guest editor

thoughtful advice from one DOSM to another.

Rita Patel
Rita Patel

Owner, Hotel Trundle

Want to improve the guest experience? Go to work every day.

I believe that being present on property every day is our competitive advantage in the marketplace. Otherwise, we risk missing those small but sometimes significant opportunities to make a lasting impact.

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Todd Ryan
Todd Ryan

Vice President of Sales & Marketing,
Wright Investments

Think your hotel doesn’t have a story? Create one.

I hear it all the time from hoteliers, “My hotel doesn’t have a story.” But I think every hotel has the potential to tell a narrative that resonates with guests.

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Vivian Feinstein-Gough
Vivian Feinstein-Gough

VP of Sales and Marketing,
Grand Caribe Property Management

Make people love your
hotel so much they want to live there.

That’s not just a marketing mantra. Making people love our properties so much they want to live there also happens to be our job.

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David Chu
David Chu

President & Chief Business Officer, GAM Hospitality LLC

Tired of talking about direct bookings? Me too.

We’ve been talking about  “shifting share” away from the OTAs for something like 15 years now. It’s more than a little disheartening to think that we’ll still be talking about this for another 15 years. 

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Sam Barnes
Sam Barnes

Director of Sales & Marketing, Mountain Lodge Telluride

Play to your strengths. Reposition your weaknesses.

As hotel marketers, we’re trained to play to our strengths. It’s in the strengths of our product that we find those key differentiators that separate us from our compset. But what about our weaknesses?

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Steve Migliara
Steve Migliara

Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Operations, CoralTree Hospitality

Invest in transparency and collaboration with hotel owners.

Nothing presented in a report or heard from someone else should ever come as a surprise to an owner, whether it’s something good or bad.

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Jacqui McDermott
Jacqui McDermott

Sales & Marketing Manager,
Ocean Hotels Group Barbados

Loyal guests are
a force multiplier.

In our industry, we place a lot of focus on attracting new guests. So much so that it can defocus us from fostering loyalty among past guests. But a repeat customer is incredibly valuable to your bottom line.

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Bob Thiraphoj

Senior Director of ECommerce & Business Travel Sales, Atrium Hospitality

I’m a Revenue Manager. Not a Digital Marketer. Or so I thought.

Digital marketing is a world where numbers meet creativity, and it's here that this life-long revenue manager found a new home.

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Sam Trotter
Sam Trotter

Head of Digital Marketing,
The Indigo Road Hospitality Group

It’s not a dining outlet. It’s an experience.

It's easy to get caught up in the big picture, especially when dealing with multiple businesses in the same building. The temptation to cut costs and cross-utilize staff and marketing efforts is hard to resist.

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Chris Newton
Chris Newton

Head of Marketing, JC Resorts

Everyone is planning their next trip, even if they don’t know it.

The customer is always somewhere in the consumer journey. That’s a concept we’ve embraced at JC Resorts. Some people look at the consumer journey as linear. We see it as spherical. 

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headshot image of Gina Genna, Director of Marketing at InterContinental Miami Hotel
Gina Genna

Director of Marketing, InterContinental Miami Hotel

Just give customers what they’re looking for.

A digital marketer’s job is to think like the customer. What do they want? How do they shop? What would I want if I were them? And then from there, we build digital experiences that speak directly to them.

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Michael Cady
Michael Cady

CMO, Charlestowne Hotels

There’s a difference between creating a brand and executing one.

Branding is an essential part of a hotel’s success. It’s so much more than a name, a logo, and a font. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to curate a "brand experience".

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Peter Ricci
Peter Ricci

Director, Hospitality and Tourism Management Program, FAU

We need to inspire the next generation of hoteliers.

Who better to lead the industry forward than the generation who values experience over everything else? But, as an industry, we’ve got to make hospitality appealing to this next generation of professionals. We've got to do a better job of educating the full range of opportunities we have to offer.

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Abraham Issa Headshot
Abraham Issa

President of Sales and Marketing, Couples Resorts

Focus on technology that connects you directly to your target audience.

With new technology, new marketing tools, and new social platforms, we have to be diligent in investing in strategies that align with our target audience.

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michelle klein
Michelle Klein

Corporate Director of Marketing & E-Commerce, Schulte Boutique & Lifestyle

As independent hoteliers, independence is our superpower.

As independent hoteliers, our independence is our competitive advantage. Independence grants us freedom from rigid rules and protocols, which means we can be more creative and flexible with our websites and marketing tactics.

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Bree Brostko, CMO, retro Hospitality
Bree Brostko

Chief Marketing Officer, Retro Hospitality

Create an environment where the best ideas win.

At Retro Hospitality, we specialize in independent hotels. Many of our hotels are in historic buildings or are adaptive reuse, and it is our goal to breathe new and exciting life into them. Our approach, and I believe our success, is based on what I call “passionate collaboration” with stakeholders in our local communities.

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jason abdullah
Jason Abdullah

Corporate Director of Digital Marketing, Pacific Hospitality Group

When you know who you are, you find out who your customers are.

You can have a lot of grand initiatives, but if you don't understand how customers are experiencing the property, who they are and how they are shopping, what goes into their decisions, you’ve lost sight of your job as a marketer. 

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lori kiel headshot   2022
Lori Kiel

Chief Commercial Officer, The Kessler Collection

Find the Right Partners And Get a Great Traffic Controller

When I took over marketing at Kessler, I decided I would contract out most of our marketing, leaving my in-house team to determine the overall strategy, as well as manage and coordinate our partner’s efforts.

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mike_wylie
Mike Wylie

Former SVP, Ecommerce, Aimbridge Hospitality

Stop competing for talent. Create your own farm team.

As hospitality leaders, we are competing against other management companies, brands, and digital agencies for the same dwindling talent pool. And that’s just in the hospitality space. We’re also competing with other, sometimes sexier, industries that can be more aggressive with their compensation packages.

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fmanan1
Franny Manan

Director of Digital Marketing, The Palms Hotel & Spa

How do some marketers get everything they want?

As an independent hotel, we’ve got a great advantage in the marketplace. We’re nimble. We can change directions at a moment’s notice and pivot when we need to pivot—unlike, say, a big brand.

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Chris Breisacher

Founder, CGB Advisory Group

Know where your customers are. Then meet them there.

As a hotel marketer, I can’t create demand. I can’t get people to stay at my hotel if they don’t want to visit our city. That was true before the pandemic. And it’s still true after. The good news is that creating demand is not my job.

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Guest Editor Jim
Jim Monastra

Director of Marketing, Trump International Beach Resort Miami

You’ve got to deal in realities. The market is the market.

As hotel marketers, we have to deal with the realities of the market. I’ll be the first to admit, being a Trump branded hotel in the middle of extreme political polarization and the covid pandemic has not been easy. There’s no need to hide from it or sugar coat it.

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guest editor leon
Leon Bolivar

Marketing Director, Ocean Edge Resort & Golf Club

We transformed a two-season hotel into a four-season destination.

There’s no getting around it—Cape Cod is a tough sell in the winter. But, the pandemic forced us to get creative. Really creative.

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2022 0406_whitelodging_5153 hires
Carolyn Hosna

VP of Marketing, White Lodging

Hospitality needs a new kind of marketer.

As marketers, we live inside digital platforms. If you're not deeply in tune with digital trends and the technology, you can't build a meaningful marketing strategy.

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Profile - Derek Brewster
Derek Brewster

Director of Revenue Management, The Lotte New York Palace

We blew up the silos and never looked back.

Those infamous silos. We always hear about them. And we always hear about breaking them down. What needs to happen is a change in culture and that doesn’t need to be scary or painful for the organization. 

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lynnmucciano
Lynn Mucciano

VP of Sales and Marketing, Humanist Hospitality

Experience is the new commodity.

Whatever feelings you might have about Instagram, the smartphone explosion, or your friends that take pictures of everything, one thing is clear: people crave experiences.

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