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