119 – Suite Spot: Spotlight Series – The Chatwal, New York

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

Join Suite Spot host and TMG Director of Marketing, Ryan Embree as he talks with the Senior Vice President, Luxury Division, The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, Ashish Verma in our new TMG Spotlight series to give listeners a lavish perspective on hospitality and how the rich history of The Chatwal, New York sets the gold standard for luxury in the hospitality industry. 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, my name is Ryan Embree, host of The Suite Spot. Thank you so much for joining us. We are having a brand new series here. I am so excited about this. So if you've been following the Suite Spot before, we've been doing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series, that's all about the people and hospitality management companies that are pushing our industry forward into the future, 2024 and beyond. But I am very excited about our new series that we just launched, and I think we have just the perfect guest and hotel part of this Suite Spot: Spotlight series. So to give you a little bit of background, this Suite Spot: Spotlight series are showcasing and highlight some of our industry's most unique and iconic hotels across the nation, across the globe. And I think we have such a fitting guest for our first ever edition of the Suite Spot: Spotlight series. Ashish Verma, Senior Vice President of the Luxury Division, Unbound Collection. Ashish, welcome to the Suite Spot. Ashish Verma: Thank you so much, Ryan. What an exciting introduction and, to be the first guest for the Suite Spot, which definitely hits a Sweet spot with me. Ryan Embree: Excellent. Yeah, we might steal that catch phrase, from you there, Ashish, but tell us where you're coming from because we know that the people make this industry, but this Suite Spot Spotlight series is all about, again, the most iconic hotels that we have. Where are you joining us from? Ashish Verma: I'm based in New York. It's my hometown and I'm in the heart of Manhattan. I was born and raised in India, so a great culture of hospitality. I drove my career with hotels, one of the finest in luxury hospitality. And then I moved to Hyatt International the very best, and I worked with them in India, in France, where I did my highest studies, my MBA in Paris and I worked with Hyatt again there and I moved to Phai, the original UN Plaza here in New York. Went on to work with a great hotel company Orient Express, as a GM down in New Orleans through hurricane Katrina and beyond. Returned to New York, my hometown, and it was a GM at the Luell and I've been in charge of the Chatwel, New York Luxury Division for a little over eight years. Ryan Embree: Your story is the true embodiment of hospitality is worldwide, right? And I'm sure you've seen just some incredible places, incredible hotels. So tell us a little bit about this iconic and historic hotel, The Chatwal. This fits the bill of being just a timeless property. Can you give us, you know, we shared your, hospitality experience, share a little bit of history of, of this specific property. Ashish Verma: Yes. global hospitality, hospitality being global goes hand in hand. There are some great hotels around the world and we all have a bucket list to experience and travel around the world. And the world has become a little microcosm of our own aspirations and luxury at the very finest embodies that, expresses that, offers that. And I'm fortunate between Asia, Europe and the US here in New York, having experienced some of the best. Where we are now in the heart of Manhattan, there's a lot of history where the Chatwal New York is,