In this special episode, Suite Spot Host, Ryan Embree covers 5 key takeaways from the 2024 The Hospitality Show that took place in San Antonio, Texas. 

The industry event was one-of-a-kind and featured incredible panelists, vendors, guest speakers, interviews, and much more from the hospitality industry.

Tune in now to get the latest details from the event and why you should be excited for next year!

Episode Transcript
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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. Ryan Embree here with the Suite Spot. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today is episode 151. Just want a moment to recognize 151 episodes. Wanna thank our audience, uh, for being with us, uh, whether this is your first episode or 151, thank you so much for all the support and we are so excited to bring you another incredible episode. This, as you can see from the title The Hospitality Show, are five key takeaways. We just returned from San Antonio. In fact, again, just like last year’s takeaway episode, I haven’t even had the opportunity to do my laundry to get in my normal Travel Media Group attire. So, I was just so wanting to get these takeaways to you from the episode. First off, an absolutely incredible event. The Hospitality Show, this is the second annual one put on. The first one was last year. Inaugural show was last year in Las Vegas. This in San Antonio. Want to thank the city of San Antonio for hosting to our A HLA Questex. They put on an incredible show to all the sponsors. If you have not already looked into or are thinking about attending the hospitality show, it is a must attend event. So many interviews, so many insights, content. They had some incredible keynotes, guest speakers, so many cool activities. And of course, hospitality. You have to be able to throw a party and host people, right? And they absolutely nailed it in San Antonio, celebrating Dia de DEOs. Just did a fantastic job. So let’s get into some of these takeaways that I got, and it’s gonna start with one of the most prevalent topics and patterns, ai, in fact, in these top five takeaways, two of my key takeaways have to do with ai. The first is, from a hotelier’s perspective, seems to be this just battle right now of where AI is best utilized with our industry. And there’s this push and pull, whether it’s for efficiency, reducing costs, which we know right now is really, really hurting a lot of hotels across the nation, whether it’s rising construction costs, operational costs, staffing and wages continue to grow, uh, and get more costly. So is it for efficiency that it’s best use? Or is it to drive revenue? Right? Top line revenue. And, and there was kind of this, this little just debate of, of what is AI best used for right now? And, uh, you know, there was a, a incredible panel on ai. There were several of them, but the one I had the pleasure, uh, there was one guest speaker who kind of talked through the stages of AI and where we are and actually broke it down into three stages. And we’re on the precipice of, of the third right now. So go through the first one, which was predictive, right? That’s your chat, GPT just kind of giving us maybe, hey, write me an email answering sort of questions for you. Uh, and then we kind of slowly moved into this co-pilot. You know, you see a lot of these big companies kind of roll out this co-pilot that was really supposed to do actions for you. And now the panelists has had kind of challenged that were into this third, which is assistive and, uh, autonomous and agent kind of stage of ai where this would be kind of the human touch mix with ai. And I think he’s, he’s definitely onto something as far as, you know, some of the things that we really could make more efficient portfolio requests, right? That was the great example of how many portfolio requests. And yet there still has to be human touch involved. And if we can just figure out a way to kind of use AI to really, you know, help us expedite that process and become more efficient, think of how much time that’s giving back your staff. How many times, uh, we’re answering that phone call, answering that email, text message for a portfolio request, right? You know, in fact, one of the panelists was talking about kind of the, the gap in technology in our industry specifically and saying that we’re definitely making progress, but are we there? And, and her cited example was, was ordering room service, right? So we’ve got this great QR code, you look at the menu and everything like that, you still have to pick up a manual phone or your cell phone to order it from the hotel. So we start there, we start at this technologically, you know, sound place with the QR code, but then at the very end we’re, we have to get these, we have to get that human touch involved. And if there’s a way to automate that process, again, how much smoother and efficient and for the guest side that’s gonna feel and impact the guest experience, which what we’re trying to do, you know, I was talking to Alexi Kajavi president at Questex Hospitality and Wellness about this in our interview, which, um, all of the interviews that, that I’m gonna be talking about today on this episode, you can find on our YouTube page, we’re gonna be releasing them over the next couple weeks. And I was talking to him about, there’s gotta be a feeling of this fomo when it comes to AI for hoteliers. You know, there was someone from Salesforce on a panel talking about how they have implemented AI into their work processes and order to essentially get a year’s worth of rollouts and updates into one quarter. And you hear something like that from a hotelier standpoint and you say, am I really taking advan full advantage of what AI is? And I think we have these grand ideas of when we hear ai, when we hear, you know, technology within the hotel industry. I think we go straight to maybe some sci-fi esque type things where, you know, you’ve got the robots delivering things, you’re going ultra speed when it comes to your operations to processes, you can cut down on staff. And I certainly think that there’s going to be a time where we get there, but really right now it’s becoming small steps. How do we implement the power of AI in our everyday lives as hoteliers? You know, one of the things we did at Travel Media Group was launch the guest experience snapshot, which looks at your guest reviews. AI gets that information and kind of summarizes that information, gets it back to you, not just with emojis or a thumbs up or thumbs down, but actually blurbs bullet points into what guests are actually saying about their stay. And then it actually provides you with suggestions and recommendations on what you can do to improve the guest experience. So, small example there, but a very powerful way to implement AI into your everyday operations so you can feel a little bit better about when that question’s asked of, are you truly taking advantage of AI and it’s power and capability? You can at least say, yes, I’m on the path to doing that. ’cause I think right now we’re at that place where a lot of hoteliers, if you ask them, are you taking full advantage? They’ll probably answer no. But if you ask them what pieces of the hotel operation have changed since you implemented ai, I think there’s a lot of hoteliers that can say yes. You know, we have implemented some AI into our everyday operations, and if we can just take those baby steps, you know, hospitality, we love it as an industry, but we’re very slow to implement technology. You know, COVID, uh, certainly accelerated that path. AI’s gonna continue to do that, but overall, there’s a whole panel and session on this is how can we accelerate technology into our industry? But it really should be about empowering, uh, your employees. So how can I use AI to again, assist with portfolio polls a request when guests are are asking me, how can I summarize my guest feedback like the TMG guest experience snapshot, these little things. And, and with a younger generation kind of coming into the workforce, a lot of these college kids right now have had chat GBT for the last two years, right? They’ve probably been told not to use it in their college courses, but as they graduate and get to the workforce, guess what they are going to be used to working with these AI and new technology. So if you don’t have something laid out or if you have an inefficient process, a manual process, it really could hurt you in the recruiting front too. Your younger generation, that younger generation coming up into the hospitality, that new generation that we’re talking about on the college campus call that we did at the Suite Spot, they’re ready for that. They’re, they have an appetite for new technology. Make sure that you’re providing that for them. So AI from a hotelier’s perspective, number one, key takeaway number two, FMB is the place to be. Okay? So a lot of talk about FMB in the hotel. Now, FMB has always been ingrained in the guest experience, the hotel. And in fact, we had an amazing guest that we interviewed at the Hospitality Show from Hampton by Hilton, uh, sharing some really tasty news about a, uh, brand new waffle that was just introduced at Hilton. But now hotels are starting to think beyond breakfast. You know, there’s a reason why that is. On our guest sentiment reports at Travel Media Group, there’s a reason why breakfast and f and B always find its way into the top 10 and sometimes even top five most mentioned tags in guest reviews. It’s a major piece of a hotel experience. And hoteliers are seeing that. The hospitality show really leaned into that this year for the first time, they had an outdoor hospitality showcase where they were showing really creative ways that you could use your outdoor space for f and b, whether that’s bar, whether that’s food. You had, uh, uh, an incredible keynote from Jose Andres, the, uh, famed restaurateur and philanthropist who had just some incredible stories with some recent natural disaster and how food and hospitality, he was also really grateful and thankful for those hotels that stay open during those natural disasters so that he and his team can go into these disaster areas and provide food for those that are most need at that time. But it goes beyond that, you know, hotel restaurants, you know, I had Paul Cory on from Cory Hospitality, he mentioned it. Hotel restaurants are now becoming community gathering spots. We’re seeing at Travel Media Group more interest than ever on hoteliers and properties that we work with that wanna manage their online reputation and, and respond to their, uh, guest reviews that are leaving reviews about their restaurants because they know that that’s a powerful differentiator for their property. This is also a really amazing opportunity for you to showcase your local area, your culture, personalization, hotels, new developments. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing multiple GMs, managing director of brand new developments. And the place where I really hear the passion shine through in those episodes is when they’re talking about their f and b and the meticulous planning that goes around those restaurants, hoteliers, developers, they’re seeing this as a, a revenue generator. It’s a differentiator. And it’s also, again, a way for you to really embrace your local area, your culture. I mean, San Antonio, we had the Chief Strategy Officer from Visit San Antonio, another interview we conducted at the Hospitality Show. He was talking all about how they’re really focused on Michelin’s coming to Texas for the first time, how they’re really focusing on cuisine and, uh, f and b travel, which is, is is a growing, growing trend right now. So f and b, certainly the place to be. My second key takeaway at the Hospitality show. Third key takeaway, sustainability. I love these conferences be, I love the hospitality show in general because all of the brands, all of the power players from management companies are present at this show. They have a a, a really big presence there. And what you find is in hospitality, obviously there’s a lot of differences, but there’s a lot of the same. And those big issues like sustainability, responsible, uh, green travel starts to rise to the top. You had multiple brands making commitments that we’ve seen over the last couple years to green initiatives. One of the panelists kind of use the phrase little to bigs. So over the years, if you’ve traveled anywhere, you’ve probably seen those small shampoo or lotion bottles, body wash, and now those were used to be those little plastic containable. Now we’re in kind of a dispenser mode, right? So you’re little to bigs. There was some incredible stats shared of the plastic and frankly, the savings that were, uh, monetary savings that were associated, uh, with that trend and how more and more ho hotels are adopting this. But one thing I would challenge the ho hotel and hospitality industry to do is to really educate the guests on why we’re making these changes. I think one of the best things that really became popular, you know, three to five years ago was the housekeeping rule, right? Keeping your towels up versus throwing ’em on the floor knowing if you wanted a fresh towel or not, right? That was effectively communicated to the guests and there was a real reason and kind of responsibility around it as your guests to make that decision. You almost felt accountable for that. If you were keeping your towel, you know, you felt maybe a little bit like you were doing a little bit of good, right? A little bit of green travel there. Some of these changes that we’re implementing are fantastic for sustainable travel. They just have to be properly communicated to our guests, right? Recent example for me personally was at a a, a great hotel in San Antonio. The water pressure was a little bit lower than I preferred, right? But as, as I’m sitting there thinking about that, wishing that water pressure was a little higher, I started thinking, well, maybe this was a, a something implemented from the hotel for a low flow, uh, water system for green as kind of a sustainable initiative for the property. But I didn’t see any sort of cards talking about that. You know, I didn’t see anything that communicated to me that that was the case. Now, I knew that because I work in the hospitality industry and I knew that that is a sustainable practice that hotels do, but for a lot of guests they don’t know that, right? So challenging hotels to really communicate any from anything locally sourced food at your f and b, if that’s locally sourced, that goes a long way. Your guests will appreciate that. Any green initiative, make sure that’s communicated. It makes for some great social media posts. Goodwill could be a differentiator for you, especially with the younger generation, which we’re gonna talk about. You know, corporate travel, they’re gonna start looking a lot closer at this. I heard, you know, the other day talking about monetary budget and a carbon budget on corporate travel. They are going to start really focusing in on those properties, those hotels, cities in general that have really green sustainable practices that they’re implementing at their properties. You know, some of the questions that were raised on the sustainable panel, things like renovations, right? I think a stat was brought up where there was actually more of an environmental impact on bringing in all the materials that they needed for that renovation than it was actually the efficiency savings that they were gonna get post renovation. So how do we manage that? Sourcing our materials for renovations? What do we do with the waste Best? Western was talking about how they implemented something where there needs to be 50 inch TVs in all of their hotels by a certain date. Some of the franchisees were asking, what do we do these existing TVs, right? Isn’t that creating more waste? So these are important questions that our industry has to answer for the most part. The good news is, is that we’re getting there, we’re making progress. A lot of commitments. A HLA, there’s some amazing things with Green Key Global, which they just announced this past year, absolutely amazing to see. It’s gonna start impacting bookings. I talked about this, especially younger travelers who prioritize this. This is something that’s important to them, right? We think of when I pick a hotel location, a price, we could see a day where a traveler looks at price, location reviews and they also could look at what’s the green initiatives? What’s my carbon footprint? We’re already seeing that on airlines that will show you the carbon footprint that you’re taking. Which one is most efficient as far as your flight goes. So I it is, it is not within the realm and it’s also gonna be, IM important to recruiting employees, right? When you’re talking about hiring someone and you’re able and, and they’re looking at a job, a front desk agent for your property or the property next door, very similar pay, very similar location. Maybe opportunity for growth is a distinguishing factor that you prioritize sustainability in your operations at your hotel. That is absolutely something that someone would find as compelling and could be a, a positive differentiator for you in your recruitment efforts. So again, keep all of that in mind as you move forward and start to implement these practices moving forward. We had credible idea that’s being implemented right now. One of the Suite Spot guests that we had, uh, I believe a year ago said along with the physical invoice, you know, monetary invoice for your stay, you also were included a carbon invoice. So you know, the carbon footprint that essentially your stay cost quote unquote. I just think really, really creative idea. There could be something where, you know, people get competitive showcase that online could make for some great marketing. So sustainability, uh, my key takeaway number three from the hospi, the 2024 hospitality show. Number four, back to ai. This is where we started the episode. We talked about AI with hotels, hotel owners and and management and operations. What about AI and the travelers journey? Really, really cool things that we heard could be coming down the pike. Travel planning with ai. You know, one of the things that the panelists was talking about, how the younger generation has shown that they are prioritizing experience, overt material. That is fantastic news for the hotel industry. They are gonna continue to do just as much research as you would do on Amazon. If you’re buying a new car. Think about the amount of research that you do when you’re buying a new car. So this younger generation that is prioritizing experience over material. They are going to do their due diligence, they have the channels to do it, and they have maybe different channels that we’ve been prioritizing as a hotel industry, right? Social media, we’ve seen completely be a place where TikTok right now is more of a search engine than Google. For some hotels, that’s a scary thought, especially if you don’t have an account. Instagram is someone where they’re sharing information. But with that, a big thing that they were talking about AI and maybe some of the kind of caution flags for hotels out there in hospitality is we’re gonna fake feedback is gonna become a real problem here soon. Whether that’s deep fake images, fake blog posts, fake guest reviews, we know that that’s a huge problem. This is gonna continue to be an issue for hotels and it’s really going to impact those that really rely too heavily on AI to create content for them online authenticity is was the word of the year last year, right? And it’s only going to become more powerful. If you can create authentic experience that guests share a trusted guest share on credible sources out there, you will have an advantage because this fake feedback is limitless. Really. If you wanted to create as much fake imagery about your hotel, you can, there’s ai, generat, uh, image generators out there, but it’s gonna negatively impact your business. In fact, one of the suggestions was actually to hire a team and that we might see this in the future, a team to audit your online presence to look for fake feedback, look for fake images, fake blogs, anything that looks inauthentic online. The more we see this, the more especially younger generation who’s coming up, they have a lot of money now. They’re getting into the workforce, they’re starting to travel more. They are able to see this with a different eye than we were five years ago. ’cause it just wasn’t as prevalent. So number four, key takeaway AI in the traveler’s journey. I’m excited every, everyone on this listening to this podcast is a traveler. So there, there’s some really cool, innovative ways that you can start searching for travel, but it’s going to be the hotels on the other side that are leveraging that properly and authentically that are going to have the competitive advantage there. Last and final key takeaway, this is the first year that they actually conducted these on the main stage was the GM of the Year awards. And the reason, this is my fifth takeaway. We just work in such an awesome industry. Some of the nominees, winners and their stories. I would absolutely encourage you look up that GM of the year and hear some of the stories and you will just be moved by the hospitality spirit in some of these people. Um, from everything for people that have been in this industry for 35, 40 years and still have a passion for it and have, you know, we talk about in sports how coaches typically have coaching trees and the amount of managers and hospitality leaders that one person can impact is absolutely insane to think about. And when it’s, when it’s recognized, it’s such a powerful thing to, you know, helping people in natural disasters. You know, one of the GMs was recognized, you know, had to go through those fires last year in Hawaii. And to hear the stories and how that hotel opened its doors to its employees, to the local community and the impact that that hotels and hoteliers have on their, their local community can’t be understated. And it was a very, very powerful piece. I’m so happy that that was on highlighted and showcased on the main stage this year. I hope they continue to do it again. We just have such an incredible industry. We had the pleasure of interviewing one of the GM of the Year nominees, Michael Milon, and we have an interview with him. He’s also an FIU professor, so we got to talk about our visit there in the Suite Spot college campus cr. But yeah, my fifth and final takeaway, it’s just, we just are in such incredible industry. It’s to hear, uh, some of those stories was just so inspiring. So happy that they do that because that’s really what makes our industry great, is the people that work there. So those are my five key takeaways from the second annual Hospitality show. So happy that I was able, that had the pleasure of, of joining Plan on being there in Denver next October. Plan for it as well. Again, if you haven’t been thinking about it, definitely make the trip. It is well worth it. Thank you for listening to The Suite Spot and we’ll talk to you next time.To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree and we hope you enjoyed your stay.