Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

Travel Media Group & Ryan Embree
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  • Marketing
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The best hotel digital marketing podcast in the hospitality industry.

  1. 18h ago

    213 - TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Emma Shaybani

    Vice President of Marketing at HEI Hotels & Resorts, Emma Shaybani, joins the Suite Spot to discuss the upcoming 2026 Digital Travel Summit taking place in Orlando, Florida on September 28-29 and how the HEI brand is leveraging social media, artificial intelligence, technology, and online guest feedback to better shape and optimize the traveler journey.  Tune in now and the Suite Spot looks forward to seeing you at the conference next month! Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Very excited for our next guest in an edition of our TMG Hospitality Trailbazer series to set the table. This is that series again with conversations with people, organizations, and companies within the hospitality industry that are paving a path forward. I’m so excited for our next guest. And it also really seconds as a preview for the Digital Travel Summit happening in Orlando in September. My guest, this will be the first of a few times that we’re gonna be together. Emma Shaybani, VP of Marketing at HEI Hotels and Resorts. Emma, thank you so much for joining me on The Suite Spot. Emma Shaybani: Thank you for having me. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we’re excited. So we’re gonna talk about that Digital Travel Summit event. We were talking off camera. It’s a powerhouse event. Can’t wait. Some big players within the travel industry gonna be there. But before we do that, we’d love to introduce you to our Suite Spot audience. Maybe love learning about everybody’s kinda hospitality journey that led you to your role over there at HEI Hotel and Resorts. Emma Shaybani: Yeah, it’s a bit of an unconventional journey, I suppose. So, I moved from England, and I moved from England to Connecticut, and I was really looking for my next opportunity. I’d not worked in hospitality before. I’d worked actually for CBS back in London. I had a couple of my own businesses, so hotels weren’t necessarily part of my original plan. But I, I joined HEI actually in a reputation management role. And I think at the time, they just knew that they needed somebody to look after reputation management, but they weren’t exactly sure what I would be doing. So it started off really as me in a room responding to guest reviews. So it, it didn’t take too long for us to all realize that probably wasn’t the best use of my time. So I kinda went to my boss at the time, Brian, with a plan and I was like, “Hey, you know, it’s hard for me to, to respond to these reviews when I’m not at the property. I don’t know what’s happened. You know, really, we should empower the teams at the hotels to be responding to these reviews. And, you know, really, I can be there as kind of a, you know, backup support and making sure that we are responding.” Because, you know, the hotel teams know the guest experience the best. And I was really focusing then on monitoring the trends, opportunities, and that’s when I noticed that the same thing was kind of happening with social media. We had all these accounts. They weren’t necessarily active. So we took this kind of a similar approach with social media. And then from there, the role just kind of kept evolving. So every time we kind of solved one challenge, we’d notice something else that we could then tackle. Back then, we had 20-27 hotels, I think it was. And now today we’ve grown the team. There’s quite a few of us now, over 100 hotels, multiple brands. So it’s been pretty incredible, honestly, to, to grow alongside the company. And I remember back in the day, my biggest concern was trying to memorize these 27 hotels, and now somehow I seem to manage with a hundred and something. Ryan Embree: We love the unconventional journey in hospitality and kinda falling into it. But also, a lot of people we find fall in love with hospitality. And that’s why you hear about people maybe starting kind of in, you know, I was a bellman when I first started at a hotel and front desk agents, F&B, and then all of a sudden, here they are 30 years later into a career that they absolutely love. And your foundation actually mirrors a lot of what the Suite Spot is. We started as a digital marketing podcast preaching to hoteliers about the importance of things like managing your reputation, social media strategy, which we’re gonna get into in this conversation a little bit, because it is a constantly evolving and so ever important because those are places that can be touched prior to a guest arrival and have a real impact on bookings and the guest experience. But before we get into that, I want, I do wanna start about talking about that event, the Digital Travel Summit that both of you will have the pleasure of attending down there in Orlando at September 28th and 29th. Personally, could not be more excited for this event, bringing some of the travel industry’s biggest and brightest together in a very intimate setting, very excited about it. What are you most looking forward to about this event? And maybe what caught your eye and it drew you initially to this Digital travel Summit? Emma Shaybani: I think what immediately caught my attention was that it was an event that was dedicated solely to digital marketing as a whole. I think, while, while AI is, is transforming things pretty rapidly, and I think this was nice because it was a conference that recognizes digital marketing is so much broader than just AI. And we still have to think about search, paid media, websites, all of these things and how those pieces work together to essentially drive demand. So I saw that and then also I’m looking forward to seeing some of our friends that are there, some of the industry leaders that are talking. I think there was one of the sessions, a keynote that’s on event-driven travel, which is something that we’re investing heavily in at HEI, you know, things like concerts, festivals, major conventions. A lot of my team’s focus at the moment is setting up things like landing pages, targeted offers to really kind of take advantage of those experiences. ‘Cause we all saw what happened, with the Taylor Swift effect a few months ago. Ryan Embree: 100%. Emma Shaybani: Exactly. So I think that’s a really, a lot of the topics throughout the event are really on trend and really useful. So I think it’s, it’ll be good to bring everybody together. We’re all solving similar challenges, so that hopefully, you know, we can come away with some practical ideas that myself and the team can implement when we’re back in the office. Ryan Embree: Yeah, 100%. And to piggyback on that Taylor Swift effect, you got the World Cup that just happened this summer. You got the Olympics in LA in a couple more years. So no shortage of events coming to domestic US. Concerts are gonna continue to pop up. Sporting events across generations, younger travelers, but across generations still prioritizing those experiences at the forefront. And I think you’re absolutely right, Emma. It’s a very comprehensive event. It’s funny, back in the day when we started first talking about, you know, this to hoteliers with, with digital marketing, sometimes social media review responses, you, like you talked about in your story, it fell on the youngest person at the hotel, right? So who’s the youngest, uh, front desk agent? They probably know the best about social media. Now as digital marketers, we kinda cringe thinking about that. We put our whole stake of reputation on someone that we really didn’t train a hotel’s voice or anything like that. So it really has evolved. And I love your perspective on where we are with AI because you think about this emerging technology. Well, social media a couple decades ago was right there in that spot, and now it’s created roles within social media. So it’ll be interesting to get everybody in like you said, that room to, with the same challenges, trends, what are you seeing? And speaking of panels, I’ll have the privilege and pleasure of moderating a powerhouse keynote panel with you involved, Emma, called Building AI-Ready Marketing Teams: Knowing When to Automate and When to Go Human. For our Suite Spot audience, give us maybe a little bit of sneak peek of a preview on your thoughts on that topic. Emma Shaybani: I think, you know, I always encourage the team to really ask themselves kind of simple questions, right, when it comes to our use of AI, is if, like, if this task disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice, right? And if the answer is no, then we can probably find a way to automate that, you know? And I also think there’s a question of, is there value in the thinking or is there value in the typing? Because we do spend a lot of our time producing reports, producing presentations. And really, the value of having humans is the strategy, the judgment, the relationship building, and also the creativity. So we wanna make sure that, you know, humans are also, we’re remaining in charge of the decisions, but can we become more efficient by our use of AI? And we kind of split. We do something called the rule of 80/20, which is AI can get us about 80% of the way there to the finish line, right? It can gather data. It can generate drafts, mock-ups, website copy, summarize reports, but then it’s really like that final 20%, which is gonna create the real value. Human judgment, as I said, creativity, empathy. That’s where we need the human, human touch. And I think that’s really important when it comes to just overall guest experience as well, because while we’re using AI to get in front of guests, we’re trying to be the most visible or the top on Google or, you know, any of, any of. We really want maximum visibility, right, across all these channels. But when we get, when

  2. Aug 12

    212 - Independent Hotel Show Series: Staypineapple Hotels Inc.

    With just a little over a month away from the 2026 Independent Hotel Show Miami taking place, special guest and President of Staypineapple Hotels Inc., Dina Belon, joins the Suite Spot to discuss the Stayepineapple brand, the independent hotel industry, and what she is looking forward to from IHS Miami 2026! Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Back for another edition of season two of our independent hotel show series, where we are getting geared up and ready for that annual tradition down in Miami Beach at the Independent Hotel Show. We cannot wait. We’re gonna talk a little bit about it with our guests. We actually met for the first time in person last year at this event. We’re able to spend some time with her. Dina Belon, president at Staypineapple Hotels. Dina, thank you so much for joining me back on The Suite Spot. Dina Belon: Oh, thank you so much for inviting me, Ryan. This is amazing. I’m so excited. We had such a good time in Miami last year, it was a blast and, uh, talking to you felt like I was talking to a friend. Ryan Embree: Well, I appreciate it. I feel the same. Just honored to be speaking with you here. And I can’t believe we’re here. It’s we’re just months away from the Independent Hotel Show. It’s gonna be bigger, better than ever. We’re excited about it. We’re gonna talk about it. But we did have you on for the first time, so we had the opportunity. Usually, I start these episodes by a little bit of a background and kind of an introduction, but I’m gonna start a little unorthodox today. There was a post that I saw on LinkedIn, which by the way, for our Suite Spot listeners, make sure you say, uh, you follow Staypineapple Hotels and Dina. Great follows on LinkedIn. But there’s an, an article called Everything Staypineapple Hotels Dina Belon Does in a Day. And I thought that was such a cool and creative idea and concept. Talk to us a little bit about how that idea originated and give us a day in life. What is it like to be Dina Belon? Dina Belon: Well, I tried to be very honest. Hopefully it was fun too. I, there’s a lot of humor in my day, and so hopefully that came across. Um, the magazine, uh, that’s a local magazine here in, uh, east, the east side of Seattle and Bellevue and Kirkland area of Washington does those highlights of leaders in the area, um, on a regular basis. So it was fun, uh, a little stressful because you had to, like, take photographs and, you know, kind of just walk through your day. Um, I loved, though, really integrating my pets, because they’re a big part of my life. And so it started off with Molly waking me up at 5:45, which is actually what she does every morning. About 15 minutes before my alarm goes off, my little kitty cat starts yelling at me about wanting water. Um, so yeah, all the way until, you know, 8:00 at night and a lovely glass of wine with my husband. And all the shenanigans in the middle. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And I think it’s so cool because I think it, you know, we obviously work in the people business, right? In hospitality. Uh, we host people from all over the world, all different walks of life. Um, but to see, you know, sometimes, uh, I think right now, especially right now, right, when there’s all this talk of AI and technology and stuff like that, it’s really refreshing to see our industry leaders. And I get that. I have the, the privilege of getting that, interviewing some of the industry leaders when they talk to me about their, you know, beginnings and, and how maybe they started as a bellman or a front desk agent or fell into the industry. And I think the more that we can kind of humanize and show that these are people that really have a true passion for serving other people. Um, and then on the other side of the front desk, the guests that come into our lobbies, they are people too, whether they’re on a work trip, where they’re trying to escape. You know, sometimes it, it’s refreshing to take, take a beat and think about that. And that’s exactly what this article did for me because it is, you know, even though we’re hospitality, we’re in it, the hustle bustle, 365, twenty four seven. We’re still people, right? Yeah. We’re still people with our pets and, and, and our, uh, you know, what we like to do. Um, so it was a really cool, I think, uh, refreshing look. I wa – I definitely wanted to bring that in. Br – um, and, and your love of pets, it goes right along with your brand, uh, Staypineapples Hotel. And, you know, I’ve come to know and love through your content, your keynotes at the Independent Hotel Show, uh, following you on LinkedIn. For those audience members that might not be as familiar, uh, share with us, uh, a little bit about what makes Staypineapple Hotels so unique and one of a kind. Dina Belon: Yeah. So we are the opposite of corporate uniformity, uniformity. Uh, we’re really about, you know, a boutique sp – hotel experience with a lot of personality. Um, so one of the things that we’re well known for is the naked experience, um, which is, uh, a little eye-opening to a lot of people, but all it really is, is a fun, cheeky, which we like to do, uh, marketing way to talk about our bed and our bedding and our linen and our terry is so comfy, cozy and amazing, you’ll wanna sleep naked. Um, so it, and we give you an, a big cuddly robe so that you don’t come to the door naked. Ryan Embree: There you go. Dina Belon: Um, so that, that’s, that’s very indicative of the Staypineapple personality. Um, we’re also, um, not just pet friendly, we’re dog obsessed. Um, so we, uh, really go over the top with our pet program. We have a partnership with Soundz, S-O-U-N-D-Z, uh, that is, um, uh, sounds, uh, in music – Sure. That, um, pets like and that calm them when they feel nervous, um, that is available for guests, uh, at no cost, a 14-day, uh, free trial. And then, um, we have a partnership with, uh, an emergency veterinary, uh, service called Veg. Um, of course, you get beds and bowls and treats and, um, water bottles and poop bags and all kinds of stuff when you bring, uh, your furry friend. Although we’re dog obsessed, we also love kitty cats too. I have two kitty cats and two dogs. So, um, we, yeah, we’re, we’re pretty over the top with the pet thing. And then we have a, we have a number of the properties that have, uh, hotel dogs as well. Um, so one of the management staff ha – brings their dog to work every day and has really become a, a core team member. Um, you wouldn’t believe how many reviews we get, uh, with our, our furry, uh, friends being, uh, listed as their favorite part of the hotel. Ryan Embree: Yeah. I’ve seen them at trade show nows at industry trade shows. Yeah. You’ll have, like, a puppy break. Uh, brilliant. Brilliant. Dina Belon: It’s my favorite thing. Ryan Embree: Yeah. It just gets people in, in, in a happy mood. People love it. So, uh, and, and the focus of, of the dog obs – dog obsessed, um, i- i- is, is so smart. I mean, p – you know, people. We always think about how stressful travel is, obviously, from a logistics and s – and people standpoint, but obviously on our pets too. They’re in a place that they’ve never been before. Um, they don’t know that they’re heading across the country or even down the road. They’re in somewhere unnatural. So that’s really, really cool that you can kind of make them feel at ease there. And, and I’m sure the guest feedback, uh, from that has been really, really great to see. Um, now, you talked about, um, Staypineapple being a, a very unique boutique brand. Um, I noticed one word you didn’t mention in there, which is, uh, independent or non-branded. Uh, you prefer the term unchained. And I wanna explore that a little bit. I don’t wanna give you too much, uh, of a question. I, I’d like, like you to kinda run with that. Why do you prefer unchained to maybe independent segment or non-branded? Dina Belon: So to me, independent, non-branded, um, you know, indicates that we’re small or we’re isolated or, um. And, and I think it’s, um, diminishing to 30% of the hotel sector, which is truly unchained in both term, both ways that that term can be used. One, we are not attached to a chain in literal terms, but we’re also unchained from a limitation perspective. I think what is so amazing about the independent or the in – the unchained sector of the market to the guest is the founders, the visionaries, the leadership teams, the hotel teams at these hotels put their lifeblood and their passion and their vision and their belief in hospitality into these properties and into the experiences guests are gonna get. It is not a corporate ownership that is managed by a brand that has 5,000 other w – hotels just like it. And, you know, the onsite hotel team has reams of binders to tell them how to do their job. Um, we believe very much in no SOPs. Um, we have, uh, ultimate SOP. It’s do the next right thing. That’s the SOP for Staypineapple. It’s that simple. Just do the next right thing. We help the team understand that a little bit with kind of some guidelines, which is what is the best thing for you and your colleagues? What is the best thing for the guests? And what is the best thing for the business? And if you frame that question, those questions under do the next right thing, anybody can make the right decision at any moment, at every level of the organization. When we talk about empowerment, it isn’t, you know, we’ve given you a toolkit. I always loved this, because I worked in, in the brands. Um, and we always had a toolkit. You had a toolbox full of things that you could use to solve a problem. Well, I don’t need to give

  3. Aug 5

    211 - TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Kim Wootteon

    The TMG Hospitality Trailblazers welcomes the latest addition to the series, Kim Wootteon, Sr. VP of Commercial Strategy at Kampgrounds of America, Inc. to discuss the outdoor hospitality landscape and how artificial intelligence and technology are playing a key role in connecting different generations of travelers to the KOA vast portfolio of properties. 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 co-host, Ryan Embry. Cassady Quintana: And I’m your co-host, Cassady Quintana. Ryan Embree: We’re excited to have you here with us for another edition of our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. We’ve been running this series for quite a while, paving those management companies, individuals that are paving a way into the future for hospitality, which feels like is changing on a weekly basis. I’ve been really looking forward to this episode. A familiar face and voice with us. It’s the first time you’re joining us virtually. Kim Wootteon, Senior Vice President, Commercial Strategies at Kampgrounds of America. Kim, thank you so much for joining us back on The Suite Spot. Kim Wootteon: Yes, it’s great to see you both. Thanks for having me today. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we’re gonna have a super fun conversation. You have an incredible brand. We can’t wait to jump in. But before we start talking about Kampgrounds of America and KOA, I wanna start because we missed it when we were in Arlington at the Digital Transformation Summit of getting a little bit about your hospitality background and journey that led you to such a cool position at KOA. Kim Wootteon: My kind of career path has been quite interesting. It’s really led to the role I have today. So the first 12 years of my career was spent in retail. And for all of you millennials, I started with PacSun. I was an OG, skate and surf lifestyle fanatic. And I worked in retail for 12 years and really learned operations, marketing, and quite frankly, leadership. PacSun was a really great people-centric company. And it’s really where I got my foundation for leadership and my drive for results. And then I transitioned for retail into the more traditional hospitality sector and worked for four years with Marshall Hotels and Resorts, leading sales, marketing, and diving into revenue management. And then was recruited by a company called Bluewater Development, who was really pioneers within the outdoor hospitality industry and very traditional owners in the indoor hospitality industry. So great experience. I was introduced to KOA with them and the entire glamping and camping sector of hospitality, which was super exciting. And then also got to work with some really great brands such as Marriott and Hilton and IHG and independent properties, independent campgrounds. It was quite an eclectic mix of properties, that I got to support in sales, marketing, and revenue. And I joined KOA about five years ago, leading marketing at the local level. And in 2022, we established the commercial strategy team at KOA, and, I now oversee revenue management, local marketing or field marketing, retail, distribution, and sales across the entire KOA portfolio, both our owned assets and our franchise locations, and support for KOA, Inc. as well. Ryan Embree: So this is why I love this question so much, because we get such an eclectic melting pot of backgrounds of hospitality professionals, maybe starting in retail. I hear F&B a lot recently. And then you go from the brands, you go, outdoor hospitality, and you get this big melting pot, and it kinda defines who you are as an industry professional, but also gives you, I think, an appreciation of some of those other places that you’ve been or even properties which can span from the giant resorts that we’ve seen all the way to, maybe it is a campsite where it’s a lot more local and kinda community and, and tight-knit feeling. Kim Wootteon: Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve enjoyed my journey. It allows me to bring perspective to the work we do every day that is unique. And we’ve done a really great job at KOA of hiring a team of leaders and a team of people, in the field with really diverse backgrounds, which I think is a great compliment to the diversity across our portfolio. Cassady Quintana: Yeah, I think it’s interesting because you talk about this new team that you guys have created at KOA and the things that you’re developing and introducing into this outdoor hospitality. But for our listeners who may not know too much about KOA, we have a lot of hotel listeners. So if you can just give us a little bit of background about the brand and how it’s found its way to becoming one of the number one outdoor hospitality leaders. Kim Wootteon: So KOA was founded in 1962 by Dave Drumm in Billings, Montana. He saw this surge of travelers heading to the world’s fair in Seattle, and he opened the Billings Campgrounds, on his property along the Yellowstone River. And today, Kampgrounds of America is the largest system of privately owned campgrounds across the US and Canada with over 500 locations. We have 50 locations that are owned and operated by KOA, and 450 plus locations that are franchised. It’s a really interesting segment or vertical within the hospitality industry. Incredibly diverse portfolio, incredibly diverse guests. And we’re really fortunate to be the leader within this segment of the industry. Ryan Embree: And we mentioned at the top of this episode, this is our TMG Hospitality Trailblazer series. Now, I don’t think there is a much more fitting brand than KOA as far as being a trailblazer when you, when you think about that term, but I’ve been surprised to learn from getting to know you and the KOA brand of the different modern way that we kind of talk about trailblazers in our industry. And so, Kim, you and your team have been doing some incredible work. We’re gonna mention it in this episode, but what do you think makes the Kampgrounds of America brand a true embodiment of trailblazers and trailblazing in our industry right now? Kim Wootteon: It starts really with our vision at KOA. And our vision is to be the world leader in defining and advancing the business and experience of outdoor hospitality. And that’s been a focus for our company for years. We have taken a really unique approach to, I’d say, the traditional hospitality industry. We understand camping, we understand hospitality, and we are really committed to being the leader within not just the outdoor hospitality space, but the overall hospitality space in general. And it really starts with knowing our guest. And we are fortunate. We have tons of first-party guest data. We have years and years of history. And we’re known in our segment of the industry for the research we do to really better understand our guest and how our guest changes and what they expect. So it’s a really unique advantage. And the research we provide is not just for KOA and our franchisees, but it’s for the entire industry. And trailblazing shows up in a variety of ways, almost every decision that we make as a brand. So from the guest experience standpoint, we’re launching a new koa.com website that’s really powered by AI and focused on personalization and trip planning and flexible cancellation policies and the guest’s ability to manage reservations. So some of the more traditional things that you would see in the hospitality industry, but with some unique features that are custom to how guests like to camp. From an organizational structure standpoint, we have a commercial strategy team, which we really are the only one in the industry that has a full commercial strategy arm. And we have an AI team. We built our AI department at the beginning of this year, and that team continues to grow and really focus both internally and externally on how we can use AI to enhance the employee experience and the guest experience. And then within outdoor hospitality, technology has kind of always been a little bit of an opportunity. We don’t necessarily follow some of the mainstream tech choices that you see in indoor hospitality. So our focus has really been how do we align with what works well within indoor hospitality? We’ve been exploring OTA integrations and an RMS integration and enhanced text messaging capabilities and housekeeping modules to help operations be more efficient. It’s about really how can we be the first in the outdoor space to align most closely with what works in indoor hospitality, and then try to address the points of friction where we can that are really unique to outdoor hospitality. Cassady Quintana: I love that you mentioned this balance of outdoor hospitality and what that means to people, but also finding those opportunities for technology because that is the trend these days, right? Is AI this, AI that, and how can we bring in that technology? And we know that KOA has built such a recognizable brand in outdoor hospitality. So how do you guys find that you’re balancing and maintaining what Dave built back in the ’60s, that trusted legacy of what KOA is with continuing to try and attract a younger generation or maybe people that have never been camping before? Kim Wootteon: It is a really fine balance that is not easy. We truly work at it every day and we’re really, really fortunate to have such a legacy brand and such a trusted brand. And so it’s really this balance of how do we stay rooted in our core values and our mission with connecting people to the outdoors and each other while meeting guest expectations for who the camper is today? And so, we see participation in camping across all generations, which is really fascinating. In 2025, participation among adults, 65 or older, reached its highest level in eight years. So w

  4. Jul 22

    210 - Social Success Series: Anneleise McEvoy

    Tune in to the latest Social Success Series Podcast episode featuring special guest and Social Media Manager at Remington Hospitality, Anneleise McEvoy!  Anneleise joins the podcast to talk all things social media for Remington Hospitality as well as hotels in general and how they can not only improve but maximize their social presence online to drive bookings to their properties.  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 Podcast. I am your host, Cassady Quintana. Super excited for today’s episode today. I have Anneleise McEvoy, social media manager at Remington Hospitality. Anneleise, thank you so much for joining me. Anneleise McEvoy: Absolutely. So first of all, thank you so much for having me. Cassady Quintana: Absolutely. I’m super excited you’re here. Obviously, we’ve talked a little bit before this episode, so I’ve gotten to know you some and especially from your LinkedIn presence, but for our listeners who may not be familiar with you or Remington Hospitality, could you give us a little bit of background about how you got to where you are today? Anneleise McEvoy: Absolutely. So I’ve always loved social media marketing. I’ve been passionate about it ever since college, and it was a career path that I always wanted. I started out in college being super involved with clubs and internships where I did social media. So in 2020 when I graduated, I moved to Dallas to pursue, pursue a career in social media marketing at a food and beverage, a food and beverage marketing agency that’s top year in Dallas. I started out as a social media specialist, went all the way up to a senior account executive. So I worked there for three years, and then at my three-point mark, I was like, “How can I mix one of my hobbies, which is traveling, into my career?” And so I was scrolling through LinkedIn, one day and came across a job posting at Remington Hospitality, reached out to my now boss, Alexis, and she told me about this aw- awesome opportunity that she was building a in – house social media agency for their portfolio of hotels. And so the rest is history. I am a social media manager at Remington, like you said. And one week is different than every… Every day is different, is what I’m trying to say. I might be in Key West learning about a hundred-year hotel or making content on a private beach, or I might be closer to Dallas where I’m based now in Fort Worth, marketing a trendy girl dinner experience on their rooftop. So that’s what I love about social media. Every property has its story and I get to help tell that story through social media. Cassady Quintana: Absolutely. And I’m glad you mentioned the different locations, because that kind of leads me into my next question. You know, at Remington, you guys have properties that span across very different markets, like you said. Something in Key West not going to resonate with someone that’s looking at a hotel in Texas. So when you guys are kind of building those strategies, how do you make sure that it feels unique to each property but still staying, you know, efficient as a corporate social team? Anneleise McEvoy: For sure, for sure. So one thing I always say, you can’t market a property that you’ve never experienced. And I’m sure that that’s true in every industry. I knew, I know that it was true in the food and beverage industry too. So before I build a social media strategy, I want to walk the property. I want to eat at the restaurant. I want to meet the team and experience it like a guest. So that’s where you discover the little things that make the hotel memorable, the experience. So that’s the first thing. I wanna visit the hotel like a guest. And then I pair that with the brand standards. So for example, if you’re a Marriott, a Moxie should feel completely different than an autograph collection. Every hotel should have a personality, but in that personality, we’re working in the brand standard. So at the end of the day, hotels don’t sell rooms. It’s all about the experience. We’re selling experiences. So social media’s job, every content creator’s co – that come into the property, our job is to create a place where someone wants to book before they even book. So that aesthetic feed is where they picture themselves experiencing. Cassady Quintana: Oh, I absolutely love that. And it’s, it’s interesting because when we think probably when you first started in social media or even when we were in college, social media was a completely different thing than it is now. We’ve seen all these updates and especially in this new age of AI, things are changing. So do you and what you’ve noticed with your job, like, how has social media changed, you know, even from two to three years ago and how has that changed your day-to-day role with what you’re doing at Remington? Anneleise McEvoy: Honestly, everything. Like six years ago, social media landscape changes literally every single day. I feel like I open Instagram and there’s a new update. Like last week, you can scroll through an Instagram carousel, I’m sure you’ve probably seen, and you don’t have to pick one caption. You can caption each photo now. So just things like that. There’s just always another update that content creator social media managers have to publicize out to the property teams as well. But I actually think that’s one of the most exciting parts of social media because it’s ever-changing and we can… There’s always something new to learn. And then on top of every algorithm that’s changing, I think the biggest thing that’s changed in the social media industry is influencer marketing. Because when I started six years ago, I would give an influencer a pizza and beer and they would post five inseed posts about it. And they would post it all on their stories and tag us and even do weekly posts. And I just gave them a pizza and beer. And now creators understand the val- value that they provide and are asking for paid collaborations, which I don’t think is a bad thing because we’re getting more of that quality content. But the challenge there is finding a partnership that works for both parties because for everyone watching, you probably know that hospitality budgets aren’t as big as people think. So even the marketing budget. So I think it’s about negotiating with influencers and giving them what they need as well as what we need. And then the last part of that question I think that’s changed is, of course, AI. I think I have a pretty strong opinion on it on the marketing landscape. I think there’s a right way to use AI. And a lazy way to use AI. So of course, when you’re scrolling your LinkedIn or any social media platform, you see captions with those M marks and you assume that they’re a AI-generated caption, but I think marketers should use it to enhance their ideas. Right. In my career, I found that all marketers have creativity. So it’s just an enhancement. Make a good idea great and AI is not here to replace creativity, I would say. Cassady Quintana: I definitely think it’s, can be used as a vehicle, like you said, to enhance the skills you already have. And even just to, like, bounce ideas. I know I use AI a lot of times, like, “Hey, I have this post idea. You know, what do you think about it? ” Or, you know, asking AI to just clean up my copy a little bit or, you know, helping me along the way. And we’ll talk a little bit more about AI further down. But since you mentioned influencers, I did wanna ask you about that because you do work closely with influencers. So from your point of view, like you said, not, not every influencer is a match and not every influencer is gonna deliver what you want them to deliver. And a lot of the times when hospitality professionals think about influencers, they just want someone with a lot of followers, right? They just want the big numbers, but there has to be alignment. So for you, and when you guys are working with influencers, kind of what separates a good partnership from someone, you know, that maybe not f – maybe doesn’t fit that well? And how do you guys go about finding those influencers? Anneleise McEvoy: For sure. I think what you just said, people think about the follower count and just look about at follower count. It’s all about the vetting process upfront. So you’re looking at engagement rate. I’d rather work with someone with a higher engagement rate, a smaller audience, and people that are connecting with their followers, and you can see that that’s genuine than someone that has over a million followers and doesn’t have a connected audience. And I find that their content is more authentic anyways. One of my favorite success stories, actually happened the other week. He did have a lot of followers, but it’s not even about his content. It was the creator. We always, after creator partnership, we always ask what we could have done better or how their story went. And it was a creator telling us he brought his whole family, extended family, and he already booked a trip for Thanksgiving with his family again, because they loved the experience so much. So that’s when influencer marketing, influencer relationships become more than just the content. It creates future guests because they’re gonna keep coming back. And if they’re passionate about the property, you know that you have an ongoing partnerships. I think that’s super important to create those ongoing partnerships as well. Cassady Quintana: I love that you said that because when you were talking about that, it makes me think of the parallel of just hosp

  5. Jul 15

    209 - Independent Hotel Show Series: Dave Jacoby & Kaleigh Wiese

    Tune in the latest Suite Spot episode as special guests, Dave Jacoby, Founder/Owner of Hotel Lucine and Kaleigh Wiese, Founder and CEO of Ode Places, take a moment to discuss the independent and boutique hotel landscape and the 2026 Independent Hotel Show Miami in this episode for the Suite Spot Independent Hotel Show Series. 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 podcast. This is your host, Ryan Embree, here with another episode of our Independent Hotel Show series. This is season two. We’ve done quite a number of these independent hotel show series episodes, but this is the first one where we’ve got multiple guests. So I’m excited to bring them both in today. First with me, Dave Jacoby, founder and owner of Hotel Lucine, and Kaleigh Weise, founder and CEO of Ode Places. Dave, Kaleigh, thank you so much for being with me today. Dave Jacoby: So excited. Thanks for having us. Kaleigh Weise: What a way to kick off the independent hotel show. Dave and I got to share the stage last year. Dave Jacoby: We did. Kaleigh Weise: And I feel like we could have talked for a million more hours. And we’re friends, but also we’ve worked together, so I feel like I’m excited to be on together. Ryan Embree: Alright, well this is awesome. I’m excited. We’ll, we won’t be able to speak for a million hours, but we’ll definitely have some time today. And I’m excited, but as tradition here in the Suite Spot, one of the wonderful things about our industry and hospitality is people come from all different walks of life to get into our industry. Sometimes you fall into it with a summer job, sometimes you start as a bellman. Like myself, we love to hear these stories. We live and breathe these stories in hospitality and share them with others. So let’s start by just a proper introduction and maybe your hospitality journeys that led you to your respective positions. Kaleigh, let’s start with you. Kaleigh Weise: Yeah. Well, there’s a lot to unpack here. So if you see me at the show, come find me. I have been self-employed by whole entire career, and I have always been obsessed with the form and function of business. Like, how do you have a brand that really resonates despite, you know, I see your brand is like a lighthouse, right? Like, how are you attracting the right people? But also at the end of the day, like that business has to be incredibly healthy. And then you layer on a hotel, which is a 24/7 breathing company. And so how do you make sure that you have the longevity with systems and processes and you have a brand that continues to resonate as the years develop. And so I got my start serving in essentially helping brand and position and help with coaching for hospitality and service-based businesses. And then that naturally led into places where people slept, right? So I actually was working with event venues for a long time and when we got into the lodging conversation, I was like, now this is fascinating, a one time event versus like, keeping this up 24/7, what does that look like? And so we, I started out places essentially in 2018 after being in Northern California in the Santa Cruz Redwoods, we got to support a property out there. And I was like, the resonance that I got to feel to plant seeds of purpose into the land there of those 80 acres and understanding the choices we made would affect short-term and long-term generations really put me on a trajectory where that’s where I’ve committed my work so far. Ryan Embree: Really cool origin story there. And a lot of parallels from the event industry to hospitality and lodging. So, Dave, what about you? Dave Jacoby: Yeah, thanks. So I’m born and raised in Philadelphia, but somehow I ended up in Galveston, Texas, so I did not have that on my bingo card growing up. But here I am, out of college, worked in some finance and kind of hotel development related positions. First in New York City, then went to graduate school, then moved to Las Vegas and actually was in the casino space. But throughout that whole kind of portion of my journey was developing projects that were other people’s ideas and kind of on behalf of others, even though, you know, in Vegas, for example, I led development and opening up a resort there, moved to Galveston, where my wife is from. And my family’s now based in 2016. And just felt like I fell in love with Galveston, but felt like Galveston needed a slightly different hospitality experience here. Something with a little more soul that matched the soul that this whole town has. But the hospitality offerings that I didn’t feel like harnessed that soul really well, yet found an old kind of out of favor motel on the beach and figured out a way to acquire it and came up with a brand and a design and a team that we put together. And it’s been a labor of love and, you know, blood, sweat and tears sometimes, but a lot of smiles and happiness too. And we’re going on three years open, so, okay, that’s kind of how I got here. Ryan Embree: That’s like the America, the hotel American dream, what you’re doing right now. And listen, I went to school for hospitality and I think just this conversation already between the event management, hospitality, the gaming that you’ve included. I mean, this is like hospitality management 101 through the experiences, but certainly a familiar one where you’re bouncing around. But it sounds like you found your home there in Galveston. I was really excited about this conversation because it’s very rare I get to talk to two guests that have kind of built their brands from the ground up, right? And I think this is a challenge and a task that especially independent hoteliers have to kind of face and building their story and building a brand that resonates with travelers, especially today. So how important is branding and storytelling to connect with guests? Because I think that is what independent hotels strive to do is create this connection that might be missing right now and, you know, really hopefully leads to loyalty in the future. And what maybe advice would you share from your own personal kind of branding journeys? Dave, we’ll start with you and then go to Kaleigh. Dave Jacoby: The brand is so central to what we’re doing. We sort of started with that brand identity, and I use the term identity not as like a business jargon term, but it really is an identity. We personified our brand and there are still decisions that we’ll make where we have this fictitious Aunt Lucine that we will use as a muse for decisions we make around property. And it’s sort of a guiding light for us. But, I think the concept of kind of personifying your brand really helps make it make sense, at least for me. So, I look at how do we connect with our guests? I really look at how we connect with our local community and use that as the window in to our guests with the kind of overriding assumption that if our whole town and local surrounding population considers us part of the fabric of that neighborhood, that the outsiders will, that authenticity will come through. Outsiders will see that that’s where they’ll want to stay. So then, back to the personification of it, just like in your personal life, if you are friends with a group of people, you need to add something to that group and you need to then take something back from that group. So I sort of look at Galveston as the environment here is like a play. And instead of us coming in and saying, well, what is everyone else doing, we’ll do that too. So that we fit in saying, well, how do we add a new main character to the cast here? And I sort of look at it that way. And so what are we adding that’s different, but how does it fit into and, and be complimentary with everything around it? And that’s, that’s kind of how we, we looked at how we fit in and what we offer to our guests both, as, you know, overnight hotel guests and local community that might eat, drink, hang out with us. Ryan Embree: Kaleigh? Kaleigh Weise: Well, I wanna also compliment Dave and Keith have done such a phenomenal job at Hotel Lucine that they have a brand bible, if you will. And I think that it is a testament to how the vision casting of Aunt Lucine infiltrates, the purchases that they make for design, the plants, the employees, the uniforms, how they want them to talk and walk, and all of that alignment I think resonates really well with attracting the right talent, but also attracting the right guests. And so I think having intentionality, I always say, your brand is what other people say it is. So we have to remember that we have control over how we position our brands and what we want. So I think intentionality is first, which I think Hotel Stein does. On the flip side of that, I think we have to be realistic about who is traveling and who is coming to the hotel or who is also the consumer. Obviously on the B2B side, I usually like to pick three to five different personas, and I think that that helps shape making decisions. We have a property we’re working with right now that is on 12 acres. There’s 43 cabins. It’s primarily outside, right? It’s like, okay, who is the ideal person who’s looking for a property like this? And I think the clearer that you can get with that, it helps you understand where your revenue programming is gonna come for, like, come from. It helps you understand like where you should put costs. Like do they care about the amenities? Do they care about the soap? Do they want a robe in the room? And I think sometimes we make decisions that are too close to maybe how we would like to travel or what we think is best, and we forget what our guests might be looking for, which then leads to greater revenue opportunities and better residents

  6. Jul 8

    208 - Independent Hotel Show Series: Minor Hotels

    Being that the 2026 Independent Hotel Show Miami is only a couple of months away, this special IHS Series episode features the VP of Development, U.S. & Canada at Minor Hotels, Genna Panagopoulos!  Genna joins the Suite Spot podcast to discuss: The Minor Hotels Brand & Special Announcements The Independent & Lifestyle Hotel Landscape The 2026 Independent Hotel Show Creating Unique Experiences for Travelers And much more. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. We are here for the second season of our Independent Hotel Show series. That means we are gearing up, if you can believe it, for the Independent Hotel Show here in September and Miami Beach. I am so excited and equally excited to bring in a familiar voice. We had her on the podcast just a couple months ago in New York City, Genna Panagopoulos, VP of Development North America at Minor Hotels. Genna, welcome back to the Suite Spot. Genna Panagopoulos: Hey, thanks for having me again. Ryan Embree: Yeah, excited to have you. We were talking off camera. Typically, I usually do the virtual interview before meeting you in person, so this is a little bit more comfortable here, virtually back in, in, I think you’re in Atlanta. I’m here in our TMG headquarters in Orlando, but second time on the Suite Spot. We really didn’t get to get into your hospitality background, kind of a tradition here. Wanna introduce you to our audience a little bit more, intimately and in depth. Talk to us a little bit about your background in hospitality and the journey that led you to Minor Hotels. Genna Panagopoulos: Well, it starts a long time ago because I grew up in the hospitality industry. Typical greek immigrant story. My father came here with just a few dollars in his pocket and ended up building a pretty successful restaurant business in Detroit. So if you ever are in Detroit, if you say Jimmy, the Greek people will know him. But I went to, I obviously grew up in Michigan, went to Michigan State, really, and started studying hospitality with the intent of taking over the restaurant business. And then I did an internship for my father and realized I did not love it as much as he did. And so I ended up falling into the hotel space and specifically hotel investment, real estate development, and have just fallen in love ever since I started my career at Davidson Hotels and Resorts back when they were in Memphis, actually on their business development team. And then they moved to Atlanta, ironically, next to IHGs headquarters. So I was with Davidson for a few years, hopped in over to IHG, where I was for 10 years, did everything from feasibility to business development to even brand, which is a little bit unique. And I don’t wanna undermine that because I had a lot of people say at the time, why would a developer ever go to brand? Like, that’s, you’re where you wanna be. But for me, it was so critical to kind of unlocking new opportunities in the future because the skills I gained in a year and a half on the team work just the role that I’m in now is super helpful because it’s, it’s kind of like wearing two different hats, right? A creative versus a mathematician. So anyways, I was there at IHD for 10 years, and then this opportunity at Minor came up last summer. I was so ready and excited to take on like a new challenge and I thought that it’d be a really fun and exciting new endeavor for me with this combination of my background. So, it’s exciting. Minor’s been super supportive and it’s a little weird to go from working in an office with thousands of colleagues to being the one of one in an entire continent, but it’s been great so far. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And what a unique opportunity. We’re gonna talk about that here in a moment because I think it’s absolutely fascinating. But your story is very familiar. I mean that we hear all the time from our guests, a lot of them start in that f&b kind of space and then transition over to the hospitality side, but super comprehensive skillset, which I’m sure has set you up for success in your role at Minor Hotels. Now, we met face to face at NYU IHIF, where just a couple weeks removed. I call this kind of takeaway season where everybody’s on LinkedIn, kind of frantically typing their takeaways and what they felt about the state of the industry right now, what we’re looking back on New York City, maybe you could start kind of zoomed in version of how that event for you and then maybe back up with an industry lens on some of the biggest takeaways from your time at New York City. Genna Panagopoulos: So from a Minor perspective, we had a really successful conference. So we had tons of meetings while we were there. Really good ones too, on some deals that were hopefully perpetuating. And then we’ll be announcing maybe by the Independent Boutique Hotel Show, but it was, the energy was very live, the excitement for Minor Hotels, was very visceral people, I think, you know, hoteliers are really looking for brands that understand their position. And because Minor is, you know, I always describe it as an owner first, then an operator, now a brand, right? And we still own an owner lease a vast majority of our portfolio. So we know what it’s like to be in their shoes, quite honestly. So it was a successful, like I said, the energy was there. It’s very validating to know that a lot of our marketing is working and all of the, the word of mouth and the fact that we’re out there, iI’m having to educate people less and less with every conference about who we are. So that’s great. Zooming out on an industry lens, you know, I think, you know, even just looking at beginning of the year to NYU IHIF, this sentiment is very different, right? You know, at the beginning of the year there was so much excitement over the World Cup. You and I spoke about that at NYU and it’s, it’s obviously been tempered quite a bit, and the K economy is still happening. We’re seeing luxury, the rates of the projects that I’m working on, I’m just shocked at how high they are and, how well the competitors are doing in the upper luxury space. It’s really fascinating. So I’m definitely seeing that as well. But the sentiment, and appetite to grow is definitely there. People are still looking to place equity, not ton, not huge amounts, but we’re, we’re seeing that there are still gaps on that front. Ryan Embree: The resiliency of our industry, I think, continues, right? It just, the momentum there, every single time we see a headwind, we continue to push through, which is really, really cool to see that owner. And, and from a development, I mean, new brands, new projects being announced, this is the space that we’d love to see, you know, more and more because there’s more and more demand growing travelers continue to prioritize travel and the experience economy, which is great for us hoteliers. So we just need some more rooms here, which is obviously what you’re tasked with, right, Jenna? So, but I wanna talk about Minor Hotels. I know you talked about needing a little less education now, but educate us here on the Suite Spot. I mean, Minor Hotels, brand spanning from select service all the way up to that ultra luxury segment ton of brands. They don’t have time for all of them today, but maybe you could share some of your personal favorites and within the hotel, Minor Hotels portfolio, what makes those brands unique? Genna Panagopoulos: Yeah, sure. So yeah, like you said, we now have 12 different brands, four of which were launched last year right before I joined the company. But we have these two lineages, I think within Minor Hotels history, right? We have our roots, which come from Thailand, and Anantara and Avani are great examples of that. And then we have our European roots from acquisitions over the years. So we’ve got brands like…that came from Portugal, NH, which is a very established brand out of Madrid. The four that we launched last year, offer really unique things that we never had before in our portfolio. So as we were looking to grow, we knew that that was something we’d have to have to kind of have on our menu of options for potential hotels, because some of these brands don’t work in every asset type and not every market, though most of our brands have a lot of flexibility to be able to grow into different asset types. But I guess my favorite, and I’m really excited about the Wolseley hotel brand we launched last year. So Minor International owns, which of course, Banner Hotels Resorts is a part of, owns Wolseley Hospitality Group out of London. And there’s a really beautiful institutional restaurant called the Wolseley that’s very famous. If you ask anybody from London, they definitely know the Wolseley. In fact, most people I know that just traveled to London know the Wolseley. So we own, we own that company and decided to take that brand into the hotel space, which is interesting because it’s a restaurant moving into the hotel world. And our first one will open in New York next year, but it’s been really fast. I think it’s really fascinating. There’s a lot of membership club opportunities with that one. And so that’s kind of an new trend we’re starting to see in the luxury space. Ryan Embree: It’s gotta be great to be able to have that breadth and spectrum of property or investment type for an owner to come in and say, this is maybe the market that I’m interested in pursuing, and then figuring out and kind of curating and tailoring what asset, what brand is gonna fit best there. And we talked about this a little at NYU, but I think, again, your job is so fascinating. You have this well-established, extremely popular worldwide brand, and h

  7. Jun 17

    207 - Social Success Series: Scott Eddy

    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

  8. Jun 12

    206 - 2026 NYU IHIF: Takeaways

    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 h

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