Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

The Social Success Series is back with a brand new episode featuring a very special guest and hospitality’s no-nonsense voice, Mr. Scott Eddy! 

Scott Eddy joins the podcast to give audiences his perspective and insights on where the future of hospitality is headed, social media growth in hospitality, and how AI technology is the biggest innovation that the industry has ever seen.

If you are looking to stay ahead of the hospitality technology curve by getting the latest hospitality information, tune in to the episode.

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 to another episode of the Social Success series. My name is Cassady Quintana and I am the brand ambassador here at Travel Media Group. And today we have an awesome guest. I am super excited, a hospitality influencer, celebrity to me. Super excited to have the no nonsense voice of hospitality. Mr. Scott Eddy, thank you so much for joining me.

Scott Eddy:

Thanks so much for having me, man.

Cassady Quintana:

Yeah, super excited. So, right now you’re in Spain. We talked a little bit about that, but for people that may be a little bit unfamiliar with you and your history, talk us through how you got involved in hospitality and how you got to where you are today.

Scott Eddy:

Yeah, so I actually didn’t come from a hospitality at all. I came from investment banking, which I think gives me a very different lens of the world. So I look at hospitality through psychology, positioning, ROI, branding human behavior before I even look at aesthetics, which actually means nothing. after my banking career ended, I went to Thailand on a two week trip, and after four days I called my mom. I was like, I’m never coming home. I love this place. And I ended up living in Bangkok for 11 years. So I went over there in 99, several years before social media came out. So for the next four or five years, I basically just partied my butt off all over Asia, made a lot of friends and just getting acclimated with the region. ’cause it was just, it’s like a different world over there. So then social media came out and I started the first digital agency in Asia, and we were the biggest for five years. And all my clients were hotels. So my very first client in this industry was the first Aman property on earth. Aman…, which was in Phuket. And that really taught me the whole quiet, luxury, luxury persona. Like that whole thing. It really like it was like a, like a, like a weight in my brain that is still there today. It’s really, really stuck with me and a lot of things that I learned from that project. Really, I use it every day.

Cassady Quintana:

Yeah. No, that’s awesome. I feel like a lot of the people I talk to and we talk to here, it’s kind of a similar story. They fall into hospitality, they don’t realize, and it happened to me too, like I was working just in normal social media marketing before I got into hospitality. And that’s kind of how it happens for a lot of people. So you live in hotels, you’re traveling constantly. A lot of people would only dream of that. I wish I could do something like that. So for you, at what point did you realize, like, this wasn’t travel anymore, but you could kind of turn that into your brand and a business for yourself?

Scott Eddy:

So, okay, so as I was doing the agency, and again, I just hired really smart people that worked at advertising agencies. And just watched them. But during that time, that’s when social media first came out. And I’m very early on every platform. I was probably first 2000 people on Twitter. And Twitter was it back then. So that’s actually where I built my brand. And I was the first American expat in every Asian country to have a million followers on Twitter, which back then got me headline news, which got me speaking gigs, which got me consulting gigs. So after a while, all my business was coming through my social media. And again, this is back when there was no term influencer, there was no term personal brand. There was no, that might have been a thing, but it wasn’t a thing. So eventually I just decided to sell the agency because it just made no sense to me to have a brick and mortar office paying 37 full-time employees when the clients are coming through my phone or my computer. Like, it just didn’t make sense. So I sold it and started traveling around. In total did 11 years in Thailand, one year in Philippines, one year in Sri Lanka, four years in Spain, one year in Portugal, and one year in London. And then I came back to the US in 2015, thereabouts. And that is when I literally blew up because that is when real budgets were starting to be applied to social media marketing. And I was approached by a PR agency as soon as I came back to be the travel host for the first video, for the first travel show that was gonna be a lifetime. And it was like a Anthony Bourdain type show. It was called Video Globetrotter. So that solidified me in the U.S. Then I just started doing just huge campaigns with F1, with Air New Zealand, with like, all these big brands. I was a brand ambassador for Lexus for two years. I mean, it was, it was very, very cool. But when I, before I came back to the States when I was in Europe, I was just looking at like what was gonna happen when I went back to the States and I was like, well, I don’t want to get a lease and like have like a normal life. I haven’t had a life for a very long time. So I ended up selling everything that I own while I was in Europe and even now. So I was born in Michigan, but I was grow, I grew up in Fort Lauderdale since I was little. I used to only have a storage unit in South Florida. So I used South Florida as a base in between all my trips. But I’m there two, three days. Like, I was just there this past weekend. I went to F1 and then I came to Europe right away. That’s awesome. So, yeah, I mean, it just happened. When did it happen? Who knows? But it just, I’ve been in the trenches of hospitality marketing for 17 years, since day one of social media. Not that we were doing social media strategies on day one. Back then it was like websites and SEO and graphic design. Remember when people paid for that?

Cassady Quintana:

Yeah.

Scott Eddy:

So the services side is very different now. But it’s fun. But it’s fun and hospitality, like it’s the greatest people in the world.

Cassady Quintana:

I couldn’t agree more. I mean, how could you not be happy with being able to travel to all these places and meet new people and stay in different hotels and you’ve experienced, a wide range of different hotels. So when you think back of all these places you’ve stayed at, for you what makes a memorable stay versus one that’s kind of forgettable?

Scott Eddy:

And I’ve had both. The difference is emotional impact. That’s it. Most luxury hotels today are physically beautiful. And emotionally empty. The industry has been become obsessed with that whole polished and everything else. But forget humanity. Guests don’t remember the sink design or the way the lobby looked. They remember how your people made them feel. And I’ll give you a perfect example, and this is not to put them down, but I just left Tulsa. I was there for eight days. I mean, you’re talking about Tulsa, Oklahoma. Like it’s not New York City, it’s not Paris, it’s not Hong Kong, it’s Tulsa. And I was at the Marriott there. And again, this is not a ultra luxury property, I’m telling you right now, I stay over 300 nights in hotels and have done so for the more than eight, nine years. This was the best employees, the best staff that I’ve ever met in my life, ever. And I’ve lived in Asia for 13 years. And Asia has, I mean, the best of the best. But I mean, it, it was crazy. Like the finance lady coming out and she’s like smiling and laughing with the staff. Have you ever seen finance person smile? Like that’s where the creativity goes to die. That’s the person who’s telling me, no, no, no, we don’t have the money for this. Like, it was unbelievable like every day I was just like pinching myself. I’m like, is this real? It was just, it was really crazy that the best experience that I’ve had ever in hospitality just happened.

Cassady Quintana:

Oh, that’s awesome. And I feel like this is something that a lot of hotels should be posting about on social media because I always say like, your hotel and the way it looks is part of the experience, but what makes it memorable or what makes it terrible for people is how the service was. So, and that can be hard to translate online. So when you are looking at a hotel, social media page for you, like what makes something make you gravitate towards it and wanna engage with it, rather than it being a promotional or sale. Like how can hotels translate that inhuman experience and how awesome their staff is and how awesome their staff makes you feel to social media so that potential guests can feel that through the phone?

Scott Eddy:

I mean, first off,I browse through social media profiles of hotels every day. I mean, I’m, I’m talking dozens and it’s, it’s honestly most of it just makes me wanna throw. It is ridiculous. We are in the most feel good, fuzzy warm feeling industry in the world. And they can’t stop taking these gorgeous pictures of rooms and dead pictures of an empty swimming pool. And like, it’s unbelievable. Most hotels, social media feels like it was approved by seven people in a boardroom and a legal department. That’s the problem. Everything is safe, polished, filtered, and emotionally flat human beings connect with people, not corporate perfection. When are you gonna wake up? Like, I don’t understand. It’s 2026. It’s almost as if they don’t have a calendar. Like show it, show the chef, show the bartender, show the housekeeper, show them, show humor. I mean, like, it’s crazy.

Cassady Quintana:

And I think that’s the thing, like when Instagram first came out, it was that opposite, right? We need the perfect photo, we need the perfect shot. We have to use the perfect filter. And now it’s, it’s kind of gone to the opposite. And maybe this is with AI becoming so pertinent in all of these things, but people want to see that real moment. Because it’s hard to imagine yourself in a perfect photo of a hotel room. Like, I wanna see someone enjoying their coffee, or like you said at the pool, things like that. So obviously you’ve followed this since it’s started and it’s changed. We’ve seen new trends. We’ve seen Instagram change its algorithm completely. So beyond that human emotion, is there anything else that you think hoteliers are still getting wrong in 2026 with their social media?

Scott Eddy:

I mean, the biggest mistake hotels are still making is thinking that content is the strategy. Content is not the strategy. Content is the vehicle. Emotional relevance is the strategy. Anybody can create content. Now, do you have a phone? You can create content, you have AI, it can create content. So the value is no longer in simply producing the content. The value is in perspective, storytelling, culture, trust, leadership, and emotional connection. That is the number one. Most hotels still have no clear voice online. What I love to ask hotels. I love to say, what is your brand personality? They don’t know how to answer. Like, how do you not know that there’s no founder visibility, there’s no staff involvement, there’s no community building. God help you if you can find a GM. They’re heading in the office. There’s no understanding of platform psychology. I was talking to a guy who is part of a group of a hotel group, and they own 11-17, they owned a bunch of hotels. And I asked him about one of the properties. So before we hopped on the call, I went on every platform to see where they are, how active they are. That way I have the ammunition. We get on the phone and I ask him, what about X, Y, Z property? I couldn’t find them on TikTok. Why aren’t they, oh, I don’t like TikTok. That wasn’t a question.

Cassady Quintana:

Right.

Scott Eddy:

And then, with me, I dive deeper. I’m like, why don’t you like it? kids dancing. Come on. That’s the way it started. I said, the average, the average age demographic that’s most active right now is 38 to 57. Luxury brands are killing it on TikTok. I love when people say can’t sell luxury on social media. What? These are the people that aren’t on their phones. Right. Come on, man.

Cassady Quintana:

No, and I love that you mentioned that because especially TikTok, it had that, that image, especially in 2020 of just being that platform where people dance. But it goes beyond that now because we’re starting to see integrations with, Booking.com on TikTok and Expedia on Instagram. Like, there the conversation of is important is long gone. Now it’s, why are you not on this? It’s kind of almost weird and embarrassing if you’re not on social media. Like, what do you mean you’re not on social media? ’cause that is, and especially my, I’m older, gen Z, but as these new demographics start to have buying power, this is where we’re searching. Likeand it, and like you said, TikTok is now that age group of 30 to 50. Like those are the people with the most buying power. So what do you mean, like that it, and it’s hard to get people to see that sometimes because when they have that preconceived notion of what social media is, to try and get them to a point of believing in it is tough. But I mean, the proof is in the pudding. We can show them how important that is. So kind of in that same world, I mean we’re seeing a lot of influencers in hospitality now. And we actually, I did an exercise last week where I was searching, hotels and the most viral videos and most of them came from influencers. So where do you see the value with influencers in hotels and maybe where do you see that continue to go?

Scott Eddy:

The problem with the whole influencer space, and I hate that word so much. Just because influencers ruined, just like marketers ruin the term marketing. Influencers have ruined the term influencers. I mean, it’s just such a egotistical. Ridiculous word. It’s just such a saturated market. So much so that I don’t even work in South Florida and I rarely work in Florida. And if I can avoid it, I rarely work in the U.S. I’d much rather work overseas. South Florida, it’s like all the big cities are just saturated. So, I mean, of course in between all my trips I get offered to do a million free things and I’m like, bro, I’ve been building my brand for 17 years. Like I’m not in the intern stage right now. Like, I already built my brand. I don’t, I don’t need your $20 meal for Instagram posts. I appreciate it though. But I mean, most hotels, they still evaluate influencers completely wrong. They obsess over follower accounts instead of trust and audience alignment. I can’t tell you how many times, so if somebody doesn’t know me, they don’t follow me on LinkedIn or a lot of other platforms and they just look from the outside looking in and they just see a big audience. So the first thing they’re gonna say, okay, this guy’s an influencer. Which I don’t mind. I still being an influencer, I hate it. But doing that is still a lot of what I do. Because yes, I travel with a video guy. They’re get and a photographer, one of the top photographers in hospitality by the way. And they both arrive here on Friday and we’re going on a cruise. So I do travel with a video guy and we do long form storytelling. We do a lot of things and we do complete photo shoots and this and that, but they always want my distribution. So like, I would never run away from that because I have a very good audience. I’m deep in the wine world. I’m deep in the finance world. I mean, my audience spends, so I know creators with massive audiences that couldn’t drive a booking if their life depended on it. Meanwhile, smaller niche creators, which strong trusts absolutely crush it because their audience actually listens to them. Listen, it’s the micro influencers that are killing it right now. Their engagement rates are in the teens, people like me, people with over a million followers, generally if you have a anywhere from one to 3% engagement rate, you’re killing it. I get very high engagement. So I mean, I just figured it out two days ago because I’m launching a new website and new media kit and whatnot. I just did my media kit or my engagement rate on Instagram so far in 2026 and I’m at 6.5%. Oh, that’s awesome. I mean, that’s like top tier, right? For somebody in my space. But I mean, most macro, most big, I think they call ’em mega like over one, two, 3 million. You’re lucky if you get one to 2%, but the numbers still work out to somebody who has 20,000 who’s getting an 11% engagement rate. Things like that. So, I mean, hotels need to stop treating creators like vending machines. Here’s a free room now, make us viral. It’s not a strategy. I can’t tell you how many hotels tell me that they want to go viral if I can help them. And I, and I asked them, I’m like, what is getting going viral gonna do for you? And they can’t answer going viral 90% of the time, does nothing. My photographer that I traveled with, he did a hyperlapse video on a river cruise that we were on of like a locks opening up and closing. It was very cool. I think it got like 12 or 15 million. I’ve never even gotten those numbers. I mean, he’s still sitting, like, he didn’t gain a hundred thousand followers. He didn’t get 10,000 brands commenting oor wanting to work with him. Viral does nothing without a proper strategy attached to it. What I mean? So the, the problem is these brands, they don’t do the research. I can’t tell you how many times I get reached out to and they’re like, Hey, we want you to do this campaign. And I’m like, this is not even my niche. Oh, sorry. It was a copy and paste email. Well, no kidding. Of course. It was like, it just, listen, over the next few years, creators are gonna evolve into, and they already are full blown media companies, production, distribution, consulting, storytelling, community building, all of it. The creator economy, let me tell you, and I’d much rather call it that than influencer space. It’s becoming one of the most powerful engines in hospitality because the bigger AI gets, and listen, a lot of these companies will go to the wayside. But AI, the technology is here. The bigger AI gets, the more valuable humans are gonna be.

Cassady Quintana:

Absolutely. We, we say that all the time, especially because AI is gonna fuel the tech. But at the heart of hospitality is the people and it will always be the people. And you can’t replace that people to people emotion. And like you said earlier in this episode about how that’s what you remember the most right. Is how the staff made you feel. And AI will never be able to do that. So I’m glad you brought up AI because we are seeing that start to shape the traveler journey. Like I mentioned with the integrations with Expedia and Instagram and their AI agents that are building these itineraries. So where do you think AI and social media and hospitality are headed now and in probably the next couple of years?

Scott Eddy:

I honestly think that most of the hospitality industry still underestimates how massive this shift is. This is bigger than social media. This is big tech, bigger than mobile phones, bigger than websites. AI is fundamentally changing how humans make decisions, right? We’re moving from search behavior to recommendation behavior. And that changes everything. Your website is no longer the front door to your brain. AI is becoming the front door. Yeah. Travelers are increasingly asking ai what hotel fits their personality, what cruise line matches their lifestyle, where they should go for a specific emotional experience. Yeah. So now your digital footprint matters more than any more than ever. Consistency matters more than ever. The brands that survive this next era are gonna be the brands that feel the most human, have the clearest voice and create the strongest emotional connection online, generic corporate garbage. You’re done.

Cassady Quintana:

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and we’re already in the middle of that. I feel like we know a lot of us, we don’t necessarily know how big AI is gonna be and where we’ll be this time next year. I mean, I bet in just a few weeks we could be having this conversation again and it would be something new. So course it’s definitely always changing and I recommend everyone that’s listening to this episode to follow you because this is the kind of stuff that you’re talking about and you’re following and it’s, it’s super important. Hotels are busy and a lot of the time they don’t have the time to do the research. So if they can find people like you to get that information from, it’s extremely helpful because it’s, it’s changing every single day. So if you can stay up to date and understand it and what’s going on and how you need to adjust your social strategy and your marketing strategy as a whole, you’re gonna be ahead of the pack. And so with that, thank you for all that awesome information. I kind of wanna shift gears to get to know you a little bit more Sure. With some rapid fire questions. So first thing that comes to mind that you can think of. So favorite hotel you’ve ever stayed in?

Scott Eddy:

I have a couple, but let’s say Kuda Duke in Maldives.

Cassady Quintana:

Alright. I love that.

Scott Eddy:

It’s insane. Insane.

Cassady Quintana:

Okay. And then what do you think is the most underrated destination right now?

Scott Eddy:

Right now? Sri Lanka. I lived in Colombo for a year. It’s seriously underrated. I think it’s, I mean, and it’s already bubbling, right? But I think it’s just gonna explode soon.

Cassady Quintana:

Is there a best time of year to visit there?

Scott Eddy:

Just like, you’re in Orlando, right?

Cassady Quintana:

Yeah, I’m in Orlando.

Scott Eddy:

So, so just like us, winter time is their high season just like Florida.

Cassady Quintana:

Okay. Noted. Perfect. Okay. Do you have any travel habits that you swear by?

Scott Eddy:

Yeah. I, and this is a life habit. I mean, just ’cause my whole life is travel, but I wake up super early every day and I’m up for the sunrise and I go for sunrise walks. If you ever follow, especially my Instagram stories, I’d post sunrise almost every day. I think there’s no better way to start the day. I think it’s impossible to have a bad day when you start the day like that.

Cassady Quintana:

Right. That’s why they recommend you get 10 minutes of sunlight every morning. Right. There’s, there’s something to that. So definitely everyone follows Scott’s Instagram so you can get that morning motivation for your walks. Okay. One hotel that is crushing social media right now, or one that you’ve seen recently that you loved?

Scott Eddy:

Wow. That is a great question. Wow. That’s a good question. <laugh>. You can, there’s a lot out there you can tell. I didn’t really go over your notes, <laugh>.

Cassady Quintana:

That’s okay.

Scott Eddy:

I never do. ’cause that’s like the, that’s when you get the raw answers?

Cassady Quintana:

Exactly. And then you overthink it.

Scott Eddy:

Let’s go back to that. Let me think about that for a couple minutes.

Cassady Quintana:

Okay, perfect. Well that was the last rapid fire question I had. So maybe people just need to follow you and find out later..

Scott Eddy:

But let’s talk about brands as a whole. So like, I love, I love fun luxury and I guess they would call them luxury lifestyle or whatever, but I love the one hotels. Okay. All over. I really love, so if you really follow, I used to be, I used to do a lot of work with Ritz Carlton pre pandemic and now they’re just garbage. But horse, the guy who co-founded it started Capella. Capella Hotels is really cool, really fun. It’s just, I like brands that don’t take themselves too seriously. I mean, I hate the whole corporate stuffy stuff. And listen, I’m titanium bonvoy, like I stay in Marriott properties all over the world. Just so I can hit that status. Right. It’s easy because they’re large, they’re boring. The marketing is, I mean it’s, it’s so vanilla, it’s so beige. It’s so like, like it’s forgettable in 10 seconds. Never used to be, and it’s interesting. I remember when W first came out when they were Starwood. W was awesome. I mean fun, great, great, great. Like the marketing was like, just so off the chart and now they just look like any other hotel.

Cassady Quintana:

Which is so interesting. ’cause social media is like the place to be crazy and be fun because there are really no rules. And like why wouldn’t you be, especially if you were that at one time and your competitors are doing that. Why? I wanna, I wanna know like what the logic is behind that. Like are they trying to keep an image or?

Scott Eddy:

No? Well, well the ones that are that fly a big flag like Marriott and Hilton and that, they always hide behind, oh, well I can’t do that. ’cause of brain guidelines. Right? So you can’t show fun. Of course you can, right? They just hide behind the rule book and everything takes 15 approvals. So by the time you do have a good idea and you want to execute it, it’s gone.

Cassady Quintana:

It’s too late. The trend is over.

Scott Eddy:

It’s about speed.

Cassady Quintana:

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I’ll definitely go check out those brand Instagram pages. ’cause that’s the kind of stuff I like to look at. I mean, that’s what makes me as a traveler, I don’t really have much brand loyalty. So I like to do research and look at their Instagram pages and social media, and I’m gonna pick the one that looks the most fun to me. So super important. Okay. Well as we wrap up, Scott, I’m so excited we had this conversation, but for anybody that’s listening, what are you up to next? Where can they find you? You have any campaigns or exciting things coming up?

Scott Eddy:

I mean, I’m pretty much, I mean, you’re all of this month I’m going, so the, the the top vacation club company and now they’re transforming into just hotels. Nice. But, it’s called Ante in Mexico. So they just launched their ultra luxury cruise line here in the med couple weeks ago. And we’re going out there to film and, and to shoot. That’s the cruise we’re joining on Saturday. And then I’m spending the last two weeks this month in Rome. And then next month I, I’m going to Ellie Miami the first week of June. And then I go to Sicily to speak at a conference. And yeah, so I’m going nonstop and at the same time I’m doing a whole rebrand. So in the next few days I’m launching new website, new logo, new everything. So it’s fun.

Cassady Quintana:

Well, perfect. By the time this episode comes out, you’ll have your full rebrand.

Scott Eddy:

There you go.

Cassady Quintana:

So when people listen to this and they find you, you’ll be ready. So, perfect. Well, I’m excited to, to watch your travels and of course I’m connected with you on LinkedIn and love to see everything that you’re up to. I’ll make sure to follow your Instagram too so I can get that morning inspiration for my Sunrise walks. But thank you so much for taking a little bit of your time out of your day. I know you’re super busy with travel and things going on, so I really appreciate it and I know our listeners do. So thanks for joining me.

Scott Eddy:

Thanks for having me, man.

Cassady Quintana:

All right, cool. Well, thank you everybody for listening to another episode of the Social Success Series, and we’ll see you next time. 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 is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Cassady Quintana, and we hope you enjoyed this episode.

NYU IHIF 2026 was full of insights and thought leadership from some of the best and brightest hospitality professionals in the industry. 

In this episode of the Suite Spot, you will get to hear from some of the most influential and biggest names in hospitality in the exclusive interviews we were able to cover at the event. 

NYU IHIF is the epicentre of hospitality brands, capital, and fast-paced dealmaking – opportunity moves fast, and so should you. This is where the rebound takes shape, where leaders uncover what’s next, and where relationships turn into real transactions.

Ryan Embree:

Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree and VP of Marketing here at Travel Media Group.

Cassady Quintana:

And I’m Cassady Quintana, Brand Ambassador here at TMG.

Ryan Embree:

And today we are fresh back from NYU IHIF 2026. My second time in attending this incredible event. Cassady, your first, what were your thoughts?

Cassady Quintana:

Yeah, I thought overall was a great event. A lot of optimism, especially as we’re heading into the summer season. So I thought, you know, the conversations that we heard on the panels and the ones that we were having with people were awesome, and a lot of you know, good things coming out of that. I feel like the biggest topics that I heard, there were three major takeaways I took from a lot of the panels and people we were talking to, but one being that K-shape economy that we’ve heard a lot about, right? We know that luxury is still outperforming while economy segments are feeling a little bit more of that pressure especially as we head into this summer season and looking at some of those trends. And then I think one of the biggest topics we have been talking about since the beginning of this year is the World Cup and how international travel we thought was gonna be booming. We were expecting a lot of busy hotels, but it’s kind of been on the softer side, and we’ve actually seen international travel dip a bit. So I think right now we’re kind of in that wait and see period of maybe you know people are waiting to see if their teams make it out of the group stages and then they’ll plan on booking a hotel. So keeping an eye on kind of that last minute travel. But the biggest topic that we were talking about a little bit last year, but the biggest one this year is AI and how hotels are using that within their systems. You know, there’s a lot of trends around using that for more personalization and being able to use it to look at your, you know, revenue optimization and how you’re performing online. So finding ways that we can use AI that doesn’t take the hospitality out of hospitality and doesn’t replace that human element. But that kind of went with that overarching theme of the entire event, which was sharpening the edge. So the thing I took from that is that the hotels that are really gonna win are the ones that are understanding their guests and using AI to further that, to further get to know their guests, to make that experience a little bit better.

Ryan Embree:

You know, and we had some incredible conversations and interviews with some professionals that we’re gonna share here in a second. But just to kind of jump on what Cassidy’s saying, we’re at a really cool inflection point in our industry right now as we go gear towards the busy travel season. So it’ll be interesting to see, you know, we had the opportunity to meet with development person from Minor hotels who’s looking to bring their brand into US and Canada, which will be very interesting. We know how they have a huge global footprint, a lot of interest early on in getting into the Americas. Uh, we then visited with AHLA and Kevin Carey and his team doing such wonderful work over there advocacy for our industry and some really cool initiatives that we were able to sit down with Kevin for a few minutes and chat about, uh, Jan Freitag from STR our hotel Data North Star and compass. They just released a revised forecast for the hospitality industry. So we went over some major points of that revised forecast and finally we got the opportunity to sit down with president and CEO Best Western Larry Cuculic. What a wonderful conversation about the best Western brand and how they are implementing, um, some of that AI and technology into their brand, and capitalizing on not only the World Cup, but also America 250. So wonderful insights that you’re only gonna find here on the sweet spot. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoy these exclusive interviews from NYU IHIF 2026. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Sweet Spot. We are live on location at NYU IHIF 2026 here with Genna, the VP of US and Canada Development for Minor Hotels. Genna, thank you so much for taking the time to stop and the busy big apple and talk with us today.

Genna Panagopoulos:

Thanks for having me.

Ryan Embree:

Excited about, this show. A lot of energy, a lot of buzz. You know, when you come to an NYU talking to ownerships, a lot of capital here, what are the conversation kind of stem around, and what does a successful NYU show look like as you head back to your home base? Sure.

Genna Panagopoulos:

Successful NYU would really be finding some deals, perpetuating some deals. So hopefully advancing some opportunities and it’s really all about for right now because we’re relatively new into the region. Educating our owners and the, the broader development community. So, you know, some of, some of the players do already know us, but in the luxury space, but there’s a lot of people we gotta get out in front of and introduce Minor hotels to.

Ryan Embree:

And this is a great place and, obviously a great city to do that in. What has been kind of the feedback? I mean, you’ve been tasked with this enormous job. We have such a great brand, worldwide, you’re bringing it here to us, Canada, and North America. What have been some of those initial conversations and hearing that and initial interest and feedback from owners?

Genna Panagopoulos:

Yeah, we’ve had a lot of feedback and interest on Anantara. So some of our, you know, established luxury brands that are pretty well known when you know the luxury hotel space in a global environment. Sure. So those owners have actually come to us saying, we’re really excited about the opportunities here. So that’s one piece. Of course we have NH Hotels, NH collection, and NH, which are very well known brands, especially in Mediterranean, Europe. Yeah. And, Central and South America. So there’s excitement around that too.

Ryan Embree:

Does it help, I mean, having such an international brand, we got the World Cup here, right? In a couple months. You kind of using that as maybe some momentum as you kind of come into, and introduce this brand into the Americas.

Genna Panagopoulos:

Absolutely. There’s a lot of, you know, I’m also educating Minor of the markets we wanna be in and so that’s definitely helping as well and putting some places on the map.

Ryan Embree:

And let’s talk about that because there’s been some announced projects already right here actually in New York. Talk about that project a little bit.

Genna Panagopoulos:

Yes. Thanks for asking too. We have a Worsely Hotel that’s opening, here next year. It’s gonna be super exciting because Worsely is a restaurant brand that we are taking into the hotel space. So it’s the first of its kind and nowhere better than to start in New York comes from London. So there’s a lot of correlation between the two markets.

Ryan Embree:

One of a kind hospitality venue and a one of a kind city, so. Exactly. But another project we’re really excited about just ’cause we’re home based, obviously in Orlando right down the road, a bright line away in Miami. Talk to us a little bit about that project and how that’s different. Yeah,

Genna Panagopoulos:

It’s a high rise building built in Miami. Hasn’t started construction yet, but it’ll open in 2030. It’ll be an Anantara hotel with branded residences, both private branded residences and, um, ones that will be able to be rented to hotel guests as well. Super wellness oriented. There’s gonna be a really extensive spa. Right. Very experiential. Wonderful for the residents that are gonna be buying, the residence.

Ryan Embree:

It’s incredible. It sounds like you guys are really taking care of all of the kind of popular travel trends right now. Right. FMB has really had this resurgence in hospitality with the project here. Wellness, obviously a huge piece of what hospitality is leaning into and what travelers are looking forward to. So having that flexibility between the brands too, I’m sure is a definitely a fun place to be when having these conversations with owners. But you talked about another project in Turks and Caicos.

Genna Panagopoulos:

Turks and Caicos. So we have an Anantara in Turks and Caicos that I believe will open in 2029. So in order we’ll have one in New York next year, and then 29 on Ontario trips and Caicos 2030, Miami.

Ryan Embree:

So no shortage of news on the Minor Hotel side. Congratulations to you and your team. Thank you. As you wrap up, I mean, what’s your vision? What’s your goal? As you bring Minor Hotels into the North American region?

Genna Panagopoulos:

Yeah. Well, if I think about next year at NYU, I hope people, more people are coming towards us. Excited about us being a different brand a different mindset. So we offer, we think of ourselves a little bit differently from the parent brands that are already established here because we have, you know, ownership still of most of our portfolio or we lease most of our portfolio. Um, so I hope there’s more inbound traffic coming towards my way. I hope people generally just walking down the street know us a little bit more. Certainly. You know, white Lotus helped us with Anantara, so there’s a lot of people who Oh, yes, are are diehard Anantara fans because of that. But that’s what I’m hoping for. And eventually we’d love to have an office here. So as long as we do our, our, our work, right, we, we get a strong pipeline, we’ll be able to have an office, a regional office in, in North America.

Ryan Embree:

Incredible. Well, super exciting. Can’t wait to catch up on all the exciting projects that you have at Minor Hotels. This is the first of a couple collaborations we’ll be doing with Minor hotels, so make sure you stay tuned. Congratulations again, Genna. And thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.

Genna Panagopoulos:

Thanks for having me.

Ryan Embree:

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. We are live on location, New York City at NYU IHIF. I’m here with Kevin Carey, President and CEO of the AHLA Foundation and COO of AHLA. Kevin, not your first time on the Suite Spot. Appreciate you taking some time and joining me here today.

Kevin Carey:

It’s lways a pleasure to spend time with you.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah, it’s fun.Incredible event so far. NYU obviously AHLA, AHLA Foundation Forward has a huge presence here. What does, you know, when you come to the event like this, we always talk in hospitality, these events are always going to exist no matter what. Technology comes down the pike because hospitality, we’re people, right. We like connecting. What is a successful NYU IHIF look like for you and your team?

Kevin Carey:

Well, It’s always an important period of time in the year at, as we approach midyear to check in with our members, to have that conversation about the advocacy issues we’re leading on behalf of the industry to hear how the business performance is tracking as well. And just to build enthusiasm and engagement for the events and the initiatives that we’re leading, not only in the association, but with the foundation as well.

Ryan Embree:

And none more important than the No Room for Trafficking initiative that you and your team have done some fabulous work on. I mean, we have all sorts of brands up on stage, sometimes with differing opinions here and there, but one cause that everyone in our industry has really gotten behind, and it’s the work of you and your team, is this No Room for Rrafficking? We always like to spread awareness of this. Talk to us a little about, about on that front and the progress you’re seeing and making.

Kevin Carey:

Well, this is a longstanding commitment that the industry has to human trafficking prevention and awareness. It started in 2019 with the development of the No Room For Trafficking Initiative and its focus on training and expanded in 2022 to include the Survivor Fund. So this is an area where AHLA and the foundation specifically serves as a convening entity to bring the industry together to rally around this important issue to work, to build awareness that’ll drive prevention of human trafficking, and also to gather funds to help support survivors. So this is a commitment not only on a longstanding basis, but also on a going forward basis as well.

Ryan Embree:

And such inspiring stories that you’ve told over the years. And people, you know, hoteliers and other people listening to this can really get behind and encourage people to kinda look at that initiative. Another kind of initiative that you’ve done in these events that, when we’re talking about these events is forward. We had a record breaking attendance a couple months ago in the spring. Talk to us about how that is. And you actually have some of those the forward initiatives here at NYU.

Kevin Carey:

We do within the foundation, our mission is to advance the workforce of the industry. And we do that through a focus not only on the current workforce, those over 2 million associates and colleagues who deliver hospitality day to day, but also how do we attract the future workforce to the industry. I talked about being a convening entity. The foundation brings together the industry across all segments. And there’s two areas where we believe we can make a difference. One is around human trafficking that we just spoke about, but also around the forward initiative which is geared towards, and its purposes to advance women in the hospitality industry and in leadership roles in the hospitality industry. So we were delighted to host our most recent forward conference in Atlanta, back in April. And the results were outstanding but really the momentum and the impact that that forward is having is really, which has us so enthusiastic and committed to this initiative moving forward.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah, that’s gotta be so cool to see industry leaders in hospitality raise their hands and want to be a part of this movement and really see the results from that.

Kevin Carey:

Well, it’s grown from just being a conference, that started in 2018 and had about 150 people at the first event to now over 1100 attendees. But as it as it has expanded from a conference to a leadership development curriculum. And you mentioned the forward exchange, which took place, here in New York earlier today, where it brought together over a hundred early and mid stage career and professionals of women and some men who are participating along with their peers to focus on networking and building those relationships so they can be well suited and take on roles, over time in the industry.

Ryan Embree:

Really cool to see. And again, probably some incredible stories coming from that over the years as the as the initiative matures. One thing that, that hospitality in general, really looking forward to, we got big summer, right? We’re usually really excited about summer is just ’cause of the travel season, kids being outta school. But this summer in particular, we’ve been looking forward to for a couple years. We got World Cup on the horizon, finally. We played just a couple miles from here and in America 250. What are you kind of hearing from hoteliers and how are AHLA really, gearing up for these big events, showcasing our industry?

Kevin Carey:

Well, these are really defining opportunities, for the industry to support those guests to welcome that demand, to drive the hospitality infrastructure over time. So there’s a lot of enthusiasm around the potential that that represents and as we’ve seen on stage already today the results in the first part of the year for the industry have been positive. a number of the outlooks are increasing the Revpar and ADR and other industry metrics, here with the these large events we are still waiting to see some of the demand materialize and we’re in a critical period of time right now, about 10 days out before the games to see that hopefully what’ll be a late surge in bookings, then translate into further business success for the industry.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. Hopefully, and hopefully see that international travel continue to come back to North America, you know, a lot of hoteliers, hoping for that. Zooming in a little bit on a AHLA summertime, also time for interns, right. Come in and we’ve talked about this before. I mean, internships, mentorship in hospitality. So critical. I mean, throughout the years we’ve had these staffing shortages and we’ve talked about getting creative, our industry, getting creative on ways to fill those roles, internships being one of them. Talk about a little bit about the AHLA internship program and what these interns are are ready for this summer.

Kevin Carey:

Well, it’s not new. We’ve had a well established program from a number of years now. And, and we’re excited annually to bring a number of interns into our team across each function. we’ll have an interns in the government affairs team, in marketing, in the foundation. it’s so refreshing to engage them in our work to see their enthusiasm about their future to see them pick up valuable skills and experience of being in an office environment, learning more. And you know what? They, they have a real impact. They have some fun along the way as well and we have a wonderful session at the end where they get to present the results of some of the work in the initiatives that they’ve been working on. So it’s an annual opportunity that we look very forward to. And they’ll be starting just in about a week’s time. so it’ll be a great another repeatevent for us.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. Love to see it. You know, again, any way that we can have more exposure to all sides of hospitality. Beause as we know, it’s not just, you know, the front desk. There’s so many elements to it and there’s none more demonstrated by how big our hospitality industry is than by the hospitality show that you put on. And this year is gonna be right in our backyard. In Miami, Florida. Get us a little bit excited about what we can expect at this year’s fourth annual. This is our fourth Hospitality Show, correct?

Kevin Carey:

So we started in Vegas, went to San Antonio, we’re in Denver last year. A lot of enthusiasm coming out of Denver for the content. And then what’s unique about the hospitality show is it’s really the only conference in the industry with a focus on operations and how operations is driving profitability. So there’s a terrific enthusiasm and people are looking forward to being in Miami, coming together in Q4, all segments of the industry represented. So we’ll have the brands we’ll have management companies, owners, service providers, suppliers, independent hotels also play an important role in the industry. So we’re about to open registration and that’ll really kickstart, the focus on November 2-4 in Miami.

Ryan Embree:

Well we’re looking forward to it. We’re hoping to go 4/4 on covering the hospitality show. Especially with it being right there in our backyard. Kevin, we know you’re busy. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today on some of these important initiatives. And hopefully we’ll see you in Miami in just a few months.

Kevin Carey:

Hopefully I have something else on.

Ryan Embree:

Alright. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Kevin Carey:

Thank you so much.

Ryan Embree:

Hello everyone. Ryan Embree. here live at NYU IHIF 2026 here with Jan the National Director of Hospitality Analytics at CoStar. Jan, you were just on a panel. Thanks for taking the time to jump off and speak with us.

Jan Freitag:

Absolutely.

Ryan Embree:

State of the state, love the name obviously you’re the north star of hospitality data out there. Jan, revised forecasts just came out. Talk to us a little bit about those points that you were sharing with the audience today.

Jan Freitag:

So we’re suggesting that RevPAR this year is gonna grow 2.8%, which is very different from the way we looked at the world at the ALIS Hotel Investment Conference. First quarter performance was much more stronger than we had expected than the public traded companies had expected the brands or the …. And a lot of them have revised their year end forecast up. So, you know, we followed suit. Now they, most of them just revised their forecast by the outperformance of Q1. But we’re suggesting No, no, there’s momentum. So we actually took our forecast up by a lot more to 2.8%, 2% driven by ADR and 0.8 by occupancy, which is really good to see. ’cause it implies that demand is outpacing supply. You know, so we get occupancy gains and then some pricing power.

Ryan Embree:

Love to see that. I mean we were here a year ago with Amanda who is talking about trying to decipher through the noise, a lot of noise right now. But great to see the momentum with those revisions and so important to have those revisions because the landscape can change ever so rapidly as you know. But talking about the supply, talk to us a little bit, go into a little bit more in depth and then obviously every market is different. What markets right now are running a little bit hot on supply?

Jan Freitag:

Yeah, so fational forecast for Supply goes to 0.4%, not a whole lot. Right. The long run average is 1.6, so we’re well below that. The number of rooms in construction used to be between, we know, 150,000 – 160,000. It’s now 140,000. So it’s sort of staying there. It’s just so expensive to get anything done. And interest rates are still high and could go higher. Who knows, we’re not making interest rate forecast. But you know, there’s definitely no longer this idea of how we should cut, you know, interest rates twice this year or so. I think those days are gone, you know, and so now the question is, okay, so where are people getting things done? And you can look at it by markets. So a couple of them are usual suspects. So Nashville, very strong, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Phoenix. So those are markets sort of in the smile states, sort of in the Sunbelt that still get a lot of people moving there. And you know, migration determines the economic performance. And so we’re seeing a lot more room supply growth there, but there’re just a lot of markets where it’s very, very hard to get anything done because of that higher cost of construction and of the higher interest rate. So I would single out those markets, but overall the picture is rather muted. On the supply side. So what that means then, for existing owners is the time to renovate is right now percent. Because you want to be the new kid on the block with the new hotel, there’s not a lot of new competition coming. This is time to renovate and really put your best foot forward.

Ryan Embree:

A hundred percent. And you know, one of the other topics we talked about, or you talked about rather on stage was segments right now luxury, doing very, very well leading the way. Obviously a lot of bifurcation, that K-shaped economy. What are you seeing across the segments right now?

Jan Freitag:

Yeah, I mean there are no wrong answers in luxury, right? I mean, luxury last year was the winner. This year is the winner. We’re projecting, very healthy RevPAR growth double of what we’re saying for the nation. We think the luxury class can materialize. And then what’s really nice to see is that for upscale upper midscale midscale, there’s also RevPAR growth there, which we hadn’t seen last year. And to me that speaks to the strength really of the American economy. But it sort of permeates toward all income classes. Now the exception is was and unfortunately will be likely the economy sector now even there we’re suggesting RevPAR’s growing, but it’s just, you know, 0.8% call that flat for all intent and purposes.

Ryan Embree:

International travel too, obviously World Cup on the heels of this. What are you see any interesting data points there you wanna share just right ahead of the America 250 and World Cup?

Jan Freitag:

There are two very different vibes coming from the panel that I was on. Adam Sacks prior to US presenting was talking about, oh wow, international inbound is really still quite a bit lower than it was in 2019. But the gentleman from the NTTO, the National Travel Tourism Organization was like, no, we’re projecting rock and roll, really strong growth of international inbound. The truth is probably gonna somewhere in the tween this year. World Cup is gonna drive a lot of international travelers. What I’m wondering about though is are some of those travelers basically stealing from 2025 and from 2027 and now they’re saying, oh, let’s not go in 25, let’s go in 26. And then when next year comes around, they’re like, we just went to the us you know, and not go in 27 either. So I just hope that the more positive spin from the government comes true and this and, and not that we’re just sort of packing everything into this year and then international inbound is gonna deteriorate.

Ryan Embree:

So many interesting data points. Anyone in particular you have your eyes on where, you know, obviously we love a nice rosy outlook and try to look for opportunities through all of the data that’s out there, but anyone’s that are like unexpected data points or something that you’re at least keeping an eye on right now?

Jan Freitag:

Yeah, so there are a couple, but the one that I’m really focused on is consumer price index. Everything is getting more expensive and so that means that hotels will see their cost increase. And the big question then is how much of that cost increase can they pass on to the customer? And I just told you that our ADR forecast for this year is 2% and inflation is gonna be what, 3.5 or something? I mean, it’s gonna be much more than that outpacing that. So that’s really the crux and I think that’s what we here at NYU, to talk to owners and investors and management companies have figure out, okay, so how can we keep our margins expanding even maybe how do you do that in this environment where top line growth may be not keeping pace with with inflation. So the CPI number is really something I’m keeping an eye on.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah, pretty challenging time right now. when it comes to margins and hospitality that we, again, trying to suss out and figure out here, what are those maybe opportunistic data points that you’re seeing that you’re saying this, this is really good, maybe unexpected on the other end of the spectrum?

Jan Freitag:

Yeah, I think the Americans are wealthier than they ever have been. And Adam Sachs has this fascinating data point where he shows at the emerge that the middle class in America is shrinking, but part of it is because a lot more people are rich. So people are moving up the income chain and that allows ’em then to spend more money on experiences, very clear that people favor experiences over goods. And we are right in that Suite Spot.

Ryan Embree:

That continues to be the experience over stuff. We love to see that. And then you’re kind of here celebrating an anniversary/birthday of your podcast, is it? You know you’re, you’re usually, typically used to be in the host, not so much the guests, so thank you. Tell us a little bit more and maybe where our hotel audience can find the insights that you provide.

Jan Freitag:

Yeah, and thank you for having me. So we have our own podcast. My colleague Isaac Collazo from STR and myself get together once a month. It’s called Tell Me More, A Hospitality Data podcast. And three years ago at juniors across the street over cheesecake, we sort of hatched the idea. And so now we’re, I don’t know, like, you know, almost 30 episodes into it. And we get together once a month and we just sort of riff on the data and hopefully you can join us.

Ryan Embree:

I love it. That’s awesome. Well, Jan, thank you so much. Very busy time. Appreciate you stopping by and talking to us.

Jan Freitag:

My pleasure. Thank you so much.

Ryan Embree:

Alright. Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. We are live at NYU IHIF 2026 here with Larry Cuculic, President and CEO of BWH Hotels. Larry, thank you so much for taking time outta your busy schedule to join us here on the Suite Spot.

Larry Cuculic:

It’s my absolute pleasure. Thank you for the invitation and for allowing me to share some thoughts with regard to the success and BWH hotels.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. We’ve got a lot to cover cause you’ve got a lot going on right now. But let’s start with this event, right? NYU IHIF, lot of major brands here what does a successful NYU look like for you and your team?

Larry Cuculic:

To us, a successful NYU is interacting with developers and investors such that they’re aware of what BWH has become. We’re now 18 brands, over 4,000 hotels in over a hundred countries and territories from premium economy up to luxury hotels. We acquired world hotels about six years ago. And so it really is continuing to educate about the possibilities of their associating with BWH hotels because we would be singularly focused on their success if they partner with us. And you’re also in a powerhouse panel tomorrow, the Executive Exchange Hospitality Performance Strategies for Success give our audience a little bit a sneak peek of what you’re gonna be talking about on stage.

Larry Cuculic:

Well, we’re gonna be talking about of course, the economy near term as well as long term projections for what that looks like. we’ll be talking about the importance of loyalty programs. We’ll be talking about the impact of really the economy and things like labor insurance and how we as brands need to focus on the success of our hotels by offering them programs to really offset that impact on net RevPAR.

Ryan Embree:

And I’m sure one of the subjects and topics that we brought up on your panel, certainly something we talk about these hospitality events is, AI and technology. And we had the privilege of having SVP and your CTO Bill Ryan on at the Hospitality Show a couple months in October, gave us a little bit of lay of the land when it came to AI and technology. How do you feel personally that this technology is really changing the way that travelers choose hotels, but also how they have their hotel experience, their guest experience?

Larry Cuculic:

Sure. So the first thing we’re doing is we’re reinvesting in our .com as well as our app. And we want them to be easy to use intuitive, but we also wanna make sure they have content that convinces guests when they’re shopping that our hotels will provide them kind of that customization and personalization. ’cause it’s not about a commodity, a hotel room, it’s about all those things that we can offer. By way of example we’re partnering with an AI agency to kind of harvest content with regard to where our hotels are located in those communities. At the same time, we’ll take that harvested content and we’ll filter it through our hoteliers who live in those communities and create the content that will be the AI answer when somebody’s looking for a place to stay. And they’ll know that we want them to have the best possible time while we’re in that community, not just staying with us as a hotel, that we recognize that people don’t want just to stay, they want really a journey.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. Something that we aspire in hospitality to provide that not just a hotel stay, but an experience. And we talked to Joelle Park about the power of storytelling and how that can play a component in one of the best stories, obviously that you just had a really exciting announcement with is America 250 and the story of this great nation. So talk to us a little bit about that partnership and what BWH Hotels is doing with America 250.

Larry Cuculic:

Well, we are a sponsor of America 250, and we’re encouraging our hoteliers to embrace the 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation. And part of that is not just USA 250, we also have the 100th anniversary of Route 66. We have hotels that have been with us, believe it or not, we have a hotel that’s been with us 75 years. And it speaks to the heritage of our brand. So we’ll be leaning into the history of this great country. At the same time we’ll be leaning into the history of our great brand and encouraging people to travel and see the United States and all that it has to offer no matter where you go. And the beauty of our hotels we have 2200 of them in North America and wherever they’re going to go, we want them to know that we have a hotel that will meet their travel leads such that they can experience really the 250th anniversary of USA.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. It’s a really exciting partnership right in at an inflection point with the World Cup as well. So introducing maybe some international travel also to the brand and the nation. You know, you’re a great following on LinkedIn. I encourage our audience, if you haven’t, make sure you follow Larry, but one of the things you’re reflecting on your North American regional conferences that you’ve done up to this point in 2026 and you quoted to say that you want BWH hotels to become the most welcoming brand in the world. What does that mean to you and how is your team working to achieve that?

Larry Cuculic:

Well, welcoming means that we’re gracious hosts, but it also means that we’re, I’ll call it easy to do business with understanding, being flexible and recognizing that we are somebody you’d want to be partners with. Whenever anyone walks into a hotel we should tell them, you know, welcome, we’re glad you’re here by way of example. But I used to think of it that way in terms of being gracious host and everything that happens at the hotel, but when I think of welcoming, I also want to think about our new.com and app. Again, it’s that ease of use and personalization so that when you go there, we know it’s you and we want to help you make good decisions with regard to travel. So welcoming is about ease of.com, the app we’re redoing our loyalty program. I think Joel probably talked to you about that. And we want the loyalty program to be welcoming as well. Well, what does that mean? Well, that means that when you interact with us, you’ll know how many points you have. You’ll know they never expire. You’ll know that you can use them to buy down the price of a room at any point. That you don’t have to, to have as many points for a full stay to leverage those points. It’s a value of the program. And of course welcoming. I always lean into the importance of being not just a gracious host, but somebody that appreciates our guests. To me, that’s welcoming because you have to recognize that people, they’re traveling with their families, it’s something that you wanna leave a terrific impression on them and their family. And you also want them to know that we appreciate that they’ve spent their hard-earned money staying with us. To me, that’s being appreciative gracious hosts. And that’s part of the welcoming. It’s not, the welcoming doesn’t just happen when they enter. Welcoming has to be entire stay.

Ryan Embree:

So key. And the brands that kind of make that connection with their travelers, especially in a time where, I mean, we just talked about in this interview AI technology, there’s way more places become disconnected, to find that connection, that human to human connection. Very important right now. So as we wrap up the interview, obviously at these events we’re always, whether it’s the hospitality data we’re looking into, whether it’s a conversation, we’re always trying to take a glimpse into the future, trying to predict that future. Larry what do you see, what’s your vision for the future of BWH Hotels.

Larry Cuculic:

People will always wanna travel. And for us, if we can become that welcoming brand that appreciates our guests, we will build that loyalty. When we build that loyalty, that program will grow. Our revenue delivery brand direct will grow which is the lowest cost for us in terms of that reservation for our hoteliers but what I think I would also offer to you is we’re also very focused on thoughtful growth. And what that means is if you grow your loyalty program, you also wanna make sure you have hotels that are in locations where guests want to go. Be it London, be it Rome, be it Frankfurt, be it Bangkok, no matter where it is around the world. And so, you know, we have a, a focus goal of 5,000 hotels, which means we will grow thoughtfully, but with our guests in mind. And because when we have a hotel join us, our sole focus is the success of that hotel as well as having a quality hotel where guests want to go.

Ryan Embree:

That’s awesome. Well, we wish you nothing but success. Hopefully maybe can join the Suite Spot when that 5,000 hotel opens and we can celebrate that together. But in the meantime, thank you, Larry, for taking the time out of your day to join us here on the Suite spot.

Larry Cuculic:

Well, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Very much appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

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.

In this celebratory episode, The Suite Spot hosts two TMG veterans, Director of Product – Respond and Resolve™, Jackie Avery, and Chief Technology Officer, Jason Lee, on the podcast to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the Respond and Resolve™ digital solution. 

Jackie Avery discusses what the milestone means to her and her team, and how responding to reviews is the foundation for connecting to guests and why it’s critical for hoteliers to give authentic responses to their guests. Jason joins the podcast to share the history and evolution of the Respond and Resolve™ digital solution and how it has become the industry solution service it is today. 

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, a celebration, my favorite type of episodes we have on the Suite Spot. Very excited to share a milestone and achievement, a celebration, like I said, a 10 year anniversary of our award-winning, industry leading Respond and Resolve™, review response solution. Here with the Product Director of Respond and Resolve™, Jackie Avery. Jackie, welcome back to the Suite Spot.

Jackie Avery:

Thank you. I’m so happy to be here. I’m so excited to talk about this too.

Ryan Embree:

Congratulations, what a feat. 10 years of responding to reviews. We are gonna have the opportunity to speak with Jason Lee, our Chief Technology Officer, and we’re gonna talk to him about really the history and evolution of this solution, and really guest feedback management in general, how that’s evolved over time. But with you, I thought we’d start with talking about present today and this solution respond and resolve, again, responding to guest, hotel, guest reviews. What makes this so special? What is the secret sauce? Why has it seen such an explosion of growth from our hotel partners, and what do people love about it?

Jackie Avery:

Yeah, so I’d say everyone on my team probably has a different answer to this, but for me, it really comes down to passion, time, and flexibility. So we’re really passionate about that connection making, you know, that moment with the guest truly matter. Taking the time to really connect in that way with them. And I’d say, I guess right, others might say, well, you know, these other people within the industry or at the hotel also have that passion and, and care about that connection. So, I think we all agree that that’s really important. But then you come to also adding in time. So someone might be able to dedicate an hour to responding to their guest reviews, or maybe even a few hours a week, and they feel really good about that. But like for us, right? This is day in, day out. This is what we do all day long. We really have the time to not only have the passion for that connection with the guest, but take the time to think about what they wrote and how they wrote it. And so, and there are gonna be people who have the passion and have the time, and I absolutely do not wanna diminish that. I’m so happy that they do. I’d say the third, and just as equally important aspect though, is flexibility. So this is an ever changing landscape, right? One moment. The M dash in writing makes you sound human. It’s casual. This is how you connect. The very next day, that’s an indicator of AI. If you’re using that, no one thinks you’re you. So in the past, right, you would start writing a response and you just wanna make sure you’re not sounding defensive, you’re not being dismissive of, whatever their concern is. And that’s still important, but that’s not where you start anymore. You start by convincing someone that you’re a person, you’re sitting at a computer taking away from all of these other aspects of your job, and you’re like, my first step is showing everyone that I’m me and I’m real. So, on top of all of that, right now, you’ve got that going on. Maybe, you know, you feel like you’ve got a handle on it. There is a very intense, again, ever changing landscape when you’re thinking about the political climate, the economic climate, and those impacts the guests and travel. We all know that. And so it’s really hard to meet a guest where they’re at. If you’re not keeping up to date with everything going on. You have to be aware of those shifts that are happening all the time to everyone.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. It’s ever changing, especially over the course of a decade, which has obviously been the timeline of this solution here. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, that authenticity is so key to show the guest that you actually care about what you wrote. And you’re right, there’s a challenge now to almost convince that guest that I am real. I am listening to you and I’m connecting. And there’s a reason why in this age of technological advancement and AI, we were talking about it every single day. We’re at the peak of technological advancement. Every single day we move forward, there are still hotels that come to us and say, we want to maintain a human to human connection. We don’t want AI to be responding or generating responses that are going straight to our guests. Why do you feel like that is, and and what are the feedback you’re hearing for these hotel partners?

Jackie Avery:

Yeah, so when you zoom out, right? Guests are the entire reason that hotels exist. So when you’re considering reviews and checking reviews before you stay somewhere or leaving a review, after you’ve departed, these are really important aspects of the guest journey. They’re a part of your guest experience. So when you are a property who is fully invested in your guests having a great experience at your hotel, you want them to be surprised when they come in the best ways. You want them to leave with the best memories and spread that by word of mouth and online, you understand that you have to continue that real connection the same way you want to at the front desk in those points online. You have to connect with them human to human in that review response.

Ryan Embree:

You know, Jackie, one of the things that I think makes the solution so special, and something you’ve done a great job of is curating this team of professional writers where a lot of these writers here went to school for writing and communication. You know, these are degrees that are their specialty. They have a passion for this, right? And you talk to a general manager nowadays maybe they didn’t, maybe they don’t have a passion in writing, right? Like, that wasn’t why they got into hospitality to say, I wanna be a writer. But, you know, you created this team that also understands the nuances of the hotel world. It’s the only vertical that we work with in hospitality. And there’s so many of those little nuances that you have to teach and you have to incorporate in your messaging and in your review response writing to make sure that is articulated so clearly to your guests, or really it undermines your reputation as a whole. Talk to us a little bit about some of those nuances, maybe some examples and how you’ve been able to generate just this team of, again, just incredible writers.

Jackie Avery:

So, I’m fortunate because we’re doing this episode to celebrate 10 years. So we know what we’re looking for and we have experience in how to train specifically writing for hospitality and guest reviews. So fortunately, you have these degrees where people come in, they’re educated, they know how to write well, and then you have this training based on real world experience. And having seen the evolution of guest reviews. You used to get it where guests only left reviews when they’re angry. That’s not the case anymore. Guests go, they love the praise of feeling rewarded for leaving a good review. They wanna leave a good review. And having written so many, right? Each individual learns something and takes it back to the team. So it’s consistent workshops, it’s creative workshops, it’s adjusting to the new landscape, right? Being aware of what is seen as AI and what is AI. Being able to identify a review where a guest used AI to leave it, maybe. Or also being able to take a moment and pause and know the best way to reach another human when they’re being skeptical. So where as someone on property, right? They’re so focused maybe on, well, I wanna let this guest know that’s not how we do things, or that’s not really what happened here. And this professional writer on the team realizes the first line of this review was, and I bet a bot is gonna answer this. You have to cross that bridge first. You have to tackle that first. And if you don’t know how, it’s gonna be really hard to get your actual message across to this person that you really want to. So, we’re always building on what we know, because we realize what we know today can’t be what we rely on forever. Everything is gonna be different in three months. Everything will be different in one year. And when you’re set up to be able to make those adjustments, and you’re excited about that, when you love writing, when you love being able to write in a different way and connect with someone, and this is your passion, you know, you thrive in that landscape, it’s not a challenge that you don’t wanna take on. You look forward to it.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah, absolutely. And you’re absolutely right about the landscape. Completely changing. Sometimes, even though over the course of 10 years, I mean, booking has their pros and cons. They actually essentially solicit some of the negative feedback so that you can address that character count, right? With a TripAdvisor and maybe now going into reviews with no content at all, and responding to those PPI and personal information using people’s names in those responses. Is that something that a site allows or not? All of these are things that you wouldn’t really think through in responding to reviews, but it’s so critical and so important because, again, it’s an underlying foundation of your reputation management. And why do we respond to reviews to show we care? So if that care isn’t being shown, it really undermines your reputation. So, anything that lasts for 10 years obviously, means that it’s a success. I’m sure you’ve heard over the years some really, really rewarding pieces of feedback from our hotel partners. Can you share, we love a good story here on the Suite Spot in the podcast. Can you share any examples, maybe just one or two of some special moments or conversations with some of our Respond and Resolve™ clients?

Jackie Avery:

Yeah. Thinking back, because it feels really relevant this year, because it does seem to be happening more frequently, I think back to an email I got from a client, and they were going through it, their property started receiving hundreds of reviews within an hour to, because of something happening within the city, it was something going on. That was happening citywide and really had nothing to do with their hotel. And you can imagine in that moment, they’re fielding calls at the front desk from guests who haven’t arrived yet. They’re trying to ease concerns from guests in house, and their online listings are just being flooded from people who aren’t there and are just saying stuff. And really, it’s just because of the city they’re in and something that the property has nothing to do with. So in those moments, I’m so grateful that we can help. I got this email from this hotel, and they were just like, thank you. I had so much on my shoulders, and I know I have this support and this, and I put out these things, you know, to these other people at the property who help us. But in that moment, I knew, I knew you guys were there. Yeah. And I knew that you could give advice on what to do. You’ve seen it before. You helped guide my steps. And I’m so grateful for that, that our years of experience mean that in the moment a guest can be served face to face, and we can be assisting, you know, with things happening outside of this property’s control.

Ryan Embree:

And what a line to tiptoe too, if AI is involved, right? And that, and the messaging is not communicated the right way there, it could mean so much more than just a one star review. It could mean detrimental damage to your reputation, especially in those moments of crisis.

Jackie Avery:

Absolutely. And some sites let you edit what you post back and some don’t. So the stakes are high. And it’s happening fast.

Ryan Embree:

Absolutely. Very fast. And so, as we wrap up our conversation here, and again, congratulations. As Product Director, you look at this, what do you look at this 10 year milestone? What does it mean to you and what’s your vision for the future of this solution?

Jackie Avery:

Yeah, this milestone, I feel it, I feel it personally. Not just for me but my entire team. When you genuinely care about connecting with other people and helping and being support in this way, it’s really easy to feel the joy in what you’re doing. So this milestone, to me, is just something that I am reflecting on that I’m so grateful, I’m so grateful to be able to work with clients across the country and help people out there connect in a space where they’re expecting not to have that opportunity. More often than not, people are expecting not to hear back, or they don’t wanna get their hopes up that they will hear back, but they do. Yeah. And it feels great. And I love that.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. The stakes can’t be any higher right now when it comes to that. And hotels are getting creative with trying to figure out ways to connect with guests in a world where, you know, you don’t have to visit the front desk anymore. You can, you don’t have to interact with hotel staff anymore. So hotels are trying to figure out ways that they can keep a constant line of communication. And this is always gonna be a place where guests are, are gonna be, do not make it a one-way conversation. They’re gonna continue to leave feedback. Are you genuinely listening? Are you authentically responding? And we’re so grateful to have you on this podcast to celebrate this milestone. Thank you, Jackie. And congratulations again to you and your team.

Jackie Avery:

Ah, thanks so much. It was great to be here.

Ryan Embree:

Next wee’re gonna be talking with Jason Lee, Chief Technology Officer at Travel Media Group, where we’ll talk a little bit about the history and evolution of this Respond and R™esolve solution, which just turned 10 years old.

Ryan Embree:

Hello everyone. Welcome to part two of our 10 year celebration of TMGs Respond and Resolve™ review response solution. I am here with one of the architects, CTO, Jason Lee, congratulations to you and your team 10 years. Jason, you know, we love a good origin story. Talk to us, bring us back 10 years ago when you started, maybe it was even before 10 years. But tell us a little bit about how Respond and Resolve™ came to be and kind of the evolution of the solution that now turns 10 years old.

Jason Lee:

I mean, I think we at that time, we had been kind of doing reputation for hotels for a little bit, mostly in post-day engagement. And then also monitoring reputation scores and reputation flow. And we were getting questions like, hey, can you handle review response? And so we sat down and we were like, we’re getting this more and more. And we had salespeople that were saying the same thing, like, hey, I just got the phone with this guy, and he said he would buy except if we had this product. And so we sat down and we started thinking about like, what is it gonna take to, to get this done? And we had, we happened to have a tech summit during that same time, and we all sat down. So at that time, it was all the tech leaders we had and our tech team as well. And we really just kind of mapped out, like, what would it take to, to do this? Yeah. And at the time I was like, listen, the only way this is gonna work, anybody will even buy this, is if they can ensure that whoever is providing them the response is gonna do it in their voice is gonna be able to do it in a way that they would do it. Speak to their guests in the way that they would wanna be spoken to. And so we sat down and we put together what was kind of the building blocks of what is today’s, Respond and Resolve™, Travel Media Group. But at the time was even more complicated. It had multiple touch points. So it had a single, it had a touchpoint of the review coming in. It had a touchpoint, after the response where we would audit the response before the response went to the hotel, the hotel would then approve the response. And then once the hotel approved this approved the response or edited the response, it would come back to us and we would touch it one more time before we would then publish that response. So we had this, like, we had a three touch internal, like four touch, if you include the hotelier system. And, you know, and of course, you know, anybody who’s done any kind of product work or anything would think like, that’s an insane amount of touches, that’s a crazy amount of scaling. And so then our secondary thing was like, how do we do this based on the number of reviews or whatever? And we weren’t even thinking that way. We’re like, because there’s an unknown number of reviews, how do we even do this? So we started the product out with, with that kind of cadence, with 20 reviews being kind of the core. So you get 20 reviews a month, and it was TripAdvisor only. Yeah. And you had this one critical response. So we would like, you know, if there was a, something that really, that happened that was really bad, we would write this like very specific kind of PR version of a response. And that was the original product. So we put it all together, we put our price point out, and, and I believe you were the first person to sell one to a hotel. So, so as we got that going, then it was, you know, then, then we went through the rest of kind of like the evolution of the product. But at that time, it was something I think one other company was doing, but we, you know, we didn’t really know what they were doing or how they were doing it. So we kind of took our own path in how we created it.

Ryan Embree:

And we were talking off camera about, you know, some of the challenges. And maybe I think it’s through some of the unexpected. ’cause you think about, all right, you know, if tomorrow, you know, someone was like, let’s, let’s create a company that responds to reviews, and then all of a sudden you start building that and you come across these challenges, these, these issues, these problems that you’re like, well, I didn’t think about that. I just kind of thought about the output and input. What were some of those kind of learning lessons along the way, and how did you kind of adapt to that, whether using efficiencies technology, because it’s a lot more difficult than just saying, Hey, we’re just gonna respond to your reviews. I think the biggest challenge and where we had our biggest evolution in the solution was in when we converted what we were doing. So at the time when we started it, we were using third party data. And we were pulling some stuff, but some stuff was being pulled through a third party vendor. And it wasn’t until we launched one view where we controlled the entirety of the dataset. And not just the entire, not just the entirety of the dataset, but the frequency of the dataset, which was insanely important. So this has to do with when it is received from the time that it was published live. And so that in itself sort of opened up this new lane, but in doing so, it also opened up our eyes to this really one like incredible flaw to our system, which was how we were pricing it. But that has to do with how we sort of viewed the, the universe of reviews for a single property. So when we started, we had that 20 Right. The next little jump was, well, maybe we’ll start charging by the room. And this was something we had heard other other vendors doing, and we’re like, oh, this is a good idea. We’ll start charging by the room. What we found immediately was that we were massively overcharging some hotels. And way undercharging other hotels. So a destination 80 room hotel could be doing three or four times the review volume that a 250 room corporate hotel was doing. Like, that’s straight up like extortion on one side and then just us just like..

Ryan Embree:

And extended stay sometimes, you don’t have the frequency.

Jason Lee:

Completely, completely. So, so I think pricing, getting that pricing down. So once we then controlled the universe of reviews, we then, so at, at the time we launched OneView, we had a 360 view of a 365 to be exact, day view of a properties reputation. So we could sort of forecast their total quantity of reviews over a year and then, and then, and then sort of amortize that out to create pricing around review flow. So I believe we were one of the first to do review flow, and I think we might still be one of the only companies that prices that way, where we actually look at quantity of reviews and surveys that a property gets. And then we price knowing exactly what we’re going, what we’re up against, including the 35% ish increase over the summer months that that happens just based on review flow. You know, guest flow. So, so I think those were those big things, kind of those big hurdles, like, internally pricing it the right way, doing it in a way where we could, we could ensure that whatever we said we were going to do, we could 100% do. We had the staff to do it, we had the technology do it, and all the pieces in play. And then I think from there, it was then understanding the sort of undulation of the acquisition of review data. And that is a crazy space because, if you’re scraping the data directly from a site, then you’ve got that whole thing that that’s going on where sites are continually sort of trying to thwart that. You have the API side of that where you can get API but that requires you to get these relationships with these various sites. And so, so our, we were just like, just, just dogged determination To like secure better and better and better and better data sets. And we did that through, eventually through getting partnerships with the major review providers like Expedia, Booking.com and Google. And so inside of doing that, we were able to really secure a data set that then allowed us to respond in a timely manner and efficient manner, and in a way that, you know, could completely solve this issue for a hotel.

Ryan Embree:

I think some of the biggest learnings or we’ve had is through those challenges, but also through the close relationships that we’ve had with our hotel. Partners and those hotels that we say it all the time when it comes to reputation. I mean, feedback, you want feedback, right? Whether it be from your partners who who travel media group are working with, whether it be from your guests, and you’re a hotelier, you want that feedback. Because that means it’s striking some kind of cord, whether it’s good or bad. ’cause then you can make adjustments. So, the actually hearing what our hoteliers had to, to, to say about our, our reviews and our I’m sorry, what they had to say about our responses helped us. Collaborate or calibrate rather their voice and tone and everything that to kind of get us right in harmony with how they wanted responses. And I think for me at least, it was very surprising to see the spectrum at which people wanted, how they wanted their responses handled. Whether it’s, you know, we don’t want an apology ever to be heard on our responses or, you know, we, we always apologize whether it’s our fault or not. We’re always going to say the customer is always right. And there’s everything in between. We want our voice a little bit more laid back. We want it more of a professional tone. You know, you’ve gone through these patterns and trends of try to use keywords in every single one of your review responses. Aside from the challenges, what have you learned? Maybe talking to hotel partners or hearing them, seeing some of that feedback that comes in about our responses. ’cause I know, although you’re the CTO, you’re very close to that feedback and are in there and seeing what our hotel partners are saying every day about our responses.

Jason Lee:

That’s a great question. And I think it hits at the evolution of the benefits of this need. And I think that’s what’s so interesting about, about doing this for this length of time. So in the very beginning, I talked about that very complicated setup that we had where we were like approving the response before we sent it to the hotelier, and then we had the hotelier approve the response and edit the response, and then we publish the response. We kept a bunch of that together. So we kept the right approved by the hotelier edit and resolve or audit and resolve, process on our side. And so in doing that, even though it was overkill in the beginning, we had people saying, we don’t wanna approve it. We don’t wanna approve it because we’re, because we’re like, this takes too much time. And because I’m not around on the weekend or whatever. And, but what ended up happening is that as the sort of understanding of what review response was doing, so the review response kind of needs sometimes is hinges on what is the downward pressure to get this done? So is this coming from my management company? Is it coming from the brand? Is it coming from an OTA that says I’ll get better placement if I do this this way? So this becomes this becomes thing. Or like you said oh, I heard that I get better SEO get better placement if I use keywords in my responses. So this becomes this sort of meta benefit. And I think through the through line that we took from the very beginning and way before, I feel like a hoteliers wanted us to do it that way. And maybe today there’s still a few hoteliers that are just like, whatever, man, just get it done. You know, is that we really wanted to communicate with the guest who wrote the review. And we wanted to make sure that whatever we were writing in our response, that that communication was clear. It was clear in gratitude on five stars. It was clear in empathy and resolution in one star reviews. And it was, it was really trying to find that balance when there was no feedback. Even if the get, even if the hotel didn’t care maybe as much about the content of the response that they trusted us to make that response. But what we find is like now, 10 years later, that where, where we have had a complete shift in our property profile at Travel Media Group, where I think we started with a lot of economy properties and select service properties where we’ve, we’ve reached into these incredibly large resorts luxury properties. Some of the nicest properties in the United States are our clients. And I think it’s because we’ve stuck with that. So you talk to the hotelier that has a $200 or $300 a night guest, or even a $1,200 a night guest, in some cases, their feeling about the retention of that guest is very different than a select service, than a select service. But they’re, but they’re also their version of, like, that this activity promotes acquisition of guests. And so the stakes are high. In this space. And I think we’re reaching into like a whole new era where this information, the review and the response are affecting generative search. And we’re reaching a whole new era of economizing the search time with massive amounts of review data. In an individual research session for a guest is really changing the importance of this activity together. So I think, I know I kind of took a windy road on that, but I think the biggest thing is that the evolution of expectation from the guest, but also then from the hotel has changed. And we’ve stayed close to it this entire time. And like, like everything that we do at Travel Media Group, we are sort of singularly focused. So we’re so focused on this as this. We probably, when I talk to hotels sometimes, they’re like, man, you are really exaggerating the importance of this activity. And I’m like, no, it’s everything. This is like, this is about you securing the relationship with this guest. This is everything. But hopefully you want a partner like that has that sort of dogged determination to make sure that it’s done correctly. But I feel like, so to kind of wrap this up, I do feel like that that is what we’ve done, that’s been the through line is like focusing on the need and like you said, focusing on the voice make, altering account by account. So now you’re talking about a few thousand hotels. That we’re scaling, you know, we’re where we’re like in the off months, we’re doing somewhere, you know, around 20,000 – 25,000 reviews. And we’re able to then inside of that still create personalization, still create a voice of a hotel. Still be able to hit the right kind of policies, the right kind of renovation details, the right kind of care to each individual review, or each individual guest as we see that to make this thing work.

Ryan Embree:

I mean, every hotel we have found out is so drastically different from the way they want thing hand handled, but also, just their properties are different, right? Their locations, their markets, occupancy drivers, the type of traveler that they bring in that they want to attract. There’s so many different elements. That speak to that. And it’s with the, Jackie and her team do a fantastic job to the point to the precision, we want to be completely aligned with that hotel partner. And what you were talking about was some of the newer luxury properties that we’re now partnering with. I mean, the stakes are high in the sense of they’ve had decades long reputation. They have built that. And it is no longer a negotiable for them to make sure that that reputation is protected. And a solution like this, like respond and resolve, really can help solidify that and also just serve as such a foundation and a security blanket in case some of these, Jackie had a couple examples of these things right now that can go wrong at a property. We hate to see it, but it happens every single day in a trusted partner like Travel Media Group and Respond & Resolve™ team behind you can really help give you a little bit of peace of mind for a hotelier. And you’re absolutely right. Obsessed is a great word to put it and passionate about review response. I mean, this is something that we’ve done for 10 years, but I think it’s been a little bit longer that we’ve been in the reputation game. And you know, you can’t, in 2026, you know, we, I had a podcast episode, late last year where it was actually with the co-founders of ILHA and they were talking about how you cannot in 2026 cannot be a complete expert at every aspect of hospitality. You just can’t. It’s just, it’s one of those unique industries where you can’t know everything about everything. You will never be the expert of chemicals for your hotel pool. But it’s important to know those things, and it’s important and critical to have a valuable partner that knows those things. So you think about that as one element, chemicals in a pool, curtains, flooring, review response is a very important element to your digital and online reputation there. And we talked with Jackie about, you know, obviously AI and how that has certainly changed in the last 10 years. And it’s how it’s come in, talk to us, because I think a lot of times people might hear us and think that we are anti AI or anti-technology, and it’s actually the exact opposite. It’s an incredible piece of technology that we can use in elements of reputation, but not necessarily for the actual response. So how are you kind of using AI? And we do have an AI solution, not 10 years old yet. We’ll be doing that in in several years. But talk to us about how you’ve used technology and AI kind of hand in hand with Respond and R™esolve for the past 10 years.

Jason Lee:

Yeah. I mean, I would say in the last 18 months we have evolved our core platform probably more than we did maybe in four years. So we’ve done a lot recently. And a lot of it is that a, like a whole new world of data analytics has been opened up. By this, so something that I would needed maybe two or three data scientists to help me with. I can do, can do with, with an API through anthropic, or through Open AI. And working with members of my team and putting some data together, we’re able to find like really interesting insights. And so the first thing we launched last year was the guest experience snapshot. And that was an a completely AI driven report. And the sort of origin of that was to show the hotel the top things that was that a guest was experiencing great. And then the top things that they, that was going wrong, and some of that was to show them multiples of the things that we were responding to. So the things that, so using this data to kind of, to shine a little light on like, Hey, we can only say sorry for this so many times. You know, but also to show them the other side of it where it’s like, Hey, this is where you guys are winning. You guys are winning in these very, in these areas. And this feedback isn’t always a negative. There’s a bunch of great stuff in here. And I think, so we’ve then continued that by continuing to analyze trends to continue to analyze, review flow, to analyze the sentiment data. And it just continues and continues and continues, as we sort of unlock the use cases of these tools. But for us, I think like the big pieces of the tools that are really exciting coming forward are the ways that we can scale personalization, in a way that we couldn’t do without major data science. And, and so we’re able to scale personalization, so taking the personalization that a hotelier gives us about very specific things about their property, and not writing the response based on that, but sort of confirming the response against the voice. So I can take a response and confirm then the voice, you know, and it says, yeah, this, this matches what they’re, what they asked us to do. And so that can get very, that in our world, that’s probably one of the more complicated pieces of it, especially where you have a very lengthy voice note, you have a massive policy note. You have a massive amenity amenity note. So these are these these spaces where a writer could get turned around on something. But where this could verify, hey, the response you just wrote is missing this one piece.

Ryan Embree:

Notes are changing seasonally based on restaurant menus, based on programming that the resort is conducting out. And its amenities classes that it has timing. I mean, all of those elements are notes that that can be provided and are so important. I mean, we think of it as oh, well, if we get a date wrong or if we get an item wrong, I mean, that has a pure, such a big impact on the guest experience and their impression of your hotel. And the care that you’re taking, so it’s just one of those elements, again, we talked about it with Jackie of, you have to prove essentially at this time that you’re not AI and that you do care and that, it’s so important to these guests and hoteliers, all this.

Jason Lee:

I think that’s where it all boils down to is that when I get that email from Booking.com as a guest that’s from the hotel, and I open that up and I read the response to the review that I wrote, does it feel authentic? Does it feel like it came from them? Does it mean anything to me? Is there any kind of meaning to that at all? Or is this like, or does this intensify, does this intensify my advocacy of this property, or does this intensify my anger? And you or does this turn me around? Does this make me wanna and I think these are these opportunities you have in this space that does make a huge difference. And I think AI will help us enhance the personalization of our individual properties and help help us, like put that really, like that perfect response together that helps the guests know that they’re cared for.

Ryan Embree:

It’s a feeling. I mean, Jackie talked about it getting that feedback from our partners about, this was a repeat guest, this is someone that stayed with us and they talked about our response back to them. They thanked us. And those are the moments that we strive here at Travel Media Group for, and we’ve seen so many over the last decade of doing this review response. And here we are at 10 years as you look towards the future, the landscape ever changing, you know, what do you see kind of for the future of Respond and Resolve™? And maybe we can open it up just to guest feedback management. I mean, were really at a inflection point I feel like right now.

Jason Lee:

Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it’s kind of more of the same in terms of what this has been about all the all along, which is the guest experience. And how do we react to the guest experience react to the specific experience the guest is giving us in a response, but act then multiple guest having similar experiences. How do we react to that? How do we improve the guest experience over time? And I think that that’s where the opportunity is right now, is that there are so many tools available to us to understand this in a much more granular level, in a much more specific level. So the old way of, of asking questions, I think of guests, I think is gonna go away at some point us sort of like, asking guests the same questions over and over again. You know, would you recommend, how clean was your room? What was the breakfast like? You know, rate that, I think we’re gonna get to a spot where we sort of understand these elements, but we can take broader textural, data points and start to really dial in to, so what does a 3 in breakfast mean? What does, what does it mean when somebody says that they would recommend at a 7? Or a thumbs up or a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I think this is where, you know, this is where these kinds of scales get a little funky. And so AI could help a guest actually articulate themselves in a response in a survey, for example. AI could also obviously take this data and take patterns of data and help a hotel understand the fail points of their service. And I think those are these really amazing opportunities for hotels that want to engage there. And, but all of this together is also doing something really interesting in the generative search world. So, we’re seeing people flock generative search more and more and more because it economizes that effort. I can read hundreds of reviews, I can have hundreds of reviews read for me and summarized, based on a very specific question. So I can ask about the breakfast, for example. And I get this summary. So none of that is gonna come through a three on a guest experience survey a guest satisfaction survey is not gonna affect that. But the 25 Expedia reviews that you’ve gotten in the last 90 days will. And I think those are those things that start to inform the traveler are going to be the quantity of signals. Whether they’re positive or negative and then the sort of inference of that signal, it’s not binary, it’s not good or bad, it is this other thing. Which is sort of the feeling of a guest. And I think a AI is getting better and better and better, and is getting to a point where it can sort of relay the feeling that multiples of guests have had about your property to a prospective guest. And that either should thrill you or it should scare you. Because this part of technology that I think get that we are all enjoying in some ways, right? Because it’s saving us time, it’s saving us effort, but in other ways, there is no place to hide. So you can’t hide behind, the first 200 reviews that you received at your hotel anymore. Where you got that, the first 200 reviews, you netted out a 4.4, and you’ve sort of been riding on that for the last like five, six years, more and more. That’s score is going to be irrelevant.

Ryan Embree:

That’s what I was gonna say, that I think the historical data is just gonna become less and less vital and critical. And it’s gonna be a moving type. It’s what you want. It’s absolutely something in the now what is the guest doesn’t care about what your hotel was like five years ago. When somebody at the front desk had a great, was really personable and friendly to them. They want to know what that front desk agent is doing today. What that room looks like today. So it’s going to be this living almost a living reputation.

Jason Lee:

And it is today. Yeah, it is now. But it’s different because, because a guest won’t research that deeply. It is today, I think it’s living today. And I think the hotels that are winning today will continue to win. Because it means that you’re doing the right thing by your guest. And I think that continues this cycle of sort of looking at the guest experience and finding your fail points and fixing ’em, finding ’em, fixing, finding and fixing is the real key. But it’s also empowering your front desk. It’s, it’s making sure that nobody leaves your property upset. It’s all of the things that we should be doing anyway that affect thhis. This is true hospitality. At its core but I think, what’s interesting about what AI is doing is it’s kind of shining a light into the, I guess, residual needs here. But I think this also gives you an unprecedented opportunity at your hotel to share this information with your staff, to, to take this back and, and really like, like dig in and make it work. The other thing I was gonna say, the other thing I was say on that, what I think on the future of guest feedback management will be the number of companies coming in an AI play today is crazy. There’s a lot of new companies that are coming in there, and there’s, and then there’s like long-term companies like Medallia, and Qualtrics and other companies that are offering AI responses inside of their platforms. And I think this all economizes that activity, but it does not remove our obligation to have authentic voice at our property and to communicate with guests that need to be communicated with. And the guests that needs to be communicated with. If you communicate well there, and I’ve said this over and over and over, if you communicate with the guest who wrote the review, well that will impact guest acquisition a hundred percent.

Ryan Embree:

Absolutely.

Jason Lee:

So the authentic voice is gonna be at a premium. The canned voice, the canned templated voice of AI, I think will end up, will end up being able to spot it. I mean, I think in some ways it, nothing changes, right. In other ways, everything changes.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree with you on that, Jason. I think it is going to be a priority for hotels that truly care to rise above the sea of sameness. And as your response and the templates, you know, that was kind of that first tide, was that the templates you wanted to show your guests that you actually cared, write something that looked better than a template. Better than a thank you for your feedback. ’cause that’s what all you were getting. Now, the, the reputation response ecosystem is even more ingrained because more and more people are coming in and using AI to respond. You’re going, it’s going to be a premium to show that you’re going to be looking for those edges and places that you can show guests that you care differently from the hotel next to you. And authentic review response, caring review response is gonna be one of those.

Jason Lee:

But authenticity all the way around, I mean I saw this I saw a video of the CEO of Marriott talking about specifically saying, use this technology to give yourself more time with the guest. Give yourself a few extra minutes with the guest to create relationship to create authenticity in person.

Ryan Embree:

The general manager of the future might look closer to the general manager of the past than it does right now. Interesting times. Here to celebrate, again, 10 years of Respond and Resolve™. Congratulations, another milestone, another chapter. Congrats to you and your team, and thanks for celebrating with us here on the Suite Spot.

Jason Lee:

Thanks, Ryan.

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 Suite Spot Road Trip is back! Tune in to the latest episode to hear from hospitality leaders from Choice Hotels and Newport Hospitality Group, as they celebrate the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Comfort Inn & Suites Orlando Sanford Airport. 

Check out the exclusive interviews with Andre Hickman, Wayne West III, Adam Hill, & Dena Hansen, only on the Suite Spot.

 

Ryan Embree:

Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embry, here for a special edition of the TMG Suite Spot Road Trip Series right down the road in our backyard in beautiful Sanford, Florida to visit the grand opening and Ribbon cutting event at the Comfort Inn and Suites Orlando Sanford Airport. We were invited to cover this celebratory event and talk to some of the instrumental individuals that made this property happen. Andre Hickman, the owner of the property, Wayne West III, president at Newport Hospitality. Adam Hill, VP of Operations at Newport Hospitality. And finally, Dena Hansen, Director of Sales at this beautiful, gorgeous new property opened up here. We had the privilege to cover it, bringing it to you in this episode in a busy hotel lobby celebrating the grand opening of this property. We hope you enjoy.

Wayne West III:

Well, welcome and thank you for coming to the celebration of the opening of this great hotel, the Comfort Inn and Suites. So make sure I get it right. Between Orlando Sanford Airport. Thank you very much. This hotel is a great example of what happens when you put a lot of smart people together and visionary people in a growing market like the Sanford Airport area. So thank you again, we’re, it’s great being here. Uh, my name is Wayne List. I’m the president of Newport Hospitality. We are honored that we get to operate a couple hotels for Andre Hickman, who I’ll reduce introduce in a little while. You’ll hear me use a couple, you’ll hear me overuse a couple words as I talk to you tonight. Really, really proud of the Hickman family. When you walk through the hotel and you see the amenities that he’s put here, how thoughtful he was and how intentional every decision was to be successful, and not just successful for him, but to make sure that all the guests are well taken care of at every touch point in the hotel, whether it’s the guest laundry or the cabana, or the pool or the exercise room. He was very, very thoughtful. I’ve, I’ve been blessed over the years and I’m trying to find my partner. Mike. Mike, I know you’re here, Mike. Yes, the tall one over here. Mike and I have opened up a lot of hotels in our years. Uh, I’m not sure we’ve opened up one Mike, that the owner was as thoughtful about every step along the way and cautious and careful and trying to do it just right for the long-term legacy of this hotel. So I’ll have to thank the Hickman family for that. If you look at the design, the finishes, the touch and the construction, the touch points are just incredible for a hotel. So the Hickman family, if you would kind of raise your hand, Andre and the Hickman family, a lot of them are over here. We want to thank you personally. I want to, I wanna talk a little bit about businesses in the area. Um, the airport obviously is, is booming. Uh, Boomba, which I know has been here a few years, but needed a desperately needed a hotel in the market. I spoke to someone the other day that was so excited. We had, they had a hotel in the market to use Go Port, one of our biggest clients here. Uh, really want to thank the community, the leadership of the community, the chamber, the folks that have joined us, um, the lending and financial partners, which really is a testament to, to Andre and his team and his legacy of all the development that he’s done. Uh, the folks from Choice Hotels are here. If they would raise their hand, I’ll lose you in the back. We have Joe, who is the leader of the Choice Hotel, sys the choice, comfort in hotels system. So great to have you with us. Uh, I wanna thank some people particularly too personally here. You’ve met Mike Clinger. He raised his hand. We have a lot of our people here that worked really, really hard with Andre to get this right. Andre did the hard work. We came in behind him and tried to fill in where our responsibility of opening up a great hotel. But I’ve got Sandra Lucas here. I saw Sandra and her husband, Sandra’s in charge of revenue for about two thirds or a third of our portfolio of 36 hotels. Uh, Adam, Adam, where are you? Adam Hill. Adam is the back. Adam is the vice President of operation for this hotel. Reports to Andre about the hotel. Uh, Whitney Ties is Whitney is in the back. Whitney’s our, our chief commercial officer and senior vice president, also an owner along with Mike and I, Mike Pinger. You’ve met, uh, Matthew Hoffman, who I hope all of y’all have met, is the general manager of this great hotel, the back, Dina Hansen, who everybody needs to beat tonight because we want her to book business with you. She’s our director of sales of both of our hotels. And part of the remarks I’ll make is about, you know, why Sandford, we’re the first hotel, I guess this close to the airport anyway. I know there’s a couple of other hotels in the market, but we don’t pay a lot of attention to those. I’m sorry if I’m offending some of the owners and general managers that are here, but that’s the truth. Uh, the airport’s booming. Andre’s had this in his line of sight for a long time and waited for the time to be right. Uh, it’s always difficult building a hotel. It’s always difficult putting a great amount of equity down and then a year, a year and a half of, of painful getting it to the birth thing, right? Yeah. Not nine months, but a true year and a half. So we thank you for that. We thank all of our partners that are here. Thank you very much for showing up. This hotel I mentioned a little earlier, has a lot of amenities, whether it’s our shuttle to the airport, whether it’s the outdoor pool, the cabana, um, the, if you haven’t seen the exercise room, we have 36 hotels. Many of them are larger than this. None of them has an exercise room that has the quality touches and is as large as that. We’re gonna be super attracted to sporting groups that are going to Baba. We’re excited about joining and, and partnering with them. I, I will tell you, as Andre built this hotel, it was all about the messaging of getting it right for his family, our guests, and our team members. So it wasn’t just about Andre. He really made the decisions based on what, how he’s gonna be successful here is taking great care of our guests and great care of our team members. I hope you all will come back. Join us lots and lots in your relatives here, your colleagues here, your weddings, events here. So thank you very much. It is really my honor. Now to introduce you to Andre Hickman, who is the developer of this property. Probably many of you know Andre. He, he’s done several other ventures in this market. We have another great hotel. We operate him for him in Sanford. But it really is just an honor and a pleasure to be here with y’all to do this grand opening. Uh, again, it was so thoughtful and so intentional. When you walk around, those things don’t happen by accident. Those things happen because this gentleman here was thoughtful about it and really tried to produce the best hotel he could in this market. So thank you very much. It was great talking to a lot of y’all. Tonight I’ll let Andre take takeover.

Ryan Embree:

Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot live at the grand opening of the Comfort Inn & Suites, Orlando Sanford Airport here with the owner Andre. Andre, passion project, multi-year project. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears coming. We’re here finally at the grand opening, the ribbing front. How are you feeling right now?

Andre Hickman:

I’m ecstatic. Yeah, it’s been a long time in the making from the first phone call to finding the property and signing the franchise and, and, uh, just very blessed to be here today.

Ryan Embree:

A lot of choice representation, because this is really a star property for the comfort brand. Talk to us about the words I keep hearing is intentionality, very deliberate on all the amenities where even things you were talking about in your speech over here about even where parking spaces were. Talk to us about, you know, the passion behind this project and why you wanted to make it so intentional and so deliberate.

Andre Hickman:

Well, it was a labor of love a lot of years in the making. Yeah. Uh, we’re near the airport and so we did a little bit of theming with the, the metal and the, and the airplane wings and the, the portico. Uh, we did a lot of extra features. We, we had another com We have another comfort in in Sanford, and I wanted to do things a little different. Yeah. And so I went bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. So bigger pool, bigger deck, barbecue grill area, bigger lobby, taller ceilings, bigger rooms, bigger bathrooms. Um, we wanted to do a walk-in shower. I really don’t like curtains and, and glass doors. And I said, you know, if we can make a, a walk-in shower and a comfort in, that’d be quite a feat. And so a lot of design work, and we’re really pleased with how it came out.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. I love doing these types of episodes and grand openings and talking to owners like yourself because you don’t get these stories sometimes in the background of the labor of love, like you speak of in the background. Now I’m a resident of Seminole County, here in Oviedo, but we’re here in Sanford, just right up the road, yet a couple Sanford City officials here, also welcoming this new business. Talk about, uh, the special place in your heart and location. Just, just a couple miles from the airport closest actually to the airport right now.

Andre Hickman:

We’re very fortunate to have county and city commissioners here today. Several choice representatives. Flew in to see the new hotel. Uh, we’re here by the airport. We had some airport folks here. It’s, uh, quite a, quite a unique spot because we’re located almost halfway between the Sanford Airport entrance as well as the Boomba Sports Complex. Yeah. And I think we’re in a unique spot to, to hopefully capture, uh, visitors from both those markets.

Ryan Embree:

Absolutely. That’s what you want. And it is the, uh, be able to attract all in every segment. Um, congratulations here on this project, Andre. Again, labor of love. It turned out perfect. We’ll let you get back to your grand opening party. Thank you so much for visiting with us.

Andre Hickman:

Thank you.

Speaker 4:

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. We are here at the grand opening at the Comfort Inn and Suites, Orlando Sanford Airport here with Wayne West, the third. Wayne, we saw you out in Hunter a couple years, uh, weeks, months ago. In Atlanta. Here we are in Sanford, Florida. Beautiful property opening up here. Tell us a little bit about this project.

Wayne West III:

Well, this is the second project for this owner we’ve operated for, for 25 years. Great owner. Takes great care of the guest, take great care of my team members, and obviously build a beautiful hotel. And the word I will use for Andre Hickman, the owner developer, is that it was so thoughtful about this property and every little nuance of it is intentional to take great care of the guest. Whether it’s a sports team coming into the boom by complex, or whether it’s distressed gas staying at the airport, which is only quarter of a mile away, the airport entrance. He was just so intentional and so thoughtful about every aspect of the property at his own expense. Yeah. He really put a lot more into this than the typical choice hotel.

Ryan Embree:

We talked right now, we talked at Hunter about, right now it’s about strategic growth for Newport and it needs to be the right partner.

Wayne West III:

Yeah.

Ryan Embree:

Why was this project and this owner the right project for you at Newport?

Wayne West III:

Well, actually we’ve been blessed enough to, to work for Andre for 25 years. When he started talking about this three years ago, he involved us from the very beginning. He was, he would come out to the site and look at it. He would talk about what the drivers were going to be, what he wanted to do to take care of those drivers. And frankly, he needed to be financially successful, but he’s put a tremendous amount of equity time and energy and effort into this to get to this product. Yeah. So he is a perfect partner for us. He’s a perfect partner for Seminole County. He’s a perfect partner for all the business around him.

Ryan Embree:

It’s absolutely beautiful property. Very unique. Like I said in his speech, he was actually talking about, you know, using some dry erase on some parking lots. That’s how, you know, how intentional and deliberate each decision there. We love that in hospitality, right. ’cause sometimes now they get accused of just the big box hotel. This certainly doesn’t fit that bill.

Wayne West III:

No. And I think if you would talk to the choice people, this is the showcase for them though. This is an example of an owner that did it right.And in some cases, what above and beyond their brand standards, just to make sure the guests are taken great care of.

Ryan Embree:

Love to see it, continue to see those guest expectations elevated and love to see. Can’t wait to see the feedback that everyone gets. Appreciate you taking the time to spend some time.

Wayne West III:

Great to do that. Thank you again. Good being with you.

Ryan Embree:

Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Ryan Embree:

Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot at the Comfort Inn & Suites Orlando Sanford Airport here with Adam. Adam, thank you so much for taking the time. Wonderful project, beautiful property. Just spoke to Wayne about really the high level relationship between ownership and Newport Hospitality Group. You’re the boots on the ground. You’re a little bit closer to the project. Talk to us a little bit about the story. ’cause it, you know, it didn’t just spread out of the ground. That’s a labor of love, right?

Adam Hill:

This project is probably 10 plus years in the making. I mean, the Hickman family, started one of the drawing board literally over 10 plus years ago. It’s one of our longest standing partners. They’ve been with Newport for almost 30 years. So for them to take this and do it, I mean, Andre painstakingly worked over the plans. They were written. I came on board about three years ago. And I was like, we’re never gonna get this over the finish line. So then we went from the site and we started with moving some dirt excavating, getting the walls up, moving it. And I mean, the project has just come to life in the last two and a half years. It’s ridiculous. But I mean, just to see all the love and hard work that the Hickman family have put into it is just amazing. This is probably the best choice product out there. You’re not gonna see a Comfort Inn like this. It’s very unique for 107 rooms, all the square footage, every room is meticulously designed to be exceptional.

Ryan Embree:

Absolutely an incredible story. A beautiful property here. 10 plus years in a challenging environment. Right now for hospitality. Talk to us about, you know, having that communication with ownership with the contractors, making sure even the GM, the agent, the director of sales, who’s probably planning these rooms before the hotel’s even open, trying to get some groups in here. So talk us through a little bit about that process and how that communication is key to.

Adam Hill:

So I think we’re very fortunate in this market. I mean, like I said, we’ve been here almost 30 years. We’ve established great grounds, great roots with the businesses that are here. We knew that the businesses were gonna grow. Even during COVID, this hotel did not suffer. I mean, this hotel did extremely well. And they’re talking about our sister hotel in the market. But, so when we knew when this room was gonna be built, we knew with Boomba right here, the airport growing, there was an opportunity. We seized that opportunity. I know there’s several other hotel projects that were planned. They’ve never got off the ground. We got this off the ground and I mean, we were able to get the financing behind it. We were able to get a solid GC that had never built a hotel before. And I mean, this is a hotel that a GC did not ever built. So I mean, it was a very, like, the stars aligned. We got a perfect team. So just tremendously happy with how it happened.

Ryan Embree:

The excitement was matched. We had a couple representatives from the city of Sanford talking about this property and it was equally matched because they’re excited about the airport being right here. And that’s gotta be great for the location. How is that kind of working with the city in tandem with them to help a project like this move across the finish line?

Adam Hill:

So I, again, our partnership extends beyond just the Newport team. So Dena serves on the Seminole County Chamber of Commerce board of Directors. We have Andre who serves on the sports district for Seminole County, so forth. So we’re very connected. We’re a very community partner. We make sure that we’re very active in our community by giving back. So, I mean, that’s opened a lot of doors for us too, where we don’t really have a major challenge of getting our head in with city leaders. ’cause we give back at the communities that we work in.

Ryan Embree:

Love that. That’s hospitality at its core, right? So, Adam, appreciate it. Congratulations on the property. Congratulations on the project. Biggest celebration for you as well. We’ll let you get back to it. Thank you so much for joining us.

Adam Hill:

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Ryan Embree:

Hello everyone. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot at the beautiful Comfort Inn and Suites Orlando Sanford Airport here with Dena, Director of Sales. You have now become the envy of every director of sales in this area. ’cause you have the nicest, most beautiful property here. Thank you for having us at your grand opening and ribbon cutting. Talk to us about this passion project. It’s just absolutely gorgeous here. Here we are in the lobby.

Dena Hansen:

Thank you. Well, thank you for coming and celebrating with us. Our property has really been built and created by design for those travelers coming in, not only for cruises, but the sports teams that are traveling in. We are about a mile from Boombah Sports Complex, and they have a lot of different tournaments, whether it’s baseball, lacrosse, field hockey, so lots of comfort here. We have 107 rooms. Most of them are double queens. Again, thinking of those families coming in, and I like to say it’s like Texas over here. Everything’s bigger. The pool is bigger, the deck is bigger. There’s a cabana with some lounge seating. There are two barbecue grills with patio seats as well. So if you don’t wanna go out and spend that money on food at a restaurant, uh, you’re welcome to go to Publix, which is two miles down the road, grab some food and just grill it up and have a good time.

Ryan Embree:

What type of traveler segment are you really getting interest from and like, inquiries for groups?

Dena Hansen:

Yeah. So in the beginning, a lot of wedding blocks, a lot of reunions, obviously a lot of sports blocks coming in for boombah but most recently the word has gotten out from corporate companies and they’re wanting some corporate rates. They wanna utilize our meeting space. So it’s, it’s kind of ebbs and ebb and flows a little bit. But very exciting.

Ryan Embree:

This location has really been starved for something here. We had a couple of city officials here that were talking about this and so happy they were equally as excited to be opening this up because the airport is growing so much. What is some of the feedback that you’ve been hearing? You’ve already have some guests in here we’ve seen coming in and out of the lobby doors. What is some of the feedback that you’ve been hearing so far from maybe the individual travelers and then maybe some of the groups that you’ve hosted here as well?

Dena Hansen:

Yeah. So positive feedback all around. I don’t think I’ve heard one negative thing about the hotel. They enjoy the space. They love the pool area, especially for families that have littles. There’s a sun shelf on the pool. So it’s easier for them to watch the kids. Just the extra space and how wide and open and comforting everything is is amazing. Somebody actually said they love our sheets.

Ryan Embree:

Okay. Yeah. That’s a new one too. Awesome. Well, I wanna wrap up by just talking about maybe the relationship that as a DOS you gotta have really good relationships and connections with local businesses. Obviously the community. Seminole County, I’m a resident of Seminole County, right down the road. So, talk to us a little bit about how you’ve been able to build those and give back to the community and how they’ve supported you, and vice versa.

Dena Hansen:

Yeah. So, not only are we a part of both Seminole County Chamber and the Sanford Chamber. I’m on the board of Directors for the Sanford Chamber as well. And doing that it is really all about building the relationships, maintaining contact and just helping each other out and partnering together. That’s really what it’s about. So if, if they need a meeting space, we actually house the Sanford Chamber breakfast, weekly breakfast meetings for Q3. We’ll be here every Wednesday from 7:30AM – 9:00AM. Shameless plug. But yeah, relationship building, it’s mandatory. Nobody wants to do business with somebody you don’t know. You wanna know that you’re gonna be taken care of. And when you walk through those doors, I guarantee you from the moment you step through to the moment you leave, we have you.

Ryan Embree:

That’s hospitality.

Dena Hansen:

Living hospitality at its best at Comfort Inn & Suites Orlando Sanford Airport.

Ryan Embree:

Dena, thank you so much. Thank you. Congratulations. We’ll let you get back to the party here. Thank you. And celebrate this incredible property.

Dena Hansen:

Thank you very much.

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, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

The next stop on the Suite Spot Road Trip takes travelers to Delray Beach, Florida, to visit the newly re-imagined property, Hyatt Place Delray Beach, with special guest and General Manager of the hotel, Taylor Wauhob. 

This recently renovated property boasts incredible ocean views, robust F&B, newly designed interiors, and an attractive location that supplies plentiful fun for the whole family. 

Tune in now to hear the full episode and why Hyatt Place Delray Beach should be your next vacation destination.

Ryan Embree:

Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, here for another edition of the Suite Spot Road Trip. We are here down south, just a bright line trip away from our TMG headquarters at the Hyatt Place, Delray Beach, a beautiful property, which I’m so excited to talk about and showcase today, with the general manager, Taylor. Taylor, thank you so much for hosting us here at your Hyatt Place.

Taylor Wauhob:

Thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor to be on the show and really excited to tell you about Delray and show off our property.

Ryan Embree:

It’s a beautiful property. It’s an incredible location. I can’t wait to get all into it, but in hospitality, we love a good story, right? We love talking about experiences. We come from different brands. Sometimes we fall into the industry, sometimes we went to school for it. So share a little bit us about your professional journey and the hospitality career that brought you here to the Hyatt Place.

Taylor Wauhob:

Absolutely. My journey into hospitality was certainly unexpected. I got a job at a front desk during college, just needed something to do in the downtime.

Ryan Embree:

Heard that before.

Taylor Wauhob:

Yeah, it’s something to keep me doing the right thing. And I fell in love with it. I was really nervous stepping into it. It’s a lot of guest interaction and I was a little shy at the time, so I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I really loved it. And I didn’t know what life after college was gonna look like for me. So I decided to just invest fully in that role and see where it took me. And thankfully I worked for a management company that really invested in internal growth. And so just a few weeks before graduation, I was offered a role as a manager in training. And I was excited to have an idea of what my future would look like. So I pursued that and I’ve moved all around the country I had with that company, and it eventually brought me to Florida where I finally felt like, all right, this is a good spot to put down some roots. I found Kolter Hospitality, which has such a beautiful portfolio, so I really liked the opportunity to grow within a company without having to leave the state of Florida. So I started here two years ago and this is where we’re at now.

Ryan Embree:

Well, it’s incredible and a true reflection on the transferable skills of hospitality. You really can go wherever across the country, and then you end up at a beautiful property like this. Well, congratulations. The property recently underwent a complete renovation, a complete design reimagination. Obviously those story, there’s always a story with those, right? Sometimes headaches, but they’re passion projects that end up looking like this, like we have here. Tell us a little bit about the renovations, what guests love about it, and then maybe personally what you love about it.

Taylor Wauhob:

Yeah, absolutely. I think I started at the perfect time. I came into the property about three months before the renovation was gonna start. So I got to see peak season at this property pre-renovation which was certainly a challenge. It was an older hotel. There was some condition challenges that we were facing, but I also got to see the guests who still loved this property, even despite that. So it was great to interact with that clientele and then be here through the whole process. And I’m really thankful that I still have over 50% of my team from pre-renovation.

Ryan Embree:

That’s amazing.

Taylor Wauhob:

Yeah. It is, it is no easy feat. Anybody who’s been through it knows that you hope to never do it again, but it was certainly worth it. So it was really cool to see this all come together. I think it’s really easy to look at the individual items and kind of think how is this gonna come together as a design. But the designer did an incredible job. It’s got a really coastal feel now, and I love that it really fits Delray Beach. There’s no other Hyatt place that you’re gonna walk into and have this design or feel this kind of property way. So it’s been really nice to see our guests come in and be so pleasantly surprised at the changes and just how much it fits the area now.

Ryan Embree:

Any elements that you particularly like?

Taylor Wauhob:

It’s bright and it’s airy, which I absolutely love. But my favorite is our bar. We’ve got such a beautiful light fixture over that bar. With big open windows, so you can see everybody walking around downtown. And it’s just a really great draw right there.

Ryan Embree:

It’s a unique property for a unique location. And I had the opportunity yesterday evening to walk around. We were talking about, you wouldn’t even known it was a Tuesday night. It felt the energy, the vibe, the feel felt like a weekend. There were kids playing in the green areas and families, there was nightlife going on. I think I walked by a couple live bands that we’re playing as well. Paint a picture for those who aren’t familiar with Delray Beach about the location of this property because you’re steps away from a lot of of great, just nightlife and food and beverage, everything.

Taylor Wauhob:

Well, you summed it up really well. You can go for a stroll, you wouldn’t know what day of the week it was, and you wouldn’t know who lives in the area. Really, it’s a little bit of everything. It’s such a great draw for families, for college students, for retirees. If you just walk from here to the beach, it’s a mile away in that walk. You’re gonna hit every kind of cuisine you could imagine. The best seafood, of course, you’re gonna hit great bars that have patios, live music, outdoor games or rooftops with coastal views. You’re gonna pass by all kinds of different events. There’s comedy shows, there’s concerts, there’s the retro arcade where kids and families can hang out, but you can still grab a drink and hang out for the day. Great boutique clothing stores, every kind of gelato and ice cream you can imagine. So just so much lively stuff going on. It’s really great.

Ryan Embree:

Very cool. And obviously nightlife, food and beverage, big draws to this area, but great for events as well. When people are coming in. Groups that come in behind us here is the front desk. I’m sure one of the most common questions is come in and you’re like, Hey, where’s the best place to eat? What is some of your staff saying? And then maybe, what are some of the food and beverage options you mentioned the bar before that you offer here on site for guests?

Taylor Wauhob:

Well, we always try to make sure that we’ve got something for our guests who come in and they just wanna be able to unwind here and not have to step out. As much as we love Delray, we also want them to be comfortable just on property. So we do have a really great small menu, but it caters to a little bit of everything. We’ve got some good chicken caesar salads, some sandwich options, flatbreads, wings, you know, all the necessities. And some of those items are available 24/7, so if you’re coming in off a late flight, we’ve still got you covered. And then we’ve got our grab and go market, which has some great options as well. Fresh pressed juices and sandwiches and things like that. But outside of the property, there’s really too many options to count. But some of my favorites, we’ve got Geronimo’s that just opened up. It’s a new tequila grilling bar, a beautiful patio and awesome spot to hang out. We’ve got Gabriela’s, which is an amazing modern Italian restaurant. And then right next to that is Hyde Park Steakhouse, which is a little bit more elevated. They’ve got a live piano player in the evening sometimes. It’s a really cool environment.

Ryan Embree:

Oh, awesome. And again, just steps away from the properties location, which makes it really nice. Local events, obviously big occupancy drivers for the hotel as well. What are some of those bigger draws that get your guests and travelers here? And then maybe some of those events, local events that you might not know about those secret finds?

Taylor Wauhob:

Absolutely. So our biggest one of course, is gonna be the Delray Beach Tennis Open. Happens for two weeks every February. We are the premier location for that. We’re the closest in walking distance. Just a block away from here and even if you don’t like tennis or don’t know anything about it, as I don’t, it is so much fun to attend these events. This past year, this city of Delray actually started a window decorating contest. So all of the local businesses participate, and we set up these huge window displays. We didn’t win this year. We’ve got a little chip on our shoulder about it, so we’re coming back strong next year. But it’s really fun for everyone to participate and vote.

Ryan Embree:

Awesome. And any kind of smaller local events that people might not know about?

Taylor Wauhob:

Yeah, absolutely. Again, we’re the best location for that too. Right across the street from us is the Arts Garage and Old School Square. So the Arts Garage is a really cool venue that offers comedy shows, live musicians, plays all kinds of different performances. It’s a really intimate venue that offers, you know, drinks. So you can hang out for a little bit before and after. And then Old School Square has an outdoor amphitheater, and then that huge lawn. One of my favorites is during Christmas time, they set up the 120 foot Christmas tree. And inside of it is Santa’s workshop, so it’s really fun for everybody to hang out and take pictures. It’s a good event.

Ryan Embree:

That’s awesome. People taking pictures, obviously sharing a lot of that on social media. You and your team done a great job on Facebook, Instagram, make sure you follow the Hyatt Place, Delray Beach there, social media presence. We talk about it all the time on this particular podcast about how important it is. Why do you think as a hotelier, who has managed multiple hotels. Why do you think it’s important for hoteliers to have a strong social media presence today? And how are guests kind of using this local area in their own social media feeds and maybe even the property?

Taylor Wauhob:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s no secret that the new generation of travelers is looking more at things like social media, and they care more about that. And with things the way they are today, everything’s so expensive. If people are gonna take the time to invest in traveling, they’re no longer looking for just a hotel to stay at. And then to get out and experience the city. They want every aspect of their stay to be part of the experience. And so I think that’s where Instagram and all of social media becomes so important. They wanna see is the property gonna provide some sort of unique experience while I’m there in the evenings? And for our property specifically, I mean, it’s so easy to make it look good on social media. It’s just really beautiful property. And so it’s done a great job of highlighting all of the things that people can do. Even when they’re not in Delray, they can grab a drink at our bar and hang out in all of these really beautiful spaces and make the most of it. We’ve got a great second floor outdoor pool that has a really resort vibe to it. And so I think our guests see that. And a recent example, we had some girls stay here actually, and they put together a really cute video of them going through the hotel and unpacking and, and then their time throughout Delray. And it was cool to see them highlight and tag us in in that love

Ryan Embree:

That, I mean, that’s every marketer’s dream, right? They’re telling your story for you. For hoteliers that aren’t on that platform or aren’t kind of social listening, so to speak, they miss out on that opportunity. So it’s so important. And because again, your guests, when you have a property like this, your guests are engaging with you and they might be doing a great job of telling your story. And other travelers want to hear guest experiences too. You know, of course we love to take our pictures of our properties that look the best it’s ever looked right and our nicest meals. But that real authentic, I know that’s a term we throw around a lot, but to get that real world authentic experience,

Taylor Wauhob:

And they’re always gonna see it differently than we see it.

Ryan Embree:

A hundred percent.

Taylor Wauhob:

So, you know, my favorite part of the hotel might not be what the guests are loving the most. So it’s really cool to see what they’re experiencing and loving about our property.

Ryan Embree:

And that learning can translate to other things, right. You start to see that there’s a particular area of the hotel being showcased a lot on social media. Maybe you add something there. Maybe there’s a programming or an element that you add there to even amplify that even more. So I’ve heard some incredible stories. That was a great example that you had there. I saw on your Instagram recently that the properties Instagram recently, I wanna get this right, that you guys received the Hyatt 2025 Commercial Team of the Year Essentials Awards. Congratulations to you and your team.

Taylor Wauhob:

Thank you so much.

Ryan Embree:

Talk to us a little bit about that award and what it means to you as general manager.

Taylor Wauhob:

Oh gosh. Coming off of a renovation year. It means so much to get that award. I mean, this team just, went through a lot with the renovation. It’s incredibly difficult. So renovation was 2024. We received this award for the 2025 year, which our first year outta renovation coming outta that reno, the market didn’t know who we were. We were essentially a brand new property. We didn’t know who we were or how we wanted to establish ourselves. So we really had to come together as a team and decide what do we wanna be in this market? And so we put in a great deal of effort to make sure that we were the friendliest hotel in the market. So, you can stay anywhere. You can pay for a clean room, you can pick any hotel within walking distance of this area. But what sets us apart is our team and the effort that they put in. So to kind of rebuild our reputation, earn back the market share that we had lost during renovation, and prove to the market once again that we are a premier destination to receive this ward was just showing us that all of our efforts did not go unseen. So it was really great to be able to celebrate what that meant with the team and feel like we earned it.

Ryan Embree:

It’s amazing. And shown through your leadership with the retention of the employees too, to see through that, obviously challenging time, but to be on the other side of it and then to reap the rewards of that award. So congratulations on that. But to speak to your point, and I think, you know, it’s a great lesson for hoteliers to kind of find that north star and encompass of who you are. And even if it’s to the detail of we want to be the friendliest, that might not be an award necessarily that you’re, that you’re winning, in a market like Friendliest Hotel. But if you get buy-in from your team on that can really, again, act as kind of a compass or North Star.

Taylor Wauhob:

Absolutely. I mean, I can’t be here every day. I can’t interact with every single guest. So knowing that my team is carrying out that vision, and still moving forward in that direction, even when I’m not here, it just, it makes a world of difference and they really earned it.

Ryan Embree:

So cool to see. So we always like to wrap up with a few fun, like rapid fire questions. So get to get to know you, get to know the property location a little bit better. So you mentioned it. Favorite view at the property?

Taylor Wauhob:

Oh, favorite view. Room 413.

Ryan Embree:

Okay, we got the room. The first room number that I’ve heard on this question.

Taylor Wauhob:

It’s got beautiful floor to ceiling windows in a curved wall in the living room that looks out, out in all of downtown Delray Beach. And you can see beautiful sunrises from that room. It’s amazing. Great for bridal parties.

Ryan Embree:

I like it. 413, remember that. It’s a little tip, but a note. Favorite signature drink or dish, either at a local spot or here at the property?

Taylor Wauhob:

Okay, well I’ve got two then. So if you’re on property right now, we’ve got our spring collection. Cocktails and mocktails. My favorite right now is the lavender lush mocktail. It’s actually great. Really refreshing. And then Rocka Hula is a new restaurant in town. They have the coolest custom cocktails. I mean, shock and Instagramable. This is the place to go. It’s really great.

Ryan Embree:

Okay. We’ll have to check that out. Favorite piece of art or design? At the property or around Delray Beach?

Taylor Wauhob:

I would say our elevator landing. We’ve got a really cool octopus mural. It’s beautiful. Everybody loves to take pictures right there. It’s my favorite.

Ryan Embree:

See, that’s one of those places you could see on Instagram. Probably. Favorite fun fact about the property. I always like asking this question ’cause there’s just so much. I always get some really unique answers that if you never ask you’ll never find out.

Taylor Wauhob:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So everybody thinks the big draw for Delray is Atlantic Avenue, which is one of them. But we are also located right here on Pineapple Grove. Which is a historic arts district, but back in the 1900’s it actually used to be Pineapple Farms. And it was second only to Hawaii in production. And so now it’s famous for that. There’s a sign on both ends that says Pineapple Grove.

Ryan Embree:

I saw that.

Taylor Wauhob:

Yeah. Yeah. There’s all the lights on the streets, so it’s really beautiful.

Ryan Embree:

Very cool. Okay. See the fun fact learning stuff. So as we wrap up today, you know, I ask you as general manager, newly renovated property, just got that award. You spoke a little bit about to it, but what, what’s the lasting impression as people kinda walk out through this lobby that you hope to impart on departing guests and what they remember about their experience here?

Taylor Wauhob:

I think it coincides really well with Delray Beach. People come to Delray, who have never been here before, and they’re very surprised by it because, you know what to expect from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm, but you come here and it’s got all of the nightlife and activity that you would want from a big city while still having this really small town charm to it and they call it The Village by the Sea, and it really lives up to that. So I love that guests leave Delray feeling pleasantly surprised and they feel the same way from our property as well. And that’s always my goal at least. But they really come in expecting a standard Hyatt place. Tons of people have stayed at a Hyatt place. But we’re very different than that. And so people show up and they’re excited at something new and then they get that same experience from Delray and they walk away just feeling like they got so much more than they ever expected. So that’s always our goal to impart on our guests when they leave.

Ryan Embree:

Awesome. Well, really appreciate you hosting us. You’ve got a beautiful property. Thank you. Incredible location. You know, again, you and your team are are knocking it out of the park here.

Taylor Wauhob:

Thank you.

Ryan Embree:

We hope to be back soon. Thank you so much, Taylor for taking some time with us.

Taylor Wauhob:

Absolutely. We’d love to have you again for a little vacation.

Ryan Embree:

All right. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for joining us 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.