In this special episode of the Social Success Series Podcast, host and Travel Media Group Brand Ambassador, Cassady Quintana, sits down with the Brand Social Media Manager at Arlo Hotels, Dino Jevric, so discuss the ever shifting landscape of social media and how hoteliers can optimize their digital presence on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and booking sites.

Cassady Quintana:
Welcome to the Social Success Podcast, where we have conversations with top hospitality professionals about successful digital marketing strategies, emerging trends, and how to connect with today’s travelers. I’m your host, Cassady Quintana. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Social Success Podcast, a Suite Spot Podcast powered by Travel Media Group. I’m your host, Cassady Quintana, and today we’re gonna be talking about the importance of having an authentic social media strategy. Joining me today is Dino Jevric, Social Media Manager at Arlo Hotels. Dino, thank you for joining me.

Dino Jevric:
Thank you for having me. So excited.

Cassady Quintana:
Yeah, me too. So, to start, tell us a little bit about your role, maybe some of your history and how you got involved at Arlo Hotels.

Dino Jevric:
Yeah, so, I’m the social media manager at Arlo, so I lead social media brand wide, across multiple properties and outlets. And basically my role sits at the intersection of brand content and performance. So, from day to day, as you probably know in social, it’s a different challenge every day. There are some days where I’m working on the production side of things. Some days I’m working on planning performance on other days. So it’s a constant mix of creative and analytical work. And I think ultimately in my role, I’m not just focused on making things look good, I’m focused on how our content actually influences our guests journey. And that’s all the way from discovery to conversion. And kind of how social plays a role in every step of that process. So that’s basically my role at large. And yeah, that kind of sums it all up.

Cassady Quintana:
Yeah, no, totally. That’s awesome. And kind of, we’re seeing this evolution of social media. So in your experience, how are you seeing how people are discovering hotels through social media now versus maybe how we used to through Google or OTAs?

Dino Jevric:
I think that there’s definitely a very, very big shift of how people have been discovering hotels, especially in recent times. You know, historically people have always gone to, you know, straight to Google and asked, you know, best hotels in X area, right? Or they go straight to the OTAs, like TripAdvisor and stuff to find out what people are saying and, you know, different reviewers and stuff. But I think that now what we’re really seeing is that people are using social media in its place, and they’re using social media as a search engine, and people are turning to platforms like TikTok or Instagram to, you know, examine their options and see what hotels look like in real life and hear experiences of what it’s like to stay there. And not only are we like, and that’s only from, you know, the top of the funnel, what we’re really used to seeing, but we’re now actually seeing it move down further into the funnel into actual booking behavior. So with platforms like TikTok where they recently integrated booking.com and Expedia directly into the app, it’s allowing viewers to book without ever having to leave the platform. So they’re discovering hotels there, they’re seeing what the hotel stay is like, but then they’re also now a lot of the opportunity to book through these apps. And on top of that like we’re seeing this gap between OTAs and social media really closing, Expedia did a report recently where they found that 80% of travelers still use OTAs,at some point in the booking journey. However, social media isn’t falling far behind with nearly 60% of travelers also using social media in their path. So I think that we’re really starting to see that gap shorten, and yeah, that’s kind of what the future of social media with the travel industry is where it’s going.

Cassady Quintana:
And it’s kind of crazy to see because those integrations, like you mentioned with Expedia on Instagram, booking.com, on TikTok, like how quickly that happened and how quickly it’s gonna continue to happen. So I always think about hotels that aren’t on social media all, or still haven’t bought into how important social media is, and like how far they’re falling behind, and it’s just gonna continue to get worse. So as we see that kind of shift happening, what do you think hotels should be thinking about the most when they’re starting to plan their social media content for the upcoming month? Like, what’s really important and what should they keep in the front of their minds?

Dino Jevric:
I think ultimately hotels need to realize that social media is more than just a marketing channel. I think, you know, historically social media has just been a place for hotels to kind of post pretty photos and, you know, showcase the spaces in their hotels. But I think that content is now moving away from being aspirational. And it needs to, now, because of this introduction of being able to book on these platforms, it needs to now be way more informative and decision driving. So, you know, instead of those static, you know, luxe polish content and photos, hotels need to invest in reality. And that’s a really big thing that we’ve been doing at Arlo, is really showcasing the hotel from a real standpoint and really showcasing the experience that you get before you even step onto property. So yeah, in the end, the hotels that are really gonna win are the ones that are treating social as a bridge between inspiration and conversion, rather than just a place to post content.

Cassady Quintana:
Absolutely. I agree. And I kind of like this shift in Instagram, right? When Instagram first came out, it was super, you gotta add a filter, it’s gotta be the perfect shot. Like it needs to look its best. And now it’s the total opposite because of AI and because of all this fake things we’re being fed, Instagram’s kind of reverting back to, well, no, we wanna see real people. We wanna see real events, we wanna be able to see ourselves in those experiences. So kind of what type of content do you think is performing best when people are in that discovery phase or when they’re actively looking for somewhere to stay?

Dino Jevric:
I mean, the answer is very, very obvious. I think it needs to feel real. The type of content that you need to be showcasing is stuff that feels real. You know, no one really wants to see another photo of, you know, a perfectly made bed. No one wants to see, you know, those still life images of, you know, your lobby. People really want to know what the experience actually looks like rather than just a polished version of it. And I think targeting concepts like a day in the life, or even like taking people around the neighborhood are different ways that people can showcase that and that brands can really capitalize on these things. We’ve implemented this a lot at Arlo and we’ve seen like very sizable results from it. So yeah, I think that that’s really the key is kind of just showcasing the real side of hotel content.

Cassady Quintana:
Yeah, it’s interesting ’cause some of the properties we work with here at TMG, it’s like they have these wonderful photos that are, you can definitely tell they had a photographer come and take these photos, right? And we’re like, that is so great for your website, but this is not gonna move the needle on social media, right? This, there’s nobody in this photo that’s, it’s empty, it’s an empty room, it’s an empty lobby. Like that’s not how your hotel feels on a regular basis. So how can we make that feel better? And, you know, sometimes we’re implementing AI, Hey, can you add a person at the front desk? Or we’re finding ways to make it feel a little bit more real. So I wanna shift gears a little bit, and you know, another part of your role is you’re managing multiple properties within one brand. So what do you think is like the biggest challenge for people that are in that kind of position?

Dino Jevric:
I think personally the biggest challenge for me, I mean, managing the social for all these different properties is a challenge within itself. But I think that personally the biggest challenge for me has always been balancing those different voices and personalities. For those who are not familiar with the Arlo brand, we are lifestyle hotel brand with seven properties in the United States. We have four in New York, we have a Chicago location, Miami and DC which is newly opened. And all these properties really shine in their own way. Williamsburg is known for its nightlife, Miami, it’s known for its leisure and laid back vibe. DC is known for his its historical perspective. So we really wanted to find a way to make all of these brands unify under this umbrella social media account, but then also just showcasing what makes each property unique. And that was a really big focus for me when I joined Arlo was kind of trying to build that consistent brand voice. And I think that’s where a lot of hotels, especially hotels that are managing more than one property, tend to struggle a lot, is kind of protecting the individuality of each location and really making location shine. And there are some brands that, you know, venture in the way in the path of creating different accounts for different locations. And I think that for us, the number one thing was, you know, Arlo is a brand, Arlo is a community at its highest point Arlo is, it’s more than just separating properties. It’s all about Arlo as a brand. And I think that’s something that each property does withhold, but they each showcase it in their own way. So yeah, I just, I wanted everything to feel cohesive and not copy and pasted. So yeah that would be the biggest challenge. And I think that we’ve definitely succeeded in that.

Cassady Quintana:
Well, I don’t wanna make you give away any of your secrets at Arlo, but how do you find that balance between the brand voice, but also letting each property still show some of their personality?

Dino Jevric:
I think, and I think the number one thing that people would think about is, you know, that there has to be some sort of like guideline. There has to be like this of rules that we have. You know, you can’t talk about this about in regards to this hotel, you can’t do this in regards to this hotel. And I think that it’s not, it’s less about strict, a strict set of rules and it’s more about a framework. There are things that stay consistent across the board. You know, when we’re talking about a brand, like, the service that we provide is consistent. The community that we cater to is consistent. And there are things that do change each property, like I mentioned, like we have Williamsburg that is very historically known for its rooftop parties, for its nightlife. And we’d like to cater to that. However, when we have a property like Miami who also does activate and does have these nightlife events and stuff, we find that we’d like to talk about that and we’d like to, to capitalize on that, but we gotta do that in another, in a different way because of the difference in personality. So the consistency comes from the foundation, but the personality comes from the location. So that’s kind of what that balance is and what makes the content feel both cohesive and still authentic in each space.

Cassady Quintana:
Oh, I love that. That’s awesome. And I feel like a lot of hotels, ones that we’ve talked to, they understand the importance of social media, but a lot of the time they get stuck because they feel like they’ve already talked about every single, every single thing there is to talk about their property, right? We’ve already posted about our rooms, we’ve already posted about our pool, we’ve already posted about our events, but I feel like a lot of the time hotels forget that their hotel is just one small part of a person’s trip where their experience and there’s a lot of things happening around the hotel, right? So do you guys ever tailor content differently depending on the location, which you touched on a little bit, or the audience for that specific property?

Dino Jevric:
Yeah, I mean, we do it all the time. I think that’s a really big part of our strategy. Like I said, each location has a different audience. It different expectations, different reasons people are staying there. In Midtown we probably have a lot of people who are staying, it’s their first visit to New York, it’s in a very central location. You’re, you know, minutes away from 42nd street or minutes away from Madison Square Garden. So that could be a reason that people are staying in Midtown. But then when we have, you know, our other New York City property, Williamsburg, people say there are a lot for leisure, people say there are a lot to experience the nightlife aspects. So there are lots of different demographics that we’re targeting and different reasons that people are staying there. So our content needs to reflect that while the brand does remain consistent, the way we’re bringing it to life on our social media is really tailored to the audience that we’re trying to reach. So yeah, we’ve done this in a different, in different ways of showcasing the different locations on our property, on our social media accounts. And I think that we’re doing a great job in that.

Cassady Quintana:
And I think even beyond just the location, there’s a lot of opportunity for hotels to partner with other local businesses or the culture that’s in that area. So for you and for Arlo Hotels, how important is it to highlight that local neighborhood or that culture in the social media content?

Dino Jevric:
I mean, Arlo is always culture first. I think that for us, it’s really, if you go on our social media, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. We really do put culture and the community at the forefront of everything that we do. And I think that it’s an essential part of our social strategy there. People aren’t just booking a room, people aren’t, I always say Arlo isn’t just a place that you rest your head at the end of the day. It’s not just a place that you come to crash and stuff like that. You know, we have so many activations, we have so many cultural moments happening on property. So ultimately people are booking our locations for an experience. And if you aren’t showcasing the neighborhood and culture, you’re really leaving out a huge part of that decision making process. So to kind of work on that and to kind of capitalize on that, we developed a series that we do on our social media called ,Know the Neighborhood. And that’s our way of bringing that concept to life. So we basically take our followers throughout the neighborhood of our different properties, and we showcase boutiques in the area, monuments in the areas, sightseeing, attractions in the area, and try to really highlight these different neighborhood gems and, and spotlights so that people can actually picture what their stay would look like beyond the hotel itself. So at the end of the day, like as much as we’d love to just showcase the hotel, I think that the neighborhood does really add a different element to that. And I think that a lot of brands need to really be focusing on that as well.

Cassady Quintana:
I absolutely agree. I feel like that’s something hotels forget a lot about. Again, like you said, it’s not just a place you’re laying your head at night. That’s just a small piece of your experience and it’s even important for people that may be from that area. I love that. Know Your Neighborhood series you guys are doing, because I live in Florida, I haven’t been to your property in Miami, but I would love to watch and I’d love to learn more about the area, especially if I ever do go down there and visit. Like now I feel like I know what to expect and I don’t feel as nervous. And it’s comforting to feel like you know, what the property’s gonna be like and the area too, because it can be overwhelming, especially you guys in New York, like those properties, that’s a lot. New York is a lot. So if you can feel a connection to the property, connection to the area before you even go, you’re already, you know, five steps ahead. So shifting gears a little bit, are there any trends right now? I love to talk about trends in social media because I feel like we could talk about something right now and in a few weeks it’s gonna be something new. So what trends are you noticing in hospitality, social media right now?

Dino Jevric:
I think a trend that is here and is here to stay, and that is really shape reshaping the social landscape in terms of hospitality, is showcasing authentic human content. And I know people might be thinking like, that’s not necessarily a trend that isn’t like, you know, a fast moving pace moment. But I think that when it comes to trends in social, in hospitality, social media, that is one of the biggest that people really do miss out on because they’re really focused on what’s culturally happening in… And that doesn’t, that, you know, that doesn’t mean that brands shouldn’t focus on what’s happening in culture and really honing in on that. I am someone who loves going off of all these different cultural moments and what people are talking about. But I think the real big general trend that we should be following is showcasing authentic human content, things that people can connect to, things that people can emotionally connect to.

Dino Jevric:
I think that on social media, a big issue is that we find trouble in emotionally connecting to content, which is why it’s hard for people to then book a hotel. So yeah, that’s really the key there, so doing things from showcasing your team, going behind the scenes of a big moment or event that you’re doing on your property, interviewing your GM or guest experience team, these are all things that people are really drawn to and that really promote the au authenticity and story driven moments that give them an inside look into your brand and how it actually operates. And something that we’ve actually done recently is we launched a Behind the Door series where we take our audience into these big brand moments and these behind the scenes, restaurant openings and living room gallery installations, and it really builds a connection between a brand and an individual before they even stay with you. And I think that it’s definitely important now that we are in Arlo’s tenure anniversary, that we’re leaning into this even more and bringing people closer to the brand through things like behind the scenes content and social first campaign. So really excited about, things that are coming within the next year, but this is something that we’re really, really, using as the backbone to our social media strategy.

Cassady Quintana:
Oh, I love that. And it’s awesome. It’s kind of the same thing I mentioned of, if you feel like, you know, the area or the property, you’re already five steps ahead. But beyond that, if you feel like you resonate with the people that work at that property, I talked about, previously in a webinar I did that, I went to resort in Mexico last year and I stalked their social media. And when I got there, I feel like I already know, I already knew the people that works there, even though I had never met them. But because that property was so adamant on posting their people, because your people is what makes your property special, right? You could have the most beautiful hotel, it could be having, it could have the most stunning amenities, but if your service and your people don’t match up to that, the experience falls short. So I love that you guys are doing that. I feel like people first is the way to do social media because of course we’re gonna connect with real people other than just a still image of an empty room. So kind of as we wrap up a little bit, I love to ask all my guests this, if you could give hoteliers that are trying to improve their social media right now, one piece of advice, what would you give them?

Dino Jevric:
I think that the biggest piece of advice that I would give is really focus and hone in on the ever shifting landscape that is social media. You know, social landscape is always shifting and you really need to be shifting alongside of it. It’s important to stay curious. It’s important to be culturally aware and have your finger on the pulse of all things that are happening within the hospitality industry. But it’s also important to not get too comfortable with one approach of social media. I think more importantly though is really focus on content that’s actually valuable to your audience, and not just visually appealing. I think going back to what we were talking about in terms of people just, or brands just posting images of a bed, images of an empty lobby, it’s really not driving people to your hotel. It’s probably driving them away because they really can’t connect to that. And I think that if you consistently create content that makes someone say, I could see myself staying here, or I could really see myself enjoying this experience, you’re really already ahead of most brands. So those are two pieces of advice that I would really give that are really, really important to succeeding in hospitality, social media.

Cassady Quintana:
I love that. And previous, you mentioned Arlo’s coming up on its 10 year anniversary. First of all, congrats to you and to the team. That’s such an awesome place to be. It’s super exciting. Do you have anything you can share with us, maybe some exciting campaigns or announcements coming up?

Dino Jevric:
Yeah, I mean, it’s been a long time coming. We’ve really developed as a brand over the past 10 years and we’ve succeeded in so much. But yeah, this year is our 10 year anniversary. We have amazing, amazing, amazing offers coming very, very soon. I’m pretty sure that they’re probably gonna be launched by the time this is posted, so I’ll just go ahead and talk about them. But for social specific, we’re actually launching a 10 year throwback drop. So you’re gonna be able to stay like it’s 2016 and we’re gonna be dropping $100 same day rooms every day from 10 to 11:00 AM hotel local time for those that are in different areas. But yeah, that’ll be happening every day for the rest of the year. We’re partnering with some huge social media partners to kind of get this campaign going. So yeah, I’m just really excited to see where that goes. Yeah, the brand is really happy with where we are. We owe it to the community. We owe it to the people who have been loyal guests and people who we continue to welcome every day. And yeah, we’re just really, really happy to be in this position celebrating 10 years, with you guys.

Cassady Quintana:
As you should be. That’s an awesome place to be and it’s super exciting. We’ll make sure we stay up to date on everything you guys are launching. So Dino, thank you so much for joining. For our listeners that are here, where can they find you?

Dino Jevric:
Well, you can find me. I actually just launched a new newsletter, called the Pickup Report and where I dissect what’s happening in social media, specifically within hospitality, and I dissect topics like the one that we discussed today from a creative and performance perspective. So you can find that on substack and LinkedIn. But personally, you could find me on LinkedIn, first and last name. Be happy to connect with all of you. And yeah, if anyone has any questions or anything, I’d love to discuss.

Cassady Quintana:
Absolutely. Well, thank you Dino, again for joining me. This is such a valuable conversation and I hope our listeners get something out of it. But thank you for taking the time to join me today.

Dino Jevric:
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate this opportunity.

Cassady Quintana:
Perfect. And thank you to all our listeners. We will see you next time on the Social Success Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you don’t miss an episode. The Social Success Podcast is produced by Travel Media Group, our editor isBrandon Bell, with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Cassady Quintana, and we hope you enjoyed this episode.

The 2026 Hunter Conference in Atlanta Georgia was a major success! So many hospitality professionals and industry leaders converged to share insights, best practices, challenges, and strategies for the future. 

The Suite Spot had the opportunity to attend the industry event and interview some of the best and brightest that hospitality has to offer. Tune in to this special episode to hear from executives, brand leaders, presidents, and more from some of the biggest brands in 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 Embree. Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. Fresh Off the highly anticipated 2026 Hunter Conference, which certainly didn’t just fit the bill. Exceeded expectations. What an incredible event, what an amazing couple days in Atlanta, Georgia at the New and iconic Signia Hilton, Atlanta. There were powerhouse panels and education, incredible networking, truly defined. Their theme was The Home of Hospitality. Certainly hit that over that next those couple days there in Atlanta, Georgia, we had the privilege of covering the event. We have some exclusive interviews to bring you, which I’m so excited to share with you on this very episode today. We visited with our friends over at Newport Hospitality. We celebrated a milestone with Hospitality America. We checked in on the development side at PM Hotel Group and sat down with the brain leader of Graduate by Hilton to talk about that exciting brand and everything that they have cooking over there. Who also knows how to throw an incredible party, which they did in tandem with the Hunter Conference, with a ludicrous concert that capped off. And just, again, an amazing couple days in Atlanta, Georgia. We’re so excited to bring you these interviews, and we’re gonna be bringing it all to you here on the sweet spot. Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 2:
Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot Live on location 2026 Hunter Conference. Excited to welcome in, Wayne West, the third president of Newport Hospitality Group. Wayne, thank you so much for taking some time.

Wayne West III:
It is a pleasure to be with you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, excited to be here. It’s a sleepy cold morning right now, but we’re warming things up here in Atlanta at the Hunter Conference. Tell us a little bit about your experience and, what do you think about the new location, the new digs?

Wayne West III:
The new location is great. We’ve been downtown at the Marriott for so many years. I think this is new. It’s fresh, it’s invigorating. It truly is. One of my favorite conferences. I mentioned to you, the Hunter Conference is a relationship kind of conference where you get to sit down and spend time with people one-on-one, whether it’s your brand, whether it’s other owners, whether it’s my peer group. So I enjoy this one a lot.

Ryan Embree:
I mean, it’s great because I think one of the things, you get a bunch of hospitality people in the same, in the same room. You start talking about some of the challenges that are starting to arise. And right now we got some headwinds, profit profitability, hotel margins, very slim, rising construction costs, operational costs. But you have a philosophy, control what you can control. How do you bring that philosophy to Newport Hospitality Group as we usher in 2026?

Wayne West III:
Number one, I have really good people. My colleagues are strong at my, my, my corporate level as well as the property level. You know, for many, many years the industry was, had a vibrant ability to drive RevPAR, and it seemed like it was increasing three to 5% every year that slowed down. We continue to push that where there’s opportunities, but what I think we do best and my operational team does best is control the big things. Control, cost, control your labor. We spend a great deal of time working on that every single day. We work with the leaders at the properties to make sure that we’ve got the appropriate, uh, levels of payroll and the appropriate levels of resources to the levels of business at the time. So I, I, I think a great deal. We’ve always spent time on that. But it’s even more and more important as your RevPAR may not be increasing as quickly as payrolls are.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. Operational efficiency, really, really key. Try to look for every inch that you can get right now. We had the opportunity to meet up with your COO Brendan McCoy at the Hospitality Show out there in Denver. He was talking about the growth of, of Newport Hospitality Group and was really focused in on talking about strategic growth with the right partners. What does the right partner mean to you? And you see opportunity out there.

Wayne West III:
I do see opportunity. We’ve recently taken over a hotel with the perfect partner, has a few hotels, but her focus wants to be on development. She is aligned with us culturally. She has the right kind of hotel. She maintains it well, but she thinks she can make more money developing the next hotel and is leaving operations to us. So the first thing we wanna do, we wanna make sure that we align philosophically with her vision, anyone’s vision of the hotel and how it’s gonna be operated, how we’re gonna treat the guest, the employees, and how we protect her asset and grow it and make it more profitable. But I think that’s the key thing, is aligning with a partner that aligns with your vision.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. And that alignment is really can be found in rooms like this, right. At a Hunter Conference, when you’re networking, you’re having conversations over that because it is key, that alignment, making sure that you and the owner are kind of hand in hand, especially in a time where it’s a little bit challenging, looking for operational efficiency. A lot of people, subject matter topics talk about AI and technology, right. Trying to fill those gaps. Talk to me a little bit about the philosophy and how you approach AI and technology. Is it more about the guest experience or employee empowerment?

Wayne West III:
Let’s be honest, AI has been around a long time. If you go back to revenue management 25 years ago, instead of, you know, we started leaning into computers to do some of the analysis for us. So I think this matured over the year and it continues to evolve. And I think it’s evolved expeditiously over the last few years, right? We first used ChatGTP to help us write sentences, and now we’re analyzing data. I think we’ll continue to evaluate how to make us more efficient, but really more effective with the data. I think we need to make sure we’re not consumed by the data and ask AI to help us with the right questions and get the right data to make quicker decisions and better decisions. So I think we’re testing it today, all the different kinds of AI out there. We’re testing it in all the disciplines. We’re testing it in HR, we’re testing it in operations. We’re testing it in sales and marketing. We’re testing it in HR. So I think when you apply it to those and then see what bubbles up and see how, how, what best results you get. But let’s not be consumed by it.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely.

Wayne West III:
Because you gotta take care of the guests first.

Ryan Embree:
100%. And I think, you add those things up, you add those little gains up, that’s, and, and kind of take a step back and look. Now you become more operationally efficient. You control what you can control what you said, and hopefully improved your business there. But that’s great perspective to look back. ’cause you’re right, technology is no stranger to our industry. It’s been there just been maybe in a little bit different path.

Wayne West III:
We called it it something different. Truly it is intelligence that helps make us better.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. Use it correctly. Love it. So, another thing we like to try to do at these conferences is look into a crystal ball. Try to predict the future, right? Everybody’s telling you what’s next, three, six months and down the line. What’s your vision? Maybe let’s start wide at the hospitality industry and then maybe you can dial it down from Newport Hospitality.

Wayne West III:
Again, I think I said it early, you know, we’ve been spoiled by the ability to grow our rates every year substantially. That’s slowing down. So we’ve gotta be smarter. I think a big opportunity is food and beverage globally from the, in, from an industry standpoint, I think doing food and beverage right drives preference to your hotel. I came up in the food and beverage world, and I think when select service hotels came along, we, we weren’t as good at food and beverage as we were 20 years ago. And we’ve let outside restaurants and bars wildly successful take a piece of our, our business. So I think we can do better if we would concentrate a little more on food and beverage, finding out what the guest really wants, needs and desires are when he checks into your hotel, and that that guest will come back. It will drive preference and it’ll drive RevPAR. So I wanna concentrate on that a bit.

Ryan Embree:
Great differentiator there for guests. Also attracting locals. If it’s a nice restaurant, you know, it’s your hotel restaurant isn’t of that of the same 40 years ago. Right? So, um, what about Newport Hospitality Group? Will you see the vision there?

Wayne West III:
We’ve got a couple letters of intent out today. Great brands, great owners. Two, were buying into one or actually purchasing a hotel. It’s the right hotel in the right location at the right time. We think we add some value by some additional sales and marketing that Whitney will do with her team. Whitney and Kirsten will do, whether it’s digitally or whether it’s just a different way of looking at our guests and attracting the guests. So we’re trying to find the major brands in our niche markets. Maybe we’re not in Washington DC but we’re in Frederick, we’re not in Jacksonville downtown, we’re in Jackson, the beach of Jacksonville. So we do really well in the secondary markets. We know, well, we’re in the south, we’re in the Northeast corridor all the way down from, you know, from Brooklyn, New York to Orlando, Florida. So we’re looking for that sweet spot, but I think many, as many companies are today. But we’re trying to identify that one that we can either reposition through some capital or reposition, because we’re just gonna take a different view of, uh, the revenue side of it.

Ryan Embree:
Well really appreciate you taking some time and stopping by Wayne. So thank you so much for having being on the Suite Spot with us.

Wayne West III:
Good to be with you, Ryan. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much.

Ryan Embree:
We’ll talk to you next time.

Ryan Embree:
Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. Live at the 2026 Hunter Conference here with Ben Campbell, CEO and President of Hospitality America. Ben, thanks so much for taking some time to speak with us today.

Ben Campbell:
Absolutely. I appreciate the time, Ryan.

Ryan Embree:
It’s a cold, sleepy Atlanta morning. Very cold outside. But the, it’s warm and hot energy in here. We got some panels, we got some networking going on. There was some great activations and programmings last night. First time here at the Signia Atlanta. You’ve been to Hunter a couple times. What does a successful hunter look like to you and what do you think about the new location?

Ben Campbell:
I love the new location. I love the marquee. I love the historic nature of it. And, and we all got used to, to the marquee and then the multi-level there. Um, here, I got here early just to figure out where everything was, uh, this time to know where I was going. But, um, what a hunter success, success looks like for us is really extending relationships, making new relationships, and then getting outside of our echo chambers of our companies or our hotels and talking to other people and seeing what they’re seeing, what’s happening with the industry, what are people looking to invest in, where do they think it’s going? You know, got to listen to Chris Nassetta, uh, CEO of Hilton yesterday and provided us with some, his insight and, which was great takeaways that we’ll be able to take back to our company and make decisions.

Ryan Embree:
Some really cool announcements you typically get at these shows feels like a new brand’s popping up every single day in hospitality, but it is, you’re absolutely right there, I mean, you get a bunch of hospitality people from different markets in the same room, and all of a sudden those challenges start to arise and bubble up a little bit and maybe some innovative solutions outta that. But 2026, obviously a massive year for Hospitality America, 30 years. Congratulations to that. When you hear that, Ben, you know, as CEO and President, what does that milestone and chapter mean to you?

Ben Campbell:
Me, personally, first, it’s an honor that I’m able to be the CEO of a 30 year company and take it into the next 30 years. When I look back, it’s really about, legacy and consistency. And so for a company to get to 30 years and, and we have some contracts, we have two contracts that are 30 year contracts for us and clients. And so, you know, it’s a lot of work to, to maintain that. But it’s also a real testament to our founder Chris Cargon. It is the legacy that he has left behind and that he has poured into this company that now I have the honor and the rest of our team and, and employees have the honor of taking that into the next level.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so cool to hear that, to hang your hat on a story of three decades worth and to usher in this new, this next 30 years first. So congratulations there. Obviously lots change in hospitality in 30 years. I’d say lots change in the last five. And we might be at a inflection point here with everything around AI and technology, which we’re gonna speak to in a second. But what do you attribute to that longevity and success of Hospitality America and this company?

Ben Campbell:
We boil it down to three different things. So we have what we call the HA Promises. We have three stakeholders that every single day we wake up and we say, are we delivering the promise to our owners, to our team members, and to our guests? So everything that we do, we boil it down into those three pillars and say that every guest comes to our hotels and we have, we’re making promises to them that we have to deliver. Same with our team members, and definitely to our, our owners. And so I think it’s through that lens that we’ve been able to have a 30 year career and knowing that really we’re here to service the guests and we’re also here to service our clients, which is our owners, and deliver on those, perform, deliver the metrics and the performance that they expect and that ultimately we said that we would do and that we are delivering on. So, that’s why I say it’s really the consistency of the company. Also I think, you know, we’ve been scaling at, at a good rate, but it’s been very strategic in how we do it. And so we have 30 year relationships. I don’t want to take on anything that’s gonna put that in jeopardy. Swo we’re very selective on who we bring in and knowing that, okay, I can be very successful with this for this owner, and we’re building a great relationship.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. We’re hearing that right now, more and more, not just looking for growth, but that strategic growth for the right partners. So key right now, especially in a challenging environment where margins, profitability hard to come by right now. But another place that Hospitality America has received some recognition recently is around its people, uh, which is, you know, the USA today recognized as top workplace for two consecutive years and top workplace for frontline workers. I think, you know, you come to a conference like this, obviously the big notes are about the AI technology, but how have you invested in people and seen those dividends pay off?

Ben Campbell:
Yeah. When I came under leadership of the company in 2022, that was a big focus of mine because we were having to rescale the company and really look at the industry and everybody was fighting for the same talent in the same talent pool. And so, like, again, the legacy of Chris Cargan, we said, we need to really define what that looks like objectively on who we’re bringing into the company. And so we boiled that down to our core values, which is outlined as a, uh, acronym P.E.A.C.H. Passion, excellence, adaptability, community, and humble. And so when we seek that talent, they know what they can expect from us, and we can tell them, this is what we expect from you. And when doing that, we’re holding everybody accountable. And so everybody, then we can say, okay, this is who we are. Peach. What we do is the HA promises.

Ryan Embree:
So everybody can strive to meet those metrics for the owner, each other as the team members and and our guests. And by holding that accountability training toward that accountability, and then everybody’s on the same page, that’s really what I think gives us the recognition. Last year when we did that survey for USA today. Really proud to say that 90% of our 850 employees responded to the survey. So just getting that type of engagement of completing the survey was a big win for us. We might have some exciting news come out by the time that this podcast dropped.

Ryan Embree:
Alright, well, we’re excited to hear about it, Ben. And congratulations to you and your team again. The conversations that I’ve had with industry leaders, those strong management companies have that kind of north star that you’re talking about. It looks like you have those two and those that, that culture that you’ve created over there, obviously the 30 years incredible milestone. Typically a time for reflection in looking at the legacy in the past, but also looking towards the future. That’s what you typically do on those big anniversaries. So what is the vision for the future of Hospitality America look like for you, Ben?

Ben Campbell:
Vision for us is still growth. Um, there’s a lot of opportunity out there. Uh, again, I think that, you know, how we do that is, is maybe a little different than we have. Um, we have two great relationships. Like I said, today we operate for five different ownership groups. We will expand some of that, uh, but we’ll also look at expanding through acquisitions. We, we’ve historically grown through development through our partnerships. Um, and so there might be a lot more acquisitions. I think right now when you look at the industry and the values of these assets, you know, the replacement costs, a lot of times you can get into an acquisition that much less than it would be to, to replace that. So I think a lot of that is what we’re hearing at Hunter as well. Um, a lot of owners are feeling that we are feeling that as well. Um, and so there’s some great assets that are coming onto the marketplace that I think three or four years ago wouldn’t, back to your question on what we see for the industry. I think the, you know, we, yesterday you heard Christmas set us say that bifurcation of the cake shape economy is gonna be coming together. I agree with that. I don’t think it’s gonna stay that way forever. Um, I think that the top end has just had a lot more cash reserves that they could bleed off over time. Yeah. The middle market is generally where we’ve, uh, been really, really well. And the Hampton ends, the Fairfield ends the, um, and then higher up we do tapestries and we have a motto and tribute and things of that nature. I think that’s where the industry is going. From an experience side, yes, they want a curated experience and a very intentional experience, but also they want to know what they’re gonna get to. So I think that’s where we are right now. We’re kind of feeling those effects of, okay, we’re, you know, we’re curating the experience, but it may not be taken to that next level. And I think that’s where we need to continue to elevate and continue to spend our dollars to ensure that when the guests show up at the Signia or one of our hotels, like a tapestry or the motto of Bentonville, they walk in and they’re blown away that by the experience because they can tell every single detail is thought through.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. It’s very cool to see the experiential travel really blow up right now. Guests loving that, but looking for that consistency, like you said, every guest wants that unique experience, but they do want it at a consistent level too, of, of meeting or matching their guest expectations. So Ben, thanks for taking some time, uh, to speak with us. Congratulations on all the milestones and we’re gonna look, uh, for that news that you were sharing.

Ben Campbell:
I appreciate it.

Ryan Embree:
Thank you so much. And, uh, we’ll talk to you next time on the Sweet Spot.

Ryan Embree:
Hello everyone. Ryan Embry here with the Suite Spot live on location at the Hunter Conference 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia, here with Paul Sacco, Chief Growth and Development Officer at PM Hotel Group. Paul, thank you for taking some time.

Paul Sacco:
Thanks for having me.

Ryan Embree:
Excited to talk about this. We’re the new venue. Uh, you visited the Hunter Conference before. How does this compare and, and what does success really look like for you when you leave Atlanta here?

Paul Sacco:
Yeah, I think it’s been a great conference. Perhaps a little hiccup with some of the weather Sure. And people getting in. But I think Teague and League and the team at Hunter have done a great job, really producing a terrific conference. And it’s really well attended now. So we’ve had great experience so far in terms of what does a good conference look like? To me, it’s all about connections. So it’s all about making sure that when you come to a conference like this, sure you have meetings scheduled for deal advancement on projects, you’re working on relationship building on some of the new relationships that you are building upon. And that that’s structured, but also that you leave plenty of time to walk the floor because inevitably you’re running into people that you share common stories with, you’re connecting with maybe there’s some things to do with, and it’s just great ’cause our business and our industry is really all about connections.

Ryan Embree:
That’s how, that’s where it’s built. It’s a big little world hospitality run into a lot of people. And when you get a lot of hospitality people in one place, they’re gonna start sharing best practices and maybe some of the challenges that they’re having right now. Absolutely. Especially with margins, uh, profits, people are looking out for that edge to figure out what’s next. Where do you think there’s opportunity when you kind of see the landscape right now? Is it a particular region, a segment that you like?

Paul Sacco:
Yeah, so we operate in full service and toward luxury segment as well as select service and then independent and boutique. And we all hear a lot right now about luxury and leisure leading the way. And we hear a lot about mid-scale extended stay and extended stay generally leading the way. And we’re in those categories. I also think there’s really good opportunity if you are thoughtful about the, the possibilities thoughtful about the deal in urban markets, on core branded hotels. I think there’s still some really good opportunity. You have to be thoughtful about your basis and about what the demand drivers are. But I think there’s some future opportunity in the near term there. I think there will be transactions that start to happen more. We’re starting to see some more pip pressure now from the brands. We’re starting to see some more lender pressure. I think the period of extend and pretend is perhaps coming to an end. Yeah. And there’ll be some transactions that occur out of that. We’re seeing more marketed deals as well come across. And I think that’s been across segments. Fortunately for us, we’re really focused in on each of those three segments as a company and we can capitalize on the right opportunities.

Ryan Embree:
And that’s where those strong connections come in to make those deals move across the finish line at the end of the, the day. Absolutely. Now PM Hotel Group, you talked a little bit about it, but it’s a competitive landscape out there. Where do you find opportunity to differentiate yourself from other management companies?

Paul Sacco:
So it is a competitive environment for sure. We’re a top 15 management company now. We do not have any particular goal or pressure to be a certain number of hotels. That’s really meaningful on two fronts. One, it means we can grow smart and do deals that make sense for our company, deals that make sense for the owner in terms of using our operation makes sense for our team. And secondly, it’s really important because it, it allows us to remain accessible to ownership at the highest levels of our company. So we always say that if there’s ever a time where an owner can’t call me or Joseph our president or others in our company and get a response that day, then we’ve grown too big. And that’s really important to us. And since we’re an independently owned company and we’re not private equity owned, we’re not public, we don’t have any of those quarterly quote unquote nug pressures to grow. We can be really thoughtful and strategic about the deals that we do and the owners with whom we’re working and remain accessible to them.

Ryan Embree:
Well it puts you also in opportunity to kind of maybe be first in line when a new developer or owner wants to go a certain route. You’ve got kind of the story to tell them and and share with them.

Paul Sacco:
We hear it a lot in reality. We are of the size and scope that our senior team remains very accessible to ownership groups, to asset management groups, et cetera, based on the size and nature of our company. I think there are some others who can say that as well. And there’s some others who are a lot larger and it just maybe just makes it more difficult to do that as effectively.

Ryan Embree:
Definitely. Now another topic on everybody’s bingo card here. Conferences like this is AI and technology, right? So what’s the philosophy over at PM Hotel Group? Are you guys using anything on the development side and how do you utilizing it?

Paul Sacco:
Yeah, I think there are some really good tools within ai, even just using ChatGPT and Gemini in order to do market research, really market assessment tools. And that’s a great way to get highlight overview of what’s happening in a market if you’re looking at a new deal, if you’re traveling to a market, a good way to gain sort of initial information and a feeling for what’s happening in a market from a development perspective. Now we tend to dive in deep and back all that up as we advance with some really good formats like CoStar and some others that are out there that help us really assess a deal and assess our business. So on the development front, I think that’s how we’re approaching things on the operating front. I think AI will continue to evolve in a way that it helps, makes operations more efficient, whereby there can be data assessment on check-ins and checkouts, which can help with labor and staffing needs and assessing those types of things. And then of course, on the commercial side, really harnessing the way that people are doing intent-based searches now. Because people will go into ChatGPT or Gemini and they’ll put in an intent-based search. We find a lot that our independent and boutique hotels come up in those searches. But how do you capitalize upon that and how do you harness that in a way to turn it into reservations?

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. Everyone looking for that edge right now, right? Like I said, to combat those margins right now, which are challenging in your position, you’re always looking for the next opportunity, the next deal. What’s your vision for PM Hotel Group as you grow into the back half of the 2020s?

Paul Sacco:
So again, we’re a privately owned company and we grow very strategically. We’re not under any certain pressure, again to have a certain quote unquote nug. So that’s been very effective for us and we’ve been really thoughtful about the owners that we’re doing deals with, the types of deals that we can operate. Effectively key for us is that we’ve done a couple of small strategic partnerships, siteline a year or so ago, modus by PM Hotel Group before that. And the combination of that has put us into all these different segments that we just discussed. But it’s put our reach from Hawaii to California to the mountain states, all the way to the East Coast with different types of products. So we can really capitalize on that and harness the fact that we have coverage and reach in a lot of different markets and market knowledge. So I think for us it’s just about growing smart. It’s about putting a lot of effort behind commercial and technology. We’re, we’re making a lot of investments in that space right now so that we are out ahead of AI advancement and technology advancement. And we’re even in a sort of muted RevPAR growth environment now we’re focused on RPI. And we’re focused on TRevPAR and making sure that operationally and top line wise, we’re getting more than our fair share.

Ryan Embree:
Awesome. Well, Paul, congratulations to you and your team. We’ll continue to keep a close eye and we’ll let you get back in there. And for all the good stuff, the Hunter Conference has to offer.

Paul Sacco:
Thank you.

Ryan Embree:
Thanks Paul.

Ryan Embree:
All righty. Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot live on location at the 2026 Hunter Conference here with Parker, Graduate by Hilton Brand Leader. So excited. I love this brand, it’s very exciting. But before we get talking about your brand, talk to us a little bit about your brand, where you came from and your history here in hospitality.

Parker Henderson:
It’s fun. Actually. We’re here in Atlanta. This is where I was born and raised. My parents met working for Delta Airlines, so I grew up traveling. Dad worked for Delta for 32 years. And so grew up traveling. And when I got to college, I knew that was something I wanted to major in. Went to Appalachian State University, majored in hospitality tourism management. Worked at the front desk of Comfort Suites when I was in Boone, North Carolina. And then did my internship. And I had a great professor who I was like, I’ll just do my internship and here I’m at already at the hotel. No big deal. He was like, no, you need to go somewhere. You need to do something. And so, Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, they were interested in me. So I did my internship. There happened to be the 99 US Open, everything went really well there. Came back as a manager in development and I was with ClubCorp, who owned Pinehurst for about five years. They moved me to a location in Austin, Texas. Stayed there for a while. Resort Company wasn’t really growing. And meanwhile this beautiful 31 story Hilton was being built in downtown Austin. And I remember seeing that and it’s like, I want that. And I was always in front office operations, so I was able to join the Hilton Austin as assistant director of front office. And that was in November of 2003. And I’ve been with Hilton ever since on property roles for about a decade in San Diego, Baltimore, Orlando. And then joined the corporate front office team in 2012 where I focused on front office operations, efficient use of our property management systems, which are proprietary to Hilton, and then was able to work and get exposed to the brand side and then joined Embassy Suites brand in 2021 and just love that world. Also during the pandemic, my pandemic fun was getting my master’s in hospitality from Virginia Tech. They had a campus in the DMV area up in DC and fall of 2020, I became an adjunct professor in that program. So continuing to do that, I’ve always believed in the power of that intersection of hospitality and education. So when Graduate came through in 2024, I was the first one to raise my hand saying, okay, I’ve got the brand experience, I’ve got the university passion. And so it’s been a great experience since then.

Ryan Embree:
That’s so cool, Parker. And you know, we were talking about this, I’d love to hear those stories of people that went to school for hospitality and now look at you, you’re on the other side of the desk, you’re, you’re the teacher and, and you know, influencing the next generation of hoteliers, which is so cool. So obviously college and universities have, I’m sure you don’t get tired of talking about those never, especially in your position. But for those who maybe aren’t as familiar with Graduate, talk to us a little bit about that brand, maybe a little bit of a story as well.

Parker Henderson:
Absolutely. So Graduate Hotels was created in 2014 by AJ Capital. They found that there was great opportunity to have upper upscale position, lodging, bespoke design in these hotel, in these university markets. And it’s been a great success. They started with just one or two properties. They grew to 34-35 properties and then Hilton acquired them in spring of 2024. Since then, they’ve all come into the Hilton ecosystem, 35 assets total currently. And so they’re live with Hilton Honor, they’re live with all of the team member perks with Go Hilton and everything that you expect. But also they’re tied into all the benefits of being Hilton, Hilton Worldwide Sales, Hilton Supply Management, Hilton University, all the training programs. And so the hotels have done a great job of kind of onboarding, keeping the authenticity that makes graduate special while using the engine and all the power that comes with the distribution network of Hilton.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so cool to hear. And you know, when I think about people and their universities and their colleges, passion is the first word that comes up. And to marry that with your brand and people are also passionate about travel. That’s such an exciting, probably space to be in. And the fact that you, that you get to talk about, these projects and here we are in Atlanta, a very cold unseasonably cold day here in March. But you know, we’re at the Hunter Conference talking to investors, owners, developers. You’re having these conversations. What do owners and developers get excited about when you’re having conversations about your brand?

Parker Henderson:
The passion, like you said, there’s such storytelling and such a passion to tell a story either about some where somebody lives currently, where their alma mater is, or maybe if they didn’t go to college or university where they were in that youthful optimism phase of kind of the late teens, early twenties, where you really don’t know where your path is and it’s just kind of starting and being able to bottle that up and put that into a project. That’s what gets people excited. The fun part is that the product is so special, it’s so bespoke at each university, at each college town, but they perform wonderfully. We, we have above market performance and revenue and occupancy and we continue to capitalize on those high impact times, home football games, move-ins, graduation, all of that type of stuff. But also with the Hilton system, we’ve been able to expose them to so much different areas of business, whereas they may have had to rely on online travel agencies In the past a lot we’ve been able to kind of broaden that to introduce more business travel. We’ve been able to work with Hilton Worldwide Sales, get more groups, meetings and events into the hotels. The average Graduate hotel is 167 keys and about 4,000 square feet of meeting space. Now with the 35 hotels, that varies greatly. Some are small as 70 keys. Some are as big as 304 keys. Some have zero meeting space. We’ve got one with over 23,000 square feet of meeting space. So there’s a lot of variety there. But all of them can play into the different mix of business that Hilton Worldwide Sales promotes.

Ryan Embree:
Well, it’s incredible ’cause you know, none of these properties are the same because probably none of these universities are the same. None of these markets are the same. So I’m sure it’s a passion project again, but also creating these memorable experiences around those really cool times and being able to tie your brand in there definitely means something special. Now you have a couple projects, special projects that you’re working on right now. Talk to us a little bit about those and, and maybe that differentiation between them.

Parker Henderson:
Sure. With the development side, as soon as Graduate came into Hilton became a brand that we were able to franchise. So we have been working with our development committee, that’s why we’re here at Hunter Investment Conference. But we’ve got about 60 different deals in various forms of negotiation. We’ve got a number of deals signed that we’re excited to work on. I’ll highlight kind of four ’cause I feel like they tell a good story. We’ve got Flagstaff, Arizona, that’s gonna be by Northern Arizona University, brand new build, new to Hilton owner. Very exciting project that’s gonna do some amazing storytelling about Route 66, about Northern Arizona University and just the Flagstaff community. You’ve got Boulderado, a historic, a hundred and something year old asset in downtown Boulder, right by UC Boulder. This is gonna become a graduate by Hilton Hotel. This is funded by AJ Capital. They own that. So that’s showing continued interest in the founder of the brand into Graduate by Hilton, which is something that means a lot to me. It means that we’re protecting the brand in, in meaningful ways. We’ve got Graduate Laramie that’ll come online by the University of Wyoming. This is an existing Hilton Garden Inn that’s reaching the end of its term with that project. And we’ll transition and go through a painstaking renovation to tell the cowboy story of the University of Wyoming. And that’ll open as Graduate Laramie. And then in New York, we’ve got Graduate Syracuse. This is actually owned by Syracuse University. This is the institution building something, 200 keys from the ground up. It’s gonna be absolutely spectacular there.

Ryan Embree:
I can talk to you about each one of these projects and which makes them so unique and, and that’s again the cool part, probably why both the owners and developers love it. Guests love it as well. But let’s get to know you in the portfolio a little bit more intimately. So let’s talk about maybe one of your favorite views on one of your properties.

Parker Henderson:
There’s a lot. So Graduate East Lansing, east Lansing, Michigan, Michigan State University, if you look out any of their front side windows, you’re looking right into kind of the arboretum of Michigan State University. It is gorgeous rooftop of graduate Auburn, Alabama. If you stand at the War Eagle Supper Club on the roof of Graduate Auburn, you’re looking directly towards the scoreboard and the stadium at Auburn University. Yeah, it’s fantastic. Gosh, there’s so many different ones. I could, like literally, even in Princeton, you’re looking down the street, down Nassau Street towards the gates of Princeton. You’re the fun part about these properties. And I’ve been able to go to all 35 locations both in the UK and the US. And the great thing about them is the location. Most all of them are at the intersection of Maine and Maine. They’re all walkable to campus, no further than about a mile away from the university they are next to and surrounded by the most popular restaurants, bars, shopping, points of interest, the museums, whatever it may be, they’re in the heart of it. All

Ryan Embree:
Such tradition rich places and spaces that these properties are located in tells a an amazing story. And sure, your guests get to be a part of it, which is really cool. What about signature dish maybe or a local tradition or something like that?

Parker Henderson:
So all of our restaurant, or excuse me, all of our hotels have a breakfast. Usually that’s kind of a cafe with a barista led concept. Many of those go by the name of Poindexter Coffee. So we have about half the brand that have a Poindexter coffee. Those are phenomenal in themselves. Then in the evenings we require hotels to have bar and dinner at all their locations. One traditional dish may sound basic, but it’s so good. We do a really great smash burger in fries, and that’s something you can find at almost all of our locations. Just a really good smash burger.

Ryan Embree:
Very cool. Well, you know, and I didn’t prep you for this one, but what about if there’s, is there anything, I mean, because obviously colleges and universities that they’re, they have a lot of, sometimes quirky traditions that, that are in the area. Are there any hotels or properties that have any of these local traditions or anything like that?

Ryan Embree:
Well, the storytelling, storytelling is one of our values at graduate and all of our hotels portray storytelling. We use maximalist design, we use layering of story upon story, but I think one of my favorite ones I was speaking about graduate Princeton, their headboard, if you’ve ever looked at a picture of graduate Princeton, their headboard looked like these hand carved canes and they’ve got like etchings in ’em and all different kinds of things. And I remember asking the general manager, Michael, it’s like, what is this? Why does it look like hockey sticks above my bed? He’s like, well, back in the 1860s, students used to hand carve their own canes and walk around campus and around the 1860s the upperclassmen decided, nope, the freshmen shouldn’t be allowed to carry those. So they would like beat them with their sticks and, you know, not allow the freshmen to carry them around here. So now that does not continue, but it’s now kind of an intramural fall sports festival every fall for called the Canes Prix. So it’s one of those traditions and one of those stories that you walk in and any Princeton student or alum would get that immediately. Yeah. But from somebody who went to Appalachian State would never have heard of that, it would never have known that tradition if it wasn’t for that quirky headboard.

Ryan Embree:
And there’s that special connection with the guest that is, that knows that, but also the guests that maybe not like, well, what I’m learning about right now, love that tradition. Like that’s very, that’s some cool history, you know, associated with the property in the university. So obviously a lot of growth. You just talked about the pipeline for this brand, but what’s as brand leader, what’s your kind of vision for the next, you know, three to five years for for Graduate by Hilton?

Parker Henderson:
Absolutely. We’re looking at kind of making sure that everything within the hotels we’re optimizing as much as possible. So I always love to base everything we do on our values. Our motto at Graduate is we are all students. Our values underneath that is what is fearless hospitality? We’re curious. We’re unapologetically unique and we’re storytellers. And so with that just kind of capitalizing on that and moving that into just grow within the next few years we’ll have several new openings. We’ll have more announcements to share on that.

Ryan Embree:
Awesome. Well, we’re excited. We’re gonna keep a close eye on the graduate story and yeah, we’re excited to thank you for stopping by and talking to us.

Parker Henderson:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Ryan Embree:
To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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 be in Las Vegas. And the growth of Vegas as the entertainment and hospitality capital of the world was lockstep with the College of Hospitality. And as the city grew, the college grew, and, a lot of people were attracted to come to Vegas and work to thinking about it from an entertainment standpoint, from the hospitality standpoint. And then they would come and get a degree here. And then they’d start in the industry, and they’d become the giants in the industry.

David Cárdenas:
So, you know, it’s pretty amazing, you know, talking to a lot of the alumni, you know, they came here, didn’t know much about it, weren’t quite sure. Many of them came here because of the basketball team. You know the rich history of what happened with basketball, and then just kind of got their foot in the hospitality industry or the gaming industry. And then our alumni start, you know, moving up in the industry, and we have the Bill Hornbuckles of the World, which are, you know, the president of MGM or, you know, Carlos Castro, the President of Resorts World. All of them, you know, kind of started here and grew up to be stars in the industry.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, it’s incredible. And, you know, it’s interesting you bring up sports because, you know, obviously, sports have now also transformed Las Vegas. The city’s going through this transformation with sports. But, you know, talking about, for those who aren’t familiar, you know, I had the opportunity to walk around campus a little bit before this interview and could literally see the top of the Paris Eiffel Tower from campus. For those who aren’t familiar, you know, you are just blocks away from the Strip. Talk to us about that location and what it means for some of the students, and really just kind of propelling themselves right into the hospitality industry, you know, steps away from this place.

David Cárdenas:
Yeah. So if you’ve never been to our campus and never been to Hospitality Hall, it’s the Taj Mahal of hospitality education, and we are a mile and a half away from the center of it all. You see, most people have seen it on television or in movies, the Strip, right? We see that every day from our campus, which is pretty amazing. And what that gives us is access to people that most other universities don’t have access to. You know, at any point in time that executive can come and walk here and give a guest lecture. Or more importantly, at any day, our students can do a behind-the-scenes tour of the Bellagio Fountain Club or Tour Allegiant Field or, you know, go up the Eiffel Tower at Paris.

David Cárdenas:
So you know, there are many universities that come here for a week to experience it. Our students have it full-time. The other thing about that is that those executives teach classes for us. So currently we’re teaching an entertainment class. The Vice President of Entertainment for MGM, Paul Davis, is teaching that class. And so the people who are actually doing it out there are here. And that’s just an amazing experience. The students, when they go to do their internship, they go a mile and a half away. They don’t have to travel for hours or go during the summer. They’re right here. So, I think proximity is one of the main reasons we are ranked number one in hospitality.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, it’s incredible. It’s so unique. I mean, I remember being in hospitality school myself as a UCF Rosen grad and seeing the Las Vegas strip on a PowerPoint, you know, that a professor puts up and you just, students here just look out a window and it’s right there. Very cool. So, more recently, the school just announced a new strategic framework for the college. That’s not something that’s done overnight; that obviously takes a lot of work and effort. Tell us a little bit about that process and what that framework looks like.

David Cárdenas:
Yeah, so it was very much a collaborative effort. So I became Dean a little bit less than two years ago. So March 1st will be my two-year anniversary here. And when I came here, I was in awe. We have amazing faculty, great support, our alumni were doing wonderful things, but I also saw that if we stood still, others were gonna pass us by. And I often say, you know, I didn’t wanna be the, the Sears of Hospitality Education where we could kept doing the same thing over and over again and we didn’t innovate. And so we went through a year and a half process of looking inward of who we are, what do we do well, what are our values, and what do we need to do to continue being a leader in hospitality education. So we did hundreds of listening sessions, focus groups, surveys, lots of meetings, lots of emails to try to figure out where we’re gonna be going to create what we have as our new vision.

David Cárdenas:
So our new vision is creating global leaders who inspire unforgettable experiences. So we wanted to make sure that we portrayed that we are developing leaders. So we’re developing those people who are going to be developing that next sphere or the next amazing event, or, you know, the next mega event. And having that amazing experiences of what we do. And the pillars that we have that are under that foundation are student success, knowledge, global leadership, and purposeful engagement. And so for us, we wanted to make sure our students had that most amazing experience. And it was global. So Vegas is an amazing place to learn, but we wanted students to go to Macau, and we want students to go to Auckland, and we want students to go to Madrid, and learn from those types of experiences, and really be that place where engagement, because hospitality is all about being engaged, that they were doing that part.

David Cárdenas:
The next part of that strategic plan was that we restructured our college. We’ve always been known for hospitality education and hospitality operations. So if you’re operating a hospitality organization, industry, that’s what we were known for. Again, as I said, Bill Hornbuckle at MGM is running an operation. So that’s still gonna be core to what we do, but we’re expanding into areas such as sport, entertainment, travel, and tourism. Gaming has always been something that we’ve done well, but we’re gonna expand that. And then the other big area is hospitality technology and incorporating AI and the tech part into, into the hospitality industry.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, and that’s what I want to talk about, ’cause you mentioned innovation a lot in that new strategic framework, and technology is moving so quickly. I mean, it’s insane to think some of the students that are starting their journey now, the technology is gonna be completely outdated by the time they end their journey. Right? So how do you approach technology and hospitality, and maybe also getting your take on just where you think the industry as a whole is with adopting technology, which is typically an industry that’s been a little bit slower in the adoption of technology.

David Cárdenas:
Yeah. So I don’t think we’re ever gonna catch up. But I think our job is to make sure that we’re exposing our students, because even as you said, once they graduate, it’s gonna be different than probably what we taught them in that is to think about how they’re adaptable to that technology more than that tech. Because the tech that I learned back when I was going to school is irrelevant, but it’s more about the integration of technology, the adaptation of technology. And I believe that, you know, we’re talking about AI right now, we’re teaching that in our classrooms, it’s a central focus of what we do, but in four years, we’re probably talking about CB or OS or I don’t know, something else. There’s gonna be a little bit different, right? And so it’s more about the critical thinking skills, the adapted skills, and technology’s always gonna be with us, and I don’t think it’s gonna replace everything that we do.

David Cárdenas:
We were actually having a conversation with a gentleman this morning, a little bit about that, you know, who’s scared, like, he’s like, you know, I’m gonna lose my job. Well, maybe there’s gonna be jobs that are gonna be lost, but we’re gonna create new ones. So when we developed the washer and dryer, were we mad that we don’t wash our clothes by hand? No. We were very happy about that. And there were jobs that were eliminated from that perspective, but we created new opportunities. And the thing about the hospitality industry, it’s all about the customer. And you’re gonna need to have that human connection. So for us, and specifically in our degree, it’s the interaction between the human and the technology, the interface between that and teaching our students, that when that human component is important, when that technical component is important, and how to manage both the human and the tech part. And so that’s kind of what our focus is for our degree.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I mean, it’s so important, you know, technology needs to empower those employees, students that are gonna be going in because they’re gonna have an expectation ’cause I think, obviously we look through the lens of, you know, what is this generation gonna be doing with technology, but also how is the industry going to adapt to a generation that is used to technology and they want to use it, they’re anxious to use it and saying, Hey, let’s do this in some of our individual processes. And, you know, some of the best ways that you can explore technology, how things are done or run in hospitality, is through internships. You mentioned it before. I was required to do a couple of internships when I went to hospitality school, but it was great because it exposed me to so many different elements of hospitality. And you mentioned it in your journey. I mean, you didn’t know which way to go there. It could be overwhelming for a student, but internships are a great way to get exposure there. How do you implement that into your programs?

David Cárdenas:
Yeah, so I think one of the key things about hospitality education is the immersive experience that you have to have. And so, you know, I’ll get to the internships in a second, but we have to make sure that in the classroom, they get the best of the best, the best faculty member, you know, so that content needs to be there, but then if they can’t implement it, they’re not gonna be successful. And so that applied approach is the second part that we do. And we require all of our students to do a thousand hours of applied work in the hospitality industry while they’re in school, because we want them to understand the stresses of it. We want them to understand, you know, how difficult it might be or the long hour being on your feet to do all of that is part of what we do.

David Cárdenas:
In addition to that, all of our students are required to do an internship. So, in addition to a thousand hours, they have that internship. And the other thing that all of our students do is a culminating experience. So where they’re putting everything together, they’ve done the thousand hours, they’ve done the internship, and the last thing they’re doing, some kind of immersive activity. It could be running our student-run restaurant, the Bistro410. It could be putting on one of our mega events, like the UNLVino, or it could be developing a new game for our casino. So applying all that is really, really important. We want the students to get their hands dirty and have that as part of their educational experience.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. You know, a lot of the leaders I’ve had the privilege of having on this credit, a lot of those early learning, internships, and mentors. That was that first foot, or that was that first, you know, step into the industry. So really, really cool to see there. You mentioned partnerships, local partnerships, very, very important. Obviously, proximity has a lot to do with it. How important are having those partnerships and, you know, how does that also set students up for success after graduation?

David Cárdenas:
Critical. And so we wouldn’t be successful if it wasn’t for our partnerships and alumni, and what they give back. They’re opening their doors from as easy as providing internships for our students, hiring them for full-time jobs, being mentors, being guest speakers. But they’ve also been very generous with their wallet. If you’ve ever had a chance to walk through Hospitality Hall, you’re gonna see all of those names on all of our rooms. So you have the MGM Rebel Grounds, our coffee shop, you know, you have, Chairman Tso’s, who’s Ambassador Hotel is one of the largest hotel groups in Korea, who has theirs. You know you have Caesars who’s given to us. All of them have been a part of who we are and have developed who we are.

David Cárdenas:
You know, so they’ve been very generous to us. They helped build this building. This building is completely paid off because of them. And they help provide over half a million dollars of scholarships every year to our students. So, to make it affordable for them. One of the coolest partnerships, one of the most coolest partnerships that we just recently had, the president of Wynn called me, he’s like, Hey, David, I wanna send students to Macau. I wanna do a study abroad. We’ll pay for it. And they’re like, awesome. Let’s give them that experience. Let’s figure that out. So I mean, they open doors. They support our students. And they really are the ones who give us that leg up so that our students are successful.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so cool. And, you know, a symbiotic relationship between, you know, the partners who are also investing in the students here, because this can be the future leaders of their organization. So, you know, having those close partnerships is so cool, important, and a lot of cool stories. I’m sure that you’re hearing from your students as well. Well, I’m gonna pick your brain a little bit. I think, you know, I love having these opportunities to, you know, speak to educators such as yourself. I wanna give some tips out there, maybe to just some younger, hospitality professionals. What would you say to those who are about to enter, you know, finishing up their education career here at Harrah Hospitality School and entering the workforce? What tips would you give them?

David Cárdenas:
So, as they’re about to transition from hospitality education to be a hospitality leader, I think it’s to continue to network and to continue to build your educational skillset to be successful. So I think that the learning process does not stop once you finish school. So, figuring out how you continue to learn, continue to grow, to be able to expand your thoughts, you know, so it could be, you know, through professional development opportunities. It could be attending conferences, it could be just traveling for fun and seeing how things are in different areas. The other thing is to continue to stay connected to your university and to the programs. We have an amazing Boughner Center here for our students. It’s our career development center where it helps with internships and jobs, but it’s also available for our alumni.

David Cárdenas:
So if an alumni is thinking, Hey, I wanna change jobs, or I’m looking for another opportunity to continue to have that partnership with the university allows you to have that ability. And then thinking about how to pay it forward. I guarantee you that almost every single one of our graduates, somebody helped them get to where they are. It could be through a scholarship, somebody might have mentored them, it could have been an amazing faculty member. Well, what can they do to help that next generation? So they’re never too young to start mentoring. They’re never too young to start helping students find jobs because, you know, somebody helped them. So, thinking about how that might help somebody else.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, I love that. And hospitality, we talked about it off camera before we started, but hospitality is a big but small world, and you’ve got a lot of connections out there. You’d be surprised, you know, how many people on LinkedIn, you see, you scroll down to their education, and it’s someone from your alma mater, right? That’s right down the road or doing a position. So love the advice there. What about those freshmen or, you know, younger just starting there, what tips would you give them as they enter, you know, the next four years of learning and education?

David Cárdenas:
Yeah, so I think no matter what, get involved and get engaged. Say yes to everything. The more experiences that you could have at a younger age, the better you’re gonna be. You know, is it gonna be hard work? Yeah. Take that, you know, take that difficult shift, you know, work those weekends, work those nights, because that’s where you’re gonna grow and you’re gonna experience and you’re gonna meet people. You know, if you have an opportunity to go hear a guest speaker, go to it. If there is an activity where you can volunteer to do an event, volunteer. Join a club, you know, all those things are gonna be very important. The time goes by very, very fast. And I do believe that we have amazing faculty who teach in the classroom that are amazing, but most of the learning is gonna happen outside of that classroom.

David Cárdenas:
So the more you can do outside, it’s gonna benefit you from there. The other thing is talk to people. Don’t be scared. You know, I have so many times, the students are like, I didn’t wanna bother you. Bother us. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we have office hours. You know, don’t be too nervous and, you know, make that interaction. I think it’s gonna help benefit you. And you get to meet people, and the doors are gonna open, and before you know it, you’re gonna have this amazing network base.

Ryan Embree:
Cool. And we’re hospitality people, right? We love people. That’s why we’re in this business. So, yes, definitely agree with you there. All right. So as we wrap up, I want to talk about, obviously, we have the new strategic framework, but as you look beyond, right, your vision and what are you most excited about right now when it comes to the, the college?

David Cárdenas:
Well, you know, we just finished the strategic plan, so just getting it implemented and started, so we’re working on a whole bunch of new degrees and getting those out and rolling those out. Those international partnerships are really, really important for me. You know, now it’s really thinking about how do we implement those things? And then also knowing that even though we have a strategic plan, we’re gonna adapt to that. Things are gonna change, as I said, you know, figuring out what the next AI is and making sure that we incorporate that in what we do. And you know, I think what I’m most excited about is that we have an amazing team. Our faculty and staff are here to support our students, and they’re gonna do whatever it takes for them to be successful. And that’s really exciting. So no matter where we go, we’re gonna have a team behind us to make that happen.

Ryan Embree:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking some time outta your busy schedule to let us visit here. We covered a lot. We covered, you know, technology, the history, and the school. Any final thoughts before we wrap up?

David Cárdenas:
I really appreciate it. So I think the, the last thing is that if you’re thinking about going to the industry, get an education, you know, no matter what, no one can ever take that away from you. I think that that education is power. So if you don’t get a degree in hospitality, get your degree in something. Always be a lifelong learner. And we’d love to have you here at the Harrah College of Hospitality. So come join us.

Ryan Embree:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

David Cárdenas:
Thank you.

Ryan Embree:
Alright.

Ryan Embree:
To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five-star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell, with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host, Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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 experiential and it allows people to enjoy nature in a way of what’s important to them. So it’s a drive in trip, it’s flexible, and it’s not camping, it’s not glamping. It’s a little bit of a combination of both. And we have found that customers really enjoy this experience.

Ryan Embree:
I wanna drill into that because I wanna get your opinion on why you think, David, that has such staying power as a model and how it’s not just one of those, uh, you know, fads that kind of pass by hospitality. This has some real staying power here. So much so that Marriott has, you know, has going all in, so to speak, with the outdoor collection.

David Rosenberg:
So with Marriot’s launch of outdoor collection, they also see this opportunity to scale this business, and specifically for 25 to the 45, uh, demographic, um, that really, that have really morphed into this hybrid work environment and allowing them the flexibility to, uh, extend weekends. So these cabins have wifi and they have things that, uh, they’re not typically for a business traveler, but it allows, uh, the flexibility for someone they want to be online or if the opportunity to completely unplugged Yeah. Uh, and get away from their day-to-day life. And we’re also finding that it’s a short-term booking, that it’s, it’s, it’s just so instinctual that it’s not a trip that’s planned months out. In fact, we find that most customers of booking these cabins, uh, three to seven days out, and, uh, and again, the feedback we have received from customers through Marriott surveys, through online, uh, reputation management, um, is just outstanding.

Ryan Embree:
No, I love, I love to hear that. And Karen, you know, on the operations side, I mean, as David mentioned, it’s very different type of experience out there. How do you kind of ensure, uh, guest satisfaction and make sure that, you know, the travelers that are are getting there, obviously getting the experience they want, um, but also with the level of service that they expect?

Karen Mendez:
Yeah, you know, it brought a unique challenge. Um, postcard cabin is a hundred percent contactless. So our entire guest journey, we do not have a front desk. There’s not a main lobby. Everything. The tone has to be set through a text message, um, from the day that you arrive. And how do you do that with a Bonvoy member? And how do you make that BONVOY member feel appreciated? And how do they find their cabin? It’s been an adventure, and what we’ve learned is that guests like the adventure. They like that little satisfaction that they get. Like, I kind of found this place on my own, and I had all the directions that I had, all the tools, and it really sets the tone correctly at the very beginning of the state to have that disconnection that David talked about. Um, and then it’s just making sure it’s really hotel basics, clean rooms and everything in working order, because there isn’t a front desk to go and talk to. And so having those hotel basics in there, it’s really molding the two of the outdoor and what, you know, what you expect a hotel.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. Fascinating to hear. And, uh, you’re right. I mean, it’s, it’s an experience unlike any other, but at the same time, that foundational piece still has to be intact there, uh, with the lo the unwavering loyalty that Marriott, uh, Bonvoy members obviously have for, for the brand. David, walk us through the postcard cabins model, you know, for maybe, uh, uh, someone that’s not too familiar and, and why it works operationally.

David Rosenberg:
Yeah. So there are 29 postcard cabins everywhere from the East coast, uh, up in the Catskills to the West coast in Big Bear in in California, and good, as Karen mentioned, the contactless journey. Um, when we first got involved, very different than a hotel playbook, and we were very, uh, focused, we were very specific on how do we make this work for this customer where not only they have a great experience, but being a new segment of the business. We need the customers to be the marketing engine to grow this business through their feedback and what they like. And what we have found really through Karen’s operational expertise and the platform she created and has now executed with the team that less is more and focusing on, uh, execution, reservation check in, checkout and services in between. The guest just wants to know they have what they need. Everything is prepared in advance for them and allow them to journey how they choose. Sure. And, uh, every story is different, but the common thread we hear is people love this journey. Um, these cabins are well appointed. Uh, the bedding is fantastic, the little kitchenette, there’s showers, all of ’em have fire pits and, and picnic tables. So the opportunity to really cook outside, over open wood campfire, but sleep under the stars with massive bay windows where you do not see another cabin from your cabin, but could just enjoy the sounds and sight of nature, allows people to relax and refresh and recharge. And again, the feedback has just been overwhelmingly positive.

Ryan Embree:
Well, to reiterate your point, I mean, the guest being the most powerful storyteller out there, I mean, what, what you just kind of set the table on, uh, if you see or hear that experience from a fa family member, a colleague or a friend, um, how powerful is that and being the ability to do that. Very, very cool. Karen, you mentioned your GMs are gonna be here at the leadership conference, who is very exciting for you. How have you really mobilized your team to, uh, achieve that consistently high guest satisfaction score that David’s talking about?

Karen Mendez:
Um, really listening to feedback. I think we were all a little nervous starting this journey, and I think, uh, in the very beginning we decided to sign with TNGI think it was important for us to be consistent in the brand voice, knowing that this was a new brand and people were gonna be interested in knowing about it, but also taking that feedback that we were getting and being nimble and really trying to say, Hey, is this working? Is this not working? Um, and really working with our partners in Marriot to say, okay, this isn’t gonna fall in line with a typical Fairfield in or this model model this is, and how can we make this successful? Um, and really just having open conversations. So I, I think that from like looking back at this whole, the last year, um, the general managers really just believed in the product and then stayed true to it, but then also knew that there’s a lot of flexibility. We had to sort of at times guide our ship into the way that we wanted to <laugh>.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. Well, listen hospitality, you know, sometimes it, it gets a bad rap for not being flexible or nimble in some of the, you know, brand standards or anything like that. So being able to, you know, know that this is a new brand, you have to make changes on the fly and your GM being open to those, um, and listening to that feedback, right? Our travelers are giving us the blueprint for a perfect stay, every single review or piece of feedback they leave. So, uh, very, very cool. Now, uh, obviously the major part of this last year was the, what you and your team did with the integration with Marriott. How David has that become, you know, being a part of a major brand ecosystem? How has that influenced performance, uh, and confidence in the postcard cabin motto?

David Rosenberg:
Yeah, I think having the Marriott engine behind this brand, and it is a relatively new brand, was critical. 80% of our reservations come now through marriott.com, um, 350 million plus BONVOY members. Uh, Marriott is fully committed to the outdoor collection postcard, cabins being a founding member of outdoor collection. And we believe we’re just getting started.

Ryan Embree:
So cool to see. And like you said, a a major brand like Marriott coming in with the outdoor collection really shows that it’s a staple. It’s not one of those passing fads. It’s, it’s here to stay. So, uh, I, you know, one of these things I talked, um, you know, in another interview about these conferences, we always try to like, to predict the future look into the crystal ball, so to speak, right? So I want kind of ask you both kind of what your vision for the future is, now that you are fully integrated, uh, what do you see this brand kind of transforming into transformation obviously being a major theme here? Karen, we’ll start with you and David. We’ll, we’ll end on you.

Karen Mendez:
Yeah. I think outdoor environment is limitless and almost what it has. I think what makes postcard very cool is the disconnection part of it, where you are on your own individual journey, but I think outdoors can be group environments. It can grow into so much more, a little bit more high scale and a little bit more roughing. It. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw people in Yorks with a brand at one time, you know, in the future. I think there’s a lot of limited po possibilities for it as it continues to grow. And, um, I’m really excited to see what the future brings.

David Rosenberg:
Yeah, I would add that growing population of 25 to 45 with discretionary income. We have 29 postcards. There’s plenty of capacity, opportunity, the entire country, Colorado, Wyoming, the, the Midwest, uh, Canada, um, there is so much opportunity for, uh, outdoor collection or this type of business. I think we are in the first inning, uh, of what’ll end up being I hope, a very successful, not just brand, but a segment of our business that seems to be untapped. Yeah. And couldn’t be happier that we’re starting with Marriott, uh, major brand distribution to, um, their channels, the Bonvoy members. It’s powerful. And I would anticipate over the next five plus years, uh, we’ll be talking at this at a much larger scale than 29 assets.

Ryan Embree:
Well, plenty of outdoors to go around, like you said. Uh, you know, very cool to see this brand and everything at its infancy and so many more of those storytellers and experiences just widening and broadening and, and now with the power of Marriott behind you, uh, sky’s the limit, so to speak, on, on this, uh, segment and brand. So, congratulations, Karen and David. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today.

Karen & David:
Thank you. Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Embree:
All right.

Ryan Embree:
Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. We are here at day three at the 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference. I’m here with Bill Stachler, SVP of Revenue Optimization. Bill, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, Ryan. Scheduled to come talk to us. Appreciate it.

Bill Stachler:
It’s fun to do.

Ryan Embree:
Guys have had a busy couple days here. Uh, I wanted to talk to you about kind of the, uh, how the event goes so far and what you hope to glean, uh, to glean from, uh, you know, connecting with your peers here.

Bill Stachler:
Yeah, this, this is fun for us. And, you know, revenue management teams, we’re always remote. We’re always in our house. We’re in a small office, no windows. And, uh, it’s great to see the teams come and look for their revenue manager. Yeah. And all, all the, all the happys and all the conversations, you know, it’s, it breaks the monotony of we stare at spreadsheets, we look at the computer and they’re actually getting the intermingle. So it’s fun. It’s, it’s a good experience for everybody.

Ryan Embree:
I’m sure. And you know, we’re gonna talk about it here, but there’s that, that close relationships between revenue and operation, so critical. Uh, but before we get into that, uh, give us a little bit more insight about your role and maybe hospitality journey background at led you here.

Bill Stachler:
Hospitality Journey background. I, I, I guess I, I’ll, I’ll start with that and I’m gonna age myself a little bit. So, um, I started in the hospitality industry a long time ago, and I was at a resort in Scottsdale and I was the, um, director of rooms. And one day, um, I worked for Red Lion. They brought in a new gentleman, his name was Stu Maines. They just hired him from American Airlines and he was going to start Revenue Management. I checked him in and we started talking and he asked me to launch. And before I knew it, I was the first revenue manager at Red Lion. Oh, wow. So I went from, I was on the wrong side of every merger. I was at Red Lion that got bought by DoubleTree, that got bought by Promise, that got bought by Hilton, that got bought by Blackstone. Um, and I was, I was there for about 26 years with Hilton. I was the senior director of revenue management for franchises. And, uh, joined he’s team about five years ago.

Ryan Embree:
Very cool. And you know, one of your thi one of your elements of your story, uh, is something we hear all the time whenever I ask about hospitality backgrounds, is just, is typically like a mentor or somebody that really influenced you or, or got you excited about hospitality and then just the transformation evolution between brands and, uh, gives you a lot of experience. And, you know, one of the things that when you talk about with revenue optimization is you have to look at the macro environment. You have to see kind of what guests and travelers are, uh, the sentiment that they’re feeling and how that’s going to translate into bookings and try to predict that. Try to put your finger on that. Um, what do you think in today’s climate right now, which is challenging, um, but what do you think right now travelers and guests are feeling, and how does that translate to what you’re doing?

Bill Stachler:
Well, you know, unfortunately, and you may have heard this from other people on our team, it, I wish it was a bigger picture, but it’s become a very street corner to street corner mm-hmm <affirmative>. And what is generating business in each one of these markets? What is, what has fallen off? Yeah. You know, we’re going through the winter now and, uh, had some really interesting learning experiences from the outdoor collection. Yeah. You know, I forgot that if there’s a blizzard, nobody can come <laugh>. Um, so it’s, I think, I think the idea is to keep the pulse on each individual market. Yeah. And then look at the bigger picture. We do it every week. We go through and we look at the, the major cities. We have a lot of secondary and then tertiary markets. Sure. Um, so it becomes even more intricate Yeah. As opposed to bigger picture.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. And I think that’s has been the evolution is you have to get dialed in because you have the data, which we’re gonna talk about because each market is so different. Then you have things, uh, like the World Cup a couple years ago, Taylor Swift, what we were talking about. You have these events that come through that really have a, a major impact on, um, sometimes your entire year. Um, but you know, there there’s also a misunderstanding that it’s just about pricing. What other factors beyond pricing or levers can you pull, um, that operators are focusing on right now to make, uh, you know, to make end meet?

Bill Stachler:
Yeah. Good point. Um, I can’t price myself out of anything. I, I, I like to believe I can. Yeah. I, um, base is so important and hitting those windows has become even more important. I spent a lot of time with the, with, with our marketing team about our presence for each one of our properties and where we positioned, um, things that I’ve never quite honestly cared about, are focused on Sure. Is now one of the most intricate parts of, of what we do and are we priced to the, what we’re delivering. And that’s, you know, everybody wants more rate. Rate. I can’t tell you a day where somebody doesn’t go, bill, we need more a DR. Right. However, you know, it’s like we, we played a game yesterday with our focus service GMs on the RevPAR game, 10 hotels length, the stay when is things coming in? And it’s just trying to get everybody on the same page, I think is the most important about what is our, what is our price value, and are we pushing the envelope when we can?

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. And it’s those little, um, margins, tweaks, changes that make the difference Right now when margins are so tight.

Bill Stachler:
And when Star came out for this year, it was 0.8, they’ve already revised it to 0.6. Yeah. So the game’s gonna be, can you sell out when you can? Yeah. Can you find that extra two rooms? Can you find a penny, a dollar? Yeah. And, you know, those are the things that it’s, it’s going back kind of a little bit of old school to the how many details can you pay attention to at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. And trying to identify trends. You know, we’ve just, before we got on, we were looking at you and I, I was pulling up my star report. Sure. One week doesn’t make a trend. Yeah. Even three, four weeks doesn’t make a trend. But we’re always trying to identify, catch the wave. Yeah. Or get in front of, um, things that might not go the right way.

Ryan Embree:
That’s a great point. And you know, one of the places where you can maybe find that edge is in the data and the analytics, um, which we have more than ever now. Right. I don’t think, I’ve been to one of these conferences within the last three years and heard about AI and how that’s, you know, giving us more data, but it’s leveraging that. How are you using that on your end with the data and the analytics side?

Bill Stachler:
Yeah, there’s a million reports available. And I think consistently looking at the same reports, I think is more important. The more noise isn’t always better. Um, we’re actually spending time with my group today for about a half an hour just talking about opportunities using AI to, whether it’s shop, get more informed about what’s going on in the market. Um, I make everybody use it for email. Yeah. Um, and we’re, we’re just, we’re just trying to get ahead of that. Yeah. My goal always is I wanna be a disruptor in every market. Um, but that doesn’t mean in the week for the week, it’s, we’ve been focusing in out 90 days. Yeah. You could see patterns. We have the data, we could see who’s booked. Yeah. And going after some of those targets. The, just what we were just talking about, those three extra rooms, that one extra dollar rate, you can get that when no one else is paying attention. ’cause everybody’s so hyperfocused in inside of 14 days right now.

Ryan Embree:
It’s, it’s very, I important. ’cause that booking window has certainly evolved and, and changed a little bit.

Bill Stachler:
It’s inside a week right now. Yeah. It really is.

Ryan Embree:
Well, and what you need, there is some close relationship between your operations team and, and the revenue management team. Uh, speak to that and how, you know, something like this where you’re getting together with those, how, how closely you need to stay in contact.

Bill Stachler:
Well, each one of my people has, uh, they’re equal or the VP of operations for every asset I sit in between Pete and Dave in my office. So we’re, we’re together every day. So, um, on top of it, we have our sales connections as well. So if all three of those are on the same page and they’re, we’re not looking at the same data, we’re not looking at the same opportunities and or same challenges, we’re never gonna be successful. ’cause if you don’t move the whole ship towards the right direction, you’re gonna be challenged.

Ryan Embree:
Staying consistent. That’s where the, the magic happens there. Um, what, how do you, you talked about how, you know, market conditions right now and not focusing so much on, you know, two or three weeks doesn’t make a trend. Ownership groups right now, though. They’re looking at, they want that extra dollar, they need that extra dollar. How do you keep them focused on long-term stability and not so much focused on that volatility that might change from data?

Bill Stachler:
That’s, it’s hard. I mean, everybody wants to do better, right. And we’re very owner centric. We’re very transparent. They have access to the systems. Um, we could talk about a week, or we could talk about last night I two emails, what happened last night. Um, I think the big key to that is making sure that we’re all in the same, again, I go back to the same page, but that we’re having the communications, we’re explaining what we’re doing. We’re open, open-minded to some of the, some of the opportunities. I have no problems with testing anything, but if we have to test something, I always tell everybody, you gotta put your hands under, under, under your legs for at least a couple weeks. If we’re gonna try to test something, can we push, can we push? And we’re, we’re willing to make mistakes to do better.

Ryan Embree:
Well, and that again, lends to what we talked about, giving you more data and you can learn from those, uh, successes and sometimes even better lessons learning from those failures.

Bill Stachler:
It’s okay to fail. Yeah. Let’s just not do it all the time. Right. Let’s not make the same mistakes over and over again. Um, we have a couple tests going on right now. Uh, there’s three specific ones in my head. Um, one of them is an absolute failure. The other two we’re kind of in the gray area. So we’re kind of excited to see if, if we can’t leverage that in different markets, you know, I like to believe that every one of our markets at least has a couple clone markets Yeah. That are gonna act the same way. So we, what we do is we have a weekly meeting, and then we have at the end of that, we have about 15 minutes where we share, and we have an ongoing team. So somebody’s trying something, somebody sees something. And, you know, we’re over 20 people now and we, we cover the us It’s a constant beeping in the corner of my Yeah. But they’ve, they’ve all adapted to it and they’ve all kind of championed it. So we like to stay ahead of everybody.

Ryan Embree:
And thats the benefit of scale, that hotel equity is, uh, that hotel equities brings. Well, we’re gonna wrap up and I’m gonna challenge you. Gimme some, uh, hopeful good news for hospitality and, and 2026 and and beyond.

Bill Stachler:
I’m excited about the summer. Okay. Um, you know, the winter’s been rough. I mean, we’ve had some, we’ve had some challenging weather. You know, we have, we have the World Cup. We’re gonna wait and see what happens with the World Cup. Hopefully that brings, um, some extra demand. We had a really good summer last year, and, you know, the group, the group position in a lot of the bigger brands gets better as the year goes on. Sure. So, um, we all benefit off of that.

Ryan Embree:
We heard a lot of that kind of stormy weather, doom and gloom at the beginning of last year, but ended up being, like you said, a really good summer for a lot of hotels and on markets.

Bill Stachler:
It’s, you know, uh, the glass half full, glass half empty. I’m always the guy who doesn’t like the glass I got.So we, we, we always the, the idea is change the story.

Ryan Embree:
Love it. Well Bill, thank you so much for taking again, time outta your day at the leadership conference, and, uh, we’ll talk to you next time on the Suite Spot.

Ryan Embree:
Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot coming to you live from the 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference. I’m here with Albert Smith, COO at Hotel Equities. Al thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.

Albert Smith:
Fantastic to be here with you.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. Busy couple days here at the leadership conference. Buzzing, you can feel the energy here. Almost a thousand attendees. It’s been an, an incredible couple days. Um, I wanna talk to you about the theme, transforming Together. What does that mean to you and what do you hope to get outta these, you know, couple days what spending with your team?

Albert Smith:
And again, thanks for having me. Absolutely. Uh, you kind of hit it at the beginning. Transforming together, we’re as large as we’ve ever been, right? We had a merger about this time last year and, uh, we’re, we’re topping off 12, 13,000 employees across the entire enterprise. So transforming together is really about synergizing our enterprise, providing stability, getting people to know each other, leveraging best practices, and, um, being able to do that in a intentional and meaningful way.

Ryan Embree:
Ben Rafter, your CEO, uh, talked about fit over volume. You just mentioned this is the biggest you’ve ever been. Uh, how do you continue on a operation standpoint to be disciplined about growth, um, and not kind of lose that identity?

Albert Smith:
Lemme go backwards for half a second. Biggest is fine. This is the largest we’ve ever been. Being large is not necessarily important to me. I wanna be really good at what we do. So, to answer your question, um, a level of operational readiness, the tools, the support, the people, the expertise to make sure that as we grow, if that’s what needs to happen, that we do it well and we can stabilize very quickly.

Ryan Embree:
You are also expanding into some new horizons. We had some really exciting conversations about postcard cabins and just the brand and, and everything you’re doing over there. Really cool. Even entering into new segments like Caribbean and and Latin America. Um, how do you do all of that scale operationally, but still, you know, not making it a one size fits all?

Albert Smith:
That’s a, that’s a great question. First of all, continuing to rely on our fundamentals and expectations. First and foremost, um, we have been very intentional about building different operating, um, divisions and applying very specific expertise within those divisions. So if a new asset comes along in either Cala in our lifestyle division, full service, focus service, outdoor hospitality, we’ve got no shortage of resources that can lean in, absorb, provide stability, and, uh, at the end of the day, um, uh, provide value for our owns.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, each segment, each market, very different. Um, you know, the diversity of, uh, Cala and that region too, being able to have an onsite team there, uh, I think critical, we talked to your team about that, uh, with having such a large portfolio, Al Albert, when you’re trying to roll something out to everyone, how, how is that methodical testing before bringing it to scale? Right? Because I wanna make sure everything works functionally and, uh, fits within your culture

Albert Smith:
Unofficially. But I’ll give you a little bit of a sneak preview. We have a fourth operating vertical, if you will, and we’re, we’re at the moment calling it HE Labs In a very controlled environment, and by the way, leadership, there is tech forward. Uh, but a variety and diversity of resources to help stand up whatever it is, we’re beta testing, right? Uh, so in a controlled environment, we’re able to test a new technology, uh, explore new markets and done with no shortage of resources that have been there, done that stood up operating verticals in the past. Um, so we, we, we tested out, we refine along the way and, uh, when it’s ready, we either roll it out in a very methodical way, training, communication, uh, no shortage of support to make sure that, uh, training wheels on the front end, but you can take them off very quickly and, uh, trust that, uh, those that, uh, need the ride the bike can do it, uh, efficiently.

Ryan Embree:
It, it’s brilliant. We hear a lot of, uh, brands doing something very similar trying to roll out to their franchisee. So what with, uh, portfolio of your size, I mean, um, you to see that kind of strategy and methodical, it’s gotta also be really great for your employees to know that they, this has been tested. You know, you’re, you’re making sure that you’re making a run on it and it’s being ruled out and delivered in the right way. Um, so hotel equities scale nowadays is a, a, uh, asset. It’s a privilege and, um, uh, an advantage. How do you make sure that your own property teams are, uh, seeing that as a, uh, advantage rather than a complexity?

Albert Smith:
Lemme make sure I answer that question correctly, but our shared services are, are important, right? So accounting is agnostic to style, right? Um, it is agnostic to style. There’s some nuance there, but we wanna make sure that the shared service that we have within our company is strong. It is, but it allows the experts across lifestyle, full service, outdoor hospitality, where there’s, in some cases brand nuance or in some cases needs to be more marketing forward. How we tell the story, how we go out and acquire guests, how we create awareness, uh, shared service allows us to, first of all, that’s the backbone, but let’s the experts do their job, lean in and ultimately support the property level teams so that they can operate efficiently.

Ryan Embree:
Alright, so Albert, as we wrap up operationally, been asking a lot of your, your team members, kind of, what’s the vision for 2026 and beyond for hotel equities with all this growth?

Albert Smith:
Well, first of all, transforming together, right? You gotta, you gotta start somewhere. We’ve been doing it. We’re, we’re coming together in a meaningful way. The stability portion is gonna be really important, uh, but making sure that the fundamentals are there so that we can execute at a high level.

Ryan Embree:
Well, really exciting. Like I said, we’ve had a lot of your team members here talking about all the strategic growth. Uh, love to continue to see hotel equities and, and what’s next. Hope to see, uh, you here and, um, everyone transform together. So Al thank you so much for taking the time.

Albert Smith:
Ryan, It was a pleasure. Thank you, Sir.

Ryan Embree:
All right.

Ryan Embree:
To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell, with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host, Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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’ve been here, uh, you know, just less than a year coming up on a year. Um, tell us about, you know, obviously, uh, chief Development Officer always looking for new opportunities for the business. But tell, talk to us a little bit about your role, um, with, within Ho Hotel equities.

Greg O’Stean:
So, so my role is really the, it’s the intersection of the type of owners that we want to have, but people that actually own the hotels that we manage. Uh, because today we have largely one type of owner profile, and there’s really five or six out there, more institutional owners, more private equity groups, more family offices. Each owner profile has a different, you know, different, uh, goals, different hold periods, different things that they’re looking for. And so we wanna diversify our owner base. We also want to diversify our geographic base. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Grow into markets where we’re not. Um, we want to expand in the markets where we are. ’cause there’s synergies with that. But we also want to change. Really, if you look at where we are today, there’s a, we’re a company that consists largely of smaller hotels. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. A lot of select service hotels. Sure. Lot of independent hotels today. Now, because of the Springboard acquisition, um, and some larger, you know, 200, 250 keys, we’re gonna move that average up. We’re gonna give more full service hotels. We’re gonna give more luxury, more resorts. Not to abandon what built us, but to just diversify and have more to, to grow, not just for the sake of growth Yeah. But to grow strategically.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I was really looking for this conversation because I think you have some really unique insights we talked about, about the insights that you can glean from when you get a bunch of hotels together, but also when you’re talking to owners and investors constantly, I think some common trends and themes also start to percolate a little bit. They do. And you get to have to, you have the, the firsthand experience of being able to see those and hear those stories and insights from multiple people. What are you hearing right now when it comes to owners, investors, and, and a climate right now that it, again, it’s a little challenging right now.

Greg O’Stean:
It’s a challenging environment, no doubt. And that’s what we hear from the owners, right? It’s, you know, with labor costs going up, materials costs going up, inflation, but your top line is really not growing. Top line is flat at best, right? Yeah. So your margins are shrinking. Sure. So, and, and a lot of investment is reconsidering whether or not they still wanna be invested in hotels. Right. Because your typical institutional investor or real estate investor doesn’t have to invest in hotels that can choose, you know, to invest in a data center or multifamily or whatever. Yeah. So a lot of them were questioning like, well, what do I do now? Like in the past I could buy or sell or refi. It’s hard to do all of those right now. So the next best thing you can do, or the best thing you can do in a challenging environment is revisit your relationship with your manager. Right. If, if you can’t sell it for the price that you want and you can’t refinance it for the, for the proceeds that you need, and you can’t change the flag, because most of the time it’s a long-term agreement. Right. Then what can you do to make a difference? Reconsider your relationship with your manager. Yeah. And that’s the opportunity for us.

Ryan Embree:
No, absolutely. And, and especially with a portfolio, the size of yours, the sheer experience Yeah. That the organization has and the history that it hangs its hat on. Um, you know, what, what have any of these conversations kind of influenced the opportunities that you’re choosing to pursue? And I think all as equally important not to pursue right now.

Greg O’Stean:
Sometimes the best deals are the ones you don’t do.

Ryan Embree:
I’ve heard that before.

Greg O’Stean:
Yeah. And I learned something at my last, well, two companies ago, um, and this was actually a client who told us this bigger is not better, better is better. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? And there’s a lesson in there just growing for the sake of growth, just to be bigger, just to be the fastest growing. We don’t want that. That’s, that’s not what we’re about. We’re talking about strategically growing, which means the right owners, the right markets, the right types of hotels, uh, and, and really aligning our vision with the owner’s vision. Right. Why, why are they hiring us and making sure we’ve got the right relationship. It’s hard to turn deals down, but sometimes again, the best deals are the ones you don’t do sometimes.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I, I, I love that. And, and strategic growth, what you’re talking about. How do you, uh, you know, without giving any maybe secrets away of, of the trade, like what, what do those conversations sound like to differentiate hotel equities? Um, because it feels like, along with, uh, obviously a new brand popping up, there’s also another ho hotel management company around the corner.

Greg O’Stean:
Yeah. Everybody, when we talk to them, everybody wants to know what makes hotel equities better, special or different, right? Because it’s easy to put all third party management companies into a, a bucket and say, you’re all a commodity, you’re all about the same. So what is it that we do that’s better special or different? And the answer is really in the performance of the hotels, right? We, we have to be able to tell stories that relate to that specific owner. So if that owner has a 200 room hotel in Orlando, we need to be able to show them, well, here’s three other hotels in Orlando. Here’s what it looked like when we took it over and here’s where it is today. We can do that for you. That’s what resonates with the owners.

Ryan Embree:
Well, and you got a lot of stories to choose from. Yeah. Um, on the, on the, when you kind of look at the landscape right now, are there any, you talked about geography, are there, are there any places you think that there are opportunity asset types? Uh, you mentioned.

Greg O’Stean:
We definitely want to do, uh, more luxury, more upper upscale, larger hotels. We’re not, we don’t have much of a presence in the Northeast, so there’s a lot of opportunity for us up there. We should have a larger presence in places like Florida and Texas. So we’re working on that. We just expanded some in Texas, but Texas, as you know, is a big state. Massive. So there’s a lot of room, a lot of room there. A lot of room in Florida. Um, so, and really we, we will follow where our investors are going. The smart investors, the institutional ones are saying, okay, maybe we’re done with Nashville for now. We’re done with Austin for now because they’re renovating the convention center. Sure. Where are we going next? And we help them find those markets. We help them go to the next place.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, some of these can look, these locations, markets look very different. You know, Nashville, Austin running really, really hot right now. Yeah. Um, and again, with the expertise to be able to kind of guide those ownership and investors to say, Hey, this is, this is a good opportunity.

Greg O’Stean:
And that’s what they look to us for, right? Yeah. That is a sign of a good management company. You’re not just managing their hotels, you’re helping them manage their company by showing them, this is where we think the puck is going. Right? This is where we think the next opportunities for your company will be, are in Kalispell, Montana. Right. Wherever they may not be thinking because they’re so focused on, okay, what’s happening in my portfolio today? We can help them see, well, this is where you wanna be in two years, three years, five years.

Ryan Embree:
You know, a lot of these conferences, uh, that I attend, investment conferences around the country, uh, relationships, whether it’s the brand and the property, whether it’s a management company and an owner investor, those are always dissected during these, uh, yeah. These types of events. Uh, you know, hotel equity is known for being very owner aligned. What does that mean to you on the business development side?

Greg O’Stean:
Well, so the, the main reason that we are in business is to deliver better returns for the owners, the people who have entrusted us with their hotels. And a lot of our owners, the, the cash that we return to them is what’s feeding their families and sending their kids to school. Right? Yeah. So if you’re not aligned with that owner, you’re not gonna have a very long relationship. Right. It’s very different from an institutional owner that might have 200 hotels and you miss the numbers one quarter on one or two of them, you’ll have some conversations. Yeah. And, and you’ll make some adjustments. But when you’re dealing with an owner whose family is depending on the cash flow from that hotel or the next generation of that family, they need to know that they trust you. They are entrusting you with their lives, not just their investment. Right. Yeah. So it’s understanding what we’re in business for, who we’re in business for.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess especially again, with this climate, that, that’s another thing that they talk about is, is, you know, where profit profit margins are really, really tight right now. You need those trusted experts. ’cause hospitality is such a wide ranging space. You can’t be an expert at anything. So leaning on those industry experts in the places that you need them, recognizing that one you need.

Greg O’Stean:
And answering the phone when they call. And having the right person that when they say, Hey, I have an issue, and they say, I’ll get right on it. Yeah. Right. And that gets harder and harder the, the larger you become mm-hmm <affirmative>. Because you could become more layered and more structured and they say, oh, well, I used to deal with Ryan, but now Ryan is often another thing. Now I don’t know this person. It’s not the person that I had the relationship with. That’s, that’s why you have to balance growth with your relationships and, and where you’re going because you, you can’t lose that trust that you built.

Ryan Embree:
Awesome. Well, another thing that we love to do at these events, especially in hospitality, is try to predict the future, right? Yeah. Try to look into that crystal ball and see, uh, what, what do you see 12 to 18 months or even maybe hearing from owners and investors right now about what, what they want to see out there other than returns, of course. Right?

Greg O’Stean:
Yeah. So, so we get our opportunities really from three main areas. Someone builds a hotel, someone buys a hotel, or someone changes the manager of that hotel. Um, it’s very difficult to build a hotel right now because costs and returns, and in the short term, it’s just not, uh, economic to build a hotel costs too much to build Sure. For the term that you’ll, that you’ll get as far as buying a hotel. The last two year, the, the last really good year, high activity year was 2019. Yeah. Then you had COVID, the, the, the entire pandemic and the recovery from that for the last few years has been a bid ask gap between what, uh, sellers are willing to, to accept and what buyers are willing to pay. Yeah, I’ve heard that that’s, that gap is closing. So this year you’ll see more activity than last year. You’ll see. And I’m not making that, I mean, the brokers will tell you the same thing, but the brokers are always optima. If you ask, if you ask a broker, they’re always gonna, its always a good time to make a deal. Next year is better. It’s a great time to do a deal <laugh>, but, but they are, they are all saying that. But I also, in talking to the buyers and the sellers, and they have pent up demand where they’ve got to put the money to work. Right? Yeah. Especially when you’re in the institutional arena. So I’m looking for more activity on the buy sell side. I’m looking for less activity on the build side, unless it’s just a really unique opportunity. Um, and I’m looking for more activity from people changing managers because there’s less options available to them. But also I think people are generally more optimistic than they were six months ago. Yeah. Um, almost like chaos is the new norm.

Ryan Embree:
I’ve heard that. We’ve heard that a lot from industry leaders. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we’ll continue to look, um, but, you know, a stable ship here with hotel equities and Greg, thank you so much. We hope you enjoy, you’ve got an incredible two and a half days planned here, you and your team, looking forward. Congratulations. Forward. Uh, thank you for sitting out with me.

Greg O’Stean:
Thank you. I enjoyed it very much.

Ryan Embree:
Thanks. Awesome.

Ryan Embree:
Hello everyone, Ryan Embee here with the Suite Spot Podcast. We are live here at the Hotel Equities Leadership Conference 2026. I’m here with Becky Vealey, SVP of Sales, Full Service & Lifestyle Division. Thank you so much for being with me, Becky.

Becky Vealey:
Oh, thank you for having me, Ryan.

Ryan Embree:
This is exciting. I know the energy is all around. You guys have almost a thousand attendees. I heard. We do. Incredible. Next couple days full of education panels, connections, hospitality is all about. What are you most excited about for these next couple days?

Becky Vealey:
Oh, without question, the collaboration between all of our peers. Um, I think it’s great when you can get everyone together and, you know, some of these people we’ve never even met. Yeah. So it’s an amazing time to have everybody in one place collaborate, you know, um, just peer to peer, you know, collaboration.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. A lot of newcomers here. And first timer, we’ve been seeing those on the, on the badges, which is really cool. Before we get too much into it, since this is your first time on the sweet spot, tell us a little bit about your role here at Hotel Equities and maybe give us a little background on your hospitality journey.

Becky Vealey:
So I’ve been in the hospitality industry for about 30 years. Um, I joined Hotel Equities in 2022 as part of the Greenwood Hospitality strategic partner. And so I became the, uh, senior Vice President of sales for Lifestyle and full Service divisions. And so I oversee the sales initiatives for a multi-brand, uh, portfolio,

Ryan Embree:
And we’re gonna talk about that because this sales and commercial strategy has been through a ton of transformation. Mm-hmm. In fact, uh, the, the leadership conference, the whole theme is around transforming together. Yes, yes. And I think that segues great into this question. Mm-hmm. How has that commercial strategy and sales really transformed over the last couple years? Yeah,

Becky Vealey:
I, I think a lot of ways, I mean, and you’re gonna hear me repeat this probably numerous times, but that, that, uh, relationship between sales, revenue management, marketing, and operations is key. And making sure that that’s the solid foundation for any commercial strategies. Um, that hasn’t changed. You know, regardless of pre pandemic, post pandemic, that is a killer. Right. Um, and then just making sure that we’re creating a commercial strategies for the properties and being very detailed in what the property needs. Not doing a broad brush stroke Yeah. Of strategies. It’s, it’s not a one size fits all anymore.

Ryan Embree:
No, no. It’s, I mean, especially in a portfolio where we just, you know, was talking about postcard cabins that could look very, very different from, of course, full service. And, and we’re gonna talk about that here in a minute about those differences, um, and similarities between those commercial strategies. Um, where do you think that the industry still has to improve on commercial strategy right now?

Becky Vealey:
Absolutely, Ryan. So I think the commercial, um, strategies have to be tailored to the property. It cannot be a playbook that, you know, is brush striped across all the properties. And then again, strong alignment between commercial sales, revenue management, marketing, and operations.

Ryan Embree:
I think this is a great place for that. So it’s not so siloed. You can actually hear some of the challenges that maybe a revenue manager is having in one part of the country, very similar to the other one, and how to kind of combat that. So there’s that exchange of ideas that happen at a time like this that I think is really, really cool to see. Um, especially in a portfolio, a growing portfolio like yours. Now, uh, every property here wants to grow its market share, right? That’s the ultimate goal. But how do you do that without, uh, sacrificing long-term positioning?

Becky Vealey:
That’s a great question. So I think understanding the asset and the guest and the market is key to this for long-term growth. And then making sure that our rate positioning is where it needs that we have price integrity, and that we consistently execute, I think are the key things.

Ryan Embree:
And we have so much data right now, more than ever before, to kind of pull these levers and for you to get to know your guests. So, uh, absolutely knowing your guests app is gonna be critical and, and key, uh, to that. Now, we talked at the top of the episode, uh, about your title, uh, overseeing both the pool service and the lifestyle division. Uh, you talked about with lifestyle hotels, a lot of storytelling involved there Exactly. Grow, uh, that brand. Um, how is there comparisons between the two segments so you see it, Becky, and maybe some differences?

Becky Vealey:
Yeah, it’s really interesting. Uh, full service hotels, of course, lean in on various revenue streams. You’ve got transient group food and beverage banqueting, and a host of other ancillary revenue streams. And the sell cycle, of course, is much longer. And the segmentation can be a little more specific. And then on the lifestyle size, it goes back to what you mentioned. It is really the brand storytelling, the experiences, and then the activations on property are key to drive demand in the lifestyle division, you know, strategically. Um, the two may be different, but those foundational pillars of growing commercial are the same in both.

Ryan Embree:
It’s really cool to see, uh, the creativity right now in lifestyle hotels. It’s kind of having its moment right now, the activations, like see some of the programming that these properties put on, and I’m like, it’s so impressed and it’s really cool. It goes back to your point though, if you can do that in the correct way, and your guess is now the ambassador of that brand, whether it be social media reviews, um, it, it’s so important and could really be a key driver or success. Um, so where do you see kind of commercial strategies breakdown at the property level and, and what do you kind of put in place to prevent that, Becky?

Becky Vealey:
Yeah, I think lack of communication. I mean, that’s number one. Um, two, I think that there, when there is like a lack of shared accountability that always creates a breakdown and then just inconsistent execution. You know, if everybody’s not, you know, doing the same thing from the same playbook, that creates issues.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, you never wanna see that, uh, obviously happen and, and not knowing who your segment is, I think that’s what you’re talking about, uh, of kind of keeping staying in the dark. We talked about it. There’s more data out there than ever lean into that, make sure you know who you’re trying to attract and, and get to your property. Uh, we had Greg Osteen on talking about, uh, growing and diversifying the portfolio. Super exciting. How do you make sure you do that without kind of losing, uh, your vision and, and as you continue to grow and diversify Hotel Equities?

Becky Vealey:
Yeah, I, I think it goes back to the foundations, right? You know, you have to have that strong, and again, I’ve kind of a broken record here, that strong collaboration between sales, marketing, revenue management, and, uh, operations is key. Um, and then I think just always looking forward and ensuring that the messaging is correct, that we have rate integrity, and that our positioning is correct.

Ryan Embree:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Uh, wishing you a very successful next couple days. Really excited to hear about all the insights you and your team are gonna glean from this.

Becky Vealey:
Thank you, Ryan.

Ryan Embree:
Thank you for joining me.

Ryan Embree:
Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. We’re at the 2026 Hotel Equities Leadership Conference. I’m here with Marilia Pergola, VP of Ops, Caribbean, and Latin America. Thank you so much, uh, for joining me today.

Marilia Pergola:
Thank you for having me.

Ryan Embree:
We’re here. It’s, uh, middle of the conference right now. Exciting. There’s an energy buzzing around people all around. How’s it going for you? And, you know, what is something that when you’re done with the conference, you hope to have a, a, a good takeaway of,

Marilia Pergola:
I don’t even have a year with hotel equity and for me, just be here with almost what, 700 people that I think, uh, they said, uh, it’s incredible. Just to see so many new faces for me and still share all these experiences for me is, is very exciting. Yeah. And also shared the experience from us in the color region as well with the team here in the us. It’s

Ryan Embree:
One of the most exciting pieces of hotel equities. And we’re gonna talk all about that, but I want to get a little bit about your specific role and maybe a little bit about your hospitality background that led you to hotel equities ultimately.

Marilia Pergola:
So I have 26 years working in hospitality, and I have been in different roles. I have been working my career actually started at Hilton and I have been in sales revenue management, also general manager. And, uh, and now I have the opportunity to be with hotel equities and working with different brands and, uh, learning more and more every, every day, you know, so when I think my, my role at the, with the hotel equities and the hotels we operate today is really making sure that the properties, they have the support on day to day to make sure that they comply what they have to comply in terms of not just the agreement, but also with the brand, the standards, and make sure that the owners, they’re happy with the results and they’re satisfied with our, what, what we are doing at their hotels. Yeah. So this is my, my day to day

Ryan Embree:
<laugh>, I’m sure. And a lot of nuances, you know, being in that region. We’re gonna talk about it. You know, we had Greg Oste on, uh, on this interview and was talking about long-term goals of hotel equities to grow in this Cala region. Um, what, how does, how do you make that, how do you and your team make that a reality?

Marilia Pergola:
I think we go back also to operations know if we don’t have, uh, the right team on board. And I think for us, the most important thing is our team. Yeah. It’s people. If we don’t have the right people on board with us in this, uh, adventure of growing hotel equities in the color region, this is not going to work. Yeah. So for us, it’s a long term always with the, with the owners. This is what they expect. And also the brands, when you work with brands, you need to have this long-term relationship, and this is what we are working for. So we are setting up a good team in terms of operations, because if we have, uh, uh, the strategy is just to give us all, like this direction and the operational excellence, I think is the key for, for that to happen.

Ryan Embree:
And a, a key, uh, component of your strategy was to keep, uh, the, a local in-market team, uh, for that. Why is that critical? And and why was that a priority?

Marilia Pergola:
Yeah, that is critical. It’s not even negotiable, I would say. Uh, we need to make sure that, uh, it, it, that is a lot of nuances. No. And just the local, uh, labor laws, the taxes. If you don’t understand that, if you have a team that don’t understand that or just operating the hotel from far, uh, you’re gonna be reacting instead of leading. So this is not going to work. And also the owners, they need to feel that to trust us that they know what we are doing. And there’s so many things that we can do. And in the color region, you have so many countries and it’s so different. It can be so diverse that, uh, we need to understand that and not just even talking about also the, the language. You need to speak the language to communicate properly, not just with the hotel team, but also with the ownership group. Make sure that we are all aligned and we are talking all the same language, you know, and, uh, in a good way.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I mean, and, and that can, uh, you know, we talked about it, so many nuances there, uh, between different countries, I’m sure developing. Um, you already have several projects, which is really exciting. Um, any, any projects, upcoming projects that you’re excited about or even maybe a project that you feel like fits the strategy and vision of what you’re, what you’re trying to look for?

Marilia Pergola:
Yeah. We opened the first hotel that we opened the color region was the Hampton in Saint Thomas, USVI. And, uh, it’s doing very, very well. It’s a very nice product and a very good location owners, uh, happy as well with the results. Good. The, the Normalist Arenas, it’s an autograph collection. Dominican Republic, it’s an also a very nice project we just opened in November last year and is also doing very well. So I think all these projects they talk about hotel equity is growing in color region and we are super excited. Next week actually, we are opening the CITAs Resort in HaCo in Costa Rica. I’m flying from here to Costa Rica to open the hotel. And, uh, we are very excited that there’s so many other projects to, to come in the pipeline and different islands in the Caribbean and also Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Ryan Embree:
No shortage of, uh, bucket list vacations, uh, for you and your team, uh, let’s switch to an owner’s perspective. Uh, what you think excites an owner, uh, about operating in this collar region?

Marilia Pergola:
I think, well, well their focus is rent profitability, right? Yeah. That is the first one. And this is what they all they want, uh, they want, right? Uh, but I think what they’re excited and what they expect from us is that knowledge in terms of the culture and everything that we just mentioned about all the challenges. And I think nowadays, globally, we are all facing a lot of challenges. Now. It’s not just the Caribbean, Latin America. Uh, I used, we used to always here in this conferences with the hotel business, US was never a country that was facing so many challenges like it’s facing now. We are used to that in the Caribbean, Latin America region. Unfortunately, it’s our reality day to day. Uh, so I think the owners, when they know that people that know everything that is happening understand all these challenges, they feel that we are valuable. And I think this is a very important thing for these owners.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. It’s, it’s what you said, it goes from being, you know, reactive to leading. Uh, like you said, I I, I love that point.

Marilia Pergola:
And also having the, the team in field to help. Yeah. Not operating from far right. This is, I think it’s key and having the right team in place

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. Feet on the ground for sure. Definitely helps. Um, you know, the whole theme of this conference of Sears transform together, right? Uh, we talked about, you know, this is a different region with different nuances, a lot of diversity there. How do you stay true to that region but also not feel disconnected from the hotel equities as a whole?

Marilia Pergola:
Now we work as a team. What is good is that the hotel equities in the color region, we have, uh, the empowerment to make all the decisions in the, in each market. So we can do that. But we are part of all this, the entire system. No, not just the distribution system, but also the support in terms of the commercial, the distribution, revenue management, shared services. So we work all together, uh, the development team when they need help as well. Our team is also helping. So we are all working together, marketing, revenue management. Uh, we are part of hotel equities at the end, but what is important that hotel equities in the color region, we can make the decisions for the market in the market to the owners that we have the relationship.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I’m sure that’s a great selling point to owners and investors thinking about, you know, taking on, uh, what the bot,

Marilia Pergola:
It’s a peace of mind for them because they know that they’re dealing with people, they understand what they’re talking about and not just trying to explain to someone that doesn’t leave that reality.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you know, another thing at these conferences I’ve talked about before is we always like to try to look into the crystal ball, predict the future, so to speak. Um, you know, in 2026 and maybe beyond, what’s your vision, uh, for the collar region and, and how it continues to grow within hotel equities?

Marilia Pergola:
Yeah, I think first thing, we need to make sure that we are providing the support to the hotels that are under operation. Now. We need to make sure that we are not, uh, paying attention to them. Uh, but we are also working with the team to make sure that we are scaling our team to, to grow. Uh, as I mentioned too, we have our hotels under construction now. Yeah. Uh, in the pipeline. And what, it’s interesting that we have different, uh, brand tiers now from select service brand to full service lifestyle, luxury hotels. So we are working with the hotels under, uh, there are under construction, but we also always prepare to any deal that can just show up like a quick conversion. Sure. We are always ready for that. So the team, it’s all on board to, to be prepared for any quick conversion so we can step in and take the over the operation and do the best, what we do every day. Awesome.

Ryan Embree:
Well exciting times, uh, in your region and, and congratulations to you and your team. Uh, we’ll be on the lookout for all these new projects coming up. Thank you. Thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time. To join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five star reading on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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, they were hired to deal with guests and do things at the property and social media is usually put to the back because it’s like, I can’t even think about that right now. So obviously you’re having these conversations, you’re educating them of the importance. Have you seen that shift with leadership and and how seriously are they taking social media now?

Aislynn Roberts:
Absolutely. So definitely among the brand teams and the C-Suite, when you, when you talk to them, the seriousness of social media’s definitely shifted. They understand it’s important. They know the role it’s playing in the traveler’s journey and how people are using it to make a booking decision. Especially when you’re considering the younger generation who grew up on social media. So it’s a definitely different market at the individual property level. You do still have some, but some are still a little bit slow to the take in understanding it because they themselves don’t use it or they’re only using it to communicate with their friends and family. So they’re not using it as a way to plan their trips, but when you get down to it and show them how it’s using, or you talk about booking dot com’s update where that’s now through Instagram, it opens up the eyes a little bit more, but the C-suite and brand teams definitely understand it. And that’s why you’re seeing more and more brand initiatives come out regarding social media. And it’s the hotels and themselves are almost like at a scrambling trying to figure out how are we gonna meet these brand standards, make sure we’re reaching to it because they’re still a little bit scared of how to move forward.

Cassady Quintana:
Well, it’s a lot. And I don’t blame them for being scared because you know, me and you look at these social media trends all the time and every week there’s something new coming out. So I can’t imagine working in a hotel and then having to stay up to date with all this. And then on top of that, your brand is sending you these requirements. It can be a lot. So kind of when they get past that hesitation and maybe they understand it a little bit more, what’s really exciting to them on social media?

Aislynn Roberts:
Yeah, so sometimes it takes several conversations. It’s not like an overnight switch of the mind where they start to see this. So I think what I’ve learned working, especially with brand teams and C-Suite, is that they generally have two departments for everything, or not several departments for everything. They have an operations team, they have a revenue team, they have sales and marketing. So sometimes those teams don’t necessarily communicate with all the trends that they’re seeing across the board. So if your operations team handles your reputation and your online reviews, they’re not necessarily communicating the feedback and trends that they’re seeing that way into like the sales team, right? Sales teams know what they’re targeting, they know what their budget is, they know what type of groups they’re trying to reach to bring in business into the hotels. But necessarily that’s not portrayed across the board. And what I’ve learned is that when you relate the guest feedback into turning it into an easy social media content strategy, they start to see that connection. So oftentimes, especially at the property level, when I’m talking to individual GMs and they’re weary and they don’t know how to get started, I leverage their guest reviews. So, you know, your really positive feedback that highlights everything great about your hotel, the amenities your guest really love, that’s an easy property feature post for sure. You know, write something about your shuttle or your complimentary breakfast or whatever the great thing that keeps being highlighted. If you are seeing some gaps, service gaps, whether it’s concerns about a specific policy or you had a shuttle but you don’t know where to find it in those reviews, that’s a great opportunity to do an info share an update on social media where you’re sharing, Hey, this is your pickup location for your shuttle, or these are the times. I’d say a really great example is parking. We get a lot of reviews that mention parking. Sometimes it’s about, oh, the garage is confusing. I don’t know where to find the garage. Especially if you’re in a downtown market. A simple video of just driving down the street, showing where the entrance to your parking garage is, could do a lot as far as like educating and having that transparency to perspective guests.

Cassady Quintana:
I think it’s interesting ’cause you mentioned earlier about these hoteliers wanting to be perfect on social media, feeling like they have to have the right shot. They, they don’t have a professional camera, but like you said, social media, it can be super easy. Take the, take the video of driving to the garage or take a video of your breakfast spread or show a sunset outside your pool with your iPhone. We have some of the most amazing cameras on our iPhone, and it doesn’t have to be rocket science. Social media is all about authenticity, which we’ll, we’ll touch on a little bit. So kind of where are you seeing from your perspective, you know, you’re talking with multiple different kinds of hotels. What’s the difference between hotels that seem very confident in what they’re doing on social media from those that might be a little bit stuck or uninspired?

Aislynn Roberts:
So I think the main thing that separates them is when they realize that their personality matters online just as much as it does in person. So especially if you’re a property who consistently gets praised for your service and your team members and the attention that you do. So that is all their personality that’s coming across the board when they’re face to face and interacting with these guests, that same personality should mimic onto social media, right? So when you think outside the box, when you keep your true personality into your content, you start to see a little bit more success because you’re having fun with it. And that’s what social media is. You don’t wanna be so polished that it becomes a mundane task that you have to do on a weekly, monthly basis. It should be something that’s super fun, you think outside the box, but keep true to who you are and showcasing an experience. Because that uncapped storytelling that you have with social media, being able to create this experience and identify that, but also get people to dream about it and wanting to have that experience is ideally where you want your social strategy to be.

Cassady Quintana:
Yeah, absolutely. So kind of in that same lane, where are you seeing these hotels start to overcomplicate things on social?

Aislynn Roberts:
Definitely the idea that it needs to be polished, like their website. So, you know, we work with a lot of hotels that don’t have the images. They don’t have a professional, photographer that’s gonna come out, or they only have the images are on their website. And those are great images to have, but doesn’t have to be polished. Like you said, it could be a cell phone. You just go out, take a photo. I’m sure you have team members. Every property has team members that have cell phone or maybe you’ve had to tell them, Hey, don’t be on your phone so much at work. It happens, it happens here. So you know, when that happens, if they, if you kind of create this interest or you’re like, Hey, if you’re walking around the property on your break, or, if you have a restaurant and the chef makes you something to eat for lunch, take a quick photo of that dish. Use it for your social media content. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be super duper polished in order to be able to have success with it. But the more content, the more image and video you have, the better to keep your feet fresh and get people to stay connected with you.

Cassady Quintana:
Yeah, absolutely. And then kind of on the flip side of that, where are you seeing hotels underestimate, you know, a lot of the things you’re having to do is convince these hotels that social’s important. A lot of the individual properties are not seeing it yet. So what are you telling them that they’re underestimating of the potential they could have on social media?

Aislynn Roberts:
Yeah, they’re definitely underestimate the value of it. So when you talk about social media, especially if you’re looking at, if you’re dealing with maybe the revenue team or Director of Finance, for Suite Suite and the brand teams, they are all numbers based. So they expect, “Hey, we’re we’re doing a marketing strategy, we have this in place. What am I getting in return from it?” And I understand it, I get it, but social media doesn’t operate that way. So they’re truly underestimating the value of the reach associated with it versus the cost. So it’s not necessarily about what I’m getting physically in return for it, it’s the potential, the longevity. So you have this ability to tell your story in a way that nobody else can tell it. No advertising campaign that you do can tell a story the way a social media content strategy can do. And it’s the ability to really to connect with people at every point in the traveler’s journey because people are on social media looking at things in different ways. For different reasons at different times during their day. So it doesn’t matter what you post, you’re targeting everyone during that piece and during their journey.

Cassady Quintana:
Yeah. And I think it’s important. You know, we hear the ROI of social media all the time, and that’s not usually a physical number. You don’t, you don’t see that. Maybe you see it through engagements and your followers and all and clicks and things like that. But for me, I set it on my webinars before, you know, I went to a resort last year in Mexico and I felt like I knew everybody that worked there because of their social media. And that’s not something I actively told them, but I was so comfortable there already because of the things they were posting on social media. So if we can get that message across and hotels can tell their story and show their personality, like that’s what matters most to these guests on social media and that there is no number that can show that obviously them returning is a sign that it’s working, but it’s, it’s hard to give those exact numbers. And, you know, some people believe in, some people don’t. So we just keep preaching that same message. But so when our team, when we start to work with these properties and we’re talking through their strategy, maybe they’re starting from zero or they have some type of presence, how important is creativity versus consistency?

Aislynn Roberts:
Yeah. So that’s a really great question and an interesting topic because you have a lot, like when we talk about people who are scared of it, it is that creativity. They don’t know where to start with it. They don’t know to go with it. So, but when you take the concept of consistency and you talk about, SEO and like all the stuff that’s going into social media now and the searchability of it, it’s really what consistency that drives content and drives performance. So I mean, if you, if you think about it, you know, a lot of people get stuck on, oh, virals the only thing that’s successful. If you talk to anyone that’s went viral, I guarantee you most of the time the answer is gonna be it was a fluke. Right. You know, they didn’t plan it. It’s not something that they knew what they were doing, it’s just, it’s something that resonated with a lot of people and it took off. But they got to that point because they had a consistent lead into that they were consistently posting. So when that, when that one viral moment went out, then people looked at their past content, decided, oh, this is a cool page. I’m gonna stick around and follow along with it. So the concept is you need both. You definitely need both. But consistency is what drives, and if you to kind of peel it back even further, we talk about sports, right? We both like sports, right? So think of your favorite sports team. You’ve been to some games, right?

Cassady Quintana:
Of course.

Aislynn Roberts:
Do you follow them on social media?

Cassady Quintana:
Yes. Right.

Aislynn Roberts:
So the experience you see on social media is the same experience you get at the game. That’s what social media is about. You’re selling an experience. It’s not, I mean, you are selling your property, but it’s more important to sell the experience that a traveler can have. To have that connection and be able to like, Hey, I can picture myself here. So when I am in town, whether it’s two months from now, six months from now, I’m gonna think about that property when I’m planning my trip.

Cassady Quintana:
I love the sports analogy. I think that’s a good way for people to understand. You know, when we talk about hotel, social media, it’s easier to see it when you can compare it to other industries like a sporting event for example. Or maybe you’re going to a music festival or any of those things. They’re all experiences. Sometimes we think of hotels as just somewhere to lay my head at night. Of course, at the end of it, that is the most important thing of why someone’s staying at a hotel. But if you can make the full experience something that they remember, it’s more than just somewhere they laid their head at night. So, kind of shifting gears a little bit. You know, we talk about authenticity on social media. Now we’re seeing an overwhelming amount of AI kind of content. So how do you think this is gonna play into hotel strategies as we move forward?

Aislynn Roberts:
Yeah, so I do think there is a proper, a good way to use ai. I think there’s definitely a use case where AI does benefit and can help you a lot. But to your point, you know, people are definitely craving authenticity so they can spot when it’s fake really, really quickly. I mean, it’s all over now in my feed where it’s like, tell me your post is AI without telling me me, it’s ai. Right? That’s a constant thing. And every single post has hundreds of comments on it because people can feel it. They want the real stuff, they want the authenticity and the reason they want that, it goes back to they’re trying to have an experience, right? They want a true experience of what’s they can do at your property, in your area, what they can go and see things to do. So there, there is a way that you can leverage AI and think about it. Maybe not do the whole thing ai ’cause it is spot able, right? People can see it. But think about if your GM and, you know, you don’t have a lot of photos. You have only like your empty professional photos for your website, which are great for your website, but think about how you can take that, pop it into an AI image editor, say, add two guests checking into my property. And now you have this great lobby photo with actual people in it, which is a true experience, right? If I see that I am gonna see the same thing when I walk in and it enables and furthers the reach and performance of that content. ’cause now people are envisioning there. Same thing for our pet friendly hotels. I work with a lot of pet friendly hotels who love to promote that, but very little of them have images of actual pets in their property. And it’s something that I’ve always recommended. If you have someone coming in, ask them if you could take a photo of their pet. And it’s still one of the last things. But imagine again, throwing it into an AI image tool and you just say, add a pet in this guest room, whether it’s on a compliment pet bed that you have or it’s on the actual bed in your room. And just now me as a pet owner, I don’t have to worry about leaving my dog behind when I want to go and stay because I can see, oh she’ll be comfortable here.

Cassady Quintana:
I think it’s gonna be important as we continue to head through this year and we’re already seeing OTA integration with AI and Instagram and TikTok and being able to create your whole itinerary on Instagram to really focus on what the gray area of AI is on social media, right? Because what you said, the examples you gave are a great way to use AI to show a real experience that could happen. But if you’re using AI to generate images that are not possible, things that you don’t have on your property, maybe you wanna expand the how big your gym is or what the equipment you have in your gym is, that’s something we wanna stay away from. So it’s gonna be important, and I’m sure both of us are gonna be watching this year, how AI continues to evolve and how social media platforms are evolving with it and what people can post and what, what works and what doesn’t work. So kind of as we move into this year, what do you think these hotels should be paying more attention to on social?

Aislynn Roberts:
Interactions. So, and that’s actually, more of a focus for social media too. Like they’re updating their algorithms to focus on reach and true real interactions. So that’s gonna be really big, but not only just with social media also in person. So how are your guests interacting with your property, with your staff, with your amenities, what they’re using the most. ’cause that’s gonna be an easy way to develop and fill in your calendar for most of the year. If you have a set schedule of content that, you know, like I wanna cycle through fitness center posts every month because it’s a highlight. We have five peloton bikes or, or whatever equipment that your guests really love about you, it makes it easier to fill those small gaps with your creative moments. Yeah. So if you strategize on your consistent right off the bat and you know, every once in a while I’m gonna do this and, and this, then those creative moments come in and those small moments, but online interactions present a little bit differently. So it’s comments, it shares, likes, post reactions, and in those moments you get interactions throughout every piece of the traveler’s journey. So knowing what they’re interacting with the most, is it a static post? Is it a video? Is it a real or a carousel image? And that could change throughout the year and it can change year over year. So it really just depends on what travelers are doing. But knowing how they’re interacting with it, understanding that and being able to adapt to it is gonna be key to be able to continue to see performance, have success with it, and be able to promote your property the way you want.

Cassady Quintana:
Yeah. And I think it’s important, and I know our team here at TMG is constantly looking at those reports and seeing how things are performing. So it’s important for hotels that may not be working with us to set a reminder on your calendar. You know, every month I’m gonna take a look back at our interaction, see what kind of content was performing, what kind of content may be flopped and we won’t do more of that and we’ll do more of this instead. And paying attention to those things and paying attention to when they’re interacting with it, especially, you know, we’re heading almost into spring break season and then it’ll be summer. And what content is gonna resonate with those guests at that time is important. So if you’re not taking a look at your interactions, you’re just posting blindly, right? You’re not, you’re not understanding what your guests actually want to see and what they’re enjoying to see. So you personally, Aislynn what’s exciting you most about where hotel social is headed?

Aislynn Roberts:
There are a lot. So I do like that social is becoming the new search. And I have an exercise to challenge everybody that’s kind of listening here. But you know, when you take into the fact that social is the new search, how they’re using it, how the journey is becoming more integrated because of the social search, you’ll have a better idea of what strategy to put in place. And we all use social media. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody that doesn’t use social media in some manner. So when you’re on social media, you’re, there’s many moments where you’re just scrolling aimless. It’s mindless, right? You’re going through it, you’re just going through, maybe it’s right after work, you’re decompressing and you’re just scrolling through things. Me, that’s reels. I scroll through a bunch of reels and if it, sometimes it’s a quick pass rate, sometimes I watch the whole thing. Other times I’m searching with purpose and I’m scrolling with purpose ’cause I have attention behind it. Whether it’s, I wanna go to a new restaurant, so I’m gonna look them up, see what their menu items are, or if I am looking for a hotel and I wanna see what’s happening there. So those are purposeful scrolls. I’m actually trying to find something about it. So with that in mind, that’s a search engine tool, right? I’m purposely scrolling for something, try to find things. So one thing that I find that’s super enlightening when you kind of look at this is if you do sort of like a focus group, ideally non hospitality people. ’cause as hospitality people, we’re a little bit more in tune. So we might go a certain way with it. But you know, if you do both and an integration of both, but your family, your friends, ask them, let’s plan a trip to Denver, Colorado and find out where they start. You’ll be surprised. I think that most of them will start on social media now, and it’s because that mindless scrolling has created an algorithm for them that when they do Denver, Colorado, they’re gonna get videos of things to do in Denver, the best restaurants in Denver, they’re going to get all this stuff. So now they’re like, okay, this might be an interesting place. I wanna go here. And then they go to search for rooms, hotels rates and now is your property meeting the amenities that I require or the things that I need? And then it goes into, you’re moving more into that booking. So just a fun little exercise. I find it super fun when I do it, you know, whether where they start off and it’s just showing that social media is moving into this more frame and it’s getting far more focused with search and trip planning.

Cassady Quintana:
It’s not even getting just more focused on the platform itself, but we’re seeing, even on Google, there’s a tab at the top that now says short form video, right? So if you click that, that’s social media videos. So we’re gonna see that continue to evolve into Google and other actual search engines. But I love the term “social is the new search”. I feel like I’ve said that a million times and I preach it on our webinars all the time. But it’s true. And it’s just gonna continue. Again, like I mentioned, those OTA integrations, being able to do everything in one platform. I’m sure once we see the development of that, eventually there’ll be a way for hotels to add their booking right into the platform too. And that’s exciting, right? That’s exciting. And it’s exciting that you can make it that easy and you can share the, your entire experience before a guest even stays with you. So these are the conversations I wanna continue having with people. But Aislynn, thank you so much for joining me. I know we’re gonna continue to watch these trends and talk about these things throughout the year. But thank you for joining me on this first episode. It’s been a blast.

Aislynn Roberts:
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Cassady Quintana:
And thank you everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time on the Social Success Podcast.

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 careers in hospitality as more than just maybe a summer job and what exposure that must have been for you as a student. And I ran into actually the dean at FIU’s Chaplain School of Hospitality, Dr. Chang at Hunter last year. And he was telling me about all the students and the involvement as a hospitality student myself, back when I graduated all those years ago. This is the type of exposure that can really open your eyes to show the hospitality is more than operations. It can be anything, events, F&B, there’s so many different sides and unique spaces in hospitality. And getting that exposure I’m sure was, was really cool. And now you get to be the person to expose other students to that. So that’s really cool. So give us kind of our Suite Spot audience, a little bit of a behind the scenes look at your role over there at Hunter Advisors and the role that it plays in the Hunter Conference.

Madison Thibodeaux:
Yeah, so I love my role. I feel like I’m really lucky to be in this position because my job is really just talking to people, building relationships, working with our partners and really being that advocate for them. They tell us what they need, like why they’re attending Hunter, what their goals are in attending Hunter. And it’s my job for us to really give them that platform and that space to do business and have a positive experience at Hunter. So I’m really lucky to be in this role on a personal-professional development aspect level of everything. I get to meet so many people in the industry, hear about their roles and what they do, and really use that to shape who I am. You know, like how can I be doing a better job in my role? And so I feel like I’m in a really lucky space where my job is really just talking to people and making friends. Who doesn’t who doesn’t love that, right?

Ryan Embree:
But you be, you bring up an important point because you know, at the top of the episode I mentioned it, I mean this for a lot of people. I tell people all the time, you know exactly when the Hunter Conference is happening because it literally feels like it shuts down LinkedIn in the hotel space and everyone is there, Who’s anyone, and what you said, Maddie, everyone comes for different reasons. We’ve seen brand launches, we’ve seen acquisitions in mergers that happen between management companies. We say it all the time, but as much as a few years ago we had to go virtual, the event space now is more important than ever. And that’s why, deals get done in these places. Owners, brands, management companies, general managers, even all the way down to hospitality students can glean and learn so much from this event. And that’s why we are so proud to be headed there back again for the third consecutive time. But as we mentioned, a lot of new things including its location now, funny enough, last year, quick story, we were at the Hunter Conference covering it as we do, and the morning of the second day we were actually at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta doing our spotlight series. So we were actually spotlighting the property, talking to some management over there, while it was at the same time being announced that Hunter would be moving locations to that. So just some, some really cool, kind of like fortune there. But what are you most excited about of this new location and what can attendees expect from being hosted here?

Madison Thibodeaux:
So as you know, from your Spotlight series, yeah, it’s a brand new development. I think it’s been open, gorgeous for three years or so, and there’s so, it’s so modern. It’s very refreshing. There’s so much natural sunlight, which when you’re attending these conferences and with my trade show background being in convention centers and you’re in there all day, you’re like, what, what time is it? Is it still light outside? Is it dark? You don’t really get that feeling here. It’s very airy and refreshing. And I think the layout of it for our event too, it’s really, it’s an easy flow. Things are just kind of stacked on top of each other and it’s really easy to get from point A to point B. So there’s been a lot of opportunity over there for us. And then where Signia is located in downtown Atlanta, it’s right next to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the State Farm arena. And being close to those places really opens up a lot of doors for us as well. And we’re excited for our attendees to, explore that side of Atlanta a little more too. The Monday night of our event, there is a Hawks game, and the Hawks have already partnered with us and they’re offering discounted tickets for attendees. And so there’s a lot of new and exciting things attendees can explore within the Signia and also around the Signia in Atlanta while they’re there for Hunter.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so cool, Maddie, because you’re absolutely right with it being a new build Signia property, they built that for event space. They knew exactly what they were doing the natural lighting, even the stories behind, you know, if you’re an attendee or hotelier that plans to attend Hunter. And please do find out all you can about some of the names and the stories behind some of the conference rooms. It is, is really the, the, the way they described it was a love story to the city of Atlanta. Um, there’s so much meaning, and I, and I love these new builds now that put so much passion and culture of their local community into these projects. And, um, it’s really shown they’re so excited to be headed there and, and staying there for the first time. Like I said, just a little bit of a taste of it, but excited to be there. Now, another element of Hunter that maybe new to many this year is the recent Hunter, advisors rebrand. Can you share these rebrands, especially with such a strong legacy that Hunter has, it doesn’t happen overnight, right? A lot of thought process, very meticulous, a lot of intention behind a rebrand like this. Give us a little bit of a, kind of a background of the rebrand and what it means for the brand moving forward.

Madison Thibodeaux:
Absolutely. And I’m really glad you’re bringing this up ’cause exactly like you said, there was a lot of thought behind this, a lot of intention and a lot of hours from our team internally, just going through every single detail going in there with a fine tooth comb going through our website, every single line. We wanted to make sure it was portraying the Hunter voice in the appropriate way. And my favorite thing is when people stop me and say, oh my God, I saw like your new website, a new logo. It looks so great. I’m like, you don’t understand how much that means ’cause of how much time went into this. And so really our goal behind this was we wanted to have a brand that really conveyed a little bit more clarity, confidence, and connection when listening to people in the industry and not just, you know, the investors that we work with on a day-to-day basis, but the broader hospitality landscape. There’s a lot of people out there that don’t know Hunter Advisors and Hunter Conference are under one entity under the Hunter name. And so we wanted a brand that conveyed that connection a little bit better. So people know that when we’re planning the Hunter Conference, we really have this unique perspective where our organization we’re in this business on a day-to-day basis. And so really wanted to have that give a little bit more clarity and bridge that gap a little bit better between Hunter Advisors and Hunter Conference. And then going a little bit deeper with the actual design of the rebrand, you’ll see that it’s very modern and contemporary. It has a very clean look. And I think that is a testament to Hunter’s commitment to always evolving and innovating and growing and showing that, you know, we are adaptable and we listen to the industry and we want to bend with where it’s gonna take us. But at the same time, still remaining very true to our core values and what Hunter is. And it’s being that organization that’s very personal and people centric. So we’re not compromising those core values. But you don’t, evolution doesn’t mean that you have to compromise those things. And so it’s a very exciting time for us. And I’m glad you brought it up because it’s something I love talking about.

Ryan Embree:
I bet. Yeah. It’s exciting new chapter, and it still pays tribute. I mean, you, you mentioned the word family at the very beginning, you, it’s a legacy here, there’s a family, this is a family business at the end of the day. So, you know, to be able to have this rebrand still stay kind of true to what you said to its roots, but also see that it’s evolving into this new era is super exciting. And that along with the, the location change for the Hunter Conference this year, really, really excited. So we’re gonna get into it. Let’s, let’s talk about the conference. You know, a lot of work, you know, Sarah, always comes on these preview episodes and talks about how day one after the conference is done, you’re already looking to next year. So a lot of time, a lot of, sweat equity has gone into this conference. Give our audience a little bit of behind the scenes, look at what that process is like, and as you start to plan the programming for the event.

Madison Thibodeaux:
Yeah. So, I actually wanna correct, ’cause I was watching that video with Sarah and I was like, Sarah, come on. We don’t start just day one after the conference. We’re planning this year’s conference and already making notes of like, oh, let’s do this different next year. So it’s a really exciting time and especially this year with the opportunity to do everything new and in a different way. There’s a lot of things like our gears are turning. So it is a really exciting year, but with our programming in particular, I would say we approach it the same way that our advisors approach a transaction. And, you know, it’s very intentional, it’s very disciplined, and we have a deep respect for our audience. We’re always listening to them and we wanna be, you know, respectful to that and give them information that they’re here and want to hear. And so I attend a lot of industry conferences too. And so there are, there are a lot of buzzwords that go on in our industry. And for example, AI is one of them. And there’s a lot of confusion out there still, and it’s still very new and people don’t really know where to go and where to turn in that realm. And so something that Hunter wants to do, it’s something we’re being very intentional about, is when we’re hosting a session, we don’t want it to just be like a broad overview of this topic. We wanna get into those details in a sort of case study format. Like these are the tools that we, as a hotel owner, this is what we’re using, these are the partners that we have that are providing these tools to us, and this is what’s worked for us. And so something that is new this year, we’re introducing what we’re calling focus sessions. And so it’s similar to a breakout session. We’ll still have a normal breakout session track, but these focus sessions are 20-minute conversations with two to three speakers. And it’s truly, it’s a conversation, it’s a case study, here’s what’s working for us. And so these hotel owners can leave with, you know, actual actionable items. Like, this is what I should be implementing with my organization. And so we’re, we’re really trying to lean into that and be really intentional with our programming this year.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so important because it really sets the tone, especially for when you have a lot of investors. You have a lot of owners at an event. You know, some of that programming makes for great icebreakers, great sessions on, you know, maybe the start of a conversation, about something that they heard, something that resonated with them, something that they can use in that conversation when talking to an owner or a management company that’s gonna further the conversation there. And that’s where I think, again, the live event space conferences right now is in this special place because we’re in a very tricky place. I’m sure we’re gonna talk about it and, and it’s within programming, within the programming of this year’s event. But it’s going to be those, those human connections, quite frankly, that are going to move deals forward and move our industry forward, quite frankly, with some of the challenges that, that are going, the cost of labor, you know, just rising costs in almost every element of hospitality it feels like. But those conversations really spur kind of change and might be the first step towards that. So anything you’re most excited about on the agenda when you look at it?

Madison Thibodeaux:
So we do have some really exciting keynote sessions this year. Chris Nata, the CEO of Hilton is one of our keynote speakers. We have kind of parallel to the hotel industry, but we have a speaker coming to talk about the World Cup that’s gonna be hosted in Atlanta. So giving a little bit of that tourism perspective and what people can expect and what goes into planning this global event. And then also the Barat Shaw Leadership Speaker series that always happens at Hunter. This year the guest is Tony Ressler, who’s the owner of the Atlanta Hawks. And so we have a lot of these really fun, kind of industry adjacent speakers also coming to the Hunter Conference and really excited to hear those sessions.

Ryan Embree:
I love that the Hunter Conference looks sometimes, like you said, kind of adjacent to the industry because it’s sometimes those outside voices that can give some really great perspective. Because we talk about it all the time on the podcast, hospitality is really in everything that we do and in almost every vertical out there. So, of course they’re learning lessons from us. We certainly learn lessons from them especially in a time of really, deep change right now and, and transformation. So, one of the things that has stayed that is, is a staple of the Hunter Conference and, and it looks like it’s still on the agenda, is the Hunter Conference Award for Excellence and Inspiration. And this year’s recipient, Glade M. Knight, Founder and Chairman of Apple REIT. Talk to us a little bit about the award, Maddie, for those that might not be familiar and why Glade was the right choice for the recognition.

Madison Thibodeaux:
Absolutely. Yeah. So the history of this award, it was really created to honor leaders in the hospitality industry who have shaped the investment landscape, but not just through scale and success. So not just you click on their LinkedIn and you see the steps that they took to get to where they are, but really the people who have shaped it through Integrity, vision and the impact that they made on the people in their organization and the ecosystem around them. And Glad Knight is just the perfect person who embodies that. He made a really large impact in our industry. And it’s a really timely year to honor somebody from Apple Hospitality because they did just celebrate 10 years being a part of the New York Stock Exchange and also 25 years as a business. So it’s really timely for us to honor the person who got them to the position that they’re in today.

Ryan Embree:
A lot of milestones to celebrate, very strong parallels to the Hunter Conference, right. Celebrating some milestones. So 2026 will, as I mentioned, will be my personal in the Suite Spots, third time attending the conference. Love the programming that you put together. I think we shared some of that, but also the networking, right? I hear those conversations happening. We see those, you can’t, you can’t miss it. Everyone’s kind of in the lobby, it’s buzzing. That’s why I love about walking into the Hunter conferences. That energy that you feel just walking in from those conversations that are happening, you’re moving to a new location. I’m sure a challenge was to make sure that that buzz, that energy, that networking was gonna translate seamlessly to the new location. How have you and your team ensure that?

Madison Thibodeaux:
Yes, so networking is probably the most exciting part of the Hunter Conference, I would say. Like the programming is so important, but really people are coming to Hunter to do deals. So networking is a huge part. And something that’s really cool about the Hunter Conference is that just having a chair at a table is like really prime real estate at our conference. People wanna sit down and network and do deals with people. And so with our new facility, there was a lot of opportunity, what are gonna be the new hotspots where people are standing and having those casual conversations. Something new this year we’ve rebranded our exhibit hall to now be called The Hub. And we were really intentional with the design of the hub. And it’s a, the floor plan is this circular design, which was created to give that sense of the attendee, have that sense of exploration. They’re not just walking up and down aisles talking to sponsors in their booth. They’re really having to get in there, walk around, see what’s going on. And I think we’re gonna touch on it a little bit later, but our theme this year is the home of hospitality. And so the Hub is designed to look like a neighborhood. So our diamond sponsors, each of them have an activation inside the hub where, you know, their booth is thematically integrated into the neighborhood. So someone is the library, someone is the pet shop, someone is the creamery, and they’re positioned in all different areas of the hub, giving people that sense of exploration. So they wanna get around and, you know, have that starting point in networking. You walk over to IHGs Booth and they’re greeting you with, you know, a bottled water because they’re the flower shop and you need, gotta water your flowers. And so we’re really excited about that. And yeah, so there’s a lot of networking that happens at the conference and the Hub I think is gonna be the hotspot for people to go and, you know, start those conversations and we’re excited for people to see the design of that.

Ryan Embree:
I love that. I mean, you know, again, credit to you and your team for re-imagining what the sponsor floor could and should look like. Because I think you’re absolutely right. I think events have evolved and changed and the way that, you know, these attendees, hoteliers, owners, investors, what they’re looking for is also is also changed. And they’re not looking for that maybe what we would call, I guess, old school style where it’s going through, you know, and seeing the vendors and they’re standing behind a trade show booth that’s more interactive. The conversations can spur some more creativity, some activations love to see those. Because those are the things that kind of make those memorable memories, so to speak, so that you remember them after the show, which is what, which is every sponsor’s goal.

Madison Thibodeaux:
There’s something else I wanna touch on too. With the networking aspect of Hunter, something that we’re really proud of and something that I’ve heard people say to me directly is that even though Hunter brings in around 2300 attendees, the conference feels so intimate. And I think our team does a really great job at making it easy for people to casually bump into somebody and start that conversation without having to have a designated meeting with each other. And we really want, that’s a strong value of ours, is to make our event very approachable and easy for people to integrate and feel like, they can walk up to anybody and have a conversation. And something that meant so much to our team. We were just at another conference and a staff member from the University of South Carolina came up to us and we have a lot of student volunteers from all over the country that help put on the Hunter Conference on site. And she was like, our students love coming to Hunter. They say it’s just really approachable and they feel like they can actually join in on these conversations with hospitality leaders. And I think that’s really important because if students are saying it, then emerging hoteliers probably also feel that way. We want them to feel really welcomed at Hunter and know that this is the place that they can go and really have a seat at that table.

Ryan Embree:
Well, that goes back to that theme that you were talking about, home of hospitality, right? And that southern hospitality feel. So, you know, last year’s theme was Elevate Your Game. One of my favorite parts of our conversation with Sarah every year is talking about the theme. And I know it’s just a couple words, but it’s so intentional. Like the theme to each one of the conferences that I’ve been to, and I’ve seen it integrated throughout. Like once I know what the theme is, I can see it incorporated into everything. And I love that. So I wanna talk about it and touch on it and kind of talk to our audience about the thinking behind this year’s theme and the intentionality behind it.

Madison Thibodeaux:
Yeah, so I think it really goes back to what we were talking about with the rebrand and how we want people to know that Hunter is evolving, but at the same time, our roots are the same. Like, we’re still this family business. And I think at a certain level of the theme, the Signia, that is our new home. And so we’re introducing this new home to our attendees and we’re welcoming them into our home and home being where family is and to kind of really tying into how Hunter is this approachable place where people should feel comfortable and feel like they’re, they’re home with us. And so we’re just excited to really share with our industry this new evolution and new era of Hunter, but still being loud and proud about, we’re still the Hunter family at the end of the day.

Ryan Embree:
Well, very cool and eager to see, again, how you and your team kind of incorporate that theme into the event this year. We’re gonna switch gears because, you know, one interesting thing that we’ve found in common, you talked about at the top of the episode, was your journey as a hospitality student. I also went to UCF Rosen, so two hospitality students talking to each other. That’s exactly what we want to see, right? So I mentioned we have a series called the Hospitality Campus Crawl. Georgia State has a special relationship with the Hunter Conference. Talk to us about that relationship there and then maybe kind of how the Hospitality School set you up for success and where you are for your, your hospitality career.

Madison Thibodeaux:
Absolutely. So the Cecil B Day School of Hospitality at Georgia State University is a co-founder of the Hunter Conference. And so we have a really deep relationship with the team over there. And similar to my start at Hunter and Sarah start at Hunter every year, we welcome on a conference intern from the Cecil B Day School of Hospitality Student Base. At the same time we also offer free admittance for all, Georgia State students. ’cause we really want them to get involved in, they are a part of our origin story. So it’s a way we give back to that university for being a part of that team with us. And then we have the Barat Shaw Leadership Speaker series, which, you know, is put on by Mint Shaw from Noble Investment Group honoring his father. But that is a speaker series that was also partnered with the school for that speaker series to make that happen. And so there’s a really deep relationship with the School of Hospitality at the Hunter Conference. I am forever grateful for the School of Hospitality at Georgia State for where I’m at in the professional world. I was a student that really, I wanted to get involved. I wanted to know my professors, you know, really well, and I wanted them to know me in return. And that school, it’s really, you know, what you put into it is what you get back out of it. And they have a really strong commitment of fostering their students and setting them up for success. And there’s so many opportunities there and they send their students on different trips. And when I was there, I was able to go to Prague and attend the ISHC conference where, you know, Lee, our chairman is one of the members there, and some people from our board members are members there. And as a student being able to be in the room with these industry leaders, really it sets a student up for success so that they attend these conferences and they don’t feel really lost. You know, because our industry is so small, you see the same people at all of these conferences. And so it gives you that confidence and kind of helps without imposter syndrome when you’re new into the industry, if you just know a familiar face and you know, from there they can introduce you to more people. And so the school does a really good job at not just educating students in the classroom, but giving students those opportunities outside the classroom to really get hands-on in the industry, start meeting those people so that when it is time for you to graduate, you have a list of people you can reach out to for jobs. And so I’m so grateful for the school and everything that they provided to me because I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be with Hunter with without them.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so cool to hear your story, Maddie. And you know, I would just say for any hoteliers listening to this, that plan on attending, talk to these students, talk to these hospitality students. Because if you’re also looking for trends of where hospitality is headed, you need to be talking to the next generation of hoteliers and hospitality professionals, what they’re learning, what they expect from hospitality, what they’re looking for in their first job, right? We’ve talked about it all the time about this younger generation looking for an ease of technology, that they’re going to just assume that your brand, your management company, your hotel, has already implemented it into its systems. So this could be a great kind of conversation to have with the students to say, what is your expectation when you come out of hospitality school for what a career looks like? How quickly do you wanna move up in hospitality? Do you wanna stay in one place? Do you want to travel? These are all benefits and perks of hospitality and the young minds of hospitality professionals are such a great way to try to figure out what hospitality might look like 5, 10, 15 years down the line. So, we’re super excited here at the Suite Spot to announce that we will be on campus at Georgia State during the Hunter Conference to do another episode of our Hospitality Campus Crawl, at the Hospitality School at Georgia State. I’m so excited. Maddie, thank you so much for connecting me over there. We talk about hospitality connections, this is that in motion right there. So we’re, we’re so happy to feature that school and share some insights and see what these young professionals are getting ready for in this world, this ever changing hospitality world. So, we’re coming up to the end, as we wrap up, you know, I’d love to talk to the hoteliers that are having attended a Hunter conference or are really considering joining for the first time in 2026. What would you say to them, Maddie, and maybe some of your top tips for first time attendees?

Madison Thibodeaux:
I would say, you know, Hunter is the place to be. You’re missing out if you’re not there. Aside from the things we talked about, like our programming and the networking opportunities. There’s so much more that happens at Hunter beyond what you see on the program. And our partners do a great job at keeping attendees busy throughout the event. And this year, something really exciting that we’ve never done before. Two of our partners are hosting late night events on property, so really easy for anyone staying at the Signia to hop downstairs and attend those events. And it’s gonna be a lot of fun. We have some live music, maybe even a couple big artists that people might recognize at these events. And so it’s something really exciting for us. And, you have to be there to experience it. You can’t just see the pictures on LinkedIn and have fomo. You gotta be there.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I cannot wait. Its gonna be an incredible conference, I would say is if you’re planning on attending, obviously do. But just to exactly what Maddie said, embrace it. Every opportunity, so much is going on in our industry. It’s changing faster than ever. And this is the conference again that people mark on their calendar because it marks a big brand announcement or these mergers and acquisitions or just to network and get to know more of your hospitality community, which we have been so fortunate to do these last three years and we can’t wait to do again. And Marge, hopefully in some warmer conditions than it is right now, Maddie. But thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Cannot wait for March and The Hunter Conference. Any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Madison Thibodeaux:
I just wanna say thank you so much for having me, Ryan, and for highlighting the Hunter Conference. We love having the Suite Spot there every year as well. And yeah, I just hope to see everyone there.

Ryan Embree:
Alright, well thank you so much. Thank you Maddie. Thank you for listening to the Suite Spot, and we will talk to you next time. To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five-star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host, Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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 mentioned it or negatively mentioned it, but I wanna put you into the shoes of a traveler who’s just arrived. They’re finally at their destination and they’re ready to start their stay. Look at your hotel through a fresh lens. Was the hallway welcoming? Was it kind of dark? Did the elevator come right away? Were there any luggage carts available? Right? Did it excite you to see somewhere that maybe you might meet your friends down in the lobby and you guys might hang out there before you headed out later. So all of those things I challenge you to now kind of view your facility amenities from that first time arrival guest perspective.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, that’s a great point Jackie. And, you know, I started my career in hospitality as a Bellman, so, it was very easy to kind of take all of that for granted seeing that lobby. But you’re right, these travelers are more than likely seeing it for the first time. You know, one thing I’ll also say is the way that we use the facility amenities has really evolved the way that we’re building new hotels right now. Especially the work from home or work from anywhere type of traveler, that could be their office space for the entirety of their trip. So they’re looking at your lobby, they’re looking at your public space and amenities a little bit different than historically they might have done. And again, the brands, development companies, they are building for this type of traveler. So not surprising to see that category tag fall into the top five. Let’s move on to number four.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, absolutely. So, kind of shifting down this year, number four is gonna be location. So, as you mentioned, I think a lot of people feel trapped when they hear this sentiment being mentioned. Like, well, I can’t move my hotel, but actually you have a lot of power here. You can control what you’re saying about your property. And guests are mentioning your location in reviews positively, negatively, but it’s being brought up, right? Uh, so when I think about that, I think about when I’m traveling with my kids, I’ve got two young kiddos. Location is so important for me, not necessarily is it just right near the main attraction I wanna attend, or, you know, is it close to the place I’m going? But I’m looking at, are people mentioning it’s near a grocery store? Is it near a pharmacy? Is it near everything that I need or that I may need when I’m traveling with young kids? If it’s not, that’s fine, as long as I knew that. Because then I’m gonna pack, right? I’m gonna prepare for everything I might need. There’s a big mental load with that. So you can ease traveler stress and turn even just maybe what isn’t this amazing location into a positive tag if people felt like they knew what to expect with it.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I think that’s a huge part of it, is setting expectations for location. If you claim on social media or your website, that you’re close to the airport and you’re 40 minutes away from the airport, that might not be close proximity to some travelers versus another. So you’re right, the location is really based on the expectation of the traveler and what’s convenient to them. You really want to put in perspective to that traveler. If you look at, everybody has Google Maps, right? And, and has used that app for if you have your hotel and nothing else around you in the traveler’s eyes, you really have kind of failed them as far as showing them or giving them an expectation of what that location looks like. You want that thing to be filled with dots. You want them to know exactly where your restaurants are in comparison to your hotel. If there’s an airport, attractions, as you mentioned, even things like grocery store, pharmacies, minute clinics. I mean, you know, you never know, especially with, with people with families or children or pets that they might be traveling with. These are very, very important places to your traveler that that could make the difference between a good experience and a bad location.

Jackie Avery:
And I think sometimes we come in with our own feelings about, well, we have a good location, or we don’t, but think of all the people traveling. All the people staying at your hotel, you don’t necessarily know exactly what they’re looking for. You might think that your location is are just fine, but actually it’s exactly what they want.

Ryan Embree:
And a great place, again, as respond and resolve™, a great place to really put that location in perspective is your review responses, right?

Jackie Avery:
Absolutely. Someone praises your location or they express dissatisfaction. That is exactly where you get to share the details. And people reading those review responses feel informed and they trust you. And now they are excited for their trip. They feel even more prepared, they don’t feel stressed, and they’re ready to get going. And, you know, those positive sentiment tags are gonna come your way.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. So important. You know, whether it’s travel media group responding your reviews, or even a team member the property. Have them really paint a clear picture for your traveler of where they’re at location wise. ’cause obviously this being the number four tag, it’s very, very important to travelers. Moving on to number three.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. So number three shouldn’t be a surprise with over 3.6 million mentions, it’s gonna be cleanliness. So it’s moved up this year, which, I think people kind of expect this to be brought up. And I think when you’re putting this into perspective, I want you to think about the different ways you approach this yourself as a traveler. So I kind of mentioned before, if I’m traveling, you know, with my family, these might be some things I’m thinking about. Every once in a while I get to kind of have a little getaway or stay at a hotel with just me and my spouse. So my husband and I we’re going away, maybe we’re headed into our hotel room. You walk in and you’re like, wow, it’s so nice in here. It’s so clean. And you have this added positive feeling of I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m really on vacation, even if I’m traveling for business or even if I am on vacation. It’s just, just a short getaway. It is this positive feeling that compounds itself, right? So, not only that, but right now, everyone, you know, stress is high and everyone wants to acknowledge hardworking team members. So when you walk in and you see that room and you just feel the freshness and you’re excited to stay there, they’re so grateful for that hardworking housekeeping team and they want to praise that hard work. And so you’re seeing that mention in reviews more often. The tag right now is predominantly positive. People are not coming in and just saying, it was this, it was that. It’s actually just praising the hard work being done and how grateful they were to stay somewhere where that was something the property prioritized.

Ryan Embree:
It’s so cool to see, I mean, we’ve done this episode, we were talking about it off camera now for five plus years. And obviously during that 2020, 2021, even 2022 year, this was a very, this was a difficult tag to kind of talk about because a lot of guests kind of saw cleanliness through the eyes of health and safety and almost saying for hotels, if it wasn’t clean, then there was a lack of empathy or even caution towards that, that guest wellbeing. And now we’ve kind of shifted. I think the expectation is still, you know, I think everyone still expects a clean room, but it’s kind of moved away from there. And that housekeeping that you’re talking about that’s even evolved within hospitality. Now you sometimes have to opt into hospitality and overnight service and things of that nature. Sometimes you have to stay a minimum amount of nights. This needs to be clearly communicated. A big theme of this episode right, is such clear communication to set the proper expectations. If something like that is a policy at your hotel, especially around cleanliness, or you’ll see that tag, fall more on the negative spectrum, right?

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s hard, I think for people sometimes, especially right, they’re working so hard, they’re, they’re running these property teams, they’re maybe overseeing multiple hotels and they feel misunderstood. Like, well, this is the reason we have that policy and price matters to people. So we’ve been able to make this accommodation to keep our price down. And don’t the guests get that? And how do they not understand this? I think they feel upset, but also just because you have a certain policy, it doesn’t mean the sentiment is going to be negative about it. But it will be if you hide it. Yeah. Right. If a guest feels like you misled them. No review response, you know, will help you recover, recover from, you know, lying. Right. You have to be clear, you have to be transparent, and then you can just withhold what you need to do. And the guests will understand because they expected it. And if they need assistance and you assist them, of course, now you’re going to get that above and beyond praise.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I think a great parallel to that is when it, they first introduce kind of not cleaning, exchanging your towels every single night. And then it was explained that there actually was more of a green initiative and that you could opt into this. And, you know, once travelers kind of got that, and especially those savvy travelers that were doing it more and more often, they understood that this isn’t the hotel trying to mislead me or pull back on the guest expectation. It actually could be something that benefits, is a green initiative and could happen to help the planet or help the earth. Right? And then your guest feels a little bit more vested in that, and there’s that little sense of pride and good feeling surrounding it. So, and I think that’s a really good parallel whe\n it comes to cleanliness. But, so important still in the guest experience as we saw at landing at number three on this, on this list.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think now we’re jumping over to number two, right? Which feels like the perfect segue. ’cause we jumped to over 5 million mentions.

Ryan Embree:
So almost double from number.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. We’re steep, so, we’re talking about staff, which fits perfectly with everything we’ve said. Now your staff play a huge role and they’re never not going to, it doesn’t matter what kind of travel you are. If you’re traveling solo ,family, just a couple and you’re having a quick getaway, those team members make a difference. And right now, traveler expectations are going up. People want unique experiences. They want to feel like something special is happening for them. Your property wants them specifically to stay. And I will say team members are rising to that challenge. Properties are putting their best foot forward, they’re getting positive mentions and they are doing small things that really resonate with guests that feel personal. Right? It’s more than just your name on the tv. It might be that you put something in the comments that you’re celebrating and they went above and beyond the expectation there. And from the get go that staff has immediately mentioned, your special moment and your stay is off to a great start.

Ryan Embree:
Well, you think about unique stays, you said every single guest nowadays wants a unique experience. What’s unique about your property, your people, you’re never going to be able to replicate the same exact staff across any hotel. And for you to get culture and service buy-in from your individual team members, they can make or break. This is the second most mentioned aspect of your reputation online. Meaning that this has the second most important lever to impacting your reputation online. So if you get buy-in from your team members right now, which is so interesting because by the way, we spend so much time talking about AI and technology and trying to predict the future of hospitality. And yet again, the second most important or talked about part of the hotel experience right now are the people. And that is the reason why this is gonna continue.

Ryan Embree:
We’ll probably do this episode here for another couple years, or we’ll probably do this episode for the foreseeable future and staff will always be included because it is such a memorable piece of the hotel experience. And it’s cool to see, I mean, you think about those moments, I still think about to my days as a bellman or a front desk agent sitting behind the front desk and someone recognizing me because they had heard or seen my name on a review. It’s a really cool moment and it kind of a welcoming place of, you’re starting off on the right foot. It’s that first impression of, oh, you’re Ryan from, I read you about you on the reviews. It’s such a fun place and I’m sure probably one of the most rewarding spaces when you work with a hotel to see their team members celebrated and rewarded on online review sites.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn’t surprise me at all that people were praising you online, you helped everyone have a great stay that’s so fitting for you. I wanna point out in reviews, I guess, I think sometimes people kind of get in this loop where they feel like, okay, well sometimes my team members can’t fix that, or this guest expectation is unreasonable, or I can’t change that. There’s nothing I can do here. So I’m always gonna have a neutral or a negative kind of sentiment, but that’s not the case. Guests sometimes understand more than sometimes. Understand that you can’t actually fix everything, but your team member can make them feel heard, can make them feel valued and respected. And that’s what we see in review response. It’s not always that they gave me money back or they moved my room or they did this, but it’s like maybe someone, you know, there was a noisy train outside and they had a white machine. And they proactively offered it, right? Or they didn’t, there wasn’t one available, but they went and found one or they offered me some tips on how to get here more easily because I expressed frustration. It’s sometimes it’s just taking an extra minute and listening to that guest in the moment and trying to help them, even if you can’t actually fix all of the problems that staff member plays such a valuable role in helping that guest feel a bit better about whatever may be happening if things aren’t perfect.

Ryan Embree:
I completely agree. And, you know, hoteliers are always trying to figure out how to kind of pull the lever to generate more feedback and reviews. I’d be so curious to hear the percentage of reviews that are left on sites, because of an individual. Because they say, you know what? I’m gonna leave a positive review because Jackie at the front desk went above and beyond for me. And I normally don’t leave reviews, but I’m going to because she made my experience special. I’d just be so curious, again, to see people being the reason our staff or team members being the reason that a review and guest feedback, especially in positive, right? Sometimes it’s negative, but most of the time a positive review was left because of the impact that his team or staff member made.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. And definitely, and it’s almost like gift giving, right? If you take the time to praise an employee, you also feel good about that. You are like, I’m so happy I took the time to say something about the service I received. So people like to do it. So, mention it’s gonna be this situation where it keeps compounding upon itself. Just bringing more positivity and more, you know, kind of great reviews and great sentiments and eventually great stays to everyone who you know, who’s on your property.

Ryan Embree:
So powerful. So powerful to see. So we’ve made it, we’re up here at the top of the list. Number one, what was the number one top sentiment for 2025?

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. Number one. So 8.3 million mentions, kind of dominating the conversation is accommodations. So no shock there. ’cause you’re traveling and it’s your room, it’s the home away from home. I think here, what I’d like to say first is kind of put aside some of the things you immediately probably thought like you thought the bed and did they have a refrigerator? Put that aside and maybe focus a bit more on stuff that may not come as naturally, but plays such a big part of if people are happy. So again, I told you I have two little kids, so think traveling a family of four, you’re excited, you put your key, you go get in the room, you turn on the lights, how’s the lighting? Is it what you wanted? How’s the temperature? Are you comfortable? Are you worried that you’re gonna be hot or cold? Or do you not have to feel that stress as you walk in? What’s the layout? Are we gonna feel cramped in here or No, this is exactly what I expected. I can’t wait. We’re already picking our spot. I’m gonna put my suitcase here. Let’s put your suitcase there. The kids are opening the drawers, they’re looking through everything. Feel that moment because that’s what your guests are doing. They’re not walking in with a checklist going down your room details, but they’re going off what they expected versus what they arrived. Yeah. To right that moment. You, it’s so hard, I think, to do that when you’re in and out of a hotel room for the thousandth time. I’m not saying that’s easy, but it is possible. Right. Kinda like circle back to number five where I said walk in your hotel room as if it, your hotel lobby is, if it was the first time, do that every once in a while with your hotel room. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Walk in and in your mind have a different mindset. Am I a solo traveler? Am I traveling as a family? Am I having a couple’s getaway? And now walk into the room? What do you notice? Because that’s what they’re noticing and right now they’re talking about it a lot.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. They’re, it’s the number one, a aspect of their stay. Again, not surprising. Um, great perspective though on that. And I think, you know, as hospitality people, we host so many people per year, right? You could have a hundred plus rooms and all of those with a average night stay of, you know, 1.5. You know, you’re seeing so many people faces and they’re experiencing different things. Putting your yourselves in the shoes of that traveler and, and looking at those important pieces. Is it, is it too noisy Right When you come in, how’s the noise? Uh, am I concerned about my neighbors? Uh, you know, all of these things are, are normal kind of feeling and sentiments. And that’s what, how, how this gets onto review sites, right? Is is the true feeling about the stay, about the accommodations, the room, you know, this is hospitality and then it’s a combination of your staff and the entire experience. So really cool to see. Um, as we wrap up, I, I thought it’d be fun. Um, any any parts or elements of the, uh, hotel experience that you expected to be on this list or maybe were shocked that weren’t on there?

Jackie Avery:
I wouldn’t say shocked, but I would say I kind of wish it was, uh, I would say I love talking about kind of the food sentiment, not just ’cause I’m a foodie and I, I enjoy the great flavors, but, uh, because of what a powerful impact it has on people’s stay. So it didn’t make the top five, but it was an honorable mention with 2.8 million, you know, kind of different records. Yeah. It’s, it’s a big deal. And uh, I think when you hear food, you think breakfast. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But it actually, it’s so much more than that, right. It’s, you know, is there a candy dish in the lobby that people can grab from or are there treats available for your pet? Or let’s see, some people have, you know, fruit infused water at the front desk that’s just this special touch or whatever gift basket in your room that you didn’t expect with some snacks ’cause you had a late arrival. These are such memorable moments and people love to talk about them. Yes. Uh, so I wish it was in the top five. Uh, it’s creeping up every year, so maybe next year. But, uh, I’ve definitely got my eye on it.

Ryan Embree:
I think hotels are having a complete renaissance in f and b and it’s been one of the themes that we’ve actually talked about several guests on the sweet spot about how, uh, independent hotels, even branded hotels, are really leaning into the f and b side. Jackie, you know, you and your team have the pleasure of, you know, partnering with some amazing hotel partners, which also include some restaurants within there. What are some of the tips and tricks that you share with your team about responding and the nuances of responding to a restaurant review and maybe some of the things that, things that you can incorporate in the response versus maybe your hotel review?

Jackie Avery:
Yeah. So obviously I’m not gonna give away the tricks of the trade here, but, uh, I will say keep your menu close. Yes. While you’re responding, you want to know, right, uh, what the person who left the review was looking at and menus change all the time. So if you don’t even know what was available when they dined with you, how could you appropriately respond? Yeah. I would also kind of keep in mind what experience were they going into? Is it a hustle bustle hotel? Is it you can feel the vibes of the hotel from the restaurant? Or is the whole idea you’re supposed to be feeling like you’re not in the hotel anymore? Sure. So, uh, you really need to get, uh, keyed into the atmosphere and the specific menu that was available when that guest stayed. Otherwise, I think it’s really hard to give an authentic, careful, caring response.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. A restaurant in Miami Beach on a Friday night, it’s gonna have a very different atmosphere and vibe to, you know, a a branded hotel, uh, maybe off the highway, right? And, and responding to those two reviews could look and sound very, very different. My little tip, I don’t do the responding to reviews, but my little tip is storytelling. Your culinary experts, you know, telling their story, they have immense passion. Some of the most passionate people that I’ve talked to in hospitality have been, uh, chefs and f and b uh, culinary artists. To get that passion and to put it into your, uh, social media, your website, your reviews and and responses. So important. And also share if you have a story with sourcing how you source your food. Uh, local sourcing, so important right now and things, you know, travelers care about Gen Z, younger travelers. This is the type of stuff that they want to talk about, they wanna share with their friends. And again, have that kind of feel good moment there. So those are my 2 cents on tips.

Jackie Avery:
Absolutely. And you’re not wrong. Those are going to be mentioned in reviews because kind of what we mentioned earlier as well, it feels good to share that you dined at a place that was doing this Yeah. Or that was serving this. So as long as you put that information out there, they’re gonna keep spreading it.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. And reviews great barometer with how well you’re telling your story. You think you’re telling your story about your chef for your locally sourced food. If you’re not seeing that mentioned or talked about in your reviews, uh, it’s falling flat, it’s not hitting. And that’s just not for f and b, that’s for your hotel experience too. ’cause I, I’ll talk to guests on, on this podcast, they’ll share some amazing fun facts and then we will go to their website and can’t find it anywhere or their reviews and can’t find it anywhere. So make sure, you know, that’s all part of getting your team members a, a, a part of the story and sharing that with the, sharing that with the guests. Great tip. And again, you want a barometer with how well it’s working, just check the reviews and um, hopefully Jackie and her team will be responding to those. So Jackie, thank you so much. Um, always so interested to kind of hear this, this list and gear us up for 2026. Yeah. Are you, uh, thank you so much for being on the podcast and thank you for doing this with me.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, thanks for having me. I love going through it all. Um, I can’t wait to see what we’re talking about next year. I know. But uh, you know, of course I’ll work on getting you some of those data points you were interested in. Maybe we’ll get some of those staff mentions next time.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. It’ll be here before we know it. Ho Hoping for a record breaking year. It and travel is certainly not slowing down, so can’t wait to talk with you, uh, about it. And good luck to you and your team as, uh, you head into 2026 and continue to partner with our hotels across the country.

Jackie Avery:
Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much. We’ll talk to you next time on the Suite Spot. Thanks for listening. To join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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 our management company partners needs to ensure a positive guest experience while improving operational efficiency without compromising authenticity. So, you know, just seeing the real impact of these efforts is, is rewarding. I mean, I love hearing about the wins and watching our partners grow, and that’s what makes the work that we do so meaningful.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, it really is, again, so cool to be, to be a part of those wins with our hotel partners. And I think at the foundation of a lot of the innovation and advancements to our solutions, Dana, have been conversations, meaningful conversations that we’ve had with our hotel partners, not just this year, but over the years. You know, whether that’s talking to, you know, we’ve covered a ton of hospitality events, from the Suite Spot standpoint and hosted some really industry leaders and professionals, thought leaders in hospitality. And from our educational webinars that what we host our brand, ambassador Cassidy hosts every single month. Where do you think that, or why do you think it’s important rather to kind of grow in these areas and how has it helped improve the business?

Dana Singer:
You know, as you mentioned, the best way to understand what hoteliers are facing day to day is to be in a position to really listen and understand their strategies. And it just doesn’t matter, you know, if that’s in person at an event or virtually, you know, these touch points allow us to deepen our understanding of how to develop our innovation roadmap to better serve their needs. And throughout 2025, if we look back, we’ve really doubled down on our commitment by attending major industry events as a press resource. This includes the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, NYU IHIF, the Independent Hotel Show, and the Hospitality Show. And next year, we’ll be adding even more. These interviews that we conduct at these events are an important facet in keeping the industry in tune with trends and leadership strategy. It’s just one small yet crucial part of what’s shaping the hospitality industry today.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, it’s been, again, such a privilege to be able to talk to industry leaders, thought leaders, you know, across the country. You know, some of the team members at TMG have been able to speak on panels at some of these events and share their insights and what we’re learning from our hotel partners. That is the catalyst for meaningful change in hospitality because 2025, it’s been a challenging year for hotels. The industry is becoming more complex and a time, there’s almost, there’s only a finite time that a hotelier has to meanwhile their daily duties and responsibilities continue to grow. So being a resource for them, as you mentioned, Dana, on the education side, has been huge. And we’ve heard, and the feedback and engagement that we’re getting, people are craving that connection right now, especially in hospitality. It’s really, really inspiring to see and hear from, from our hoteliers. And again, 2025 big year for hospitality, big year for Travel Media Group. From your standpoint, Dana, how do you make sure as a leader, we’re continuing to make that impact that TMG’s known for?

Dana Singer:
Yeah, you know, 2025 has been very validating in terms of strengthening TMG’s position as a trusted leader and partner in the hospitality industry. And there are a number of notable highlights. We’ve worked diligently behind the scenes to develop robust partnerships with important industry platforms. This year we finalized our direct integrations with Booking.com and Expedia, and this enables us to build review response workflow efficiencies that are unparalleled in the hospitality industry. We’re also honored to lead the industry with a unique, scalable social media content creation solution that’s developed specifically for hospitality clients. We achieved several milestones with that solution, including surpassing 1 million custom-crafted social posts. And that’s especially important as today’s travelers increasingly rely on social media to make their booking decisions. We celebrated the eighth year of our Suite Spot podcast. We’ve now surpassed 190 episodes, and clearly we’re, we’re just getting started. The podcast features guests from a wide range of hotel brands and management companies, and this platform allows them to share their diverse perspectives with a global audience, with messages that resonate, across the industry. I could go on and on, but ultimately, the true measure of our impact comes from the feedback that we receive, whether it’s from our partners, listeners, or other industry professionals. It’s clear that our initiatives are making a difference, and that motivates us to keep innovating and raising the bar.

Ryan Embree:
Again, I’ll circle back to just being such a privilege to work in hospitality. You can feel the passion of the hoteliers that we work with, that I speak to on the podcast and conversations that we have across the country. It’s such a special industry that we work in that we get the privilege to work in every single day. And at the top of the episode, I mentioned this episode represents a great time of reflection to look back on this past year to see how far we’ve come as an organization with our hotel partners, and celebrating the milestones and goals that we’ve been hand in hand with our partners to help them achieve, but also to look towards the future, right? And to see what’s next. That’s always so inspiring as you kind of get geared up for a brand new year. So, Dana, as we mentioned this and we wrap up the, not only 2025, but this episode today, can you preview anything for our Suite Spot listeners, what to look forward to in 2026?

Dana Singer:
Yeah, sure. You know, our teams are already hard at work, shaping and implementing new initiatives for 2026. Every conversation we have starts with the same question. How can we better support our hotel partners in the industry as a whole? Essentially, we wanna give them what they need before they know they need it. As I reflect on 2025, it’s been a year of growth and innovation, and we’re committed to carrying that momentum, into the new year ahead, and I can promise there will be new introductions of creative strategies and solutions to help our partners succeed to all of our Gen Z subscribers. Get ready for an exciting new addition to our podcast series that focuses specifically on social media. Everyone is excited about what 2026 will bring for TMG and the hotels management companies and brands that we’re committed to serving.

Ryan Embree:
Yes, I am geared up and ready for 2026. I know me and my team, the podcast, the Suite Spot team is ready to go. We’ve got some incredible content planned for you, so stay tuned here. Very excited to see all the innovation that comes out of our organization at Travel Media Group, but also hospitality as a whole. This might be the most exciting time to be in hospitality right now with all the disruption happening, all the innovation that we hope to bring all of those value and insights to our customers, our partners and, and hospitality community every single day through, like I said, our educational webinars, our podcasts, some of the innovative solutions, that we’re partnering with hospitality in. So, again, Dana, as we kind of wrap up today, I think I’ve asked you for this the last couple years, is just kind of a final thoughts wrap up to this year as we kind of put a book into not only this episode, but 2025.

Dana Singer:
Everyone with this as we wrap up 2025. What resonates most with me is seeing how our work has helped our partners succeed. The commitment and passion that all of our team members have for our industry is evident in their work every day. They show up and take big swings that propel our partners forward. We never get tired of hearing about how our solutions support our clients by saving time, enhancing guest experiences, and ultimately strengthening their reputations. And that’s really what it’s all about for us. So, to our listeners, if you’d like to learn more about what partnership with Travel Media Group can look like or what we do, now’s a great time to reach out. We look forward to talking with you, and I can assure you, that you’re in good hands and of course to our hotel partners, thank you for your continued trust, and collaboration. And Ryan, thank you for inviting me to the Suite Spot this morning. I always enjoy spending this time with you.

Ryan Embree:
Well, thank you. I know, you know, you take time out of your day, especially around this time of year, which can be obviously really crazy with the holidays, but appreciate you having these conversations again. So inspiring, so exciting. We are ready for 2026 here at Travel Media Group. I know the industry is ready to start a brand new year and really appreciate your thoughts and insights and joining me today, Dana. So thank you for joining me on the Suite Spot.

Dana Singer:
Yeah, my pleasure.

Ryan Embree:
To all of our listeners, Happy New Year. Thank you so much for joining me. Whether this is your first episode listening or 190th, we’re so excited to be celebrating 200 episodes at some point in 2026, but again, we’ve got all credible lineup of content planned for you. But sincerely wish you nothing but the best and a happy New Year. So thank you for listening to The Suite Spot, and we will talk to you next time. To join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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 conference in Phoenix, we talk about the spectrum of from lifestyle, and now you’ve got this experiential glamping. This was the perfect topic for you and hotel equities, obviously through your management of postcard cabins, which is with Marriott’s new outdoor collection. Talk to us, how about how you guys are really capitalizing on this trend, experiential travel, that glamping that now even the big brands are trying to get into?

Ben Rafter:
Yeah, every, everybody’s trying to get into it. So we were on all of the postcard cabins, and that was kind of the feature point of Marriott’s launch of the outdoor, their outdoor segment. It’s one, it’s been great. It’s an area that’s growing two and a half, a little more than two and a half times faster than the regular hotel on the street. Now, of course, you break that down by segments it maybe two times and maybe three times. And it’s also so new for the brands that they’re trying to sort of get their arms around it. And because you, you just have to think when you’re staying in an outdoor experience, you’re not staying in a city. And when you search on Marriott or Hilton or Hyatt or whatever, the first thing you usually do is you type in New York City, you type in Seattle, you type in whatever. Well, if you’re gonna stay in the middle of the national forest where the nearest city is 2000 people and you don’t know what it’s called, like how do you even search for this kind of stuff? And then you combine that with staffing, where, the GM better have a pickup truck and be able to go to the nearest Piggly Wiggly or whatever to go find whatever’s needed because you may be an hour away from the nearest area to get the entity. There’s no Sysco truck driving by in the middle of the afternoon. And then high seasonality. And the big question I think for the industry is going to be how do you fill some of these things on a Wednesday afternoon in off season? Obviously we’re targeting groups in corporate and to make them kind of intimate experiences where 8, 10, 15, 20 people can get together. But it’s, it’s a totally different space. But the great thing is consumers are really interested in it because they’re interested in branching out from their traditional leisure stay, and now they can find this kind of stuff.

Ryan Embree:
I mean, listen, as someone who climbed Everest, right, I mean that is all about the experience. The destination and getting to that is part of the journey and part of the experience, which I think is why people love it. And they’re gonna do a lot of your marketing for you to be honest with you, between the storytelling that they’re doing on places like social media, now all of a sudden they’re telling your story and, and people are, are, are just really seeing this in a time where we’re gonna talk about in a minute, technology’s kind of taking over, but being like, Hey, maybe this is a nice little escape for me and, and something different that is going to be an experience. You know, we talk about that all the time. And a true experience.

Ben Rafter:
Yeah. And it doesn’t have to be outdoor travel. The great thing about this industry in general, and the way it’s evolving and I’m looking forward to talking more about technology, is that people want something more and more customized and more and more localized. It could be a food vacation, it could be outdoor travel, it could be adventure travel, which to me is a different category. And the way that we’re now interacting and searching for these experiences getting much more advanced and people can now find them. Versus before it was, I know I wanna stay outside, I’m gonna research some natural national parks, and where do I go from there? Right. And now it’s a wide open space.

Ryan Embree:
You wanna see how many segments our industry has gotten chopped up into go to any hospitality conference. And you’re talking about heritage, travel, food travel, like you’re talking about travel, that’s multi-generational travel, right? It used to just be business and leisure. Which one are you on now? There are so many different ways and priorities the way that people and travelers are looking at travel through a completely different lens than they did a decade ago. And I think a lot of that, to be honest with you happened. What happened in 2020. It’s interesting to see brands, management companies adapt to those and try to be at the forefront of that because it’s these emerging markets and trends are popping up and they’re becoming widely popular.

Ben Rafter:
Yeah, it got it, it was accelerated for sure. In 2020, I, there’s a comparison I like to make. Back, back when I was a kid and was learning how to ski, we had the little skinny narrow, super long skis. It was difficult. Snowboards came around and everyone complained about snowboards ’cause they carved up the moguls or whatever. I can’t remember what it was, but ultimately the snowboards made skiing better and the ski technology advanced to what we have today. And I look at the emergence of Airbnb or things like that, they’ve really pushed the traditional sort of hotel lodging space to up its game. And I think we’re sort of seeing that with all these different concepts coming out. And I think it’s needed too. And we have one advantage over some of these, some of these transient vacation plays. And that is, at the end of the day, we still the human in most of the hotels. And I think we need to up the game in terms of the level of service that the people at the hotels provide and can provide to sort of make it so, Hey, I’m staying outdoors. I’m staying in a gateway city. I’m on a food vacation, whatever, but that person actually at the hotel is going to provide value to my vacation.

Ryan Embree:
They’re gonna supplement it, sometimes even be a part of the experience there. I think that’s the big knock on what we see on Airbnb is, you have to be the housekeeper, you have to be the concierge, everything like that. And they’re starting to adjust, obviously with what they’re doing on the tech side. So it should be interesting to see, but you’re right that that competition I do think has accelerated that and really interested. We’re at a very cool inflection point right now. And speaking of, you talked about your strong tech background, Ben, you know, when you come into hospitality, where do you think we are right now in this an overall technology cycle? And then maybe you can drill down a little bit more into, when you look at your portfolio at Hotel Equities, what’s your approach to kind of this technology?

Ben Rafter:
You may have heard the, or seen the big sigh on where we’re at in the industry. Since I got here has been behind, and there are a lot of reasons for it, but we’re gradually catching up. And AI although probably not over hyped, but over talked about AI will make a major difference in the hospitality industry because of the nature of what it is, much more so than other industries. We’re just not quite there yet. So, a long-winded way of saying we’re still behind. We have a lot of legacy backbone issues and technology in general. We have too many startups chasing too few solutions and then trying to prove that they can do other solutions. But the great tipping point coming up is how people are searching for their hotel stay, whether business or leisure is changing dramatically, how the back end of the hotel is operating is changing dramatically. And some of these solutions that are being built are now targeting these areas. So I’m not excited about the past, but I’m pretty excited about the future because everyone wants to talk about the front end and search, and that’s probably the more exciting thing. But just think about scheduling workforce in a 300% hotel and how effective and efficient that is becoming. And we need it because margins are being eroded. RevPAR is flat. Well, expenses are up 5%. And so we need to be able to squeeze out every ounce of efficiency in all of these hotels. And our owners are all demanding it.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, you’re absolutely, I mean, the conversations we’ve had at covering hospitality conferences with leaders is talking about both sides of the desk. And the opportunity at both sides, because I do think we get that shiny object of the, how can we improve the guest experience andeven the sci-fi that robot coming down with the towels to do all that stuff, but it’s really gonna be those small efficiencies that get us to a closer place to what we’ve been talking about forever in our industry, personalization and, and this seamless traveler journey, right?

Ben Rafter:
Yeah. And we can figure out what, you know, we try to define a great hotel experience historically, or luxury historically, and what’s the thread count and how many fixtures are in the bathroom and all this other stuff, which is important. But now we’re nearing a point where we can understand, okay, what really means luxury or a great hotel experience to this individual guest? And it may not be five fixtures and a 600 thread count. It may mean something else, right. And the level of personalization we have is nearing where we can define that experience when the person arrives. But yeah, so that’s, it’s, it’s all really exciting. And one of the great things we’re pretty aggressive with technology as you might guess. And so we beta a lot of different products and I want to continue doing so because although, three outta four may not work to the satisfaction that we have, or four outta five, you do find the ones that do, and we can embrace and adopt those really, really rapidly.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I talked to a leader at the hospitality show back in October who said the modern hoteliers tech stack today is absolutely, it’s the most vast it’s been, and it’s gonna be very interesting to see, because so many people are doing what you’re doing, Ben, a lot of beta testing, a lot of trying out new technologies to try to calibrate it right to that point, to where we can be closer to personalization. And to your point about luxury, right? I mean, we’re even to a place now where if you’ve checked out White Lotus, the ultra luxury is actually removing technology altogether, right? So, but I think that’s, to your point of my luxury, could look very different from your luxury. And I think that’s what the true place of AI and technology is gonna get us to where we can personalize that perfect hotel experience no matter where we’re at.

Ben Rafter:
Yeah. And there’s a debate that you’ve had on this podcast and had with other people I’m sure is does AI help or hurt the most for flags for OTAs, for independence? Where is it gonna make the biggest impact? And I won’t say where I think it’s gonna hurt the most, but I do think it really, really helps sort of soft brands and independence, because soft brands and independence have the ability to tell a story, and they can augment that story through technology content sort of finally is king. We’ve been talking about content being king for 20 years, and now content finally will be king because people are searching and AI knows what I want or what you want almost as well as you do, right? And so just think of how you’ve changed using Google over the last 10 years, where now you’re generally asking it questions instead of typing in prompts, multiply that by 10, and suddenly we have AI that says, oh, I’m going to Honolulu. I usually stay outta Westin because that’s what I know, or a Marriott or whatever. But AI can say, oh, you’re gonna Honolulu here, stay at this place because it has a restaurant that you’re gonna love. They make a great cocktail, and they have this thing that you indicated you liked when you were in New York City. And so this is your thing. And of course, what AI really gets advanced is gonna say, and I’ve booked it for you and I requested this, and I’m gonna monitor it for the next 30 days to make sure the revenue managers will screw up and lower the price. And if it does, I’ll cancel and rebook it for you.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I mean, all of a sudden you’re telling your story to a little bit different audience with that and trying to capture that agent’s attention, maybe that, so that they can kind of put you front and center in the eyes of the traveler and the guests. But wanna switch our converse along the same lines, but more of a cautionary tale in hospitality and technology. What’s obviously headlining the news recently, the Marriott Sonder story, and you commented on this on LinkedIn. I saw Ben, you know, you said, and I quote Saunders shut down highlights just how complex our industry has become, where tech integration, long-term lease structures and multi-state partnership must align to create a sustainable operating model. So in a time when technology, right now, a lot of people would argue is, I mean, every day is at its peak, right? We’re peaking every single day in technology. Why is still having the right partnerships in alignment still so important? And, and we still see a Marriott Sonder story happen today?

Ben Rafter:
Taking a step away from technology, I think the real lesson learned from Sonder, and it’s unfortunate because we learned it with WeWork too, is if you’re going to lease a bunch of properties, you better make sure, you can fill those properties through thick or thin because that lease payments come in due no matter what, right? Suddenly you’re representing yourself basically, and you’re trying to fill the owner’s shoes. And WeWork failed, and Sonder I think ultimately failed because of that. But underneath it, you have to make Sonder never carved itself out as, Hey, it’s seamless technology that gets me into my room with no interaction. And what is the additional value of that, and what will somebody pay for it? And then I think they plug into Marriott, I don’t know, obviously, but they plug into Marriott for broader reach and distribution. But now you’re searching New York City, you’ve got 30 other Marriotts who all have a well-defined brand, or probably a hundred other Marriotts in New York, you’re searching somewhere, right? And the seamless technology story just got lost in the whole thing. And then it’s like, okay, why am I gonna stay at this place over these other 20 choices I see on Mary’s site? And then ultimately the whole thing collapses. But it’s a classic case, a very long-winded way of saying it’s a classic case of technology for technology state sometime just doesn’t work.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. And well, and it goes back to the storytelling part, right? Without a defined value to your brand. And if that’s not being translated to your guests, you know, it’s ultimately we saw what happens when that goes on.

Ben Rafter:
Yeah. And I’m going to put myself into the position of saying, I wanna be the last person on earth who gives up on human interaction as part of the hotel experience. And, you know, we could put in kiosks and everything like that, or robots or whatever. I think we’re better off investing in training our front of house people or all of our people, team members to interact better. And let’s use all these new technologies so that we can truly interact and provide a better experience. And yeah, maybe 25% of the audience, or 30% or 50, or whatever the number is, doesn’t wanna interact. But I think most people want the hotel experience to include people.

Ryan Embree:
We got to a place, I would argue where it was in 2020, it was almost, there was a risk to going to the front desk sometimes. So, you know, quote unquote, and people still did it, right? We still needed that human interaction, the brands made it easier than ever to get to your rooms without needing people. And we still wanted it. The, the travelers still demanded it in some way, whether it was house-keeping, whether it was interaction. So I think if there’s ever a use case, you’re absolutely right. And I’m there, I’m right there with you. I’ll be the second to last person there with you saying I don’t want that in my hospitality experience either. But we’ll switch gears here, Ben. Second, I had in late October, I told you I was out out at the Hospitality Show, caught up with Rob Robinson, a little bit colder than where he is in Hawaii, but president of the lifestyle division at Hotel Equities, we talked about lifestyle and independent hotels, we’ve talked about on this, on this episode continues to grow popularity just ever increasing. Why do you think these have remained so attractive to travelers? And how has, I mean, obviously Hotel Equities with that strategic partnership has really positioned itself as a leader in this segment.

Ben Rafter:
It’s growing because people want an experience, right? And there’s obviously a market for checking into a select service that’s the same no matter whether you’re in Dallas or you’re in Seattle or you’re in Vancouver BC right? But there’s also an equally large segment of people who are saying, whether it’s business or leisure or any of the hundred other derivations of travel, when I go somewhere, I wanna stay at a property that tells a story. And usually that story is going to be around the place. If you stay with our properties in West Hollywood or you stay where Rob is at in Hawaii, you should know you’re in Hawaii and you’re going to, you’re going to get that sense of place that you’re there. And lifestyle and independent properties just naturally can sort of expose that story a little bit better if they’re run well. And then we can market to that story. And independents have to, because the distribution capabilities of the flags are amazing, right? And so the independence, their only counter balance to that is, I’m going to market via the story that I tell and the content that I produce. And then of course, the middle ground and Marriott, and Hilton and Hyatt have done so well with it is the soft brands. And what I would like to see, or what I hope I don’t see is they start to harden those soft brands because an autograph with the flexibility to tell a story that’s still plugged into the Marriott distribution system in this case is, is a powerful thing.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. So immersive these lifestyle hotels can be offering amenities and experiences that the brand hotels are great. And I just think people, when you want consistency, consistency’s there, but everyone doesn’t want to tell a consistent story. Sometimes they want a unique story. They wanna be immersed in their in the local culture that we don’t get the opportunity to see every day. That’s why we love travel.

Ben Rafter:
But we have to embrace it too and make the investment to do it. And I think there’s some ground, there’s, there’s some work wood to chop, so to speak, in terms of, you can’t just say your hotel’s independent or a boutique or a lifestyle hotel and then not invest in content and the activities that make it there. No, I think that’s where we need to grow a little bit. And as noted earlier when we were talking, I think we’ll be forced to, because the way that people are searching for these hotels, if we don’t, then the hotel’s gonna fail.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. Listen, more seasonal, F&B options the better from local source places at these lifestyle and independent hotels, I will take that all day to make those memorable experiences.

Ben Rafter:
Well, and F&B is a good example because all of the major operators now have these relationships with the giant F&B providers, or for that matter, the giant F&E providers, and sort of turned F&B into a similar commodity. I could tell you the Sysco fries at 50 different hotels, it’s this, you know, it’s, it’s, oh, this came from Sysco or this came from over here, right? And so localized F&B and in Hotel Equities’ case, the ability to have a national relationship, but the ability to also give the independent restaurants and outlets the flexibility to do what they want with local vendors is critical. Because we’re sort of homogenizing F&B in the same way that we’ve homogenized a lot of hotels.

Ryan Embree:
I mean, that’s a microcosm of what’s going on in our industry as a whole right now, the return of the hotel restaurant, right? Which used to be, I think, a decade ago, well, decades ago, that used to be the place to be. And then all of a sudden it kind of got to that place, what you were just talking about, and now it’s reemerging. And I think a lot of brands, management companies, the smart ones are seeing that and seeing an opportunity to not just welcome, obviously outside travelers, but locals are embracing it too, about saying, Hey, you know, when you come into town, you might be staying with me, but I’m taking you to the local hotel restaurant for that experience.

Ben Rafter:
I mean, I guess it, it goes back 500 years to hotels are the gathering place. I was on a call yesterday. We have a cocktail bar named the Green Lady at one of the Hawaii hotels. And the person who runs F&B said, Hey, do I have to buy this and this and this? A memo must have come out, right? And I said, well, obviously no, like, who’s your audience? And he said, well, it’s 50. This is Hawaii, which is full of 10 million tourists and 1 million residents, right? And he said, well, it’s about 60% locals and 40% tourists. And obviously he’s buying highly, highly customized products for, in this case, for that, for that audience. And hotels have to be, it’s really easy to understand a restaurant that orders local and everything. The broader thing is the hotel needs to be the same way.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. Like I said, microcosm of what’s going on, you know, throughout the operations and brand to be quite frank, gonna switch topics again, we’re covering everything today, Ben. Hotel Equities, in February, 2026, you guys are headed out for your annual leadership conference in Las Vegas, Travel Media Group, our parent company have the privilege of attending. We’ve spoke the last couple years in sponsoring the event. This will be your first time, I would imagine. And what are you most looking forward to, and can you share the impact of events like this have on a culture right now, where staffing, over the last couple years has still been a struggle for our industry?

Ben Rafter:
So events like this are critical. And its easy to say that, but at the highest level, and what I’m looking forward to most is you don’t see everybody very often anymore. Remote work has its place. Bigger company people are going to be, I used to try to get to every single property that we had at least once or twice a year, right? And as you keep growing, that becomes a little more difficult.

Ryan Embree:
And it might be tough now.

Ben Rafter:
Exactly. And so this is my chance to see everybody. It’s everybody’s chance to see me and to see other leaders of the team. It’s a chance for people from New York City and Atlanta to meet people from Honolulu and most importantly, trade ideas and figure out what’s working and what’s not. And I think a good management company or a good operator should be doing it not just once a year, but all the marketing people should be getting together. All the finance people should be getting together. And yes, there’s a cost to that, but the amount of creativity that’s unleashed from doing it is amazing. And we have, so that’s what I’m looking forward to.

Ryan Embree:
It would be a fascinating study to see how some of these major ideas and concepts, initiatives and hospitality as a whole, the groundwork is laid at these in-person events. And I think it can be traced back to and just to speak to the importance of getting together in a time where we thought, do we really need to get together as anymore, can we just say virtual? Obviously that that has a place for it. But I think the groundswell of support when you get a number of people together in one area having the same challenges. And I think that’s a powerful sentiment when you hear someone in Honolulu and New York City having the same exact challenges and trying to get through that is ground zero for trying to create creativity and solutions, which hospitality people, I mean, you think maybe I’m biased, but we’ve got the problem solving critical thinking skills. Because you need it. It’s a skill that you need every single day. You’re practicing every single day when floor floods or, or some, yeah. So you need that.

Ben Rafter:
People still put hangers on the little fire things and then the floor floods. You wouldn’t imagine, 40 years later, but here we are. No, you’re exactly right. No good idea. Oh, I’m sure there have been a few over the course of history, but we like to say no good idea comes from one individual sitting in their home office. Tapping away all the best ideas come from people interacting.

Ryan Embree:
Totally agree. Well, obviously this is also award season and a lot of those great ideas translating to the operations. I want to congratulate your portfolio hotel equities on a few of those. Notable recognition saw Marriott’s international top performing number one, top performing management company in the US and Canada for Q3, and some individual awards, the 2025 International Association and Full Service Awards, F&B Excellence, we just talked about F&B, and then opening of the year, the Vanguard Autograph collection, Ann Arbor Autograph collection. What do these recognitions mean to you, Ben, and and how does it reflect on kind of the reputation overall in the industry for hotel equities?

Ben Rafter:
Well, I mean, anytime you get an award, it should mean a lot to, to people. And it validates what we’re doing. And it validates that we’re doing it right to win awards from all the way to partnering with Marriott, who’s been a great partner throughout the years to winning. We got a Michelin key at an independent hotel, right? And then the Vanguard launch, it’s validation, and it’s not validation of what I’m doing, it’s validation that the team members who are actually executing on this stuff are doing a great job of it. So internally, what I’d like to expand is kind of rewarding people for that, that we started giving away money for people who created ideas. We’re starting to give away awards for people who, you know, there’s always the guest service component. We got a letter from Marriott just yesterday, two days ago, some guy had taken the time to write to somebody pretty high up and Marriott and saying, look, I had the best customer serviceI’ve ever had from this individual. It was actually was at the Vanguard, oddly enough. And it’s a necessity for me and team members to recognize that, because we talked a lot about it is human aspect of this industry is the most important. And a little side story when we were on the side of the mountain creating this, creating our hotel company 15, 20 years ago, the larger than life hotel guy who was not me, he said like, one thing you can never forget. Well, you’re looking at all these spreadsheets and data and all that other stuff is there’s a real guest in the room and in Hawaii that real guest may have saved a year for their one leisure vacation, that they’ve dreamed about possibly their whole life, right? And he said, never forget that there’s a guest in the room. And then he convinced me to put my cell phone in all the rooms. And we did that for the first 11,000, hotel rooms that we had. So, and it was worth it because it, every once in a while is a reminder that, hey, we are in the service business and people are, we are people first business.

Ryan Embree:
Listen, probably some pretty interesting conversations you had with guests having a direct line to you. But I think, very sobering to hear, again, that I think that’s great advice for anyone that is struggling right now talking, thinking about are we doing enough on the technology side to keep that north star there of, there is a guest in the room. This is what people are looking for. We’re hosting people in our home. So yeah, great advice there. I’m gonna quiz you on one more piece of advice, Ben. Because I think, I started this podcast, we’re almost 200 episodes deep. I always feel like it’s my kind of mission, especially for younger hospitality professionals that just coming into the workforce now, listen, when I when I came in to to hospitality, I didn’t have the looming clouds of, you know, AI might be be taking these jobs. So what advice would you give maybe a message of hope or even advice, tips that you would give to a young hospitality professional entering their career right now?

Ben Rafter:
For sure. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people like you, people like me, CEOs. I don’t know. I mean, obviously we have a lot of competitors and we compete with them for obvious reasons, but I don’t know a single one of them that would not respond to someone who reaches out and says, Hey, how did you get where you are? What do you like doing? I think I just use a double negative in the sentence there. But, I would, I don’t know, a single one who is not willing to help expand people’s careers. And then the second thing is complacency just kills. And if you have ideas, push ’em. And I was 19 or 20 when we did our first startup, it would’ve been really real easy to not do it. And then five years later, 10 years later, life changes. And if you have the idea, push it and do it, and you’ll be rewarded for it later. And you’ll never look back and say, oh, hey, I wish I wouldn’t have done that.

Ryan Embree:
Very good. And like what would it you have said if I told you 19-year-old, Ben, that you’d be given hospitality advice to young hospitality professionals.

Ben Rafter:
When I was 19, I was terrified to reach out to people, like, why would anybody talk to me? But, you know, we’re all out there. And so I think that’s two pieces of advice. One, reach out to anybody that they’ll respond. And then two, if you have an idea, push it. People, people are, there’s a lot of self-doubt out there. You have it, I have it. You think, oh, that’s not a good idea. Well, it’s not, you prove that it’s not a good idea. There’s just as good a chance. It’s gonna be a great idea. And if you’re implementing technology, get the implementation part done because, it’s great seeing a thousand different technologies, but 9 times outta 10, they don’t talk to all the other ones we’re using.

Ryan Embree:
There’s some tech advice at the very end. I love that. Right on brand. And so wrap it up into 2025, 2026. Can you share any notable developments right now in the hotel, equities, pipelines, or even projects that within the portfolio you’re excited about right now?

Ben Rafter:
Really excited about the Caribbean and Latin America and particular Mexico. I think in some of these regions, third party operators are just emerging. I mean, obviously pretty common in the US and in Canada. We have an awesome team down there and we’ve, we’ve kind of got it in our little laboratory so they’re protected. And I just think the impact they’re gonna make next year across the Caribbean and Latin America is gonna be fantastic.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. Tons of market opportunity there. Keep hearing a lot of harder earned dollars spend down in that region for sure.

Ben Rafter:
Yeah. And fun stuff, great hotels and you know, obviously we know Hawaii pretty well. We know Florida really well. We know the traditional US vacation destinations. If I were the governor of Hawaii, I would grab about 10 members of the ledge, or 20, or as many as we could fit on a plane from Hawaiian Airlines or Alaska and fly somebody down. You probably can’t do it, but fly somebody down to Mexico, down to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, because if they could really see the quality of the product down there, they would be investing in more tourism marketing in Hawaii. So governor, uh, Josh Greenham, Hawaii pay attention.

Ryan Embree:
Well listen, we have a Suite Spot spotlight series that actually profiles some properties. You gimme a call, Ben, whenever you’re ready to spotlight one of those properties in the Caribbean, I’m happy to make the trip down there and help you out with that. So yeah.

Ben Rafter:
Awesome. I’ll look forward to it. I’m gonna hold you to that.

Ryan Embree:
All right. Well, as we wrap up the year and as we wrap up the episode, I think this is obviously a great time for a lot of reflection. Thanksgiving just happened. Looking back on 2025, what are you most proud of in 2025, and what are you most looking forward to in 2026?

Ben Rafter:
It’s, I mean, look, we got the Springboard/Hotel Equities combination done. And I’m really excited. So, we’ll call that the most proud. And I’m really excited for seeing where this combination goes in 26. But as the tech guy who seems to be more people focused than most, I mean, you look at this industry and we’ve got several thousand team members and I’m proud that they can deliver every single day. And I think everybody should say that is like, if you don’t have your team members, and if you don’t have your GMs on the front lines fighting, there’s nothing. And so I’m most proud of what they’re delivering.

Ryan Embree:
There we go. Awesome. Well, Ben, we’re excited to watch, continue to see Hotel Equities grow, wish you nothing but success, covered it all today. Got the large spectrum from your journey to tech and even Marriott, Sonder and, and covered some awards and developments. Any other final thoughts you got before we sign off?

Ben Rafter:
We’re all over the place. That’s fun. Makes it great. No, looking forward to seeing you in February. And I think you covered the most important thing. If you are young and new to this space, and Ryan, you teach and speak at I think UCF, but probably everywhere, do not hesitate to reach out. Just track somebody down and they will remember you five years later or 10 years later. And when I’ve long gone, you know, their careers will be going crazy. And that’s, you know, that’s good. We need more innovation. We need more young people.

Ryan Embree:
100% agree. Hopefully there’s another podcast sitting on here and maybe they’ll be mentioning our names as someone they reached out to back in the day that we can only hope, right?

Ben Rafter:
We’ll go to Nepal or China climb an 8,000 foot meter mountain and, on the side of the mountain we can all, we can all share stories and create the next hotel company.

Ryan Embree:
That’s all you need to do. That’s it. So, all right. Well thank you so much, Ben, for taking the time. It’s been a pleasure speaking to you and like I mentioned, wish you nothing but success. And yes, we will see you in February at the Hotel Equities Leadership Conference.

Ben Rafter:
Great. Thanks Ryan. Looking forward to it.

Ryan Embree:
Thanks Ben. And thank you for listening to Suite Spot. To join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five-star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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 bit about this project and this new chapter, for Newport Hospitality Group.

Whitney Altizer:
Website debut coming soon. We are beyond excited. This has been a labor of love. There’s been joy, there’s been passion, there’s been divine intervention. We are just so happy to see it come full circle. Really the design intention was to speak to our partners, our clients, our team members, but do it all at the same time in the same platform, right? So we’ve tailored this website so that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re looking for, you will find the ability to get the information that you are looking for and the correct person to interact with you know, in this current climate of digital changes. Its been very interesting to walk through this process. It’s a lot different than, you know, 10 years ago when, when we started on WordPress, right? <laugh> Now it’s the AI integration, it’s large language models, it’s SEO. We’re taking into account all of those things, but trying to still keep the website intuitive and engaging for anyone that would visit it and be looking for information.

Ryan Embree:
Well, it’s, it’s kind of, it’s exactly what you said, Whitney. It’s very fortuitous timing as far as, you know, ’cause I’m sure even the way that websites are being designed and kind of strategically, you know, built today, it, you said 10 years ago, I would even argue just a couple years ago, is very different in the landscape, even with the way that people are trying to look for information, whether that is, young hospitality professionals trying to find out some background, about the hotel or the culture that, which we’re gonna touch on here in a minute, to ownership groups and developers that are, you know, trying to look for information. So, great timing, can’t wait to see it. But on that, that new website is, is gonna be that diverse, incredible portfolio that Newport holds right now. And as marketing people, we always love to talk about what’s next, right? What’s in the pipeline, what exciting project, what are you, what’s getting you excited right now about either projects or, or stuff in the pipeline right now at Newport Hospitality?

Whitney Altizer:
Yeah, so the biggest thing right now is that we’re gonna be opening a new Hotel in Q1 2026. So it’s currently under build right now. It’s with a partner that we already work with, Andre Hickman and Sanford, Florida. And this is his second hotel with us. We built his first hotel. Now we’re getting to build his second hotel with him. And we’re just beyond excited to see that all come to fruition and have two hotels in the same market with the same great partner, you know. And then of course, our Chief Development Officer, Sean, is always moving and shaking. He’s always got something on the horizon. And right now we’re looking at three potential acquisitions in Virginia, two in Ohio, and then a large expansion into the Northern Territory. We’re mainly east coast right now. Those are not over the finish line yet, so I can’t quite say much more than that. But we’ve been very thoughtful about who we wanna grow with, how we wanna grow, and making sure that we’re aligned with those partners so that we’re all walking together on the same path.

Ryan Embree:
Thats fantastic. And, you know, Sanford, right here in our backyard Travel Media Group’s backyard, right down the road, right down I-4 which, which could take a little little time depending on, on when you’re going. But, uh, but, you know, so exciting to see. It looks like you’ve already might already need some new changes for that, updated website here soon with some new properties. So we’ll continue to keep an eye on that. Another aspect that really stood out to me, you know, doing some research for, for this episode, as well as talking to Brendan at the Hospitality show was the commitment to employee culture. And I saw right now on social media, which you got a huge presence on. You’re running this voice of 35 campaign. I wanna talk a little bit about that campaign, but you were actually featured on there, Whitney, and you shared, we not only invest in our people, but the relationships with our owner as well as the community. So again, maybe talk about that, that voice of 35 campaign, what you’re trying to accomplish there, and then expand a little bit more on that, investing in people, relationships, and community.

Whitney Altizer:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, voices of 35 is something that we feel like captures the heart of Newport. It puts into words why I’ve been here for 22 years. So the intention was to celebrate the whole 35 year journey, the people that made it possible internally, externally, and then to reflect on those team members and their growth. So we’re really lucky that at the corporate level, we’ve got over 10 employees that have been with us for 20 to 30 years, so do the math on that. They pretty much been around since the, the inception. And then just even within my department, you know, a lot of the commercial strategy people have the same story that I do. One of my revenue managers, him and I started on property together 20 years ago doing banquets and catering, and I’ve gotten to watch his journey beside my journey. And that’s just really what Newport is, right? We invest in the person and then we help them figure out what will fill their tank what’s their next big step? What do they wanna learn? And then offer the learning, the support, and ultimately the positions to help them have a path that is what they’re interested in.

Ryan Embree:
Love to hear it. I think it’s a true testament to what you said, Whitney. I mean, having those stories within your organization of people there that have been there a decade, you know, two decades plus is something that, you know, we had a separate series ’cause the hospitality campus crawl, where we would speak to hospitality schools and educators and talking about this next generation of young professionals. And one of the challenges was just showing that this doesn’t have to be something that you fall into. It doesn’t need to be a career that you have a summer job and now next thing you know, you look up and you’re 30 years into it, you can actually pursue this as a 30 year, 40 year career. And having those stories within your organization, again, just huge testament and testimonials to the employee kind of culture and development that you’re doing over there at Newport. And it’s, it’s certainly paid some dividends. ’cause obviously you hear that, that term all the time of happy employees equal happy guests. You have an entire page dedicated right now to some of the accolades and achievements. I wanna make sure I get all these cover all these Marriott Partnership Circle Awards, Hilton Awards of Excellence. When you see that list, Whitney, in your position, what does that mean to you and how are you using it over at Newport to kind of earn more business, both on the traveler side, demand side, as well as ownerships and partnerships?

Whitney Altizer:
Well, obviously we’re incredibly proud of those awards. It gives our owners the recognition that they deserve. They’ve trusted us with their investment and it affirms that trust. It keeps our name active and respected in the marketplace. You know, it, it gives us something to put on the new website. Well, ultimately it’s just as important to our team members. It shows them that their hard work really does pay off. These aren’t corporate level trophies. These trophies were won in the lobby at the front desk, in the laundry room on the construct call. And they represent the regal people that are doing that exceptional work. You know, from a business standpoint, it demonstrates to our perspective owners and partners that we don’t just manage the property, we invest in it and we invest in the success. You know, as a revenue person, obviously strong performance translates into even stronger revenue, which allows us to reward our employees and then also provide owners with bigger returns. When I see that list, I think pride, validation and proof that what our we’re doing for our approach actually works.

Ryan Embree:
Incredible and hope to hope to see more of those come through and hope for more updates on that websites moving forward as you open these new properties and have them in the pipeline. But speaking of along the lines of online reputation, especially we kind of talked, touched on a little bit about the digital landscape of today where, online reputation a few years ago, maybe a decade ago, used to just be, here are the comment cards and reviews that I’m getting on my TripAdvisor now. It encapsulates so much more than that when it comes to reputation and one of those being social media. And I’ve seen you guys have a really, really prioritize a strong social media presence across your portfolio. What role, Whitney, do you feel that social media is playing right now in that traveler’s booking journey?

Whitney Altizer:
Yeah, well, I’ll start with a huge shout out to Travel media group. We partnered back in the summer, and, you know, you’ve just allowed us to take what we wanted to see and translate it. And that has been just phenomenal for us. You know, to us, social media is a huge role in a traveler’s journey, right? It’s the first way that they interact with your property. So we kind of think about it in three buckets. So strategies to sell, stories to share, and then stars to celebrate. So strategies to sell. It lets the guests see the value in choosing us. You know, it highlights the offers or the packages or something unique about that hotel. Stories to share lets us bring that experience to life. So they get a taste of what it feels like to actually be on property to the point where they already have a connection before they step foot inside of that building. And then, of course, none of this is possible without stars to celebrate, right? So that is the ability to spotlight our team and our, um, our special guests and show that engagement and responsiveness in real time. So to us, social media is, it’s the tangible, interactive way that we allow a guest to experience us and want to come and be part of us.

Ryan Embree:
Well, thank you. And you know, it’s a privilege to work with partners like Newport Hospitality Group Whitney, that really get it. And you encapsulated it, and articulated it perfectly with right now what’s happening with social media, especially with the younger generation that might even use it as the first place that they do search for a hotel or a property. And it’s much more now than does something look pretty on social media. It’s that feeling that you get, right? And we’re craving that feeling, especially in a time which we’re gonna touch on in a minute, where the one thing that AI is still will struggle with hopefully is feelings, right? And sentiment. And you know, what it’s like to walk in through a lobby on a busy, after a business trip where you’ve had maybe a delay because the airlines and you’re greeted just so warmly at the front desk and everything is seamless and nice. So, you know, these are the type of feelings that we, and sentiments that we try to capture in social media, because it can create that trust and authenticity, which, which we create. We’re craving so much right now. But speaking of AI, don’t think it’d be a podcast in 2025 if we don’t touch on some sort of AI and technology. So how are you and your team at Newport Hospitality viewing AI and and are you using it to more to empower your employees, which is one way that I’m hearing a lot of people are doing that, or is it to improve the guest experience?

Whitney Altizer:
Yeah. Can I say all of the above?

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely can.

Whitney Altizer:
AI is not a buzzword to us, and we have woven it into every day. So it feels like it’s normal, like it’s part of what we do and how we execute things. We use it in all facets. So we work with Lighthouse Analytics and that helps us with all of our revenue management stuff. And where there are big changes, I come in every morning and I’ve got a bullet point for each hotel from an AI tool saying, this happened, you should do this. And then of course, we allow the revenue managers then to make decisions based on all the information. But we use Collibra’s Hummingbird for all of our sales data mining. We use Core to communicate within the hotel to all the different departments. We use guest facing apps to welcome them and solve problems while they’re there on property. So we’ve just tried to make it something that is part of daily life so that it feels more personal and is still something that is just an extension of the people not machine led.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that’s what I was talking about empowering, employees and giving them the right data. I think that is, there tends to be this trend right now in hospitality where people are just like having this FOMO effect of like, I’m not utilizing technology and AI to the degree that I should, and my competitors are doing this, or they’re seeing these robots at these, at these shows that are doing this and that, and they have an expectation of where they should be. But really all of those use cases you gave me right there, Whitney, that’s creating an ecosystem and embracing technology and AI, and I think I feel like is probably the most far forward. You know, you can be right now because we’re seeing sometimes that those robots might fall flat at a hotel. It, it’s a big splash, but it’s not helping the daily efficiencies of everything we talked about how intricate hospitality is, how many elements there are to it. So there’s a lot of use cases in there. And finding those little ways I think is gonna be more impactful than going after the shiny big AI and technology that that, that seems so futuristic out there. And maybe your guests don’t respond to that as well as likely. So I talked about at the top of the episode, meeting up with SVP and COO, Brenda McCoy at the 2025 Hospitality Show in Denver, Whitney, a lot of panels centered around challenges to profitability right now, margins are tighter than ever, especially in today’s climate. The travelers feeling it in their pocketbooks or wallets. Where do you think there’s opportunity right now, Whitney, when you see our industry, especially for hoteliers and owners who are starting to really feel the weight of that economic uncertainty right now?

Whitney Altizer:
Brendan and I talk about this with our teams every day. Obviously operations and commercial strategy are walking together, intertwined, the days of set it and forget it, they don’t exist anymore. Every hotel, we have a very targeted plan right now to go after their business and their specific markets, because every market is different right now. The Strat calls some markets, the philosophy is, okay, we’re gonna use really competitive rates. We’re gonna drive occupancy, and then when a DR starts to recover, we’re gonna push up. We’ve got some hotels where it’s all about that base business and we’re having a hard time finding it right now. And so it’s, what are those new creative non-typical pieces of business that we should go after? Are we okay with the different stay pattern? Maybe we need to consider that L&R down the street that only has 50 rooms to give us right now and, and grow with them. So we work from a revenue management standpoint, but then of course, also on Brendan’s side, it’s about payroll and expenses and just managing all of that stuff. Clearly you can’t manage a hotel and a profitability, but you can certainly influence it. And so we’re just proactive and strategic, and honestly, we have to adapt on a daily basis. You know, the plan at nine o’clock on Monday morning may not be the same plan at three o’clock on Tuesday. And we’ve got a great team that helps us just do what we need to do at the right time.

Ryan Embree:
I would argue, and we might be a little biased here, Whitney, but hospitality people are, we love, we love a good challenge and ingenuity and creativity comes out in those times of challenge. And I think that’s what’s happening right now. Do we like to obviously like stress about all of this stuff and maybe not see the greatest news coming out? Absolutely not. But I do think it’s during these times where hoteliers start to get really, really creative. We raise the bar on our service because we almost have to at that point, and we kind of take it up a notch to say, okay, we’re gonna have to really fight for that occupancy right now. We’re gonna have to show that a DR has value and is worth it to our guests. And we’re we’re gonna get loyalty and get those guests to maybe spend a little bit more because of the service that we provide. So, you know, again, in a challenging time like this, I’ve been to enough of the hospitality conferences to hear the issues and, but I do think that there’s going to be some good that comes out of this time, and it’s going to be the management companies and brands that come together, like you were talking about Whitney, and come up with a well designed plan and strategic kind of cerebral plans to that that really thrive. And I think there’s still opportunity out there. It’s not, we’re not done growing as an industry. We’ve been down and out before. This isn’t there, but just to stay focused. So, one thing we switch topics a little bit to what we talked about. On this podcast, I have the privilege of an honor of having a lot of tenured hospitality professionals with ton of great experience. I’m sure you have the opportunity to interact with a lot of younger professionals. First getting into their, you know, career. I’d love to try to get just some nuggets of wisdom from leaders like you, Whitney, of what you would share. What advice would you share to the younger hospitality professional, maybe listening to this podcast early on, just trying to learn about the industry. What would you share with them today?

Whitney Altizer:
It’s really simple, Ryan. It’s live hospitality, be what our industry is, create a memorable experience with every person you interact with, whether it’s a guest, a partner, a vendor, your own team, someone in your parking lot. I think for me, a lot of my success has come from being able to be part of all those different teams. And so everyone sees I’m willing to do the hard things. I’ll roll up my sleeves, I’ll pour the water in the banquet room. I’ll do anything that we need to do to work together as a team and accomplish that goal. And to me, that’s how the trust is built. Leaders all the way down to the bottom right. And one of my most favorite quotes from Simon Sinek is that leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge. That’s the essence of hospitality. Take care of people, they’ll take care of the guests, the owner, the business, and if you take care of each other, you will be successful.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, I love it. I mean, hospitality along with, again, being creative and, and in our problem solving, it’s also the ultimate team sport. Everyone has to kinda work together within that organization, within that hotel and ecosystem to make the best day. Your a tribute to that, to that story of be open to any opportunities too. Learn everything, you can be a sponge in hospitality because you never know what your next position is and the skills are so transferrable, right? Hospitality, it might be a different market like you mentioned in Sanford than up north right now, but the hospitality is the same, it’s still hosting guests, serving people, exactly what you were talking about, taking care of people. So, love that. Thank you for that, Whitney, if you can believe it, we are coming up on the end of 2025 and we’re headed straight to 2026. I mean, this feels like one of the, one of the fastest years as we reflect. This is always, I love this time of year, Whitney, ’cause it’s a great time to reflect on, on this past year and we love to look forward in hospitality, but also reflecting back, what would you say your biggest takeaway for 2025 is, and then looking ahead, you know, what are you most excited about for Newport Hospitality Group as we go into 2026?

Whitney Altizer:
So for 2025, I’d say engagement, right? Engagement, meaning understanding how travel’s evolved and continues to evolve. You know, we’re sitting in the middle of a government shutdown and a lot of travel delay right now. So it’s understanding what guests need, booking behaviors, their use of technology, and again, being able to shift, to help those people in that moment. But it’s also engagement in platforms. Newport’s been lucky enough to put a lot of new technology and platforms in the last 18 months. So a lot of 2025 was built on great. We got the platform. Now that we understand how to use it the best we possibly can, are we getting everything out of it? And, we’ve brought, brought in a lot of speakers about each one of those pieces of technology to help us do trainings to make sure that the general manager gets out of it what they need. And the director of sales gets what they need and housekeeping gets what they need to ensure that those were dollars well spent and they’re gonna catapult us forward.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, we had a hospitality professional on the podcast a couple episodes ago that just said there’s no way that you can mentally be an expert in every aspect of hospitality, right? Like from the pH levels to your pool, to how you’re sourcing your food. We have a lot of unbelievable people and smart people in hospitality, but for you to be a savant with all of that stuff, it’s so challenging right now and it continues to get more challenging, especially with AI and technology that feels like it’s changing every single day. So to have those speakers have those professionals to lean on in our industry, so important. Love to hear that, that you guys are doing that. Wish you nothing but success for 2026. We’ll continue to watch that with all the new openings and, and pipeline development that you have going on. As we wrap up today, we covered a lot, advice for the young generation, AI and technology, social media, reputation, all the above. Any final thoughts before we wrap up today?

Whitney Altizer:
No, I just really appreciate the time to be able to chat with you and we expect to see you with that Comfort Inn Sanford Grand opening.

Ryan Embree:
Let’s do it. Let’s, yeah, I would love to be there. Can’t wait to see it. And like I said, Whitney, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot, sharing some of your insights and expertise, with myself and our Suite Spot, hotelier audience out there. Excited to continue to watch Newport Hospitality Group grow and such privilege to be partnered with you as well. So thank you Whitney. And thank you for listening. We’ll talk to you next time on The Suite Spot. To join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.