{"id":124423,"date":"2026-02-26T20:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/124423\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T20:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:46:08","slug":"kelly-ronalds-new-general-manager-of-hotel-bethlehem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/124423\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelly Ronalds new general manager of Hotel Bethlehem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kelly Ronalds was appointed general manager of Hotel Bethlehem, becoming the first woman to lead the property in 40 years and just the second female general manager in its 100-year history. The hotel was recently designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ronalds has worked at the hotel since 2010. She most recently served as director of room sales and guest experience, overseeing the bell staff, front desk and housekeeping. She was appointed on Feb. 1 by Bruce Haines, \u201867, the managing partner of Hotel Bethlehem, who\u2019s worked closely with her for 15 years.<\/p>\n

During COVID, Haines said it was unclear whether the hotel would survive. He assumed the role of general manager for five years after previous manager Denis Costello retired.<\/p>\n

When it came time to reinstall a general manager, Haines turned to Ronalds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c(Ronalds) did exemplary work here,\u201d Haines said. \u201cShe deserved it, and she really led the national marketing campaign. She\u2019s the one that essentially got us the five-time Best Historic Hotel.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Haines said Ronalds launched the hotel\u2019s national branding initiative. Advertisements are now running across the East Coast, Texas, California and other markets with direct flights into the Lehigh Valley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since accepting the promotion, Ronalds now oversees the hotel\u2019s full operations. She said the role depends on a strong leadership team and credited the management staff and executive chef Rodney Rivera for the hotel\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

She said much of the hotel\u2019s reputation stems from the staff\u2019s congeniality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Francoise Brown, a hostess, has worked at Hotel Bethlehem for 18 years. She said she\u2019s seen significant growth during that time and described Ronalds as approachable and supportive.<\/p>\n

Brown said she feels comfortable going to Ronalds with questions and added that having a level of trust where employees can directly raise concerns with leadership is rare in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Ronald\u2019s) outgoing,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s very close to the staff and always has a great sense of humor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronalds began her career in the hotel industry as a sophomore at the University of Arkansas in the early 1980s, managing smaller properties as a general manager. She said the industry has changed significantly since then.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see anything that I saw in the past today in our industry,\u201d Ronalds said. \u201cWhen I go to conferences, at least half are women. I can remember going to a conference in the early 80s where you were lucky if you had a handful, maybe a dozen at the most.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronalds said the expansion of university hospitality programs has opened doors for women in the field. She said women once often started in entry-level roles such as washing dishes or working the front desk before moving up \u2014 a path she said she followed herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell people all the time, \u2018you don\u2019t get to be the number one hotel in the country for five years because you\u2019re perfect every day,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re human beings. We make mistakes. It\u2019s how you act upon them, how you look and see what was amiss and how you make a correction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelly Ronalds was appointed general manager of Hotel Bethlehem, becoming the first woman to lead the property in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[48710,153,155,154,1197,523],"class_list":["post-124423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-3-min-read","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-feature","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124423","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=124423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}