Agenda

The agenda in Chicago focussed on the latest in digital marketing, revenue and e-commerce trends. Designed to be immediately actionable for hotels with inspiring keynote presentations, fireside chats and panel discussions.

Download the Key Learnings Guide from Chicago to learn more.

DAY ONE

TUESDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER

DAY TWO

WEDNESDAY 13TH SEPTEMBER


8AM

WELCOME BREAKFAST

9AM

CHAIRMANS WELCOME

Charlie Osmond headshot

Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder & Chief Tease, Triptease

9:10 AM

BUILDING A FOOLPROOF DIRECT BOOKING STRATEGY 

Join us as we (literally!) build a successful direct booking strategy live on stage. Charlie will be joined by industry experts to battle it out and convince you that their strategy is best.

Charlie Osmond headshot

Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder & Chief Tease, Triptease

Ian Sloan, VP Global Strategic Partnerships, SHR Group

9:40 AM

STUCK. HOW COMMON TRAPS PREVENT US FROM MOVING FORWARD

We all know what we need to and should be doing to improve our direct booking performance, but progress is often slow or non-existent. In this session we will look at some of the traps that we fall into that prevent us from progressing and how we can overcome them

Dan Wacksman headshot

Dan Wacksman, Co-Founder of hotelBschool.com & Founder / CEO of Sassato

10:15 AM

SEO SUCCESS IN 30 MINUTES

30 minutes

Alex Velazquez, VP Digital Marketing at Westgate Resorts, will be creating hotel content marketing against the clock using AI tools live on stage. Learn how to rank and bank your content for SEO success.

Alex Velazquez headshot

Alex Velazquez, Vice President, Digital Marketing, Westgate Resorts

10:50 AM

COFFEE BREAK

11:20 AM

HOW TO SEAMLESSLY BLEND REVENUE AND MARKETING STRATEGIES

Gary and Dustin will be sharing how revenue management and marketing teams can coordinate and strategize to drive demand and fill need periods.

Gary Glodowski headshot

Gary Glodowski, Executive Vice President, Commercial Strategy, Première Advisory Group

Dustin Caromano, Vice President, Marketing & eCommerce, Première Advisory Group

11:50 AM

FIRESIDE: LEARN FROM A SUCCESSFUL AB TEST

Four seasons have built centre of excellence around AB testing and invested a lot of resource into it with amazing results. Their whole AB testing strategy is geared to to drive direct bookings. Find out what they’ve learned so far and what you should implement at your hotel.

David Sistilli, Global Product Owner, Four Seasons

Rob Paterson, Brand Ambassador Upsell Guru

12:25 PM

KEY LEARNINGS AND SUCCESS IN HOSPITALITY RETAILING: STORIES FROM OUR SABRE SYNXIS RETAIL STUDIO EARLY ADOPTERS

What if you could easily capture more spend at the time of booking with the ability to enable guest choice and accelerate revenue? Selling more relevant ancillary products has been shown to drive higher booking conversion. For hoteliers, having a successful retailing strategy results in higher guest satisfaction, greater revenue, and strategic differentiation from competitors in an evolving industry. But what does it take to get there? How much are you willing to get out of your comfort zone? From simply selling rooms to retailing anything, we’ll share key learnings from our early adopters of SynXis Retail Studio.

Mykola Sheludko, VP of Product Management, Sabre Hospitality

12:50 PM

LUNCH BREAK

SELFBOOK - LUNCHTIME SESSION

Retail, consumer goods, airlines and OTAs are winning the e-commerce game. How can hotels catch up?

Aaron Serrato, VP of Sales, Selfbook

1:50 PM

THE BIG BUDGETING BATTLE

When it comes to creating a winning budget that works for Sales, Revenue, Marketing and Asset Management teams, what takes priority and where do you make trade offs? Join our panel host Derek Brewster, Regional Director of Revenue Management at Lotte New York Palace and Lotte Hotel Seattle, for an interactive battle that will take the stress out of budget season for all your teams.

Lori Kiel headshot
Shiela headshot

Derek Brewster, Regional Director of Revenue Management, Lotte New York Palace and Lotte Hotel Seattle will host a panel of industry experts

Lori Kiel, Chief Commercial Officer, Kessler Collection

Sheila Malekzadeh, CDM | Corporate Director Hotel Ecommerce and Marketing, at Ensemble

Tay Mauro, VP of Commercial Strategy, Legacy Vacation Resorts

Franklin Da Costa, Sales and Marketing Manager, Marenas Beach Resort Miami

2:30 PM

PECHAKUCHA PRESENTATION: GEN Z, LOVE US, HATE US, WER'E HERE TO STAY

PechaKucha is a storytelling format in which a presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds of commentary each. Join The Guestbook for rapid-fire learnings that will provide a serious afternoon energy boost

Jessie Linevsky headshot

Jessie Linevsky, Strategy & Innovation Manager, The Guestbook

2:45 PM

CASE STUDY: REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

Dive into Kasa Living’s robust process for reputation management. Understand how to monitor reviews across six different platforms, respond quickly and analyze sentiment to both improve operations and create tailored marketing collateral.

Adrienne Fors, Senior Manager, Marketing & Distribution, Kasa Living

3:10 PM

HAVE THE BEST PRICE EVERYWHERE, ALWAYS

Hotels operate in a high-velocity market, where the product, price and channel where your customers are shopping changes continuously. Take a deep dive with Triptease product experts into the impact price on performance across all the touch points on a customer’s path to booking, and find out how your hotel could increase direct revenue with the very latest in live price data technology.

Jon Hickford headshot

Jonathan Hickford, Product Manager for Guest Applications, Triptease

Andrew Williamson, Product Manager for Parity, Triptease

3:40 PM

COFFEE BREAK

4:10 PM

YOUR GUIDE TO COMMERCIAL STRATEGY

Building out a dedicated commercial team within your business won’t just help you to report and set goals in a more collaborative way. It can open up entirely new strategic approaches (and challenges!) too. Join the Marcus Corporation commercial team to understand why they exist and what they’ve learned so far.

Linda Gulrajani, Vice President of Revenue Strategy and Distribution, Marcus Hotels & Resorts

Matt Peschke Corporate Director of Marketing, Marcus Hotels & Resorts

Andrew Flack, Chief Commercial Officer, Marcus Hotels & Resorts

Linda Price-Topp, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Marcus Hotels & Resorts

4:50 PM

CONVERTING THE CLICKS: GENERATING DEMAND TO DRIVE DIRECT BOOKINGS TO YOUR WEBSITE

Tina Markowitz headshot

Tina Markowitz, VP, Global Digital Strategy, Cendyn

Julio Selva, VP - Ecommerce Partnerships, Cendyn

5:05 PM

HOW TO HAVE A ‘MILLION DOLLAR MONTH’

Join Michelle Klein, Director of Ecommerce & Digital Marketing at Schulte Hospitality, as she shares the tips and strategies that have delivered back-to-back ‘million-dollar months’ for her business.

Michelle Klein headshot

Michelle Klein, Director, Ecommerce and Digital Marketing, Schulte Hospitality

5:30 PM

THE PRAGMATISTS GUIDE TO USING AI IN HOSPITALITY

Right now AI is all anyone seems able to talk about. It promises exciting technological progress, but can also be a big waste of time if you’re not using it effectively. Luckily, Satvika is bringing an actionable plan to help you implement AI tools to save time, improve processes and increase direct bookings.

Satvika Ananthanarayan, Strategy Insights & Planning Manager, ZS consulting

6 PM

THE PARTY

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