Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

In this episode of the Suite Spot, we dedicate our time to helping hoteliers navigate through major changes and transitions that happen at their properties. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Client Success & Operations Manager Edwin Pomales to discuss overcoming 5 major challenges that most hotels face at one time or another. From planned changes like renovations and flag transitions to unexpected changes like employee turnover and natural disasters, Ryan and Edwin cover it all. They share several examples of how Edwin’s client success team at Travel Media Group supports our hotel partners through these challenging times and they give tips on how to minimize disruption for your hotel business. If you are experiencing any one of these significant changes at your hotel and have a question about how to best handle it, call or text us at 407-984-7455. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot, I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Today we have a great episode for you, could be a little bit stressful on some of the stuff that we're talking about, but ultimately it's gonna help you in challenging times at your hotel. So with me today, I brought in Edwin Pomales, who is our client success and operations manager. Edwin, you've been on the Suite Spot now several different times for several different subjects, but wanted to welcome you in again for today's episode. Edwin Pomales: Yeah, glad to be back, Ryan. Thank you for the invite and I'm really excited to talk about these things. And I think you're right, sometimes it can be stressful at the property level. So I think it's some really good information we're going to go over today. Ryan Embree: Absolutely, so let's go ahead and just start with your client success team. Where do you see their role when it comes to helping our partners with their hotel marketing? Edwin Pomales: First and most importantly it's going to be there for support, during the different things that are happening on the property level. It is important that we're able to be there for GMs and owners to help them through situations that may be unique to their property, but we may be more accustomed to being that we work with so many properties. And on the flip side really integration, just making sure that any processes that they have in place at the property level, the full staff knows about it, everybody is familiar with the goals of it, and with that comes follow up on a regular basis. So support and integration of ideas are two major goals for our client success team. Ryan Embree: And that's what we're going to talk about today because hotels are 365 days a year, 24/7. When you have a business like that, things can change in a moment's notice. So that's where your team comes in. Kinda helps ease that tension, that seamless transition. And when those major changes do happen, we have processes in place to make sure that it doesn't get too overwhelming because we know the day to day life of a hotelier is overwhelming as it is, now you add all of these changes to it, it can really have an impact. We want to make sure that impact is as small as possible. So what we're going to do today, just to set the agenda, not to put you on the spot Edwin, but we're going to go through five major changes that happen in the hotel industry. Some of these changes are planned and some of them are unplanned. So we're going to walk through each one of those and we're going to talk about tips and best practices that your team uses from Travel Media Group's end on how we deal with this for our par...

In this episode of Suite Spot, Ryan Embree discusses the importance of user-generated content in the hotel industry. Ryan shares where to locate user-generated content about your hotel online and how to leverage that information to better your business. He provides best practices on how to find issues shared in user-generated content like reviews and social media posts, and tips on how to fix the issues. Ryan also demonstrates how TMG OneView can help hoteliers easily consolidate all the user-generated content online about their hotels. If you have any questions about user-generated content or how Travel Media Group can help your hotel, reach out to us by either calling or texting us at 407-984-7455 or email us at [email protected]. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot I am your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you for listening today, we've got a great episode. Today we're going to talk about something that is very prevalent in the hotel industry. I know that we talk about it all the time to our hotel partners and that is user generated content or UGC. User generated content is defined as any form of content such as images, videos, text, and audio that has been posted by users. So in the hotel industry that would be our guests, our travelers - platforms like review sites, social media platforms, this is where our guests are posting that sort of content. And in the hotel industry we're really starting to see the evolution of user generated content and where it fits into the decision making process when travelers are doing their research. We're starting to see a blend of both social media and review sites. Ryan Embree: So today you can leave reviews on social media sites like Facebook and do those recommendations, but you could also create a personal profile on review sites like TripAdvisor. So again, this user generated content is starting to blend more and more. And the good news is that there's more content than ever before out there about your hotel online, but it's bad news if you don't know what to do with that. So in this episode, what we're going to look at is really how you can leverage that user generated content to navigate any sort of potential pitfalls or problems that you can uncover at your property and really capitalize on any opportunities that you can really mine from this data out there. So where can you find the data you need to identify potential pitfalls or even take advantage of those revenue opportunities? And that's everywhere. Reviews, social media, all of that user generated content. Ryan Embree: Now you would think with guest reviews, it's easy to identify those pitfalls and problems, right? Because that's exactly what a review is. It's telling you what you're doing right and what is wrong with your hotel. Now that's true in some ways, but let's walk through this story. A traveler checks into your hotel. They're extremely tired from a long drive and just want to to sleep, right? We've come across those guests all the time. They just want a place to rest their head after a long day. At home this guest prefers a harder than normal mattress to support their back, especially after being in a car all day driving. Now this guest happens unfortunately to be next to some very loud neighbors, but instead of calling the front desk, they stay in their room getting more and more upset with each hour that passes. The next day after checkout, this guest leaves a one star review about your property, complaining about the softness of the mattress and the noi...

In this episode of the Suite Spot, we help hoteliers prepare their properties for the slow season by discussing the best ways to optimize their hotel’s social media profiles. Kelly Albritton, Senior Product Analyst, joins host Ryan Embree to share insights from her experience working in Travel Media Group’s social media department. Ryan and Kelly cover important topics in this episode, from setting up automated messages on your social media accounts to leveraging social media ads to target new guests. Kelly suggests ideas on posting and how to measure the success of the social media campaigns your hotel runs. This is episode is a great guide on how to get more likes, engagement, and followers to your hotel’s social media profiles. If you are looking to learn more information about our social media solution or want to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check-in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello, hello everyone this is your host, Ryan Embree and welcome to the Suite Spot. In today's episode we are going to talk about the up and coming slow season that is approaching, historically when we get in the winter, we know in the hotel and hospitality industry seems to - the wheels start turning a little bit slower. So we're going to try today to give you some tips and best practices on how to use social media during the slow season to help with occupancy, help with ADR, help with social media growth. So in saying that, I've got an expert special guest with us today, senior product analyst, Kelly Albritton who works at Travel Media Group's social media department. She has been with the company now for almost five years. So we're really excited to have her on. So thank you Kelly for joining me today. Kelly Albritton: Thanks for having me. Ryan Embree: So let's jump right in and talk about social media during your slow season, what would be kind of the first tip or best practice that you would tell a hotelier to get ready for the slow season? Kelly Albritton: Well the first thing I would tell them is to optimize your accounts and make sure everything is looking right. Making sure that your Facebook and your social media accounts have a fresh look and their a fresh destination every time that your potential guests might come visit your page. So you need fresh pictures. Think about the last time that you took property photos. Do they need to be updated? Then you can also use the images to transform your cover images, so you have the ability to create a slideshow or add videos to your cover image. So the first thing they're seeing is always different. Ryan Embree: We talk about expectation when it comes to travelers and when they're researching your property, whether it be on OTA sites, Facebook, other social media platforms. You want to make sure that those pictures that you're presenting them are the best representation of your property. One, but also sets the right expectation. So it's absolutely vital to make sure that those pictures are being refreshed. Now there's a couple of things that you guys do with adding some of Facebook's features for hotels. What are some of those things that you can add to a Facebook page for example, for a hotel? Kelly Albritton: Well probably the most important is adding a book now button on the top right corner of your page just so that it's easily available and you want to make sure during the slow season that this is leading to the correct website. So make sure you check your book now button and the about information to make sure all the information is correct.

In this special edition of the Suite Spot, we take a look at the Top 5 trending tags in online reviews today. Host, Ryan Embree is joined by the leader of the Travel Media Group review response team, Patrick O’Brien. Patrick and Ryan countdown each review sentiment tag, explaining what Patrick’s team looks for in the review and how they approach their response. They also give valuable tips on how to market the tags that are trending positively for your hotel and fix the tags that are trending negatively. If you are interested in joining Travel Media Group as an online review response partner, you can reach us by calling or texting us at 407-984-7455 or email us at [email protected]. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Welcome to another edition of the Suite Spot, today we have a very special edition which is focused all around review response and with me today I have a very special guest, Mr. Patrick O'Brien, aka Mr. Review Response, he's our product development manager at Travel Media Group and he runs our respond and resolve department. Patrick want to welcome you to the Suite Spot. Patrick O'Brien: Thank you for having me. Ryan Embree: Today, we're going to do something I'm really excited about because Patrick, you and your team have been very hard at work, we're going to get to some numbers here in a second, but we're going to go through the top five sentiment tags that we find in reviews. So just to give our listeners a little bit of a background on the respond and resolve solution, how many reviews does your team respond to a month, right now? Patrick O'Brien: Right now we're probably averaging around 22,000 - 24,000 reviews for hotels each month. They vary from positive to negative across the board. Ryan Embree: 22,000 - 24,000 that isn't an incredible number. So you and your team are extremely busy. You also shared with me before this episode, year to date. So in 2019 we're over 135,000 reviews that your team has responded to. So you guys really are the experts in hotel review response. Now when we talk about tags, can you kind of explain what I mean by a sentiment tags within a review? Patrick O'Brien: When most people look at review response, the idea is I've gotta, you know, follow up with this customer who left me some type of feedback. But I think when you actually look at reviews, they're probably some of the best business intelligence that you can get cause these are people letting you know in high volume what's working at your hotel and what's not working at your hotel, and ideally for what's working at your hotel, what people who are coming to your market and specifically coming to your property are really excited about, what's adding the value to that stay. So we've identified about 45 to 50 different elements and so we look for those in every review. That allows you to take really what is very subjective with a, you know, a review that's been left and quantify it and break it down into what was that review really about? Were they talking positively about the cleanliness of the property, about the sleep quality at the property? Some of the amenities that I offer, did they like them, do they not like them? For me, the sentiment tags and the reporting also can help a hotel really dive into when they are looking to either justify or to make capital investment decisions. You can use that analysis and that data that's collected in all of those reviews to let you know, if I'm going to spend $500,000 to make improvements at my property out of these options, what is it going to give me the best bang for my buck?

In this episode of Suite Spot, we discuss a research study recently conducted by Booking.com regarding Generation Z and travel. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Director of Marketing, Anne Sandoval, to explore the different traits of this maturing generation and their travel preferences. Ryan and Anne breakdown the data by identifying six distinct travel trends concerning Generation Z’s travel habits. Next, they share ideas on how to use digital marketing to attract and gain more share of Generation Z travelers. They also discuss social media influencers, adventure travel, and more ways to inspire this young generation to travel. To get more information about reaching Generation Z online or to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Resources: https://destinationgenz.com/ Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot, I am your host Ryan Embree, and if you're a frequent listener of the Suite Spot, you'll know that the first ever episode that we did here was about reaching millennials on Social Media. Now today we're going to take this a step further and talk about another demographic and that's Generation Z. Now, Booking.com recently released a comprehensive research study called Gen Z Unpacked where they surveyed Generation Z , which they consider between the ages of 16 and 24. They asked them about what was important to them when they travel and were able to get some really cool analytics about this up and coming generation. If you're looking for the study itself, you can reference the link in our show notes. I'm joined by Anne Sandoval, our Director of Marketing, and we are going to be discussing six trends and traits that we've found in these statistics. We're going to break those down and then we're going to talk from a digital marketing standpoint, how you can leverage these statistics to make sure you are prepared to market and advertise your hotel to Generation Z as they mature and as they start traveling more and more. So without further ado, I'll go ahead and welcome Anne to another episode of the Suite Spot. It's great to have you on again Anne. Anne Sandoval: Thanks for having me again, Ryan. I'm happy to be here. Ryan Embree: So let's go ahead and get started with the first trend that we uncovered in these statistics, which is Generation Z's relationship with solo travel. One of the statistics that Booking.com revealed to us was that 34% of Generation Z planned to travel on their own at least once within the next decade. So a huge difference from, you know, maybe the other generations and hotels are really going to have to start accommodating for solo travelers. So Anne, how can hotels maybe just some tips and best practices on how they can do that. Anne Sandoval: Well, the first thing that comes to mind for me with solo travel is safety. You already have some great features at your property that are intended to help travelers feel like they and their belongings are safe and secure. So you can share with travelers amenities that you have, including an in-room safe. You can highlight other features like your well lit hallways, indoor corridors, and digital key cards to imply that you have traveler's safety as a priority. The other really interesting stat that Booking shared is that 33% of Gen Z travelers prefer to be on their own in general when they travel. So this really implies that they're not necessarily looking for a lot of human interaction, which is a little counterintuitive sometimes in hospitality. So you may want to consider incorporating technology...

On this episode of Suite Spot, we have the distinct pleasure of welcoming special guest Mike Parent, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Coakley & Williams Hotel Management Company, to the podcast. Host Ryan Embree interviews Mike on the subject of multi-property hotel marketing as he shares a wealth of hospitality experience and knowledge. Mike speaks to Coakley Williams’ philosophy of curating a unique and targeted marketing strategy for each property within their portfolio. Mike also shares his approach to implementing effective marketing campaigns for new acquisitions and new-build properties. We discuss the balance of traditional and digital marketing technologies in today’s hotel landscape. This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the industry looking to learn more about building a successful hotel marketing campaign. To get more information about becoming a special guest on the Suite Spot or to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello and welcome, this is Ryan Embree your host of the Suite Spot. Another episode we have in a very special episode with a, another very special guest, Mr Mike Parent who is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Coakley and Williams Hotel Management Company, have the pleasure of introducing him for the first time to the Suite Spot. Mike is an innovator whose creative ideas has developed new revenue streams for hotel properties that he works with. And I want to go ahead and welcome Mike to the Suite Spot today, so thank you for joining me, Mike. Mike Parent: Thank you, Ryan, great to be with you. I appreciate you, including me. Ryan Embree: Absolutely, absolutely, and what we do with a lot of our guests on the Suite Spot, just to get a little background of how you started in the industry, the hotel industry itself. I think one of the things that makes it so unique is that everyone can come from really any place in hospitality. So I always find it absolutely fascinating to ask our guests, "Tell us a little bit about your background, how you got started in the industry and maybe the journey that led you to Coakley Williams." Mike Parent: Sure. Well, I've been in the industry for many years. I started as a desk clerk at a hotel in Washington DC. I took a summer job while I was in college pursuing my degree in radio/TV broadcasting. For the first five years of my hotel career I worked mostly in operations. I was a desk clerk, I was a night auditor, I did maintenance during the winter, I was assistant manager of a hotel, but I was eventually exposed to hotel sales when I worked for a larger hotel and I saw what they were doing in sales and that really got my interest. So my first sales gig was for a new hotel that was opening near the Watergate in Washington DC called Guest Quarters. That brand is now evolved into the Doubletree brand, which is part of the Hilton family. But since Guest Quarters my hotel sales journey as you call it, has taken me through many major branded and independent hotels, several management companies and two senior level positions at major brands. I was Director of Sales and Marketing for Taj Hotels of India when they had six hotels in Washington DC and I was also Vice President of new hotels sales support at Choice Hotels International. Ryan Embree: That's awesome. So again, quite the plethora of knowledge and experience there. I find it such a common trend that a lot of people in the industry, you know, just got started as a, you know, front desk clerk, you know,

On this special edition of Suite Spot, we welcome hotel owner, entrepreneur, consultant, and social media influencer, Rupesh Patel to the studio. Ryan and Rupesh trade thoughts on the correlation between a hotel’s online reputation and revenue success. Rupesh shares his secrets on how to increase feedback from guests and grow the number of online reviews for your hotel. They also talk about the importance of responding to reviews and the rising expectations of guests and brands when it comes to online review response. Rupesh also explains how social media can also be leveraged for success. As a TMG client and brand advocate, Rupesh explains how using TMG solutions and prioritizing guest experience can have a positive influence on a hotel's bottom line. To get more information about becoming a special guest on the Suite Spot or to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting episode of the Suite Spot. I am your host, Ryan Embree, super special edition. We are very, very excited for this episode because not only is this a special edition, but we have a special guest in house with us and that is Mr Rupesh Patel. So I'd like to welcome him to the Suite Spot for the first and hopefully not the last time. He is a hotel owner, manager, entrepreneur, consultant, social media influencer, I'm sure there's about five or six more titles that I'm missing there, Rupesh but thank you for coming on the Suite Spot with us. Rupesh Patel: Hey, you missed pizza guy. Ryan Embree: Pizza guy, pizza guy, absolutely. So I want to get started, obviously a lot of people are familiar with you. They might follow you on Linkedin or Instagram and kind of know your story. So instead of asking, you know, your background in the industry, it felt like I could switch it up a little bit and just ask kind of what your earliest memory of being in a hotel and how that might've influenced you later in life. Rupesh Patel: Absolutely. So I grew up in the business, like a lot of people or a lot of people that I know. Fifth grade, summer of fifth grade, my dad says we're moving to Florida. And I grew up in Houston, Texas, right? Was raised there, I was born in England, moved to Texas when I was six months old, and one day my dad says "I'm leaving for like five months and I'll be back." And the next thing you know, fifth grade ends and my dad's like, we're moving to Florida. I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm going to miss out on my neighbors that I was best friends with and everybody I knew in Texas," right? We moved and he said, "We bought a motel in South Florida". And I said, "okay, we know nothing about motels," Right? And so we, made the journey. We drove, I think it was like 20 hours from Texas to South Florida and we moved into this motel. It was a 52 room motel and it was a motel, motel built in like the forties. And we lived on property and we did that for a long time. My parents just sold it a year and a half ago now. Oh yes, so they had it for a long time. And so I grew up doing everything like front desk, housekeeping, laundry, sweeping, actually sweeping. There was no blowers back in the day that we could afford sweeping the parking lot, cigarette buds, all of that stuff, right? And so it was a great experience, learned a lot and saw a lot of crazy things like most people do in the hotel business Ryan Embree: And in Florida as well. So, but I'm sure that experience of doing everything in the hotel, doing almost every single task, I think it's served you probably a lot in where you are toda...

In this episode of Suite Spot, we celebrate the one year anniversary of Travel Media Group’s user-generated content management system: TMG OneView®. Host Ryan Embree is joined by the architect of OneView and VP of Product Development & Technology Jason Lee. Jason shares the inspiration behind OneView and how it is unlike any other reputation or social media tool in the hotel industry today. Ryan and Jason discuss OneView’s versatility as a multi-user collaboration tool and scalability in a multi-property environment. They also share expert tips on how users can most of their OneView feed and give a sneak peek for what could be next for this amazing tool. If you are interested in learning more about accessing your hotel’s TMG OneView® feed or to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Please Note: OneView free trial offer expires 12/31/2019 Related Links: www.tmgoneview.com/onboard Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello and welcome. Everyone knew another exciting episode of the Suite Spot. I am very excited about this episode today we are going to be talking about Travel Media Group's, OneView feed with the architect and vice president of product and development and technology, Jason Lee himself. So he joins us again on another episode of the Suite Spot. So welcome in Jason. Jason Lee: Thank you very much Ryan. Glad to be here. Ryan Embree: And this episode has been long overdue. You know obviously such an innovation, OneView is as a tool for current customers and for hoteliers themselves. I think it's taken us so long to get you on here to talk about this tool is because it's been just constantly innovated. So we're really, really excited to kind of share what OneView is all about the features and benefits that it brings the hoteliers every day when it comes to user generated content. So I figured we'd start there. Just give us a brief description of maybe how you would describe it to a hotelier. Jason Lee: So OneView is sort of like its namesake, right? It's a single view of a bunch of information. So like other business intelligence platforms you might, you might have at your hotel where you're seeing rate information, you're seeing, occupancy and ADR. This is a place that is a centralized hub where you can see not only reputation, which, which other platforms have as well. But also specifically social media, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter. So you can actually see and interact with all of those pieces of data. So OneView would be really, a centralized view and platform for action on reputation in social media. So where guests are trying to communicate with you externally, this is the place where you can pick up that information and then you can actually communicate back. Ryan Embree: So it's a consolidated place where all forms of communication digitally, where travelers are reaching out to a hotelier, pulled into one place where you can not only view that information but also interact with them. Jason Lee: Right. So you get a TripAdvisor review and you go in and you can click on respond and I can respond to that TripAdvisor review. Right underneath that TripAdvisor review, it could be a Facebook comment and you could like that comment. You could comment back to that comment. If that person comments on your comment, you can make another comment or like that comment. So you have all these additional layers of, of um, communication. But it also becomes a hub of communication beyond the guest. And that is where all of these, pieces of information that are coming externally into your hotel.

In this special edition episode of Suite Spot, Host Ryan Embree is joined by the head of Travel Media Group’s product and development team, Jason Lee, to share his key takeaways from the recent HITEC 2019 conference in Minneapolis. Ryan and Jason talk about all the hospitality tech innovations that were shared at the conference including Alexa for Hospitality and different AI systems. Jason also shares his ideas for what’s next for technology in the hotel industry and what that means for hoteliers moving forward. Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to a special edition of the Suite Spot. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. And today's episode we are going to be doing a recap of HITEC 2019 Minneapolis, which I had the pleasure to attend with our Vice President of Product Development Jason Lee who's here to share some notes and thoughts with us about the conference itself. Now, Jason, you are the veteran of these types of conferences you've been multiple times, so just want to get some maybe initial thoughts on this year's conference and comparison to years past. Jason Lee: Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of these conferences have themes, you know, and our theme for sure this year I think even from the keynote on was making things easier on the guest and booking, and research in-stay, post-stay. Um, but frictionless technology in the travel space where that always hasn't been the case in terms of the kind of technology the hotels deliver or hotel companies deliver to guests. So I think that that definitely was the theme this year in my opinion. Or maybe that's just what I came away with in years past. I think there had been other types of AI or machine learning or these kinds of themes where we are now, that might be a little more commonplace. And, and you know, it's really more about how do you apply these technologies to help guests have a better experience or an experience that they're not feeling like, I'm, I'm using tech. They're just, it's frictionless, you know, it's easy. So, um, and I think that is the next step. That's the, that's the evolution that the hotel industry has to take, especially as we're, you know, starting to sunset legacy technology and booking and legacy GDS tech that is probably, you know, the, I think you're starting to see a lot more, uh, advanced technology happening, uh, at the ground level work guests interact with hotel availability. Ryan Embree: Customers are looking for that frictionless experience because they're seeing that and experiencing that, um, in every other aspect of their life. So, you know, the hotel industry as a whole has the reputation for kind of lagging behind on some of these technologies. So when a customer walks in and still has to fill out maybe a breakfast form hanging on the outside of their door, you know, that's not the same sort of frictionless technology that they're experiencing on a daily basis and every other aspect of their lives. So the, the customer's expectations are starting to rise. Do you, do you think the hotel industry can keep up? Why do you think they lag so far behind? Jason Lee: It's always about moving parts. I think that's all technology. It's about how do you, how do you satisfy the demands of privacy, the demands of security, to the maybe the expectations of revenue from a hotel. I want this kind of revenue, or I want this, I want guests to interact with me this way. And before you got into, or we've gotten into the mobile when where people are doing so much more. And I think even in the last couple of years, the statistics in terms of bookings continue to rise.

In this episode of Suite Spot, we focus our attention on the bed and breakfast segment of the hospitality industry. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Director of Marketing Anne Sandoval to talk about how your bed and breakfast property can stay competitive with the rising threats of Airbnb and vacation rentals. Ryan and Anne give tips on how to modernize your B&B’s marketing strategy and optimize your property’s presence online. They share several examples of how to leverage websites, social media, and online reputation in order to gain market share and grow online revenue. They also speak to the importance of responding to reviews for bed and breakfast property owners and how critical it is to maintain positive reviews online. If you are interested in receiving a consultation for your bed & breakfast property or to submit a topic request for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455.   Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Ryan Embree: Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Suite Spot. I am your host, Ryan Embree. Got another great episode for you today, and one of the best things about working at Travel Media Group is the type and scales of hotels that we get to interact with on a daily basis. From those 500+ room resorts to those smaller hotels, maybe mid-sized hotels all the way down to properties that might be less than 10 rooms a bed and breakfast for example, which is a great transition into what our episode today is going to lead us and we felt like this was important to focus on, the bed and breakfast market, because they are in a situation that's competition with Airbnb and vacation rentals that are coming up along with the local hotels that are also pushing for market share. So in a competitive landscape like we are in 2019, we thought it fitting to talk about your bed and breakfast property and what you can do to market and grow your revenue. Ryan Embree: So who better to speak with us about marketing for a property than our Director of Marketing Miss Ann Sandoval. Welcome to the show Anne. Anne Sandoval: Thanks so much for having me again, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Absolutely. I wanted to talk to you. Um, you know, right off the bat about kind of where a good starting point is, uh, for these bed and breakfasts owners, um, that might've had this property for years. They haven't had to deal with, again, the competitive landscape of, you know, vacation rentals, airbnb's maybe they condos close to them now are selling for Airbnb's. Where do they start when it comes to creating a marketing strategy? Anne Sandoval: Yeah. So when we talk about a marketing strategy, a lot of these initial tips are going to be really just the foundation of understanding your property and your local area and really taking a look at what your current situation is so that you can then figure out what new strategies you can implement. So you may already be familiar with the answers to these questions about your property, but I think it's important to ask them and revisit them. First, taking a look at what the advantages and disadvantages are about your property and figuring out what guests love and how you can leverage those things. Next, analyzing the competition in your local area. As Ryan was just talking about, there are more and more lodging opportunities for travelers coming to your location, and so it's important to know if you want to get more market share, where is the market share going right now and what properties out there, maybe on Airbnb or maybe more traditional hotels are your biggest competition, and paying attention to what they're doing to market t...