Tune in to the next episode of the Suite Spot: Independent Hotel Show series to catch special guest Nicholas Gold, who takes center stage on the podcast!

As Managing Director of Black Desert Resort, Nicholas shares the early beginnings of his hospitality journey, the one-of-a-kind appeal of independent hotels, and how the newly opened Black Desert Resort is accentuating the guest experience in 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, or Ryan Embree here for another edition of our Independent Hotel Show series, episode #3, and we are getting closer and closer to September down where we are gonna have the largest collection of independent hoteliers and network. We are so excited to hopefully see you down in Miami Beach, September 17th and 18th. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit more, but I’m gonna bring in my guest right now, managing director Black Desert Resort and Red Mountain Resort, Nicholas Gold. Nicholas, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot.

Nicholas Gold:

Ryan. My absolute pleasure. Cheers.

Ryan Embree:

Well, we’re gonna have a fun time on this episode talking about your beautiful resort in Utah. I’m so excited. But before we get into that, before we start talking about the Independent Hotel show, which we’re both here for, let’s talk about your hospitality journey and the story that led you to a Black Desert Resort.

Nicholas Gold:

Yeah, sure. You know, it’s, I started when I was too young to know any better in the hospitality business. I at a fairly young age, I was working in a restaurant in London. I was the guy, you know, I’m relatively old, so we did a lot of tableside cooking back then, and I was the gang who worked the Gary Don, and that really spoke to me because it led me to, it fed my love of storytelling, which I’ve just been able to expand upon as I’ve grown in the industry, and that that juxtaposition between service and storytelling really is what the Independent Luxury Hotel is all about.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah, it absolutely is. Nicholas completely agree with you. Every amazing independent hotel has a story. You know, sometimes, sometimes it’s challenging in the, in independent hotel space. Give our listeners a little bit, you, you say you love storytelling. Give our, our listeners a little bit of story about the property that you have the privilege of, of managing over there at the massive Black Desert Resort.

Nicholas Gold:

Yeah. So we are in about 600 acres just by snow Canyon State Park, and we do a really good job of blending luxury hospitality with golf, wellness, dining, a huge residential living component. We’re building right now, we’re about to break ground on a 24-court world championship pickleball complex, which is certainly the wave of the future. And we just finished working on the designs for a four and a half acre waterpark, which is not gonna be open to the public, only open to our members and hotel guests.

Ryan Embree:

Absolutely incredible. And I think, it’s funny, we’re talking about storytelling here in, in independent hotels because you, you’re able to write your own story sometimes and be able to adjust and adapt to trends that you see out there. I see you mentioned wellness, a huge trend in hospitality right now, being able to do some unique things in that space. Pickleball, even on the amenity side, being able to do that and who doesn’t love, I’ve got a couple young ones, who doesn’t love a nice little waterpark to relax at as well.

Nicholas Gold:

I would also be remiss in missing the fact that I think we’re one of the only courses in the country to host both an LPGA tour and a PGA tour.

Ryan Embree:

Incredible.

Nicholas Gold:

It is pretty good.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. Listen, when those young ones are at the waterpark, you know where I’ll be, I’ll be on the links with my buddies. It seems like that you got every something for everything over there at the Black Desert Resort. Its a massive property. It’s picturesque. If you’re watching us on YouTube, you can see Nicholas’s background right now. But it, if you’re not, and you’re listening to us on one of our platforms, I encourage you, this is a background that you do not wanna miss. For those who aren’t familiar with that area, Nicholas, that you’re in, paint really a picture for us of where you’re located.

Nicholas Gold:

Well, as I mentioned, we’re just outside Snow Canyon State Park, which is just north of St. George, Utah, about 25 minutes from Zion National Park. But we’re right underneath the Red Rocks of Snow Canyon. Yeah, I spent seven years in Hawaii and I spent a few years in Sedona. And when I got here, when I landed in Ivans, which is where the resort is, my first thought was, this is where Kona and Sedona met and had a baby.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. And it, it certainly looks like it, it’s absolutely picturesque. Like I mentioned, encourage you to go check it out, we have had the privilege of talking to several independent hotels with Black Desert Resort, certainly being the largest one. And I think, you know, when people think about independent hotels, sometimes they think about this kind of small little mom and pop hotel. Certainly not the case for you, but I wonder with being such a large resort, how has being an independent brand benefited the property and given it the freedom to offer it some of its unique offerings to its guests?

Nicholas Gold:

I’ve worked for some smaller corporations, and I’ve worked for a lot of independent hotels. And for me, I found certainly for here, for Black Desert, being independent, you know, I’m not beholden to any legacy of any brand. So we can really speak of who we are, who Southern Utah is, and you know it’s rare, it’s rare in your career to be part of something like this that’s going to help redefine a complete region and do it with a purpose. And I think we would struggle tremendously to do that with a flag and to be part of a brand being independent gives us the flexibility and the ability to pivot if we needed to on a much faster basis than it would be if we were part of a larger organization.

Ryan Embree:

Its a common theme we’ve been hearing in this series, Nicholas. And I think you’re right. The community is almost able to embrace and support you differently than it would a major brand because it feels more connected to your property. And I think a lot of independents do a great job of embracing that community feel and make it, you it’s not just a flag that you can find in this city and in the city, 30 miles, 50 miles down the road. This is a unique story. You talked about storytelling and one of the places where independence certainly shine, I think, in an opportunity to, is their F&B experiences. Talk to us a little bit about Black Desert, how you’ve embraced the F&B experience and how that plays a role in the guest experience there.

Nicholas Gold:

Ryan, you’re right. I mean, food is a, food is basically an emotional connector, right? And it plays a huge role for us. My signature restaurant, the Salt is ostensibly a steakhouse, but it uses a lot of seasonal ingredients. It uses a lot of local ingredients. All our beef all comes from Utah. Most of it is grass fed. We try and use as much local product produce, as well as protein as entirely possible. 20th Hole, which is our, let’s call it sports bar for a better, better use of the phrase. We have some things that our members and our homeowners will find comforting as well as something to explore for those visiting. So what we try and do is balance what is familiar with what is interesting whilst using as much local product as possible.

Ryan Embree:

I love that. And that’s part of the story too, is local sourcing you, we got on the wellness trend, but also sustainability and local sourcing. Such a huge hospitality trend right now that I feel independents have the freedom to maybe dabble in a little bit more than maybe your brand standards, of a flag, a property under a flag would be able to, so cool that you’ve implemented that into the F&B experience over there. We were talking off camera about how the pictures, the background that your property sits on your resort sits on, Nicholas, it kind of speaks for itself and it’s, I’m sure social media, you’ve got a huge social following tens of thousands of followers, fans online. How has that like user generated content and digital marketing impacted the property success and really helped tell that story that we’re talking about here?

Nicholas Gold:

It’s absolutely amazing. And talk about how powerful storytelling is. Yeah, we’ve, we’ve only been open for a few months and yet a lot of our followers and content creators are rabid. I mean, it’s just such an easy, easy thing to shoot and shoot well, that it’s so picturesque, it’s amazing. Our guests do an incredible job of capturing and sharing the absolute awe of the plate. From the sunrise yoga shots to drone footage of the lava fields. This authenticity has been our best marketing tool. So instead of us telling the story, our guests are replacing us and telling the story themselves. And that resonates so strongly. It’s incredible. It’s, been our best marketing tool. It really has.

Ryan Embree:

It’s so cool to hear and it’s so cool when that happens, because it’s not something that you can force Nicholas, a lot of the time. It has to kind of grow organically. That’s how the best social media stories are kind of told is organically, authentically, that picture used to be, let’s go ahe