Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

Tune in to the latest TMG Hospitality Campus Crawl episode featuring University of Nevada, Las Vegas! Special guest and Dean of the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at UNLV, David Cardenas, who joins the Suite Spot to discuss the exciting curriculum and academic program of the college and how it is preparing the next generation of hospitality professionals. 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. Ryan Embree:Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. We are here for another edition of TMG Hospitality Campus Crawl. Yes, we are bringing it back. And we are live on campus at UNLV’s Harrah College of Hospitality here, with the Dean of the Harrah College of Hospitality, David. David, thank you so much for inviting us and, and, you know, bringing us here to your beautiful campus. David Cárdenas:My pleasure. Thanks for allowing me to share a little bit about this amazing program and share a little bit about the wonderful things that we do here. Ryan Embree:We’re so excited, like you said, the inspiration behind this series was just to showcase some of the amazing colleges and schools of hospitality around the nation. UNLV certainly fits the bill. We’re gonna talk about that and some of the amazing things you and your faculty and students are doing here. But before we do that, we always like a little bit of tradition. One of the things unique to hospitality is learning about people’s background because you come from different brands, sometimes different segments, sometimes you fall into the industry. Tell us a little bit about your hospitality journey and what led you here. David Cárdenas:Yeah. So, a little bit about myself and how I got to where I am. So, I was born in Ecuador, lived there for most of my childhood. I came to the United States to go to school in the Carolinas. And, my start in the hospitality industry is a little bit untraditional, but maybe a lot more people actually go through it the way that I did. So I was in college, and like most poor college students, I had to, to find a job. And so, hospitality was where I found it. You know, bussing tables, washing dishes, cooking, and I loved it. And that’s what paid my way through school. At the time, I was a pre-med major. I wanted to be a real doctor, what my daughter says is a real doctor <laugh>. David Cárdenas:And so didn’t think anything about being in the hospitality industry while I was doing it. And, but, little by little, even in school went from, you know, a server to a supervisor to, you know, assistant manager to, by the time I graduated, I was running food and beverage operations. And my boss at the time was like, hey, you should really think about going into the hospitality industry. And said, no, I’m gonna be a doctor. And she’s like, just do it for a year. So one year turned into two, two into three, year four, my mom’s like, you’re going to medical school? And I’m like, no, I don’t wanna go to medical school. But I realized that I didn’t know what I was doing, and I hadn’t taken an accounting class. I’d taken physics and taken biochem, but I’ve never taken, you know, an HR class, and I had to go back to school. David Cárdenas:So, you know, after working in the industry for four or five years, you know, I was like, I needed to go back and get an education. And so I went back and got my master’s degree, and knowing that my path was gonna be in the hospitality industry, I thought I was gonna be a corporate trainer. I loved working with people, loved getting them you know, trained to do what, if it was serving or, you know, being a cashier, being a manager. That was what I loved to do. And so that was what I was hoping to do. And when I was in my master’s program, realized that I love to teach and I loved to do research, got the opportunity to get my PhD, one thing led to another and got into academia. But didn’t ever think about the hospitality industry when I was in school. But that’s kind of how I fell into it. And I don’t regret any of it. Ryan Embree:Well, I love what you said there. It’s the untraditional traditional route of hospitality, and that’s actually one of the reasons we started this series, is to showcase that you can have a career here. There’s so many elements to it, as you said, and you know, in some ways you are kind of training, you know, the next generation of hospitality. So it goes full circle. So, share with us a little bit about the rich history of this school and the college here. David Cárdenas:Yeah. So the, the university or the college was established in 1967. So over 50 plus years of being part of the hospitality education industry. And you know, I think that there were no better place to have hospitality education than to

The 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference in Las Vegas was a tremendous success! The annual event was filled with thought leadership, networking, and insights with the best and the brightest in the industry. The Suite Spot and Hotel Equities have partnered together to bring you Hotel Equities Part 2, in the latest Suite Spot episode, which contains three exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names at Hotel Equities. 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. We hope you enjoyed episode one of our special edition Hotel Equities Leadership Conference 2026. This is episode two where we’re gonna sit down with Karen Mendez and David Rosenberg, who’s gonna talk to us about the exciting updates from the postcard, cabins and outdoor collection brand from Marriott. We talked to Bill Stachler about revenue optimization. And lastly, we sit down with Albert Smith, Chief Operating Officer at Hotel Equities. We hope you enjoy these interviews, out in Las Vegas. Ryan Embree: Hello Everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. We are at the 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference. I’m here with Karen Mendez, VP of Operations, and David Rosenberg, President of the Focus Services Division and Outdoor Collection. Karen, David, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot. Karen & David: Thank you for having us. Ryan Embree: Yeah. Well, let’s talk about this conference. First of all, nearly a thousand people are gonna be here on site. This is very, very exciting. Um, talk to us a little bit about what you’re kind of expecting for these next couple days, and then we can get into your role a little bit. Karen, we’ll start with you. Karen Mendez: Oh, great. Thank you. Um, this is really exciting for me. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, this is, I’ve been in the hotel industry 26, 27 years. I’ve been to a ton of conferences, and what I’m most excited about this one is bringing the postcard general managers. They have never had an opportunity to get together like this and really talk about their business. So I’m just excited for them to build off the energy and to meet everybody within hotel equities face to face, and really just know that what they do matter. Ryan Embree: David, what are you excited about for the next couple days here at that leadership conference? David Rosenberg: I appreciate that. So our theme this year is Transforming Together and 2025 was an incredible year with the additional postcard, cabins, springboard, hospitality, our continued organic growth, not only in the US Canada, but as now we have presences in the Caribbean and Latin America. And to come together the one time a year where we get to bring an entire leadership team. It’s just inspiring to connect, learn from each other and share this time together. Ryan Embree: So cool. And so it’s just a testament to the comprehensive nature of hotel equities portfolio. I think, you know, one of those spaces, obviously postcard cabins and the, the, um, outdoor collection that we’re gonna talk about. Karen, you want to talk to us a little bit about your role and, um, what it, you know, how it kind of correlates with the outdoor collection? Karen Mendez: Sure, my pleasure. Um, we started working with postcard cabins last year, um, in January with a specific goal of bringing that brand and launching it into the Marriott ethos. So the past year, my job has been molding the two cultures, all the systems, the general managers onboarding, and getting this team ready for Marriott and getting Marriot ready for outdoors. Um, it’s been a really exciting journey, a lot of learnings and yeah, now we’re, we’re a year, a little bit over a year full into it, about six months, uh, launched on outdoor collection and really just excited to continue to see this brand grow and scale and, and see what we can do. Ryan Embree: What an accomplishment. And congratulations seeing your team. David, what about you? David Rosenberg: From my perspective, this is new territory, right? Um, it’s a segment of the business that really, uh, was born through COVID as people looked for different types of, uh, experiences. And what we found is it’s sustainable and, uh, it allows a segment of the traveler to enjoy something different than a brick and mortar hotel experience. Uh, what we’ve also found is this is a great opportunity for a drive-in market. So most postcard cabins are within an hour and a half, two hour drive of major cities, major destinations, and it, and it’s

Last week’s 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference in Las Vegas was a tremendous success! The annual event was filled with thought leadership, networking, and insights with the best and the brightest in the industry. Did you miss any of the panels, sessions, or key moments? Don’t worry! The Suite Spot and Hotel Equities partnered together to bring you Hotel Equities Part 1, in the latest Suite Spot episode, which contains three exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names at Hotel Equities. 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 from the Sweet Spot for a very special episode where we head out to Las Vegas, Nevada for the 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference. There we had the opportunity to sit down with several key team members from the hotel equities team. In this episode, we talk to Greg Osteen, chief Development Officer, who talks about the strategic growth of hotel equities and where they see opportunity. Becky Ley with commercial and strategy tips and trends that she’s seeing right now within the portfolio. And Maria Parla, who is focused on that Kala region, the Caribbean and Latin America, uh, region, which hotel equity has been growing is so excited about Can’t Wait to Bring It all to you in these next three episodes in our special Hotel equity episodes, part One. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Sweet Spot. This is the host Ryan Embry here at the RA Resort and Casino Las Vegas at the 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference. I’m here with Greg Osteen, chief Development Officer. Greg, thank you so much for joining me here at the conference. Greg O’Stean: Thank you for having me. Ryan Embree: We just talked about it, almost 800 or almost a thousand attendees about to file through here. We’re right next to registration. Uh, this is your first Hotel Equities Leadership. Greg O’Stean: It is. Ryan Embree: What are you excited about? What do you hope to take away from these next couple days? Greg O’Stean: So, as you said, my first, I joined April of last year, so I just missed last year’s conference. Very excited about this one. Very excited to talk about all the things that have happened in the last year. More importantly, talk about where we’re going Sure. As we are transforming together and as we’re changing, you know, what is a great company today and making it even better. So I’m excited about that. I’m excited about meeting all the folks who make it happen every day. Yeah. Because most of the people coming here today are the leaders from our hotels, from the properties. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you there. At the headquarters where I work, there are no cash registers. Right. <laugh>, we, we, we don’t make any money at the headquarters. We spend money. Yeah. But, but the company lives and dies by what happens in the field. Yeah. And those people are here, and I’m excited about that. Ryan Embree: It’s so cool. And there’s something magical when you get those onsite property Yeah. People all together, because we’re gonna talk about it here in a second, but, uh, you start to hear patterns, trends Yeah. Things bubbling up that, you know, you have properties all over the country. We do. But it could be a property, you know, that shares that struggle across the country. That’s right. And then be able to discuss those issues and, and challenges that, uh, hospitality right now, you know, continues to phase, but also all the, all the great trends that are on the horizon. Greg O’Stean: A hundred percent. And we’re growing across Canada and Latin America as well, but just in the US. Each state is a little different. You talked about being from Texas, very different from Georgia, very different from California. But there are patterns across, yeah. Right. And so when someone from Oregon says to someone from Florida, uh, here’s what I’m experiencing. And they go, oh yeah. Have you considered this? Or, here’s what we’re doing. Or, here’s a new tool, or, here’s what I tried. Sure. Right. And you take the best of the best and share those best practices. That’s, that’s what makes a company great. That’s what makes a team great. Otherwise, we’re just a collection of individuals sitting out at properties with no real vision and no real teamwork. Yeah. Ryan Embree: Well, absolutely. And again, it’s, it’s, it’s times like this, places like this that, that make that special happen. Now, Greg, you said you

The inaugural episode of the Suite Spot: Social Success Series is here! Join first time host and Brand Ambassador at Travel Media Group, Cassady Quintana as she sits down with special guest, Aislynn Roberts, the TMG Enterprise Client Success Manager, as they discuss the latest and greatest social media trends and landscape for hotels. This first installment of the series is the beginning of a new age for the podcast and we hope you enjoy the discussion between two social media gurus on how hotels and property management groups can not only optimize their social media presence but also how they can see the greatest return on their social media investment. Cassady Quintana: Hello everyone and welcome to our very first episode of the Social Success Podcast, A Suite Spot podcast powered by Travel Media Group. I’m your host, Cassady Quintana, Brand Ambassador here at Travel Media Group. Super excited to finally kick off this podcast. You know, the reason we decided to start this was because of the success of our social success webinar series that we did last year and we’re still doing to this day. But I was hearing a lot of feedback from people that were watching and there’s a lot of opinions and hot takes about hotel, social media, but not nearly enough conversations with people that are actually in the thick of it working in hotel social media. So I thought, what better way to have Aislynn Roberts, our Enterprise Client Success Manager here at Travel Media Group as our first guest, she is working with partners and talking about these topics every day. So Aislynn thank you for joining me. Aislynn Roberts: Thank you for having me. Cassady Quintana: So kind of before we get into social media, I want people to know what your role is like. So just walk us through kind of what your day-to-day looks like. Aislynn Roberts: Yeah, of course. So as the enterprise Client Success Manager, I have a unique opportunity to work not only with individual property owners, but I also work with brand team execs and the C-Suite for hotel management groups as well. So it’s a very interesting role in which you are talking to these executive teams a lot around overall portfolio trends. What you’re seeing across the board industry, news updates, especially if you consider meta, how many times they’re updating. Making sure that they’re in the know of what’s happening, but also giving them trend analysis for their portfolio. What’s working well, the performance, what we’re seeing across the board versus when you’re talking to individual properties, it’s very much focused, right? What their individual goals are, what they’re trying to achieve, and, and really honing in on what works well for them. And social media content wise. The conversation becomes very much focused into their amenities, what their guests are, what type of audience they’re looking for, versus what the C-suite and brand. It’s overarching, right? Like how can you continue to capitalize this across the board? Cassady Quintana: Yeah, I totally agree. And so when you’re having these conversations, what are some of the biggest concerns or reservations that you’re hearing the most from these people you’re speaking with? Aislynn Roberts: Yeah, it can differ across the board. Most of the time it really depends on each individual’s comfort level, which surprisingly matches throughout the executive team. So whether you’re individual property level as you go up, dependent on your personal use, your personal comfort with social media, your conversations could be the same or it could be vastly different. If you’re talking to a director of marketing or VP of marketing who’s eats lives and breathes social media. So, those conversations shape a little bit different, but there is a lot of fear of not knowing what to do, right? Not understanding how it works, fear of doing something wrong, or needing to be a hundred percent professional and completely photogenic and photographed and all this stuff. And like, and that’s not necessarily what social media is about. So, and then for the individual property level too, you go into time consuming, right? So they’re already in their day-to-day dealing with guest requests, having to follow up with groups that are coming through, dealing with fires that they have to put out sometimes literally that are going on at the property level. So to them, like giving them an extra task of having to think about how to create content can be very much like, whoa, like I don’t want anything to do with it. Or hard for them to wrap around their head and they just get added stress to their normal day. Cassady Quintana: And I feel like once you have, all that stress of social media, it’s easier to just put it on the back burner. Because like you said, their day-to-day is dealing with actual guests, you know, the

The 2026 Hunter Conference takes place on March 16-28, in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Signia by Hilton. Tune in to the preview episode as hoteliers and hospitality professionals prepare for the cornerstone industry event. Special Guest, Madison Thibodeaux, Senior Manager, Events & Partnerships at Hunter Advisors, joins the Suite Spot to share insights and behind-the-scenes details about what conference attendees can look forward to from speakers, panels, themes, F&B, 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 here, a familiar episode, if you can believe it. I’ve got a jacket on because it is absolutely frigid outside, but we’re thawing out. We’re getting ready for conference season and covering some of the biggest hospitality events of the season with the first one being the Hunter Conference. And I am here with, even though this is the Suite Spot’s, third time attending the conference, we have a first time guest, which I’m really, really happy to bring in. Maddie Thibodeaux Senior Manager, Events and Partnerships at Hunter Advisors and Conference. Maddie, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot. Madison Thibodeaux: Thank you for having me, Ryan. I’m really excited to be here. Ryan Embree: We are going to have a constant theme throughout this episode of a lot of the things you love about Hunter, but a lot of new things on the horizon as well, which I’m sure you and your team have been extremely busy. We can’t wait. Hoteliers can’t wait. Sponsors can’t wait. This is gonna be one for the books, but before we get into all that, Maddie, we have kind of a tradition here on the Suite Spot, especially for our first time Suite Spot guest. Tell us a little bit about your background in the industry and the journey that led you to Hunter Advisors and Conference. Madison Thibodeaux: Yeah, I would love to talk about that. So my journey almost pretty much started at Hunter, which I know you’ve had Sarah as a guest on your podcast as well, and I’m sure she has a little bit of a similar story. But I was a student at Georgia State University, the Cecil B. Day School of Hospitality. I am one of the odd people that when I got to college, I already knew that I wanted to be in the hospitality industry, which I think is a rare story that you hear. Most people typically fall into it. But I went into school knowing that I wanted to be in event management. I wanted to plan events. And so throughout college I had a few different internships in hospitality. So I got some experience in the different sectors of hospitality. I worked with a catering company. I worked at a hotel in Cape Cod one summer, which was a lot of fun. Got some operational experience in hotels with the front desk and housekeeping. And then my junior year of college, Dr. Debbie Cannon at the School of Hospitality made me aware of the internship that was open at Hunter for their conference intern. And so I applied for the role, got it, accepted it. I worked for Hunter my junior and senior year. Got a lot of hands-on experience planning the event as the intern. And something that Hunter does really amazingly is they really give anyone on their team, even if you’re an intern, a platform and a seat at the table to where you can really innovate with them and present your ideas. And some of them you can see like actually come to life. And so I had a lot of great mentors at Hunter who really, you know, prepared me as a student with my professional development. And so had a great time with Hunter once I graduated from Atlanta, moved out to Chicago and started working in the trade show side of things for an exhibitor services company called GES and got a little bit more trade show experience so that I could come back to Hunter and, you know, give a little bit of insight into other events going on in the world, even outside of the hospitality industry, and kind of bring that knowledge back to the team. And so just recently this past summer, I joined the Hunter team in this new role and it’s been really exciting and really happy to be here. And I got a taste of the corporate world, but really ultimately I was missing the family feeling of Hunter. And so they welcomed me back with open arms and now I’m back with the Hunter family. Ryan Embree: It’s such a cool boomerang story to hear. And you know, something we hear a lot about in hospitality, unlikely path, like you said, a lot of people don’t go get into hospitality and that’s something we’re trying to change here on the Suite Spot. We obviously have our hospitality campus call, which teaser we’re gonna talk about here in a little bit. But to get more people to think about career or

Tune in to the very first Suite Spot episode of 2026 as special guest and Director of Product – Respond & Resolve™, Jackie Avery, features the Top 5 Guest Sentiment Tags of 2025 and what the key findings of these tags mean not only to hoteliers but the industry as a whole as we kick off travel in the new year. 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. Happy New Year as your host. As always, Ryan Embree here with another one of our favorite annual traditions. A great way to start off and kick off the year here with Jackie Avery, Director of Product for our Respond and Resolve™ review response solution for hotels. Jackie, welcome back to the Suite Spot. Jackie Avery: Thanks. It’s so great to be here. I look forward to doing this every year, so I’m happy we’re back at it. Ryan Embree: Yes, again, it’s an annual tradition. It’s a benchmark for the beginning of the year. It’s actually one of our most viewed and listened to episodes of the year, and I think it’s because hoteliers really want to get a sense of what’s going on over the course of the calendar year when it comes to reviews. To set this up off the top, we are looking at reputation, sentiment, data, the data within online guest reviews, that Travel Media Group actually pulls, and a lot of these reviews you and your team are responding to. Jackie Avery: Yeah. It’s exciting. So if it’s your first time here, welcome. And if you have been watching us the past few years, welcome back. We’re excited to kind of talk through, some of the data that we kind of went through. So to put it under perspective, we’re looking at information analyzed from over 45 million sentiment mentions. Ryan Embree: That’s an incredible number. The popularity and importance of guest feedback and reputation right. Now, I know we talk a lot on this podcast about AI technology. We’re always trying to see what’s next, but there’s no replacement for word of mouth. Right? And whether that’s physically telling someone about your experience or sharing that, what we’re talking about today, sharing that online with guest feedback and reviews, you can take away so much from that. And hoteliers, travelers obviously are looking at sentiment data, trying to figure out whether they should choose the one hotel versus another hotel. Hoteliers are looking at this data, digesting it, and trying to figure out how to improve on the guest experience. But what we’re doing today is trying to find the top five sentiments. Talk about some themes. What does this mean when these types of sentiments are found in your guest feedback? Are there things you can make operationally changes? Is it training at the hotel? Is it capital investment? Sometime some of it, like location, which we’re gonna talk about unavoidable, right? You can’t just pick up your hotel and move it. So really interested to see the list. We always start from the bottom of the list and work our way up. So kick us off with number five. Jackie Avery: Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, it’s so powerful to spend that moment reflecting. Yeah. Sometimes it’s just taking the information and putting it into this bite sized way for you to process it. So hopefully everyone finds it pretty easy to kinda, you know, come along this journey with us. So, number five, it had over 3 million sentiment mentions, right? So that’s a lot of people talking about it. And we’re talking about facility amenities. Now, some people are listening and they’re going, well, I don’t have a pool, so of course I, that didn’t get a mention for me, or, I do have a pool. Of course they mentioned that, but stay with me on that. That’s actually its own category. So here we are talking about the lobby, the hallways, seating areas, elevators, luggage carts, right? So now think about, put that into perspective. More people can really relate. So I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I’m come, coming to a hotel, right, I’ve had a long travel day. I’m a little tired. I am, you know, feeling antsy. I just wanna get there. But when I get outta my car or I get to walk in, I’m feeling that excitement. I’m ready for my trip to start no matter what I’m doing. I’m like, here we go. So then you’re taking that all in. Of course, travelers are mention mentioning this, right? You have those first impressions of a hotel, it gives you pause. So sometimes things that you feel as a hotelier or as someone who works at, at a property, maybe you just brush past ’em. It doesn’t mean a lot to you. It’s no big deal. Sure. You’re maybe not sure why somebody positively ment

Tune in to the final Suite Spot episode of 2025 with our annual Year in Review retrospective episode with Travel Media Group President, Dana Singer. Learn about the highlights that took place this year for the organization and what our hotel partners and Suite Spot audience can look forward to as we prepare for 2026. 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 for an annual tradition. One of my favorite episodes. We were talking about this off camera, about how many years in a row it’s been that we’ve done this, but it’s such a cool time, obviously, end of the year, beginning of a new year, such a time for reflection. And, you know, looking into the future and with me today is a very familiar guest president at Travel Media Group, Dana Singer. Dana, thank you so much for joining me back on the Suite Spot. Dana Singer: Absolutely. Good morning, Ryan. Ryan Embree: From the comfy confines of our TMG headquarters and Maitland. So grateful for you having the opportunity to join me on the sweet spot too. You know, look at TMG year in review. We do this every single year. Dana 2025 has been an exciting year. It’s been a year of innovation, productivity success, obviously on the Travel Media Group side, but more importantly for our hospitality partners. And I’d like to start by just kind of reflecting on this past year and sharing how TMG has grown as a company, but also how those efforts have made meaningful contributions to our hotel partners. Dana Singer: Yeah, sure. 2025 has definitely been a successful year for Travel Media Group. We celebrated a number of milestones, but most importantly, as you just said, you know, for our hotel partners that we collaborate with and support every single day, it’s been really exciting to see their growth. One of the most significant markers of our progress this year has been the expansion of our teams. Increasing the depth of new talent across multiple departments has strengthened our ability to deliver the level of service our partners rely on. And it’s been inspiring to see fresh perspectives join our longstanding expertise. Everyone’s working together towards the same mission. It’s all about delivering industry leading solutions and an outstanding client experience every step of the way. Internally, our goal is to anticipate the industry’s needs, and based on that, we’ve developed new solutions. We refined our existing services, and we’ve continued to advance our technology. Every innovation has centered on the question, how can we empower our partners to achieve their goals? And our commitment has always been to help hoteliers succeed. And we achieve this by innovating without compromise. And in 2025, I believe we’ve done so in more meaningful ways than ever. Dana Singer: It’s so cool to see and to, quite frankly, to be a part of, to see the success of our hotel partners, new partners coming on board, um, along with new team members here at TMG, helping our partners, succeed and achieve those milestones and goals. Because I’ve had several guests on this podcast talk about the guest expectations and how not only are they rising, but they’re becoming more complex, especially with the integration of technology, it’s becoming faster than ever. The pace and acceleration of these guest expectations. And the same applies to, you know, our hotel partners. How has TMG kind of maintained to stay one step ahead and really positioned itself as the leader as we try to enhance the guest experience in our services at TMG? Dana Singer: Yeah, I mean, exceeding guest expectations is the foundation of success in hospitality. So it’s vital that we not only adapt, but we anticipate what hoteliers will need next. And this year, innovation has once again been at the center of our business strategies. You’re gonna hear me talk about that a lot, probably this morning. One of the most exciting recent advancements has been the launch of Smart Response. And this is our hybrid human AI review response solution, which has been added to our existing suite of response services. And what makes it unique is its incredibly advanced AI training that’s built on more than 2 million reviews that our in-house professional writers have personally crafted. And so that depth of expertise provides an unparalleled technology with nuance authenticity and hospitality care that hotels expect. Every response generated is overseen by our team of professional writers to ensure accuracy, empathy, and alignment in each property’s unique voice. You know, across the board, every team at TMG has been laser focused on elevating our services, refining workflows, and galvanizing our partnerships. We’re so committed to understanding

As 2025 closes out, the Suite Spot wraps up with the latest inductee into the TMG Hospitality Trailblazers. CEO of Hotel Equities, Ben Rafter, joins the podcast to discuss all things hospitality and technology and how these two components come together to make the perfect guest experience for travelers. 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 with a very exciting, informative episode continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers. This is our series where we are talking to those industry leaders and brands, management companies that are paving the way forward. I’ve got an absolutely amazing guest, I’m excited to speak with him today. Ben Rafter, CEO of Hotel Equities. Ben, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot. Ben Rafter: Thanks, Ryan. Looking forward to it. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we’re gonna have fun conversation, talk all about hotel equities, but on the Suite Spot we do a little tradition where instead of just doing your normal bio, I actually like handing it over to our guests to kind of talk through their hospitality journey. because sometimes you get a little bit more insights. Us hospitality people, we got mentors. We come from different brands, sometimes fall into hospitality, quite frankly. You know, talk to us, our Suite Spot hotel audience, a little bit about your hospitality journey and what led you to your role as a CEO over at Hotel Equities. Ben Rafter: Sure, I fit into the fall into it category, without a doubt. I was a, uh, tech guy for better part of 15 years, mostly startups. Sold two of ’em and after selling, the second one was locked out of the industry for a year and got a phone call from a hotel guy. And he said, what are you doing? You want to come to Mount Everest with me? And just because nothing better to do for the next month. We packed up and headed over to Nepal and on about the third day he said to me, so what do you think of the hospitality industry and hotels? And it was dumb enough to open my mouth and give him my opinion that you needed to sort of fuse together larger than life hoteliers, which was his background and kind of quant tech data, guys like me. And over the next 20 days, we hashed out starting a hotel company literally on the side of a mountain, in this case. And after that ended, it was 2008, the market crashed. We had a new president. I flew to Hawaii and we started with four hotels in Hawaii. And it’s been nonstop ever since. So definitely not a traditional way to get into the industry. Ryan Embree: Yeah, yeah. You give new meaning to kind of climbing the corporate ladder, so to speak, when, when talking about that. But I think that’s what honestly makes hospitality so fascinating. Because yours, honestly, a lot of the majority of the guests we talked to Ben, hospitality was not their final destination, so to speak, what you were talking to. But I think it brings new perspective and obviously insights into an industry that, quite frankly, we’re gonna talk about it in a minute, but needs some more technology integration into hospitality right now. And to fast forward to today, obviously a strategic merger in May, 2025 with Springboard Hospitality. It’s been extremely busy second half of the year for you and your team, including a couple exciting announcements we’re gonna talk about in a second, Ben. But, you know, can you share some of the biggest kind of takeaways and lessons you’ve learned for the business, over this past six months? Maybe give us a state of the Hotel Equities as you would say. Ben Rafter: Yeah, absolutely. I mean one thing, coming from sort of independent and generally either gateway market or leisure focused. You learn how diverse some of these markets are and how much different it is running a courtyard or a Rest Inn or a Hampton in a suburb versus running a resort in the middle of Waikiki. And it’s been great kind of seeing both sides of the spectrum there. And then trying to figure out how initiatives or which initiatives work across the entire entity. And then which of ’em should be limited to $400 a night hotel or a select service hotel. And I gotta say, coming from the independent space where we’re all about content and drone shots and Instagram and social media and things like that, obviously walking into a suburban flagged select service hotel is a whole different, a whole different ball of wax, so to speak. So that part’s been great. We have great leaders in all of those divisions and it’s been great working with them. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I mean, just adds to the exposure, again, what you were talking about. And to add to that, right. You know, in October you were back on a panel discussing outdoor centric hotels at the lodging co

Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Newport Hospitality Group, Whitney Altizer, joins the Suite Spot in the latest episode of TMG Hospitality Trailblazers to give audiences a close look at what makes the Newport portfolio and brand unique in the hospitality industry and why social media is critical to a hotel’s success in the digital age. 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. Welcome to another edition of our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. I got a fantastic guest. We actually had an opportunity to meet with someone from the, the Newport Hospitality Group just a couple weeks ago at the Hospitality Show, but we got a brand new guest here with us today, senior Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer, Whitney Altizer. Whitney, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot today with me. Whitney Altizer: Hey, Ryan, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Ryan Embree: We’re gonna have a fun conversation today. A lot of exciting stuff and news about Newport Hospitality, but as tradition here on the Suite Spot, hospitality, as we know, is one of those things where people can come from all different places, brands, management companies, and unique journeys that led you to where you are. So let’s hear about yours, Whitney. Talk to us a little bit about your hospitality journey and what led you to Chief Commercial Officer at Newport Hospitality Group. Whitney Altizer: Yeah. Well, I always joke that Newport raised me. You know, I went to Virginia Tech for business and hospitality, and then I moved to Atlanta and worked with Darden restaurants for a stint. You know, and I love the experience, but I just decided I needed a new perspective on food and beverage and the industry in general. So I ended up back in Blacksburg at a full service Holiday Inn that Newport actually owned and managed at the time. So 22 years ago, I walked into that Holiday Inn as a director of catering and sales, worked there on property, and then, moved up to the corporate director of sales, a corporate revenue manager. Then I was the director of Revenue and Digital. Then came along the Vice President of Comms Stratt, which catapulted me to where I am today which is the Chief Commercial Officer. Ryan Embree: Your story is a genuine reflection of our industry, of how many facets there are to hospitality, from everything from food and beverage to sales, to all the positions that you, that you held in, in between. You know, it’s one of the reasons a lot of people love hospitality is because you can really do anything within it, right? It’s almost its own ecosystem within our industry, and it’s really cool to see, and I’m sure that was, you had some incredible experience, which lends you to where you are right now and knowing different people’s positions. That’s what we hear is sometimes the most successful hospitality people are the ones that got exposure to those different aspects of hospitality and kind of use that in their experience today. Some of those, hospitality professionals maybe even had to, you know, during that, that 2020 era had to get into some of those departments that they hadn’t done in a minute, and certainly shared some experience there. But, we won’t talk about that time, but doing some research for this episode, I wanna talk about Newport Hospitality and their story. Right? I always find it so fascinating when we talk about to these management companies and brands about how they first got into hospitality and fun little facts. That the origin story really dates back all the way to the 1850s. It goes back way, way far. Could you give a little background on the early days, maybe not take us that far, but a little bit early days of Newport Hospitality and how it’s led to the amazing growth that you guys are experiencing right now in 2025? Whitney Altizer: Yeah. Newport, in my opinion, was built on hard work, dedication, and two families. So in 1990, we were officially founded by Bill Carey and Mike Pinger, and but as you noted, the story dates back much further than that. Bill came from a ranching and entrepreneurial background and was the great grandson of a man that had built a large land in cattle business in West Texas in the 1850s. And that cattle business is what went on to help fund the start of Newport, and then as well purchase a lot of the hotels that we currently own. Ryan Embree: Absolutely incredible. Just such a unique story. So happy that it’s on the website where I’m sure employees and and guests can even check that out and share that. And led to where you are today. And I want to talk about fast forwarding today, ’cause you got some exciting news, a new website on the horizon. Talk to us a little b

Celebrations are underway at TMG headquarters, and we gather round to recognize the milestone of reaching 1 million social media ad spend across all of our hotel partners! This achievement would not have been possible without the continued support and trust of our partners, and their unwavering commitment to creating compelling stories and digital content for travelers, as well as fostering genuine connections with hotel guests. In this special celebratory Suite Spot episode, Travel Media Group’s Chief Technology Officer, Jason Lee, and Product Manager – Social Media, Brian Ross, both join the podcast to discuss the incredible accomplishment and what it means for TMG and our wonderful hotel partners. nbsp; 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 back, we’ve been on the road, we’ve been visiting and hosting people on the Suite Spot virtually, but we are back here at the Suite Spot Podcast studio with a very familiar guest, Jason Lee, Chief Technology Officer, who we’re gonna have on in a second. Then we’re gonna be visiting with Brian Ross, our product manager, social media, to celebrate this incredible milestone. Jason, welcome back to the Suite Spot. Thanks. Yeah, glad to finally be back. Yeah, we’re excited to have you, celebrating a milestone today. A million dollars in ad spend for our hotel partners. Again, you know, with Travel Media Group, we work exclusively with hotels. Let’s first, you know, off the bat, huge accomplishment milestone. What does this mean to hear you kind of hearing this being there since the very beginning of this solution all those years back? Jason Lee: Yeah. It’s exciting. Obviously it is when you think about it in the increments that we boost posts at, it’s a lot of posts. Yeah. It’s a lot of posts for a lot of hotels. A lot of weeks of content. So just extremely proud of what it has produced for our hotels. But also for our amazing social media team that creates such engaging content and makes boost able and ad worthy content. Ryan Embree: Well, and that’s the important part because, you know, obviously a million dollars is a big number. But you don’t need necessarily a million dollars to run an effective ad campaign, and that’s what you were kind of talking about. With the small increments. Talk to us a little bit about that, because I do feel like sometimes hoteliers, rightly so, are intimidated with something like social media ad spend. They don’t really know where, you know, ’cause you can boost a post for as low as $5 all the way up to, thousands of dollars. And they’re still going to spend your money in one way or another. So kind of talk through that process because effectiveness is really the key to the game there. Jason Lee: No, absolutely. And I think it gets into how you create content. What is the cadence of that content? How often do I do it? But then it also gets into what am I trying to do? So you can create content and not boost it or put ads any kinda ad spend behind it at all. And you’re going to have that content on your page. You’re gonna reach out, your community is gonna see it if if they have that, you know, alerts or whatever set up for you. But what boosting does is it allows you to reach this audience that is not inside of your sphere. So it allows them to be able to see these posts, but even more importantly, it allows them to engage with these posts. So if they engage with them, now you kind of have them in the algorithm. Now, now you’ve got ’em a little bit. Right. There’s future state with these, uh, guests. But, but we’re talking about $5 increments. So for this very small amount of money, you’re talking about 10 to 30 x on reach and engagement. And, and that is incredible. Uh, and especially because it’s sort of like builds on itself because the more that a post is interacted with, the more feeds it’s inside of, you know, somebody shares this post. So now you’re like, obviously any content that is engagement worthy, the algorithm is gonna put out in front of people. Ryan Embree: Yeah. It’s that social media ripple effect. And, you know, we say it all the time for hotels. I mean, who’s not thinking or typing in their social media search bar, uh, about travel Yeah. Or thinking about travel or, or, and, and we’re at a really, really cool spot in our industry where we could be that social media post could be the thing that inspires someone to take action to say, I want to take this trip, or I’ve been thinking about this, and now all of a sudden you’re all in that all important algorithm that you’re talking about. And that’s really where s

Host of the Suite Spot podcast and Vice President of Marketing at Travel Media Group, Ryan Embree, breaks down the key takeaways from the 2025 Hospitality Show that took place in Denver, Colorado, last month. Ryan shares not only his opinion on some of the most prevalent topics from the renowned industry event, but he also shares what panelists, attendees, hoteliers, and others had to say about the conference and the state of hospitality. Tune in now to listen to the full episode. 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 Podcast, and we are fresh off of our 2025 Hospitality Show coverage in Denver, Colorado. We are back here in our Travel Media Group headquarters, a little bit closer to C-level in our Suite Spot podcast studio. Absolutely incredible event. Wanna first think Questex and AHLA as well as the city of Denver for hosting from end to end. So amazing from the programming to the networking to the industry professionals that we had the privilege of interviewing. You can find all of those exclusive interviews on our TMG YouTube page, make sure to follow along. But in today’s episode, we are gonna go with our top takeaways from the Hospitality Show in Denver. And it really started right off the bat. I mean, this was an end to end, just jam packed insights, trends, everything a hotelier could want. You know, this was billed as one of the most comprehensive shows in hospitality. And from all of the education sessions that we saw, the panelists, the conversations that we had, the networking that went on again, hats off to the teams over at AHLA and Questex, where I’ll start my key takeaways is really one of the first quotes that really resonated with me as an attendee on the first day. And this was I forget who I can attribute this quote to, but was talking about how we ended the 2024 Hospitality Show in San Antonio. And everything that has happened between then and the start of the 2025 Hospitality show, an election, you know, a tumultuous start to the year, with tariffs, international travel, almost seeing double-digit drops in some places between some countries. And then now we have a government shutdown here. So, so many things that the hospitality industry had to deal with. And, you know, I have the privilege of attending multiple events throughout the year, and never have I ever been on such a rollercoaster ride. It started at the beginning of the year in March where we met a lot of hoteliers that were kind of bracing for impact. They were coming down this hill. Projections didn’t look great. A lot of sentiment out there was not was not awesome. Deals were not getting done. It just feel very like a crawl. And then all of a sudden summer came and as we were kind of bracing ourselves for this just dip or this terrible kind of cliff that we were about to, to fall off, we kind of opened our eyes as an industry and said, it’s really not as bad as it’s being made out to be. And a lot of hoteliers, as we saw and we interviewed, talked to, had some really good summers, had some really good numbers, occupancy, looking across different markets, some of the markets that weren’t doing as well rebounded. And they were starting to see a little bit of glimmer of hope. And now here we are at the end of the year and it feels like those storm clouds are brewing again. And we’re bracing ourselves for a new year in 2026. And maybe it’s because we’re just looking at the numbers. It’s budget season. We’re starting to try to forecast like we love to do and have to do frankly in hospitality, but it just feels like that worry is coming over us again. But to that, I feel like it’s in these times where there’s a lot of creativity and ingenuity that starts to really spur and, and it’s these events that could be a catalyst for real change in our industry. There were a lot of industry leaders up on stage over these last few days at the hospitality show in Denver that presented some pretty interesting ideas when it came to housekeeping, staffing, the booking experience and really challenging the status quo. And it’s these types of events that can really start a conversation and build a foundation and momentum for true change within our industry. We saw that change happen very, very quickly during COVID because it needed to, it was a necessity. But now here we are and we can all feel it. We can feel the belts tightening from the hotel all the way to our guests and consumers. And this is when we need to start looking around and trying to come up some fresh ideas. And, you know, some of those might not even be within hospitality. I mean, one of the keynote speakers was Chris Barton from Shazam, and, you know, trying to get these fresh voices maybe outside of hospitality. Blue Orig

Tune in to the most recent AHLA Check-In episode with President & CEO of the AHLA Foundation, Kevin Carey! As a familiar face on the Suite Spot, Kevin stops in to give us the latest and greatest developments and advocacy work taking place at the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Be sure to watch now to know what current events are impacting the hospitality industry. 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 for another AHLA industry check-in this time with a familiar guest, Kevin Carey. Familiar guest, but a little bit different position. We’re gonna talk about that in a second. But he is the Chief Operating Officer at AHLA and President and CEO of the AHLA Foundation. Kevin, welcome back to the Suite Spot, Kevin Carey: Ryan, terrific to be with you again. It’s Ryan Embree: Great to have you. Like I said, you know, you’ve been on a couple times we’ve talked about that, but this time in a new role with AHLA, congratulations, by the way, on that. Can you share with our audience a little bit about the new role, maybe a day to day and what you get the pleasure of doing every single day, as President and CEO of the AHLA foundation? Kevin Carey: Well, I’d be happy to. It’s definitely keeping me busy, but it’s a good busy, and very much a rewarding, busy as well. And in my new capacity, where I get to lead the foundation, I get to work alongside a dedicated group of colleagues, Jen, Eliza, Kara, and Lindsay, to also a committed group of industry leaders, who were on our board of trustees, and the organization that we help to advance is one that’s focused just on that front on advancing the people of the industry, our workforce, so day in, day out, having that teamwork and collaboration, but also working with our industry leaders to put the people forward on the industry front, and to work to support not only our current employees, but also to identify the future workforce is a vital role and very engaging. Ryan Embree: So critical. Right now, you’re right, we’ve had conversations about it. We’re gonna touch a little bit on this episode, but, you know, I’d see AHLA foundation all the time, the work, the stories that you guys are putting out there, you travel the country just got back from the lodging conference a couple days ago. But, you know, for those hoteliers who, you know, see the brand, they see some of the stories, you know, can you share maybe some of the origin story of the AHLA foundation and really at the foundation, so to speak of its mission over there? Kevin Carey: I’d be happy to. The foundation has been around for 72 years. It was founded in 1953, as a scholarship fund. And over that tenure year and arc and of its existence has done terrific work. What I’ve also shared recently as we’ve been working through a process with our board of trustees as looking at our future direction is that in many respects, this is a young 72-year-old organization. And by that I mean a number of the most prominent and highly visible initiatives that the foundation is involved in right now, whether it’s our forward initiative or No Room for Trafficking. These are programs and initiatives that have really been created, launched and grown over about the last three to five years timeframe. So, while we’ve got a proud, uh, tradition and history, we also have a number of, of very important new initiatives. And the work we’re doing to advance the industry’s workforce and to ensure the people are front and center is really vital in the current environment. As we think about the industry’s future growth prospects. Ryan Embree: Well, it’s an incredible legacy. And to be able to, that’s what you want out of advocacy and foundational work is you wanna be able to say, we’re introducing new initiative strategies, the AHLA tackles so many important issues, but perhaps none more important than human trafficking prevention. Something that a lot of the brands have, have taken major steps to get behind. You recently held your No Room for Trafficking Summit, an event dedicated to that. Tell us about that event and some of the feedback that you were hearing from hoteliers on this really critical issue. Kevin Carey: Let me put that initiative in the context of our role and mission overall. So, as I talked about with being that young, 72-year-old organization, we really view our mission in advancing the workforce as being centered around how do we develop and support the current workforce today, the 2.1 million people who serve guests, and work together to create that experience as future workforce is being so important to ensure that over time we’re attracting people to the industry and

Tune in to this special episode of the Suite Spot to hear from two very special guests of the International Luxury Hotel Association. First off, President of the ILHA, Barak Hirschowitz, and Co-Founder of the association, Jonathan Edelheit, join the podcast to preview the upcoming INSPIRE USA conference taking place on December 10-11, in Las Vegas, Nevada. These two luxury hospitality experts discuss several important topics in this episode, including the humble origin of the ILHA, how the luxury hotel market is leading the industry in innovation, what attendees can look forward to from INSPIRE USA 2025, 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, episode 185, and from the title we are previewing another hospitality event. One of my favorite things to do look at, and this one, it’s a first timer for me, not certainly for our guests. I’m gonna bring them and we’re gonna talk all about it. The Inspire USA event hosted by ILHA, the International Luxury Hotel Association. My two guests with me today, Barak Hirschowitz, President of the ILHA, and Jonathan Edelheit, co-founder of the ILHA, Barak, Jon, thank you so much for taking the time and checking into the Suite Spot with me. Barak Hirschowitz: Well, thank you. It’s wonderful to be here and great to meet you. Ryan Embree: And we’re excited about it, excited about the event, but before we get into that, I wanna just start with a little bit of hospitality background. We always love to kind of start there. Hospitality’s such a funky industry. People come from different brands, they come from different backgrounds. Sometimes they fall into it, sometimes they fall into the industry with a summer job, sometimes they’re born into the industry. So I figured let’s go ahead and give our Suite Spot audience a little bit of background into your hospitality journey and what led you to the ILHA Barak. We’ll start with you and then go to Jon. Barak Hirschowitz: Yeah, thanks. So I started in the industry in the late, late eighties, early nineties. I went to Johnson Wales. I started as a, I started in culinary, as many people do in the hotel industry. And those were interesting times because back then there were really only a couple of places you get a degree in culinary arts. So it led me to, you know, travel abroad, which was great. I started, just before I went overseas, I did an internship at the Grand Floridian, which believe it or not, was still a fairly new hotel back then. And then started working abroad internationally, moved eventually to more the hotel side of the business. I worked in South Africa for some very well-known hotel brands. Sun International. Sun International is Saul K’s original brand that he had when he was still based in South Africa. So that, you know, today we know him for Atlantis and we know him for one, um, one and only hotels. But, um, back then he had Sun International, so I worked with him. I worked for a company called Halian Hotels, which had, uh, luxury hotels in, in South Africa, and actually a few up Africa as well. And, um, I had an opportunity, I guess my sort of real push, first push into luxury was in the late nineties. I got to help open a hotel called Bushman’s Klu in South Africa, which is a luxury safari lodge. The year, within a year of opening, we, um, we became a member of Relay and Chateau, which was a pretty prestigious, uh, pretty prestigious organization. And after I left a couple of years later, the hotel went on to win Best Hotel in the world, um, travel and Leisure. So, you know, that was a, it was really a, a great opportunity to see the best of the best in the world. I still to this day think it’s probably the most luxurious property I’ve ever stayed in, and still the best service, uh, that I’ve ever seen in any hotel. So it was great to be able to work in a place that had that level of, of, um, of luxury and, and, and guest experience. And so I think everything that I see compares to that time back then. So that’s really how I fell into the luxury hotel industry or came into luxury hotel industry. Ryan Embree: What an incredible story and journey, one of the questions I pose all the time on this to my podcast guest is, your favorite hotel that you’ve ever stayed in and to be able to work for the number one hotel or have at one point, probably an easy answer to that question. Then, Jon, let’s, let’s move over to you. Where is your kind of background, and hospitality and brought you to ILHA? Jonathan Edelheit: I think it was definitely an interesting path over to the ILHA, originally, out of law school, I actually went into the health insurance industry, and then I was the first one to implement corporate wellness programs, em

Check out the latest Suite Spot episode featuring SVP and CMO at Best Western Hotels, Joelle Park! Joelle joins the Suite Spot to discuss the incredible BWH portfolio, their Life’s a Trip campaign, marketing to different traveler segments, 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, here for another special edition of The Suite Spot. I am so excited to bring in our guest today. We’re gonna be talking about everything, the Best Western Hotels and Resorts brand, but also marketing that is, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Joelle Park. Thank you so much, Joelle, for being on the Suite Spot with me today. Joelle Park: Thank you for having me, Ryan. Ryan Embree: We’re gonna have a great conversation about marketing, about your wonderful brand. Some of the recognitions that the brand has seen recently. And we’re gonna talk about some industries trends as well. But as per tradition here at the Suite Spot and really hospitality, we love to hear everyone’s kind of journey story that led you in. You know, sometimes we have people just fall into the industry, but at the end of the day, a lot of people fall in love with our industry ’cause hospitality is one of the, if not best industries to work in. Talk to us a little bit about your story, Joelle, and what led you to SVP and CMO at Best Western Hotel and Resorts. Joelle Park: Thanks, Ryan. Well, I’m really excited to be here and it sounds like many others. I have fallen into hospitality and fallen in love. I’ve spent over two decades in marketing overall working across brand strategy, customer experience, communications, and on every project, every account, it’s about driving results through innovative marketing. Early in my career, I started agency site and I partnered up some incredible brands in retail, entertainment, technology, and my last client was hospitality. And that’s where I fell in love with the industry. And now I’ve spent really more than 16 years in hospitality telling compelling stories. I have a love of travel personally, but I also just believe in the power of travel to make the world a better place. So I’ve been fortunate to take on some leadership roles spanning across loyalty. Now product development and something I’m especially passionate about is culture and customer experience, because the most powerful form of advertising really is the customer experience here at BWH Hotels. I have the privilege of leading our marketing, communications, loyalty and partnerships teams, and that’s encompassing of Best Western rewards and Worlds Hotels rewards. So excited to share more about what we’re up to. Ryan Embree: Yeah, it’s exciting to hear and it’s interesting because hospitality, you talk to a lot of hoteliers in the hospitality world, and they say, although it’s a massive industry, right, it’s a very small world. You run into people that you know all the time. Sometimes you’re working with one brand, then you go to another brand. But I always find it fascinating to find stories like yours, Joelle, where you start outside of hospitality maybe, and then find your way into it. Because I do think that really does show the passion and love that people have towards our industry because once that bug, you know, and it happens to travel too, it grabs a hold of you. It’s hard to let go. And here you are. And a lot of the hospitality professionals that I have spoken to they’ve had that exposure to other industries. And there’s just something about hospitality that is so special. And I think you nailed it on the head about talking about the power that travel has. And one of the things within travel is storytelling. And I’ve heard you in other interviews talk about your passion and storytelling, especially, particularly in marketing. How has that shaped your approach to local storytelling at the hotel level to create really what we’re all trying to crave right now, I think in this world with technology and AI, which is authentic connection between a hotel and and your guest? Joelle Park: Well, I’m very fortunate because the authentic connection is happening all over. And so I didn’t have to manufacture anything. I’ve marketed a lot of different things and sometimes it’s harder than others to unearth the purpose driven story behind a brand. But in hospitality it’s so clear. And at BWH hotels, a lot of people don’t realize we have 18 brands within the portfolio, 4,000 hotels around the world. So Best Western is just one of many. And so first of all, telling the story of the portfolio and that’s number one. I had no idea. And I thought, if others do

The Suite Spot takes a trip to central Florida to visit the incredible AC Hotel Orlando Downtown, part of the Kolter Hospitality portfolio. The Regional Director of Food & Beverage at Kolter, Robert Mason, joins the Suite Spot to discuss: Seasonal Menus F&B in the Guest Experience How Kolter Hospitality is Shaping F&B The Importance of a Social Presence for a Hotel Property Be sure to tune in to catch the whole episode. 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, continuing our series of the Suite Spot Road Trip into the summer a little bit coming into the fall. I’m here with right down the road from our Travel Media Group headquarters, I-4. I know you probably hear that and think might be a long way away. I-4 can be congested sometimes, but not too bad of a drive here. We’re gonna talk about that today. I’m here with Robert Mason, Regional Director of Food and Beverage at Kolter Hospitality. Robert, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot. Hey, thanks for having me. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about your property today. We’re gonna talk a lot about the portfolio and your job here as the Food and Beverage Director, but I do want to get to, as it is, tradition here on the Suite Spot, get to know a little bit about your background and what led you to Kolter Hospitality. Robert Mason: Wow. So I’ve been 42 years in food and beverage. It’s all I’ve ever done. It’s all I know. I started in the culinary side. I worked all the way up to executive chef. I actually studied under a master chef in San Francisco Bay Area and, had a really fun journey through culinary for about two decades. And about 15 years ago, I made the transition to the dark side, as I say, got into the front of house operations. and it’s been a great journey. Work brought me to Orlando. In San Fransico, I was kind of a small fish in a big pond, but here I’m kind of, was kind of a big fish in a small pond, so to speak. Yeah, but Orlando has certainly grown and developed over the last 20 years that I’ve been here. And just having fun. And this opportunity actually came up right in the middle of COVID. I came from a much larger property down in South Orlando. And the reason I took this job was couple full first, you know, I like the company culture. I liked the fact that the Skybar had so much to offer. I saw the potential right away. And it’s a smaller, easier to manage kind of thing ’cause everything’s in one place as opposed to a big sprawling resort with 15 outlets and that kind of thing. But I have stayed with the company because I really do enjoy all the people I get to work with Sarah, I know, you know, Sarah and John from our corporate office and Scott, our president, they just do a wonderful job. And they’re really people first. We’re a really people first company. So I believe in the vision here and that’s why I stay. It’s awesome to hear. And your story resonates coast to coast, but I think it’s a true example of hospitality professionalism. ’cause it’s transferable skills, right? Yeah. You know, you can work at a hotel, whether you’re in food and beverage on one side of the country, and then move all the way to the other, side of the country, like your story. And here you are in Orlando, before we get to talk about your property and this beautiful skybar that we’re in right now,right behind us, I four can throw a rock to the Kia Center, Citrus Bowl right over there. Orlando City Stadium. For those that aren’t familiar, Robert, that might be listening to this podcast, paint a picture of why this is just the perfect intersection and location. You’ve got yourself a great location here. Robert Mason: We really do. We really do. So, you know, I always tell people we’re kind of three different operations within one. So during the week we get a lot of the downtown business people, a lot of the movers and shakers in downtown that come here for happy hour, A lot of celebrations. But then we transition on the weekend to really a sports venue before games, after games when the magic are playing. We’re full of magic fans. We’re kind of the go-to spot for magic fans here before and after games, especially when they win. And then of course when there’s events, you know, next week alone we have, I think six concerts in seven days. And so again, we’re kind of the spot that people wanna go to. They see the cutout of the building and they go, wow, that’s really cool up there. And so you could drive by and see that. So we’re right kind of in this intersection, where we’re close to everything. Dr. Phillips is a block away. Kia Center&#

The busy summer travel season is just about wrapped up, which means the Suite Spot is due for another quarterly check-in with the American Hotel & Lodging Association to get the latest news and developments taking place in the hospitality industry. AHLA President and CEO Rosanna Maietta joins the Suite Spot to discuss current hotel trends, industry challenges, the importance of mentors and mentees in hospitality, and 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, as always, Ryan Embree. So happy that you are listening to us here and ready to bring you another incredible episode with our quarterly check-in with AHLA in a preview of the 2025 Hospitality Show. It’s my immense privilege to welcome in our special guest for today’s episode, President and CEO, Rosanna Mietta. Rosanna, thank you so much for being with me on the back on the Suite Spot. Rosanna Maietta: Good to see you again, Ryan. Thanks for having us. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we’re excited to talk about the Hospitality Show. We’re excited to talk about AHLA. What we’ve been up to last time we were together was at NYU IHIF. Since then, the AHLA and the hospitality industry in general has been super busy, that super travel season, that hoteliers love to see travel all over the across the country. Catch us up on some of the top issues AHLA is focusing on right now and maybe some of the key wins that have happened year to date. Rosanna Maietta: Sure. It’s been an incredibly busy summer. There’s nothing like a quiet summer anymore. We’ve had a lot going on both in Washington and around the country. Obviously, the most important thing the administration has been focused on over the last six months of this year was passing the one big beautiful bill, which while it had many, many provisions tucked away in it, the ones that our industry was really focused on were those that impacted our small business community, our franchise community, and our employees. So we were focused on passing provisions like the 100% bonus depreciation and making that permanent, preserving the like kind exchange, deferring capital gains tax on real estate at point of sale. All those changes will help the industry reinvest and grow. But we also helped to promote the no tax on tips, which will support 800,000 employees in the industry who benefit from tips. And so we’re working on what that guidance actually looks like once that detail is developed and how, and educating our employers on how they can roll that out to their employees, but also provisions around overtime and child tax credit and family medical leave. So all of those things, were really important to our industry. And so we were really pleased to help get that over the finish line. Outside of Washington, there has been a lot going on, whether it is advancing legislation in markets like Boston or Philadelphia on human trafficking training and prevention, which our industry has been leading on to working in Los Angeles, where we have seen over the last two years very intense work around pushing back against onerous regulations that would essentially increase wages for the industry by 40% overnight. Simply a situation we cannot, we cannot handle because demand is so low in Los Angeles, it’s second to only San Francisco. And San Francisco in terms of occupancy, has been starting to see an uptick, whereas Los Angeles has not, it has not come back to pre-COVID levels. So we’ve been working really aggressively there with the business community to push back on that ordinance that has gone into law, but we are still working with city council to try to make some amendments that would make sure that the travel and hospitality sector is strong, especially in the lead up to some of these bigger events that we’re anticipating next year, whether it’s World Cup and, and a look ahead to the Olympics. So, a lot happening in some of those key markets. And then across the country at the state level, also working to promote a level playing field with short-term rentals and so impacting legislation in key states. Ryan Embree: Yeah, never a dull moment over there in our industry. You know, we’re in a constant state of change and disruption, a lot of these in positive ways, but it, we look to AHLA as kind of a north star for a way to roll out some of these things for both hotel employers as well as employees. So we’ll continue to look there and really appreciate all the work and advocacy AHLA continues to do on behalf of hoteliers across the country. Summer’s also a time for summer jobs and internships and I’ve had the privilege to interview on this podcast some incredible hospitality leaders. And if I had a dime every single time somebody was talking ab

The 2025 Hospitality Show is fast approaching! While it is only a couple of months away, it will take place in Denver, Colorado, on October 26-28. Alexi Khajavi, President of Questex—Hospitality, Travel, & Wellness, joins the Suite spot to discuss the upcoming event and what attendees can look forward to this year. Alexi shares insight on: New Interactive Zones & Networking at THS 2025 Questex’s Quest Zero Sustainability Initiative The Changing Landscape of Hospitality Digital Marketing and the Importance of Social Media for Travel 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. So happy to be with you today, previewing the 2025 Hospitality Show. Yes, it is that time of year, this year. We are headed out to Denver in October. We’re gonna talk all about it, with a very frequent guest, a Suite Spot veteran at this point, Alexi Khajavi, Questex President, Hospitality and Real Estate. Alexi, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot once again with us. Alexi Khajavi: Ryan, great to be here. Ryan Embree: Yeah. We’re gonna talk about the Hospitality Show, but it is crazy to think that this, we had you back on the podcast in 2023 when this was first announced, and here we are today. You know, this is three years strong. This is the third year going into it. You know, I wanted to start with you. We’ve talked about your journey. We’ve talked about your role, some of the mentors along the way. I’d love to just hear from you, Alexi, if we could go back to that podcast in 2023. What do you think the biggest change in hospitality that you’ve seen over these last few years? Alexi Khajavi: I’d say it’s half and half. I mean, on one hand, I think we were, we were absolutely correct and spot on in that hotel profitability and the complexity in hotel operations would only increase and would be in terms of achieving profitability would become harder, and more challenging. And I think we were right in that assessment and we continue to see a lot of challenges in the space. And now we’re starting to turn into negative territory in terms of operating performance with RevPAR ADRs and occupancy, which is normal, right? I mean, this is a cyclical, industry and it’s an industry that is dependent on the macro economy. So, we’ve had an incredible run, but I think looking back in 2023, we absolutely got that right. It was only gonna become increasingly more complicated and challenging, and that therefore profits would also be challenging in turn. What I don’t think we anticipated was how massively AI would start to impact not only our industry, but our world. And it is increasingly becoming, I think it’s, it’s gonna have a much more deeper impact on, in a shorter time than what we anticipated back in 2023. And not all of that, by the way, is negative. There’s a lot of positive opportunities that come out from AI, but I think we’re all trying to figure it out right now in the hospitality industry. Could be both a beneficiary, but will certainly and undoubtedly be impacted by it. But those are two things that I think we got right, and one, I think we, we didn’t anticipate the enormity of the impact of AI. Ryan Embree: Yeah, or the acceleration. I mean, in a industry whose technology adoption is typically slower than most, we’re, we’re up there right now, I mean, or at least hoteliers. And the market feels like hospitality is trying to embrace this maybe differently than other technological fads, right. And I think it’s really, really cool to see, you ever want to explain the complexity of hospitality to someone who doesn’t know hospitality? Go to the Hospitality Show and see all the vendors that are on that showcase list, and you’re gonna see everything over there. And I think that’s why hoteliers, I know I certainly I do, but hoteliers love the hospitality show because it brings everyone to one specific place. And the challenging operations that you mentioned, Alexi, continue to kind of stack up the hats that GMs can continue to put on and wear. It’s all in one place and at one location. And with this location being in Denver. So you launched the Hospitality Show in Vegas, I don’t think probably a great place to launch any type of show. Moved to San Antonio last year, right by right beside the Riverwalk. Here we are in 2025 in Denver making its debut in Colorado. What are you most excited about for this location? What do you think it brings to the hospitality show? Alexi Khajavi: Well, Colorado has a huge and vibrant ecosystem of hospitality companies, all ranging from, obviously, Veo and, the ski resort infrastructure that’s throughout Colorado, but you’ve got some incredible manageme

The next stop on the Suite Spot: Road Trip takes us to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to visit the newly opened Hyatt Place with special guest and Dual Property Sales Manager – Jennifer Odom! Jennifer sits down with host Ryan Embree to discuss how a special property, such as the Hyatt Place Cape Canaveral, leverages its space coast location, social media, and community engagement to grow business and provide an exceptional guest experience. 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, in another edition of our Suite Spot Road Trip. We are just right down the road. If you could see the view that I’m looking at right now, the cruise ships coming in the ocean right here behind us. We are here on the Space Coast. We wanna welcome in Jennifer Odom, Dual Sales Manager at the Hyatt Place, Cape Canaveral. Thank you so much for hosting us at your brand new beautiful property, Jennifer. Jennifer Odom: Yes, thank you. No, it’s a pleasure to have you here. We appreciate the opportunity and are just thrilled to share with everyone just what a fabulous property we do have here on the Space Coast in Cape Canaveral. Ryan Embree: It’s incredible. We’re gonna talk all about it, but before that, We were, we wanted to learn a little bit about you. Share with our Suite Spot audience your hospitality background and the journey that led you to opening this brand new Hyatt Place. Jennifer Odom: Absolutely love to. So I’ve actually been here in this area alone for 25 years. I was the typical story of the grandparents were the snowbirds that moved from Indiana and we followed. I came down one year and was like, why am I gonna go back to Indiana when I have all this with the beach and you know, the launches of the shuttles and so forth. And so that’s what drew me here. I ended up moving and as a young teenager, I had actually worked in a gift shop that was kind of connected between a hotel and a restaurant. And the front desk people would always come over and we would chat while they’re getting snacks and stuff, and they’re like, oh my gosh, John Glynn was just on our lobby, the famous astronaut, Buzz Aldrin’s here. And I’m like, how old do I have to be to come over and work at the desk? And so as soon as I turned 18, that’s where you would find me. So I started off my career at the front desk, was at that limited service property and then found out I had a real passion for it and ended up at a full service property right in Cocoa Beach, just six miles from us here. A different, a brand that I was with for about 20 years. So just got to experience everything from, you know, working, starting off front desk to a catering admin, to a group coordinator, to catering sales manager. I mean, I’ve worn all the hats, all of it. All the way up to a DOS. So, and then super excited, I’d taken a little break and what was phenomenal is I’d seen the article about the hotel here and at the time there was so many different properties that were being built around the area and just because of all the different markets and the growth. And what I actually found was that article and I was like, oh, I forgot, like that’s right, like this property. Like I’ve gotta go check it out. And so I came over and I did a tour right when they had the soft opening in February. And as soon as I went up to our rooftop bar, I was like, oh, wow, I could sell this like this, this is my property. So then that is how I came to the Hyatt Place here in Cape Canaveral. Ryan Embree: It’s so cool that, you know, I think hospitality is one of those industries where it’s because we’re all travelers, right? We all traveled as young children, maybe with our parents, and then we get to transition into, you know, maybe working the front desk in those entry level jobs. And then here you are and you’ve got a great career and your decades into a hospitality career that a lot of people enjoy and, and you know, get to have an opportunity like this. I mean, we open your doors February, 2025. I’m sure that was a labor of love to see that you found out about the property. Probably a lot of ways that travelers and locals are finding out about property, opening up a newspaper or seeing an article online and say, oh, this property’s opening up. This is exciting. Talk to us a little bit about the story of the opening and kind of paint a location of where we are because you have, you are right at the intersection of a lot of cool things. Jennifer Odom: Absolutely. And thank you. Yeah, we have definitely a unique destination and location is just stellar. So for the hotel, to really kind of promote it in the beginning, obviously all social media channels and so forth. One of the other little known facts

Special guest David Audrain, CEO of Exposition Development Company, joins the Suite Spot to discuss the upcoming 2025 Independent Hotel Show Miami and how Expo DevCo develops, facilitates, and hosts the convention. Attendees will also learn what they can look forward to from this year’s event and much more in the episode. 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. We have reached the crescendo of our Independent Hotel Show series. It is fast approaching here and with me to preview the Independent Hotel show. Miami got a very special guest, David Arin, CEO, and partner of Expo Devco, which owns and produces the Independent Hotel Show Miami. David, thank you so much for joining me. I’m excited to talk about this event that is just around the corner here. David Audrain: Thank you, Ryan. I’m very happy to be here with you and always happy to talk about our show. Ryan Embree: Yes, it’s an incredible show. We’re gonna talk about the history, but before we get into talking about the show, what you have geared up for Miami Beach in September. I wanna first talk about maybe your career journey and what led you to Expo Devco and your involvement with the Independent Hotel show, Miami. David Audrain: Well, I’ll, I’ll try not to bore everybody with too much detail, but, I grew up in Europe, to a English Father, American mother, born in the us, grew up in Europe, little island of Jersey, the original one, not the new one. Right off the French Coast. Actually, my father and his father’s business before was a Green Grocers, wholesale and retail green grocery business. So, I actually was walking in the back doors of kitchens of independent hotels from a very early age and always had some good contacts and good friends in the hotel business growing up and going forward. Ended up leaving Europe and moving to the US Back in 1989, I’d sold a technology business and moved to the US and ended up working for an association, happened to be the Texas Restaurant Association. And my very first trade show was a substantial show in Texas for the restaurant and hospitality industry. And that’s what got me hooked on the trade show business. So I’ve now been in the trade show business for 33 years, and worked for several major, some of the largest trade show organizers in the world. I’ve produced some of the largest trade shows in the world, everything from the largest automotive aftermarket show to the largest floor covering show to the largest apparel fashion, manufacturing industry shows. And ended up running the North American business for a major European company called Messer Frankfurt. Ran that for seven odd years. And then in January of 2012, my partner, who happens to also be my wife, Stephanie Everett and I left that business and started Exposition Development company, Expo Devco. We’ve partnered over the years with several companies out of Europe and produce different shows. And the one that’s obviously relevant to here is the independent hotel show. The company that originally launched the Independent Hotel show in London is a company called Montgomery Group. They’re a 130 year old family exhibition business. And they had started the Independent Hotel show in London, more than a dozen years ago. And I happened to visit it and talk with my friends that owned the Montgomery and really liked what they were doing with it, the specific niche for independent hotel, independent luxury boutique hotel operators. And that’s how, that’s how we, we first got started. Ryan Embree: It’s an incredible story. You’ve seen it all, but hospitality being the one that brought you into, being your first show, I think is super special to hear. And that’s, I think the beauty of hospitality, David, is that, you know, we all get to experience it. Maybe some of those other, maybe some of those other businesses or shows that you’ve been a part of, you might not really be in that business, but we’re all in the business of hospitality, right? We enjoy going to restaurants, we enjoy traveling, and it all circles back, which makes just for the perfect and a reason why a lot of people fall in love with our industry and some of our guests even on this independent hotel show show series, you know, really didn’t start in hospitality, but fell into it and have had decades long career since. You know, one of the things I’m sure putting on all of these events that we’ve talked about before, David, is you can’t just throw a a show anywhere and hope it’s successful. You and your team picked Miami Beach, some would argue the independent hotel capital of the world. Why is Miami Beach just the absolute perfect location for the show here in th

The next episode in the Suite Spot: Road Trip series takes travelers to the newly renovated Marriott Pompano Beach Resort in Sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida! The resort’s General Manager, Leslie Weil, sits down on the podcast to share with audiences the transformative renovation, unique dining options, and enhanced guest experience. 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 as you can tell, we are not in our Suite Spot podcast studio. Instead, we are on site at the beautiful Pompano Beach Marriott Resort. I’m here with GM, Leslie Weil. Leslie, thank you so much for hosting us here at your beautiful reimagined property. We’re gonna get to it today. Leslie Weil: Thank you for having me. Excited to have you. Ryan Embree: And this is kind of a combination, of a couple different series and we’re gonna share why that is special. Your alma mater, which we’re gonna talk about in a moment. But we’ve got so much exciting stuff happening right here on property. But before we get into that, we always love to hear kind of the background of hospitality professionals. Sometimes you’re jumping from place to place, sometimes you’re local, born into the industry. Tell us a little bit about your story. Leslie Weil: So, I was not born into the industry, but I knew very young that this is what I wanted to do. At 15 years old I said I wanna study hospitality and I’ve stuck to it for over 30 years now. I absolutely love what I do and I’m from Peru. I was born and raised there. And then after high school, I studied for one year in Peru and I moved to Miami to study hospitality in FIU. FIU is a wonder for a school. It gave me a really great beginning in the industry and I have not looked back ever since. I’ve worked everywhere from hostels to luxury hotels at all over Latin America and the United States. So really I was lucky enough to start in housekeeping and in the kitchen and then I just got to grow to be in a GM and I love it. Ryan Embree: I love hearing that story. It’s something that we’re actually hearing more of now. Are people going to school for hospitality? Before it was, I fell into the industry, fell in love with it, and now we’re seeing that intentionality into hospitality. I think it’s because of stories that you hear sometimes from mentors about seeing and obviously just the love of travel. Right? I think that that’s, that’s comes with it. Leslie Weil: I really think the love of travel and the love of meeting people. Always merging into what can I do with those traits? And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, hospitality. And I think as a career, hospitality is a career that offers a little bit of every career into one. Yes. And hospitality is a world of sub worlds. So really it is true that still, I feel like there’s a lot of people that fall into it. Like, you need a summer job and often sudden you love it and decide that that’s what you’re gonna do with your life. Yeah. But I think being able to study it and understanding all the components from a hospitality standpoint really gives you an advantage as you start your career. Ryan Embree: And a lot of transferable skills as well. Where you know, you can be at a property in the Midwest and then move to a beautiful property here right on the beach right behind us. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about next. Leslie, is this complete, we’ve visited at the perfect time, right? You would say the complete reimagining of your rooms, your suites, amenities, your pool restaurant. Talk to us a little bit about this project and kind of the journey that got you here. Leslie Weil: So I have not been here for as long as the renovation has been but my team has. And it was definitely, a very long but very well thought of project. It was fully reimagined. Sometimes you go into renovations and I have done 20 openings and many renovations, but this one felt like an opening because we really closed out the tower, the pool, the restaurant, while operating from one of the towers, which is not always easy on the team. And it’s also not easy on the guest of course, but it’s truly amazing to walk in and feel such a fresh outlook in what this property was supposed to be. It doesn’t feel like it’s the same building. Everything was redone. Every single room. The lobby is completely new. We have the new pool, which is incredible. And that was made of two different pools. So legitimately, I feel like we exploded the pool deck. And then just made something new and really try to stay true to our roots. Meaning we are from Pompano Beach, we’ve been here for a long time and we wanna big homage to that. So really e

Tune in to the next episode of the Suite Spot: Independent Hotel Show series to catch special guest Nicholas Gold, who takes center stage on the podcast! As Managing Director of Black Desert Resort, Nicholas shares the early beginnings of his hospitality journey, the one-of-a-kind appeal of independent hotels, and how the newly opened Black Desert Resort is accentuating the guest experience in 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. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, or Ryan Embree here for another edition of our Independent Hotel Show series, episode #3, and we are getting closer and closer to September down where we are gonna have the largest collection of independent hoteliers and network. We are so excited to hopefully see you down in Miami Beach, September 17th and 18th. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit more, but I’m gonna bring in my guest right now, managing director Black Desert Resort and Red Mountain Resort, Nicholas Gold. Nicholas, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot. Nicholas Gold: Ryan. My absolute pleasure. Cheers. Ryan Embree: Well, we’re gonna have a fun time on this episode talking about your beautiful resort in Utah. I’m so excited. But before we get into that, before we start talking about the Independent Hotel show, which we’re both here for, let’s talk about your hospitality journey and the story that led you to a Black Desert Resort. Nicholas Gold: Yeah, sure. You know, it’s, I started when I was too young to know any better in the hospitality business. I at a fairly young age, I was working in a restaurant in London. I was the guy, you know, I’m relatively old, so we did a lot of tableside cooking back then, and I was the gang who worked the Gary Don, and that really spoke to me because it led me to, it fed my love of storytelling, which I’ve just been able to expand upon as I’ve grown in the industry, and that that juxtaposition between service and storytelling really is what the Independent Luxury Hotel is all about. Ryan Embree: Yeah, it absolutely is. Nicholas completely agree with you. Every amazing independent hotel has a story. You know, sometimes, sometimes it’s challenging in the, in independent hotel space. Give our listeners a little bit, you, you say you love storytelling. Give our, our listeners a little bit of story about the property that you have the privilege of, of managing over there at the massive Black Desert Resort. Nicholas Gold: Yeah. So we are in about 600 acres just by snow Canyon State Park, and we do a really good job of blending luxury hospitality with golf, wellness, dining, a huge residential living component. We’re building right now, we’re about to break ground on a 24-court world championship pickleball complex, which is certainly the wave of the future. And we just finished working on the designs for a four and a half acre waterpark, which is not gonna be open to the public, only open to our members and hotel guests. Ryan Embree: Absolutely incredible. And I think, it’s funny, we’re talking about storytelling here in, in independent hotels because you, you’re able to write your own story sometimes and be able to adjust and adapt to trends that you see out there. I see you mentioned wellness, a huge trend in hospitality right now, being able to do some unique things in that space. Pickleball, even on the amenity side, being able to do that and who doesn’t love, I’ve got a couple young ones, who doesn’t love a nice little waterpark to relax at as well. Nicholas Gold: I would also be remiss in missing the fact that I think we’re one of the only courses in the country to host both an LPGA tour and a PGA tour. Ryan Embree: Incredible. Nicholas Gold: It is pretty good. Ryan Embree: Yeah. Listen, when those young ones are at the waterpark, you know where I’ll be, I’ll be on the links with my buddies. It seems like that you got every something for everything over there at the Black Desert Resort. Its a massive property. It’s picturesque. If you’re watching us on YouTube, you can see Nicholas’s background right now. But it, if you’re not, and you’re listening to us on one of our platforms, I encourage you, this is a background that you do not wanna miss. For those who aren’t familiar with that area, Nicholas, that you’re in, paint really a picture for us of where you’re located. Nicholas Gold: Well, as I mentioned, we’re just outside Snow Canyon State Park, which is just north of St. George, Utah, about 25 minutes from Zion National Park. But we’re right underneath the Red Rocks of Snow Canyon. Yeah, I spent seven years in Hawaii and I spent a few years in Sedona. And when I got her

The Suite Spot Spotlight Series takes viewers to sunny Key West in the newest episode, featuring the lavish and beachside resort, Casa Marina Key West by Hilton! Special guest and Hotel Manager at Casa Marina, Evelyn Summer, joins the podcast to share the property’s rich history, insight on the $90 million hotel renovation, and how a strong digital presence on social media and guest review platforms plays a pivotal role in connecting with travelers worldwide. 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. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. We are here with our Suite Spot Spotlight series, and what I would argue is going to be the southern most episode we ever do on this Spotlight series. We’ll explain in a moment, I’m gonna bring in my guest, Evelyn Summer, Hotel Manager of Casa Marina, Key West Curio Collection by Hilton. Evelyn, thank you so much for being with me on the podcast. Evelyn Summer: Thanks for having me, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Well, thank you for inviting me here to this incredible property. We’re gonna talk all about it, but before, as tradition on the Suite Spot, we’d love to hear from hospitality professionals, their journey, their background. This is like every hotel professional’s dream to be at a property like this. How’d you get here? Evelyn Summer: Ryan, you said that it’s your Southern most broadcast, but it’s also the best broadcast. You’re gonna have to. That’s true. I mean, come on, look at where we’re at. How did I get here? Well, fun fact. I am from Key West. Okay. Yeah. So my family originates from down here. My grandfather’s from Key Largo, my mother’s from down here. And I’ve been here my whole life. Not to say that I haven’t moved and, you know, went to college, worked in a couple of different areas, but I’ve been in Key West for about 90% of my life. Yeah. And started working here at these two properties probably in 2008. However, fun fact is that all of our high school proms and homecomings and family worked here. There’s a lot of it. It was further back than 2008. Sure. When I actually officially became employed. So I can easily say that I grew up here. Ryan Embree: Yeah. We hear that all the time from hoteliers is like them actually living in the hotel sometimes. And you have like your entire history here and now here you are making more memories for guests all around the world. Very, very cool to see. And this property is iconic. It’s got a history dating back to the 1920s. We’re gonna talk about the recent renovation and transformation that it just had, but talk to us, to our listeners about the origin story of this property and its history. Evelyn Summer: Sure. Yeah. So Casa Marina was built, opened in 1920 New Year’s Eve, 1920 to be exact. It was built by Henry Flagler. He was an industrialist that built the railroad that connects essentially New York all the way down to the southernmost point. And interesting fact is that Henry and his partners were the first to create the, and I’m not a railroad specialist, but the railroads that could connect to other railroad lines way, way, way back. Whenever someone would built a railroad, that was it. That track was just their track and you couldn’t interconnect it with someone else’s track Yeah. And use theirs. And he was able to create that. And then his dream was to build a way to get people all the way down to Key West. So he built us one, the old bridges that you see when you’re traveling down to get people on a train all the way down to Key West. And then of course, once he figured that out, they needed a place to stay. So Casa Marina was it. And that’s about 105 years ago. Ryan Embree: I mean, I think that’s absolutely incredible. I mean, the fact that we’re talking about the origin of connecting railroads and aligning with the history of this, of this space, but there’s been certainly a bridge from its past to where it is right now. With these transformations and recent renovations. Talk to us a little bit about the work that’s been done, some of the feedback you’re hearing from guests. Evelyn Summer: Yeah, of course. So we recently finished, a $90 million renovation of the entire resort. Incredible. And that included everything from our food and beverage outlets which we’re sitting in now to our guest rooms. Every facility in the hotel was addressed, and it’s just absolutely fantastic. They did a wonderful job of making sure to not get away from sort of the old charm that is caina. It is one of the oldest buildings on the island, but to add in some newer touches that really make it elevated and make the guest experience really wonderful. So we have brand new restaurant, which we’re sitting in now, A

The next episode in the Suite Spot: Road Trip series takes the podcast to Central Florida to visit the incredible Homewood Suites by Hilton nearest to Universal Studios! In this exciting episode, the brand leader of Homewood Suites, Rick Colling, and the General Manager of the property, Carlos Sotillo, sit down on the podcast to discuss the Homewood brand, the evolution of the extended stay hotel segment, and the future 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. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, a part of our Suite Spot 2025 Summer Road trip series. We are right here in our backyard in Orlando at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Orlando nearest to Universal Studios like I said, right in our backyard down the road, out of our TMG headquarters out here with Rick and Carlos who have been both here at this amazing property. We’re gonna talk all about it. Now, Rick, we have met up with you earlier this year, and we have, yeah. One thing we haven’t done is done a proper, you know, hospitality journey. We love a good story in hospitality, right? All of our humble beginnings where we might’ve started at the front desk. Bellman for myself. Give us a little bit of background in our audience, background into your hospitality. Rick Colling: Got it, Ryan, with pleasure. And it’s a fun journey, Ryan, mate. So, we’re like you. I started at the front desk, at the Kalamazoo Residence Inn, right after graduating from college. And I walked into the hotel and I said I’ve graduated from college. I think I should be the GM of a hospitality hotel. And the GM said to me, do you know anything about the business? I said, nothing. So he became my mentor in the business. So I started at the front desk and worked my way up through the ranks at Marriott. Spent 10 years with Marriott and I’ve been with Hilton now for 27 years, and been a GM and property director of sales on property, but I worked all the disciplines and it’s just been an incredible journey to finally end up leading a brand like Homewood Suites over the course of the last five years, which has been, you know, certainly a career highlight for me. So, a fun journey to get me here today. Ryan Embree: But yet a familiar one; one that we hear all the time, a lot of college students, you know, maybe just taking here a summer job, end up falling in love with the industry. But another piece of your story that we’re hearing so often is mentors. Yeah. And I wanna highlight that is because there’s so many hospitality professionals out there mentoring the next generation of hospitality professionals. So important in our industry right now. And Carlos you have a background here in this area, this campus? Of hotels. Give us your hospitality journey. Carlos Sotillo: Well, actually, funny story, when my parents first came to America, they actually started working at a Homewood Suites. Oh, okay. I was, came out, yeah. My mom was a housekeeper. My dad was a houseman. And I was 11. So during summer break, they would take me with them to work sometimes. And so I grew up in a Homewood Suites during my summer break. Rick Colling: Which is where you needed to be, right. Carlos: Right. In full circle. But officially, my career started, I was a breakfast attendant at a small hotel down on I-Drive. And then the opportunity came out to be a night auditor. So, you know, I went for it. And now, low and behold, here I am. I went through four different Hilton brands. I’ve gone through Hampton Hilton, Garden Inn, Home2, and now here back at the Homewood. So it’s been a fun, fun journey. Rick Colling: No, we’re glad to have you mate. One of the best in the business right here. Ryan Embree: Well, it’s incredible. We always say sometimes, hospitality runs in the blood, runs in your DNA sometimes, and you grew up here, you had family members that worked at this specific brand. It’s an incredible story again. So, Carlos, let’s talk about your incredible property. What makes it special? Obviously a huge renovation. Talk to us a little bit about that. Carlos: Yeah, so one of the things that makes this hotel special, I think is the staff. So we have staff that’s been here for, I mean, many, many years. You guys have met some of them. Yep. They’ve been here almost since the hotel opened originally. The other thing is we have such a diverse staff too. I have people from in housekeeping that are from Haiti and Jamaica. And then at the front desk I have people from Colombia, my food and beverage supervisors from Morocco. My GM is British, one of our Ds is a Puerto Rican. And I’m Venezuelan, you know. So being in an international tourist hotspot like Orlando, I think that really helps get to know when guests arrive, we kin

Tune in to the most recent Suite Spot: Independent Hotel Show Series episode to hear from the founder of Salt Hotels, David Bowd, as he discusses the origins of Salt Hotels, founding the Salt School, hospitality industry trends, and the next generation of hotel professionals. Be sure to follow and subscribe to the Suite Spot so you never miss an episode, and be sure to check out our Travel Media Group YouTube channel as well. 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, for another edition of our independent Hotel show series. I can feel the anticipation, the excitement building up. We’re just a few months away from September where we’re gonna have independent hoteliers from all over the country coming down to Miami Beach of the Convention Center. And one of those hoteliers and guests is my special guest today who I’ll invite into the podcast for the very first time. David Bow, founder and CEO of Salt Hotels. David, thank you so much for being on the podcast. David Bowd: Thank you for having me. Great to be here. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we’re excited. We’re gonna talk Independent hotel. We’re gonna talk about your beautiful portfolio that you have over there at Salt Hotels and everything about that. But before we do that, we always like to get a little bit of background for our hospitality guests. Talk to us a little bit about your hospitality journey, David, and what led you to ultimately founding Salt hotels? David Bowd: Yeah. My story began crazily 40 years ago now, back in the UK. I started when I left school, and I left school very early at 15 years old. And I became a bellman in a local hotel and absolutely loved it. I realized this was the career for me up to sort of, during my school years, I’d played, my mom had a cafe/restaurant, and I really, really thought I wanted to be a chef, and so I started to go towards that department. But I was too young to go into the kitchen, so I started as a bellman, and then I finally got into the kitchen, and funnily enough, I got into the kitchen and didn’t enjoy it as much as I did front of house. So, which is often the case, I think, for a lot of people, they have this dream, and then it’s not as, it’s not, the reality’s not the same. So I sort of spent the time in the kitchen. I did a couple of years in the kitchen, and then I went back to front of house and I worked through all departments and then moved to London where I was working in the more traditional hotels, the more, you know, Hiltons, Marriotts, holiday Inns. And actually at the turn of the century, Ian Trager had just opened his first hotel in the outside of the U.S, in London. And I was out invited to go and to meet with his team. And I met with the team and loved it. And, you know, his first hotel St. Martin’s Lane was an absolute masterpiece, as was his second, which was Sanderson. And I was fortunate enough to get the job, and I was hotel manager of one for a period of time. And then I took over as regional general manager of both properties. And I ran those through 2000 through to 2007, which were the phenomenal, phenomenally good years in London. And so we were making a lot of money at that time. And Ian invited me to move over to the US and to take over an operations role focusing on a lot of openings for what had then become Morgan’s hotel group. And I did that, moved over to New York, loved New York, and loved the lights in America, and spent some time with Morgans. And then Ian had actually left to go and start addition and public on his own. And so I ended up leaving Morgans and going to Ian and to work on those projects with him before moving on to Andre Bola, sort of the other, what I would consider the other genius celebrity hotelier, you know, who is one of the founders of our sector of the industry, I think. And I was fortunate enough to work on some great projects running standard brand overseeing iconic properties like Chateau Marand, Sunset Beach, the Mercer in New York, and opening the Chilton Firehouse, which was my last major project before leaving Andre and then coming over to set up Salt Hotels. Ryan Embree: It’s incredible story, and I’ll tell you first as a former bellman myself, look, we got a couple bellman here just on a podcast talking about the hospitality industry, but sometimes it’s those entry level jobs that give you the introduction that you need into a career, whether it’s a couple decades old or, you know, four decades old, of your hospitality career there. Another common theme that we’ve heard from a couple of my guests recently is parents working in the industry and also being that first introduction into hospitality. And I think that’s a really unique w

Vice President of Brand & Marketing at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Loay Nour, joins the Suite Spot podcast to discuss the launch of Fairmont’s global campaign – “Make Special Happen”. Tune in now to learn more about the brand and the campaign only on 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. We have a very special episode for you today. Gonna tell you in a minute why that is so telling. But first, I’m gonna go ahead and introduce a first time guest with me today, Fairmont Hotel and Resorts, vice President of Brand and Marketing, Loay Nour. Thank you so much for joining me here on The Suite Spot. Loay Nour: Thank you for having me, Ryan. Looking forward to our conversation. Ryan Embree: It’s gonna be a great conversation. We’re gonna talk a lot about some exciting things on Fairmont Hotel and Resorts, things you and your team have been working on over there. But before we do that, since you are a first time guest, I always love to just hear everyone’s hospitality background, unique journeys to where they got there and for you at Fairmont Hotel and Resorts. Loay Nour: Absolutely. So my name is Loay Nour, and I’ve been in the hospitality industry for more than 18 years actually now. My background goes specifically in luxury hospitality brand. It’s a passion that started for me, although I haven’t done hospitality school. But I ended up in the hospitality by passion, not by education. My background is actually goes very much into guest experience, brand and marketing, loyalty marketing, partnerships marketing. So I’ve got around like a 360 degree on marketing. And today, myself and my team we’re in charge of the Fairmont brand globally, proudly managing a portfolio of 95 hotels worldwide, and a very strong pipeline of around 28 hotels coming up in the next few years. And today, really looking forward to tell you about the chapter of that. We have just recently launched with a new campaign of Fairmont Presents Make Special happen. Ryan Embree: Yeah, it’s a massive global campaign. We’re gonna jump all into it. But before, let’s give our sweet spot audience maybe a little bit of a history lesson. We’ve had some iconic brands on this Sweet Spot podcast. This might be the most iconic. It’s got a rich legacy of timeless hospitality as it’s described. Share with our sweet spot audience, a little bit about the origin story behind this incredible storied luxury brand. Loay Nour: It’s actually one of the brands that has a great legacy and history since 1907 with the first property that opened in San Francisco. Fairmont took its name actually from the vision of the foundries, the two first sisters which was the first half of the name. And then the mont was actually because the San Francisco was built on a mountain, and that was the first property that was open for us. Since then, we actually, our hotels has been social epicenters in the different destinations where they operate. And we were able to actually host a lot of key defining history moments like the black and white ball, like the bed in peace with the John Legend and Yoko and Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal. So we’ve always been a place where if we always like to say if it happens in a city or it happens in a destination, it happens at a Fairmont. And until today, we actually continue to host those great moments. We became a truly international brand back in 2002 when our first property outside the America opened in Dubai. And since then, our portfolio has accelerated. Today, we’re a proud member of a core group that manages more than 42 brands globally. And we are one of the very well known and very well beloved, luxury brands globally. Ryan Embree: It’s incredible growth and we’re gonna talk about that a little bit later in the episode. But I do want to fast forward to today. First of all, interesting and fun fact about the name of Fairmont. I mean, if you ever want some great hospitality trivia, I think that little story right there is a great one to try to stump maybe your hotel friends. But let’s fast forward today in talking about this incredible launch make special happen, global campaign launch worldwide, like you said, you’re catering to travelers all over the world. What inspired this campaign and the Fairmont Hotel’s new global branding? Loay Nour: We have actually started a very extensive brand positioning exercise couple of months ago where with, when you have a great brand with a great legacy like Fairmont, you want to make sure that you evolve it carefully. So you want to maintain all the legacy of the brand, but also you want to make sure that you are relevant. So we did a l

Check out the latest TMG Hospitality Trailblazers episode featuring the Founder of Aligned Hospitality, Bryan Tubaugh! Bryan joins the podcast to discuss founding Aligned Hospitality, the meaning behind the brand, technology in hospitality, improving the guest experience, and much more. 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, with another edition of our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. This episode we head west to bring in my next guest from Aligned Hospitality, Brian Tubaugh, founder, and CEO. Thank you so much, Brian, for being on the Suite Spot. Bryan Tubaugh: Hey, Brian, I appreciate it and glad to be here. Ryan Embree: Yeah, exciting. We’re gonna talk all about Aligned Hospitality. Talk about the journey where you guys are, you guys have seen some explosive growth, which we’re gonna talk about, but first, since it’s your first time, love to get people’s background stories journey. What ultimately led you to Aligned Hospitality, but founding Aligned Hospitality as well. Yeah, absolutely. I’m one of the I guess, rare breeds. I grew up in the industry. Both my parents, were both general managers. Both of them started in the hospitality industry, line level, housekeepers, bellman, and then, you know, the typical hospitality love story fell in love, one became a front office manager. The other became a GM. Then they started traveling and they had me. So, yeah, so both my parents were in the industry. I, to be honest with you, it’s all I’ve known. It’s, you know, all I choose to know. Anytime I try to take away or get away from the industry, it brought me back. So yeah, so I was born into it. And then my business partner, Helinda, my mother, she raised me, my parents divorced. She raised me in Tucson, Arizona, where, you know, our headquarters is still at Tucson and Phoenix. And so, yeah, so we just I grew up in the industry. I started off in operations with Hilton. Went that route, started in housekeeping at 14. We won’t tell people that though. So I was a houseman summer job. It was an exterior corridor hotel. So I got to feel that $120 heat. And, yeah, I mean, quickly worked my way up to the front desk. And you know, I may have had some back push on that help as my mom was the general manager at the property. And then the fun part of the whole story, the twist was when I was 18, I had an HR director at the DoubleTree that I was working at. It was a full service, DoubleTree. And the HR director called me into his office. I’ll never forget him, love him to death, Eduardo. And he said, Hey, Brian, do you like this industry? I said, well, yeah. I mean, is there anything else in the world? And he said, well, if you like it and you love it, you need to leave Hilton. And I was like, whoa, did I do something wrong? I mean, I, I love Hilton. I’m at a double tree. This is what I’ve known. I eat a cookie a day. Like, you know, what, why? And, you know, and he kind of looked at me and he said, listen, because of who your parents are, you’re never gonna be able to progress in your career. And you’re never gonna be able to take that next step because everybody will know you as Rick and Helenda’s son. And if you truly want to make your own staple in this industry, then you need to, you need to, you need to move on. And, I tell that story too, and I’ll tell you where that leads, but I tell that story because I do think that’s a gap nowadays in our industry, is that that mentorship, that line level to that middle management to management, right? We go rockstar front desk. You’re now a general manager. Figure it out. So anyway, so he shipped me out. I found Starwood at that point. The four Points by Sheraton. I became an SRSA, I don’t know if you remember that position. Sales Reporting Systems analyst. Oh boy, you talk about starwoods, hotels and reports at that time. So I got to learn the reporting side, the sales side. And then I had a director of sales and marketing at that point. Say, the day you turn 21, I wanna take a chance on you in sales. So, true to her word, Sandy Osberg, when I turned 21 and I was having a great time in life, I came back, needed a job. And I’ll tell you, it was the quickest interview I’ve ever had. And she put me in as a sales manager at a little Four Points in Tucson. And then my career kind of grew from there. I ended up being at Big Box Resorts Weston, Carolyn, Scottsdale Princess, Lowe’s, Ventana Canyon, Westin La Paloma. My last stint on property was the Hilton El Conquistador in Tucson as the director of sales and marketing. So I ended up going that sales route. So anyway, that led me to, my mother was still on the other side, on the ope

Check out the latest episode in the Suite Spot: Independent Hotel Show Series, to hear from the COO of The Indigo Road Hospitality Group, Gabriel Perez! Gabriel breaks down the intricacies of F&B in hospitality, how the Indigo brand is evolving, and what attendees can look forward to at the 2025 Independent Hotel Show Miami. 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 Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embry, and we are part of our Independent Hotel show series. This is the second edition of this new series that we’re kicking off in collaborating with the Independent Hotel Show. This is your first time we’re bringing on advisory board members, team members of the Independent Hotel Show, getting us geared up for that show here at Miami Beach this September. We cannot wait. Uh, and I also cannot wait to bring in my guest, so I’ll bring him in. Gabriel Perez, COO of lodging at The Indigo Road Hospitality Group. Gabriel, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot. Gabriel Perez: Well, thank you. Happy to be here. Ryan Embree: We’re excited. We’re gonna talk some independent hotels. We’re gonna talk mm-hmm <affirmative>. About the Independent Hotel Show. That’s why you’re on here. But before, uh, love getting a little bit of background on your story, uh, your hospitality journey that led you to Indigo Road Hospitality Group. Gabriel Perez: It’s, uh, the journey of a very lucky guy. I started this without knowing that it is what I wanted to do long time ago, late eighties at the Intercontinental Hotel in Caracas. And it has been a progressive set of situations and a great joy of many privileges, which had allowed me to, uh, grow within the career in few different segments and disciplines of, of the hospitality. Again, privilege to be today where I am in supporting and leading a great team of individuals, uh, with real hospitality, where the emphasis is experiences in addition to profitability and results. Ryan Embree: This is why I always love starting the episode talking about this, uh, because you just get such perspective, um, where people start their journey. You have a common thread with a lot of our guests that we have on the Suite Spot of maybe falling into the industry not knowing that this is something that you wanted to pursue as a career, but once you get into it, it kind of sticks onto you, right? It kind of gets stuck in your DNAA little bit as so to speak. Right? It does, Gabriel Perez: It does very much is it’s a contagious daily excitement that is always different. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. And that variability, you know, it’s funny you say it like that, it’s always different, but hospitality is the, the skills are so transferrable, um, from whether it’s different parts of the world, different brands, you know, hosting people and, and providing them with good service can be done at a high level, uh, again, through a lot of different medians. But that energy, that passion that you bring, Gabriel, that you were talking about, it is, it’s, it’s contagious. And that’s why we see so many people, um, with these stories where, you know, you’re talking to a bellman that, that started in a hotel. Uh, and, and now I get the privilege of, of interviewing hospitality professionals like yourself. So, uh, the, the stories range far and wide, but I, I love hearing them and I think they need to be told. I think, you know, in a, in a time right now where we’ve struggled over the last couple years with, with hospitality workforce, to hear these stories out there of where, what a career and hospitality can look like, because sometimes in industries you think, Hey, I need to be promoted by this time, or I need to be at this stage of my career. Hospitality is very different. Gabriel Perez: It is very different. It is, um, it is always work in progress. As I said earlier. Every day is different. Every challenge is different. What was done yesterday or last quarter, not necessarily lies today when it comes to crafting those experiences, the demographic is always changing and evolving. So I think it’s, it, you know, it only not only keeps your, your toes, but it develops a sense of progression that only a few other dynamic industries allow you to do. Ryan Embree: Yeah, absolutely. Fast changing, um, a lot of elements, a lot of outside elements also impact our industry, which we’re gonna talk about in a minute. Yeah. Um, but before we get into that, I’d like to just do, you know, we learned a little bit about you, a quick introduction into Indigo Road Hospitality Group for maybe our, our Suite Spot hotel audience, or, um, listeners tell us the story of the Indigo Road Hospitality Group. Sure. Gabriel Perez: It’ll be my pleasu

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: And talk to us a little bit about, because I thought it was fascinating how that name change. You involve the members here at Mission Resort. Talk to us a little bit about that process. Cindy Staley: Well, we feel that membership involvement is very important. And we actually came up with a number of names and then put it out to the members to vote on the name changed. And the Grove House is what they selected as it, which really represents the area with the citrus groves in the surrounding communities. Ryan Embree: It’s so cool because I think, you know, I hear a lot of stories from this area and members talking about, you know, bringing their children, maybe even grandchildren. And to be a part of that chapter that you have now to say, maybe I was a part, a small part of voting for this and seeing that name change is really, really cool. Outside of the food and beverage experiences, there’s

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. Supply continues to be a challenge, right? Construction costs, um, are at an all time high. Buyers and sellers seem to be kind of stuck in this, uh, uh, in this weird mix, um, where they both think, um, that they should be getting, um, better returns on, on both, uh, sides, on both sides. And, and that’s continuing to make things harder for, uh, deals to get done. That’s why these events are so important. Um, so much networking, um, so much deal making going on in that lobby, uh, that we saw at, at, uh, the Marriott Marquee and New York City. Um, the next takeaway is talking about gen ai. And obviously that is, you can’t go to a hospitality, you can’t go to really any conference anymore without talking about AI and the impact that it’s having. But this more than any other conference, hospitality conference that I’ve been to, um, the narrative is starting to change. The, the ushering

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 some ideas off of each other or help individuals through tough professional times or tough personal times for that matter. In 2023, I became the executive director of the New York City Women of Hospitality. And while we still maintain that mission, we added a layer of educational focus, and this allowed us to partner with some local law firms to host educational series. It added an additional dimension to the women of hospitality. And so now you’ll see as an attendee of our event, anytime you come, you are guaranteed to learn something as well as meet some pretty incredible individuals. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I’m sure. And you know, I’ve seen on social media the growth, of that organization, um, just following it has been incredible, which I think is a testament to that community and, uh, the interest in, uh, women in hospitality banding together. And Kat, recently I saw on social media that the Women of Hospitality, uh, h

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: It’s a breathtaking view that I personally got to experience, and it’s a blue on that lagoon that I will not forget. And I’m sure it’s being shared everywhere on social media, but a resort, a campus like this doesn’t just spring up overnight. Right. I’ve been in Orlando native for almost a decade now, and I’ve heard about this project, it feels like since that time. Talk to us a little bit about the history of this project and maybe some of the things that have made it so special. Sean McCarron: Well, the history, we started for us about three years, three and a half years ago, back onto the project itself. It was still under construction. And a lot of the team that we started to put together was how do we take advantage of the unique features of this resort and look at the things like the, eight acre lagoon that we have and activate that lagoon and activate the beaches that are around and all of the beautiful areas that we have built