Stacy Seaborn

Director of Sales and Marketing Hotel Valencia Riverwalk

Hotel Valencia Riverwalk Sales and Marketing Director Stacy Seaborn’s original career goal was to become an architect. Then, at the last minute, during her senior year in high school, she decided to go to culinary school and was accepted into the program at Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island. While there, she gained experience working in the hotel industry, as the school owned two hotels and several restaurants where students were required to work as part of their practicum.

After graduation, she began her hospitality career in catering management, working for several hotels for over a decade. Seaborn was hired eight years ago by Hotel Valencia Riverwalk as Director of Catering but soon moved into her present position.

Seaborn noted several trends in the hospitality industry that have emerged post-COVID. “I think the industry is starting to change,” Seaborn said. “More hotels and their managements are becoming aware that they are running their people ragged with 14-hour days. This had to change to get people to come back to work in hospitality post-COVID. There’s more awareness of the importance of family time for their employees.”

Seaborn also noted that people are traveling differently today. “I see Gen Z leading the trend of valuing experiences over things,” she said. “They are looking at, ‘What is the experience of the travel, of the stay?’ Overall, more travel is taking place in the leisure market, with people taking more trips and emphasizing the total experience.

We are seeing our room packages with add-ons like River Barge Tours and Breakfast in Bed becoming increasingly popular.”

Another hospitality trend Seaborn has seen in 2023 is a huge uptick in group travel. Companies and organizations are holding destination meetings and conferences at nearly pre-COVID levels. “At Hotel Valencia Riverwalk, our group travel is way up,” Seaborn noted. “What’s interesting is these attendees are traveling more like our leisure guests. It’s no longer sitting in meetings for three days – people are also wrapping around personal experiences during their stay at a destination.”

Seaborn said that her passion for working in hospitality stems from her love of working with people and getting to be part of their special experiences, be it a trip, an event, or a wedding. “I also love going to a place I enjoy being at every day,” she said. “And, I like to problem solve. As an independent property, we don’t have the huge corporate name behind us, so we have to be very grassroots and intentional about resolving our issues.”