Top Floor
Top Floor is a weekly podcast with tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. Host and elevator operator Susan Barry explores the idea that everything is marketing in the hotel business. Our interviews with creators, thought leaders and hospitality groundbreakers are designed to provide practical tactics that hoteliers, restaurateurs and travel mavens can use to promote their businesses. Along the way, we answer burning marketing questions submitted on the Emergency Call Button and share the funniest, craziest, just-plain-weirdest stories down at the Loading Dock. Need to press the Emergency Call Button? Or have a...
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Frozen in Miami
<p>Kyle Suri is the co-founder of Acrylic, a Montreal-based company that collaborates with artists to create robot-painted artwork for hotels and other spaces. After working in finance and venture capital, he traded spreadsheets for brushstrokes and a very different kind of production line. Susan and Kyle talk about robotic reproductions, artist royalties, and remarkable hotel rooms.</p> <p>What You'll Learn</p> <p>- How robots recreate paintings one brushstroke at a time<br /> - Why artists might welcome a mechanical assistant<br /> - What separates robot-painted art from a traditional print<br /> - Who gets paid when a...
Couch Cutting Catastrophe
<p>James Kuester is a hotel designer with a background in industrial engineering and a love of hotels that goes back to childhood. He works with independent and boutique hotel owners to make sure their properties live up to what their marketing promises. Susan and James talk about branding, bathroom fixtures, and badly placed towel bars.</p> <p>What You'll Learn</p> <p>- How an industrial engineering degree became a hotel design career<br /> - Why high-polish marble at the front door is a bad idea<br /> - Why signature scents can go the way of cilantro<br />...
Seagull Seat Back
<p>Jacki Brown has marketed everything from household appliances to hospitality technology, including a stint leading product marketing at Amadeus Hospitality. Today, she runs a consultancy helping hotel tech companies sharpen their positioning and messaging. Susan and Jacki talk about booking barriers, buyer research, and better brand storytelling.</p> <p>What You'll Learn</p> <p>- Why hotel marketing teams struggle to do more with less<br /> - What online shopping can teach hotels about booking and upselling<br /> - How customer research exposes what buyers actually want<br /> - Why product positioning matters more than another website makeover<br />...
Break Room Surprise
<p>Damon Lawrence caught the hotel bug at the front desk while he was a student at Howard University, and he co-founded Homage Hospitality to celebrate Black culture through boutique hotel ownership. After the pandemic wrecked his deal pipeline, he moved into consulting and hotel capital markets brokerage, where weeks of spreadsheet-heavy underwriting pushed him to build Underwrote, an AI underwriting platform made just for hospitality real estate. Susan and Damon talk about tax credits, terminology tests, and too many hotels.</p> <p>What You'll Learn</p> <p>- Why watching Thompson Hotels' founders live like rock stars sold Damon...
Toddler Fight Club
<p>Adam Robinson planned to teach high school history until a friend pulled him into recruiting during the Y2K frenzy, and a later stint installing software in hotels showed him firsthand how staff turnover was hurting properties. That insight led him to found Hireology, where he has spent two decades helping hospitality employers find and keep frontline workers. Susan and Adam talk about shrinking labor pools, AI-powered pipelines, and recruiting as a profit center.</p> <p>What You'll Learn</p> <p>- How curling fax paper led Adam into hospitality<br /> - Why hotel turnover is a solvable problem<...
3AM Coffee Thief
<p>Adam Arnold is a small business technology consultant who, with his wife Kara, owns and operates the Little Canyon Inn, a four-unit roadside motel near Colorado's Royal Gorge. After a scouting road trip with his oldest son, Adam found a fixer-upper with killer mountain views and turned it into a distinctive stay built on patio doors, local makers, and the great outdoors. Susan and Adam talk about pulling the plug on TVs, puppy perks, and partnering with fellow boutique moteliers.</p> <p>What You'll Learn</p> <p>- Why great hosts let guests drop their baggage without picking it...
Island-Hopping Gone Wrong
<p>Genna Panagopoulos grew up in her family's restaurant, studied hospitality at Michigan State, and cut her teeth on feasibility work at Davidson Hotels before moving into development and eventually brand strategy at IHG. Now she leads U.S. and Canada development for Minor Hotels, the Bangkok-based company behind Anantara and the newly launched Wolseley, and she's the only member of her team based in North America, building the brand's presence here from scratch. Susan and Genna talk about brand building, luxury's limits, and late nights across time zones.</p> <p>What You'll Learn</p> <p>- What it takes...
Stiletto Puncture Test
<p>Jessica Gidari's career started in interior design before widening into branding and eventually hospitality. She made stops at Rockwell Group and LDV Hospitality before landing at Union Square Hospitality Group, where she led the consulting division and developed concepts for clients like JPMorgan. She is founder of Porcelain Collective, an agency that handles everything from menu writing to branding to full concept development for restaurants. Susan and Jessica talk about hotel dining, high heels, and hatch chilies.</p> <p><br /> What You'll Learn</p> <p>- How a Phoenix restaurant opening turned an interior designer into a hospitality lifer<...
Kimchi Bathtub Party
<p>Annie Holcombe has spent her career refusing to pick a side in the hotel versus vacation rental debate, working her way through property management, Expedia during the HomeAway and Vrbo years, channel management, and business development for Marriott Homes and Villas. She is now founder of Annie & Co, coaching independent vacation rental operators on distribution and growth, while also serving as a brand ambassador and US market consultant for Booking.com, sitting on the VRMA board, and co-hosting the podcast Alex and Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals. Susan and Annie talk about convergence, consistency, and commissions.</p> <...
259 | The Longevity Economy
<p>This special episode of Top Floor comes from a webinar hosted by the Hospitality Creator Summit. Scott Frisch, COO and EVP at AARP, was scheduled to join the Summit in person, but travel issues had other plans. Instead, HCS co-founders Anna Blue and Anthony Melchiorri brought the conversation online, with Susan emceeing a fireside chat about one of hospitality's biggest opportunities: the longevity economy.</p> <p>Scott has spent two decades at AARP with a front-row seat to the economic muscle of Americans 50 and older. With AARP's latest research putting their annual travel and leisure spending at a staggering $1.4...
