105 – TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Richard Alberigo

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

Join host Ryan Embree as he sits down with Hospitality Trailblazer Richard Alberigo, President & CEO of Alberigo Hotel Management. These two hospitality experts outline 2023 travel trends and traveler behavior, the true meaning of hospitality, exciting developments at Alberigo Hotel Management, and so much more. Suite Spot Podcast · 105 - TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Richard Alberigo 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 welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, continuing our fantastic TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. Got a great guest with us, another first timer to the podcast. So very excited to welcome him on. Richard Alberigo of Alberigo Hotel Management, Richard, President and CEO. Welcome to the Suite Spot. Richard Alberigo: Hey, Ryan, thanks a lot. I'm glad to be here. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we're really excited to have you, Richard. Again, my first question, I always start out, especially with the first timers, just hearing about experience, right? This is one of those industries where if you had a hundred bucks, you could never guess. Nobody's taken the same path twice when it comes to this industry. So tell me a little bit about your hospitality experience and what ultimately that journey that led you ultimately to founding Alberigo Hotel Management. Richard Alberigo: Well, sure, Ryan. So, it was not planned at all back in the, I guess, 80's, somewhere in the mid 80's. I took a job as a bellman in a hotel, at a full service Hilton Hotel. And the industry was really not even in my mind, right? You know, I did it for money. Somebody told me, you make good money as a bellman. I did that for like two years, and they learned a lot about life as a bellman, and everybody loved Richard, you know, because, and they gave me money. They threw cash at me every night. So I came up with a big wad of cash and I'm like, this is great. Yeah, nothing better. And somebody told me, well, you know, if you wanna make this a career, Richard, you may have to work at the front desk. So I looked up at the front desk and I said, you know, well, you know, it looks like a glamor job up there. You know, I'm kind of slaving with luggage and taking people to the airport, you know. Up there, I'm kind of, I'm all that. So I took the front desk job, and then after about three months, I'm like, maybe this isn't for me, because now everybody hated Richard and nobody threw cash at me. So, you know, I, I basically took a cut and pay. So I, I hung in there, hung in there. I always like to talk to people. So I guess that was, you know, I love to talk. So I guess, that was a good thing for the front desk. So then I just worked my way up through the ranks, took a job as a, general manager about three years after that. And then, took a job with, IHG, which is the Holiday Inn Corporate Office, and did that for seven years as a, regional support person. And following that, started my own company nine years ago. I was gonna be a broadcaster, actually, that was what my job was gonna be, sports broadcasting, which I did a little bit on the, that on the side. But hey, you know, weird things happen. And now I'm a hotelier after 35 years. Ryan Embree: This is, you know, some broadcasting here, you know, on the Suite Spot podcast. But yes, bellman to former bellman. I think that's so interesting. I, I started the same way in the hospitality industry, and you do learn a lot. Front desk, you could be doing some things, you could be helping housekeeping, delivering things. But you're really talking to the guests most of the time.