Latest / Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast / 154 – 2024 Year in Review with Travel Media Group President, Dana Singer
Transcript
- 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 Embee. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining us. Wherever you're listening or watching us from. If you are watching us on our official TMG YouTube channel, you will see that we are in a brand new space. We're in a brand new area. I'm so proud to launch and announce our very own Suite Spot podcast studio. This is a long time coming, my guest here in a second, we're gonna talk about it. We're really excited. You know, we put a lot of time and effort into this podcast studio to bring you the listener, our hotel audience, the best quality and video, and hopefully we can have more and more guests come in studio and do these podcasts with you today. But for now, we've got a very familiar guest, an annual tradition, one of my favorites, President at Travel Media Group, Dana Singer. Thank you so much, Dana, for being on the Suite Spot once again. Dana Singer: Absolutely. Good morning, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're excited. We're here to, as the titles talks about, talk about 2024 TMG year in review. Again, one of my favorite annual traditions that we do here. We cover a lot of ground in 2024 as a company, as an organization, but more importantly for our hotel partners who've had a lot of success. Talk to us. We're gonna talk about 2025 and, and maybe some of the foundation that's been built for moving forward, but this is a great time of year to also reflect back on all those successes. Talk to us a little bit about 2024 and the journey for our hotel partners. Dana Singer: Absolutely. I mean, 2024 has truly been a special year for travel media group in so in so many ways. Most importantly, for the hospitality partners that we work with every day. You just mentioned the success that we were able to experience with all of them. And one of our most important milestones though, was really moving into our new headquarters. And it's not just about a bigger building, it's about creating a collaborative space that supports the growth of our teams. So we can continue to innovate and serve our partners at the highest levels of support and expertise. Internally, we've developed a number of exciting new solutions. We've enhanced our services and support, and we continue to find ways to better understand and meet our partner's needs. And to do that, we've intentionally dug deeper, into the challenges and opportunities our partners face, and we've created resources around them. We're so committed to giving hotels the tools they need to achieve their goals and succeed, especially as guest expectations evolve. Ryan Embree: Yeah, and that's key. We've talked a lot about on this podcast, you know, almost feels like technology in our industry is moving faster than ever. Something that maybe took a couple years to implement is now changing within the quarter that's due to technology, AI all sorts of different factors. Guest expectations certainly have changed over the past couple years. We've talked about it on this particular episode, over the years. Let's talk about those ever changing guest expectations and what Travel Media Group continues to do to innovate and kind of keep pace with those changes. Dana Singer: I mean, guest expectations are constantly shifting, so it's crucial for us to not only keep up, but stay ahead. And at TMG innovation has been at the heart of our adaptation. One of our significant advancements this year was the introduction of the Guest Experience Snapshot. And this tool has really been a game changer for our partners, giving them an in-depth but very clear look at guest feedback trends and enabling them to make smarter, faster, transformative decisions to support their reputation. But innovation isn't just about technology, it's also about our people. And when we think about all of our teams across the business, everybody plays such a key role in that. But our client success team, for example, has maintained a world-class NPS score of 75 or above over the past three years. That consistency reflects the dedication and care we bring to every interaction. We don't just provide a service. We build aligned relationships that support our partners ongoing success. And beyond that, all of our teams are constantly working to find new ways to enhance our solutions. Whether it's refining how we respond to guest reviews or evolving our social media strategies. The goal is always to make our partners lives easier and their businesses more successful. And it's so exciting to see how these efforts have made a real impact on so many hoteliers. It makes our job that much more meaningful and enjoyable. Ryan Embree: Yeah, I think one of the key themes of this episode that we're gonna start to uncover is the communication that lies between our team and our hotel partners and the alignment there, right? The guest experience snapshot. We heard from our hotel partners that they felt that they weren't implementing AI in their everyday operations to the degree at which they wanted to. So the guest experience snapshot gives them a great view, a different view with the power of TMG one view AI to really dig in and see what guests are actually saying and having those meaningful conversations. A lot of the new solutions and enhancements come from the conversations that we have from our partners, which is really, really cool to see. Obviously we have our CTO Jason Lee on this podcast lot, and he talks to us about the origins of some of these updates. But I have the pleasure of doing this podcast, hosting this podcast, which is coming up on its seventh year, which is crazy to me in 2025. But we have all sorts of channels and ways that we can communicate with our hotel partners, whether it be our award-winning educational webinars that we put on on a monthly basis, and we hope to up the amount of webinars we're doing in 2025, whether it's this podcast, whether it's physical events, right? That that was something that was taken away from us in 2020 and now has come back stronger than ever, which I'm sure the hotel audience loves to hear. So getting a lot of corporate and business travel, talk to us a little bit about all of those ways of communicating and that interaction between our hotel partners and travel media group. Dana Singer: Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, it's the only way to really understand what our partners are going through, right? First of all. But no matter how we do it, talking to them deepens our understanding of how to better serve them. And so we did that this past year, by attending the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, the Independent Hotel Show, most recently the Hospitality Show. But we also continue to educate hoteliers about new trends through our social success series webinars, our Hotel Marketing Insider newsletter on LinkedIn, our FAQ Friday videos, and of course, our continued Suite Spot podcast to ensure that we do this as impactfully as possible. We unveiled a brand new podcast studio, as you already mentioned, which our viewers are seeing right now. And we did this so that we could continue to raise the bar to provide top of the line content to hoteliers worldwide and be a leading voice in the hospitality industry. Ryan Embree: Yeah, it's so cool to see and be a part of and hear our hotel audience, really appreciate because things like social media, technology, reputation management within the hospitality, I mean, Booking.com just rolled out an update that's gonna be implemented in 2025. These are fast changing things. They don't stay the same. So being able to have a direct line of communication to our hotel partners is vital. But that line of communication works both ways, right? And that's what's really cool to see is when we hear feedback from our hotel partners about either the things that we're putting on or the things they wanna see and that we can implement in our every day. And I think that's one of the reasons. I mean, our goal is obviously, you know, TMG to be the premier solutions reputation solution provider for the hospitality industry. So Dana, looking back at 2024, how do you think a lot of initiatives you covered, so many of them have impacted TMGs reputation as a leader for hospitality and moving forward for its hotel partners? Dana Singer: Yeah, I mean, it's inspiring to see how our work this year has helped solidify our reputation as a trusted leader and partner in the hospitality industry. Earlier this year, we reached the milestone of our hotel partners collectively having over 1 million social media followers. And that number is a direct reflection of how our strategies are helping hotels connect with guests in meaningful ways. We've also been fortunate to gain recognition within the industry. The Suite Spot was ranked among the top 40 hospitality podcasts. These accolades mean so much because they demonstrate that we're not just producing content, but we're creating resources that resonate with hoteliers and provide deep value. It's also worth noting the diversity of voices on our podcast this year. We welcome guests from multiple hotel brands and numerous management companies, which allows us to give attention to different perspectives and ideas within the industry. And this kind of collaboration, it just reinforces TMG as a go-to resource for hotels and the impact of all of these initiatives. It boils down to the feedback we've received, whether it's from our partners, listeners, or industry professionals. It's clear that our work is making a difference, and that's what drives us to keep innovating and pushing boundaries. Ryan Embree: It's so cool. I was obviously able to take part in that 1 million social follower celebration and to reflect on that, to think that over the course of all of our hotel partners out there that we're partnering with their social media, that there's 1 million travelers seeing the content that our hotel partners are putting out. So impactful, right, to think about. So cool to think about. Obviously, like you mentioned, we had some really cool first time guests here on the Suite Spot, including a couple major brands. Just had a collaboration with Booking.com and their giant, worldwide rollout of their guest review, score update. These are the type of things that I think hoteliers look for. I mean, it's such a tight knit community out there, hospitality in this world. So to be able to Provo provide a resource for all hoteliers out there is really cool to see and be a part of. So obviously this episode is called TMG Year in Review, right? We take a look back, but, let's talk about the future. Let's talk about 2025 because it's right around the corner and it's moving faster than ever. What can we look forward to? What's on the horizon for TMG, you know, looking forward? Dana Singer: Well, I don't wanna give too much away just yet, but I can say that our teams are hard at work brainstorming and solidifying new initiatives for the year ahead. Every conversation we're having is centered around one question, how can we better serve our hotel partners in the industry as a whole? And 2024 has been a transformative year, but we're determined to build on that momentum in 2025. And again, while I can't share a lot of specifics right now, I promise we're gonna continue to innovate, find creative solutions, and introduce tools and strategies to help our partners continue to succeed. And there's just so much to look forward to. We're very excited for the year ahead. Ryan Embree: There really is, and you're right. I mean, 2024 transformative year, 2025 looking even better. Great outlook for the hospitality industry. We've already got, you know, sneak peak. We've already got some amazing guests and Suite Spot podcast initiative. So make sure if you're subscribing on YouTube, follow us on LinkedIn as well so you can, you're not gonna miss a second of the action and everything that we're gonna be bringing to you in 2025 as we wrap up here. Dana, one of my favorite things that we do with this episode, and I think we started this back in 2020, is kind of give just a message of inspiration and hope moving forward for the upcoming year. Any final thoughts as we kind of wrap up today and look towards the future? Dana Singer: Yeah, I'll leave everyone with this. When I look back at this year, what makes me the proudest is seeing how everything we did, it's really resonated with our partners and helped them achieve their goals. We're consistently receiving feedback about how our services and support have helped save time, improve guest satisfaction, and ultimately drive more bookings and strengthening reputations. And so that's what it's all about for us, making a positive difference for the businesses we serve. And we look forward to continuing that momentum in 2025 to our listeners. If you're interested in learning more about what we do at at TMG, this is a great time to reach out. We're getting ready to kick off the new year. There's no better way to do that than to ensure your online reputation is in good hands. So I wanna thank all of our hotel partners for their continued support and trust in us. And thank you Ryan, for letting me sit in on the Suite Spot today. I always love being able to spend this time with you. Ryan Embree: Well, thank you for your time. I think it is one of my favorite episodes of the year that we do, reflecting on all the amazing things, that both TMG and our hotel partners have accomplished. Here's to an incredible 2025. As you mentioned, we've got a lot of stuff teed up, so thank you to our listeners, thank you to you, Dana, for joining me today. I hope everyone has a happy new year, and we will talk to you next time on the Suite Spot To join our loyalty program. Be sure to subscribe and give us a five star reading on iTunes. Sweet Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Barry Gordon. I'm your host, Ryan Andre, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.