Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

Join host Ryan Embree and first-time Suite Spot guest Sammie Snapp, a social expert here at Travel Media Group, as they dive into the world of Instagram reels. Learn how hotels can leverage reels to expand their reach and boost engagement, as well as what kind of content hotels should be posting in order to stand out. Discover actionable ways to elevate your hotel’s social media strategy today! Suite Spot Podcast · 94 - Instagram Reels For Hotels 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 episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you all for listening and joining me today, wherever you are listening to us from. Now, usually on the Suite Spot, we are talking about all the exciting updates and advancements that we have at Travel Media Group, but as social media experts, we are also in the know when it comes to new updates and features that happen across digital marketing platforms. And that's exactly what this episode is all about. We are talking about Instagram reels today. So with me today to talk about this really exciting new feature from Instagram, I wanna welcome for the first time, Sammie Snapp. Now, Sammie is a social expert on our social media team. She's a social media content analyst that works directly with our hotels, creating content and really helping our hotels effectively run their social media campaign. So Sammie, without further ado, let me welcome you to the Suite Spot. Sammie Snapp: Hi, I'm so excited to be here with you guys today and I'm excited to dive into it. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And so again, we're talking about Instagram reels. Before we get off and running, because there's a lot to this update, let's first just answer the basic question, right? What are Instagram reels? Sammie Snapp: So Instagram reels are a new feature that has just been added to the platform pretty recently within the last year or so. And it's basically a tool to utilize up to 60 second video content. Very, very similar to the TikTok app that has blown up in the past, I guess, two years since 2019-2020. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I think the stat on that, the incredible stat that we heard at the end of 2021, was almost that, I believe this is correct, where there were more people searching on TikTok or using TikTok than they were on Google. It surpassed Google as the most used site, which is just absolutely incredible to think. So it's no wonder that Instagram kind of reached in and created this because of the popularity that TikTok has over the years. Sammie Snapp: Absolutely. Ryan Embree: Yeah. So what we're here, obviously Suite Spot is a hotel, digital marketing podcast, all about hotels, for hotels. So let's talk about how Instagram reels fit inside of our industry. Sammie Snapp: So reels have a ton of benefits. The biggest benefit for the hotel industry is gonna come from the explore page and the explore page, if you wanna equate it to TikTok, it's very similar to the For You page. It's gonna show just any random user on Instagram, things that they might like, things suggested to them. And for, for the hotel industry, they're gonna show up on these explore pages for people that might not necessarily be following them. So the biggest thing for the hotel industry is that this is gonna bring in a lot more engagement and a lot more views. They might not otherwise have gotten to their hotel page from outside of just their following. Ryan Embree: Yeah, that's absolutely critical. I, I don't think we can stress that enough, right? Because right now we work with hotels to kind of build their fo...

Host Ryan Embree and Jason Lee, VP of Product and Development unveil TMG’s Social 2.0 platform for hoteliers. This re-designed, intuitive platform has new features that make creating and posting content, as well as analyzing engagement and reach, easier than ever before. Discover how you can leverage Social 2.0 to improve your hotel’s social media strategy. Listen now! Suite Spot Podcast · 93 - Social 2.0 Launch 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. This is your host Ryan Embree. We have a very frequent guest and this typically means one thing when he is on. And that means another Travel Media Group upgrade and innovation, but I will let Jason, our vice president of product development and technology, announce this super exciting new launch that Travel Media Group, I know, has been working so hard on. So, Jason, what have you got up your sleeve for us? Jason Lee: Well, thank you, Ryan. It's always awesome to be on these podcasts and to talk about our solutions and social media is really what we're talking about today. And we have relaunched our social media solution and suite and done it in a way that takes a lot of the items that have been discussed with hoteliers, like hopefully the people that are listening to this, and management companies, things that are missing from the suite, things that could make the solution more effective and we've added them into our brand new launch of social 2.0. So if you have our current social solution and you come back into OneView and access it, you're gonna see some very different pages, some very different looks and, and a lot more functionality and transparency inside of our social process. So that's, what's here. Ryan Embree: Awesome. Awesome. And, and before we jump into all these really cool updates and innovation that we put into this, just to reiterate something that I think is super important is a lot of the things that you do on that development side is based upon feedback that we're hearing from both hotel partners and large hotel groups out there. We know that that has become an insanely hard space to kind of manage, and groups are always looking for this type of consistency across their portfolio. Yet they have to juggle different sort of brands within a portfolio, maybe to different scales. So they've got so many variables, they're looking for places of consistency. So when, when you and your team went about doing this, that's exactly what you set out to do is create some consistency there. Can you speak a little bit more to that feedback that you're hearing and maybe how you're able to streamline it for those hotel groups specifically? Jason Lee: Yeah, I think what really, what it comes down to, I mean, we get feedback all along, you know, when, whenever we launch something or whenever we add a new group into our company and we're able to kind of get their ideas, they see it for the first time and they're like, oh, it'd be cool if it did this. Or I'd like it if it did that. And so a lot of things, I definitely, in those situations, I've got a notebook filled with stuff and it still actually has quite a few things that didn't even make it into this release, but in this case, it was really about how can I take more control or how can I get my property, so if I'm at a management company and I want my individual hotels to take part in social media, what is it that they can do in a way where it's like, they're not spending their days posting all day long, but yet they can still be involved in the process. Jason Lee:

Host Ryan Embree discusses ways hoteliers can help attract employees in the midst of the staffing shortage by focusing on their digital presence. From reputation management to social media to review responses, hoteliers need to make sure their hotel is giving the right impression not just to guests, but to future staff as well. Listen now to learn what you can do to help combat the staffing crisis at your hotel. Suite Spot Podcast · 92 - How Your Hotel's Digital Presence Impacts Recruiting and Staffing 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 episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining me and listening in. We've got a great episode for you today. And today we're gonna be talking about recruiting and hiring. Now I'm sure this is a conversation that you've had with a lot of your teams right now. I know we are hearing it all over the country. Where can I find employees? We are just looking for more and more hospitality professionals to fill our front desk staff, to fill our management teams. Management groups out there looking for people. We had just gotten over this just devastating pandemic to our industry, and now we have this staffing crisis. Hotels cannot find people right now to work. So what this episode is talking about is how your hotel's presence impacts recruiting and hiring. Now I know that is a weird correlation. Ryan Embree: Your hotel's digital presence, things like social media, reviews, even review response, but this has an impact. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. But first we'll start off with a quick couple stats. Now, hospitality employment is still down 1.2 million jobs from where it was in February 2020. 1.2 million, which is so sad because this is a people-serving-people industry. So when we can't find the people to give these great hotel experiences, we obviously see that impacted every single day and, and could impact vacations and, and the, just the overall guest experience. So call it the great resignation, call it whatever. The hotel industry is a loss of 7.2% of its workforce. Now that's compared to 2% for the rest of U.S. jobs. So hospitality has been extremely impacted from this staffing shortage, and it's just so difficult to get people again, to work for our hotels. Ryan Embree: So it's an employee job market. As you can imagine, employees are getting to pick where they want to work. They're going to do their due diligence before signing on, and that's where your hotel digital presence comes into play. So today what we're gonna do is we're gonna discuss the way again, your digital presence impacts recruiting and the first place we'll start is reputation management. Now just like Glassdoor, employees are going to check your hotel's reviews to see where they're gonna be working. They're gonna ask the question, "What will my day in the life look like at this property?" Now, a really good exercise that I would suggest to you, the hotelier, is to go to your hotel's reviews online. So think about Glassdoor, right? When someone's looking to potentially sign on and become an employee, they go check reviews for that company on the website Glassdoor. Ryan Embree: So of course, employees are gonna do this for your hotel because there's public reviews online about your hotel experience there. So the exercise would be, is read all of those reviews and imagine that instead of them being reviews, imagine being behind the front desk and hearing that feedback directly from your guests. How many times is that guest complimenting you?

In 2021’s edition of the Suite Spot, we welcome Travel Media Group’s President, Dana Singer, to the podcast. Host Ryan Embree reflects with Dana on the challenges and successes of this past year. Dana reviews some of the adjustments that Travel Media Group has continued to make in response to the changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the digital marketing landscape for hotels. Ryan and Dana discuss innovations launched by the Travel Media Group product development team and the role TMG played in hotel recovery. Dana also shares what she is most excited about and hopeful for in 2022 as the hotel industry continues to bounce back. Suite Spot Podcast · 91 - 2021 In Review with Dana Singer 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 the Suite Spot. This is Ryan Embree, your host, and happy new year. We've got a great first episode of 2022 for you. We've done this on an annual basis, and it's one of my favorite episodes that we do every single year. As we enter a new year, we're closing out 2021, but we're excited for the prospects of what 2022 has to offer. We've seen a lot of great momentum going in after a busy, busy holiday, according to some of the STR data out there. And with me today, I wanna bring in the president of Travel Media Group, Dana Singer. Dana, welcome to the Suite Spot. Dana Singer: Thanks Ryan. It's fantastic to be back with you. Ryan Embree: Yeah, and we're bringing you on again because we did this last year, and we got such a great response from it. And I think it's just so important as we move into this new year to not only, obviously, look towards the future in 2022 and, and what's on the horizon for the, the hotel industry and Travel Media Group, but also reflect back on 2021 and look at everything that we've been able to overcome and accomplish. So that's exactly what this episode is about. So I'm gonna kind of start us off in, in a very similar situation where we were last year, Dana, just to reset. You know, we started this, this episode last year, talking about adjustments that Travel Media Group made in response to the pandemic. Can you talk about how those adjustments kind of evolved in 2021? Dana Singer: You know, while 2020 was all about pivoting to respond to the pandemic, 2021 shifted to how we could best support our clients and partners in the recovery. We all know the pandemic hit the hospitality industry hard. Stay at home orders and the fear of the virus kept so many from, from traveling and it negatively impacted so many businesses that rely on travel, especially hotels. So in 2021, with the rollout of vaccines, optimism began to prevail. We began thinking in terms of both the recovery and innovation mindset and how we could help hoteliers transition and effectively capture the renewed travel demand that was building throughout the year. And one of the ways that we adjusted during this time was by hosting seasonal digital workshops. And our goal was to connect with hoteliers through these one-on-one sessions and provide insights on, on how they could capture market share faster than their competition by leveraging digital marketing tools to really put their best foot forward with their online reputation and social media. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I think that's well said. I mean, any hotelier that's listening to this podcast right now can probably agree with me in saying that from Travel Media Group to the hotel, this is not the same business or hotel that came into 2020. We've had to adapt and shift and really be versatile. And the industry has, has had to do that as well.

In this episode of Suite Spot, host Ryan Embree covers key insights and takeaways from Travel Media Group's winter workshop. After talking with many hoteliers over the course of the workshop, Ryan has found some common themes and gives advice to other hoteliers out there on how they can prepare for 2022. Suite Spot Podcast · 90 - Winter Workshop Takeaways 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 episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you all for joining me today for episode 90 of the Sweet Spot. This is a special edition of the Suite Spot. This is actually the second edition of what we call one-on-one digital marketing workshop takeaways. So for those that are not familiar, at Travel Media Group, we put on seasonal marketing workshops for hoteliers. We theme them every single season: spring, summer, fall, and of course, winter, which we just completed. So this workshop was called "Create an Occupancy Flurry", and we've got some sort of takeaways and insights from the hotels and groups that I was speaking to during these workshops. So that's what this episode is all about. I'll give you some key insights and really just patterns and trends that we've uncovered during these digital one-on-one workshops. Ryan Embree: So the first trend that we're gonna take a look at is, and I just love to see it, the optimism coming into 2022, especially around key groups like business and extended stays. Hoteliers are anticipating the return of these two segments, which have almost completely disappeared over the last couple years. We have been leaning so heavily on those leisure travelers as a crutch to kind of fill our rooms. In 2022, a lot of hoteliers that I talked to had the feeling that this business travel was going to return. These, these stays that might have just been maybe one or two nights might be into extended stays. And part of that is because of what we've talked about with bleisure happening. So business and leisure kind of blending together. Some people taking an extended vacation, maybe on a Thursday night, because they're really able to work from anywhere. Ryan Embree: We've talked about that in this podcast, how that hybrid workspace is, is really gonna benefit hoteliers because it could extend someone's vacation a couple extra nights. So with that optimism for business, a lot of the things that we talked about to hoteliers in these workshops were optimizing on places like LinkedIn. Think about how many weddings got canceled, rescheduled. Annual events that have been going on for decades had been canceled. This is your opportunity to promote your hotel, to try to capture some of that pent-up demand. LinkedIn is the channel for that. That's where all of your event planners are going to be. That's where your wedding planners are gonna be joining your local business associations. It, it could lead to a lot of revenue and a lot of bookings, one particular wedding block is not just one room, that's going to relay into a whole mess of bookings. Ryan Embree: So LinkedIn and being active on that site is gonna absolutely be crucial in 2022. That's where the decision-makers are, especially for these groups. So if you're looking to see what type of trade shows and events are coming your way, LinkedIn is a great spot for that. And it's gonna be the hoteliers are jumping on that trend that are really gonna take advantage as business travel starts to return. The second trend that we uncovered in this workshop really still had to do with staffing. Now, the last digital workshop that we had in the f...

In this episode, host Ryan Embree takes a look at the types of compelling posts that you can create around the winter season in order to engage travelers who are traveling for the holidays. These valuable tips can help grow your hotel's social media account and secure more bookings. If you're interested in learning how Travel Media Group can help your hotel's social media, click here: https://www.travelmediagroup.com/services/social-media/ Suite Spot Podcast · 89 - 12 Days of Social Tips for Hotels 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. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you for joining and listening wherever you are out there. We've got a really fun episode for you. I love this time of year. It is dubbed the most wonderful time of the year. For some hotels, this is actually where occupancy picks up a little bit. Obviously, winter is not our favorite season. That's when that occupancy slows down, but around the holidays, you might be seeing a spike in occupancy and people traveling now, especially in comparison to last year, more and more people getting out there. So what we thought we'd do today, I'm sure a lot of people, if not everyone, has heard of the 12 days of Christmas, well, this episode, we're going to be talking about the 12 ways to engage travelers on social media. So that was kind of the idea behind this. Ryan Embree: We're going to give our listeners some social tips and ideas for this holiday season, and maybe some ways to kind of spice up your social media feed for your hotel, and hopefully get some new travelers to follow you during this time. It's such a great time for hotels, especially to market and advertise themselves on social media. I tell hotels this all the time: it only takes that one second for someone to follow your page in order to really connect with them in perpetuity. So if you can just put one post together, that's engaging, that they like, maybe even one of these ideas that we talked through today, when they click that follow button, every single time you post, whether it's in the winter, the summer, the weekday, the weekend, they are going to be seeing that content. So it's just so important to be creative, but also consistent because that's when you'll lose followers as well. If you have too little consistency and they don't find your page interesting anymore. Ryan Embree: So let's jump into it. We've got 12 to cover today. So the first one is really about posting about local community holiday events. Now, last year, we might've not been able to post about these events. They've been postponed. We had a spike in COVID cases around this time, but a lot of the time, what we're seeing is these community holiday events are coming back. So tree lighting ceremonies, ice skating rinks, local Christmas light hotspots. So even if you are in a place where the restrictions might be a little tighter, you know there's always those houses in the local area that really go big for this holiday season. So trying to figure where those are and sharing it on your social media. One of the things I would suggest, we've talked about it a couple of times on this podcast, is maybe going back a couple of years and looking at some of the events that you posted in the past. 2020 might not be the best base for you because, again, a lot of these events were canceled. Ryan Embree: So going back and figuring out which ones are returning and making a big deal of it. This could be the way that a traveler or follower finds out information about this,

In this episode of the Suite Spot, host Ryan Embree and Product Director Patrick O'Brien discuss the top 5 sentiment tags of 2021. With the end of the year drawing near, now is a great time for hoteliers to look back at the data so they can make informed decisions about their hotels going into the new year. Listen and discover as Ryan and Patrick break down the numbers and provide valuable insights. If you are interested in learning how Travel Media Group's advanced sentiment reporting can help your hotel, call or text 407-984-7455. Suite Spot Podcast · 88 - Top 5 Sentiment Tags 2021 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 episode of the Suite Spot. This is one of my favorite episodes that we do every single year. I believe this is now the third year that we've done this with one of my favorite guests, as well. You've heard him on the Suite Spot before, but we're going to welcome him back today, Patrick O'Brien, our Product Director at Travel Media Group. Patrick, welcome back to the Suite Spot. Patrick O'Brien: Thanks so much, Ryan. I'm glad to be here. Ryan Embree: So let's talk a little bit about what we're going to be doing today. As you've heard on this podcast, Travel Media Group, we are one of the leaders in reputation management, as well as responding to reviews all over the hospitality industry. And with that comes a lot of data. We are just so focused on helping hotels with their reviews that we read quite a number of them throughout the course of an entire year. We actually go the extra mile and looking at specific sentiment tags. So what we do on this episode is we give you, the listener, a really great idea about over the course of 2021, what are guests talking about? What are the top five tags that guests are mentioning in their reviews? And we go even further and dive into how they're feeling. So to give you an idea of the sheer number of reviews that we're talking about, Patrick, I always love to ask because I just think it's so fascinating and pretty incredible to look over the course of a year. How many reviews is your team responding to just a month? Patrick O'Brien: So, yeah, so this year has been really interesting for our team as we have seen review flow pick back up as the year's progressed to be really more in line with 2019. We had our highest month in July and we responded to right around 22,000 reviews that month. And it's, it's stayed pretty steady throughout the year. You know, the first couple of months were a little bit slower, but starting around March, everything really started to pick back up. But to put that in perspective in July of 2019, our hotels in the Respond and Resolve program, averaged 59 reviews for the month and in July of 2021, they averaged 57 reviews. So we are definitely starting to see a return to the pre-pandemic review flow. Ryan Embree: You know, it was so interesting as, obviously, the pandemic started to come across the country, to see all these different metrics engages to see how the industry was doing. Obviously, the important ones that hoteliers were looking for was occupancy and ADR and how that was impacting their just overall bottom line. But you also start to see that in review flow. So it's a very, very comforting fact to know that not only are our guests coming back in this recovery, but they're starting to leave more feedback. And we've talked about on this podcast before the importance of feedback and how that can lead to a blueprint and perfecting that guest experience. So part of perfecting that guest experience is to actually not just see the ...

In the second and final part of this special edition of the Suite Spot, we continue to help hotels fill their 2022 calendars and strategize social campaigns. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Client Success Team Lead, Aislynn Roberts, to cover the summer and fall seasons. Listen and learn as we discuss planning posts around: holidays, events, hotel amenities/features, and local stories. If you are interested in learning more about how Travel Media Group can help plan your hotel’s social calendar, call or text 407-984-7455. Suite Spot Podcast · 87 - Planning Your Hotel's 2022 Social Calendar Part II 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. This is part two of two of our episode: Planning Your Hotel's Social Calendar for 2022. If you missed part one, we already reviewed the winter and spring seasons for the 2022 year. In this episode, we are going to continue the conversation with Aislynn for our summer and fall months. Enjoy. Let's keep it rolling as we head into the summer. I know we've got a couple of major holidays. The kids are out of school. Let's talk about holidays in the summer. Aislynn Roberts: Yeah. Great. So summer's really great time. As you mentioned, kids are out of school, so there's a little bit more time available for parents and families to do things. So when we're talking about holidays, you have Father's Day, 4th of July. So there's always a really great opportunity where you can showcase those holidays to invite people to come in for an extended weekend or celebrate dad this year and book a stay with us, type of posts. A great way to highlight the holiday. So it's easy to do, but also you can promote something about the property, a feature or an amenity in the same time. And then you have some smaller holidays. Like, for instance, in July, there's an All-American pet photo day. Simple posts to share a photo of your pet or a pet and ask your followers to share photos of their own pets. Quick and easy to do and it could yield high activity because people love to share photos of their pets and they love to see photos of other people's pets. So while you're getting this really great fun, simple post out there, you also have the opportunity to promote your property being pet friendly and that all pets are welcome. And we can't wait to see your four-legged family friends. Ryan Embree: Yes. If you ever want to get some quick engagement on a post, all you have to do is find the nearest pet and post that on social media, because I guarantee you are going to get a lot of likes and share. People, like you said, Aislynn, they are obsessed with their pets. But really summer just feels like an entire holiday in itself. You know, it is never a bad time to post about it being summer. This is when we are the busiest in our industry. So making sure that we are hosting, you know, encouraging and inspiring travel is so important and that kind of overflows into the event side. Right, Aislynn? Aislynn Roberts: Yeah, absolutely. So like you said, there's always something going on during the summer months. And in fact, a lot of artists who actually had concerts and tours booked for 2020 that they had to cancel, they've already rebooked either for the end of 2021 and leading into 2022. So there's going to be so much more happening in the new year than we had in the last two years. So definitely take a look at what's planned for your area. Sports venues are always really big. You have a lot going on with those teams that are either local, whether they're professional or even sometimes we have,

In part 1 of 2 of this special edition of the Suite Spot, we help hotels start to fill their 2022 calendars and strategize social campaigns. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Client Success Team Lead, Aislynn Roberts to cover the winter and spring seasons. Listen and learn as we discuss planning posts around: holidays, events, hotel amenities/features, and local stories. Check out part 2 when Ryan and Aislynn cover the summer and fall months. If you are interested in learning more about how Travel Media Group can help plan your hotel’s social calendar, call or text 407-984-7455. Suite Spot Podcast · 86 - Planning Your Hotel's 2022 Social Media Calendar Part I 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 podcast. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you for listening, wherever you are listening from. Got a great episode, as always, for you today. I cannot believe it, but it is October of 2021, which means we are headed into the last quarter of this year and headed into a brand new 2022. We've had a rough couple years, but we are looking with some optimism and looking forward to next year. So with me today to talk about 2022, because we can never start planning early enough for next year, is Client Success Team Lead, Aislynn Roberts. Aislynn, welcome back to the Suite Spot. Aislynn Roberts: Thanks, Ryan. Happy to be back. Ryan Embree: As I've mentioned before, we've got a great episode, but what we're going to be talking about today is helping our listeners plan their 2022 social calendar for their hotel. This is something that is extremely important to do at least at some point before going into the new year. Now we're not going to go over every single specific post that you need to be doing for an entire year's worth, but I thought it would be helpful to go ahead and roll through some of the seasons. We know how seasonal this industry is, and then we'll share some tips and best practices to help fill your calendar and give you some tips along the way. That sound like a plan, Aislynn? Aislynn Roberts: Yeah. Sounds great. Ryan Embree: Awesome. Well, let's start with the winter; somewhat of a slower month. Aislynn, where do we start when we're, when we're starting to plan that social calendar for winter 2022? Aislynn Roberts: Definitely, when you're getting started with content, I like to recommend to my partners to start with the big stuff, the stuff that's known, it's pretty easy to talk about. So when we look at that, it's always holidays, right? So what holidays are happening during the winter: New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, you got Christmas, Christmas Eve, Hanukkah is also during winter, and then you move into smaller holidays that are maybe like three-day weekends. You have President's Day, Columbus day. Occasionally some people, some regions observe that and some don't and then also Martin Luther King, Jr weekend. So when we're talking about social content, it's always great to post about those major holidays because it's something everyone pretty much knows about. They might be planning an extended weekend trip or thinking about it. They get an extra day off of work or during those times. So it's really easy to create content and plan for them. But you also want to think about some of the smaller days. There is a national day of calendar that you can just pull great inspiration from to always fill your social media content calendar up. So for instance, in January alone, you have National Trivia Day and Plan for Vacation Day is the last Tuesday in January. These are really great content ideas just to dri...

In this special edition episode of Suite Spot, we recap the recent 2021 Lodging Conference, which took place at the beautiful JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix, AZ. Host Ryan Embree is joined by Travel Media Group’s Director of Enterprise Sales, Danielle Rummel, as they analyze the current state and future of the post-pandemic hotel industry. Listen and learn as they discuss shifting guest expectations, emerging trends, and how to overcome labor challenges. This episode is a great way to get insight into what the road to recovery for the hospitality industry looks like for hoteliers. Suite Spot Podcast · 85 - Lodging Conference 2021 Special Edition 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 episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for listening. Today we've got a special edition of the Suite Spot and I am so excited. I've been waiting for a couple years to finally do one of these, episodes again. We used to do them all the time. As I've mentioned on this podcast before, Travel Media Group, we are at the forefront of digital marketing in the hotel industry. So we are trying to get to every single conference out there to try to figure out the trends, what is going on in the hotel industry. And one of the best conferences and events year after year continues to be the Lodging Conference out in Arizona. So 2021 gave us the opportunity to attend that conference. And with me today, I have Danielle Rummel. She is the Director of Enterprise Sales at Travel Media Group. Danielle, first off, welcome to the Suite Spot. Danielle Rummel: Thank you so much for having me, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And this is your first time here on the Suite Spot, but not your first time to the Lodging Conference. So I want to go ahead and start off. We always love to do these kind of recap episodes with these live events, because we know hoteliers might not be able to make it out to all of these events that we're going to. So let's start off just from maybe a macro level, Danielle, and just talking about, maybe, what was the big theme? Cause there always seems to be this theme and topic from these events. What was this year's theme? Danielle Rummel: Well, I think nobody's going to be surprised by this, but the theme of this year's conference was definitely resilience and our industry has been hit hard by the global pandemic with COVID and that is no surprise to anyone. We've also been hit hard in the past by the economy in 2008, when the economy fell, as well as in 9/11. And much to everybody's surprise, we recovered then. And I think it's safe to say that we are the only ones not surprised this time that we are on our way back and we are as resilient as ever. And it's very exciting to be in this industry now, as we come back and look at all of the opportunities, how much everything has evolved, how we have been forced to change, but potentially make some changes for the better to improve guest experience and improve on everything that we are offering. So it was really exciting to be at the Lodging Conference, we had 1,900 attendees, so that was one of the largest conferences we've seen yet. And everybody was so excited to just see people face-to-face, in-person and really get out there and talk about what we've experienced, collaborate with each other on what we see moving forward and ways that we can really support not only each other, our owners management companies, vendors, but really support guests in this exciting time as they get back on the road. Ryan Embree: