In part 1 of 2 of this special edition of the Suite Spot, we take a moment to recognize stories of resilience and excellence in hospitality throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Host Ryan Embree highlights some incredible hospitality professionals across the country and what they did to make them a hospitality hero during this trying time for our industry. This a feel-good episode that showcases the qualities and values that are at the heart of the hotel industry. Suite Spot Podcast · 75 - TMG Hospitality Heroes 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 thank you for listening to Travel Media Group's hotel marketing podcast, the Suite Spot. Today, we have an extremely cool episode: one of, if not the best episodes that we've had yet on this podcast, I'm extremely excited to share it with you all today. This is something that we've been working on here at Travel Media Group over the past month. And it was an idea brought up because of the difficult times that the hotel industry had in 2020. We have been on the other side of so many great stories from our customers about resiliency and their ability to adapt on the fly. And we thought that it would be so cool to take a moment and just recognize those hoteliers and hospitality professionals out there that just went above and beyond during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting these stories of resiliency and excellence in hospitality, even in the toughest of times. Ryan Embree: So what we're going to do today is we're going to name some of these Hospitality Heroes and tell their stories on this podcast. Like I said, I'm very excited and we've got a bunch of Hospitality Heroes out there. So let's go ahead and get started. The first Hospitality Hero that we're going to highlight today is Crystal Thompson, Assistant General Manager at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites Alliance. Now Crystal was nominated by Jenna and Jenna writes: "Crystal Thompson was my sole employee during the beginning of the pandemic and has went above and beyond to help the hotel thrive throughout the entire ordeal. She has stepped in and covered any shifts that needed to be covered, changed her schedule completely around to accommodate the hotel and has done way more than is expected of her in all departments." And this is a trend that we're going to hear for almost all of these stories. Hoteliers, just getting out of their comfort zone, covering shifts, working late nights, doing extra things and wearing different hats around the property because essentially they were forced to during this time where staffing was really cut down to a minimum. Ryan Embree: Our next hospitality hero is Diane M. Saumell. She's the General Manager at the Coakley and Williams La Quinta Inn and Suites by Wyndham Orlando IDrive Theme Parks. And Diana was nominated by Ken Shore. Ken writes, "Diana has been an amazing leader during the pandemic hospitality crisis. She's managed guests' expectations along with preserving associate jobs and managing cash flow to where we have not had to ask the owners for any additional working capital. Her guest's comment scores were amazing during the pandemic where her property exceeded the brand averages." So this is so impressive to see that brand scores and reputation was exceeded during this extremely difficult time. We've talked about the importance of getting reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic and how difficult it was and how the guest's expectations were an all-time high, not just for a comfortable experience, but for their safety and health. Ryan Embree: Now Ken Shore also nominates another Hospitality Hero: Carla Selp...