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.
Ryan Embree: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, here for another TMG Hospitality Trailblazers rewind. And checking in with a frequent and familiar guest, Richard Alberigo from the award-winning Alberigo Hotel Management Company. Richard, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot with me today.
Richard Alberigo: Yeah, Ryan, thanks a lot for having me. I think this is our third time, right? So three times is the charm, correct?
Ryan Embree: I know. I love it. I love it. And you’ve been busy. You know, last time we had you on the Suite Spot, Richard, you were celebrating 10 years of Alberigo Hotel Management. Since then, LinkedIn feed’s been filled up. You’ve got growth in properties. You’ve got some new faces over there. Tell us, catch us up on what Alberigo Hotel Management has been up to last time we spoke.
Richard Alberigo: Definitely. Before I get started with my recognition, Ryan, congratulations on your recognition. You did a great job. I think you were considered the number one podcaster in the U.S. What was the award you won?
Ryan Embree: Thank you. Yeah, it was just recognized as a top hospitality podcast. So, you know, very, very fortunate, very privileged.
Richard Alberigo: Great, great. Congrats. So, yes, it was 10 years the last time we talked. Believe it or not, it’s going to come up in April to 13 years. Lucky 13, we hope. It seemed just like yesterday we got started. Actually, I got started. I had no employees, no support. I was working for IHG as an area manager for seven years, and I said, “Let me just take a leap of faith and get out there.” It was a tough first couple of years, but I never say we’ve made it because we’re always evolving.
But yes, we just got an award for the fifth consecutive year of Lodging Magazine, being a top management company in the United States. We also got an award for being a top 200 private business, the Houston Business Journal. And we know how big Houston is, right? It’s the largest city in America. So we’re very proud of that. So awards are important. But I think the key for us is that we’re never going to be complacent and sit on our laurels. We always have to evolve with the times. And I think that’s what makes us special. The things, our strategies we had in place four, five, six years ago, those are gone because of the new ways of working out there and the new culture. So we’re really just trying to get better as we go.
Ryan Embree: It’s moving faster than ever. And yeah, you’ve shared that inspiring story of kind of the genesis of Alberigo Hotel Management. Along with the growth and recognition I’ve been seeing, I’ve also seen you very busy on the hospitality event circuit. These events are more important than ever. I know we talk a lot about AI and technology, but we’re always a people business. Can you give us, our audience, a little bit of a sneak peek into some of the most impactful takeaways from maybe the events that you’ve traveled to or even some of the sentiment from owners that you’re hearing as you travel across the country?
Richard Alberigo: Well, I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Ryan. There’s a lot of crime going on out there. The economy is not just hitting the hotel business. It’s hitting retail, restaurants, all kinds of hospitality businesses just because of the expense management that’s had – we’re having a hard time with it just because of how public cost of living is. So I think that’s the biggest takeaway.
And a lot of owners probably had the same issue with expense management maybe five, six years ago. But revenue, as they say in the hotel business, cures all ills. But now it doesn’t, right, because the profit margins have gone down 5%, 6% just in the last couple of years. So I think the biggest takeaway is you’ve got to have structure in your hotels. And you’ve got to have support. You can’t do it by yourself anymore. Just like with me, I can’t do it by myself. I need great people around me.
And I know there’s a lot of pride factor. It’s like some of these owners have been doing this for a long time and they’ve had success. But the key is that you’ve got to bring in professionals to help you along the way or else you can’t survive these tough economic times.
Ryan Embree: Yeah, it’s more complex than ever running a hotel and managing a hotel in 2026. And that’s why experts like yourself are so important that owners can kind of lean on that have the expertise that have been through 13 years. You’ve seen a lot, right? The ups and downs of our industry.
But one thing that we were all looking forward to is this summer celebrating America 250 and welcoming in the world to the International World Cup. Alberigo Hotel Management, you’ve got a significant footprint in Texas. We’ve talked about that, including some properties in the host city of Houston. How was the summer for you? Did it meet those expectations and any lessons taken away from managing through these massive kind of – sometimes they’re once in a decade event?
Richard Alberigo: Well, I just got the official stats in yesterday. Occupancy was pretty much flat, which was a little bit disappointing because we were thinking it was going to be pretty much a three-week Taylor Swift concert. It didn’t turn out that way. But ADR, our average daily rate was higher. So we did actually come out ahead 3%, 4% than a normal June and July, especially in a city like Houston or Dallas. They’re more of a corporate city. So our corporate city. So June and July, that’s vacation time. So they get a little bit less corporate. So it did help us.
Looking back on the reason occupancy was probably lower than we thought is because the teams were not set into one group. They were moving all over the place. And it’s hindsight’s 20-20. Looking back on it now, I wish I would have thought about that myself, but no one else did either. So you had like the Netherlands that had a great drawing, but they would come to, say, Houston, and then they’d have to move to Canada. Then they’d move to Dallas, and they were moving all over the place.
So if you were coming from the Netherlands to watch the game, it was an arm and a leg just to buy the ticket and come to one side. You really couldn’t move around. So I think that cut down some of the demand and some of the occupancy. But again, hindsight is 20-20. So it was better than we thought. But I wish the FIFA would have put those teams in one group and just kept them there and then move on once it got to the knockout round. But it just didn’t come out that way.
Ryan Embree: Yeah, sure. And with a bigger bracket than ever before, there were a lot of variables there of which countries were maybe going to make it to the quarters and then semis. So it’s very, very tough to kind of predict those things when there’s so many variables there.
But last time you were on the podcast, you attributed much of that industry recognition that you spoke to at the top and continue to receive by hiring the right people with the hospitality spirit, a strong hospitality spirit. There’s obviously a lot of noise right now, Richard, about AI and technology. But why do you still believe that people and personnel are still so critical to running a successful hotel management company in 2026?
Richard Alberigo: Well, I was at a trade show just the other day, and they had – the first time I ever seen a booth with robots. I mean, they were there, the demonstrators. They had the robot there. And now the robot can clean your parking lot. It can vacuum your floors. It can take away your public area person. It can be a concierge in your hotel. It can answer questions on where’s the best restaurant to eat. So they’re definitely coming.
And in the first year, I think in the next two or three years, you’re going to see them everywhere. But the first year is going to be kind of novelty, and it’s going to be unique. But then what happens after the robots are not unique anymore? It’s still going to come down to the people. So that’s why we really preach being unique in our hotels and hiring the right people, hiring somebody that really wants to be there, not just somebody that just wants a job. I think that’s the key.
So we do things like football jerseys on weekends. We decorate our hotels in special events. That’s very, very important to us, things of that nature. Some of our hotels are in Mardi Gras areas, and we wear Mardi Gras beads during Mardi Gras season. Just a conversational piece, because that’s at least at the very least a tiebreaker if they’re choosing which hotel to stay at, because most of these guests have loyalty. They have the loyalty program for pretty much all of them. So it’s not just a Hilton or just a Marriott or just an IHG. So we’ve got to be different and we’ve got to have something where the guest feels like, “Wow, this is great. I’ve never seen this before.”
This summer, we instituted popsicles for the kids on the holiday weekends. Very, very important. A popsicle costs us a nickel. But when we’re handing them out to the kids – they always say when the kids are happy, the parents are happy. And that brought them back. So we’ve got to continue to think of new ways to make our hotels different because ultimately a hotel is a hotel is a hotel. And our Alberigo hotels, they have to be top of the line and where they’re talked about after we leave.
Ryan Embree: Well, I can attest to that as a parent of a three and a five-year-old, you would definitely win our booking with some popsicles for the kids. But you bring up a great point though, Richard. We’ve removed a lot of friction from the guest experience. Now you can download an app and not even talk to anybody at the front desk and go straight to your room. So trying to bake in. And now it’s like we’ve almost removed it so much that now we’re not getting feedback until maybe the very end of a stay. So we don’t even know what’s going on, what’s in their head during the entirety of their stay, which is a really scary place for some hotels who are trying to constantly improve the guest experience.
Baking in those little touch points, whether they’re organic through recognizing a football team, or jersey, or even a popsicle, having that extra couple seconds to check in with you because that’s probably the next question after that popsicle gets handed to the kid, “How is everything? How’s your stay?” Right? And those are moments and times that are being lost right now in our industry because we’re implementing technology. So it’s very interesting to see that balance here. And it’s going to be really critical for hotels to try to figure out more ways that they can connect with their guests, even if it’s not maybe those historical touch points like a check-in or even room service now, right, where people’s rooms aren’t being served daily and you’re not running into housekeepers anymore where that could have been a moment.
On the other end of the spectrum, though, where has there been a place that – whether it be in operations, maybe on the guest side or even on the employee side, where you have implemented some technology? And what kind of results have you seen from those?
Richard Alberigo: Well, obviously, platforms like our maintenance platform. Basically at 30,000 feet with our corporate office, we can kind of judge on how our maintenance guy is doing just by seeing what he’s producing, how productive he is. Platforms are very, very important. Reporting is still going to be important. Say our housekeeping staff, our general leaders of the hotel, reporting on what they’re doing and what their strategy is to make it better. I think you’re still going to have reporting and you’re still going to have electronic reporting, which is very, very important.
But what we like to do is we like to come to the property more often and we like to go and talk to the staff members and talk to the guests ourselves and find out what they’re thinking about the hotel. We can’t do it remote. Obviously, there’s more remote work now than ever before. But if we get stuck in a rut where we’re trying to do everything remotely – numbers lie, as they say. And the only way to really decipher what the numbers mean is to be in there with our staff members. And that’s what we preach. Our regional directors of operations, they got to be in the hotel talking to our staff members, building a rapport with the staff members and then talking to our guests.
Ryan Embree: Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like you know you’re doing the smart thing that I hear a lot of hoteliers and industry professionals is using the technology to empower and maybe free up some time for their employees so that they can get back to maybe what a historical sense of a general manager might have looked like. Or maybe that front desk agent who is on the phone answering calls, if someone else is doing that for them, they’re able to maybe get out in front and have more conversations with guests and travelers and make a meaningful impact to their guest experience.
Richard Alberigo: Absolutely. One of our biggest challenges is having our general leaders walk the property, check rooms. We don’t want them to check 20, 30 rooms a day, just a couple a day, just to kind of get a feel for their hotel. Because if they’re stuck in the office for four or five hours writing reports, they’re not going to be productive. And they got to be forward facing.
So during our mornings, we require our general leaders, which that’s what we call them, instead of general managers, they’re on the guest side of the desk or in the restaurant or in the breakfast area talking to guests. And we require an hour a day to do that. If we’re calling a hotel at seven 30 in the morning and they’re answering immediately or they’re responding to an email immediately, we know they’re not in there. So that’s very important to us is to be out there shaking hands and kissing babies, so to speak.
Like you said, there’s not many opportunities. And that morning time is one of the few opportunities you could send a guest off with a great touch point where they remember you. Now, here’s a water to go. So every time they’re taking a drink of that water on the way to the airport, they’re thinking of you. We have to use the few times we have to kind of build an impact.
Ryan Embree: I love it. I’ve said before on this podcast, I think the general manager of the future might look a lot closer to the general manager of the past before all that busy work. And for me, that’s a good thing because that’s where I think a lot of people got into hospitality to interact with people, right? Not to sit behind a desk rather.
Richard Alberigo: And we have to teach that more now. To be perfectly frank, a lot of the general leaders that we have today are the assistant general leaders of yesteryear, and that’s because there’s just so many hotels that there’s a cap on talent level, obviously. I mean, there was a time, I mean back in the covered wagon days, that you could be qualified to be a general leader. But it might take you 5, 10 years to move up because there are just so few hotels. And a lot of them just didn’t – they just retired there. They never left. There was no turnover.
But now there’s always somebody out there hiring. And they’ll hire somebody that doesn’t have the experience by default because they have to. If you wait around for that great talented experienced leader, you may be out of out of the position for six, seven months. So we’ve got to teach, kind of recreate the wheel a little bit with our talent that we hire.
Ryan Embree: Yeah, which is important, by the way, to have such a clear company culture and to show your employees kind of a career and a path within your organization, which I know you’ve spoke to on podcasts, how you’re harnessing that with an Alberigo Hotel Management.
But one of the other things we spoke about last time that has changed and evolved since our last conversation has been a refreshed website. Give us a little bit of background on that project. That’s not a small undertaking. And why having a refreshed website for the hospitality management company is so critical to today.
Richard Alberigo: Well, the first thing that a prospective owner is going to do is going to go to your website, right? And that’s kind of your first impression. And if they don’t like the website, we may never hear from them. We’ll never know that they acquired or they were interested in hiring us. So it’s kind of the same thing as we had to evolve.
And the website, when I started 13 years ago, it was kind of cumbersome. It was clunky. I don’t think it really told the story of what we did and kind of our accolades and what we’re all about. But it really didn’t matter 13 years ago. I’ll be honest with you. I mean, most people would just pick up the phone and call you, but now everything is online. So we realized a couple of years ago that it was probably impacting us.
And, yes, when I get them on the phone, I can sell it. I can tell them how great we are. I can give them testimonials. But again, I got to get them to call me, right? So our website’s a lot cleaner now, and it kind of tells the story of what we’re all about, kind of what we’re talking about here, our culture, our expense management skills, and that kind of thing. So I think since then, we’ve actually had more calls and more inquiries about hiring our company.
Ryan Embree: It’s amazing. And to our last point, Richard, yes, our owners and prospective clients will be kind of learning about you, learning your story, but also prospective employees, right? That is also a place that if they’re inquiring about a job, they’re going to do their research too. They’re sophisticated. And to showcase that, highlight that certainly advantage in today’s job market.
Richard Alberigo: And our LinkedIn page, we’ve done a really good job of promoting on our LinkedIn page about us because LinkedIn is a very, very important platform for people to go to with business. And again, some people use it, some people don’t, but we have to have that out there.
And a lot of employees before they interview with us, this a perfect example, like you just said, we had a front desk agent that actually I talked to the other day and she said that she was really excited about our LinkedIn page. It’s the first time I’ve heard that. And I’m like, “Wow, that’s great.” That made me feel like that we’re on the right track with kind of the platforms to get the word out about our company.
Ryan Embree: Yeah, it’s a time of sophistication when it comes to job hunting. And prospective employees are certainly going to do their research there. So to make sure you’re buttoned up puts you in the best position to certainly capture that.
Now, websites is just one of the many considerations when it comes to AI search visibility. I know that’s kind of been the big boom right now, because I think that has been a clear picture of where we can see AI, at least from the traveler perspective, start to have impact. And we’re also seeing things like social media, guest reviews, responses to those reviews play a role in AI search visibility.
From your perspective, how is the discovery phase really changed as far as people turning to AI to research their trips? Are you hearing that more and more from the guests and travelers you’re talking to or even your employees?
Richard Alberigo: Oh, absolutely. I mean, even though I’m a CEO, about once every two weeks, I will go to ChatGPT and I will Google our hotels in the market and kind of say which is the hotel you’d like to stay at? Which is the best hotel? Tell me about what you think about this hotel. Tell me what you think about our company. Because it changes so frequently.
And then you mentioned about responses. I mean, we actually use travel media to do our online responses. And we started, I think, a couple of years ago. And that really helps. We put it in the hands initially with our hotel staff to do it. And it never got done. I mean, they were thinking about, well, that’s for tomorrow. That’s for tomorrow. And it’s important to do it for today. So we decided as a corporate team that that’s a duty that we want them checking rooms. We want them shaking hands and kissing babies. We don’t want them responding. but we know the importance of responding, right? And doing it quickly. And a lot of our leaders were never trained on it. They were too defensive, or they didn’t respond at all, or the response was blasé and passé. So we made sure that we hired the professionals to get that done. Then we kind of take that off our plate. Online review is very, very important to keep track of those. Because again, if they don’t like what they see online, they may never actually come to your hotel or even give you a call.
Ryan Embree: 100%. And it’s playing a heavy, heavy hand into some of those AI retrievals and the data that’s showing on those returns. So super important and speaks to a couple of the points we talked about, clearing some time up for your staff, but also creating another touch point in there.
And yes, I know they’re off the property, but review responses are still a place where you have an impact and an impression on a guest, and they’re just as important. Because the most inexpensive guest is a loyal customer that’s going to come back to you. So making sure that you’re taking care of that on the other side of a guest stay, very, very critical.
Now we’re wrapping up 2026. If you can believe it, Richard, you and your team right now are deep, deep in the budgets looking at 2027. When you just zoom out, and I love getting this from a CEO, a hospitality CEO perspective, what do you think the overall health of? I know we talked about it at the top. But are you seeing more tailwinds or more headwinds as we plan ahead into 2027 next year?
Richard Alberigo: Well, obviously, it comes down to market as far as your possibilities out there. But I’ll be honest with you, it’s tough to do budgets now. I considered myself three or four years ago as a master at budgets. I mean, I would get it close to the T on what I would budget. I’d be proud of that. It’s tough now. It’s not quite throwing darts at a dartboard, but it’s getting pretty close. It’s because of the uncertainty. Things change so often.
I think the key, though, is when we do budgets, is you’ve got to have realistic expectations with expense management and not focus as much on the overall revenue. I get calls all the time from a prospective owner. And the first question they always ask is how much revenue, if we hire you, you can attribute to you and make it better. And I always kind of tongue in cheek say revenue is not important. And they look at me like deer in the headlights. But it’s really not as important as it was because there’s hotels out there that have good revenue but just don’t make any profit, which is really the depressing part.
Now, if you’re in a depressed market where there’s no opportunity, I mean, I get it, right? You can bring us in, in a depressed market and maybe we can increase it by 3%, but you’re still going to be losing money. But the depressing is when you have the revenue there and you have the demand. You’re not making money. So very important when we budget is to budget those expenses realistic and not just to cut for the sake of cutting. Because if you cut too much, as you’d mentioned, then your service goes down. But that wasted money, that waste, that waste and breakfast, those towels that are stained, are we going to get those back and treat them?
Making sure our employee culture is good so we don’t have the turnover. That’s something that we can control. And we focus on our budget strictly on that. Our breakfast order, is it being ordered on a napkin or do we have checks and balances in place? Are we doing inventory? Because we take over hotels, believe it or not, they’re ordering on a napkin and they’re giving it to a front desk agent and they’re plugging it in. And there’s no rhyme or reason on why they need four boxes of eggs or whatever the case may be.
Budgets are very, very important. And we’re looking at ways to save a little money. Are we top heavy in a certain department? And again, we focus more on that now than we do on the top line revenue. Obviously, revenue is still important. Because if you don’t have anybody coming into your hotel, it doesn’t matter how good you are at expense management. But I think it’s probably 70/30 focusing more on the expense management side and budgeting, where it was 70/30 on the revenue side just four or five years ago.
Ryan Embree: Yeah, it just speaks to the complexity. And there’s a reason that we get so many revisions and forecasts in our industry because it is getting harder to predict what markets are going to do. There’s a lot of variables out there and a lot of factors. And making sure that, again, you’re leaning on the expertise. Maybe there was a time in hospitality where you could know everything about everything. But 2026, you can’t be the pool chemical guy and the linens guy and the person that knows everything that there is about revenue. You have to lean on the expertise of your partners. You have to lean on the expertise of the people that have been in the industry that has had a success story.
Richard Alberigo: I always say, Ryan, if I’m the smartest guy in Alberigo Hotel Management and the company’s named after me, if I’m the smartest guy, then we’ve got big problems, right? So I’ve got to bring in the professionals that know a little bit more than me. I’m the organizer, but I can’t be the smartest guy or we’re in trouble.
Ryan Embree: Yeah, it’s so important right now, especially in this day and age. And speaking of whenever I have a CEO or an influential hospitality management leader on the podcast, Richard, I always feel like it’s kind of my duty to try to get a nugget of advice for our hotelier audience. What advice would you give to a hotelier today, regardless of their position or where they are in their career? What would be one piece of the career advice you’d share?
Richard Alberigo: Well, of course, I’m prejudiced to hotels. I think it’s the greatest industry, even though that there’s a lot of obstacles. And do I complain every day? I do. Right? I mean, that’s just the nature of the beast. But it’s a great industry. And it’s a great industry even if you’re not planning on doing it as a career. I always say try to get a front desk job. You learn so much about life. You learn so much about handling issues and working with a team. It’s one of the best training skills. I don’t care if you want to be a teacher, an accountant, a CEO or an engineer. Try it.
Especially, you’re just out of college and you graduate and the job market’s tough out there and you can’t quite get a job yet, try the hotel. It’s very, very important. And then for those people that come to the hotel business trying to make a career, which I think you can do it very quickly now. It used to take, as I mentioned, 5, 10, 15 years to move up. You can move up very, very quickly. And then when you’re there, make sure you stand out, show leadership skills before you get that title. Send out emails, try to make the hotel better, go to your boss, give him ideas. The squeaky wheel does get the grease, I always say.
The best advice I had when I was a front desk agent, I was considered a very good front desk agent, but I had my first review and they said, “You know what? I don’t know what you stand on, stand for.” And I’m like, “What do you mean? I do my job and I leave.” They go, “Yep. But you said you really want to do this as a career. You have to stand out. We have to know what Richard stands for.” So I was kind of taken back about it. But then I realized, this person really knew what they were talking about.
So then I started out sending out emails and correspondence and talking to my boss more often. And suddenly, I got promoted. Be patient. People are looking at you, even though they may not say anything. You got to stand out. That’s why remote jobs are never going to make it. You’re never going to make it big on a remote job because you can’t stand out. Show what you’re made of. And ask questions and inquire and act like you really care about being there, and you’ll move up very quickly in the hotel business.
Ryan Embree: Yeah, absolutely. Wise advice. And if you’re early in your career, look for a mentor. If you have some experience, look for a mentoree. And you can learn so much. I’ve had the privilege in my career to have some great mentors. And I’ve spoken to a lot of leaders who have attributed a lot of their success to early on having some people in the industry look out for them and show them a path. So I always like to encourage that.
Richard Alberigo: Perfect example. I just had an interview for an open position, open corporate position that we just had. And I was frank with them and said, “You know what? You’re showing a lot of interest. I like what I hear, but you’re really not qualified for the position.” I go, “But hey, I’m here to mentor you to make you better.” And she sent me an email just the other day and she’s like this has never happened to her. And she says, “Where can I come in even in an entry level position with your company?” Because no one’s ever said they wanted to mentor me for free. Right? And I didn’t do it for accolades, but she thought it was really impressive.
And you’re right about that. It’s like I help people all the time. People call me and say, “I need advice on XYZ.” And I’m here to help them because I would love to mentor somebody or train somebody before they come aboard, and maybe down the road they’re working for us. You never know what’s going to happen two, three years from now.
Ryan Embree: Yeah. It’s a hospitable industry. That’s for sure. All right. We’ve got a couple minutes left. As we wrap up today, Richard, what’s your vision for the future of Alberigo Hotel Management as we stand here in 2026?
Richard Alberigo: Well, as you mentioned, we started out, we were mostly Texas hotels. We’re branching out. We’ve had Florida now. We’ve got Colorado. We’re branching out more nationally. Again, we don’t want to get 70, 80 hotels. That’s not going to be us. Because we feel like if we add too many hotels, then we’re not going to be able to staff it. We’re not going to be able to keep our strategy going where we visit the hotels. I don’t care how many people you hire, you’re going to become more of a remote company if you get too large. So we’re going to keep that structure going. So we’re bringing in, again, more national hotels. There’s a little more travel involved. But again, no matter how many hotels we have or where the hotels are at, we’re going to continue to visit the hotel.
So if you want someone that’s going to be hands-on, that can be communicative, work with the owner to make sure that we promote what we’re doing. Manage your expenses. Making sure that we create a culture where people want to stay and there’s no turnover. If that’s what you’re looking for, Alberigo Hotel Management is definitely the company for you. So I’d love to hear from anyone out there and see if we can work out a deal and you can be under our portfolio. And I think that you are and you’re going to see the difference very, very quickly.
Ryan Embree: Awesome one. Check out that new refresh website over there at Alberigo Hotel Management and make sure to follow them on LinkedIn, too, so you can run into Richard and the rest of the Alberigo Hotel Management team on the hospitality event circuit.
Richard, pleasure to host you again here on the Suite Spot. And looking forward to the next time you visit here. And we wish you all the success. Thank you, Richard.
Richard Alberigo: Thank you so much for having me on, Ryan. It’s always a pleasure.
Ryan Embree: All right. Thank you. And we’ll talk to you next time on the Suite Spot.