Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

In this episode of Suite Spot, we pick the brain of a true hotel review response expert. Kristeena Seckinger, who has responded to over 100,000 hotel reviews in her career, joins host Ryan Embree to talk about what it takes to be a successful hotel review response writer and shares some best practices for online review response. From the proper length of a review response to which sites are the most important to respond to, Kristeena covers it all regarding review response. Ryan and Kristeena also talk about how to manage brand expectations and standards when it comes to review response and the emotional toll responding to reviews can have on a hotelier. In the Q&A segment, Kristeena delivers some insightful do and don’ts to a hotelier who is looking to make review response a priority in 2019. To submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. 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. Ryan Embree: Hello and thanks for listening. This is Ryan Embree, your host of the Suite Spot. Happy 2019 to all of our listeners. It’s a new year, and we’ve got a new episode here of Suite Spot. Very excited about the episode we have today. It is going to be circled all around responding to reviews. So today in our What’s News, we’re going to be looking at a white paper on travelmediagroup.com, which is what makes a good review response writer. And in this white paper you’re going to get some best practices, some tools and resources on how to respond to reviews. If you’re delegating that to someone at your property, how to make sure that you’re getting the most out of them. Or, if you’re responding to reviews yourself, making sure you are doing everything you need to do in order to get those great responses out there. We know how the brains have really raised their expectations of hoteliers when it comes to review response. We know how important this is and the standards are getting stricter and stricter when it comes to review response. So with that being said, we’ve got a really special guest with us. She has actually been with us since the conception of our solution Respond & Resolve where we actually partner with hotels to respond to reviews, our Senior Reputation Analyst Kristeena Seckinger. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and welcome in Kristeena. Good Morning Kristeena. How are you? Kristeena S.: Good morning, Ryan. I’m doing great. How are you doing? Ryan Embree: I’m excellent. I’m super excited that you had the opportunity to be with us live here on the Suite Spot, and I want to first start off with with kind of an easy question. You, you have, like I mentioned before, you were here at the very beginning of this solution, Respond & Resolve. So since that time, how many reviews have you personally responded to? Kristeena S.: Well, I have been here over three years now and so within that time I’ve probably responded to about 117,000 reviews. Ryan Embree: Wow. That is, that is an incredible number. I have to ask, you know, with so many review sites online today, and you know you being a expert in review response, what would you say your personal opinion is of which is the most important site to make sure your reviews are responded to? Kristeena S.: Well, there are a lot of factors to look at when thinking about the answer to that question. Previously, I would have said with confidence that maybe TripAdvisor might have been the most important just because they have that brand recognition and travelers are always going to TripAdvisor to look for reviews about the hotel. More and more now, we are seeing more content in Google. Especially with mobile devices and searching for a hotel, Google reviews are the first thing that could pop up. But again, the most important thing would be always to respond to as many review sites as possible. And that would of course ensure that you’re reaching as many guests as possible. Ryan Embree: Yeah. No matter where potential travelers are looking, because we know with, there’s so many OTAs out there, there’s so many of these online listings which are adding the ability to leave reviews and feedback with customer engagement. No matter where your travelers are coming from, you are assured that there’s a response there by the hotel. As I talked about at the intro, you know, we’re starting to see a trend of brands getting stricter and stricter when it comes to their standards for responding to reviews. How long do you, should you wait before responding to a review? Kristeena S.: Well, you always want yo

In this episode of Suite Spot, we prepare hoteliers for the upcoming holiday season, which is historically slower for hotels. Ryan counts down the top 5 ways to market your hotel during this year’s winter months. We tackle everything from traditional advertising avenues to best practices on setting your hotel up for future success. This list will help you build a strategy to make sure that you are getting the most revenue out of your business in a time of low occupancy and ADR. We would love to hear your feedback to our list. What are you doing to optimize your hotel’s revenue during the “off-season”? You can reach us by either calling or texting us at 407-984-7455 or email us at [email protected]. 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 and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Hello everyone and thank you for listening. Happy holidays. This is your host, Ryan Ryan Embree, and you are listening to the Suite Spot. This is episode 15. We’ve got a great episode for you today, very excited about it. We felt that, uh, during this holiday season, unless you are in a winter destination, we know that this is typically considered in the industry a off season or slower period. You’re starting to see occupancy maybe dipped down a little bit, causing her to come down as well. And hoteliers are constantly looking for ways to put heads in beds and fill their rooms during this slower winter season. And the spirit of that, we are going to have a top five list today of the ways that you can market your hotel during the slow off season. So let’s go ahead and jump right in. Ryan Embree: We’re going to start with number five and number five is for hoteliers to start thinking about traditional advertising avenues, some more out of the box, ways to market your hotel. For example, coupons or billboards, you know, 60 percent of travelers during the holiday seasons are searching for hotels and making booking decisions during the holiday season. These could be a travelers that are going on road trips across the country so they might not have a particular plan or do the research that they would for maybe a summer vacation they’re making on the spot decisions and for those travelers we know best that places like coupon guides or billboards could really sway a last minute traveler to make that booking decision at your particular property. In saying that, if this is your first time implementing some of these traditional avenues of advertising, I would caution you to really have a system in place to be able to track your ROI. So if you’re a have coupons out there, you know, track the number of calls that you’re getting from the coupon. Collect those coupons at the front desk. Put in a rate code in your pms to make sure that you’re getting a solid ROI. So you can know moving forward, whether that is a channel to market your hotel moving forward. Ryan Embree: So number four on our list of top ways to market your hotel in the slow season is to grow your guest database and the point of this would be to grow the information about your guests through email marketing so that you can really connect with those guests in the future. So if you haven’t already, start collecting emails from your guests when they first arrive at your property. You can. You can use this information for feedback for their stay, but also in the future, in the slower times, like the winter months. You can reach out to them for holiday events or stay again and save packages. We know that a majority of of bookings are now coming from Ota or third party sites. Ryan Embree: Now that you’ve had the opportunity to host these guests, turn them into your customers, get their information so that you can reach out and give them portals and channels for them to book directly with you in the future. So saving you on commissions, but also maybe sparking some interest during that slower season. For another stay at your hotel. Ryan Embree: So number three is using local personalization. And what I mean by that is you’re the experts of your market when travelers are coming, typically they’re coming from out of town, you’ve been in that market for a while, you know the events that are happening, on a seasonal basis. Use those events, leverage them to invite guests to stay at your property, create local packages you know, about the best restaurant in town. Be able to share that with them, get local partnerships involved. This isn’t just a slow time for the hotel industry typically. Ryan Embree: This is a slow time also in all the hospitality. So restaurants, maybe event centers. So look

In this special edition episode of Suite Spot, we discuss the recent 2018 Phocuswright conference in Los Angeles. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Patrick O’Brien, product manager and Phocuswright attendee veteran, who gives his take on the innovative technology conference. Hear from Patrick as he talks about the theme of this year’s conference and how it sets the stage for the future of the hotel industry. Learn what industry leaders from companies like Airbnb, TripAdvisor, and Expedia are saying about what they have in store for the future of their companies. This episode is an excellent glimpse of where the hotel industry is headed in 2019 and beyond. 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. Ryan Embree: Today we have a very special edition of the Suite Spot. As digital marketing leaders in the industry, it is always our job to make sure that we are at the forefront of all innovations and conferences that are going on around the industry and we have been busy over the past couple of months to give you that insight. Today our episode is going to be focused around Phocuswright Conference, which was in Los Angeles, California at the end of November. I’m here with a guest, Patrick O’Brien. He is our digital product manager. He’s been on Suite Spot before, but he is back to give us his insights on the conference, which we both attended. So let me go ahead and first off, welcome Patrick to the show. Welcome. Patrick O’Brien: Thank you very much. Ryan Embree: So I want to first start off uh Phocuswright – this is not your first time going and attending. Um, and really this is a hospitality tech conference, correct? Patrick O’Brien: Yes. Ryan Embree: Like all conferences, every single year they have sort of a common theme that you would find for each year. And I’m curious what you felt was the theme of this year, 2018’s, Phocuswright Conference. Patrick O’Brien: Yeah. So I think this is the fifth or sixth year that I have, I’ve gone to Phocuswright. And there always seems to be some type of new theme in the years past, uh, you know, it’s been kind of around mobile and mobile booking and mobile technology around disruption in the sharing economy and what that’s going to do to the travel industry. This year, I kind of felt like you had a collective cooling from the travel industry where it’s like we’ve had all this disruption, all of this growth and everything’s maturing a little bit more. And you know, you’ve had the consolidation of all of these OTA sites and the OTA is gobbling up other, other companies and kind of creating this bigger platform. You know, Airbnb is kind of starting to see their growth level out a little bit more. And so it’s, it’s obviously now, you know, one of the big players in the industry and so now I feel like you had everybody kind of sitting back and looking out and saying, okay, now we have these big companies out there. Um, travel, I think on the whole is, is increasing. What can we do now to continue to build wealth and sort of get a bigger share of the pie. One of the most interesting statistics that I saw year over year and I may get the year wrong, but I think since like 2014 that founding has gone down and funding has gone up. So what that means is that there are less and less startups coming into the industry. But there’s more and more money being pumped into the industry. And I think that is kind of a direct result of what we were seeing is: So now you’ve had all these startups and all of this money go into the industry. They’ve sort of proven out the ideas that are going to work. Now they’re pumping more money into trying to figure out how to expand the share of the market they already have. Overall though, I think that the theme this year, how do you build trust within your audience and and how do you deliver sort of a more personalized experience. That sort of seemed to be the goal of, of all the companies, let’s personalize the experience for the traveler so that they will convert, you know, on our site more frequently and continue to come back and use, you know, whatever channel we are to make those bookings and to be their trusted resource when traveling. Ryan Embree: Completely agree with you. Personalization and curating personal content for the travelers to essentially streamline their journey into making them a purchaser. Kind of smoothing out that funnel all the way from the top down. It is interesting to hear you talk about the funding versus the founding. They pretty much dedicate an entire day

In this special edition of Suite Spot, we discuss a hospitality keynote presented at the 2018 Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco. The keynote, “The Future of Travel and Hospitality,” was a fireside chat with Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson. In this podcast episode, host Ryan Embree is joined by Anne Sandoval, Travel Media Group’s Marketing Director who attended the keynote. We discuss the key takeaways from Arne’s insights on Marriott’s relationship with technology. Resources Watch the full Dreamforce keynote, The Future of Travel & Hospitality: https://youtu.be/EgDD5hBrkNU 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. Ryan Embree: Hello and welcome everyone. This is episode 13 and today we are going to have another special edition of Suite Spot. We do this from time to time being leaders and experts in the hospitality field. We travel across the nation to conferences, trade shows that have to pertain with the hospitality industry. And today we are going to be talking about an annual conference of Dreamforce which is hosted by Salesforce in San Francisco. Now, Salesforce isn’t necessarily a hospitality-only vertical. Uh, they work across verticals, but there were some really great insights when it came to the hospitality industry. Just to give you a little background on this conference, this year’s conference drew over 170,000 attendees. So it’s a very popular conference, people traveling from all over the world to experience this week. And today we’ll be talking about the hospitality keynote by Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson. The title of this keynote was the Future of Travel and Hospitality and obviously being in the digital marketing space, we have to be at the forefront of knowing the new technology and future of travel. Ryan Embree: So we’re always interested in talking about that. I have the pleasure to be joined today by our director of marketing, Anne Sandoval, and she had the opportunity to attend this keynote and she is here with me today to share some insights with us. So first and foremost, let me go ahead and welcome you to the Suite Spot, Anne. Anne Sandoval: Hey Ryan, it’s great to be here. Ryan Embree: So this was a, obviously very popular conference that you attended and you know, as I mentioned, it’s not all about the hospitality vertical, but this particular keynote was. It’s super interesting, especially when you get to hear firsthand from executives of such a large worldwide global brand like Marriott. And I wondered to first start out, this was kind of something fun that they did. Uh, Arme had mentioned that he traveled anywhere from 200 to 225 nights of the year and they first started off the uh speech by giving his three travel tips. I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on those tips. Anne Sandoval: Yeah, it was really interesting to hear from someone who spends just so much time in hotels and across time zones and all of his tips really had one thing in common, which I know is a theme that’s familiar to the Suite Spot, which is to go local. So his first tip was to get on local time and exercise to help keep your routine. Second, to eat the local food and go sightseeing and third was don’t let yourself live as if you’re still at home. And I think these are really great takeaways for travelers, but I think it’s also helpful for hoteliers to know these tips. Ryan Embree: Yeah. You know, it’s it – at the end of the day, we’re all travelers, right? And when we talk to hoteliers, it’s almost putting themselves in the shoes of your guest and I think that was such an interesting perspective that he took and to get insight from that, because this is the guy that manages hundreds of thousands of hotels across the globe and these were his, these were his takeaways and these were his tips. Ryan Embree: So I think, you know, for our listeners who are hoteliers out there who either own or manage hotels, think about the way that you travel and what tips would you give your guests coming in. And I think you can get, gain a lot of insight from kind of taking that perspective. Anne Sandoval: Being in the traveler mindset and knowing, you know, they’re gonna be maybe struggling with jet lag or having dealt with some heavy traffic on their way to see you. Knowing exactly what’s gonna make them feel comfortable being able to provide those tips on how to get a good and exciting local experience would be great. Ryan Embree: To my next question, the, you know, what the title, like The Future of Travel and Hospitality, you know,

In this episode of Suite Spot, we focus on marketing branded and franchised hotels. Host Ryan Embree teams up with the leaders of Travel Media Group’s sales team, Diane Elderkin and Edwin Pomales, to discuss. In the What’s News segment, Ryan shares an article that highlights the 7 latest ways big brands are using content today. The article breaks down the different strategies and methods the brands are using to capitalize on content online. In The Suite Spot, Ryan, Diane, and Edwin share their thoughts on how branded hotels can provide customers with a unique and local experience. Diane and Edwin share what advantages and disadvantages franchised hoteliers and branded hotels face in comparison to independent hotels and home rentals. Resources: https://www.todayshotelier.com/2016/08/01/7-of-the-latest-ways-big-brands-are-using-content/   Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Hello and thank you all for listening. This is Ryan Embree, host of the Suite Spot. This is episode 12 and I’m very excited for this episode today. We are going to be actually piggybacking on an episode that we did earlier this year, episode five, which was a marketing tips for independent hotels. So we got a lot of great feedback from that episode and we wanted to kind of follow up and get the same sort of resources and additional education for maybe those hoteliers out there that have a brand, you know, they also need some help with marketing and give them some kind of tips and best practices on how to best market their branded hotels. So that’s going to be our episode today. As we jump into the What’s News we’re going to be looking at an article from Today’s Hotelier. This article, which you can find in our show notes, is, uh, titled the seven of the latest ways big brands are using content. Ryan Embree: And I found this article absolutely fascinating. What it did is actually seven of the major brands: IHG, Best Western, Motel 6, Choice – even Marriott, and it looked at different ways that they were using content, uh, to really market their hotels. I’ll go ahead and give a few examples – I won’t give them all. Again, this article is in our show notes today, but the first one I wanted to bring up was a hashtag contest that IHG did. Where they use the #joyoftravel and they use it on all their social media platforms to promote both their own content and posts. But more importantly it was to capture traveler content engagement. Using hashtags for these campaigns can really draw a lot of engagement and can draw a lot of people together for a common purpose. So that is one of the ways that IHG or Holiday Inn was uh using content to market their brands across the board. Ryan Embree: Another one which I found absolutely interesting was Marriott and Under Armour teaming up and they teamed up to provide running routes for guests that were staying at its Residence Inn properties. So this is two major corporations and businesses teaming up again to draw awareness to the brands and to market. So again, those were just a few examples. It’s a really great example of how brands are perceiving content though – they’re seeing the value in this content that’s out there and noting that if they utilize it in the right way, it can help promote their brand. That’s more of a high level, um, you know, bird’s eye view when it comes to marketing for a brand. But as we know, we know that there are tons of individual properties and franchisees within that brand. So today’s Suite Spot, we’re going to bring in two of our experts to talk to us about how you can utilize your brand, but you can also market your property on an individual basis and where that balance is and some best practices on how to really get your biggest market share possible. Ryan Embree: So with that being said, let’s go ahead and welcome in Diane Elderkin and Edwin Pomales. They are team leaders of our digital sales team and help consult with hoteliers across the nation on some best practices on how to market their hotels so they’ve got some great insight on day to day talking with hotels. Alright. Welcome in Edwin and Diane. How are you? Diane Elderkin: We’re good! Edwin Pomales: Doing good, thanks for having us. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. It’s a pleasure. And last time you were here with me, we were talking about the rise of independent hotels and giving them some best practices and tips. We thought it would be best to bring you in for the branded side of things. Since we know so many hoteliers out there are aff

In this special edition episode of Suite Spot, we recap the recent 2018 Lodging Conference. It took place at the beautiful Arizona Biltmore resort in Phoenix, AZ. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Travel Media Group’s Senior Director of Product, Jason Lee as they discuss the current state and future of the hotel industry. Listen and learn, as they analyze the opportunities and threats to the current prosperous era for hoteliers. This episode is a great way to get insight into what the power players and brand leaders are saying about the hotel business today. 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 the Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Hello and welcome everyone. You are listening to the Suite Spot. This is Ryan Embree, your host. Thank you for listening today. We’ve got a very special and exciting episode of Suite Spot where we are going to be reflecting on the most recent 2018 Lodging Conference which happened here at the end of September of 2018. I had the pleasure and was fortunate enough to attend the conference myself as well as our guest that we’re going to be having on today and we’re going to give you a couple of takeaways and get a good grasp on some of the key points. So today let’s go ahead and welcome Jason Lee. He’s our senior director of product and technology. I was fortunate enough to travel with Jason to the Lodging Conference. He has been to the conference multiple times, so he’s going to have a some different insight on what the differences might have been in the past versus this year. So let’s go ahead and welcome Jason in. Jason, welcome back to the show. Jason Lee: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me back. After my last performance, I was hoping that you would invite me back. I didn’t know for sure. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. So today, as mentioned, we’re gonna be talking about the Lodging Conference and this isn’t the first time you’ve been, you’ve been a number of years now. I wanted to get your impression of, you know, this year’s overall sentiment and how maybe this year’s Lodging Conference has been different than years past. Jason Lee: Yeah I think like in terms of different from years past, you know, I remember going to the Lodging Conference right after the recession, you know, the 2010 / 2011 times and, and I think there was a lot of like, hey, you know, or we do see some trends going the right way, but are we ever going to get back to 2007 / 2006 levels of occupancy and revenue? Um, and I think, you know, over the last few years we’ve seen a lot of optimism and a lot of like, hey, the state of the industry. It looks really great and it’s really awesome and I think this year you’re seeing the same numbers as the previous probably five years of like, Hey, this is good, good growth. Um, but now it’s a little more like, how long is this growth gonna go? Can we keep this going? Um, some people, they’re feeling very optimistic and thinking that we’re, we’re, you know, the, that the, uh, the hotel supply line is correct. We’re not overbuilding. The influx of travel seems to be going well. Millennial travelers and baby boomer travel seems to be, you know, on the rise. So you’re looking at good segmentation and solid revenue projections. Um, but then at the same time it’s like, or there could be some sort of economic collapse or there could be some kind of other thing that could happen that could cause a derailment that everything right now looks very, very positive. Ryan Embree: Right. And we heard “cautious optimism” a lot throughout the conference and you’re right, you know, we’ve been hearing it from brands, we heard it from management groups that, you know, big management groups that were there with large portfolios that this has been record breaking and record setting years for them. I wanted to first go into, you know, why that is right. You know, we’ve, we’ve heard of the hundred plus months of rev par growth, which has been awesome. What other things are contributing to the success right now in the hotel industry? Jason Lee: I think very low unemployment for record, low unemployment. So you have a lot of people employed and traveling, you know, they’ve got a little bit of money, there’s more discretionary money. Um, so you’re seeing more travel. I think technology does play a part of, I think the ease of travel has gotten a lot better. So I think overall the path to travel is fairly clear and smooth for consumers and consumers want to travel and are looking to tr

In this episode of Suite Spot, we take a look at the state of the hotel industry. With an incredible streak of 100+ months of RevPAR growth, it’s a great time to reinvest in your hotel. In the What’s News segment, Ryan analyzes some telling statistics from a recent STR report concerning the current state and future of the business. In The Suite Spot, Ryan counts down the top 5 ways to reinvest in your hotel during this extended period of RevPAR growth. We discuss everything from PPC advertising to property improvements to ensure that you are leveraging your profits in the best way possible in this time of RevPAR prosperity. We would love to hear your feedback to our list. What areas are you investing in at your property? You can reach us by either calling or texting us at 407-984-7455 or email us at [email protected]. Resources: http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/287387/STR-US-hotel-RevPAR-growth-reaches-100-straight-months 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. Ryan Embree: Hello everyone. This is Ryan Embree, the host of Suite Spot, a hotel marketing podcast. Today is our 10th episode and we’ve got a great exciting episode for you all. I wanna first off, thank you for all the support and engagement that we’ve been receiving since launching this podcast. We’re super excited about doing this and we love to hear that there is an appetite out there for this sort of information, so feel free to share this with hoteliers that are looking for that inspiration or just looking for some good information on hotel marketing. Today in our what’s news, we’re going to be talking about a different streak and that is a data report that was done by STR which just announced in July 2018 that the US hotel RevPAR growth has now reached over 100 straight months. So this is awesome to hear. Obviously we love streaks like this, a time of prosperity for the hotel industry and saying that this report went a little bit more depth on some specific numbers. Ryan Embree: I won’t dive too deep into them, but since March of 2010 when this streak first started, we’ve seen an average monthly ADR growth of 3.4 percent and an average monthly rev par growth of 5.8 percent. With all things being said, we’ve got a really healthy industry on our hands right now. They did do some forecasting STR did in regards to what the future holds for rev par growth. They see a 2.9 percent for 2018 as a whole and in 2019 a 2.4 percent RevPAR growth. Love to hear that we’ve got a healthy hotel industry on our hands, but this also means that some of you in this time of prosperity might have some extra revenue and if you’re looking to maybe reinvest that extra revenue to grow your business even more, that’s what this episode’s about. Ryan Embree: We are going to be looking at the top five ways that you can reinvest that extra revenue to your property, so as we transition into our Suite Spot today, again, we’re going to be looking at the top five ways to reinvest that extra revenue that we have at the property and we’re going to kind of work our way up. So number five is upgrading the customer experience using technology, so from HITECH with the upcoming PhoCusWright conference as well. All of these new technologies are out there about AI and machine learning. In 2018, it’s more accessible ever to start implementing this in the customer experience, which really would take your property to the next level. We’ve seen it where brands are now starting to implement Alexa’s or those smart home devices in the room. This is a great way, again, to separate yourself from the competition because this is something we’re projected to really start implementing throughout the customer experience. Ryan Embree: The only thing I would caution you with this is – I talked to a lot of hoteliers about this – is make sure that when you implement something, you’re doing it for the right reasons. It might look super cool to have something that has an app that automatically opens your blinds or shades, but what does that really bring to a customer’s experience? Right? Maybe talking to an Alexa for extra towels that really takes it to the next level and helps with customer service at your hotel. So if you are going to be implementing some customer technology, 1. make sure that it’s something that adds to the customer experience 2. make sure it’s simple. No one likes to get handed a long list of directions on how to use something. It becomes frustrating that actually can negatively impac

In this episode of Suite Spot, we take a look at what it takes to manage and run a successful social media marketing strategy in today’s hotel industry. Priscilla Osorio, Social Media Analyst at Travel Media Group, joins host Ryan Embree to give advice to hoteliers on how to tailor social media content to create an engaging and effective social media campaign. In the What’s News segment, Ryan references several articles from Travel Media Group’s blog that explore creative content ideas for different property types. These articles share some great examples of social media posts for every type of hotel, from economy hotels to extended stay hotels. In The Suite Spot, Ryan and Priscilla discuss what it takes to produce engaging content that travelers will notice and interact with. Next, Priscilla mentions tools available for hoteliers to track success and ROI during their social media campaigns. Finally, Priscilla and Ryan put together a game plan for hoteliers attempting to launch a new social media strategy for their property. In the Q&A segment, we answer a question from a hotelier who is not the most tech-savvy but is looking to get involved in an effective social media strategy at their hotel. To hear your question answered on our podcast, submit a question by calling or texting us at 407-984-7455. Resources: http://www.travelmediagroup.com/social-media-ideas-economy-hotels/ http://www.travelmediagroup.com/social-media-ideas-highway-hotels/ http://www.travelmediagroup.com/content-ideas-for-beach-hotels/ http://www.travelmediagroup.com/content-ideas-for-extended-stay-hotels/http://www.travelmediagroup.com/infographic-10-engaging-social-media-topics-for-hotels/ 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 the Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Hello everyone and thank you for listening today. I am your host, Ryan Embree. Today we’re going to be talking about tailoring your message for social media. We have been hearing how important social media is for hotels. I’m sure you’re hearing it at conferences, you’re hearing it through your brands really through all channels in 2018, we know how important it is, but I think where sometimes hoteliers miss the mark is figuring out, not just content to put on your social media, but engaging content. This episode is going to be all about tailoring your message on your social media accounts to make sure that you’re in the best position to grow your audience and ultimately convert them. In our What’s News segment, we typically go over an article that’s trending. We’re going to be switching things up just a little bit and our What’s News segment. Ryan Embree: We’ve actually provided our listeners some really, really insightful content when it comes to tailoring your message for social media and one of the articles really is just kind of more of a broad, high level article on topics, social media topics and ideas for you to post on your social media accounts to again, grow and engage with that audience. We’ve also posted some blog articles, that really dive in deeper and get more specific into some of these ideas, like some ideas for your beach hotels. So we’ve got all these different ideas and best practices to share with you and you can find the links to these articles just within the episode description. And today we are going to be joined by someone from our social media team who partners with hotels and helps with thousands of posts a week to get out to our partners engaging content and she is going to help us walk through what goes into not just a content out there but engaging content. Ryan Embree: And I’m really, really excited about this conversation. So without any further ado, I’m going to go ahead and bring in Priscilla Osorio. She is our social media analyst here at Travel Media Group and we are very excited to have her. So a good morning. Priscilla, how are you doing today? Priscilla Osorio: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. Today is kind of about all tailoring your message on social media and as you probably know, working with the hundreds and thousands of hotels that we work with, every single hotel is different. And every single GM owner, front office manager who we’re working with are at different stages of their knowledge, um, when it comes to social media. So let’s kind of start off basic and maybe work our way up a little bit for those who are still trying to figure out what social media is all about, what really is the point of having social media and posting on social media? Priscilla Osorio: Yeah.

In this episode of Suite Spot, we discuss guest feedback and the ways today’s hoteliers are leveraging this information to better their businesses. Senior Digital Marketing Specialist Brittany Hill joins Ryan Embree to share best practices on how to obtain feedback from guests and how to leverage it. In the What’s News segment, Ryan summarizes the findings in the annual Guest Satisfaction Study done by J.D. Power. He reviews the takeaways on what guests expect from hotels and the trends in guest satisfaction in different market segments. In The Suite Spot, Ryan and Brittany talk about when is the best time to ask for feedback from your guests and how technology has changed the way hoteliers can receive feedback. They also analyze the impact that guest feedback can have on your employees and potential hires. In the Q&A segment, Ryan and Brittany give some advice to a hotelier who is looking for creative ways to receive more feedback from their guests. As a reminder, to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Resources: http://www.travelmediagroup.com/why-tripadvisor-isnt-enough/ http://lodgingmagazine.com/what-hoteliers-should-takeaway-jd-powers-guest-satisfaction-study/ http://lodgingmagazine.com/j-d-power-study-reports-improved-guest-satisfaction-across-hotel-segments/ 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 and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Okay. Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you for listening today. My name is Ryan Embree. I am your host of Suite Spot, a hotel marketing podcast. We’ve got a very exciting episode for you. Episode Eight about guests feedback, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Whether it is wanted or not, we are constantly receiving feedback from travelers. That is the nature of our industry and it feels like every day a new reputation or review site is popping up and more channels and forums for travelers to get feedback to hoteliers. So today we’re going to be looking at a couple things in the Suite Spot. We’re going to be reviewing how to leverage and utilize that feedback to better your business. Really show you how feedback can give you a blueprint and a roadmap to reputation success. We’re also going to be joined by Brittany Hill, who is our senior digital marketing specialist. She consults with hotels. We’re going to get some tips and tricks from her on how to get feedback from travelers. Ryan Embree: In our What’s News segment today we’re looking at an article from lodging magazine which dissects a pretty extensive report that JD Power does the guest satisfaction report that is released annually. We’re going to get some key metrics and statistics out of that report and again, going to translate that into how we can use that to better your business. So thanks for joining and let’s go ahead and jump into the What’s News segment. So the first takeaway that we can get from this report and article is that overall satisfaction is up in the industry, which is great to hear. It is up increased eight points to 825 out of a thousand point scale. So the biggest movement we saw a was in the upper midscale segment, which was up 12 points, extended stay in economy segments, posted a six point improvement. So half of that. Still good to see, but obviously a lot slower climb than that upper midscale. Ryan Embree: Another interesting but obvious correlation here was the correlation between technology and higher guest satisfaction. I think a really good point that this article made was actually in regards to something that we kind of take for granted now in 2018, which is flat screen TVs, large flat screen TVs, and sometimes even smart TVs and these hotels maybe a decade ago, a couple of decades ago, this was a added amenity. It was an upgrade anB now this has really turned into a norm for a traveler and this something that they expect. But diving even deeper into technology, you think about the things that hoteliers are now able to implement in the guest experience, like mobile keys, right? Being able to open your doors straight from your phone, mobile applications, Alexa’s in the rooms. Ryan Embree: We’re hearing a lot about that. Even some brand partnerships that have to do with that. So again, this is the type of experience that customers are coming to expect from hotels. So the last interesting point that I wanted to kind of pull from this article and share was the talk of local experiences. And again, correlation with guest satisfaction. We’ve talked many times on this podcast, whether it be about the rise of Airbnb or maybe the advantage that independence migh

In this episode of Suite Spot, we uncover which processes hoteliers can put in place to impact their reputation. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Jason Lee to discuss how at the heart of the matter, it’s still all about service. Jason was a hotel GM for a number of years before joining Travel Media Group, where he now serves as the senior director of online product and technology. In the What’s News segment, Ryan shares some insightful new research from TripAdvisor that found that 98% of hoteliers say that reputation management is important to their business. He’s joined in the Suite Spot by Jason, who discusses what this means in the day-to-day operations of a hotel. He shares key insights that he has uncovered from analyzing data from thousands of hotels to pinpoint which reputation processes will make the biggest impact on a hotel’s online reputation. In the Q&A segment, we answer questions about the future of reputation management, how to effectively collect feedback from guests, and what review website metrics are most important to pay attention to. To submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Resources: https://tripadvisor.mediaroom.com/2018-07-26-Online-Reputation-Management-Mobile-Experience-and-Driving-Direct-Bookings-Critical-Areas-of-Focus-for-U-S-Travel-Businesses-According-to-New-TripAdvisor-Ipsos-MORI-Study https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/97-hotels-say-online-reputaion-important-thier-business-jason-lee/ 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. Ryan Embree: Thank you for joining me today. My name is Ryan Embree. I am the host of Suite Spot. Today we are going to be talking about reputation and the importance that it has on hoteliers and their revenue and we’re going to actually be joined by someone with quite a bit of experience in the operation side of hotels. We’re going to share some best practices on the growing influence of reputation and how to get some more positive reviews. So let’s go ahead and jump into our What’s News segment today, where we are looking at an article on the 2018 Hospitality Sector Report, which was produced by TripAdvisor. And in this report it has some pretty staggering statistics on hoteliers’ thoughts about online presence and reputation. Really what we want to focus on today is a reputation management part of this article and these statistics and metrics that it gave for reputation, I think really gives a good baseline of where the hospitality industry is today. Ryan Embree: In this article, 97 percent of those surveyed say online reputation management is important to their business and these are hotels speaking. Ninety eight percent say online reviews are important to their business and 92 percent say social presence is important to their business. So I think what we can take away from this article is we’ve heard over the past decade the growing influence that these reviews and social media can have for a business are going to have for business and we kept hearing that in future tense, but through this article and statistics, we can say that this stuff is already here. Almost 100 percent of hoteliers know the value that reputation management plays in their business and what and how it can translate to revenue and what social presence means for a hotelier, because they know this is the way that travelers are now searching for hotels and basing their decisions. Ryan Embree: So in saying that today, we thought it would be insightful to bring somebody that’s been on both sides of the front desk. Jason Lee, who’s our director of product and technology. He’s been on the podcast before. He was in operations for a long time before he came to us, so he’s got a really great perspective on reputation management and how hoteliers can really manage all of this user generated content out there. Jason in fact wrote an article on LinkedIn that got a lot of traction speaking directly to these statistics. So today we’re going to give him an interview and you know, he’s going to share some insight with us from both sides of the lobby. Thank you for taking the time, Jason. I really wanted to bring you in here and interview today about that amazing article you wrote on Linkedin, [that] like I said, got a lot of traction. I wanted to first start by, We obviously know what you do here at Travel Media Group, but I would like to ask about your background on the operations side of the hospitality industry, before you started here. Jason Lee: Yeah, I think like a lot of people in hospitality, I started in an entry level position. Started

In this episode of Suite Spot, we concentrate on the rise of voice search in the hotel industry. Amber Wojcek, content manager at Travel Media Group, joins host Ryan Embree to study the impact of voice search in the industry and where it might be heading. In the What’s News segment, Ryan speaks to several reports with some powerful statistics on the growing trend of voice search. The report shows the increase over time of voice and its projections for the future. In The Suite Spot, Ryan and Amber start by defining the difference between voice and traditional search. Next, Amber gives hoteliers tips on what they can do to optimize their websites for voice search and shares best practices on voice search traffic conversion. Ryan and Amber also predict what hoteliers can expect in the future of voice search in regards to reservations and guest experience. In the Q&A segment, we answer a hotelier who questions if he should shift the majority of their focus and time from traditional desktop bookings to mobile bookings. As a reminder, to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Resources: http://www.digitalhotelier.com/blog/everything-need-know-voice-search-hotel-bookings/ http://www.travelmediagroup.com/optimize-voice-search/ https://www.phocuswright.com/Travel-Research/Research-Updates/2018/Voice-Still-Unskilled-for-Travel-Planning/ https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3482117/ 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 and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting episode of the Suite Spot. I am your host, Ryan Embree, and today we are going to be talking about voice search, a very popular subject and trend in the hospitality industry. And we’re going to be reviewing some statistics. We’re going to be reviewing, how travelers are using voice search and we’re actually gonna go into the future of voice search. So let’s go ahead and jump right in. We’re going to go into our What’s News segment and for today’s What’s News segment. We’re going to be looking at two different reports that were published on think with Google. And in these reports they gave some pretty powerful statistics as far as what’s happening right now with voice search and the trends year over year. Ryan Embree: So the first statistic that that is mentioned in this report has to do with the percentage of searches that are now done by voice and this report published that according to Google, 20 percent of all searches are now done by voice in 2018. That’s a pretty incredible stat. That’s one out of every five times that someone goes on Google, they’re actually searching via voice rather than typing. And this trend is gonna continue to grow according to these statistics. Another interesting fact that Google published was the popular phrase in “near me,” right? We’ve seen that very, very popular in the hospitality industry, the hotel industry when travelers are searching for “hotels near me,” near attractions. Ryan Embree: But that phrase “near me” grew more than a hundred and 30 percent year over year. So travelers are now asking for more information about their location and what’s around them. Uh, so that is ultra critical for hotels to know when they’re looking to attract these travelers that are doing these searches. So not only are we going to be looking at the stats and voice search as it is today, but also we want to prepare our hoteliers for what voice search holds in the future. So in saying that, another article that we wanted to bring to your attention was actually an article published by Gartner Inc, which predicts that in 2020, 30 percent of web browsing sessions will be done without a screen, which is a pretty incredible stat when you think about that. So this is a fast growing technological trend that hoteliers need to be prepared for. So what better way to prepare for this then bring in our very own Amber Wojcek who has done some extensive research on voice search, she’s written some blog articles about the subject and in today’s Suite Spot we’re going to be interviewing her and talking about what this is all about and what the future holds for this growing trend. Hello Amber, thanks for joining me. Amber Wojcek: Thanks for having me back. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. Um, so let’s go ahead and get [started]. Just start off pretty simply. You know, what’s the difference when we talk about voice search and traditional search? Amber Wojcek: Yeah. So if we’re going back to basics searches generally when y

In this episode of Suite Spot, we focus in on the independent hotel segment of the hospitality industry. Host Ryan Embree teams up with the leaders of Travel Media Group’s sales team, Diane Elderkin and Edwin Pomales. In the What’s News segment, Ryan reacts to an article displaying the recent growth in the independent hotel segment. The article breaks down independent hotels’ performance in relation to market size and which markets investors are targeting for future growth. In The Suite Spot, Ryan, Diane, and Edwin share their thoughts on the cause for this performance boom for independent hotels. Diane and Edwin share, from a marketing perspective, what advantages and disadvantages independent hoteliers face in comparison to a branded property. They give different recommendations on how an independent hotel can best share its story to travelers. In the Q&A segment, we give a hotelier advice on what to do first as they make the switch from a branded hotel to an independent. To submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Resources: http://lodgingmagazine.com/independent-hotels-see-higher-adrs-and-faster-growth/ http://lodgingmagazine.com/marcus-millichaps-q2-2018-national-hospitality-research-report/ 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: Hello and good morning everyone. Happy Friday. This is your host, Ryan Embree, as always here on the Suite Spot. Got another exciting episode for you this morning. Today we are going to be focusing on independent hotels. So let’s go ahead and get started and we’ll jump into the What’s News? So today in our What’s News segment, we’re going to be looking at uh two articles done by Lodging Magazine recently that had to do with the trends that have to do with independent hotels versus branded hotels. In this article, this is a trend that’s actually been happening since 2014. We’re seeing the rise of these independent hotels and how they’re outperforming as far as ADR in comparison to branded hotels. They look into a report that Expedia did in Q1 of 2017, which shows the independent hotels ADR growth has increased at twice the rate of ADR growth for branded properties. Ryan Embree: Dives a little bit deeper into theories of why this is and the study also looked at how customers and travelers were booking with these independents and actually had found a very interesting point in that mobile-savvy customers are increasingly booking independent hotels and overall mobile demand growth for independents outpaced branded properties and four of the five largest markets. Another thing that this report is going to look into is the market segments in which this has been happening because it actually looks both into small markets in large markets with the larger markets Las Vegas, Manhattan, Miami, Orlando in Los Angeles, these independents have been growing at a substantial amount and these are actually the most popular large markets that independent bookings are being seen. But recently this trend is actually been overflowing and spilling into the smaller markets as well. In one case study, the article actually dives into a city Central Valley North. In California, where independent hotels have increased nearly 110 percent year over year. Ryan Embree: So we also looked at another article that had to do with the investing side of hotels and again speaking to independent hotels, private investors are now targeting more and more independent hotels, especially in smaller markets. We know that our hoteliers are always looking for that competitive edge and I’m sure this article you know and seeing this ADR growth and independent hotels have a lot of people’s heads turned and trying to figure out, you know, how they can grow their own ADR. So that being said, let’s go ahead and transition into our Suite Spot where we’re going to bring in a couple of our experts here at Travel Media Group to kind of show off the advantages and disadvantages to marketing for independent hotels. So let’s go ahead and bring in our guests for our Suite Spot today. Ryan Embree: That is going to be Diane Elderkin, who is our digital sales manager and Edwin Pomales, who is our assistant sales manager. Good Morning Diane and Edwin. How are you doing? Diane Elderkin: Good. Doing real good. Edwin Pomales: Doing Great. Glad to be here. Thanks for the invite. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. So today we are going to be talking as you know, about independent hotels and kind of what that approach looks like. All right, so Diane, I’m going to go ahead and start with you and point this question towards you as, as we just heard in our. What’s new segment, you know, the rise of independent hotels is a fast grow

In this episode of Suite Spot, we reflect on the recent changes to the TripAdvisor algorithm. Host Ryan Embree is joined by guest Patrick O‰’Brien, Digital Product Manager and head of the reputation solutions at Travel Media Group. In the What’s News segment, Ryan discusses the changes to the ranking factors for the TripAdvisor algorithm. InThe Suite Spot, Ryan and Patrick break down the timeline of the TripAdvisor algorithm change and how Patrick and his team are communicating the changes to hoteliers. Patrick walks us through the known factors of the TripAdvisor algorithm and the newest factor released in the change. He also shares his analysis of the impact that the change is having on a hotel‰’s overall city ranking. In the Q&Asegment, we give tips on the best ways to take on this algorithm change in stride and also weigh the decision of wiping your TripAdvisor page. To submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Resources: http://www.travelmediagroup.com/tripadvisor-algorithm-updates-impact-city-rank/ http://www.travelmediagroup.com/delete-tripadvisor-business-account/ TripAdvisor Hotel Marketing Overview 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 and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Okay. Hello, and good morning everyone. Welcome to another episode of Suite Spot. I am your host, Ryan Embree, as always. In case you missed last week’s episode, we actually had a special edition where we recapped the 2018 HITEC conference in Houston and had a couple of our colleagues here at Travel Media Group from our product and development team give their key takeaways from that conference. So please check that out if you haven’t yet. So in today’s episode, we are going to be talking about the recent TripAdvisor algorithm change. We’re gonna be looking at the news coverage surrounding that. I know a lot of hoteliers out there, have a lot of questions concerning the change. They’ve seen some changes in their ranking and just wondering kind of what we know so far about this change. We’re going to be looking and talking to Patrick O’Brien who’s our product development manager for our reputation programs here at Travel Media Group. Ryan Embree: He’s going to give us some insight on what he has found about this TripAdvisor algorithm change and how it has affected some of our current partners reputation-wise. And then lastly, we’re going to be actually answering some questions regarding the TripAdvisor algorithm change that hoteliers might have. So in the, What’s News segment today, there was plenty of news coverage about this TripAdvisor Algorithm, algorithm change when it first was released. Hoteliers were talking about it, owners, everyone really in the industry, but specifically we’re going to hone in on our blog post on Travel Media Group site after the statement was released from TripAdvisor that there was a change. We wrote this blog as a guide and a blueprint for hoteliers on kind of what to expect. So in the past, the way that TripAdvisor had ranked it’s hotels was really based on three main factors that was review Quality. Ryan Embree: So the star rating of the review. Quantity, which is the number of reviews and Recency. So with those three factors, TripAdvisor had used this to rank it’s hotels historically. Now with this change, they actually introduced a fourth factor and that’s Performance Over Time. So is this factor that a lot of hoteliers are pointing to as they’re seeing substantial moves in their city rank. Now, although TripAdvisor is not going to share, you know, its formula or algorithm publicly, it has gone out and made a statement that these four factors do determine really a foundation of how it ranks its hotels. So it reputation experts in the industry. We felt, you know, it was our obligation, our duty, you know, to really kind of help hoteliers make sense of this new change and maybe put a strategy together to kind of help them. We know how critical it is being, you know, in the top five of your market versus the bottom five of your market. Ryan Embree: So a change like this could obviously have a huge, huge impact on revenue. But with that being said, we’re going to bring in our own reputation expert at Travel Media Group, Patrick O’Brien. You might remember him from the HITEC episode recently and he’s going to help us kind of make sense of this. And we’re going to hopefully kind of guide you through this change. Ryan Embree: Hey, good morning, Patrick. Patrick O’Brien: Good morning. Ryan Embree: Thanks for coming on

In this special edition episode of Suite Spot, we discuss the recent 2018 HITEC conference in Houston, TX. Host Ryan Embree is joined by several members of Travel Media Group‰’s product and development team and attendees of this year‰’s HITEC conference, as they give their key takeaways from the innovative technology conference. Hear from Patrick O‰’Brien, Joey Schuster and Jason Lee as they discuss the future of technology in the hospitality industry. Learn about the rising use of AI and what that means for the customer experience. Plus, dive into blockchain and the potential for hotel data integration. This episode serves as a great technology blueprint for the modern-day hotelier. 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 and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. This is your host. Ryan Embree. Again, welcome to Suite Spot. Thank you for listening. Today’s Suite Spot episode. We have a very special edition. We are going to be diving into and dissecting the most recent HITEC conference that happened in Houston, Texas, and we’re going to be talking with some of my peers here at Travel Media Group who had the chance to actually go out to Houston and we’re going to get some of their key takeaways and see what they got out of this conference and how this can be useful to listeners like you. So before we get started, HITEC is one of the world’s largest hospitality technology expositions. So this conference is all about hospitality industry technology or HITEC. Ryan Embree: At the conference. There are many educational programs with some of the industry experts and [they] even have a global showcase of different hospitality technologies. So again, what we decided to do today for this episode is to talk with some of our team members that attended the conference and share some of the cutting edge new innovations that are coming up in the hospitality industry. Okay. So we have with us today, Patrick O’Brien, one of our digital product managers here at Travel Media Group. A Good Morning Patrick. How are you today? Patrick O’Brien: I’m doing well. How are you doing? Ryan Embree: I’m doing great. Thank you for being on the show with me today. I wanted to get started. You know, we had talked off air about this HITEC conference and sort of shift that you saw from years past to this year and I wanted you to kind of let our listeners know what you meant by that. Patrick O’Brien: Sure. So I think probably for the last five or six years at least the conversations have always been geared around mobile, millennials, and big data. Those were the buzzwords that you heard at all the conferences and people trying to figure out how to, you know, obviously to capture the millennial audience and how to be more integrated in mobile. And use the opportunities in technology that’s available with mobile and then ultimately, you know, big data and there was this idea that I’ve got all this data and now I should be able to make everything happen and curate content for everybody automatically and create this great experience. Um, that shift, you know, you, you still heard some people talking about, but really the big focuses, now we’re on blockchain and artificial intelligence and AI and how those concepts really will be changing, you know, the way that hospitality industry does business. Patrick O’Brien: Um, I did think it was kind of funny as well that there was one speaker talking about if you are, um, as a company looking to innovate on millennials and their needs, um, you’ve missed the boat. You’re too late and you really need to be looking at eight-year-old kids because they were, they are the first generation of users that have had all the content for them curated through Pandora, through Netflix. And um, you know, my kids don’t understand when they go to their grandparents’ house that they can’t get any song or any TV show or anything that they want on demand. And so it really is a shift in what people are looking at. And this was really the first year that you’re starting to see people move away from those traditional themes. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And hoteliers – you know, we’ve talked about this before – need to be more intuitive to guests needs and the guest’s expectations are going to start rising and rising and hoteliers need to be ready for that. So from a revenue management standpoint, those trigger words that you mentioned, blockchain and AI, you know, how, how does that implement into revenue management? Patrick O’Brien: Sure. So I think, um, both of the

In this episode of Suite Spot, we examine the growing impact of vacation rentals and private accommodations on today’s hotel industry. Host Ryan Embree is joined by guest Amber Wojcek, Marketing Coordinator at Travel Media Group and author of many of our blogs and white papers. In the What’s News segment, Ryan and Amber react to a recent article from Tnooz reporting the year over year growth of vacation rentals and its overall share of global room bookings. In The Suite Spot, Ryan asks Amber what is driving vacation rental popularity and growth from the modern day traveler. Amber also recognizes the drawbacks to private accommodations and uncovers places where hotels have the advantage. In the Q&A segment, we answer a question from a hotelier on how to better position their hotel to compete with local Airbnbs and other private accommodations. To submit a question for future episodes, call or text (407) 984-7455. Resources we mentioned: https://www.tnooz.com/article/private-accommodation-travel-bookings-to-reach-106-billion-by-2018/ How Hotels Can Compete with Rentals [White Paper] 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.åÊ Ryan Embree: Welcome to the Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting episode of Suite Spot. I’m your host, Ryan Embree, and today it’s my pleasure to introduce Amber Wojcek. Amber is our marketing coordinator at Travel Media Group as well as the author of many of our blogs and white papers. Good morning, Amber. How are you doing today? Amber Wojcek: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. Ryan Embree: Let’s jump into our What’s News segment. Today we’re going to be looking at a recent article on Tnooz, which forecasts that private accommodations and vacation rentals are expected to hit almost 20 percent of the overall share of global room bookings in 2018. That is significantly higher than previous years. In 2014, that number was 16 percent and in 2016 that grew up to 18 percent. So since private accommodations are taking almost a fifth of the market share, major travel resources like OTAs and TripAdvisor or making space for them on their websites and making them a priority. So Amber, what I want to talk about today is about the recent changes that we’re seeing when it comes specifically to TripAdvisor and vacation rentals. Amber Wojcek: Yeah. I think a big indicator of this trend coming to stay was when Expedia purchased HomeAway back in 2015 and now we’re seeing that TripAdvisor is making some big moves to make it easier to search for private rentals when people are looking for hotels. We’ve learned that now and TripAdvisor, when you search for a hotel, you might also see B and B’s, hostels inns, and other kinds of accommodations in the results along with hotels. We’re seeing this display differently when we tried different searches. So I think they might be testing the ways they want to show this, but I wouldn’t be surprised that they start integrating vacation rentals section even more. Ryan Embree: So you’re saying when a user would go to TripAdvisor and input a city or region, now B and B’s and rentals will appear in the main feed along with hotels. Amber Wojcek: Yes, exactly. So there some filters on the side that change how you search for things, but we’re also seeing them just showing up along with the hotels. And another thing I think is worth considering is that a big barrier that people have had to booking rentals has been that you need to submit a request and wait for an owner to approve it. We’re hearing now that Booking.com is making rentals instantly bookable soon, like a hotel which could have a big impact and I would assume that other OTAs would follow suit. So basically now if you’re a hotel, you’re not only competing for visibility and reservations with all the other hotels, near you, but also with other accommodation types. Ryan Embree: So this article really gets into how competitive hotels are. Now we’re going to have to be against these vacation rentals and with the influx of and, and other rental properties gaining more and more exposure to travelers. There’s a huge potential for significant visibility change for your hotel. And it could be positive or negative with the rise of sites and apps like Airbnb, HomeAway, VRBO, and other vacation rental platforms. Travelers have more options than ever, but unfortunately for hoteliers, that means there’s more competition than ever, which is actually a great segue into today’s Suite Spot topic. Today we’re going to focus on hotels going head to head

In the first episode of Suite Spot, we explore the state of millennial travel. Host Ryan Embree is joined by guest Anne Sandoval, Marketing Director at Travel Media Group and adjunct instructor of Social Media at UCF. In the What’s News segment, Ryan and Anne discuss a report by Travelport which forecasts that millennials will spend more on vacations than other age groups in 2018. In The Suite Spot, Ryan identifies four primary social networks hoteliers use to reach millennials. He also asks Anne to provide insight on how hotel marketers should approach each social network. In the Q&A segment, find out our top suggestions for engaging Facebook posts for hotels. To submit a question for future episodes, call or text (407) 984-7455. •ÈÀ•ÈÀ Resources we mentioned: https://ehotelier.com/global/2018/05/22/u-s-millennials-likely-take-spend-vacations-year/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/ http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-as-a-brand-platform-2014-11 http://www.travelmediagroup.com/infographic-10-engaging-social-media-topics-for-hotels/ 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 and hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. I want to welcome everyone to our first ever episode of Suite Spot. I’m super excited that you are listening today and today we’ve got a very special guest and I am personally super excited because we have Anne Sandoval with us. She is our marketing director here at Travel Media Group as well as an instructor at the University of Central Florida where she teaches social media. Good morning, Anne. Anne Sandoval: Good Morning Ryan. I’m so happy to be here and join you on this podcast. Ryan Embree: Absolutely, and we’re super excited to be launching this new Suite Spot podcast. So since it’s our first episode, I’ll go ahead and give a quick rundown of how each episode here at Suite Spot is going to work. First we’re going to go into a segment called what’s news? This is what’s trending in the hospitality industry. Next we’re going to move into our Suite Spot. This is the main subject that we’re going to be focusing on for the majority of the episode. And then lastly, we’re going to follow that up with a Q&A segment where we take questions from hoteliers and listeners like you and answer those live on air. All right, so let’s go ahead and get started. So in today’s, what’s news? We’re gonna be looking at a recent study that was conducted by Travelport and in this study they took a look at different age groups and their traveling trends. And one of the age groups that they found particularly surprising were the millennials. Anne Sandoval: That’s really interesting, you know, a lot of hoteliers may think of millennials as really young folks who aren’t really ready to invest in vacations, but millennials span ages 18 to 34. So it’s not just people who are right out of high school, but it’s also people with young families and people who are young in their careers. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. And what this study also found is not only are they more likely to go on vacation, but they’re also more willing to spend on vacation than any other age group. The Gen Xers and the baby boomers, there are actually 34 percent of millennials plan to spend more than $5,000 on upcoming vacations this summer. Anne Sandoval: You know, that number is really interesting because millennials in this age group, they may not have a lot of extra money to spend, but they’re willing to invest $5,000 a year on vacations, so that means that they must really be prioritizing travel and they’re looking for those experiences. Ryan Embree: So the study really went in depth on some of these traveling trends and found that nearly half of the respondents had traveled for either business or leisure within the last year. But again, the age group that kept coming up was millennials which had traveled to most in the past 12 months. Anne Sandoval: It also found that millennials who have grown up using digital technologies are more likely to use a travel agency to book travel if there’s a mobile app with customized notifications available. Ryan Embree: So when we analyze these studies and we look at it and we say, you know, we ask why is this important for hoteliers to know if hoteliers know what age group is more likely to vacation and travel, then they can really tailor and customize their marketing strategy accordingly and with millennials traveling and spending more, there’s a huge revenue potential there for hoteliers out there. Anne Sandoval: With almost