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.