121 – Suite Spot: Spotlight – SLS South Beach Hotel

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

The Suite Spot visits Miami Beach in this episode to talk with Simon Sorpresi of the SLS South Beach Hotel to discuss its addition to the Suite Spot: Spotlight series and how the iconic property stands out from the competition with a unique guest experience, art style, and digital marketing strategy. Tune in to discover why the SLS South Beach is a one-of-a-kind hospitality experience that every type of traveler should mark as their next destination. 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. I am so excited for this episode. If you are watching us on Travel Media Group's, YouTube channel, you know that we are here live on location. This is the first time ever we've been live on location. We're very excited. We've got this brand new Suite Spot: Spotlight series. We just had our first episode, but the first time that we're doing it live on location, and we have such a great guest and property that we're gonna be showcasing on this Spotlight series. Without further ado, let me bring him in. Simon Sopresi of the SLS South Beach, Vice President of Ennismore - Miami, Mexico, and South America. Simon, welcome to the Suite Spot for the first time. Simon Sorpresi : Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure and it's great to host you and your team here at SLS South Beach. Ryan Embree: My breath was taken away when we came in through these doors. You have a beautiful property here at the SLS South Beach. It really truly embodies the spirit of this series. We are going around the country trying to find and showcase the hotel's most unique and historic in the nation. Yeah, and I think that SLS certainly fits the bill, but before we start talking about the property, it's always interesting to talk to another person in hospitality because, we know everyone's story's different, right? You could start as a Bellman at a hotel like myself. Some people are literally born into the industry. Some people just fall into it just by choice. So tell us a little bit about your story, and what led you to Ennismore? Simon Sorpresi : Whoa. Okay. Uh, let me try to keep it short. So first of all, it's a pleasure to have you here. As you can hear, I'm not originally from the States. I still have a very thick accent. I tried to get rid of it, which I'm clearly not mastering it, but was very interesting. I studied national construction architecture back in Europe and fell through an excursion from that architectural school in hotels, fell kind of in love with hotels. And I was like, oh my God, that's really kind of unique. There was a gentleman called Uli Prager. He was the founder of Mervin Pick, the brand. And he did the tour and he was very charismatic. He could speak about the thread counts of the linen to how to wash pots and pans. I mean, he knew it all. And as a young person, young professional, I was really, really, I think wowed by him. And said, I wanna become him. And so that's where, how it came about. Did the hotel management school in Switzerland, worked all different disciplines of the hotel. Worked very heavy in food and beverage, specialized myself in food and beverage, had my own company in Europe and said, I wanna learn English and ultimately move to New York City after a saltic business. Moved to New York City, had my own business in New York, mostly in nightlife and art galleries. And then did that for seven years and went back to the roots of hospitality in luxury segmentation in Los Angeles. And I came here at SLS South Beach is the reason why it was such a tempting thing for me,