Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

About Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

The best hotel digital marketing podcast in the hospitality industry.

Publisher

Travel Media Group & Ryan Embree

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

7 Jun 2018

Latest episode

10 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

221 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   10 Nov 2026

   221 – TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Richard Alberigo

   What does it take to stay ahead in an ever-evolving hospitality industry while keeping the human touch at the heart of the guest experience? In this episode of The Suite Spot, host Ryan Embree welcomes back Richard Alberigo, CEO of Alberigo Hotel Management, for an insightful conversation on the challenges and opportunities shaping the industry as his company approaches its 13th anniversary. From navigating economic uncertainty and prioritizing smarter expense management to preparing for major events like the FIFA World Cup and America 250, Richard shares insights from the front lines of hotel management. He also explores the growing influence of AI and technology, why investing in people and meaningful guest connections remains a competitive advantage, and how digital strategies are transforming the way hotels attract owners, employees, and travelers. Looking ahead to 2027, Richard shares his outlook on the industry's future, alongside practical career advice for hospitality professionals looking to stand out and grow. Whether you're a hotel owner, operator, or aspiring hospitality leader, this episode offers a great perspective on what it takes to thrive in today's changing hospitality landscape.

2. 

   29 Oct 2026

   220 – The Hospitality SHE Suite: Jenna Fishel

   What helps a woman build a lasting career in hospitality and find her voice as a leader? In this episode of the Hospitality SHE Suite, Cassady Quintana welcomes Jenna Fishel, Chief Commercial Officer at First Hospitality, to talk about growing into leadership. In their conversation, Jenna shares an honest perspective on finding your footing as a leader and why recognizing what’s possible for your career is essential. They discuss the power of supportive relationships, the courage to pursue new opportunities, and the importance of helping others grow. They also reflect on the responsibility companies have to retain talent, the value of voicing your ambitions, and the trust behind new opportunities. Tune in to learn how to build a career on your own terms with Jenna Fishel.

3. 

   21 Oct 2026

   219 – Suite Success: A Hotel Reputation Management Mini Series with Andrea Stokes of J.D. Power

   As part of the Suite Spot’s Suite Success: Hotel Reputation Management mini-series, Ryan Embree welcomes Andrea Stokes, Practice Lead of Hospitality Intelligence at J.D. Power, to explore the latest insights from 30 years of hotel guest satisfaction research. Drawing on data from more than 100 hotel brands across North America, Andrea shares what the findings reveal about the connection between brand consistency and guest trust, the evolving role of AI in hotel search and discoverability, and how booking channels can influence the guest experience. The conversation explores what today’s travelers value most, the encouraging trends emerging in overall guest satisfaction, and the opportunities hoteliers have to stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape. Andrea also offers practical insights for hotel owners and general managers looking to strengthen their guest experience, while looking ahead at how AI and personalization could shape the future of hospitality. Tune in to discover what the latest research reveals and what it could mean for your property’s reputation and long-term success. https://youtu.be/MQUF83nkxZc Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree, here to introduce a brand-new mini-series that we have just launched, and we have our first guest. I’m so excited. This is part of our Suite Success, a hotel reputation management mini-series. And joining me today, Andrea Stokes, Practice Lead, Hospitality Intelligence, J.D. Power. Andrea, thank you so much for joining me on the Suite Spot. Thank you. Very happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, we’re going to have some fun today. We’re going to talk some data, some analytics. But before we jump and dive into that good stuff, this is your first time on the Suite Spot. Appreciate you joining us. With that being your first time, love to introduce you to our audience a little bit, share a little bit about your hospitality journey. And listen, you’ve got a really unique role over there at J.D. Power that you get to look at all this hospitality data. What led you to your role over there? Yes, thank you. So I’ve been with J.D. Power seven years, actually just last week. So very exciting. Started about six months before the pandemic. So that was an interesting first run at J.D. Power. But prior to Judy Power, I worked at Marriott in the insights group there. And then, of course, before that, had worked at different research agencies focused on the travel and hospitality industry. So I have a long background in consumer survey research, customer experience research, marketing research, and was able to kind of apply all of. my training in that area to the hospitality industry specifically. So very exciting. As you know, J.D. Power is a third-party unbiased view of customers. And we say we are the voice of the customer. We will conduct studies in many, many industries. Of course, many people know the automotive industry, which is J.D. Power’s bread and butter. But we’ve actually been doing work in hospitality for three decades. So we just published our 30th North America hotel guest satisfaction study in July. So it’s very exciting time. I’m very excited about three decades. J.D. Power, we don’t have many industries, right, that we’ve covered for that long. So it’s a great year. Incredible. Congratulations, first off. And I’m sure, I mean, what an industry to follow, especially in the time span that you’ve been there and how much change has rapidly been happening within hospitality. You know, 30 years of surveys. I’m sure that we’re going to talk about maybe looking into the future a little bit. That amount of change might be just condensed into the next couple of years based on how quickly our industry, technology and AI is really changing the aspects. But I love the hotel guest satisfaction survey because I do think it obviously keeps us. at a compass and a north star to what hospitality is really about and get back to the core of people serving people, which I think sometimes can be lost with all this AI and technology speak. You mentioned that the survey’s now turning 30 years old. Can you give a little bit of background on how it’s structured and compiled? Absolutely. So we go out to the national marketplace US. We do include about 10% Canadians as well. And we ask our guests about a past 30-day hotel stay. So it’s a very recent hotel stay. And we cover over 100 brands in the studies across all segments. And then we’re asking about, again, that recent hotel stay. Basically, we want to dive deep into the guest experience from the time the guest walks through the door and until the time they check out. We do include some survey questions around reservation and booking, loyalty programs, et cetera. So we cover a little bit more, but our core benchmarks for the industry and what I think the industry really looks to J.D. Power for is the benchmark in guest rooms, in food and beverage, in staff service, hotel facilities, and other amenities, also connectivity. So we cover all of that. And we do capture guest ratings, not only at the high level for each one of those areas, but we dive deep into kind of the core table stakes for the guest experience, but also some other areas of the stay. So it’s quite a comprehensive survey. I know you’re probably used to getting those quick surveys from some of the hotel chains, but we definitely dive a little bit deeper than most of those survey programs that the chains conduct. And the industry really does look to us for that deep dive data. It’s maybe not something that they get all the time. And of course, we offer all of the data on all of the brands where any hotel group or hotel chain, they can look at their competitors as well. So we have that third party unbiased view. And that I think is – as I mentioned, it’s really the voice of the customer, the bread and butter of J.D. Power. And we’re able to provide the industry with that view. Well, it’s a great measuring stick, comprehensively, for all brands and really how you stack up against your competition and just seeing how the industry. I mean, to hear over a hundred brands, I mean, that’s just the sheer size that hospitality has grown to, which is incredible. And all of the ancillary things that come with a hotel stay. I love hospitality. You probably love it being in the industry. There are so many facets to hospitality. It’s one of those very, very unique verticals where it’s very difficult to measure because there’s so many variables within a guest stay. Now, I had the privilege of seeing you kind of present your findings at the Hotel Data Conference in Nashville. One of the main takeaways from that presentation, which I loved, was the relationship between trust and consistency. Can you elaborate a little bit on these factors and how they correlate in the study? Absolutely. So we have a few different ways of measuring consistency of the guest experience in our study. So we have a question about basically rate the brand on consistent versus inconsistent. It’s a seven-point scale, so very basic. And a guest can just provide a rating at the brand level. But then when we look at all of the individual states that we’re capturing for a brand, we can also look at consistency of all of the ratings across the board from all of the guests who are rating a particular brand. And what that allows us to do, we use statistical analysis to kind of determine that consistency. And we do see a brand could be very inconsistent where you have overall guest satisfaction ratings on one end or the other end and everywhere in the middle. But you also see brands where the ratings kind of cluster together, either very positively or potentially negatively. So you see the consistency there. If a brand has consistent high ratings for guest satisfaction, usually that correlates very highly with that it’s a trusted brand. And because we also have a question around do you feel the brand is trusted or not trusted? And we can kind of cross that data to provide a really good picture to the brand of a consistency. And as you know, the brands provide brand standards to their owners and operators. And we are able to kind of provide that view to brand leaders around, hey, are your owners adhering to brand standards? Are they providing the consistency that guests do expect? And often, when guests select a brand, they’re looking, they have experience with that brand and they’re looking for the same level of experience that they’re used to getting from previous stays with the brand. We in hospitality like those happy surprises, not the surprises as I was not expecting this, or this was not consistent with the brand that I thought it was. And it goes back to exactly what you said, Andrea, about those brand standards that I’m sure would be fascinating to watch, especially over those COVID years where those standards got a little bit more relaxed from time to time just due to the financial constraints. But here in 2026, a little bit more removed from that. I’m sure there are some very interesting trends you’re seeing there between that trust and consistency. Now, one of the biggest themes, and we talk about it all the time on the podcast, is AI search and discoverability, right? And you have some fascinating data, because obviously this is probably something a couple decades ago, we were probably talking about signage or maybe what you were looking at on the side of the road on billboards, right? And now we’re in AI search and discoverability. You have some fascinating data in the survey on sources used for hotel search and research. Could you share some of those findings? And then particularly Gen Z, how are they moving the needle in that? Yeah, so we do include younger guests. Our requirement is you have to be an adult and have a past 30-day hotel stay, as I mentioned. So every year as we conduct our survey, we’re bringing in more Gen Z travelers now. And of course, many of them have careers and they’re starting to have families. So we not only see the leisure side, but also the business side of travel among Gen Z. We did start asking about AI tools this past year for search. And not huge numbers yet. But of course, we’re starting to track it now. So we can obviously provide that information to the industry. Gen Z, of course, it’s a little more prevalent among Gen Z versus, say, when we compare like Boomers or Generation X, for example. But all guests are starting to use AI tools. As you mentioned, it’s sources of hotel search. So we’re looking at, of course, the hotel channels, the direct channels themselves, hotel websites, apps, also the OTAs, other sources. So it’s a long list. But as we start to ask about AI tools, it’s helpful to get a sense of how guests are incorporating AI tools into hotel search. We are looking at – and I realize AI booking is a little – okay, yes, it’s out there. But is it truly booking? I think as things evolve, we’ll start to dig into that a little bit more as well. Yeah, but I think it’s going to be one of those trends that it’s going to be incremental or exponential. The next one, survey next year, I would imagine those numbers or percentages are going to grow at a clip stronger than some of these other channels. So it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on for sure. You did find a gap in satisfaction, though, between some of those direct bookers and those using third-party sites. I’m curious about that, maybe what you were thinking there as far as the reason that’s a trend. Well, I mean, it is a trend, but we usually see it year over year where direct bookers tend to have a better experience or at least rate their overall experience higher than indirect bookers. And it’s not surprising, right? When you’re booking direct, the hotel property or the chain usually has more information about you as the guest. They can see if you stayed with the brand before or with the chain before. They can see if you’re a member of the loyalty program. They can kind of see a little more of your guest history and then able to personalize the stay experience for you a little bit better. Indirect, obviously a hotel usually doesn’t even really have an email. Maybe a name, and that’s it. So no real opportunity to look at the guest history with the brand or with the chain. So it sort of goes without saying that perhaps direct bookers are getting a better experience because, again, the hotel is able to provide that a little bit more personalization. Yeah. The objective and goal that we’ve been talking for the last decade, right? Personalization within our industry feels it’s closer than ever, hopefully, with some of this technology coming through. Speaking of it’s sometimes human nature and hospitality and maybe interest in life to sometimes focus on that negative. And sometimes that negative weighs so heavily or feels so loud. But really, your study or the guest satisfaction studies kind of offers a glimmer of hope when it comes to overall guest satisfaction right now in our industry, right? It’s true. I mean, and really our goal is to provide not only where the brand might be doing great, but also there’s always room for improvement. And we have very specific ways of being able to look at the various aspects of this day and what has the most impact on overall satisfaction and really allow prioritization. We get questions all the time. Well, if we’re going to work on one thing, what should that be? If we’re trying to improve X, what do we need to do here with Y? That’s great because we have so much data that it does offer an in-depth view of room for improvement, where the opportunities are. Sometimes in a segment, there really isn’t any brand doing particularly well. And it’s a white space for a brand, no matter who you are, to stand out on certain things. So it’s great for us to be able to, again, look at the positive, but also where the negative is and how we can sort of provide that prioritization for hotel brands and owners and operators to improve the stay. 100%. And on the opposite side of that spectrum, where it’s like maybe there’s nobody in the industry doing it, or there’s a gap there, there’s also a place where it feels like almost practically everyone’s doing it. And you mentioned the term table stakes. There were a couple of those findings in your study that are table stakes in hospitality today. What are some of those non-negotiables and how can hoteliers make sure they’re delivering on them? Non-negotiables would be a basic, like cleanliness of the guest room in particular. Also, the condition of the furnishings and the condition of the bathroom fixtures, right? Very important. Obviously, the guest room itself has a very high weight within our overall satisfaction score. And then things like staff service come into play. There are certain non-negotiables around the front desk being courteous, efficient, and knowledgeable. Hotel facility: we do ask about maintenance of common areas, lobbies, hallways, maintenance of pools and fitness centers, right? Again, table stakes, right? You have to have a hotel that is providing a good impression in the common areas and then a great impression in the guest room itself. Those are just examples. But again, we cover a lot of extras like Wi-Fi. Okay, everyone would say yes. Powerful Wi-Fi within the hotel is a table stake, which it’s true. And we do ask about quality of Wi-Fi. Not everyone uses food and beverage, but I will say this year was kind of surprising. We reached an 80% mark where 80% of guests are using on-property food and beverage. That’s the highest that we’ve seen it in a while. So it’s becoming very important. I do think guests are looking for the convenience of on-property food and beverage, but that does mean they have higher expectations as well. So quality of food, variety of the menu, those types of things are increasingly important. So I guess I would say everything’s a table stake, but just to sort of pinpoint what’s most important. We do have satisfaction ratings on all of those things. And again, we do know what has most impact on overall satisfaction and then the next and next and next. And you kind of can go down the list in terms of if you improve this, here’s where it will impact your overall guest experience. That’s a fascinating stat on the F&B, on the on-site F&B. And I think that perfectly aligns with what we’ve been talking about on this podcast a lot with brand leaders is really the re-emergence of the hotel F&B outlet and just the focus now. I mean, you see eating at a hotel a couple of years ago or maybe even a decade ago is very different than the experience you’re getting right now. So that is really, really fascinating to hear that stat. And another thing, Andrea, I loved hearing that answer because a lot of the aspects that you talked about, cleanliness, front desk service, upkeep, I know we talk a ton about AI and technology, but those are all places that are still human is at the center of all those things. And I think that is such a kind of a hopeful message because it just feels so much on this podcast that we talk about these emerging technologies, and it is exciting. But at the end of the day, the factors that really move the needle and that consumers and travelers care about the most are places where humans are found and are at the forefront. Little aside there. So you’ve shared with us some fascinating stats. And when you look at giant data sets like this, there’s got to be at least one or two of those things that kind of make you go, “Hmm,” like turn your head and go, “What was that?” So were there any surprising moments in this year’s kind of combing through some of that data, whether it’s positive, negative, or just out there of just being like, “That’s an interesting point?” We saw guest satisfaction increase in all segments this year. And not only small increases, but some of the increases in some segments were statistically significant, meaning higher year over year. We don’t often see that. We might see improvement in one segment here, one segment there, but across the board, a big jump in overall guest satisfaction. And that’s with rising costs and rising prices and room rates still high. I think guests are starting to get used to room rates, but they also – I think what hotels are delivering are delivering against that value proposition. And we did see the value component because we do ask about value for money for the hotel stay. And that value component also increased this year. And that’s great because it really shows that, yes, guest expectations are higher with higher room rates, but hotels are delivering against that value proposition. And guests are more happy with the value they’re getting than they were, I will say, a few years ago. Sort of that combination of just really improving hotel guest satisfaction scores, but also improving value scores helped us understand the rest of the picture, right? Again, when we look at guest rooms, when we look at food and beverage, really value is kind of a reflection of everything about the hotel stay. That I will say was surprising that it was such an across the board improvement year over year. That’s got to be something both, you mentioned it, the traveler and the guest getting used to maybe my hotel that used to cost $150 is now costing $200. And then also probably pressure from the hotelier side saying that, over the past couple of years, our guests haven’t felt the value there. So we need to step it up. And it’s kind of a meeting in the middle there of both understanding of guest expectations from the traveler’s standpoint, but also the push and need from the hotelier and operation side to say, “If we’re going to be at these rates, we need to make sure that we’re at least matching, if not exceeding those expectations.” Fascinating to see as we get a little bit. You mentioned it before, those expenses continue to see growth there. So can those rates keep up and can we keep matching the expectation of our travelers, which also are going up right now? So I’m going to have you put on your consultant hat for just a second, Andrea. I’m sure you get asked this all the time when presenting these findings, but for our Suite Spot listener, who’s either a GM or owner listening to this conversation, what was one finding in this year’s study that you would want them to take back to their property or portfolio of properties? I would say every hotel has to deal with problems. And while a small percentage of guests overall, in our study anyway, report that they experienced a problem with a hotel during the stay, some segments it’s higher than others. But on average, it’s around 10%, 11% of guests who say they experienced a problem during the stay. Obviously, you mentioned the human factor. I think that that really does go into mitigating problems before they happen. So the maintenance, the cleanliness, as much as the hotel staff can do to prevent those problems from rising to the surface ahead of time, it’s great, but that’s not always possible. And so then it really comes down to how does the staff react to a problem that the guests might report? How responsive are they? Are they using technology to be more responsive, which we do find that is really important? So whether it’s a text messaging capability with the staff or reporting a problem to the front desk and it gets addressed. It not only gets addressed quickly, but gets addressed to the satisfaction of the guest. So that, of course, happens all of the time in any industry. But I think in particular for hospitality, that getting back to the human factor again is really, really important. And I think for staff, that’s where training comes in. It’s easy to train front desk staff to be courteous and knowledgeable. But when something happens, and a problem gets reported to the front desk, the staff really does need to think on their feet, be really responsive, and understand how to handle those problems. I would say, if anything, that’s all part and parcel of the staff service experience overall. Problems can happen, and it’s how the hotel is able to deal with a guest problem and resolve it to the satisfaction of the guest. Yeah, so important there. And showing that service, that resolution, issue resolution in real time can actually be a good thing at the end of the day for a guest experience. And I completely agree with you, Andrea. I mean, I think that’s where the best use case for this technology is, is employee empowerment and augmenting that customer experience there. So great advice. I talked to you offline about how I always love this year because my LinkedIn feed is just full of J.D. Power trophies right now of all my hospitality friends and followers. So there are some J.D. Power awards that coincide with the survey. Can you share a little bit about how that process works? Absolutely. So like many other studies at J.D. Power, we do announce the rankings of brands and companies once a year, usually once a year across the different industries that J.D. Power covers. For the hospitality industry and for our hotel guest satisfaction study, we announced the awards in July and we do publicize the ranking of brands in each segment based on the overall JD Power score. So it’s a score, it’s on a 1000-point scale. We do derive the overall score from the guest’s ratings in each of those operational areas, as I mentioned, guest room, staff service, food and beverage, et cetera. So we kind of take all of that and then roll it up using regression modeling to determine the overall satisfaction score for the guests. So every hotel stay in our data set has a score. And then at the brand level, of course, we roll up those stays to provide the brand their score for overall guest satisfaction. As I mentioned, we do include – it’s mostly Americans, but some Canadians. But we are including properties in North America. So it covers US, Canada, Mexico, and Caribbean stays. So to the extent that a brand has properties outside the US, we still cover North America. So it really does give a brand a good perspective. We’re not able to necessarily collect many, many surveys at a property level, but we do actually ask the guests to provide the property. So not only the brand, their destination, but the brand. And then we do pull in property data from CoStar, which of course is a very well-known source. And so we actually do have the property information for every stay in our data set. So that really provides brands. Obviously, we’re looking at a brand level and how the brand is doing kind of, again, 10,000-foot view overall. But if a brand leader is interested, they certainly can dive deep into specific properties to kind of look at what the guest may have been saying about that particular property. Love to hear. And again, no wonder everyone’s kind of shouting those recognitions because it’s a big deal. I mean, you guys look at a lot of data. It’s very scientific, a lot of numbers, a lot of analytics in there. So congratulations to all those J.D. Power winners. I love looking at those trophies and celebrating them. I’ll continue to do that on LinkedIn when I see them. Andrea, we’re wrapping up here, but we always like to kind of end it. We kind of started the tradition during the COVID years of trying to look for that next glimmer of hope and looking into our hospitality crystal ball. Let’s fast forward to a couple few years from now. Let’s call it a 2030 guest satisfaction survey. I guess that would be another five years to 35 years, right, with the survey. What do you think the biggest difference between now and then will be? I think we’ll start seeing the impact of AI, not only in search and where we measure reservation and booking, but also the impact on operations, because that’s going to be reflected in the guest experience. So all of the ways that a property or a brand or chain might be using AI to improve training for staff, to improve efficiency, improve food and beverage. There’s a lot of innovation out there that food and beverage, we think about, okay, it’s physical food products and beverage products. But there’s a lot of innovation in food preparation, for example, that could be driven through AI technology and all of that. So it will be very interesting to see how that is reflected in the operational component. Because obviously, then when you ask the guest about their experience, you maybe will start to see that reflected, whether it ends up being good or bad, it will start to be reflected in how guests perceive their overall state experience. But the human factor will not go away. That human-to-human service is very, very important. I do hope that AI will allow for more personalization on property. Top personalization happens in marketing and a lot of that, but really when the guest walks through the door, no matter how a guest booked their stay, is the hotel able to provide a more personalized experience? So I’m not sure, because five years ago we talked about that and I’m not sure we’re quite there. But five years on, perhaps we will be. Yeah, it feels like we’re certainly getting closer. And it’s fascinating. And I’ve had conversations on this podcast before about does AI actually elevate sometimes the human experience? Could there be a survey one time that gives a five-star review because they said, “I picked up the phone and I actually got to talk to another person,” right? That would be crazy to say that somebody would think that a decade or two decades ago in our industry, but are we moving to a place where that human connection does actually start to bubble up to the top? And that’s what I’m hoping for. So very interesting to see. We will keep a close eye on your guest satisfaction survey as those findings continue to be released year after year. And thank you for your trusted work. As we wrap up, Andrea, any final thoughts today? And where can maybe our hotel listeners find some of this incredible data that you’ve procured? Well, of course, we do have information about the study at jdpower.com. So we cover a lot of industries. So you just go to jdpower.com. Click the industry menu and you’ll see travel and hospitality. So you’ll be able to see all of our work in the space. And then you can find more information about the brands that we cover that we do have that available. It’s publicly available on our website if anyone’s interested. And then, certainly, if you’re interested in subscribing to the data, which is not required, but if a chain or owner-operator is interested in subscribing to our data, it is available on a subscription basis. We have a lot of ways of delivering the data as well. So we have our own platform, but we are starting to use data marketplaces like Snowflake and Databricks and those places to make our data available as well. So we want to meet the industry where they are in terms of intelligence and analytics and all of that. So there’s more to come, I think, from J.D. Power on that front as well. In the next few years, I think we’ll see a little bit of transformation on our side in terms of how we deliver the data and the analytics to the industry. Love it. Can’t get enough data here in 2026. Thank you, Andrea, for taking a break and spending some time with us. This was fun. We’ll definitely have to have you back on the Suite Spot to find some and share some of these incredible findings that you and your team, again, work every day so hard to give us. So thank you, Andrea, for joining the Suite Spot. Thank you. All right. Awesome. And thank you for listening. We will talk to you next time on the Suite Spot Podcast.

Who has been a guest on Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Rosanna Maietta
• Brandy Rand
• Kat Woods
• Charles Oswald
• Amanda Hite

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90