lower dissatisfaction and an increase in satisfaction among travelers all over. Ryan Embree: That's amazing. And it's a lot more fun, I would imagine, to respond to someone that's had a really great experience at your hotel. It's at your hotel than someone that may have not had that great experience. So we respond to both either way, but I'm always amazed, Jackie, by the sheer numbers when we talk through this episode, because it's really incredible. You know, we talk to hoteliers that ask us, you know, are reviews becoming less relevant? Our sites like TripAdvisor, you know, really fading from the public eye and really the opposite's true. You think about how reviews have really incorporated into our life from movies to Amazon products everywhere is a review or a rating, right? And hotels have been one of the longest industries where reviews have been relevant and people are making informed decisions, as you mentioned, based on that feedback. And that's what this episode's about. So if this is your first time listening to this annual episode, like I said, it's, it's a tradition. Now, our first time with you here, Jackie, but we review the top five sentiments in 2024. So what do I mean by that? Each review is compiled. Each review includes subjects and topics that the guest leaves either positive, neutral, or negative sentiment. So we go into those reviews and we actually tag that, that type of sentiment and organize that information and data. We share a lot of that through our industry reporting that we, that you can find on LinkedIn or our website, travelmediagroup.com. But this is just really an all, all-encompassing episode that counts down the top five. I can't wait to hear it and I'm sure you're ready as well, Jackie. Jackie Avery: Yeah, I can't wait to share what we uncovered. So in 2023,

The next episode of TMG Hospitality Trailblazers sees Charles Oswald, President and CEO of Aperture Hotels, taking center stage on the Suite Spot podcast. In this installment, viewers will get a clear breakdown of what makes Aperture Hotels so unique and a one-of-a-kind hotel brand, along with a plethora of information covering some of the most pressing topics in hospitality and hotel digital marketing.  Tune in now!   Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. This is our first episode in 2024, recording in 2023, but really excited nonetheless. Got a great guest with me. I'm gonna introduce in a second, but this is a part of our Hospitality Trailblazers series. And if this is the first time you're doing this, we've done this over a year now we are talking about the future of our industry and those individuals, hotel management companies that are really driving our industry forward. And, no better guest than I have. Charles Oswald, president, CEO of Aperture Hotels. Charles, this is your first time to the Suite Spot. Welcome in. Charles Oswald: Hi, it's good to see you. Thank you. Ryan Embree: We're excited to be here, Charles, we're gonna cover a lot past, present, and future today, but let's start in the past. You know, this is a new guest. You're the first of the year. We work in this industry where this is, people come from all walks of life and how, and how we get into hospitality. We're gonna talk about one of those tracks with hospitality schools a little bit later. But tell us a little bit about your background, Charles, and the journey that led you to Aperture Hotels. Charles Oswald: It's been a long, it's been a long story for sure, but, you know, I began in hospitality when I was in high school. I was a cook in freestanding restaurants, and I did that on through, uh, through college. Then moved into, uh, you know, in convention services at Hyatt. And that began my food and beverage career at some award-winning Hyatt Hotels. You know, they transferred me from, from Tampa then to Dallas, where we grew with a lot of responsibilities. And, uh, that was in the early nineties to mid nineties. Uh, and then I went on to become an, an a, uh, assistant general manager and general manager of some award-winning full service Holiday Inns, Marriots some Hilton Properties through the late nineties and early s before ultimately becoming a vice president of operations, uh, with an up and coming sophisticated private equity firm, noble Investment Group. And I would say really learned a lot there about the PE side, the investment side, uh, proper asset management and so on. And that's really what groomed me for, uh, for my next role when, um, when Noble Investment Group sold their management company into interstate hotels and resorts. Uh, at that time, you know, the predecessor to Abridge that we know today was the largest, uh, hotel management company. That was an opportunity through that transition to step out and become a partner and CEO in my own company, uh, with HP Hotels. So I ran, uh, HP Hotels for eight years through 2019. Grew that portfolio to just shy of 50 properties. Then I transitioned into an investor role through the pandemic period planned to invest in hotels, but we know how hotels were through the Pandemic. So I had to pivot, stepped into some other industries, including managing investments for, uh, you know, some retail office development, had a charter yacht business, and several other interesting deals associated with commercial real estate. Uh,

In this year-in-review episode, podcast host Ryan Embree has a meaningful conversation with Travel Media Group President, Dana Singer, to go over some of the most significant innovations and milestones that took place in 2023 for TMG and what exciting developments hoteliers can look forward to from TMG in the new year.  With hotels and hotel management companies trying to grow their digital marketing efforts and reach more travelers, you will find out how Travel Media Group plans to help them achieve their hotel digital marketing strategy resolutions. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio.   Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, as always, one of my favorite episodes of the year. It's an annual tradition. Dana Singer, President of Travel Media Group joins me today. Morning, good morning Dana. And, we're wrapping up another year and I love this episode 'cause it takes the time to reflect on everything that we've accomplished as a company, Travel Media Group, but also the industry. You know, as we get into another year, we've sat here in years past before and, you know, maybe that that outlook hasn't been as bright as it looks in 2024. And maybe finding those bright spots have been a little bit harder to do. But before we get into talking about Travel Media Group, which we're certainly gonna talk a lot about today, this is the year in review episode. I wanna talk a little bit more about the hotel industry as a whole and how it compares to those last couple years that I just talked about. Dana Singer: Sure, yeah. You know, the industry continues to demonstrate resilience, travel demand remains strong. however, it's not without its headwinds and, and challenges. And this year at Travel Media Group, we conducted several industry surveys of our database, over 40,000 hotels. And we found that staffing is still a significant challenge. It's important to mention that the industry forecasts are positive and it's exciting to see the number of new entrants into the market, and that really speaks to the evolving needs and expectations of travelers. Ryan Embree: Yeah, so certainly a brighter outlook than, like I said, maybe years past that we've seen. But, you know, some of the challenges that we've seen in this industry, we talked about it on this podcast just a few episodes ago with Chip Rogers when he came on, you know, still seeing those challenges when it comes to staffing and for hotel owners and management companies to find that time. But they're getting it much more effective and efficient at combating these staffing challenges. This hasn't been something that's happened in the last six months, is actually something that's happened over the last couple years. So that's why actually we're at Travel Media Group seeing a lot more demand for things like crafting social media for a hotel or management portfolio, responding to reviews, giving back time to their employees, taking task off their plate so that they can be more efficient. So there's also this kind of evolution and trend towards outsourcing some of that stuff that's a lot more welcome. So in that same vein, I wanna talk about Travel Media Group and, you know, some of the latest innovations and developments. We've had Jason Lee on here, chief Technology Officer. I feel like he's on here almost every other episode talking about some sort of new development or launch. Let's talk about some of those developments in 2023 and the impact that it's had on our hotel partners. Dana Singer: Sure. You know, if I look back, I would say,

The Suite Spot: Spotlight series is back with another one-of-a-kind episode that welcomes special guest, Christopher Calabrese, General Manager & VP of the Marriott Cancun Collection! Podcast host and TMG Marketing Director, Ryan Embree sits down with Christopher to showcase the newly renovated Marriott: Cancun, an All-Inclusive Resort, and what exciting new amenities, views, dining options, and activities hotel guests can look forward to from the astounding 450-room property. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio.   Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining me. We are continuing our Suite Spot: Spotlight series. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite series podcast series that we've done on The Suite Spot. Because of all the places we've traveled, we've gone up to New York, down to Miami Beach, and now we are going to beautiful sunny Mexico with a great guest, Christopher Calabrese, general manager and vice president of the Marriott Cancun Collection. Christopher, welcome to the Suite Spot. Christopher Calabrese: Thank you, Ryan. Good to be with you. Ryan Embree: Yeah, and we talked off screen how very jealous of where you're at. You've got a wonderful property over there, which we're gonna talk all about. But before we do that, I always love, we live and work in such a wonderful industry, Christopher, with tons of backgrounds and stories. Tell us a little bit about your journey, your hospitality journey, and what led you to the Marriott Cancun Collection. Christopher Calabrese: Well, I've been with Marriott for 52 years now, which a lot of people don't believe, but it's actually the truth. I've had the pleasure to work with all three of the generations of the Marriott family, starting with JW Marriott Sr., Bill Marriott, of course, who was our ex-chairman of the board, and now our David Marriott, who of course is the grandson of the founder and he is now our chairman, executive chairman, as they call it these days. So it's been an honor to work with all three generations. I started with the hot shops, which was our sort of founding company of restaurants. That's how Marriott got started in the business. And most of my background, or let's say half of my background to date so far has been food and beverage. I then became a regional director of operations in Mid-Atlantic. And I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to see international, I wanted to be a general manager. And so at that time I expressed an interest in Latin America and they said, well, you don't really speak Spanish, so we don't, we can't really put you there at this time. So I said, okay, well what might you have? They said, well, we have a job for you in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia as general manager. I said, I don't speak Arabic. And they said, yeah, but you know, your type of personality will fit in nicely in in that area, in that part of the world. So if you'd like it, let's do it. We can fly you in if you want to have a look. I said, no, that's okay. Let's just go do a one-way ticket and I'll work out there for a couple of years and hopefully one day get back to this part of the world. And, and sure enough, that's what happened. And so that's kind of my journey International. And then I moved to Puerto Vallarta as general manager of the Marriott there. And then I've been in Cancun the rest of my career, but I've moved 26 times with this company. So, um, I know what it's like to see different parts of the world or at least parts of the US for the short time that I was there, half of my career.

It's time to catch up on the state of the hotel industry with special guest Chip Rogers, President and CEO of the AHLA!  Ryan and Chip have important conversations around some of the most pressing and relevant current events happening in hospitality and give hoteliers key insights into how staying in touch with these developments directly affects your businesses and travelers.  Tune in now to discover how staffing, work flexibility, new trends, and hotel technology keep evolving and how you can stay one step ahead of the curve. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio.   Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining, watching us. If you're watching us from our YouTube channel or joining us from any of the streaming platforms that you're listening to, if you did find us, you know, we've got a great guest today, someone that really doesn't need any introduction. Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Chip, thank you so much for, being on the Suite Spot with me today. Chip Rogers: Hey, Ryan, it's so good to be with you. Thank you for having me. Ryan Embree: Really technically not your first time on the Suite Spot. Last time we were together, Chip, we were in Las Vegas on a busy trade show floor after a very successful hospitality show. About six months removed from that now, what type of feedback are you getting about that event and maybe give us some insights into what you're looking for from the next one in October in San Antonio? Chip Rogers: Well, first feedback was the opening party, seems to have taken on historic status. As folks who have been, at that property know that the nightclub TAO and we packed it out, there was a line that lasted, some estimates over two hours long to get into it. And so you, you almost created that, fear of missing out. But people absolutely loved the opening party. And from there it went to, an incredible lineup of keynote speakers. And what we tried to do is make sure that we are entertaining you, informing you yes, hitting on those things that are unique to the hotel industry, but also remembering that everyone's a person, they have outside interests too, and, and could we get speakers that are funny, inspiring, educational. And I, and I think we hit all that. In fact, the most popular speaker that we had, Admiral McCraven, it was interesting. I was at an event literally last night and it was a political event and people were talking about, oh, you know, these two candidates that this seemed to be the two candidates running for president. And someone said, if there's a third party candidate, why don't we just get Admiral McCraven? And I'm like, that would be great, because now I know the guy and if he became president, that would be kind of cool. But it's that type of level of speaker that we had that I think really set us apart from many of the other shows that you go to. And so from the trade show floor, that was just amazing. We sold it out in year one to the speakers. And again, starting with that incredible opening party, it, it was quite an event. And, you know, Las Vegas always has something special for everybody. We're gonna try to redo that again in San Antonio. San Antonio, a very unique place. One of the most visited cities in the United States for people that are going on a leisure trip. And so we wanna make sure we're capturing that, that you're coming to the event, you're going to have fun, you're going to be entertained, you're gonna learn something,

Join Suite Spot host, Ryan Embree as he welcomes TMG Hospitality Traiblazer, Oliver Winter, to the podcast. Oliver is the founder and CEO of a&o Hostels which is the largest independent hostel chain in Europe!  These two discuss the hostel experience, a&o's commitment to green initiatives and sustainability, and the resurgence of the solo traveler. Tune in now to see how Oliver and a&o are making a big difference in hospitality across the globe.   Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. All right. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, thank you so much for joining us, for listening to us, to watching us wherever you are, finding us here. We are here at the Content Creation Studio for another episode of TMG Hospitality Trailblazers. I am so excited to bring in my next guest, certainly a trailblazer, and what Oliver and his group are doing right now. Certainly, fantastic. We're gonna get a lot to it. So, let me go ahead and bring him in. Oliver Winter, founder and CEO of a&o Hostels. Oliver, thank you so much for jumping on the Suite Spot with me. Oliver Winter: Yeah, thanks Ryan, for having me here. Thank you very much. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. And we're gonna have some fun today. We're gonna talk about a&o all the initiatives that you guys are doing and this incredible growth that you're seeing. I think you bring a really unique perspective, but for those that have not listened to this series before, this is our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers, where we spotlight those individuals and management companies, uh, groups like a&o that are really trailblazing the path forward. So we have the pleasure of speaking with Oliver today, but Oliver, before we get into everything that we're doing right now, or even what's in the future, I wanna start with the past because this is one of my favorite questions we've been doing this series, which is almost a year old now, is tell us a little bit about your hospitality background, because we have such unique stories in our industry that I feel like rarely get told. We all talk about the, the exciting things that are happening right now, and maybe in the future, but a lot of us in hospitality, you had some very unique backgrounds before we got to the place that we were. So tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to ultimately founding a&o. Oliver Winter: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, happy to do this. Uh, so yeah, as a, as a young man between school and university, I, I had time to travel around the world and, um, came in touch with this hostel concept in many different countries. And what I saw, I liked really much so affordable stay, uh, you have with a warm shower, safe bed, a kitchen to share, a place to hang around and, and, uh, a place even very easy to come in touch with other travelers. So back to Berlin. Then, in these days, I started to study to become a teacher so far away from hospitality background parallel. During my studies, I investigated the Berlin Hostel market, and there've been in this time just non-commercial providers, like Y-M-C-A-Y-J, et cetera. So no private independent hostel. So with, with a lot of patients. And, and little luck of course, as well. So, 23 years ago, then I founded, um, AO in Berlin, opened a a 164 beds hostel. That was the very beginning, 164 beds. And it was, uh, it was from the first moment, it was great success. And, um, so then I stopped my studies and, and focused to grow this company and, and adding more bets first in Berlin later than in other cities in Germany, and then in other European countries.

The Suite Spot visits Miami Beach in this episode to talk with Simon Sorpresi of the SLS South Beach Hotel to discuss its addition to the Suite Spot: Spotlight series and how the iconic property stands out from the competition with a unique guest experience, art style, and digital marketing strategy.  Tune in to discover why the SLS South Beach is a one-of-a-kind hospitality experience that every type of traveler should mark as their next destination. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. I am so excited for this episode. If you are watching us on Travel Media Group's, YouTube channel, you know that we are here live on location. This is the first time ever we've been live on location. We're very excited. We've got this brand new Suite Spot: Spotlight series. We just had our first episode, but the first time that we're doing it live on location, and we have such a great guest and property that we're gonna be showcasing on this Spotlight series. Without further ado, let me bring him in. Simon Sopresi of the SLS South Beach, Vice President of Ennismore - Miami, Mexico, and South America. Simon, welcome to the Suite Spot for the first time. Simon Sorpresi : Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure and it's great to host you and your team here at SLS South Beach. Ryan Embree: My breath was taken away when we came in through these doors. You have a beautiful property here at the SLS South Beach. It really truly embodies the spirit of this series. We are going around the country trying to find and showcase the hotel's most unique and historic in the nation. Yeah, and I think that SLS certainly fits the bill, but before we start talking about the property, it's always interesting to talk to another person in hospitality because, we know everyone's story's different, right? You could start as a Bellman at a hotel like myself. Some people are literally born into the industry. Some people just fall into it just by choice. So tell us a little bit about your story, and what led you to Ennismore? Simon Sorpresi : Whoa. Okay. Uh, let me try to keep it short. So first of all, it's a pleasure to have you here. As you can hear, I'm not originally from the States. I still have a very thick accent. I tried to get rid of it, which I'm clearly not mastering it, but was very interesting. I studied national construction architecture back in Europe and fell through an excursion from that architectural school in hotels, fell kind of in love with hotels. And I was like, oh my God, that's really kind of unique. There was a gentleman called Uli Prager. He was the founder of Mervin Pick, the brand. And he did the tour and he was very charismatic. He could speak about the thread counts of the linen to how to wash pots and pans. I mean, he knew it all. And as a young person, young professional, I was really, really, I think wowed by him. And said, I wanna become him. And so that's where, how it came about. Did the hotel management school in Switzerland, worked all different disciplines of the hotel. Worked very heavy in food and beverage, specialized myself in food and beverage, had my own company in Europe and said, I wanna learn English and ultimately move to New York City after a saltic business. Moved to New York City, had my own business in New York, mostly in nightlife and art galleries. And then did that for seven years and went back to the roots of hospitality in luxury segmentation in Los Angeles. And I came here at SLS South Beach is the reason why it was such a tempting thing for me,

Travel Media Group just launched its latest product innovation to its social media digital solution, Social Video for Hotels: TikTok & Instagram Reels! Tune in to this Suite Spot podcast episode to join TMG Marketing Director & Suite Spot host, Ryan Embree, and Social Media Product Manager, Brian Ross as these two digital marketing specialists share the capabilities of this exciting addition to the social media solution and the best video-making insights that will optimize your hotel's unique social media strategy.  Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining, thank you for listening. If you're hearing us on any of the podcast streaming platforms that you can find the Suite Spot on, or thank you for seeing us on Travel Media Group's YouTube page where you can find all of our Suite Spot episodes, and we have a fantastic episode today. A first timer, a newbie to the podcast of the Suite Spot, Brian Ross, our Social Media Product Manager at Travel Media Group. Brian, welcome to the Suite Spot. Brian Ross: Thank you so much for having me. Ryan Embree: Yes, and we're, super excited today. We've got a great episode and we're here for another launch. I feel like we do these episodes, every other episode, Travel Media Group, continuing to innovate. We have launched an exciting social media innovation and addition to our already incredible solution, due in part to you and what your team has been doing over there on the social media side. But we are launching social video for hotels, Instagram Reels, and TikTok. I'm excited. How are you feeling? Brian Ross: It's been fantastic. It really is the next natural step to what we've been doing with custom posts for hoteliers. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And I wanna talk about that because I feel like I know, I joked about it, you know, this being, an episode we do all the time with the, all these innovations. But we were a couple months ago, a couple episodes ago, talking about video content creation, TMG giving you the ability to build social videos via OneView®. So, what's the difference between that announcement and what we're talking about today? Brian Ross: So internally, what we refer to the other launch as is our DIY product. And that is essentially a product where you can go in and use our system to create content that goes out across all of your platforms, and you can track your insights and the performance of all those posts. But what this is, is this is a product that we offer where we create the custom posts for you. When we onboard somebody, we get some property notes and even in the individual posts, they can give us some notes on what they like and, you know, they know their occupancy drivers and things like that. So if they just give us a little note, then we go in and we actually create the content. Ryan Embree: So this is now us doing that with the video which is just so powerful and it's the natural evolution. We were talking off screen, off mic about this, but you know, one of the things that I'm gonna continue to reference during this episode is the social hotel social media survey that we just conducted, went out to our entire database of over 40,000 hoteliers. And one of the questions we asked them, what was your biggest challenge? And we saw 62% of the time, not enough time. That is a hotelier's life, 365, 24/7. We wish there were more hours in the day, but even if there were, we'd be open for them, right? Because we're hoteliers, not enough time, unsure of what to post 60% and staffing someon...