diff --git a/src/redfish/rest/connections.py b/src/redfish/rest/connections.py
index a48bcb2..e806eb3 100644
--- a/src/redfish/rest/connections.py
+++ b/src/redfish/rest/connections.py
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ def rest_request(self, path, method='GET', args=None, body=None, headers=None):
         files = None
         request_args = {}
         if isinstance(path, bytes):
-            path = str(path, "utf-8")
+            path = str(path).encode("utf-8")
             external_uri = True if 'redfish.dmtf.org' in path else False
         else:
             external_uri = True if 'redfish.dmtf.org' in path else False