SHR Soundbites

Natasha Nagar, Head of Employer Brand & Talent, with Kew Green Hotels, joins Jason Emanis, from Midlands, England. Natasha talks about the efforts that Kews undertakes to identify great talent and the brand pillars that make them so attractive to the best revenue talent in their markets. One of Kews brand pillars is they set out to train their staff—everyday. So, they train their GMs, Revenue Managers, and Sales Managers to build networks and know who are the great people working for their competitors and who they would want to recruit in the future and nurture that talent in advance of need.

Michael Grove, COO, for HotStats, joins Jason Emanis, from Cardiff, Wales. Michael talks about the changes to how hotels are run, the change in business models, even the fundamentals of revenue management, and the one key point when looking at a hotel's new normal—the massive change to cost base of hotels, many having taken everything out and only putting back what is needed. Michael goes on to explain how HotStats is a team of specialists in profit and loss benchmarking, looking at the whole hotel, capturing the full P&L on a monthly basis from hotels around thew world. Their big differentiator is they specialize in this data, it's all they do.

Jenifer Morgan, Revenue Manager, Leisure Hotels & Resorts, joins Jason Emanis, from Park City, Utah, where she's opening a new hotel, Black Rock Mountain Resort. With front-of-the-house staff shortages, Revenue leaders like Jenifer are having to juggle the business by adjusting length-of-stay restrictions and shutting down room blocks. And while some areas of the country are doing well others are being impacted by the COVID variant, including her two properties in Missouri. Meeting weekly with Marketing and Operations teams to discuss promotions, guest reactions to rates, productive social campaigns and develop short-term strategies, Jenifer and her cohorts developed a plan to market to different segments for their Nevada property, a corporate business hotel, and have have doubled their transient, leisure bookings. She's tackling pricing by referring to her Comp set from STAR but also reviewing similar amenities and ratings and frequently taking a look back to see how well they've done.

Kurt Weinsheimer, Chief Solutions Officer for Sojern, joins Jason Emanis, from San Francisco, California. While Google has pushed back the demise of 3rd-party cookies, Kurt talks about the inevitable and making way for better, permission-based marketing from hotels. What to do now? 1. Collect customer emails - put incentives on your website and incentivize your front desk staff 2. Activate historical booking data - go after OTA bookers and drive them direct 3. Venture into metasearch 4. Contextual targeting on social channels

Lori McNaught, Director of Revenue Management for Olympia Companies joins Jason Emanis, from Portland, Maine. Lori talks about how revenue managers moved from gatekeepers of revenue to generators of revenue during the pandemic, and in some markets, back to gatekeepers. Working closely with Sales it was all about, ‘Who is still traveling?' ‘ Then there was that period of working with absolutely no data. No history, no future. In some markets, working with little to no data, remains. Her pricing focus is on length of stay, mostly to do with the staff shortages everyone is experiencing. And she's packaging versus discounting, upselling for suites. Finally, her forecasting is all about short-term, continuing with the 21-day forecast she started.

Yunna Takeuchi, CMO & Co-Founder of City Unscripted, joins Jason Emanis, from London, England. Your guests want an experience beyond your hotel doors, to explore the city beyond the same old, same old. Yunna talks about how she works with hotels to help them drive ancillary revenue by adding value to the guest experience with non-traditional city tours, from passionate locals, who are not professionals but part-time guides. Whether your guest wants a food experience, see the main attractions with a few gems or go completely off the beaten path, City Unscripted can accommodate.

Sebastian Schopp, Head of Business Development, Travel, at Google, joins Jason Emanis, from Zurich, Switzerland. SHR's Windsurfer Booking Engine will soon support Google's free booking links and Sebastian breaks down, for hoteliers, what it is exactly, how adoption from hotels is going, is it really free?, where the links appear, and more!

Bianca Porto Barga, Director of Sales North America, from Asksuite, joins me from Los Angeles, California. Bianca breaks down the key features and benefits of a chatbot uniquely developed for hotels from freeing staff from the mundane calls to 24/7 multilingual, automated responses, to improving bookings. More episodes at https//shr.global/soundbites.

Michaela Papenhoff, Managing Director, for h2c, joins Jason Emanis, from her home in Ratingen, Germany. Michaela talks about h2c's most recent survey findings on hotel booking engines (IBEs), including conversion rates; however, much of her data revolved around hotelier pain points with their existing IBEs, whether they be semi-customizable or fully custom IBEs.

Mukund Mohan, Go To Market Management, for Infor, joins Jason Emanis, from his home in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mukund talks about the acceleration of hotels embracing technology that was available pre-pandemic, i.e., contactless check-in/checkout and ordering meals on mobile phones. While a bit of a novelty at first, suddenly, amidst the crisis, became a necessity. This tech is now expected by the guest. He goes on to explain what hotels are expecting from their PMS moving forward—think nimble, secure and, of course, in the cloud.

Nadine Böttcher, Head of Product Innovation, with OTA Insight, joins Jason Emanis, from Sweden. Nadine talks about the data revenue managers should be looking at—upper funnel, that is, when guest are starting to look for a destination and compare rates. This data is helping revenue managers track recovery and better understand who their guests are. She references the current dynamic in Europe with the opening of borders, where hotels are booking new guests simply because their destination is open for travel. Then there's domestic, international, business leisure. All types of guests now have a digital footprint hoteliers can learn from. More episodes at https://shr.global/soundbites.

Scott Neslage, Director of Revenue Management, for The Indigo Road Hospitality Group, joins Jason Emanis, from his soon-to-open, mountain lodge, the Skyline Lodge, in Highlands, North Carolina. Scott talks about his start in hospitality at Starbucks, his move into revenue management of restaurants, and now, hotels. Scott goes on to explain how the hotels that are investing in new technology within the context of Total Revenue Management, are more apt to succeed. More episodes at https://shr.global/soundbites.

Nicole Adair, Product Manager and Director of Revenue Management for Hire, with SHR, joins Jason Emanis, from her office in Dallas, Texas. She talks about how it's more important than ever for a hotel to be segmenting their booking business... -the huge shift from OTA to direct caused by the 'billboard effect' amid the pandemic, -the need to focus on using segmentation data to inform their strategy, i.e., -booking window, -when the guest is booking, -where the booking is coming from, -cancellation rate by channel, -cost of channel that might lead to shift or restrict certain channels, etc.

Thibault Catala, Founder & Managing Director, Catala Consulting, joins Jason Emanis, from his home in London, England. Thibault is a revenue management consultant with clients in Europe and the U.S. He talks about shifting from revenue manager to profitability manager, how creative hotels are while in survival mode, how 'old thinking' is slowing some hotels' recovery, the embracing of Total Revenue Management, and when a hotel should look at using a revenue management system.

Jeff Kulek, Area VP and GM, for The London West Hollywood at Beverly Hills, joins me from California. Jeff talks about his 226-room, all-suite hotel in one the US's site seeing meccas, their room package offerings, including longer-stay packages, and more.

Dermot Herlihy, Commercial Director at Corinthia Palace Malta, joins Jason Emanis, from his office in Attard, Malta. Dermot talks about how his role has changed, his focus on auxiliary revenue, how their using technology, even LinkedIn, a change in amenities given the effects of the pandemic, and and their move back into leisure from their recent focus on corporate.

Linda Gulrajani, Vice President of Revenue Strategy and Distribution with Marcus Hotels & Resorts, joins Jason Emanis, from her office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Linda talks about her closures and re-opens, how she dealt with no revenue to manage during the pandemic, how she worked to keep her core revenue team in place, how departmental collaboration increased, how pricing her resort saw an increase while other markets in heavily restricted cities/states had to be more aggressive. With no more weekday business traveler, and more people in the rooms during the week, her hotel had to adjust. While forecasting her hotels is a guess, she focuses on the next 30-60 days. She diligently looks at the last couple of weeks' pickup as well, how it's growing week over week, and watching group business pick up.

Gissell Moranta, Vice President of Sales & Marketing with Atrium Hospitality, joins Jason Emanis, from her home office in Dallas, Texas. Gissell brings a positive attitude to hospitality's rough going over the past year, adjusting to wearing many hats, marketing her meeting-space heavy hotels, becoming more effective with the beginnings of group and catering leads, and more.

James Barton, Global Head of Business Transformation, with Merlin Entertainment/LEGOLAND Resorts, joins Jason, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. James talks about the 9 LEGOLAND parks, the ones in development (Korea, China, New York), his journey since the first LEGOLAND opening, what his role entails (keeping finger on the pulse, new tech to help drive more revenue and add value to customers), the technology aiding amid the pandemic, like voice AI—everything is about driving contactless engagement.

Jerod Jackson, Vice President of Revenue Management, with ZMC Hotels, joins Jason from Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Jerod talks about the growth period for hoteliers amid the pandemic, how ZMC immediately started making changes, everyone put on 12 more hats, doing a little more, with a little less, working smarter and more efficiently, moving away from brand-supported revenue services opting for in-house, looking at automating their reporting processes, and knocking on 2019's doorstep with regards to occupancy, rates, revenue, etc.

Marcela Ceccacci Brown, Director of Sales, for Virgin Hotels, in Dallas, Texas, joins Jason on this episode of Soundbites. Marcela talks about the healthy uptick in not only social leads, but corporate as well, Virgin's sales org chart, their 'all hands on deck' mentality, and what photo shoots with local talent is doing for their social media presence.

Raul Moronta, Chief Commercial Officer, Remington Hotels, joins Jason from one of their properties in Santa Fe, New Mexico to talk about his new role. Raul talks about Remington's decision to create the CCO role, his background that led up to securing a the position, the necessary skill sets for the role, understanding customer behavior, the importance of understanding operations, and more.

Patty de Gruiter, Vice President of Revenue and Sales, for Sircle Collection, joins Jason from her office in Amsterdam, Netherlands, to talk about alternative revenue streams. Patty talks about the enjoyment and frustrations of managing revenue amid the pandemic, the adjustments she's had to make—running lean, minimizing risks, and then there's the creative campaigns: win a year-long stay, popup stores, music festivals, housing, and more.

Josh Spurlock, Client Success Manager, SHR, joins Jason for a quick chat on being hired in early 2020, only to be let go once the pandemic started taking its toll on hospitality, to then getting the call in early 2021, to come back.

Maria Corpas, hospitality and travel tech Copywriter, joins Jason from her office in Germany. Maria talks about messaging that turns lookers into bookers amid the pandemic: protocols in place, amenities, and nearby attractions, the mistakes she sees hotels are making, and how your love for your hotel gets in the way of good copywriting. She also suggests, oddly for a copywriter, that hotels compliment their written messages with video messages.

Sharon Vaughn, Associate Director of Sales, Hotel Effie Sandestin, joins Jason from her office in Miramar Beach, Florida. Sharon talks about being furloughed by Marriott, Effie's recent opening, a busy spring break (G-rated), lead volume increasing with groups, adjusting to the new normal, and more.

Garine Ferejian-Mayo, Chief Commercial Officer at Sonesta Hotels, joins me from her office in New York City. Garine talks about her background in Operations, Sales, Digital Marketing, and Revenue Management, Sonesta's rapid growth from 53 to 278 hotels, and how they came to the decision to create the CCO position.

Martin Reichenbach, Founder, apaleo, joins Jason from his office in Munich, Germany. Martin talks about the company's recent Series A Funding, what makes apaleo different, the 'closedness' amongst the PMS's, and what the 2nd half of 2021 looks like.

Nicolas Durand, Vice President, Revenue Strategy, S Hotels and Resorts, joins Jason from his office in Bangkok, Thailand. Nicolas talks about the lack of cases in Bangkok, but also the lack of travel, S Hotels moving from owners to a management company, with hotels in Thailand, Maldives (Hard Rock), and the U.K. He goes on about how his role has changed, doing more with less, and the putting together of their technology stack: channel manager, booking engine, BI, and optimizing all that he can, given the different markets.

Luis Weir, Director, Integrations and APIS Strategy, with Oracle Hospitality, joins Jason, from Royal Leamington Spa, England. Luis breaks down Oracle's Hospitality Integration Platform or OHIP, the streamlining and consolidating of all the interface technologies, to build integrations to Opera, simpler, quicker, cheaper.

Sean Lynch, Vice President, Revenue Management, for Graduate Hotels, joins Jason, on this episode of Soundbites, from Las Vegas, Nevada. Sean talks about his 30+ hotels across the US, located in dynamic university markets, and keeping a core revenue team focused on standardization and cancellations amid the pandemic. He explains how the revenue team restructured, collaboration increased between Sales, Revenue, Marketing, and eCommerce, and their adjusting to the triggers that help forecast.

Theodore Holloway, Vice President, Digital Marketing, with Remington Hotels, joins Jason, from Key Biscayne, Florida. Theodore talks about his 79, geographically diverse, up-scale hotels, branded and independent, taking on new hotels, hiring people back as well as brining on new-hires. He adds how his role has changed, how marketing, sales, and revenue now report to a Chief Commercial Officer, the heightened collaboration, and their efforts with the OTAs.

David-Friedemann Henning, CEO & Co-Founder, of Big Mama Hotels, joins Jason, from his office in Leipzig, Germany. David explains the ‘all-welcome’ experience that turn first-timers into repeat guests, talks about the adjustments needed for his city-center hotels (Berlin, Leipzig), using their CRM to keep guests informed, and a couple of sellouts in Nov-Dec. Though Germany continues to be in lockdown, he sees a light at the end of the tunnel, and is staying positive. Finally, he lets us in on how the name, Big Mama Hotels, came to be.

Ryan MacDonald, VP of Revenue & E-Commerce, with Palm Holdings, joins Jason from his home in Toronto, Canada. Ryan says GMs are the unsung heroes, from folding laundry, making breakfast bags, checking people in, everything within Operations. And, being prepared for travel's full comeback could prove tricky. Staff that stayed-on throughout the pandemic have not been busy and are out of practice, and trying to find staff that are willing to come back could be tough as well. Ryan will rely on their internal belief that 'everybody is responsible for revenue management at Palm,' and not hire right away, once demand reaches healthy levels, but stresses there's going to be a learning curve for frontline employees out of practice.

Amy Draheim, Owner, ABD Creative, joins Jason from her office in Bend, Oregon. Amy talks about her hotel clients shutting down at the onset of the pandemic, her conviction that hotels should not stop communicating with the market, despite the lack of travel, the origins of her How To Share podcast, and breaks down where hotels should be communicating their story, and the importance of video and user generated content.

Rika Robertson, Hotel Manager, with Citrus Hotel, joins Jason from her hotel in Eastbourn, England, home of the white cliffs and possibly, the stairway to heaven. Rika's been 'working her socks off' with staff being furloughed and their ability to stay open, hosting key workers. She talks about the changes that have had to take place, her opportunity to 'take stock,' and their marketing and sales efforts. She also wrote a book a while back that is so applicable to our current times, 'Life Happened.'

Jonathan Liu, Director of Revenue and Marketing Strategy with glh Hotels, joining Jason from London, England. Jonathan talks about glh's diverse 18 hotels, including the Hard Rock London, how and why revenue and marketing are falling under his purview, moving his website to a new CMS platform to have more dynamic activity, configuring a new CRM, and looking at revenue management systems, trying to bring everything they're doing from marketing perspective and relate it back to their revenue systems how they price and yield, trying to make a seamless eco-system of everything coming together.

Florencia Benaim, Founder, MOI consultancy, located in Argentina, joins Jason on this episode of Soundbites. Florencia talks about Argentina's struggles, her 3x rescheduled wedding, her boutique, revenue management consulting firm, the lack of RMS's in Latin America, how her clients in Mexico are doing, and how Instagram has brought lots of bookings!

Matthew Taormino, HGM, GM, Dunham's Bay Resort, from upstate New York, joins me on this episode of the Soundbites Podcast.   Matthew talks about his 20-room, 20-cabin, family resort on Lake George, parenting staff through the pandemic, the stall of their critical wedding business, but enjoying 75%-80% occupancy throughout June, July, August, and September.   Matthew also talks about their in-house management of social media and their successful campaign, '100 Days of Summer.'

Texas drops virus restrictions yesterday! So, let's talk to a Business Travel Manager in San Antonio. Jasmin Gutierrez, with the Valencia Hotel Group, joins me on the latest episode of the Soundbites Podcast. Jasmine talks about how they are handling Texas' move away from restrictions, and even though their business travel didn't complete dry up, her role now includes weddings and events. Old hat for Jasmine, back in the day, she worked her way up in hospitality, first as a hostess, then a restaurant manager, and catered for 8 years.

Heather Fricke, Marketing Director, at The Grand Tuscany, joins me from Houston, Texas, on the latest episode of the Soundbites Podcast. Heather talks about her hotel, explains it as, 'Vegas meets Miami,' finding your niche amid the fallout of the pandemic, juggling multiple gigs, à la VP of Communications with the Meeting Planners International Board, and the organization she started, 'Power of P,' Powerful Positive People Through Pain.

Sarah Dandashy, Travel Expert, with Ask A Concierge, joins me from Los Angeles. Sarah talks about her recent travels, what hotels are doing well--depending on the location and destination, how good her Mexico experience has been, and where we are headed this Spring and Summer.

Is Mohegan Sun the poster child for how to conduct meetings amid the pandemic? John Washko, VP of Expo & Convention Sales at Mohegan Sun, joins me from Boca Raton, Florida, to explain. John talks about re-opening his 5.5MM square foot facility last June, and hosting some 50 meetings since it's re-opening. He goes on to describe how their world-class indoor arena has been transformed into a international broadcast center, the 'bubble' environment they've managed to create, spending over $1MM in implementing safety protocols, and much more!

Kelly McGuire, Managing Principal at ZS, joins me from Washington, D.C.. Kelly talks about ZS and their focus on commercial and analytics, a recent article she published on what has happened to a hotel's data amid the pandemic. She walks us through categorizing our data: -leading signal -evolving signal -stable signal, -experimental signal, and fine-tuning analytical models.

Richard Valtr, Founder of Mews, the Amsterdam-based PMS, joins me from New York City. Richard talks backing off their big push to sell in the states after their series B funding in 2019, to focusing on further development of their PMS in wait of travel's rebound, their latest projects, and the two-way interface with our CRS, Windsurfer.

Dave Overeem, Corporate Revenue Manager with Inntel Hotels, joins Jason from Amsterdam. Dave talks about the lockdown in Amsterdam, building 2 new hotels, how his role has changed, and travel's near term future.

I found myself a real life Derry girl! Of course, I'm referencing the hit Netflix show by the same name, 'Derry Girls.' My latest guest, Carolynne Harrison, indeed grew up in Derry, Ireland. Now residing in Donegal, Carolynne is the GM of Shandon Hotel & Resort. Carolynne talks with me about being closed for 8 months, grateful for the time throughout the pandemic spent with her girls, learning how to cook and clean :), wanting to get back to work, the frustration her and the 160,000 out of work hospitality folks are experiencing with no clear date of when the lockdown will be lifted.

Regitse Cecillie Rosenvinge, Founder and Creative Director of Room22 Agency, joins me from Denmark. Based in Berlin, with clients throughout the Nordic countries, Cecillie talks about what some of the productive marketing she sees from hotels in this region.

Brandi Baker, former Regional Director of Sales, for HEI Hotels & Resorts, joins Jason from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brandi talks about her journey through the pandemic, educating herself, staying on top of the industry, how the sales role has changed, and what Philly will look like this summer.

Tobias Koehler, Group Director Systems & Commerce, at Ruby Hotels, joins me from Leipzig, Germany. Tobias talks about Ruby's 'lean luxury' brand, what that means for their hotel tech stack, and how the pandemic has changed his role and hotel stacks in general.

Nicoletta Pilardi, Founder of NP Collection, joins me from London, England. Nicoletta is a 3-generation hotelier from Italy and has worked in London for 20+ years. She talks with me about working with her hotel clients, what hotels are doing well and what hotels could improve upon.