In this week’s episode of the Hotel Moment podcast, Joel Morales, CMO at Castlerock Asset Management, joins Karen Stephens, Revinate CMO, to offer a proactive approach to budget season – starting before August. Joel highlights the benefits of initiating budget planning as early as May or June, and how he’s seen sales and marketing departments align and collaborate with greater speed and efficiency.

Tune in for a change in perspective when it comes to the timing of budget planning, and how you can leverage your brand, brand performance, and overall marketing strategy to drive conversion and open up more revenue streams for your hotel.

Meet your host

As Chief Marketing Officer at Revinate, Karen Stephens is focused on driving long-term growth by building Revinate’s brand equity, product marketing, and customer acquisition strategies. Her deep connections with hospitality industry leaders play a key role in crafting strategic partnerships.

Karen is also the host of The Hotel Moment Podcast, where she interviews top players in the hospitality industry. Karen has been with Revinate for over 11 years, leading Revinate’s global GTM teams. Her most recent transition was from Chief Revenue Officer, where she led the team in their highest booking quarter to date in Q4 2023.

Karen has more than 25 years of expertise in global hospitality technology and online distribution — including managing global accounts in travel and hospitality organizations such as Travelocity and lastminute.com

Connect with Karen

Transcript

Intro – 00:00:04: Welcome to the Hotel Moment podcast presented by Revinate, the podcast where we discuss how hotel technology shapes every moment of the hotelier’s experience. Tune in as we explore the cutting-edge technology transforming the hospitality industry and hear from experts and visionaries shaping the future of guest experiences. Whether you’re a hotelier or a tech enthusiast, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in and discover how we can elevate the art of hospitality together.

Karen Stephens- 00:00:37: Hello, and welcome to the Hotel Moment podcast. I am your host, Karen Stephens, the Chief Marketing Officer of Revinate. And on today’s episode, we are thrilled to have Joel Morales. Joel is the Chief Marketing Officer at Castlerock Asset Management, where he drives the marketing, branding, and communication strategies for a portfolio of distinctive hotels. With over 20 years of experience, Joel has a proven track record in leading innovative marketing and public relations efforts for luxury hotels and lifestyle brands. Before joining Castlerock, he was the CEO of Ext.54, an agency known for its work with high-profile clients like Equinox Fitness and W Hotels. His career also includes notable roles at the Blackstone Hotel and The James Hotel, where he honed his expertise in marketing and brand development. Joel’s unique background blends deep hospitality knowledge with an agency perspective, enhancing his approach to creating impactful strategies in hospitality. And I think what I loved most about my conversation with Joel today is he really does bring that agency view of the marketing funnel and how we can best optimize that in hospitality. So what you’re going to hear about today is an approach where he looks 360 at how a branding strategy comes together, how you can enhance different pillars across the brand experience, specifically using an example of their independent property in Nashville, which is called The Bobby. So it’s a really fun discussion where he talks about bringing in music, bringing in fashion, and my most favorite thing that I’ve ever heard on this podcast, which has to do with a brand ambassador, which is a dog. So you’re going to hear all about that. And here is my discussion with Joel.

Hey, Joel, welcome to the podcast.

Joel Morales – 00:02:21: Thanks, Karen . I’m glad to be on.

Karen Stephens – 00:02:22: So you know what? I did a little bit of research before we did this program, and I have to say, you have a really fascinating career trajectory. So it looks like you started in the world of marketing at the hotel level and then really shifted over to the agency side. So can you tell us a little bit about your experience in marketing, and what inspires you, and how you made that transition?

Joel Morales – 00:02:43: It was something I somewhat kind of fell into, to be honest. I have an art degree background, and I fell into the world of marketing specifically in hotels. And that was kind of my property experience, working with W Hotels, and then the James. And I just was able to find a place where I was able to be just as creative as an artist, but kind of tap into the strategic thinker in me I didn’t realize existed. In the process, I went back and got an MBA to kind of really rise to the task, if you will, and had the opportunity to really start opening hotels in a brand. The James Hotel was actually my first brand that I was able to kind of start from scratch, if you will. That just kind of created kind of a passion in me for brand building, for really that marketing, that kind of strategic marketing that it takes to be able to open up an independent hotel. So from there, I had an opportunity to transition into the agency world. And it was a really fascinating time for me professionally, having been in hotels for almost a decade before then, it’s all I knew. And my world was really expanded. I went into consumer products through the agency. I was able to dive into technology and marketing. There was some work in the music industry. So it was really kind of a fun time to understand what these other industries do to bring people in and the tactics and whatnot. And it was really, enlightening because I think that as hoteliers, we kind of fall into doing the same thing over and over, and getting that taste of something different just really challenged me. And I have to say that in the 10 years I was in the agency world, the one thought that kind of remained in me was, you know, Oh, wow, like, where could I do this? But in a hotel setting, how could I apply these strategies? And that’s kind of where I find myself now. After the agency world, I found this opportunity with Castlerock, where I’m the chief Marketing Officer now, and I am getting an opportunity to apply those tactics.

Karen Stephens – 00:04:51: Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about Castlerock. So first of all, I just want to acknowledge, I do think it’s so fascinating to see that you started in hospitality, went to the agency, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re still thinking about hotels and hospitality. I always say, once you get into this industry, it’s really hard to leave because it is such a cool place to be. But tell us a little bit about Castlerock Asset Management. What does the portfolio look like? And what does your day-to-day look like as CMO there?

Joel Morales – 00:05:18: Yeah, so we’re based out of Nashville, and we’re an integrated real estate development ownership marketing and asset management firm. We specifically are in the hotel space. So we’ve got a independent hotel, The Bobby, in Nashville. And we have a franchise with The Westin in Nashville as well. Two completely different worlds between independent and kind of franchise management. But really exciting nonetheless and a very exciting market. Currently, we’re exploring the expansion of Bobby Hotels and are looking into markets like Detroit, Fort Worth, Texas, Seattle, where we’re looking to expand that brand.

Karen Stephens – 00:05:55: Wow, that’s so cool. And we love Nashville. Can I just say, we hold a marketing conference every year, Revinate does, and it’s hard to get in that market. That is high demand. I think, for everything from a leisure perspective, from a group perspective. So stay tuned. We’re not going to get there this year or next year, but we’re working on it. And it’s great to hear that there’s some brand expansion.

Joel Morales – 00:06:14: Yeah. Yeah, it is a wild market. I mean, I lived in Chicago and New York before moving here to Nashville three years ago. And honestly, I’ve never seen the sort of market that the national market is. The growth is ridiculous. I’ve never seen such a new city. I’ve never been a part of a new city. I mean, New York, Chicago are kind of stayed tried and true cities and with a lot of history. But here, it’s just the opportunities seem endless. And the hotel rates and the demand that the city has — it blows my mind. I mean, at times I’m like, Wow, the ADR here is higher than that of New York or Chicago or any other large city.

Karen Stephens – 00:06:55: It’s crazy. Well, and you have the wonderful live music and the culture and what a great town. So I’m glad you got to move there. That’s pretty cool. So, so Joel, how has your background in agency work shaped your approach to marketing now that you’re at Castlerock Asset Management? What did you bring in from the outside, so to speak?

Joel Morales – 00:07:14: I think it really expanded my view on what’s possible, to be honest. I think that the role that technology plays in marketing was really expanded in my mind. Having worked with several technology companies and apps, their approach to marketing, to automation, to the relationship between sales and marketing is just fascinating. And it really changed my perspective overall in that dynamic. I would say the creativity really kind of expanded the way that I approach partnerships. The leverage brand affinity has really changed from my kind of first time in-house. So it’s really been an eye-opening experience.

Karen Stephens – 00:07:59: Yeah, so I think we’re recording this podcast now in August. It’s almost September. Kids are going back into school. People are coming back into work. Most of hospitality, we’re starting. The budget planning process, which makes a lot of people cringe. But I understand that you’ve actually completed your budgets already. So can you talk a little bit about, it sounds like the planning approach is very different. I think, you know, if I can just, a broad brush statement, a lot of times in hospitality, we kind of mentioned at the top, we’re kind of stuck in our ways. We follow the same process and planning and approach. But can you talk a little bit about how you’ve reoriented your teams to maybe think about that a little bit differently and how that planning cadence has changed for you?

Joel Morales – 00:08:40: Yeah, and that’s something I definitely brought back from kind of managing an agency, and managing clients, and the insights into other industries as well. The way that I work through my own team as well as kind of our internal partners is so different now — the way I approach that. And then when it comes to our budgeting, I have been with the company for three years, and every year I have inched that budgeting process forward a little bit more because it’s a huge shift. I mean, I think that our company, which honestly, in my experience has been very similar in other companies, they’re typically having their first conversations right about now, and then maybe getting started in September with a hopeful October finish. And that’s being conservative. I mean, I think that most of the companies I’ve worked for internally, they’re wrapping in November, and it makes it hard. It makes it hard to be thoughtful. I think it makes it hard to be intentional across departments. When it comes to your marketing strategy. And one thing I learned from other industries in my time at the agency was planning ahead allows you to be so much more intentional, and it brings people together and aligns departments. I just saw the collaboration between sales, and marketing, and revenue departments, and other industries are so optimized that I was like, I’m jealous. I want this in the hotel industry. I think it could be such a benefit. And so we started our process — actually, we had our first conversation the last week of May and we started the process in June. And really what that’s allowed us to do is really take a look at what happened this year. You know, what was successful, what wasn’t, what’s trending. It allowed us to really have thoughtful conversations across departments. What’s important to ops. What’s important to ops in 2025. It allowed us to align from a sales and revenue perspective and understand the outcomes that they’re looking at for 2025 based on trends and really align the kind of like story that we’re telling together. And it really allows us to kind of have that discussion. Alright. Well, ownership — clearly NOI is like a big thing there. And it’s like, all right, how do we get to these numbers? And what does that narrative look like as we start responding to market pressures and unforeseen events? And how do we leverage peak periods and get ready for those slow periods as well? And it really changed the way that even I think our company saw marketing moving forward. There was a lot of education that took place. We were able to have discussions with sales and revenue about the funnel. Really this is awareness. This is where we want to convert and really start aligning strategies, aligning those revenue strategies to those awareness strategies. So. I think that that’s been really helpful. Runway, I think is another thing that it’s afforded us is locking it up right now. We’re starting to have those discussions about Q1, which I think in so many places is such a terrible time for us to compete for business. And we’re starting to kind of get ahead of it. I mean, we’ve already started implementing some of our Q1 strategies. We’re already starting to fill January, February for the hotels.

Karen Stephens – 00:12:05: Wow, that is great. You will be the envy of all I think when you’re saying that. I want to pick up on something you said before is like kind of adopting. You talked about the funnel. And I think if you’re in traditional marketing, you talk about brand awareness at the top of the funnel, all the way down to converting that booking. And it sounds like, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but bringing that kind of discipline back into hospitality. Sometimes in hospitality, we can be rather reactive with our marketing. We see that something is soft, so we got to spin up a promotion to get things going. But if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re building in the kind of planning ahead of time, and then you can still be flexible and reactive when you need to be. But that’s really fascinating how you kind of got everybody aligned on that.

Joel Morales – 00:12:46: Absolutely. I tell my team, if you’re looking in marketing to push demand within the next 30 to 60 days, then we’ve done something wrong. I think that that is not where marketing lives. I think we’ve got some great strategies for those kind of short lead times, but we shouldn’t live in that space.

Karen Stephens – 00:13:06: Absolutely. No, you want to have more of a base. And brand building takes a long time. That’s something I think speaking just as a tech company for revenue, we’ve had a reputation as being a reputation company for 15 years. And just trying to move the awareness into all the other things that we do. It takes a long time. So there’s all different levels of marketing strategies that end up at that booking. But anybody who thinks, Oh, well, we’re just going to throw a promotion out —- it’s going to drive. It’s a whole integrated — I can see we’re on a podcast, but I can see you laughing because you know what I’m talking about.

Joel Morales – 00:13:39: Yeah, it’s so funny. I get that so much. And I’ve been able to, even through this budgeting process, kind of educate people on how that funnel looks and how it applies. All of our different verticals come together to drive that conversion, everything from our social media to our public relations to our digital efforts, and how they’re all just kind of funneling into that one conversion spot. And it really kind of drew some light bulb moments around the room. It was really nice.

Karen Stephens – 00:14:06: Yeah, that’s good. That’s awesome. So the other thing that you mentioned that you kind of borrowed from the agency side was brand affinity. And when you’re working like you have so much in the luxury hotel space, can you talk a little bit about how you work with other brands to kind of build that whole story together? Are there some examples you can give of that?

Joel Morales – 00:14:25: I think there’s actually a project I’m working on right now with Bobby as we’re looking to expand that brand. And we’re looking at everything from what are we carrying as our shampoo and body wash to what retail items are we going to offer in our gift shop? And that’s a new project for us, the gift shop area or retail, if you will. And the way we’re approaching it is how can we better align with products that tell our brand story? And also open up new channels and avenues for us to really just talk about our brand. And so one example would be we’re having discussions on t-shirts. Every brand has a t-shirt or a destination t-shirt or something. We want to have a destination-based t-shirt for our retail store. And I’m looking at collaborating with different artists that align with the art pillar for the brand, but still allow us to kind of go into other channels. Meaning, I can now talk to publications from a PR perspective that I wouldn’t have been able to before because this design now fits kind of in a fashion space or interest. And so now our coverage is being diversified into the fashion media coverage as well. And so really kind of looking at those partnerships or those kind of affinity brands in a way that really expands your audience.

Karen Stephens – 00:15:57: Right. Well, and that’s so great. I think the most fun part about one of the best things about hospitality marketing is that hotel is an experience. It’s about the town that you’re in, the music that you’re hearing. So I love the idea of bringing fashion into that as well, and art design and what a cool creative, you know, when you have a beautiful hotel to work with, there’s so many different ways that you can kind of bring that forward. So that’s really fun.

Joel Morales – 00:16:19: It’s really, really fun. I think that one thing that’s really important today is realizing that both brand and performance are things that we need to be paying attention to. I think that we’ve been in that kind of performance space for a really long time. And when I started my career, it was all about brand. So I think that today with all the changes that are happening and the way that consumers are behaving, striking that balance is really important. So things like brand affinity become equally as important as the PMAX campaign that we’re launching on the digital side.

Karen Stephens – 00:16:54: What is the PMAX campaign?

Joel Morales – 00:16:56: The performance max.

Karen Stephens – 00:16:58: Oh, got it. I’m like, what is that? Amazing. All right. Acronym, I didn’t know that one. So that’s a good one. All right. So I also realized, Joel, that you’re also deeply engaged in marketing and community involvement. So you talk about brand affinity, you talk about association there. What about social responsibility, and how does that influence your marketing initiatives?

Joel Morales – 00:17:19: I think that hotels as a place in a city have a responsibility of enhancing their communities. And so for us, everything that we do, we also look at it from a local’s lens. Oftentimes, especially in markets like Nashville, Vegas, Miami even, I think locals can feel that the tourists are taking over. And I think that kind of keeping that in mind, you always want to make sure that you have that local in mind, that you have the community in mind, because that’s where you live. And so for us, it’s really important to tie our brand pillars to some social community space. Working in the art space, we support a lot of local artists, give them a stage or platform to be able to display their art. From a musician’s place, we do a lot of music here. It is Music City in Nashville, after all. But rather than programming country music or even Americana music, which you see everywhere, we have dedicated ourselves to more indie artists in other genres. Bringing in rock music, alternative rap, R&B performers into our spaces. And the way that we kind of work that program is we bring in kind of a nationally recognized headliner, and then we pair them with a local artist that kind of fits within the same genre. So giving people an opportunity to be raised a little bit by someone who has a little bit more notoriety.

Karen Stephens – 00:18:49: Yeah, well, I’d love to get it. So what’s a good example? Can you give us an example of an artist that you paired with someone local?

Joel Morales – 00:18:54: Yeah, absolutely. So we brought in an artist named PawPaw Rod, that has been really shooting through the roof and on Spotify plays and recognition, and paired him with an artist here locally by the name of Casper Sage. Really great artist that has somewhat the same vibe and music. And they had the most amazing not only performance, but even collaboration. They came in for the stage test, and they were able to like talk and collaborate over social media. And there was just this really great engagement that went on. And we saw that on stage as well. So it was really fun.

Karen Stephens – 00:19:31: That’s so cool. I mean, I really love the idea of kind of propping up local artists, whatever genre they’re in, be it music or art itself. And kind of, as you said, bringing that forward so that the tourists who do come and they’re learning more about the community experience. And that’s a really cool way to do that. I love it.

Joel Morales – 00:19:48: Yeah, we even have a dog program. We have a dog in our lobby, which is an ambassador. And what we’ve done there is we’ve actually collaborated with the local dog shelter where we adopt the dog from that shelter. And then take it through kind of a training so it can live in our lobby and be that kind of social ambassador for a year.

Karen Stephens – 00:20:09: Oh, I love that. And then where does the dog go after a year? Does he get adopted out or to another family or how does that work?

Joel Morales – 00:20:14: We actually work with a national organization called Pets for Patriots, and they help us find the dog a home with a vet that is looking for a best friend.

Karen Stephens – 00:20:24: Oh my gosh, Joel, I love that. I’m a big dog person. So that for me is awesome. I love it. That is so cool. So looking ahead, what do you think is kind of the biggest challenge or opportunity for marketing within hospitality over the next couple of years? Biggest challenge or opportunity?

Joell Morales – 00:20:44: I’d like to say opportunity. I think that we started out the conversation this way. I think the opportunity is expanding our kind of toolbox. I think that really taking all of these great innovations that are coming ahead, AI, all the different other technologies that people are launching and putting them to work. I think that there’s a lot of collaboration that we can do across departments. I know that we’re seeing in our industry that dip into that collaboration between revenue, and marketing, and sales. I think we could further that. I think that there’s a lot of stuff that we could learn from the technology industry on even how we develop leads and lead generation on behalf of our sales teams and things like that, that I think that we could be very optimistic about into the future. Lots of challenges, and I think challenges are always going to be there. I think that for me, I’d rather us all focus on the positive and look into how great it can be moving forward.

Karen Stephens – 00:21:44: Yeah, I can tell you’re a glass-half-full kind of guy. So I really like that. I like that a lot. So for any marketing professionals out there that are listening, maybe somebody who’s coming up in their career, you talked a lot about your approach to planning and getting people together. What is some advice that you would give someone who is starting in hospitality marketing to really get that collaboration across departments to be able to shine and grow within their career?

Joel Morales – 00:22:09: I would say having confidence in your space is really important, and enough confidence to educate those around you. I think that marketing, at least where we all sit on the hotel side, takes a lot of patience. A lot of other departments don’t understand what you do.

Karen Stephens – 00:22:29: They think we’re good at spending money.

Joel Morales – 00:22:31: Right. You know, that looks like a lot of fun, and that you get to sit around and say that you like this or that picture or whatnot. And I think it’s important to take the time, slow down, and educate your partners, and bring them up to speed. They don’t need to know all the weeds, but I think that the broad strokes and having a simple understanding goes a long way. And identifying those kind of high level KPIs that you can share with them and educate around, I think, become that place where you can align.

Karen Stephens – 00:23:10: Absolutely. You know, I’ve been banging on about this all year. My new favorite thing is commercial strategy, which is what you mentioned. It’s the alignment between revenue, marketing, and sales. And then I think the other thing is the KPIs. So being that net operating income or even as a creative marketing professional, you need to know your numbers. And it sounds like you’re echoing that. You can all speak the same language, whether it’s PMAT, right?

Joel Morales – 00:23:33: Yeah.

Karen Stephens – 00:23:36: The last question for you. So what do you see as hotels having their moment of spark of innovation? And how do you think technology is playing a part in that? So you mentioned AI. Is there anything else out there that you’re seeing kind of be our next moment of inspiration as we head into next year?

Joel Morales – 00:23:51: I think I may have just like exposed that one. I think AI is going to be the big one. I think that internally and externally facing AI is going to be, I think, a really dynamic player for what we’re doing. Exploring everything from an internal perspective on how we can use AI to keep our properties on brand to external strategies around how can we further activate our brand around that kind of AI automation on our websites and things like that. Can they become higher level concierges that can help people plan before even getting to the property?

Karen Stephens – 00:24:30: And then when you get on property, you have wonderful real people to help you make your experience awesome. Yeah, love it.

Joel Morales – 00:24:36: Yeah, we were really diving deep into that concept right now is that that relationship of the guest journey from online to in-house.

Karen Stephens – 00:24:44: Fantastic. Well, my guest has been Joel Morales, who’s the CMO of Castlerock. Thank you so much for the conversation, Joel.

Joel Morales – 00:24:50: Thank you, Karen.

Outro – 00:24:56: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hotel Moment by Revinate. Our community of hoteliers is growing every week, and each guest we speak to is tackling industry challenges with the innovation and flexibility that our industry demands. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you’re listening on YouTube, please like the video and subscribe for more content. For more information, head to revinate.com/hotelmomentpodcast. Until next time, keep innovating.

About Revinate

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