97 – Thinking Digitally with Aimbridge Hospitality’s Michael Curran

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

Join host Ryan Embree and Aimbridge Hospitality's VP of Digital Marketing, Michael Curran, as they talk all things digital marketing for hotels. They discuss how to keep consistency within a portfolio while still giving each hotel a distinct voice on social media, how to balance "traditional vs. new" social media platforms, how to leverage guest feedback and generate more positive reviews, and more! Suite Spot Podcast · 97 - Thinking Digitally with Aimbridge Hospitality's Michael Curran 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 episode of the Suite Spot, a special edition of the Suite Spot. We've got a great guest with us today that I'm gonna be introducing here, but first wanna thank everyone for taking the time to join us on the Suite Spot and listening wherever you are across the country. With me today, I have the vice president of digital marketing for Aimbridge Hospitality, Michael Curran. He has over 27 years of experience in the hospitality digital marketing industry, including names like Walt Disney Parks and Resorts online, Hilton hotels, and for Aimbridge, he works with independent hotel brands, IHG, Hilton, and Marriot, which we're gonna talk about here. He's got extensive background in operations, website and content development, and online media strategy and execution. And I just found out he's one heck of a pinball player as well. So Michael, hello and welcome to the Suite Spot. Michael Curran: Good morning, Ryan. Happy to be here. Ryan Embree: Awesome. Well, as we do with all of our new guests on the Suite Spot, tell us a little bit about your background in the industry and maybe the journey that led you to Aimbridge hospitality. Michael Curran: So I think I'm one of the few people that went to school for this and has made a lifelong career out of it. There are folks that meander in and out of the industry, but I started back in the nineties going to school for this and 27 years later, I'm still here. So yeah, I actually picked up the major on a whim. I started out in broadcasting, found out the people in broadcasting are not the type of people I enjoyed being around . So I dropped that major and I happened to have lunch with the head of the department for hospitality and parks at our university. And he sold me on it. I started with Hilton hotels, property operations. I came up through front desk reservations, revenue management sales. I have tremendous respect for F&B people, but that's the one area I've never worked in because that an incredibly difficult division. But that part didn't do. But I jumped into the online world in 1998 and I'll never forget at the meeting I was in, the regional VP for Hilton was sitting at the end of the table in our daily standup meeting, and picture it in my mind right now, he raised a piece of paper. "Hilton sent me something about this worldwide web. Does anybody want to deal with this?" Ryan Embree: Michael Curran: Nobody raised their hand. I'm like, yeah, sure. Why not? So that was it. I never turned back. From that point on I've been on the online part of the industry. Ryan Embree: Well, that was a good bet to say that that little worldwide web was, was gonna take off and have somewhat of an impact. And yeah, as far as your broadcasting, I mean, here, you do a little broadcasting here, so you're able to kind of do that, but yep. That's something else we have in common. Both of us went to school for hospitality. You rarely hear that though in our industry, you know, it's usually, I just found myself here and kind of jumped into it.