Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast Travel Media Group & Ryan Embree

The Suite Spot takes a trip to Atlanta to visit the Reverb Downtown Atlanta by Hard Rock and uncovers how the unique property is one-of-a-kind and gives travelers a rocking guest experience during their hotel stays. From modern amenities like a reverberation room to a rooftop bar that sets your sights on the breathtaking ATL skyline, this episode covers all the exciting developments and why this destination should be your next booking.



To submit a question for future episodes, visit travelmediagroup.com. For show notes and transcript, visit our blog.

Managing Director at the Caribe Royale Orlando, Amaury Piedra, checks in to the Suite Spot in our latest Spotlight series episodes to give viewers the 4-1-1 on the $140+ million dollar re-imagination of the resort and what guests can expect from the remarkable expansion and transformation.



This episode covers some key digital marketing topics like social media for hoteliers and gives insight into the traveler's journey through the Caribe Royale Orlando property experience.



To submit a question for future episodes, visit travelmediagroup.com. For show notes and transcript, visit our blog.

Check out the top 5 takeaways from the 2024 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference and what they mean for hoteliers. Host Ryan Embree gives insight into key topics and conversations from the event for listeners so don't worry if you weren't able to attend or missed a few panels.



All the must-know details are right at your fingertips. Tune in!



To submit a question for future episodes, visit travelmediagroup.com. For show notes and transcript, visit our blog.



Episode Transcript:



Ryan Embree:

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

Former CEO and President of the AHLA, Chip Rogers, joins the Suite Spot to discuss the state of the industry and how hoteliers can make 2024 a successful year. This episode is filled with expert advice, industry insights, and trending topics so tune in to get the 411 on what developments are going to impact your hotel business!



To submit a question for future episodes, visit travelmediagroup.com. For show notes and transcript, visit our blog.



Episode Transcript:



Ryan Embree:

Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree, welcome and we've got a great guest, a guest that needs little to no introduction. He's checked in with us several times on the Suite Spot. Chip Rogers, President & CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Chip, thank you so much for being on Suite Spot.



Chip Rogers:

Yeah, always glad to be with you, Ryan. Thanks for having me.



Ryan Embree:

Yeah, and last time we were together Chip, was before the new year, so Happy New Year by the way. Very, very busy time for hoteliers. They're getting their budgets together, they're looking at data projections, all that good stuff. I wanna give a little bit of insight to our audience on maybe the planning process from the AHLA team. You guys have, have started off just really, really quickly. Lots of events. Obviously, every issue is important, but how do you kind of prioritize that, put your calendar in place, you know, around this time of year?



Chip Rogers:

Yeah, the biggest priority for us is always advocacy. I mean that's the core of what we do at AHLA is we're the voice of the hotel industry to make sure that policymakers are doing things that help the hotel industry not hurt the industry. And so this is a critical time of year for us because while we do a lot in Washington D.C., that just kind of keeps churning at a, at a steady pace again and again and again. It's the state and local level that is hyperactive at this very moment because most state legislatures go into session at the beginning of the year, and then most of them are done with session by early spring. And so this is really prime time for us when working on state and local legislation. And again, this year we've got a whole host of issues that we're dealing with at the state level. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia right now, probably two blocks from the capitol. We had a really big event here yesterday, about 300 hotels for our Georgia Hotel conference that we share with the Georgia Hotel Lodging Association. We had the Attorney General, we had one of the key members of the Georgia Senate join us. And we talked a lot about the policies that are impacting people. And we do these type of events really all around the country. We have 20 of these on the road events this year. And so yesterday was the second one we had. The first one was in Honolulu last week, which was wonderful, but we've got 18 more to go. And then of course we have our really big show, the Hospitality Show, which will be happening October 28th through the 30th in San Antonio, Texas.



Ryan Embree:

I'm sure it's so important, Chip to kind of hear, you know, get feet on the ground and talk to hoteliers face-to-face about some of these pressing issues in our industry. You get a unique perspective there. One of the things that AHLA just released recently, which should be good and and exciting news for everyone, is 72% of American travelers are likely to increase or at least maintain their level of hotel stays in 2024. So excellent news there, right? But there's always those looming, some inflation, economic uncertainty, obviously we got an election year. What can hoteliers do to make sure when they look back at th...

The 35th Hunter Hotel Investment Conference is only weeks away, taking place on March 19-21 in Atlanta, Georgia!



Join Suite Spot host and TMG Director of Marketing Ryan Embree as he sits down with the Chief of Staff at Hunter Hotel Advisors, Sarah Moss, to discuss the upcoming event and what attendees can look forward to from one of the biggest conferences in the hotel industry. This episode has something for every hotelier, from best digital marketing practices to everything related to the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference.



Episode Transcript:





Ryan Embree:

Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining us, wherever you are listening or watching us on our YouTube channel from. I've got a great guest with me today that I'm gonna introduce in just a second, but this is a part of our Hospitality Trailblazers series. If this is your first one, or your fifth one or your 12th one. This series is all about highlighting and showcasing some of the individuals or companies that are pushing our industry forward into the future. So without further ado, it's my pleasure to bring in Sarah Moss, Chief of Staff at the Hunter Hotel Advisors. Sarah, thank you so much for being with me today.



Sarah Moss:

Thank you so much, Ryan, for having us. We're so excited to chat about the conference today.



Ryan Embree:

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes being a Hospitality Trailblazer means that you're actually putting a lot of the people in the same room together to help move our industry forward and Hunter Hotel Conference does such a fabulous job of doing that. But before we jump into all the exciting things about the conference, since this is your first time on the Suite Spot, it is always a little ritual to ask, you know, kind of about your background in the hospitality journey that led you to Hunter Hotel Advisors.



Sarah Moss:

Sure. So my journey in hospitality started when I was really young. My first job was in a restaurant in my hometown. Then going into college, I worked at a hotel property, really fell in love with hotels and the operations of them and was so fortunate that Georgia State is a partner of Hunter Hotel Advisors in the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference or our co-founder of the conference. And we place an intern every year with the company to give the students a really immersive experience to teach them what goes on through a conference and here at the advisory firm as well. And I was lucky enough to be one of the students that they placed here at Hunter. And so that's really how I got my journey here to Hunter today. But it's really unique and I love it. But I've been here for almost five years now and did my internship for two years before that, so seven total.



Ryan Embree:

That's such a cool story to hear that background that you were just an intern starting at the Hunter Hotel Conference and now you're already Chief of Staff here just several years later. It's super exciting and you know, your start is very much like a lot of these Hospitality Trailblazers that I interview, you know, started somewhere line level with myself. I started as a bellman at a hotel. But I think that's one of the unique things about our industry is that we just, we start in these places, all of us are travelers at heart, right? I haven't run into one person in hospitality that doesn't like to travel. So we're travelers at heart. But when we start our journey in hospitality, typically it starts, you know, just serving people and you know, you get to see that evolution, which is so cool. So speaking of the evolution of things, this is the 35th anniversary of the Hunter Hotel Conference.

In this episode, Suite Spot host Ryan Embree sits down with TMG Director of Product - Respond & Resolve™, Jackie Avery, to discuss the top 5 guest sentiment tags of 2023. It has become an annual tradition to take a look back each year and analyze which guest sentiment tags were mentioned the most and what aspects of the hotel guest experience resonated with travelers.