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New eCornell WebSeries Highlights Breakthrough Opportunities at the Intersection of Health, Hospitality, and Design

— Experts from Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures broaden ways to do well by doing good. —

In the United States, an aging population is living and working longer, while many adults struggle with lifestyle diseases and stress over money, safety, and an uncertain future. At Cornell University, experts at the innovative Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF) are striving to meet these challenges and uncover entrepreneurial opportunities by combining hospitality, environmental design, and health policy and management to improve service in healthcare, wellness, and senior living. Now, professionals can explore this transdisciplinary approach with eCornell’s newest WebSeries, the Innovations in Health, Hospitality, Design, and Senior Living channel.

“By the numbers, senior living, healthcare, and wellness are industries poised for growth. But those numbers are people, and good business means serving people well in all settings and throughout their life. These WebCasts explore how CIHF is collaborating across disciplines to uncover breakthrough solutions for all stakeholders,” said Rohit Verma, CIHF executive director.

Through monthly one-hour WebCasts, subscribers to the Innovations in Health, Hospitality, Design, and Senior Living channel gain insights from experts in Cornell’s School of Hospitality Management, and its College of Human Ecology and renowned Sloan Program in Health Administration. Live participants also can go deeper with Q&A sessions and audience exercises.

Future WebCasts will cover:

  • Entrepreneurship in health, hospitality, and design
  • Innovations in senior living design and care
  • Service excellence in home health care
  • Behavioral health environments
  • Wellness and medical tourism, including hotel design and operations

The Innovations in Health, Hospitality, Design, and Senior Living channel is eCornell’s newest WebSeries, a service providing professionals with on-demand insights from Cornell experts that spark interest, spur education, and advance careers.

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About eCornell

As Cornell University’s online learning unit, eCornell delivers online professional certificate courses to individuals and organizations around the world. Courses are personally developed by Cornell faculty with expertise in a wide range of topics, including data analytics, management, marketing, human resources, and leadership. Students learn in an interactive, small cohort format to gain skills they can immediately apply in their organizations, while earning a professional certificate from Cornell University. eCornell has offered online learning courses and certificate programs for 15 years to over 130,000 students at more than 2,000 companies.

About the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF)

The Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures is the first academic center in the country to combine hospitality, environmental design, and health policy and management into a broad-based platform to improve service in healthcare, wellness, and senior living. To achieve this goal, the institute develops and supports multidisciplinary educational programs, sponsors and disseminates research, and hosts conferences, roundtables, meetings, and practicum projects.

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New York City Nonprofit Partners with Cornell University to Help Close Unemployment Gap, Prepare Underserved Youth for Foodservice, Customer Service, and Hospitality Jobs

— Free program connects services, training to local economy —

The nonprofit STRIVE New York has broadened its impact on urban youth unemployment by partnering with eCornell and local city organizations to launch Serve UP Harlem, an initiative to prepare 18- to 24-year-olds for career paths in food service, customer service, and hospitality. The free two-week program combines Cornell University’s Service Excellence On-Demand online training with job readiness training, basic financial literacy, and employer connections and case management through the East Harlem Talent Network (EHTN), STRIVE’s place-based hiring initiative. Serve UP Harlem launched in January 2017 and was developed with support from the Youth Opportunity Fund, led by the Citi Foundation and America’s Promise Alliance.

“STRIVE’s success is based on the relationships we build and the partnerships we forge in support of our young people and local economy,” said Phil Weinberg, STRIVE’s President & CEO. “Partnering with Cornell University and accessing their hospitality expertise allows us to provide a level of training to our students that they would not have access to otherwise.”

Since January, many of Serve UP Harlem’s 70 graduates have entered hospitality internships or begun the job application process with support from program staff. That support is enhanced by an integrated network of STRIVE partners: the EHTN, Operation HOPE, Cornell University, Hospitality Made Great, and local businesses in Harlem and Upper Manhattan. Students also build their personal networks through small classes, working together to complete the online Service Excellence training and then behind the scenes inside restaurants, wine stores, and hotels.

For graduates, the combination of Cornell’s Service Excellence training and STRIVE’s services through Serve UP Harlem provides the connections—and confidence—they need to build a positive vision for their future in the workforce. They leave the program with an in-demand skill set that differentiates them from other applicants, helping to close the youth unemployment gap and pave their way toward success.

“If I could complete this training, then I know I can do other education, training, or skills programs too and be successful,” said Daquan, who graduated the training in February.

The success of Serve UP Harlem’s six graduated cohorts has spurred STRIVE to pursue ongoing funding for the program, enabling them to help more young adults in New York City pursue successful career paths in foodservice, customer service, and hospitality.

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About Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration

The School of Hotel Administration at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business is shaping the global knowledge base for hospitality management through leadership in education, research, and industry advancement. Accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the school provides management instruction in the full range of hospitality disciplines, educating the next generation of leaders in the world’s largest industry. Founded in 1922 as the nation’s first collegiate course of study in hospitality management, the Cornell School of Hotel Administration is recognized as the world leader in its field.

About eCornell

As Cornell University’s online learning unit, eCornell delivers online professional certificate courses to individuals and organizations around the world. Courses are personally developed by Cornell faculty with expertise in a wide range of topics, including data analytics, management, marketing, human resources, and leadership. Students learn in an interactive, small cohort format to gain skills they can immediately apply in their organizations, while earning a professional certificate from Cornell University. eCornell has offered online learning courses and certificate programs for 15 years to over 130,000 students at more than 2,000 companies.

About STRIVE

STRIVE is a leading workforce development organization, headquartered in New York City, with 21 U.S. based Affiliates. STRIVE’s mission is to help individuals acquire the life-changing skills and attitudes needed to overcome challenging circumstances, find sustained employment, and become valuable contributors to their families, their employers, and their communities. STRIVE’s comprehensive job training and career development services include its signature CORE job readiness workshop, as well as a range of vocational skills programs that prepares graduates with industry-recognized credentials in a variety of sectors. Since its founding in 1984, STRIVE has helped over 70,000 men and women transform their lives.

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Centerplate Invests in Guest Experience: Entire Management Team Completes the Cornell University Service Excellence Program

Centerplate today announced the training of its entire leadership team through Cornell University’s Service Excellence On-Demand Training program. Centerplate’s management team successfully completed the eight Service Excellence lessons, and then a multi-day capstone session in Nashville, TN featuring hospitality industry veteran Jayne Griswold of Griswold Hospitality and Elizabeth Martyn from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration. Centerplate will be using this research-based approach to service as it sets new goals and objectives to enhance the quality of the guest experience.

In collaboration with eCornell, the Cornell School of Hotel Administration delivers innovative research and educational opportunities in a format appropriate for industry leaders and executives. By leveraging the Cornell partnership, Centerplate is committing to investing in its employees, its front-line service standards, and honing the core of its service experience. During the training process, Centerplate managers learned a critical thinking framework for service, including necessary tools that can be applied to both service delivery and service process design for any interactive situation with both internal and external customers.

Griswold Hospitality specializes in customer experience by establishing service and facility standards that prioritize the guest’s journey and provide a well-defined framework for employees to operate within. This provides a tool for service measurement and establishes the basis for a robust employee recognition program. Centerplate’s alignment with Griswold Hospitality positions the company to improve its guest experience through metrics and data analysis, tracking the impact of its investment, and taking strategic action through service training.

“Hospitality is not just what we do. It’s how we make people feel. This partnership with Cornell reinforces that for all of us, and gives us a tangible education that enriches our skills as hospitality providers,” said Centerplate CEO Chris Verros. “The Cornell program, from one of the most respected hospitality schools in the country, really helps us stay true to our mission of providing a superior level of human service in each and every one of our venues.”

The Service Excellence program distills leading industry research and data-backed approaches to service delivery into a format that is appropriate, relatable, and applicable to operators. The training was authored by Elizabeth Martyn, SHA ‘07 School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, and features eight online lessons, each 30 – 45 minutes in length, with content covering topics including as contextual sensitivity, verbal and non-verbal communication, listening, empathy and more.

Over 250 participants, all Centerplate employees at the managerial level and above, were tested and graded on their mastery of the content. Each Centerplate team member was recognized for successful completion of the Service Excellence training from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. On-going implementation of standards and data tracking continues at Centerplate’s 300+ venues.

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About eCornell
As Cornell University’s online learning unit, eCornell delivers online professional certificate courses to individuals and organizations around the world. Courses are personally developed by Cornell faculty with expertise in a wide range of topics, including hospitality, management, marketing, human resources and leadership.  Students learn in an interactive, small cohort format to gain skills they can immediately apply in their organizations, ultimately earning a professional certificate from Cornell University. eCornell has offered online learning courses and certificate programs for 15 years to over 130,000 students at more than 2,000 companies.

About the School of Hotel Administration at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

The School of Hotel Administration at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business is shaping the global knowledge base for hospitality management through leadership in education, research, and industry advancement. Accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the school provides management instruction in the full range of hospitality disciplines, educating the next generation of leaders in the world’s largest industry. Founded in 1922 as the nation’s first collegiate course of study in hospitality management, the Cornell School of Hotel Administration is recognized as the world leader in its field.

About Griswold Hospitality Partners

Griswold Hospitality is a customer experience firm that believes that differentiation is found through memorable service delivery. A foundation of service standards follows the customer journey and the employees’ path to delivering a product or service, ultimately bringing your brand promise to life. Add measurement, training and recognition programs to foster a culture of engaged employees who have clear deliverables and result in an improved customer experience. Leveraging over twenty years in the luxury hospitality industry, with leadership roles at both Forbes Travel Guide and United Airlines, Jayne Griswold brings an acute attention to detail, passion for excellence and an intuitive sense for what is critical to the customer experience.

About Centerplate

Centerplate is a global leader in live event hospitality, “Making It Better To Be There®” for more than 116 million guests each year at more than 300 prominent entertainment, sports and convention venues across North America, Europe and the United Kingdom. Centerplate has provided event hospitality services to more than 30 official U.S. Presidential Inaugural Balls, 14 Super Bowls and 22 World Series. Visit the company online at Centerplate.com, connect via Twitter @centerplate, Instagram @Centerplate_ or Facebook.com/centerplate.

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Cornell University Launches New Service Excellence On-Demand Training

Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and eCornell have launched new on-demand training in service excellence targeting front-line employees. The training consists of eight online lessons, all of which are available 24/7, and is complemented by a Workshop Guide to promote onsite, face-to-face discussion and application of the online lesson concepts. The training explores the foundations of service delivery and empowers employees through practical tools that can be applied to any situation involving internal or external customers.

Service Excellence On-Demand Training provides groups and organizations with a straightforward framework to increase effectiveness for all customer interactions. It provides employees with the skills needed to connect service excellence concepts to the execution of their daily duties, tasks, and responsibilities. Individuals who successfully complete all eight lessons will receive a recognition of their achievement from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration.

“Amazing service experiences are the result of relationships built between the organization, its employees, and its customers. Every interaction counts, and for employees to be successful they must possess tools and strategies to deliver excellent service. Cornell’s online training creates a low-cost, scalable approach that will elevate an organization’s ability to deliver consistent, high-quality customer service.”
– Kate Walsh, Interim Dean and E. M. Statler Professor, School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University

The training was authored by School of Hotel Administration alumna Elizabeth Martyn ’07, in collaboration with a Cornell faculty advisory committee. Martyn helps learners understand the important role they play as service providers within their organizations and introduces the Cornell Service Experience Cycle to guide customer interactions.
“The new Service Excellence program gives organizations a simple and effective way to deliver the highest quality training to customer-facing employees distributed around the world. As you would expect from Cornell University, the on-demand training goes beyond a to-do list and encourages critical thinking to exceed customer expectations.”

– Paul Krause, eCornell’s CEO and Associate Vice Provost of Online Learning for Cornell University

This Service Excellence On-Demand Training can be used by any group or organization with team members who are responsible for delivering service, including organizations focused on hospitality, healthcare and senior living, financial services, retail, and consumer services. To learn more or to speak with an enrollment expert, visit sha.cornell.edu/service-training.

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About the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University

The School of Hotel Administration (SHA) at Cornell University is shaping the global knowledge base for hospitality management through leadership in education, research, and industry advancement. Accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the school provides instruction in the full range of hospitality disciplines, educating the next generation of leaders in the world’s largest industry. Founded in 1922 as the nation’s first collegiate course of study in hospitality management, the Cornell School of Hotel Administration is recognized as the world leader in its field.

For more information, visit sha.cornell.edu.

 

About eCornell | Cornell University

As Cornell University’s online learning subsidiary, eCornell provides many of the world’s leading organizations with online professional development in the areas of finance, healthcare, hospitality, human resources, leadership, management, and marketing. eCornell has delivered flexible, engaging, and immediately applicable learning experiences crafted by Cornell University faculty to over 90,000 students in more than 200 countries.

For more information, visit www.eCornell.com.

 

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Pinterest Best Practices for Hotels

Recently, Pinterest launched an analytics dashboard for businesses, which gives brands the ability to more closely monitor their presence on the platform. If you haven’t started using Pinterest, it is a pinboard-style photo-sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, hobbies and interests. Users can browse other pinboards for images, ‘repin’ images to their own pinboards, or ‘like’ photos. Hotels and restaurants can have their own boards where they can ‘pin’ images, track which users have repinned their images, and identify followers.

Best Practice Tips for Hotels

If you are just starting out with Pinterest, we recommend the following best practices tips for hotels and restaurants:

1. Start off strong with a visually striking profile. 

Choose your brand logo as your profile photo on the website (160×165 pixels in size) to maintain brand consistency across all social media platforms. If you haven’t done so already, take a few minutes and make sure that you are using the same high-quality image on all of the different social media sites your hotel is on. This will increase your brand recognition and will clue your followers in that the profile is the official one.

2. Organize boards that make sense for you.

The biggest power of Pinterest is that it gives your brand the ability to tell a highly visual story that drives real website traffic. Pinterest users have the ability to choose which pinboard that they want to follow, so not every one of your boards has to appeal to the broadest of audiences. That said, each of your boards should consist of at least 10 photos so that it’s substantial enough for a user to follow. Also, when naming your board, make sure that your title reflects the content accurately and is 20 characters or less.

3. Get creative with your pinning.

Similar to photos you share on Facebook or Instagram, the photos you share on Pinterest should reflect the fun and personal side of your brand and ought to tell a story that you couldn’t otherwise tell on your traditional website or OTA presence. Accordingly, some best practice pinboards that we’ve come across in the hospitality industry focus on seasonal events, specific hotel offerings and amenities, vacation themes and quirky destination tips from the hotel or restaurant. Here are a few examples:

Waikiki Scenes Inspiring Hotel Interiors Aqua's Hawaii Hotels Quintessential Austin

4. Spread the wealth and stay active.

In addition to pinning your own images, your hotel or restaurant should also repin photos from others to add to your boards. This will allow you to tell a richer brand or destination story. Also, you will want to keep your pin descriptions as concise as your board descriptions. Pinterest suggests that, for the travel industry, you simply identify the location in the image and the kinds of things you can do there. Keep it to no more than a few sentences in length.

5. Activity is rewarded.

Pinterest is similar to many other social platforms in that its home feed feature is how users discover and share new content. Accordingly, if you hotel is serious about managing a Pinterest account, you should commit to pinning new imagery at least a few times a week if not once a day. By doing so, you will give your brand a better chance to be discovered and engaged with. Once you have an active presence established, make it easy for people to pin your content by adding Pinterest’s follow and pin it buttons to your website and add a Pinterest link in your emails.

Measure Your Pinterest Activity

Pinterest’s new dashboard now gives business owners the ability to see all of their Pinterest traffic activity in an intuitive, cleanly laid out display. Your Pinterest data will show your pins/week, repins/week and followers. In close, it’s never been more apparent that Pinterest has become a major social media platform that can effectively augment your overall social media strategy.

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Mastering the Hotel Marketing Ecosystem at the Property Level

Today’s hotel visitors have never been more connected. With multiple devices and countless online resources to consult during each phase of the guest lifecycle – from the point they make their booking decisions to well after they check-out – travelers’ hotel expectations have shifted.

Long gone are the days when the hotel marketing tactics were all deployed pre-stay and offline. Today, easier access to guest preference data, past purchase behavior and social media profiles has made the hotel marketing discipline a multi-phase and multi-channel practice that requires involvement from many different key stakeholders at the brand and hotel-property level.

In this webinar, Greg Bodenlos, social media and digital marketing hospitality consultant, walks us through this complex hotel marketing ecosystem. In the process, Greg reveals strategies and tactics for mastering the innumerable amount of hotel marketing priorities. The following are just a few of the questions that will be addressed:

  • What are the most important marketing focus areas at the property level?
  • How has the definition of hotel marketing evolved in the hospitality industry?
  • Where should hotel marketing live in the overall hotel operation ecosystem?
  • Who are the various key stakeholders to involve in hotel marketing initiatives?
  • What new hotel marketing challenges are on the horizon?

Greg Bodenlos is a passionate hospitality marketing consultant and HSMAI leader based in Boston, Massachusetts. With a passion for digital trends, social media and innovation – and over five years of hotel and technology work experience – Greg possesses a unique perspective on the hospitality digital marketing landscape. Playing digitally-focused marketing roles at the destination resort, luxury independent property, and now city center hotel has allowed Greg to play an active role in shaping hotel marketing best practices at the property-level as well as help bring hoteliers closer to creating more meaningful, personalized travel experiences for their guests. It was in his marketing role at Revinate – a SaaS start-up in Silicon Valley that designs and develops technology to improve the guest experience – where Greg was able to help hoteliers and academics better understand the power of leveraging consumer intelligence to drive better service and maximize revenue streams across the entire guest lifecycle.

Greg is a proud graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and has been featured as a hotel marketing expert on National Public Radio. Greg has been featured as a contributor in Crowdcentric Media’s Social Media Week New York blog, eCornell’s Blog and HotelMarketing.com, as well as played a co-authored role in an award-winning piece for Cornell University’s Center for Hospitality Research with Chris Anderson entitled Best Practices in Search Engine Marketing and Optimization.

Greg can be reached by phone at +1 781 686 2177, email at gregbodenlos@gmail.com, on Twitter @gregbodenlos or LinkedIn.

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Price Positioning Strategies

Learn the merits and drawbacks of five price positioning strategies and use our price positioning worksheet to experiment with your own pricing strategy.

The Internet has dramatically changed hospitality pricing. Its speed and transparency have removed most barriers between customers and suppliers. With OTAs like Hotwire, Orbitz, and Hotels.com, you no longer need be an industry insider to find the best pricing to suit your needs. Yet, hotels and restaurants still need to make pricing decisions; these new challenges simply up the ante. Today, we’re looking at five price positioning strategies, explaining their merits (and drawbacks), and providing examples. When you’re done reading, download a free price positioning worksheet to experiment with your own pricing strategy.

The Price-Value Matrix

Many factors will influence your prices, including your competitors’ rates and products. As the name implies, your goal is to develop a pricing strategy that places your brand and its products in a certain position relative to your competition. One way to visualize this is the price-value matrix (right).Price Positioning -- The Price-Value Matrix

The position of your products within this matrix is a function of your brand proposition, your competitors, and your pricing objectives. Are you looking to maximize short-term revenues or profit? Are you seeking higher profit margins in a luxury market with sporadic sales? Do you need to differentiate more to penetrate the market? Or, is your business in survival mode?

Once you identify your pricing objectives, plot your prices and those of your competitors on the price-value matrix. At a glance, you’ll see how your pricing lines up with your objectives. If your rates need tweaking—either because they “say” the wrong things about your brand relative to competitors, or because they’re undermining your pricing objectives—consider using the following strategies to position your rates or prices more appropriately.

Price Positioning Strategies

Skim

This strategy clearly positions your company above the rest; it tells consumers something is special (i.e., worth paying more for) about your products. For example, look at the prices The Old Homestead restaurant has set for their steaks and chops. We can smell the fried onions and seared, aged prime meat already. We can envision the long white aprons of the wait staff and the impeccable table side service. To skim, set your prices higher than the competition does in order to “skim off” customers who are willing to pay more. This strategy can be highly profitable, but be careful: Though high prices imply high quality for many customers, it’s still critical that they understand why they’d pay more to stay or eat at your establishment.

Match

This strategy puts your pricing on par with the competition, but not necessarily for all rates. To match, set one rate comparable to your competition and another slightly higher. This allows you to stay competitive for a larger pool of customers, yet doesn’t undercut the competition.

Surround

Price Positioning Strategy - SurroundThis strategy positions your first room type as the cheapest in the market, but offers your rooms with better options at a price that’s close to your competitors’ first available rates. Hence, you’re “surrounding” the middle market, hoping to capture customers willing to pay in those ranges. For example, look at Sizzler’s $16.99 sirloin steak and lobster special.

Outback Steakhouse offers a similar item for $24.99, but uses a filet and includes two sides instead of one. Outback also offers a 6 oz. sirloin steak for $10.99. This strategy allows Outback to attract customers looking for an inexpensive steak dinner, while offering customers willing to pay more, well, more, but at a price far shy of Ruth Chris’s smallest filet steak at $35.

Undercut

By undercutting your competitors’ rates in some categories, you can potentially attract more customers. To undercut, offer a price that’s comparable to your competition and another that’s lower. Take this example from the hotel industry.Price Positioning -- Undercut

Both hotels are located near a major airport, both have the same star ratings and amenities. But look at their airport parking packages for 14 days free parking plus a room: $359 versus $189.  These hotels had very similar best rate rooms, but one has chosen to undercut their competition on this package, likely in hopes of driving more cost-conscious travelers their way.Price Positioning -- Undercut

Price Positioning -- Penetrate

Penetrate

Being the low-priced option in your market has benefits and drawbacks. The strategy is primarily designed to get people in the door and in seats. For new establishments, low prices often seem the best way to entice consumers to try their products. But this strategy also can depress market prices, lower margins, and set a poor precedent as your business grows. Do your prices reflect how consumers value your hotel or restaurant? Here’s what consumers see as they peruse online hotel options; those using penetration pricing certainly stand out.

Set Your Own Price Positioning Strategy

Price Positioning WorksheetHere’s an exercise taken directly from my eCornell course series New Media Marketing for the Hospitality Professional. This example illustrates the outcomes of five pricing strategies if your competition is charging $79.

Now, download your free price positioning worksheet here.

Though pricing can be a complex issue, this simple, effective tool provides an excellent start.

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What to Expect from the 11th Edition of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry

The purpose of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, or USALI, is to establish a uniform set of accounting guidelines for the lodging industry. A new edition is released every 10 years to keep pace with an evolving business environment and to address ambiguities found in previous editions.

In conjunction with the rollout of the 11th edition of the USALI, eCornell presents this video panel discussion, moderated by Cornell Prof. Jan de Roos, which highlights changes and provides guidelines for best accounting practices.

About the panelists:

Jan A. deRoos is HVS Professor of Hotel Finance and Real Estate at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, where he has taught since 1988. He is also faculty author of eCornell’s online certificate program for the hospitality industry, Hotel Real Estate Investments and Asset Management.

He has devoted his career to teaching and research related to hospitality real estate, with a focus on the valuation, financing, development, and control of lodging, timeshare, and restaurant assets. He co-developed a free tool, the Hotel Valuation Software, with Stephen Rushmore of HVS International and has developed a respected on-line executive education curriculum for hotel real estate professionals. His book on hotel management agreements, co-authored with James Eyster, is the seminal academic publication on the topic. Prior to joining Cornell, deRoos worked extensively in the hotel industry as a construction and engineering manager.

Robert Mandelbaum is the Director of Research Information Services for PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR), a CBRE company. He is based in the firm’s Atlanta office, where he is in charge of Research Information Services. Research Information Services produces the annual Trends® in the Hotel Industry statistical report, along with customized financial and operational analyses for client projects. On a quarterly basis, PKF-HR produces five-year forecasts of performance for six national chain-scales, six national location categories, and 55 major U.S cities using its proprietary Hotel Horizons® econometric forecasting model. Mr. Mandelbaum began his hospitality industry career with Holiday Inns, Inc. in Memphis, Tennessee.

He serves on the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s (AH&LA) Financial Management Committee that is responsible for preparing the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI). In addition, he is a member of the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) association. He is on the executive board of the Cornell Hotel Society, the author of articles for industry trade publications, a guest lecturer at college and university hotel school programs, and a speaker at industry forums.

Greg Remeikis, CPA, is a partner in Cohn Reznick’s Accounting & Auditing practice; co-director of the Mid-Atlantic Hospitality Practice; and a member of the firm’s National Hospitality Industry Leadership Committee. He has been providing professional services in the hospitality industry for 20 years to hotels and quick service restaurant owners. He has been involved in the planning, fieldwork and reporting for external audit services for two publically traded hospitality entities and numerous privately hospitality clients. He has also led two internal control risk assessment, documentation, testing and remediation engagements related to Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 compliance. He serves as the firm’s quality control partner related to the hotel area of the hospitality practice. Greg has provided a variety of consulting services to the industry, most notably – real estate development and construction services to boutique hotels, internal control consulting to both public and privately held companies, audits and due diligence related to hotel acquisition and fraud audits for fidelity bond claims.

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Hotel Marketing Summit 2015

Three of the hotel industry’s most creative and forward-thinking marketers joined eCornell for a live YouTube summit on hotel marketing in February, 2015. Access the video below.

ReviewPro’s Josiah Mackenzie, HeBS Digital’s Mariana Mechoso Safer, and hospitality marketing consultant and HSMAI Boston Chapter leader Greg Bodenlos discussed, debated and dove into emergent technologies and practices to predict what’s most likely to influence hotel marketing strategies for the year ahead. They also covered:

  • The hotel marketing ‘ecosystem’, from guest experience design to multi-platform marketing and operational feedback analysis.
  • Personalizing the customer journey, from the inspiration stage to booking and beyond.
  • How to leverage user-generated content to increase customer engagement.
  • What you should focus on when analyzing your ‘reputation’ online, and how to use that data to improve your business.

Josiah Mackenzie leads business development at ReviewPro – helping partners across the hospitality industry use 360-degree guest intelligence to create better travel experiences for their guests and unlock new areas of revenue growth for their businesses. The rise of data from the social web – where people are leaving digital data trails wherever they go, 24/7/365 – has given the hospitality industry a dramatically expanded ability to understand consumer sentiment and trending new demand areas.

Featured as a hotel technology trends expert by media outlets such as CNN, PBS, MSNBC, The Washington Post and Entrepreneur Magazine, Josiah is also a frequent keynote speaker at conferences throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Josiah can be reached by telephone at +1 415 671 9629, via email josiah@josiahmackenzie.com – or on Twitter @Hotel_Intel.

Mariana Mechoso Safer is Senior Vice President, Marketing at HeBS Digital, overseeing advertising, marketing and public relations. Mariana heads the Las Vegas office, developing and implementing digital marketing strategies for HeBS Digital’s West Coast partners. She frequently conducts industry research and publishes her major travel and hospitality publications, and is also a guest speaker and presenter at hospitality events and conferences.

Mariana can be reached by phone at +1 702 463-1857, email at mariana@hebsdigital.com, on Twitter @mmechoso or LinkedIn.

Greg Bodenlos is a passionate hospitality marketer and Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Chapter leader based in Boston, Massachusetts. With a passion for digital trends, social media and innovation – and over five years of hotel and technology work experience – Greg possesses a unique perspective on the hospitality digital marketing landscape. Playing digitally-focused marketing roles at the destination resort, luxury independent property, and now city center hotel has allowed Greg to play an active role in shaping hotel marketing best practices at the property-level as well as help bring hoteliers closer to creating more meaningful, personalized travel experiences for their guests. It was in his marketing role at Revinate – a SaaS start-up in Silicon Valley that designs and develops technology to improve the guest experience – where Greg was able to help hoteliers and academics better understand the power of leveraging consumer intelligence to drive better service and maximize revenue streams across the entire guest lifecycle.

Greg is a proud graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and has been featured as a hotel marketing expert on National Public Radio. Greg has been featured as a contributor in Crowdcentric Media’s Social Media Week New York blog, eCornell’s Blog and HotelMarketing.com, as well as played a co-authored role in an award-winning piece for Cornell University’s Center for Hospitality Research with Chris Anderson entitled Best Practices in Search Engine Marketing and Optimization.

Greg can be reached by phone at +1 781 686 2177, email at gregbodenlos@gmail.com, on Twitter @gregbodenlos or LinkedIn.

 

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Reputation and Revenue Roundtable

An Ivy League professor, a leading hotelier and a reputation management executive walk into a bar…

Cornell’s Bill Carroll, citizenM’s Michael Levie and ReviewPro’s RJ Friedlander joined forces on for a live, in-depth discussion on hotel guest experience, online reputation and how the social web can be leveraged to drive revenue growth.

In this fast-paced session, Bill, Michael and RJ:
•    Show how to interpret guest intelligence analytics and turn insight into action across the hotel enterprise.
•    Provide tips on developing customer-focused operations and service strategies to exceed expectations and deliver unforgettable experiences for your guests.
•    Explain the importance of driving review volume across multiple channels and how to increase your rankings on OTAs and TripAdvisor.
•    Discuss how hotels can use guest intelligence data to improve operations and optimize their revenue generation strategies based on the latest research from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration.