{"id":100600,"date":"2026-01-30T11:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T11:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/100600\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T11:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T11:18:08","slug":"hotel-bethlehem-named-kelly-ronalds-the-general-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/100600\/","title":{"rendered":"Hotel Bethlehem named Kelly Ronalds the general manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Hotel Bethlehem expanded and won several accolades, including annually being chosen as the best historic hotel in the country<\/a>, Kelly Ronalds has played a major part behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

After serving in management roles since 2010, Ronalds will take over as general manager of the iconic hotel on Main Street in downtown Bethlehem, effective Sunday. Managing Partner Bruce Haines said Ronalds deserved the step up in leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cKelly has earned this promotion through years of hard work and creative vision,\u201d Haines said. \u201cI\u2019m confident she will lead our hotel reputation to even greater success than she already has.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronalds has most recently been the hotel\u2019s director of room sales and guest experience. Her promotion will be formally announced Friday.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m over the moon excited. It\u2019s a big responsibility \u2014 it\u2019s about shepherding a legacy,\u201d Ronalds said in an interview Wednesday. \u201cThose of us who have been at the hotel for a long time certainly understand the importance of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true around the holiday season as Hotel Bethlehem serves as anchor of Christmas City USA\u2019s shopping district. During the year, the hotel hosts numerous banquets, corporate meetings, locals looking for a night out and travelers visiting the Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n

Ronalds said the hotel just came off its best Christmas season ever with \u201crecord-high\u201d occupancy and strong performance across its restaurants, ice cream shop and banquet facilities. It was like watching a well-oiled machine and she credited the 200 employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the best Christmas in history,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was great to watch it fire on all pistons\u2026 we\u2019re very fortunate because you don\u2019t get to be the No. 1 best historic hotel in the country because you don\u2019t have the best team. It\u2019s really about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haines said he expects Ronalds to keep Hotel Bethlehem as the Best Historic Hotel\/Resort in America by USA Today, a distinction it has won five years in a row. As new general manager, Ronalds plans to focus on promoting the hotel as a national and international destination. It\u2019s a role Haines says she\u2019s ready to handle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer destination marketing savvy is unmatched,\u201d Haines said. \u201cKelly\u2019s leadership has been instrumental in the hotel\u2019s five consecutive USA Today No. 1 Best Hotel\/Resort wins and in Bethlehem\u2019s No. 1 Best Main Street victory<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kelly<\/p>\n

Kelly Ronalds stands in Hotel Bethlehem on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Bethlehem. Ronalds is being promoted to general manager of the hotel. (April Gamiz\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n

\"Kelly<\/p>\n

Kelly Ronalds stands in Hotel Bethlehem on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Bethlehem. Ronalds is being promoted to general manager of the hotel. (April Gamiz\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n

\"Kelly<\/p>\n

Kelly Ronalds stands in Hotel Bethlehem on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Bethlehem. Ronalds is being promoted to general manager of the hotel. (April Gamiz\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n

\"Kelly<\/p>\n

Kelly Ronalds stands in Hotel Bethlehem on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Bethlehem. Ronalds is being promoted to general manager of the hotel. (April Gamiz\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n

\"Kelly<\/p>\n

Kelly Ronalds stands in Hotel Bethlehem on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Bethlehem. Ronalds is being promoted to general manager of the hotel. (April Gamiz\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 5<\/p>\n

Kelly Ronalds stands in Hotel Bethlehem on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Bethlehem. Ronalds is being promoted to general manager of the hotel. (April Gamiz\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

Ronalds said one thing she loves about her job is that she never gets bored.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always new initiatives to keep you engaged and interested,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The general manager position had been vacant since Dennis Costello retired in 2021 after holding it for 15 years. Haines led day-to-day operations for the past five years to rebuild the business and management team after the COVID pandemic, which devastated the hospitality industry.<\/p>\n

Under Haines, Hotel Bethlehem introduced the Extended Stay Suites & Spa<\/a> across Main Street and rebranded the property as a nationally recognized luxury historic destination hotel. Haines will remain general partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really thought of [becoming general manager],\u201d Ronalds said, \u201cespecially after Dennis retired and Bruce decided to not replace that position. I was fine. I was happy. I loved coming to work every day. It\u2019s not ever been a place where you get up in the morning and go, \u2018oh, geez. I have to go there today.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Decades in the Valley<\/p>\n

Ronalds will be the first woman to take the helm as general manager in 40 years. The only other female GM was Elizabeth Emslander, who was appointed in 1981 by Bethlehem Steel, which owned the hotel at the time.<\/p>\n

However, running a hotel wasn\u2019t Ronalds\u2019 first career choice. She graduated from college with an education degree. She moved to Bethlehem when she got married in 1992 and, with the exception of a short stay in Connecticut, has been living in the Lehigh Valley for 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy children have grown up in the Lehigh Valley, and now my grandchildren are growing up in Lehigh Valley, which is, I think, a great place to have your family,\u201d Ronalds said.<\/p>\n

She worked as director of sales and marketing at the former Allentown Hilton on Hamilton Street and later as director of sales for Discover Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n

During her time at the visitors bureau, Ronalds got her first in-depth look at Hotel Bethlehem, shortly after it was bought and reopened in late 1998 by a business group led by Haines. The hotel was closed and boarded up and was supposed to become senior citizens apartments or college dorms.<\/p>\n

The director of sales at the time, Susan Drexinger, gave Ronalds a history lesson about the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, gosh, how cool is it to have a job where there\u2019s stories to tell?\u201d Ronalds said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just \u2018here\u2019s the room, here\u2019s the restaurant.\u2019 There\u2019s history and stories to it. I thought, \u2018Hotel Bethlehem would be a place I would love to work someday.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

In 2010, Ronalds joined Hotel Bethlehem team as director of sales. She was promoted to director of room sales and guest experience in 2021. That role included overseeing the front desk, bell staff and housekeeping. In 2022, marketing and public relations came under her purview.<\/p>\n

She said the general manager position wasn\u2019t on her radar until Haines approached her about it, though it was a competitive process.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day, he took me aside and said, you know, I think it\u2019s time that we replaced the GM position, and I would like you to consider doing it,\u201d Ronalds said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t take much consideration. [Haines] has faith in you. And the ownership group has faith in you. You have all the tools you need to get your job done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hotel\u2019s long history<\/p>\n

The hotel, a member of the prestigious Historic Hotels of America, part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, opened in May 1922 as a 200-room community hotel.<\/p>\n

It was built on roughly the same spot as the First House, which the Moravians built when they settled the land in 1741. The site also was the location of the Golden Eagle hotel for about 100 years.<\/p>\n

Over the past century, presidents Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with other prominent figures such as Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali and Ray Charles, have visited.<\/p>\n

Today, the 125-room hotel is a lodging and entertainment facility, with nine extended-stay suites, two ballrooms, two restaurants, seven meeting rooms, a spa and a gift shop showcasing women\u2019s clothing and accessories.<\/p>\n

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Hotel Bethlehem expanded and won several accolades, including annually being chosen as the best historic hotel in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,60,182,139,434,28,432],"class_list":["post-100600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-business","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-northampton-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}