175 – Suite Spot: Road Trip Series – Homewood Suites Orlando by Hilton

The next episode in the Suite Spot: Road Trip series takes the podcast to Central Florida to visit the incredible Homewood Suites by Hilton nearest to Universal Studios! In this exciting episode, the brand leader of Homewood Suites, Rick Colling, and the General Manager of the property, Carlos Sotillo, sit down on the podcast to discuss the Homewood brand, the evolution of the extended stay hotel segment, and the future of hospitality. 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. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, a part of our Suite Spot 2025 Summer Road trip series. We are right here in our backyard in Orlando at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Orlando nearest to Universal Studios like I said, right in our backyard down the road, out of our TMG headquarters out here with Rick and Carlos who have been both here at this amazing property. We’re gonna talk all about it. Now, Rick, we have met up with you earlier this year, and we have, yeah. One thing we haven’t done is done a proper, you know, hospitality journey. We love a good story in hospitality, right? All of our humble beginnings where we might’ve started at the front desk. Bellman for myself. Give us a little bit of background in our audience, background into your hospitality. Rick Colling: Got it, Ryan, with pleasure. And it’s a fun journey, Ryan, mate. So, we’re like you. I started at the front desk, at the Kalamazoo Residence Inn, right after graduating from college. And I walked into the hotel and I said I’ve graduated from college. I think I should be the GM of a hospitality hotel. And the GM said to me, do you know anything about the business? I said, nothing. So he became my mentor in the business. So I started at the front desk and worked my way up through the ranks at Marriott. Spent 10 years with Marriott and I’ve been with Hilton now for 27 years, and been a GM and property director of sales on property, but I worked all the disciplines and it’s just been an incredible journey to finally end up leading a brand like Homewood Suites over the course of the last five years, which has been, you know, certainly a career highlight for me. So, a fun journey to get me here today. Ryan Embree: But yet a familiar one; one that we hear all the time, a lot of college students, you know, maybe just taking here a summer job, end up falling in love with the industry. But another piece of your story that we’re hearing so often is mentors. Yeah. And I wanna highlight that is because there’s so many hospitality professionals out there mentoring the next generation of hospitality professionals. So important in our industry right now. And Carlos you have a background here in this area, this campus? Of hotels. Give us your hospitality journey. Carlos Sotillo: Well, actually, funny story, when my parents first came to America, they actually started working at a Homewood Suites. Oh, okay. I was, came out, yeah. My mom was a housekeeper. My dad was a houseman. And I was 11. So during summer break, they would take me with them to work sometimes. And so I grew up in a Homewood Suites during my summer break. Rick Colling: Which is where you needed to be, right. Carlos: Right. In full circle. But officially, my career started, I was a breakfast attendant at a small hotel down on I-Drive. And then the opportunity came out to be a night auditor. So, you know, I went for it. And now, low and behold, here I am. I went through four different Hilton brands. I’ve gone through Hampton Hilton, Garden Inn, Home2, and now here back at the Homewood. So it’s been a fun, fun journey. Rick Colling: No, we’re glad to have you mate. One of the best in the business right here. Ryan Embree: Well, it’s incredible. We always say sometimes, hospitality runs in the blood, runs in your DNA sometimes, and you grew up here, you had family members that worked at

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